entertainment -WSS

entertainment

author：knowledge 2025-09-27 10:04:59 - browse：173

DENVER — He could have been a rock star, a religious icon, the way ecstatic applause from thousands of attendees greeted the man dressed in a crisp, all-white suit as he strode onto a backlit stage. He was neither. This was Rick Doblin, the founder and evangelist of a movement to legalize psychedelic MDMA and bring the drug into mainstream medicine.

The scene in a Denver conference hall last week was a world away from the first conference Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS) held in 1990, when Doblin spoke alongside Timothy Leary — the ex-Harvard professor who popularized the phrase “turn on, tune in, and drop out.” That was just a few years after MDMA, also known as ecstasy, was criminalized, deemed a Schedule 1 drug “of no medical use.”

Now, as MAPS nears its goal of winning Food and Drug Administration approval for MDMA as a treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder, the perpetually smiling and energetic Doblin is basking in the adoration from both legions of “psychonauts” and unlikely yet powerful allies. “I literally love Rick Doblin,” the conservative Republican and former Texas governor Rick Perry told the audience in Denver.

It was a seemingly triumphant occasion. But even as Doblin is in sniffing distance of his lifelong quest, his once counter-cultural organization is grappling with the pressures of having to operate in the capitalist pharmaceutical sphere. MAPS was founded in 1986 as a nonprofit with deep-seated ideals. Doblin developed an “anti-patent” strategy, putting discoveries in the public domain so they couldn’t be claimed as intellectual property. He raised money to fund clinical trials of MDMA from like-minded wealthy donors.

Unlock this article by subscribing to STAT+ and enjoy your first 30 days free!

GET STARTED Log In

Previous article： Heart attack and stroke risk calculators need revising
Next article： Doctors are clamoring for more clarity on Paxlovid prescribing

knowledge

WSS

Congress must protect the remaining independent doctors

Slovenia has suffered its worst

Too many hospitalized Covid

Congress considering partial increase for doctor pay in Medicare

Doctors push to include dialysis machines in emergency stockpile

Many breast cancer patients receive more radiation than needed

knowledge

entertainment

focus

Tori Bowie and the unacceptable rates of Black maternal death

STAT Boddities: What happens to the brain when we get scared?

Affirmative action in medical school literally saved lives

Why Eli Lilly’s earnings didn’t quite live up to the hype

Alkermes shareholders re

Why Eli Lilly’s earnings didn’t quite live up to the hype

Wildfire smoke exposes gaps in outdoor worker protections

It was time to plan for my old age. If only I could stop crying

Wildfire smoke exposes gaps in outdoor worker protections

Slovenia has suffered its worst

entertainment

Trump used to be more articulate. What could explain the change?

Tuberculosis patients need more than just free medication

Too many hospitalized Covid

Latigo launches with $135 million for Vertex

Pennsylvania man bitten on the head by bear during attack in his garage

Resistance to opioid

focus

knowledge

Wikipedia

explore