Last winter, Fortune, the venerable business publication founded all the way back in 1929, featured an article on a unique way that prominent executives in Silicon Valley had managed to integrate group psychedelic drug parties into their management philosophy.
No, seriously, they really did that. A link to the original piece:
Here’s a look into Silicon Valley’s ‘executive psychedelic slumber parties’ that cost over $3,000
The article goes on to note that two entrepreneurs– this is a business publication, after all– have actually set themselves up as providers of psychedelic “journeys” aimed at “…CEOs of Fortune 100 companies, CFOs, and other C-level founders.”
By the way, the term C-level refers to highly placed executives who have “Chief” in their job titles– Chief Executive, Chief Financial Officer, etc. Their offices, usually on the top floor, are sometimes referred to collectively as the C-Suite.
Anyway, here’s how one of the entrepreneurs, who goes by the name of Shuang Shuang, characterizes their target customer: “They’re like, ‘OK, what’s the next horizon? Because I’ve checked pretty much every box…”
Gotcha. They provide these customers with a three day experience for $2600 plus extra for a medical assessment and of course, the ketamine itself. Ordinarily nine or ten people participate in the group experience, and occasionally one of them will have what you or I might call a bad trip. Shuang Shuang seems to prefer the term “challenging.”
So far at least, it sounds a lot like something you might expect to find at one of the “…1,200 to 1,500 ketamine clinics” now operating in the U.S., according to an estimate from an association of ketamine professionals. Dosing is intramuscular rather than intravenous.
As with other fast- growing, largely unregulated new industries, observers have cause to be concerned about a rising number of incidents, some quite serious. Here’s something on that topic.
The problem as I see it is that growth is increasing so fast that the industry will inevitably resist any serious attempt at restricting its practices, because it will likely cut into their profit margin. And by that time, they’ll be big enough to put up quite a fight.
Don’t believe me?
