Anchorage to host Alaska's first major conference on psychedelic medicine

Alaska is set to see its first major conference on psychedelic medicine next week.

Practitioners, researchers and policy experts working in the field will convene for the two-day event, which organizers say hit capacity and had to be moved to a larger venue to accommodate more attendees.

Interest in psychedelics has exploded in recent years, with popular books and documentaries on the subject, as well as robust lobbying and start-up companies pushing the topic into public consciousness. There's been bipartisan support in Congress for fast-tracking the approvals process for psychedelic-assisted therapy to help address a wide range of mental health issues, from depression to post-traumatic stress to substance abuse.

"It's really surprising how far we've come in 10 years," said Regina Randall, one of the organizers of the upcoming Arctic Visions conference, set to take place Aug. 23 and 24.

Randall is also founder of the Alaska Entheogenic Awareness Council, a group that is seeking to inform the public about the therapeutic and health benefits of responsibly using mind-altering plant medicines, and is one of the conference's sponsors.

The country as a whole, Randall said, is in the midst of a "psychedelics renaissance."

"People are just more receptive to using these substances therapeutically," said Randall, who was first exposed to psychedelics during a trip to Peru in 2007. "I had no idea that things would move this fast."

Psychedelic-assisted therapy is a broad and fuzzily defined field. It involves research on a wide range of substances, including MDMA, psilocybin, ketamine, ayahuasca, ibogaine and DMT, among others. Arctic Visions bills itself as a psychedelics conference with lectures and workshops led by some of the foremost experts on the topic, from Indigenous healing practices to a veterans panel to a discussion of a future legal framework for the substances in Alaska. It is the first time the state has hosted an event at this scale on the topic.

"Right now, psychedelics are illegal," said Randall.

While there's interest in potential legalization and decriminalization policies, she said, any such effort is years away.

"We're starting at ground level, zero. Everything needs to be built," Randall said.

This year in Juneau, lawmakers passed a bill that could establish a task force to look at potential implementation frameworks for psychedelic-assisted therapy. The measure still needs to be signed by the governor, according to Democratic state Sen. Forrest Dunbar, one of the bill's sponsors.

A decision this month by the federal Food and Drug Administration not to approve MDMA-assisted therapy for post-traumatic stress treatment has dampened some of the momentum around psychedelic therapies. But, Dunbar said, it's also given Alaska additional time to take a deliberate approach.

"Because of the FDA actions, we have a little more time now for the task force to determine what Alaska's response should be, if it does happen," Dunbar said.

In the meantime, Randall said the Arctic Visions conference intends to provide information and resources to people with an interest in the field.

"The conference is just an educational event. It's tailored for people who are curious about psychedelics and want to learn a bit more," Randall said.

As of Monday, Randall said, there were just three tickets left for the event, which takes place on the University of Alaska Anchorage campus.

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