PsyCon Las Vegas 2024

I attended PsyCon Las Vegas this weekend, May 10th and 11th, to learn more about the current psychedelics landscape and increase Apartment 113’s focus on psychedelics overall. The conference was held at the World Market Center featuring an expo floor with ~50 booths for speakers/sponsors/vendors, four rooms with speaker presentations, a cooking demo stage and a big space with tables and chairs for networking and relaxing between sessions. The major sponsors for the event were PolkaDot, Psilosafe, Psychedelist and The Shava. The Nevada Coalition for Psychedelic Medicines and Mexisoul Ayahuasca Retreats were also advertisers and exhibitors.  It was a great experience; I learned so much about the space and met many great psychedelic entrepreneurs, facilitators and enthusiasts.

Oregon, Colorado and California were represented across the speakers and companies prominently as these are the states with the most progressive decriminalized psychedelic measures. Overall, the conference had many similarities to early Cannabis Industry conferences with some very clear differences in mindset, intent and attendees. There’s a legitimate focus on healing, happiness, trauma recovery and societal improvement within the space that can be felt in the rooms and on the floor - a positive energy that will hopefully support and guide the industry to come.

I always have a plan for conferences as far as what my focus will be as an attendee. PsyCon was all about listening and learning. I took so many notes that I crashed my notes app! I first attended the session called Ketamine: Unlocking the Mind’s Potential for Healing And Growth presented by Amber Kerby. This session was a 101 on Ketamine in general and a look at the therapeutic applications and benefits being seen in patients with anxiety, depression, ADHD and other forms of trauma. It’s pretty wild to see that benefits from use can occur within 30 minutes and last for 30 days or longer. Ketamine is a unique psychedelic with a dissociative experience that allows patients to address and accept trauma and better resolve issues with their therapists. Ketamine therapy centers have increased from ~15 in 2015 to over 1500 in the US, which means more and more have access to this alternative medicine.

I next attended Matthew Bruce’s session on Veterans and Trauma-Informed Microdosing: A New Frontier in Somatics and Self-Bonding to learn a few techniques to assist microdosing and about self-bonding and somatics in general. Both topics are not something I’m too familiar with. This session was followed by Gary Laderman’s conversation about “Great Awakenings” in human history and their correlations with Religion. This was paired with the connections between psychedelic substances in general and religion allowing the connection to be reinforced between psychedelics, religion and great awakenings in general. It was a very interesting mini-lecture. He’s working on a book that I look forward to reading. 

Stephan Kerby was up next presenting 5-MeO-DMT: Unity Consciousness and Egoic Liberation with the World’s Most Potent Psychedelic. This was a great crash course on 5-MeO or Bufo, its origins, applications, effects and more. I was aware of 5-MeO having had experiences with DMT in the past, but now I’m much more educated about it. Kerby broke things down and explained the benefits of Egoic Liberation - a freedom from “self” and a connection to all that is a complete unity and understanding felt from 5-MeO that can be life-altering and transformative. As the most potent psychedelic, the trip is a serious matter and should always be done in a safe and facilitated environment. The trip allows you to see yourself and how you’re showing up in different areas of your life truly in a way that the ego typically prevents in day-to-day life. Very interesting stuff here.

After a mushroom cooking demo with Jaden Rae,I attended a session called Can Psychedelics Enhance your Ability to Lead and Innovate presented by Victoria Lauren. Victoria explained the benefits of psychedelics in the business world and how she works with executives to improve their company vision, approach, mindset and more. This one was excellent for me as a Scrum/Agile Coach and Psychedelics advocate! She even went into the good stuff with details on divergent and convergent thinking at the core of innovation. I’m looking forward to seeing how psychedelics evolve within a leadership context.

After a few more kendama tricks in the hallways, I went to the session called Psychedelics for More Than Just Medicine presented by Cam Leids,the host of the Trip Sitting Podcast and Mycologist David Poplin. I loved this session where we’ve already discussed Psychedelics as therapeutic/trauma recovery and business enhancement. This session was looking at the third pillar, recreation and fun. There’s an aspect of psychedelics that American youth have experienced with their friends and communities since the 60s that many of us don’t want lost in the business applications of psychedelics. While immensely more difficult to discuss along with the political and moral ways to regulate, the topic begs to be discussed and supported. Eventually, after other aspects, psychedelics will have a recreational market, but it’s going to be awhile until then. We need to keep advocating like Cam and David. Day 1 ended on a similar note with a presentation called Navigating a Socially Conscious Psychedelic Platform in a Capitalistic Market by Sam Zand.

Day 2 was a half day for me with a busy Saturday schedule, but I attended three sessions I’d  like to call out here the first being Paul Karasik’s talk on Leading the Psychedlic Revolution imparting wisdom of the 60s and guidance for the new wave of psychedelia to come. I’ll be reading his recent book Getting High on Leadership here soon and talking more about that in future articles and episodes. Jake Hammock spoke later in the afternoon in a session titled Creating Unified Equitism Through Decentralized Use Technologies that got the product management wheels spinning for me. Decentralized apps and using block chain tech in software provide an opportunity to approach solutions differently. Using member-focused methods and tokenization in applications presents a very interesting tool set for software innovation. Because of this session, I enrolled in a decentralized app course to take here over the next month.

The final session I attended was a panel including Zappy Zapolin, Lamar Odom and Kaia Roman discussing the documentary they made called Lamar Odom Reborn. It was cool to hear about Lamar’s story firsthand. He had experienced loss and was battling addiction and other health issues that compounded into some life-threatening strokes. He found relief via Ketamine therapy and an Ibogaine treatment after connecting with Zappy. The healing potential is real and very much the focus for the psychedelic space in the near term. Check out the documentary to learn more.

Overall, I had an excellent time at PsyCon Las Vegas this year, so much so that I’ll be heading to Denver later this year October 10-12th to attend the next PsyCon. The industry is young, mindful and filled with potential. I can’t wait to see how things evolve over time and to contribute to the space by bringing guests onto the Apartment 113 podcast to tell their stories. We’ll all learn together here whether you’re an experienced psychonaut or brand new to psychedelics; it’s going to take the community to make this industry a reality. There’s so much more to discuss here check out episode 67 of the show for more info. Thanks for reading, find out more info at psycon.org.