Psychedelic Capitalism

Psychedelics have long been sanctioned as dangerous substances. Today, psychedelics are enjoying a new found appeal, even being idealized as wonder drugs. As part of the so-called psychedelic renaissance, reports abound about the benefits of these substances for remedying individual mental health issues and bringing about social change.

Offering a critical view of these developments, Psychedelic Capitalism locates this renaissance in the context of corporate capture, medicalization, and the war on drugs. Wealthy entrepreneurs are investing billions in the psychedelics industry. Biotechnology firms are racing to capture intellectual property and monopolize psychedelic supply chains. Venture capitalists are leveraging the prospects of a lucrative mass market. Together, these actors are appropriating Indigenous knowledge and claiming ownership over substances that have been in the public domain for centuries.

Brownlee and Walby ask if corporations and the medical establishment are suited to steward the mainstreaming of psychedelics, raising concerns with how the psychedelic renaissance is entrenching systems of inequality, limiting access and affordability, and increasing the reach of drug war surveillance and criminalization. Interrogating the consequences of psychedelic capitalism, the authors point to what could be gained from a just and equitable psychedelic future rooted in the public interest.