I went to the world’s largest psychedelic conference a few weeks ago — Psychedelic Science —the one where Jaden Smith told a crowd of some 11,000 psychonauts and scientists that his mum (Jada Pinkett Smith) recently introduced the family to psychedelics. Why was Jaden Smith being interviewed at a scientific conference? I honestly have no idea but the delightful wackiness of this industry is one of the main reasons I love reporting on it.
Of course, the phrases ‘delightfully wacky’ and ‘scientifically robust’ rarely feature in the same sentence and the more time I’ve spent researching (I first wrote about the renaissance in psychedelic research in 2016, for this publication) the more I’ve come to wonder whether we’re not letting the thrill of a new intervention stop us from asking some important questions.
