5/17/26

PSYCHEDELICS AND ETHICS: THE NAGOYA PROTOCOL

 The Nagoya Protocol is a legally binding international agreement that ensures the fair and equitable sharing of benefits arising from the utilization of genetic resources and associated traditional knowledge. It aims to prevent biopiracy and provides a global framework for research, development, and commercialization.


The idea is right — but where's the follow-through?

The principle is solid, and long overdue. But watching the pharmatization of substances like Ibogaine unfold, I'm not convinced it's actually being applied.

I spent today at the TRYP conference talking with people deep in this field — researchers, founders, practitioners — and not one of them could point to a success story when it came to crediting Indigenous communities for millennia of traditional knowledge and experimentation.

So the question stands: is any company out there genuinely operationalizing benefit-sharing with source communities? Not as a PR footnote, but as a structural part of their model?

Because if the answer is still no, the "ethical psychedelic industry" is mostly a rebranding exercise.

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