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Kenneth Tupper has spent decades working at the intersection of drug policy, public health, harm reduction, education, and psychedelics. In this episode, Joe Moore talks with Tupper about his early work with DanceSafe and drug checking, British Columbia's overdose crisis and experiment with decriminalization, and what the psychedelic field can learn from decades of harm reduction work and research. They also dig into Tupper's academic work on psychedelics and education, the idea of entheogens as "plant teachers," ayahuasca policy in Canada, problems with conventional drug education, and the limits of treating psychedelics exclusively as medicines. The conversation eventually widens into a bigger question: What does it actually mean to educate people well about drugs, altered states, and consciousness? Enjoy the show. Disclaimer: Intro and promotional audio in this episode were generated using synthetic voice technology. The interview itself is unaltered. Show Notes (Machine Generated) Kenneth Tupper's career has followed two parallel tracks: psychedelic scholarship and public health. Long before the current psychedelic resurgence, he was studying the idea of entheogens as tools for learning and examining how Indigenous traditions understand plants such as ayahuasca, peyote, and psilocybin as teachers. At the same time, work with DanceSafe and early pill testing drew him into harm reduction and eventually into more than two decades of public-health and drug-policy work in British Columbia. Tupper and Joe revisit the early history of drug checking and the logic behind harm reduction: if people are going to use drugs, providing accurate information and reducing preventable risks can save lives. That discussion leads into supervised consumption sites, pharmaceutical alternatives to illicit opioids, fentanyl, the toxic drug supply, naloxone, and the difficult reality of people surviving overdoses while sustaining hypoxic or anoxic brain injuries. They also examine British Columbia's experiment with drug decriminalization. Tupper describes the limits of decriminalizing possession without simultaneously addressing housing, healthcare, treatment options, the illicit supply, and other social conditions. The conversation contrasts British Columbia with Portugal and explores why drug policy interventions cannot easily be transplanted from one social and historical context into another. From there, the discussion turns directly toward psychedelics. Tupper argues that psychedelic public health should involve more than clinical treatment. Psychedelics may have roles in health promotion, community building, education, rites of passage, and helping people who are not necessarily diagnosed with a psychiatric disorder. At the same time, wider access creates a need for better harm-reduction information, screening, preparation, and attention to set, setting, and the larger social environment in which psychedelic experiences occur. Drug education becomes one of the central themes of the episode. Tupper compares the history of drug education with sex education and argues that drug education has remained unusually tied to prescribed behavioral outcomes—particularly abstinence. Rather than simply telling young people what not to do, he asks what genuine education about drugs might look like when curiosity, experimentation, risk, pleasure, and real-world access are acknowledged. That question connects back to Tupper's longstanding work on what he calls entheogenic education. Drawing on educational thinkers including John Dewey and Lev Vygotsky, he discusses psychedelics as potential "cognitive tools" and considers how experiential education might offer models beyond conventional schooling. Joe and Tupper also discuss how AI may force an even deeper reconsideration of education when reading, writing, calculation, and information retrieval can increasingly be outsourced to machines. The final part of the conversation focuses heavily on ayahuasca. Tupper discusses his doctoral research into the Canadian government's handling of a Santo Daime religious exemption, the difficulty of fitting ceremonial entheogen use into modern drug-control frameworks, and tensions between religious, biomedical, Indigenous, and public-health ways of understanding ayahuasca. Joe and Tupper also examine consent and safety around ayahuasca admixtures. Traditional brews can vary significantly in composition, raising difficult questions about informed consent, standardization, cultural autonomy, and how Western participants can make informed decisions when entering practices developed in very different cultural contexts. The episode closes with a broader discussion of knowledge itself. Tupper argues for taking scientific methods seriously without assuming that Western science represents the only legitimate way of knowing. As psychedelics, Indigenous knowledge, AI, ecological crisis, and modern medicine increasingly intersect, he sees questions of epistemology—how we know what we know—as becoming increasingly important. In This Episode Kenneth Tupper's path from psychedelic scholarship into harm reduction and public health Why he adopted the term entheogen in his early academic work Jonathan Ott and the politics of psychedelic language The early days of DanceSafe and pill testing Why drug checking became a public-health intervention Supervised consumption sites and their limitations Fentanyl and British Columbia's toxic drug crisis Naloxone, overdose survival, and hypoxic brain injury Why addiction cannot be reduced to a simple pharmacological model British Columbia's experiment with drug decriminalization Why the Portuguese model cannot simply be copied elsewhere Psychedelics as one tool within a larger public-health system Psychedelic access in Canada compared with Colorado and Oregon The risks of over-medicalizing psychedelics Psychedelics for health promotion rather than only diagnosed illness Why traditional drug education has struggled Drug education versus sex education Abstinence, harm reduction, and genuine education John Dewey, experiential learning, and progressive education Lev Vygotsky and the idea of cognitive tools What AI may do to conventional schooling Psychedelics as educational tools and rites of passage Dennis McKenna's influence on Tupper's ayahuasca research Santo Daime and religious exemptions for ayahuasca in Canada Why ayahuasca does not fit neatly into conventional drug policy Consent and transparency around ayahuasca admixtures Safety, lineage, power, and sexual misconduct in ceremonial settings Indigenous and biomedical models of healing Science, epistemology, and multiple ways of knowing Tupper's experience with ibogaine Why he coined the term "intonicated" Links Kenneth Tupper Kenneth Tupper's website Kenneth Tupper – Research & Publications Publications Intonicated Podcast — Tupper's podcast on altered states, healing, learning, and wellbeing. Apple Podcasts Listen to Intonicated on Apple Podcasts DanceSafe DanceSafe Transcript Joe Moore (00:11): Everybody, welcome back to Psychedelics Today. Joe Moore here, joined by Kenneth Tupper. How are you doing today? Kenneth Tupper (00:17): Great. Nice to be here. Thanks, Joe. Joe Moore (00:19): Absolutely. So you're joining us today from the glorious Vancouver Island, is that right? Kenneth Tupper (00:25): Correct. Victoria, British Columbia, traditional territories of the Songhees, Esquimalt, and Songhees First Nations. Joe Moore (00:33): Gorgeous. Thank you. And I'm... I'm going to try to introduce you a little bit here, but we'll have you kind of tee yourself up a bit. But we met at the Psychedelic Safety Institute Summit at UC Berkeley. Stacey Wallen helped put that together with a few others. It was a pretty big event. And maybe we can chat about this later, but it was the first ever event I went to that felt like AI was a backbone component to the event, which was fascinating. I don't, you know, at times uncomfortable, but also like, you know, I was respecting just how skillfully it was employed. But let's talk about you. You've got a long career in harm reduction. You've been able to volunteer not only with DanceSafe, but many other harm reduction groups. And then you spent some time in the British Columbian government doing harm reduction work. Is that right? Kenneth Tupper (01:28): Over twenty years, yep. Joe Moore (01:31): That's a bit. So thanks for all that hard work. How do you like to describe your career, your position in the ecosystem here? Kenneth Tupper (01:42): So predating my public health career was an academic interest in psychedelics, or the term that I used originally was entheogen. And not in the health or healing space, but education. I was interested in advancing some understanding of the metaphor of plant teachers in traditional indigenous uses of plants like ayahuasca, peyote, or psilocybin mushrooms. And then from that got into accidentally harm reduction. I didn't even know the term at the time, but, uh, working with dance safe, running a dance safe chapter, uh, and getting involved in pill testing. And then through that, through connections, got into public health, um, and continued to sort of advance the academic work that I was doing on the side, but it was sort of two parallel trajectories, but both in the area of sort of drug policy. So my PhD, uh, ended up being on ayahuasca and the sort of public policy implications of its emergence of the Amazon. But my work in government was in the harm reduction space, prevention writ large, but prevention of what? This is one of the questions I asked, you know, preventing harms or preventing use or preventing quote abuse, a term that I find problematic for a number of reasons. And yeah, and then also got into some clinical related work like opiate agonist treatment, methadone, wh

This is an important discussion about harms, and what we should be doing about them. Josh and Roman are working on a major study at Emory University to answer some of the basic and outstanding questions we have about psychedelic risks and cases that can be challenging to recover from. We have a lot of work to do characterizing these experiences, and developing appropriate treatments for helping people bounce back more quickly.

This is a special episode featuring two of our favorite organizations. DanceSafe and Shulgin Foundation. Listen to Joe Moore record with the heads of these orgs and learn about how you may be able to buy some art to support them. This is a singularly important history and partnership.

My friend Mareesa joins us again on PT to discuss art, integration, psychedelic experiences without drugs, the heros journey and her smaller sphinxes that may start touring the country! Enjoy! Here are some machine generated shownotes if you find them useful! Show Notes Sphinx Gate began as a pair of monumental 34-foot sculptures at Burning Man. Now, Mareesa Stertz and her collaborators are developing smaller, portable versions that could bring the experience to festivals, conferences, and communities around the country. The installation is designed as a sober rite of passage—one that draws on psychedelic experience without requiring anyone to take a drug. Participants move through four portals centered on the mind, body, heart, and destiny. Along the way, they are invited to identify a recurring personal story, notice how it lives in the body, meet it with greater compassion, and consider what might exist beyond it. Mareesa and Joe explore how the project draws from the Hero's Journey, Carl Jung's concept of individuation, participatory art, ritual, somatic awareness, and the riddles traditionally associated with the sphinx. They also discuss the importance of community in psychedelic integration, the stories and inherited beliefs that disrupt self-trust, and why healing is rarely the result of one dramatic experience. The conversation expands into peer support, the Global Psychedelic Society, the risks of presenting psychedelics as a quick fix, and the challenge of remaining fully human as artificial intelligence becomes more embedded in everyday life.

Kyle and Joe interview Rachel Turetzky & Douglas S. Wingate about their perspectives on the Wilson\Leary 8 Circuit Model of consciousness. They recently released a CE approved program on Psychedelic Education Center to train therapists on this model and how to integrate the 8 Circuit Model into your clinical therapy practice. In this episode: Maybe Day and maybe logic: Honoring Robert Anton Wilson and learning to hold beliefs, models, and interpretations more lightly Reality tunnels: How biology, experience, culture, and conditioning filter our perception of reality Robert Anton Wilson's legacy: Guerrilla ontology, stand-up philosophy, Prometheus Rising, and using humor to destabilize rigid beliefs Timothy Leary beyond the caricature: His early work in psychology, the development of the Eight-Circuit Model, and the parts of his intellectual legacy that are often overlooked The first four circuits: Bodily safety, emotional territory, language and symbolic thinking, and social and relational conditioning The upper circuits: Sensory and somatic intelligence, metacognition, archetypal and transpersonal experience, and unitive states of consciousness Metaprogramming: Identifying the beliefs, imprints, and automatic patterns shaping our lives—and developing the capacity to revise them Circuit Zero and Stanislav Grof: Prenatal and perinatal experience, the basic perinatal matrices, and the lasting influence of early development Normalizing unusual experiences: Archetypal encounters, ancestral material, entities, out-of-body experiences, synchronicities, and other phenomena that conventional psychology may struggle to interpret Psychedelics and re-imprinting: How expanded states may loosen entrenched developmental patterns and create opportunities for psychological change Pleasure as therapeutic material: Anhedonia, chronic survival states, the "hedonic intelligence" of Circuit Five, and learning to experience joy without treating it as a distraction from the work Clinical applications: Using the model during psychedelic preparation to identify intentions, developmental imprints, and material that may emerge Medicine and dosage selection: How MDMA, ketamine, psilocybin, LSD, and 5-MeO-DMT may produce different experiences depending on the intention and dose Integration and verticality: Grounding expansive, archetypal, or unitive experiences through the body, emotions, relationships, and everyday life Chapel Perilous: Understanding destabilizing experiences, ontological shock, spiritual emergencies, and the process of reconstructing meaning afterward Beyond psychedelics: Connections with yoga, meditation, occult practice, Chinese medicine, chakra systems, and other psychospiritual traditions The new course: The structure of The Eight-Circuit Model of Consciousness: An Integrative Framework for Psychedelic-Assisted Therapy, including its 14 lessons, practical exercises, assessments, certification, and continuing-education options

Denver mushroom decriminalization changed the national conversation around psilocybin access, personal use, and grassroots psychedelic reform. In this episode of Psychedelics Today, Joe Moore speaks with Travis Tyler Fluck, an autognostic mycologist, educator, activist, end-of-life doula, and longtime Colorado mushroom community organizer. Fluck was involved in Denver's 2019 psilocybin campaign, which made adult personal use and possession of psilocybin mushrooms the city's lowest law enforcement priority. The campaign passed by a narrow margin and helped open the door for later reforms in Oakland, Washington, D.C., Oregon, Colorado, and beyond. This conversation looks at the people, ethics, and tensions behind Denver mushroom decriminalization. It also explores what happens after a law changes: how communities educate themselves, how personal use spaces develop, and how grassroots access fits alongside regulated psychedelic services.

Aspen Psychedelic Symposium is the focus of this conversation with Martha Hammel of the Aspen Psychedelic Resource Center and Tasia Poinsatte of Healing Advocacy Fund. They join Joe Moore to discuss this year's symposium, how it fits into Colorado's evolving natural medicine landscape, and why Aspen has become a strong setting for serious public conversations about psychedelics. Hammel explains that the symposium is now in its third year and is designed to bring major psychedelic voices to Colorado's West Slope. She also outlines the local roots of the Aspen Psychedelic Resource Center, which grew out of education and outreach work around decriminalization and the Natural Medicine Health Act. Poinsatte describes Healing Advocacy Fund's broader role across Oregon, Colorado, and New Mexico, where the group works on safe access, implementation, affordability, and public education.

Seeing What Is There is at the center of this conversation with journalist and author Erica Rex, who joins Joe Moore to discuss her book Seeing What Is There: My Search for Sanity in the Psychedelic Era. Rex brings an unusual mix of personal experience and scientific rigor. She came to psychedelic medicine after breast cancer, participation in Roland Griffiths' clinical trial for cancer-related depression, and a long career in journalism covering science, nature, climate, and technology.

ALS and ketamine therapy are at the center of this conversation with psychiatrist Dr. Michael Alpert and Peter Alberding, who was diagnosed with ALS in late 2023. Alpert is a Boston-area psychiatrist with experience in MDMA-assisted therapy research for PTSD and a private practice that includes ketamine-assisted psychotherapy. Alberding shares what it has been like to face a fatal neurodegenerative illness while working with ketamine in a structured clinical setting. Alberding explains that he was not looking for a casual psychedelic experience. He wanted help facing fear, grief, loss of function, and the reality of death. Over time, ketamine-assisted psychotherapy became a tool for processing those changes more directly than talk therapy alone had allowed.

Dr. Esme Dark joins Kyle Buller for a conversation on psychedelic therapy, somatic psychotherapy, and shadow work. Based in Australia, Dark is a clinical psychologist, somatic psychotherapist, and psychedelic therapist. She shares her perspective on Australia's authorized prescriber model, the role of psychotherapy in psychedelic care, and what it means to work with the body before, during, and after a psychedelic experience. The discussion stays practical. Dark draws on her work in research settings, including psilocybin-assisted psychotherapy for generalized anxiety disorder at Monash University. She explains that Australia has not decriminalized psychedelics. Instead, psilocybin and MDMA can be prescribed in limited cases through a psychiatrist-led system. That distinction matters, especially as public discussion often moves faster than the actual clinical infrastructure. Kyle and Dark also explore what happens in the therapy room. They talk about nervous system activation, body-based awareness, co-therapy, breathwork, and the challenge of knowing when to intervene and when to stay out of the way. The episode also turns toward creativity, self-expression, and the parts of the self that often remain split off or underdeveloped.

MAPS co-executive directors Betty Aldworth and Ismail Ali join Psychedelics Today to talk about leading one of the most visible organizations in the psychedelic field during a period of transition. The conversation covers their move into permanent leadership, how they work together, and how MAPS is thinking about research, education, policy, and movement strategy after a difficult period for the organization and the broader field.

Jen Davenport joins Psychedelics Today to interview co-founder Joe Moore about the growth of Psychedelics Today, the broader psychedelic ecosystem, and how professionals are beginning to engage with psychedelic ideas. Davenport is the founder of Iron Thread Partners and a graduate of the Vital psychedelic training program. Her work focuses on executive leadership, decision making, and organizational development. In this conversation she asks Moore about the evolution of Psychedelics Today and the changes he has witnessed across the psychedelic field over the past decade. Moore explains that Psychedelics Today began as a podcast exploring psychedelic research, therapy, and culture. Over time the project expanded into a media and education platform covering psychedelic science, harm reduction, and professional training. The organization now produces podcasts, journalism, courses, and public conversations about psychedelics and their place in modern society. A central part of the discussion is psychedelic integration. Moore notes that insight during a psychedelic experience does not automatically lead to lasting change. The integration process often requires continued work through journaling, meditation, therapy, and community support. These practices help people translate insights into stable changes in behavior and perspective. The conversation also explores policy changes in the United States. Colorado's Natural Medicine framework is creating a regulated system for psychedelic services while the state also maintains a broader decriminalization approach. Moore discusses the tension between regulated access and grassroots psychedelic culture, as well as the questions around accessibility, pricing, and corporate participation. Davenport asks how executives and professionals are approaching psychedelics. In some circles psychedelics are framed as tools for creativity or performance. Moore cautions against this framing. Psychedelics often open difficult personal material and should be approached with care rather than treated as productivity tools. Education remains a recurring theme throughout the episode. As public interest grows, Moore stresses the importance of studying the legal landscape, understanding the scientific literature, and developing responsible practices for preparation and integration. The conversation offers a grounded look at how Psychedelics Today approaches the psychedelic resurgence. Rather than focusing on hype, Moore emphasizes education, safety, and thoughtful engagement with psychedelic experiences.

Melissa Lavasani & Jay Kopelman join our podcast to discuss how psychedelic policy is actually moving in Washington, DC. Lavasani leads Psychedelic Medicine Coalition, a DC-based advocacy organization focused on educating federal officials and advancing legislation around psychedelic medicine. Kopelman is CEO of Mission Within Foundation, which provides scholarships for veterans and first responders seeking psychedelic-assisted therapy retreats, often outside the United States. The conversation centers on veterans, the VA, and why that system may be the first realistic federal pathway for psychedelic care. Early Themes Lavasani describes PMC's work on Capitol Hill, including hosting events that bring lawmakers, staffers, and advocates into the same room. Her focus is steady engagement. In DC, progress often happens through repeated conversations, not headlines. Kopelman shares his background as a Marine and how his own psychedelic-assisted therapy experience led him to Mission Within. The foundation has funded more than 250 scholarships for veterans and first responders seeking treatment for PTSD, mild traumatic brain injury, depression, and addiction. They connect this work to pending veteran-focused legislation and explain why the VA matters. As a closed health system, the VA can pilot programs, gather data, and refine protocols without the pressures of private healthcare markets. Core Insights A recent Capitol Hill gathering, For Veteran Society, brought together members of Congress and leaders from the psychedelic caucus. Lavasani describes candid feedback from lawmakers. The message was clear: coordinate messaging, avoid fragmentation, and move while bipartisan interest remains. Veteran healthcare is not framed as the final goal. It is a starting point. If psychedelic therapies can demonstrate safety and effectiveness within the VA, broader adoption becomes more plausible. Kopelman raises operational realities that must be addressed: Standardized safety protocols across providers Integration support, not medication alone Clear training pathways for clinicians Real-world data beyond tightly screened clinical trials They also address recent negative headlines involving ibogaine treatment abroad. Kopelman emphasizes the need for shared learning across providers, especially when adverse events occur. Lavasani argues that inconsistency within the ecosystem can slow federal confidence. Later Discussion and Takeaways The discussion widens to federal momentum around addiction and mental health. Lavasani notes that new funding initiatives signal growing openness to innovative treatment models, even if psychedelics are not named explicitly in every announcement. Both guests stress that policy moves slowly by design. Meetings, follow-ups, and relationship building often matter more than public statements. For clinicians, researchers, operators, and advocates, the takeaways are direct: Veterans are likely the first federal pathway Public education remains essential Safety standards must be shared and transparent Integration and workforce development need attention now If psychedelic medicine enters federal systems, infrastructure will determine success. Frequently Asked Questions What do Melissa Lavasani & Jay Kopelman say about VA psychedelic policy? They argue that veteran-focused legislation offers a realistic first federal pathway for psychedelic-assisted care. Is ibogaine currently available through the VA? No. They discuss ibogaine in the context of private retreats and future possibilities, not an existing VA program. Why do Melissa Lavasani & Jay Kopelman emphasize coordination? Lawmakers respond more positively when advocates present aligned messaging and clear priorities. What safety issues are discussed by Melissa Lavasani & Jay Kopelman? They highlight the need for standardized screening, monitoring, integration support, and transparent review of adverse events. Closing Melissa Lavasani & Jay Kopelman provide a grounded look at how psychedelic policy develops inside federal systems. Their message is practical: veterans may be the first lane, but long-term success depends on coordination, safety standards, and sustained engagement. Closing This episode captures a real-time view of how federal policy could shape the next phase of the psychedelic resurgence, especially through veteran-facing legislation and VA infrastructure. Melissa Lavasani & Jay Kopelman argue that coordination, public education, and shared safety standards will shape whether access expands with credibility and care. Transcript Joe Moore: [00:00:00] Hello everybody. Welcome back to Psychedelics Today. Today we have two guests, um, got Melissa Sani from Psychedelic Medicine Coalition. We got Jake Pelman from Mission Within Foundation. We're gonna talk about I bga I became policy on a recent, uh, set of meetings in Washington, DC and, uh, all sorts of other things I'm sure. Joe Moore: But thank you both for joining me. Melissa Lavasani: Thanks for having us. Jay Kopelman: Yeah, it's a pleasure. Thanks. Joe Moore: Yeah. Um, Melissa, I wanna have you, uh, jump in. First. Can you tell us a little bit about, uh, your work and what you do at PMC? Melissa Lavasani: Yeah, so Psychedelic Medicine Coalition is, um, the only DC based Washington DC based advocacy organization dedicated to the advancing the issue of psychedelics, um, and making sure the federal government has the education they need, um, and understands the issue inside out so that they can generate good policy around, around psychedelic medicines. Melissa Lavasani: [00:01:00] Uh, we. Host Hill events. We host other convenings. Our big event every year is the Federal Summit on psychedelic medicine. Um, that's going to be May 14th this year. Um, where we talk about kinda the pressing issues that need to be talked about, uh, with government officials in the room, um, so that we can incrementally move this forward. Melissa Lavasani: Um, our presence here in Washington DC is, is really critical for this issue's success because, um, when we're talking about psychedelic medicines, um, from the federal government pers perspective, you know, they are, they are the ones that are going to initiate the policies that create a healthcare system that can properly facilitate these medicines and make sure, um, patient safety is a priority. Melissa Lavasani: And there's guardrails on this. And, um, you know, there, it's, it's really important that we have. A home base for this issue in Washington DC just [00:02:00] because, uh, this is very complicated as a lot of your viewers probably understand, and, you know, this can get lost in the mix of all the other issues that, um, lawmakers in DC are focused on right now. Melissa Lavasani: And we need to keep that consistent presence here so that this continues to be a priority for members of Congress. Joe Moore: Mm. I love this. And Jay, can you tell us a bit about yourself and mission within Foundation? Jay Kopelman: Yeah, sure. Joe, thanks. Uh, I, I am the CEO of Mission within Foundation. Prior to this, most of my adult life was spent in the military as a Marine. Jay Kopelman: And I came to this. Role after having, uh, a psychedelic assisted therapy experience myself at the mission within down in Mexico, which is where pretty much we all go. Um, we are here to help [00:03:00] provide, uh, access for veterans and first responders to be able to attend psychedelic assisted therapy retreats to treat issues like mild TBI, post-traumatic stress disorder, uh, depression, sometimes addiction at, at a very low level. Jay Kopelman: Um, and, and so we've, we've been doing this for a little more than a year now and have provided 250 plus scholarships to veterans and first responders to be able to access. These retreats and these, these lifesaving medicines. Um, we're also partnered, uh, you may or may not know with Melissa at Psychedelic Medicine Coalition to help advance education and policy, specifically the innovative, uh, therapy Centers of Excellence Act [00:04:00] that Melissa has worked for a number of years on now to bring to both Houses of Congress. Joe Moore: Thank you for that. Um, so let's chat a little bit about what this event was that just, uh, went down, uh, what, what was it two weeks ago at this point? Melissa Lavasani: Yeah. Yeah. It's called For Veteran Society and it's all, um, there's a lot of dialogue on Capitol Hill about veterans healthcare and psychedelics, but where I've been frustrated is that, you know, it was just a lot of. Melissa Lavasani: Talk about what the problems are and not a lot of talk about like how we actually propel things forward. Um, so it, at that event, I thought it was really important and we had three members of Congress there, um, Morgan Latrell, who has been a champion from day one and his time in Congress, um, having gone through the experience himself, um, [00:05:00] at Mission within, um, and then the two chairs of the psychedelic caucus, uh, Lou Correa and Jack Bergman. Melissa Lavasani: And we really got down to the nitty gritty of like w like why this has taken so long and you know, what is actually happening right now? What are the possibilities and what the roadblocks are. And it was, I thought it was a great conversation. Um, we had an interesting kind of dynamic with Latres is like a very passionate about this issue in particular. Melissa Lavasani: Um, I think it was, I think it was really. A great event. And, you know, two days later, Jack Bergman introduced his new bill for the va. Um, so it was kind of like the precursor to that bill getting introduced. And we're just excited for more and more conversations about how the government can gently guide this issue to success. Joe Moore: Hmm. Yeah. [00:06:00] That's fantastic. Um, yeah, I was a little bummed I couldn't make it

Enamory is a clinical practice, training institute, and nonprofit research organization focused on psychedelic assisted couples therapy. In this episode, clinical psychologists Chandra Kian and Kayla Knopp discuss their work integrating ketamine assisted psychotherapy with evidence based couples therapy models. Both guests trained as academic researchers at the University of California San Diego Veterans Affairs system, where they worked on large scale couples based PTSD trials. They later co founded Enamory to continue clinical work, train therapists, and conduct research focused specifically on relationships. Early Themes in Enamory and Couples Therapy The conversation begins with Dr. Kian and Dr. Knopp describing their background in couples based PTSD research and how that work shaped their clinical approach. They explain how existing couples therapy models often stall when partners cannot soften, access vulnerability, or understand each other's internal experience. Their early exposure to MDMA assisted therapy research highlighted how psychedelic states can temporarily reduce defensiveness and rigid narratives.

Fireside Project is a nonprofit that helps reduce the risks of psychedelic experiences through a free support line, coaching, education, and research. In this episode, Joshua White speaks with Psychedelics Today about why real-time support matters, what it takes to run a national hotline, and what Fireside learned after more than 30,000 conversations since launch. White shares how his background as a lawyer and his early hotline volunteering shaped Fireside's model. He also describes how festival harm reduction work, including lessons from Zendo-style support spaces, revealed a major gap: people often need help during an experience and after it ends. A major focus of the conversation is Lucy, Fireside's new voice-to-voice role-play simulator designed to improve psychedelic support skills through low-stakes practice. Early Themes With Fireside Project Joshua White introduces Fireside Project as an accessible safety net for people who are actively having psychedelic experiences or processing past ones. The support line launched on April 14, 2021, and relies on trained community volunteers who commit to a year of service. White explains why anonymity matters. He argues that a phone-based container can make it easier for callers to share vulnerable material without fear of judgment. He also frames service as a key part of integration for volunteers who want to give back or prepare for work in the psychedelic field. Core Insights From Fireside Project White describes the early difficulty of building Fireside from scratch, including legal design, insurance hurdles, training development, and fundraising. He credits seed support from David Bronner and Dr. Bronner's for helping Fireside prove that people would actually use a psychedelic support line. He also explains a key harm reduction point: calling emergency services during a non-medical psychedelic crisis can escalate risk. Fireside aims to help people regulate, re-orient, and stay safer when panic or fear shows up. Key concepts discussed include: The thin line between healing and traumatizing during high-intensity psychedelic states Why callers often need connection, not rescue How volunteer capacity and call volume shape how long conversations run The difference between support during an experience and longer-term coaching support Later Discussion and Takeaways With Fireside Project The conversation then turns to Lucy, a training tool White describes as a "flight simulator" for psychedelic practitioners. Lucy is not part of the live support line. Instead, it offers emotionally responsive role-play scenarios so trainees can practice staying grounded, tracking consent and boundaries, and responding to crisis cues. White also addresses recording and consent. He argues Fireside needs strong training feedback loops to improve safety and quality. He describes an anonymization approach designed to remove phone numbers, strip identifying details, and distort voices while preserving emotional tone. He also explains the post-call option for callers to delete their recorded conversation. Practical takeaways include: Simulation can help trainees stay regulated when intense material emerges Better training can reduce unnecessary diversion to emergency rooms Clear consent language and easy deletion workflows matter for trust Coaching can expand the continuum of psychedelic support beyond therapy