There's a Growing Grey Market for Psychedelic-Fueled Activities

There are two trends set to converge in the U.S. right now. One of the growing popularity of events where mild psychedelics are consumed while engaged in yoga or similar activities. The other is an increasingly complex legal landscape surrounding the possession and usage of psychedelics, something that can be dramatically different when you go from state to state. (Literally, not metaphorically.)

Still, the grey market for psychedelics and psychedelic-fueled activities doesn’t seem to have suffered as a result. As part of a recent Los Angeles Times investigation, Michelle Lhooq spoke to a number of business owners who aren’t too concerned with the aspects of their work that aren’t, strictly speaking, legal.

The founder of one company spoke to the Times about a relatively permissive attitude to psychedelics, at least in Los Angeles. “Everyone is acting like it’s legal. It’s a herd mentality,” Personalized Wellbeing founder Derek Chase told Lhooq. “The more people are doing it, the less repercussions there are.”

Risks exist for both companies specializing in psychedelics and people buying what they’re selling. For the former, there’s the risk of a state or federal backlash; for the latter, as the Times reports, the lack of regulation means that some sellers can get away with selling things as magic mushrooms that are not, in fact, made from magic mushrooms.

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If the idea of taking a light hallucinogen and then engaging in a lengthy yoga session sounds appealing, there’s no shortage of options available, at least based on a cursory online search. But even if this grey-market status continues in the coming years, several of the people interviewed by the Times see change on the horizon — specifically, the entry of large pharmaceutical companies into the space. The moment we’re living through seems bound to change somehow; the big question is how.