World Psychedelics Day is a catalyst for education and innovation with an annual global symposium showcasing frontier scientists, therapists, shamans, artists, philosophers, indigenous plant keepers, and molecule drug designers, who will share their knowledge and experience. With an exciting roster of international experts for all forms of media to call on, World Psychedelics Day will also publicize gatherings, concerts, and art happenings around the world to celebrate a day of intellectual and spiritual illumination. 

In its inaugural year World Psychedelics Day was based online, encouraging our expanding global psychedelic community to unite through an interactive summit. Our hope is that each year WPD will be celebrated in international cities around the world in a synchronised summit, with each city offering new narratives, insights and coherence around psychedelic science and culture. 

World Psychedelics Day envisions a time when synthetic psychedelics and ancient plant medicines are made safely and legally available for beneficial uses, and our collective knowledge base is expanded through rigorous, scientific evaluation of their risks and benefits. Our efforts will help the public see how psychedelics, when taken with knowledge and care, can positively impact medical, therapeutic, creative, social, and spiritual practices, be useful, and powerfully constructive.

Modelled after Earth Day, which coalesced the global Environmental Movement, World Psychedelics Day will illuminate progress in the science of psychedelics while honoring and respecting the centuries of traditional use of sacred medicines, by offering access to resources such as research papers, interviews with world experts, curated documentaries, and structured educational programmes. 

Unfolding in the current context of a “psychedelic renaissance”, psychoactive molecules are in the news—and they’re big business. Witness the boom in cannabis and psilocybin-related stocks and start-ups; the blossoming of psychedelic therapy clinics; the popularity of microdosing; announcements of novel molecules tailored to facilitate a deeper form of psychotherapy and healing; and the legitimacy bestowed by universities being funded for research. 

Unfortunately, there’s a disconnect; while psychedelic drugs are used and mis-used weekly worldwide by millions of people, young and old, and their use is increasing, they remain illegal in most jurisdictions. Decades of anti-drug public safety messaging gave us inappropriate drug laws and skewed the public’s perception of psychedelics as dangerous, irresponsible and frivolous. World Psychedelics Day seeks to redress these distortions and promote a scientific, evidence-based understanding of psychedelics.