Rick Doblin: 'Welcome to the psychedelic '20s!'

Reason's Nick Gillespie talked with MAPS founder Rick Doblin about the imminent FDA approval of MDMA- and psilocybin-assisted therapy at the Psychedelic Science.

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"Welcome to the psychedelic '20s!" Rick Doblin, founder of the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies, or MAPS, proclaimed in his keynote speech to open the Psychedelic Science 2023 conference. At the event organized by MAPS in Denver this June, a reported 13,000 people gathered to talk about what seemed like every possible topic related to the productive use of these substances.

Founded in the late 1980s, MAPS has spent decades working to get approval from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for MDMA-assisted therapy for PTSD and related conditions.

The payoff for those decades of work are coming to fruition. The FDA is expected to approve therapy using psilocybin—the psychoactive ingredients in magic mushrooms—and MDMA—the drug also known as ecstasy and molly. And Oregon and Colorado have decriminalized the recreational use of plant-based psychedelics.

Watch Nick Gillespie's full interview with Doblin, which was featured in Reason's 32-minute documentary on the psychedelic renaissance, discussing the long path to FDA approval and what comes next in the world of psychedelic legalization.