The Entrepreneurship of Psychedelic Negativity: Psymposia, Trauma, Iatrogenic Harm, and Prohibition 2.0
Contemporary Drug Problems July 10, 2026 Oliver Davis, Sophie Casey
A skeptical analysis of Psymposia, a U.S.-based psychedelics watchdog group, argues that its campaign against MDMA-assisted therapy for PTSD—including its "Power Trip" podcast, FDA hearing interventions, and allegations of a "Psychedelic Syndicate"—constituted an effective entrepreneurship of psychedelic negativity. The group employed sensationalism and a narrow definition of iatrogenic harm to present its activism as harm reduction, while objectively conspiring to produce Prohibition 2.0 through distributed anxiogenesis. Psymposia received over $400,000 in funding, mostly from undisclosed sources, some likely used for communications consultancy and media access. The authors reject the group's position as incoherent and damaging to substantive Left politics, arguing its exaggerated influence reflects unusual conditions of knowledge production in psychedelic spaces and the online attentional economy.