I'm starting a *100% legal* clinic / research group / retreat for 5meo..

[communitybuilder]

I'm a community builder and somewhat successful entrepreneur (bootstrapped a co-living real estate startup to $4M revenues and profitability, 17 locations/communities, and 3,500+ tenants/members). 

In the past few years, I've gotten very into helping people (and also myself) raise their consciousness, and am especially interested in 5meo. I'm now working full-time on building a permanent physical (and 100% legal) site and community for this. I think a physical site/community for 5meo could be a game-changer for helping a lot of people awaken in a safe and legal way (and I'm also incorporating therapists, a strong community, and top-tier research into this site/endeavor).

Right now, I'm researching and testing out different models around buying real estate for opening a legal clinic and/or research group and/or retreat, focused on 5meo dmt. While this isn't legal in many countries, there ARE ways to do like this legally in countries like Canada (it is legal there for research purposes) and also Jamaica (drug laws are extremely lax there, and there are already fully operational and sanctioned psychedelic retreats in Jamaica, such as the Atman Retreat).

Since this forum is a hub for people who are interested in this sort of thing (special thanks to Leo for creating this forum), I've love to collaborate with anyone reading this who might be interested in this initiative - either as business partners, researchers, advisors, or community builders. With the pandemic/lockdown, real estate is getting super cheap, and now would be a great time to buy a permanent site for something like this (and I have the access to capital and know-how to get this done).

Would love to hear anyone's thoughts on this project. Feel free to reply / reach out to me if you might be interested, and/or if you have any questions!

Edited July 15, 2020 by communitybuilder

[Leo Gura]

It's a cool idea, but Canada will shut you down once they catch wind of what you're doing.

If you are really serious you need to buy a ship and sail it in international waters and sythesize your own chems on the ship.

But even so, the coast guard will certainly raid you once you get close to shore. So you'd have to dump all your chems in international waters before docking.

[Guest SirVladimir]

Fly me out of Europe, and I shall dedicate my life and soul to this project. 

[allislove]

14 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

If you are really serious you need to buy a ship and sail it in international waters and sythesize your own chems on the ship.

But even so, the coast guard will certainly raid you once you get close to shore. So you'd have to dump all your chems in international waters before docking.

Sounds like a plan  

[communitybuilder]

Good to know! Thanks for your feedback Leo.

Yeah, definitely going to lawyer-up to the max on this one lol. I'm an entrepreneur through-and-through, and will go to extreme lengths to make this happen (for example, I lived in a car for 6 months just for fun, and I raised almost half a million dollars purely by cold-emailing).

For the research group angle, I think that *maybe* a research group in Canada (or somewhere else where research is allowed) could be a good start if nothing else. In the US, the Johns Hopkins Center for Psychedelic & Consciousness Research is interesting (although I'm generally opposed to anything that's overly academic/bureaucratic, due to their propensity for over-the-top risk aversion). I know a few independent research groups that could have almost as much legitimacy as academia, and would have the advantage of a much higher tolerance for risk/unconventionalism.

For the retreats angle, I think that Jamaica is a really interesting place for clinics/retreats - these guys (https://atmanretreat.com/) are already doing mushroom retreats (spoke with their co-founder last week) in Jamaica. I also have a bunch of friends in silicon valley who are experimenting with autonomous zones over international waters (they call it 'seasteading'), so maybe something like that or your version of this idea could work. There's a lot of wealthy people out here (burners / SV executives) who on board with psychedelics and are eager to fund something like this. There's also a large gathering of spiritual/enlightened people in Bali, and a lot of co-living/hospitality projects that are being built for that scene right now (I'm going to visit this in October hopefully). I don't know what Bali's laws and culture around psychedelics are like though. In a worst case scenario, maybe there is value in just having a permanent hub for people who are deep into enlightenment (like what appears to be underway in Bali), and members can just figure out the 5meo part on their own. 

Basically, from having been an entrepreneur, I fully understand that the details are going to change a lot here as I test out things / learn more / iterate. I'm willing to do anything in any part of the world that's legally sound, tractionable in the near-term, and directionally correct for the long-term. And hopefully the rest of the gameplan will unfold nicely from there. 

Edited July 15, 2020 by communitybuilder

[Girzo]

41 minutes ago, communitybuilder said:

there ARE ways to do like this legally in countries like Canada (it is legal there for research purposes)

I am pretty sure that legal research purposes do not include administering 5-MeO-DMT to humans in Canada.

[Carl-Richard]

33 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

So you'd have to dump all your chems in international waters before docking.

Not if you do airplane drops  

[outlandish]

27 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

It's a cool idea, but Canada will shut you down once they catch wind of what you're doing.

I'm not so sure about that.. there are currently centres operating openly that do iboga sessions. They might be getting a pass because they're mostly doing addiction treatment, with success, and addiction is an area that's notoriously difficult to treat, and much needed. There are definitely ayahuasca retreats going on under the radar, and there are underground therapists who work with MDMA, LSD and mushrooms. I wouldn't be surprised if there are already underground 5-MeO-DMT retreats going on too.

Red-flag-raising would vary regionally. These retreat centres are concentrated in BC, which is probably the most liberal part of the country.

Canada tends to have a liberal attitude towards drugs. Cannabis is legalized nationally for recreational consumption. Recently the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police called for the decriminalization of simple possession of illicit drugs (link).

Regardless, you would need to operate very carefully, and be prepared for the laws to change.

Mexico or Peru could be better places for a retreat centre as there is already an established presence of this sort of thing in those countries, and real estate should be cheaper.

[outlandish]

5 minutes ago, Girzo said:

I am pretty sure that legal research purposes do not include administering 5-MeO-DMT to humans in Canada.

That's a good point. 5-MeO-DMT is not regulated in Canada, but that doesn't mean it's approved to be administered as a food or medicine. You would really have really dance around this, probably getting your clients to source it and administer it themselves. You'd still be operating in a very legally questionable area.

[communitybuilder]

@Girzo You are probably correct. I'll need to check with Canadian lawyers. Even if you could do a research group though, that's still a huge win IMO. Imagine if a research group was established in Canada specifically for 5meo dmt. They could be a global leader for figuring out what the best ways to onboard people with 5meo are (all of the different ways of intaking it, different schedules/methods for gradually ramping up dosages over time, possibly combining 5meo with other drugs that allow for a smoother experience, integrating different types of psychotherapy into all of the above, etc). Just being able to document well-researched best practices for the aforementioned things, and publishings/showcasing/broadcasting the effects of that to society in a very legitimate/professional way, could be such a huge win for 5meo and the world at large.

And then from there, perhaps you could leverage that brand and research to do even bigger things (like a permanent 5meo retreat center in Jamaica).

There are so many exciting possibilities!!!

Edited July 15, 2020 by communitybuilder

[communitybuilder]

@outlandish Yeah, good call on Mexico. Forgot about that one. Not sure about Peru tbh.

[Leo Gura]

A) As soon as your retreat becomes popular, that's when you will be raided. The gov will take off their kid gloves and make an example out of you by giving you a 30 year jail sentence.

B) Even if you avoid that somehow, your retreat community will quickly devolve into devilry and become a toxic cult as ungrounded egos start to abuse it for money, power, status, and sex. You are not gonna trip your way out of this problem.

C) People will have freakouts and get injured. They will then report you to Feds out of spite.

[Peo]

@Leo Gura So i guess what you are saying is come back next century. Maybe you could try in 2120.

[outlandish]

Leo's right, B) and C) are a very big deal.

This kind of thing has been tried many times in the past, and almost always failed. I don't think it's impossible to make it work, but it's much, much more daunting than you or I can imagine. It would take a great deal of maturity, experience, and learning from the mistakes and successes of the past to have any chance of making it work.

[communitybuilder]

@Leo Gura Damn, lol. I appreciate the honesty!

I do think that it's possible to mitigate a lot of these risks via thorough legal protection, and also by ramping things up very slowly/carefully (and stopping if things start to get out of and). But yeah, I definitely am not downplaying that there are many big risks and failure modes with this.

I do think the angle of starting off as a tightly-controlled research group that better understands how to help people use 5meo, and broadcasts its findings to the world, is probably a better launching pad than going straight into retreats. This approach would avoid most or all of the risks you highlighted.

The coliving/hospitality site for people deep into enlightenment (no administering psychedelics), is also potentially more viable too. Having a very good vetting process (and more importantly, a mechanism for kicking out bad apples, which is unavoidable) are key for this approach (which I've learned with my coliving company with 3,000+ tenants). This approach completely absolves you from Risk A and partly Risk C, although Risk B is still a challenge.

Edited July 16, 2020 by communitybuilder

[communitybuilder]

FWIW, one of my greatest strengths is resolving interpersonal conflicts. I've had pretty much every kind of disaster scenario you can imagine with many thousands of tenants - most of whom I've lived with - and have navigated basically all of them successfully. So I'm sure this skill will come in handy lol.

[Leo Gura]

5 minutes ago, communitybuilder said:

one of my greatest strengths is resolving interpersonal conflicts.

That's not the issue. The issue is that you are not pure enough or developed enough to lead such an endeavor without it corrupting you.

The bottleneck is your level of consciousness and selflessness.

[communitybuilder]

I definitely see the temptation(s). I expect that I'll be able to raise my own consciousness enough along the way, and that will I grow into the person that I need to be. But if not, I'm happy to pass the baton off to someone else who is a better leader (should it come to that). I believe that I'm more dedicated to the cause of helping people level-up their consciousness than I am to the pursuit of 'delivery' (sex, fame, power, money, etc).

Hopefully we'll get to find out soon!  

[Forestluv]

A 5-Meo retreat center is a wonderful intention. Yet not following forum guidelines is not a good indicator for being able to pull off your plan. If you can’t bypass your way around mods on a forum how will you be able to bypass legal authorities? Perhaps ask @upstream for some advice. . . 

 

[communitybuilder]

Lol. Point taken. I'm definitely not going to try to bypass legal authorities though. Will hire lawyers and make sure it's done by the book.