The most recent, pulsing Day-Glo sign that the psychedelic renaissance

 The most recent, pulsing Day-Glo sign that the psychedelic renaissance 

 here took place in Denver in late June at the Psychedelic Science 2023 conference, organized and hosted by the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies, or MAPS.

Founded in the late '80s, MAPS has spent decades working to get FDA approval for MDMA-assisted therapy for PTSD and related conditions. At the conference, a reported 13,000 people gathered to talk about what seemed like every possible topic related to the productive use of these substances.

According to MAPS founder Rick Doblin, this is not the far-out, radical reordering of society envisioned by Timothy Leary, the Harvard psychology lecturer-turned-psychedelic evangelist.

"We look at what happened in the '60s, and a lot of the things that came about from psychedelics were frightening to the culture," says Doblin.

In pursuit of mainstream acceptance, and to gain the approval of federal regulators and establishment figures, MAPS is emphasizing the medical benefits of psychedelics over their potential to bring spiritual enlightenment and societal transformation. Large pharmaceutical companies have entered the field, putting much-needed capital into research. But they've also stirred controversy by attempting to patent compounds that the grassroots say shouldn't be commercialized because they belong to everyone, especially indigenous communities that used them first.