The Legal Terrain of Psychedelic Healing
Serena Wu is a business attorney, Harvard Law alum and co-founded of Radicle Law, a firm that provides innovative solutions to mission-driven clients in emerging industries. Her practice focuses on social entrepreneurship and plant medicines, advising on corporate and transactional matters, alternative dispute resolution, regulatory compliance, risk mitigation and religious freedom protections.
Imperfect Show Notes
While these notes are not perfect (AI translation is still improving), they give you the gist of the conversation. Enjoy!
My conversation with Serena Wu:
Morgan Bailey 0:02
Hello, and welcome to the profit meets impact Podcast where we explore the intersection of doing well and doing good in the world. I'm your host Morgan Bailey, and I'm excited to bring you the wisdom of entrepreneurs and thought leaders that are using business to create sustainable and meaningful change across the globe.
In this episode, I'm really excited to be talking with Serena Wu. She is a business attorney, Harvard, law alum, co founder of radical law firm that provides innovative solutions to mission driven clients in emerging industries. Her practice focuses on social entrepreneurship, plant medicines, and advising on corporate and transactional matters, Alternative Dispute Resolutions, regulatory compliance, risk mitigation and religious freedom protections. Serena, really excited to be talking to you today.
Serena Wu 0:50
Thank you. I'm really excited to be here. And thank you so much for inviting me to the show. And just a brief disclaimer, before we start the conversation. I just want to say to all the listeners out there the information provided on this podcast, it does not constitute legal advice, nor does your listening to the podcast create an attorney client relationship with me. So in other words, in short, I'm not your attorney and nothing I say here is legal advice.
Morgan Bailey 1:15
All right, right on All right, well, then that goes half of my questions asking for legal advice.
Right on, okay, well, now that we got, you know, the fine print out of the way,
you have a really interesting background, you're, you're, you know, you're a lawyer, you founded a law firm, you're really purpose driven work with social entrepreneurs, and you do a lot around working with businesses that are around healing and plant medicine. So how does all of this come into play? Where did this all, you know, kind of originate from this concoction you've created with your career?
Serena Wu 1:54
Yeah, concoction is probably the right word, because I'm trying to figure it out and steer my career in a very traditional, unconventional way. And it really started in 2019, when I was in Costa Rica on a healing trip. And in that healing trip, I participated in some Ayahuasca ceremonies as part of this retreat. And what that emphasized to me as I continued to work,
through my mental health issues was that I wanted to use my career, my legal skills to further something that I really believed in. And because I had worked with ketamine, and I've worked with Ayahuasca, and I've seen the powerful therapeutic potentials of psychedelics. And what I learned is that legal skills is really necessary in this growing field.
I started to go into this space. And it really also brought in the social entrepreneurship piece, because when I was in law school, one of the things I really remember was creating this event. It's a social enterprise event with this social enterprise club, where this
it was an alum, he basically took this retail store, it's called Ashley stored, and basically brought it back from bankruptcy. And the CEO at the time, he was just talking about how do you run a business, especially a real retail business, which is really tough, run it in a way that serves the community. And for him, the community was the customers in that space Ashley store, it was this store that that basically sold plus sized clothing to black, the black African American community. And he saw how people would come to the store and use it kind of like, it's a space for them to socialize, it was a space for them to build community. And by creating and nurturing the brand and the brand loyalty that was there already. They were able to like bring together the the community, the the customer, subset of customers, and restructure the business so that it would run in a different way and was able to bring it out of bankruptcy. And I saw what it meant to run a business that was based on his philosophy was kindness, using math and kindness, to create a profitable business. And I think in today's ethos, there's a lot that people are very dissatisfied with, like big companies and stuff like that. But there are also these companies that are trying to do good. They're trying to run businesses in a particular way that doesn't just serve the bottom line where they see that serving the community serving people is a way to increasing the bottom line to so becomes like a win win situation. Hmm, versus like, Oh, I'm just gonna keep selling you these products, or keep selling you these services? And, you know, and not really think of like, yeah, they think of them as customers, but not really thinking of like, oh, how do we also give back to the community as well? And that can also further the objectives and goals of the business, if that makes sense.
Morgan Bailey 5:23
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, you're preaching the choir on that piece. I mean, I think that when businesses are able to take that component to it, you know, not only can you serve the community, but it also serves as an insurance package for you, because you're not in this alone, such that your business is actually a generative for so people want your business succeed. Right. I remember during the early days of the pandemic, when all of a sudden I started down this marketing, from businesses that never seem to care saying, support us, we need your help. We're going out of business. And I'm like, You never cared before. So why should I care now? Right, right, as other businesses, who are so involved in the community, people stepped up and I stepped up, I was like, Cool, yeah, here's, I'll sign up for your membership or whatnot, just to make sure you're there. Right, because so I think it's like this two way street, these businesses can give back to the community, but also like, when businesses are in need, like the community come back to
Serena Wu 6:20
them. Right. Right.
Morgan Bailey 6:24
So all right, so you went to law school? And, you know, I'm curious to dig into the law school pieces really quickly, right? Because what was the mindset like of your cohort? And and you went to Harvard? Right, so one of the most prestigious law, you know, law colleges out there? Was this stuff a foreign concept? Is this something that was, you know, I guess, doing law for good? Was that something that was a conversation that was burgeoning there? Or was that something that you really start to lean on after?
Serena Wu 6:57
It was the conversation that some of my colleagues and peers were starting to talk about, but not many people were talking about it? Right? So one of the one of my colleagues, she basically started the social entreprise club at Harvard. And there was a few of us were really interested in the aspect of social entrepreneurship. And I was really intrigued by it, because I was like, Wait, what is this social? Entrepreneurship, right? How does it fit with law that was like a, I guess it's like a business thing, right. But then the more I thought about it, it kind of makes sense that there's some kind of there's a business model that goes beyond just for profit, or nonprofit, because that's what I saw a lot of like a lot of what a lot of the conversations I heard were, oh, we're going to go into government or nonprofit, or we're going to go into big law, which is completely for profit, or will go in house. And that going in house also means that they're going to be an attorney for a company that's just for profit. And I was very dissatisfied with just this dual model, like one or the other. And here was this model called social entrepreneurship. A couple of my friends like these, we were all talking about it. So in my sphere, in my sphere of engagement, I, you know, I was around this, these kinds of conversations, but I don't know about like other people. But I do know that, you know, it's not the mainstream conversation at the time. And it really forced me to really think about, okay, well, what are the what, where is the in between, and I started seeing it from the business perspective, based on the events that were creating, meeting CEOs and founders and other executives were creating, not creating but just like running their businesses in a way that serves more than just their the bottom line. And it made me really think about like the Ford Model at the time where like you said, like, it's a two way street, in what I've learned about the Ford Model was like, they were paying their workers a certain wage so that they can buy more of their cars. And it's so Ashley Stewart was one of the businesses but there was another business that I encountered that really I was really excited to learn about. It was this coffee business. It was small, regional, somewhere in Massachusetts, but they their entire supply chain, like it wasn't just like, oh, it was It wasn't just making sure they take care of their employees at the stores that were selling coffee. It was the entire supply chain because of where they source their coffee, coffee beans and how they distributed like, you know from step one to from the farmers to to the coffee beans that you buy at the store. So what it showed to me is like It's very possible. But again, it's not certainly not the path of least resistance, because there's a lot of issues you have to consider. And the some of the incentives aren't really there to help support social entrepreneurship versus like, just doing business as usual. And doing what has what people have been doing so far, because that's so much easier.
Morgan Bailey 10:23
Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. So and I'm curious from a legal standpoint, obviously, there's very distinct legal differences between a nonprofit and a for profit organization. You know, from a legal standpoint, what is there anything that differentiates a social enterprise or its social entrepreneur, led business?
Serena Wu 10:50
Right. So, you know, and companies can be formed and a lot of different entities, right. And organizations can be nonprofits, and their form is a nonprofit C corporation. What I've seen after working in the last two years, with startups in the psychedelic space, and in the psychedelic space, there's this really strong ethos of giving back of ensuring that we do what we can to address the problems of climate change, to address the problems of mental health, and especially with psychedelics, because of the type of experiences that people can get, and the intimate moments that can be brought up. There is a real need for kindness and compassion for people that are working in this space. So there's like, there's a lot to unpack there, but I'll just leave it at that. So because of that, there's a real desire by the people in this space are growing and influencing and helping Shepherd this space, to want to do it in a different way so that it's not business as usual. So in the psychedelic space, there's a lot of people experimenting and trying to see what kind of models that could work, given the therapeutic protocols. And then the desire to address mental health conditions. And the model is that we have from a legal perspective, like these legal entity models, like they're not new, it's not like we're coming up with completely new you. Ideas, right? So what people do is, on the one hand, it's for profit, you can create LLCs, C, corpse, s, corpse, things like that. In the nonprofit realm, there's like the nonprofit corporation. And then in between, there are other models like benefit corporations, that's allowed, and I think more than 30 states now, or there is social purpose organizations or there is like, I think it's called LC, it's the short form is LC three, it's like a low profit Limited Liability Company. Like not all of these are allowed in every single state, it's specific to a variety of different states. And generally, like, the difference is, in a nonprofit, you don't have owners, you choose whatever, the nonprofit, whatever revenue they can generate is reinvested into the nonprofit for its mission. For the for profit, you do have owners, and when they generate revenue, it gets reinvested back into the business. But when there's profit, it can then be distributed out to the owners. And in the for profit, the main, the main thing people care about is like, what do the shareholders want? And for that, to answer that question, it's like, Well, generally, the number one interest is to create value and profits for the shareholders. In the, in the not in the, like, the benefit corporation model, it's like, you can take a it's kind of like taking both, you can create a business that is geared towards generating profit and generating revenues. But you can also add on the additional layer of focusing on a specific mission and using the company's resources to advance that mission. If you were doing it in a for proper model, one of the things that you know many things, but one of the things to really consider is in the for profit model. Eva, director and Officer were to like, oh, well, we're gonna, we're gonna tackle this particular mission, whatever it may be. If that goes against the shareholders interest, there is nothing to really protect an officer or director from making those decisions, meaning like, their fiduciary duty is to the shareholders and they have to advance the interests of the shareholders. First, so they can't really do anything else unless that interest is covered. That makes sense. Whereas in a benefit corporation model or some other model, it's like, you're the the people running the company are allowed to consider not just the shareholders interests, but other people's other stakeholders interests as well.
Morgan Bailey 15:23
And, you know, with a benefit corporation as well, right, there's actually an obligation such that, like the businesses sold, actually like that, you know, it's sold in that capacity. So it actually remains in the bylaws of the organization, if I'm correct. What do you mean sold? Like it with transfers, ownership, right? Like, like if a business transfers ownership and as a benefit corporation like that, that that status transfers with it?
Serena Wu 15:51
Right? It does. And that's the one thing is that you can start off like, a business in a traditional form an LLC, or C Corp, for example, if the owners have an alignment to advance or an interest or, or use, you know, do whatever they can to advance the cause, or admission, if they're lying, then yeah, then their shareholders would be interested in advancing those causes or mission as well, too. But when you change ownership, you don't know down the line, if somebody another owner is going to share the same type of same type of like ideology of philosophy, or just the way to think about generating value or be mission driven, right. Whereas like you said, it's a public benefit corporation, somebody else comes in that mission is in the bylaws themselves. So it doesn't get taken out really quick. It's not as easy to just remove that.
Morgan Bailey 16:53
So pulling back, I'm curious Sanyo, we started this conversation talking a little bit around psychedelics, and like the the burgeoning industry of psychedelics, right. And obviously, I mean, we're talking about like a, I mean, a healing industry. And traditionally, healing industries are, you know, a particular when it comes to mental health? You know, a lot of, I would say, a large part of the industry traditionally has been therapists, which are individuals, or maybe groups of individuals. But we're talking like, kind of larger scale now. And so we're talking with businesses that perhaps are going to have shareholders, right. So and I think it's what you're hinting at, like, different ways of doing things, right. Because, you know, when you're looking at perhaps, you know, the main stakeholder, which is like the patient or the client, and then you're looking at the shareholders, right? When it comes to healing, you really want to have, you know, the, you know, the customer, the patient's best interests in mind. But you also have the, you know, you also have your your shareholders. So how, from a from a legal standpoint, is that the commodification of you know, psychedelic healing, how has that been handled or navigated?
Serena Wu 18:03
Well, first of all, psychedelic healing right now, it's actually very limited. The only thing that is that can be prescribed legally is ketamine. MDMA is going through clinical trials right now. And so psilocybin, but they're expecting it would get FDA approval, like that's the direction it's going, maybe in the next year or two. And then for psilocybin, maybe like another two, three years out, right? So it's pretty limited, but people are talking about it and thinking about it, broadly, and how they would create businesses around that as they are, like you said, commodifying, therapeutic services for treatment to health. And in Oregon right now, Oregon is basically created a regulatory market for psilocybin services, where people can come and they basically are taking psilocybin under the supervision in the centers, and they go through their experience, and they're just rolling out there. Some of the businesses are like it became legal officially January 1, and there's a rollout right now, but it's been it's been a little bit challenging. That's kind of like to give you the back backdrop of what's happening. And there's also some like ancillary, psychedelic adjacent businesses that are providing education, basically a lot of information or maybe certain kinds of technology related type of offerings, but it's not touching on any of these substances themselves, because they're not legal. There's a lot of it's interesting because when you when people run a mission driven company, it's not it Like, you're still running a business, you still have to generate enough revenue, create profit be continued to run as a going concern, right. So it's not like you become a benefit corporation or something like that. And think it's actually easier, it might not be because there's additional requirements. And in terms of mental health, like, as people are scaling, traditionally, it is like the therapist with their small business, or the psychiatrists with their small practice, and that's it. And they're that, so there's still a bit of a limitation with respect to how much you can scale because there are rules that regulate the corporate practice of medicine. And the idea is that you don't want regulators don't want non medical professionals to influence the discretion of medical professionals like that should be, you know, decision, certain decisions should be left to the doctors and the therapists themselves. So what people have been doing, especially in the ketamine space, is that they've been creating what they're called a managed service organizations, these are MSOs, as they're called, The MSOs, are basically creating, they offer back end services to these practices. So back end could be like they could help with the billing, they could help with marketing, they could help with the leasing of space. But their their business is still tied to that practice. And they have to enter into arrangements that don't violate corporate practice of medicine laws. So that's one way people are trying to go around in terms of scaling. But then at the same time, I think I'm not so sure if the the financials and the business model support. Like, I think that if something if a business grows too, too fast, too quickly, or they're too optimistic about the rules, it could backfire. And what I'm seeing now, interestingly, since we last talk in the past week or so, a couple of like the bigger players in this MSO space, they're facing a lot of financial burdens. And they're closing some of their offices. And part of his you know, we're in an economic downturn. And recently, there was a rule that was proposed rule about telehealth curving back telehealth. So people can just like, you know, get a ketamine prescription by just seeing a doctor over zoom or something like that. So that's affected the business model. And at the same time, it's like, maybe it could be that they're, they scale too soon, too fast. Like, I'm not sure I'm not privy to all of the details of how they run their business. What I did look at some of the one company had like public financials and made me really question like how they were spending their, their money. And but again, it's like, people are trying to figure out how to scale. And this is one of the difficult things about the psychedelic space right now. I have seen in the in Oregon, there are limitations to how many service centers somebody can own. Because the idea is like, maybe scaling to into some kind of conglomerate in this business doesn't really make sense for this business. Like it makes sense for when you're selling widgets, or technology or software or something like that. But when it comes to healing, it's a long process that requires a lot of trust with somebody that you create a relationship with. And one person a therapist can only have the capacity to create a certain amount of relationships, right? They're not meeting you know, hundreds and 1000s of people creating hundreds and 1000s of relationships with potential patients and then be able to really help them with their healing. So in a sense, like, I think there is a if somebody can figure it out, that'd be great. But I think just for the business model for healing, when you're trying to commoditize it and trying to scale it, I think it's going to run into a lot of problems inherent in terms of how therapy is given inherent and how healing is offered. So some businesses have opted out to just focus on the education piece or being a tech platform or providing music or things that are isn't really directly like time energy intensive. When it comes to providing the actual Therapy?
Morgan Bailey 25:01
Yeah, I mean, it's essentially I mean, it brings to me the example of the company cerebro. It started as a mental health company, an online mental health company that then started prescribing Adderall and pushing out our and for profit purposes pushing Adderall pretty hard until they came under investigation. And, you know, I think it gets to your point of this challenge of scaling. And, you know, to what degree can you scale and still maintain that quality and integrity to health, particularly in a in a new and emerging market? Right, which, which things are untested, and you're kind of being pushed for proof of concept. And so it's, you know, it's going to be interesting to see how that ends up playing out. Now, what's interesting about the cannabis industry, like cannabis industry started out kind of around the medical marijuana, right was the thing, and eventually that just got went to full stage legalization, which, you know, bypass any need to, you know, to put it under any guise as sort of a health product. And I think in that space, we've seen the commodification there, you know, kind of I mean, they exploded, obviously, and went on to benefit, you know, you know, a very, you know, I would say slim, majority of Slim minority of people. And actually, I would say it was there's a lot of inequity and how that process went down. So I'm kind of curious, like, we don't we don't know where psychedelics go, in terms of the legalization or the business models? You know, I mean, is there is there a possibility that, you know, something like psilocybin just gets legalized period? And then, you know, I guess like the commodification game completely changes in that scenario?
Serena Wu 26:53
Oh, definitely, it will. And I think what I was speaking of before, it's just, it's, it's observations based on where the laws are at right now, where the regulations are in in terms of commodification, like you're talking about like cannabis, where you can just buy cannabis. And, you know, we have MDMA, when it does get FDA approved. Maps, and it'd be interesting to see how they would scale but like for them, they can manufacture the substance and sell it, but they are selling it in. I don't know what the protocol is, because like after FDA approve is I don't, from what I heard is like, it's not as simple as going to a psychiatrist or another MD and asking them for a prescription. I think it's going to be a little bit more involved in that. So it'll be interesting to see how that scales. And once they get FDA approved from what I understand it's FDA approval for their formulation. So it's not like the generic MDMA. This is whose formulation maps is formulation. Okay, so
Morgan Bailey 27:58
that Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies, right.
Serena Wu 28:01
Yes, thanks. I forget acronyms. I never used to it. But But then, you know, but on a state level. There's a lot of efforts happening right now, where people are pushing for decriminalization or some kind of legalization in a regulatory form. And we'll see what happens state to state there's a bill in California right now that is that has been introduced. So that will end up decriminalizing a variety of different psychedelics do currently decriminalizing certain like using certain types of possession that doesn't involve sale or just renumeration for value. And there's a lot to figure out there. But what that again, this goes back to like that ethos in the psychedelic space. A lot of people don't want that commodified commodity ties ation of the substances, because there is too many people their sacred medicines, and too many people like the sacred medicine don't just, they're not just from our history, but from indigenous communities, and their lineages and their history as well, too. But at the end of the day, I think because because of the society that we live in, I do think there's some commoditization is kind of inevitable. And I'm just this is just my personal opinion, I just think that it's just gonna happen because it's already happened in in the current space that we have before set aside, the other psychedelics have been legalized or decriminalized. But if there is a way, sort of like, you know, like in Oregon, it's in a regulated market that you can get access to the substances. If you don't have a regulated market, or if you people are going to figure out a way So like it what I mean by the regulated market, if you don't have some, if you just decriminalize, right, I think people are going to figure out ways to commoditize these substances whether we necessarily want that or not. I think there's a lot of people in this space who are trying to figure out like, if we were to do that, what is the way we can do it responsibly, safely and in honoring the sacred medicines? So I can foresee that, you know, similar to the cannabis, where you're buying a substance, you're buying a plant medicine, to tree certain conditions that you need to get a prescription for? Or if it's decriminalized, you don't need a prescription, then yeah, I think people can find a way to start to selling psilocybin mushrooms. But But I think it's like, I'm a little hesitant to, to say all of it, because I think it's a complex issue. There's a lot of different voices in this space that want to figure out like, if we were to decriminalize, the idea is that these are medicine that can help a lot of people. Why, or why should there be gatekeepers? Why should there be barriers to getting access, right? Because right now ketamine Academy there, the academy session is really expensive, it's like four to 500, maybe even more in some places, and then review, some of the protocols require like, six sessions, and some of it is covered by insurance. Some of it is not, it really depends. If people want to do use psychedelics and other countries, some people have engaged in medical tourism in some ways, by going to Peru, Costa Rica, Jamaica, a bunch of other places, but these retreats are, they're not covered by insurance, there's all it's all out of pocket. And the price point is so kind of high for many, many people in America. So because of that, yeah, go for it. Sorry. So because of that, like people really want, if you want, if you're talking about access, we're really talking about affordable access. So decriminalization will help with that aspect of it. But then there's also safety concerns. Because there are people finding their ways, like in the underground space that are getting access to these substances. And but the thing is, when it's underground, it's not regulated at all, then you run into a lot of issues with regard to safety. Especially like in safety is like, you know, what have you get this substance that you didn't know what you were doing, and then you took too much. And then you put yourself in a position where you can harm yourself or harm somebody else. They talk about setting setting in this space all the time. And their real concerns about safety, because it's like, it's supposed to be consciousness altering. Right. So it's a lot. And then in terms of businesses coming in? It's a tough question. And I'm not sure if we can, like go into too much detail in this talk today. But there's a lot of consideration to be thinking to think about when it comes to the quantity, commoditization and scaling of businesses involving these substances, will there be a day where we can just go to store and then buy the substances, and then somebody is producing manufacturing and distributing psilocybin, for example, at mass scale? Possibly, I don't know if that will come when that will come. Because right now, the laws don't support that. There's no way somebody can grow pounds and pounds a month psilocybin mushrooms and sell it to the public. Like, there isn't a mechanism for that right now. And I think, but in terms of trying to create access to the substances, when we change the rules, that's where people are starting to think like, Okay, what should the parameters be? Should there be any, be any parameters whatsoever? And that's an ongoing debate and conversation, people are having space.
Morgan Bailey 34:33
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, and, you know, we prefer not to have history repeat itself, right, because when when psychedelics kind of came onto the world stage, you know, kind of coming out of World War Two and into the 50s. The, you know, the mental health community at the time, you know, which is obviously you know, small you know, they saw these this like, you know, with amazing potential, but obviously in To the 60s, and, you know, the sort of, you know, the Timothy Leary is like, you know, number one enemy of the state sort of thing, like, psychedelics take a big hit. Right. And, and, you know, there wasn't a lot of regulation back and there weren't now these things just came onto the scene, and then they got heavily regulated now. So I think that, you know, there's, I think how we navigate this space is we have to do it cautiously. You know, I think there are a lot of different things to think about, if you mentioned, I think access is really important, right? And access. Yeah, if you made it completely legal for everyone, like access would be, you know, would be there. I think that, you know, that may have negative impacts on you know, I guess, quality of care, and, and, you know, safeguarding health. And I think, you know, it also with those issues out with, like, well, who's who's actually benefiting from this financially, right? Because once you all of a sudden you get private equity firms, you know, funding these massive firms that, you know, are making money for a bunch of, you know, middle aged white guys. Like, at a certain point, you're like, wow, we've kind of really lost our way. And we've seen that happen in the cannabis industry. So like, you know, I mean, we start looking forward, you know, it's, we definitely, it sounds like, we definitely have to tread on, tread cautiously. But I mean, I mean, given the inherent, I mean, given, given the inherent sort of, I guess, I don't wanna say risk, but let's say considerations that that, that the substances need to be taken with, I mean, you know, is it is it likely that this is going to be a, maybe a stepwise process, so they'll it'll be open up to, you know, kind of like, as cannabis was? Do you think it'll go to full legalization? And like, what are the implications longer term for all those?
Serena Wu 36:50
I think that remains to be seen, right? Because I think many of us want to create, want people to access this in a safe and legal way. And I think a lot of people in the psychedelic space they've had, and they've seen an experience, the profound healing they receive from these substances and their experiences. So it's, we're testing it out, I think, like Oregon's trying their system. And they're finding challenges with that, Colorado, decriminalize variety of different psychedelics, for personal use, and possession. So again, it's like, if you have it for yourself, you're not selling it or anything, but they're also going to try to create a regulated system as well, too. In case people do want to provide additional services involving psilocybin, I think they're, I think it's just psilocybin, I'm not too sure. They have to think about the parameters with respect to that. So everybody's kind of experimenting and seeing what could work. And there's a lot of different opinions in the space. And decriminalization piece in or in Colorado is actually really important, because it's kind of like allowing somebody to grow cannabis at home, they can grow their own medicine if they want to, and they will have to go to a shop. Because with cannabis, it's like the legal market, because of regulations really expensive and other reasons, like the underground market is still thriving, especially in California. And I could foresee something happening the same way with psychedelics. Right, you might create something that is regulated, it's above ground, but then because of how expensive it is, people are still gonna be underground. Yeah, I think it's really kind of depends on like, people's goals.
Morgan Bailey 38:46
Yeah. Well, yeah, the other piece of this as well is, is the stigma, right? Because psychedelics still have a level of stigma. And I remember I'm remember growing up, you know, in a grew up in a conservative family, and I remember people lamenting about the use of pot. You know, like, oh, my gosh, you know, you know, fast forward, you know, you know, 25 years or something. And, you know, I go over to my conservative family's house, and I got a cousin out the, you know, in the back smoking a joint. And my aunt saying, oh, gosh, and I hear an uncle over here say, No, yeah, I just invested in a cannabis company. Right. So I flipped, like really fast. And I was like, what happened? So yeah, I mean, when it comes to psychedelics, and particularly being as like an acceptable form of healing, that's kind of mainstream, because right now, it's still pretty niche. I mean, I think it's gotten a lot of attention. But I think in terms of how many people actually getting care, it's still relatively new. So how do you see the stigma shifting?
Serena Wu 39:50
Think I see the stigma shifting when there are more and more stories about how people have benefited and he not just themselves, but maybe their families, their communities, their friends circles, like when when the healing ripples out further than just themselves. Because my whole thing is that from my own experience, what I've seen is that when I heal, and work on myself, I'm not the only beneficiary. Because as I change, it changes my relationships and my dynamics with other people, especially my family, my friends, and then the greater community. And even like, the planet as well, too. It's not surprising that, and again, this is not for not everybody, but like, it's not surprising that a lot of the people that I've encountered in this space, really care about climate change issues, really care about other types of issues that affect other human beings. And there's this greater capacity for compassion, empathy that I've seen of people in this space. But at the same time, I have also seen that I've also seen people who use psychedelics, and it just mean the more of themselves, and they might still engage in opinions or do things that I don't agree with. So it's like, it's definitely not a cure all, it's definitely not for everybody, it does not mean necessarily, that somebody who do psychedelics, they're gonna be all for the benefits of humanity, and they're going to try to improve humanity or the planet or work on social issues. Around the globe, that's not true, because it's, it's because psychedelics is more of a mirror. Right? And what you do with what you see in that mirror is up to that individual. But what I've seen is that a lot of veterans who have PTSD, and I've hear so many stories of how they've been able to, to work through those issues, and really, like get to a point where they can live a life that is not hindered by PTSD, where they don't have to feel. And I don't know, PTSD. So while some of these are a lot of the anecdotes that I've been hearing, but like a lot of veterans are advocating for these medicines, and that gives them a lot of credit, it gives them the sinuses, a lot of credibility, because everybody knows now, or many, many know now that PTSD, suicidal suicide rates in the veteran community is really high. So it's helping this group of people, when they're dealing with really, really difficult to treat difficult to deal with mental health conditions. There is something there. And I think some people might dismiss it as like, Oh, this is just a fluke, like these are just still anecdotes, right. But we're seeing clinical studies, after clinical studies where some form of psychedelic is treating, treatment resistant depression or PTSD, like these conditions are really, really hard to treat. Were the substances that we have been using, you know, antidepressants or other kind of medication that has been prescribed, like, they're not working for the majority of the people that are using it. Yeah, right. But these substances, psychedelic medicine, with one session, it can have profound effects and benefits to the individual. So when people start seeing that data, as well as hearing these stories, it's hard to ignore, wait, there's something there, there's something about these medicines, that that is just going to attract and make, hopefully make people curious or question like, Wait, why is this helping so many people and doing so in a more in a very effective way to? And again, it's like, sorry, I just want to caution it's like these are done. The studies are done in clinical studies. So it's like it's done in a container, where there's certain protocols are being followed, and that it's combined with therapy as well. So it's not just the psychedelic itself is like they have their experience, but then they also have a therapeutic component to it.
Morgan Bailey 44:41
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, integration component to it, because, yeah, I mean, psychedelics has played a played a part of my healing journey. And I have never used them lightly because it's always work and it's, it's trans, it's been transformative. It's also been really hard and you face things that you know They're really difficult. And the integration piece because it's not just all fun and games, some some serious stuff, and it's work, it's real work and to integrate the experience after and to have someone there to help you integrate the experience is really critical. So I think that's one distinction when people think about using this medicine in terms of healing, it's not as simple as saying, Oh, I'm, I'm, you know, I'm gonna go take some mushrooms and go for a walk, I might, I might have, I'm not gonna say it may not have some healing effects, it totally might. But really, I mean, to have some sort of rigorous process around that, to have a guide with you a trained guide, to have some integration processes to help you make use of that. In in your life moving forward. You know, and, and just on, you know, just on the previous comment you made, you know, kind of round that the studies on MDMA. I mean, we, I think, so much more research is going to come out, because recent research on psychedelics is has been, has been leveling. I mean, I mean, it's been limited up until the past decade, but pretty much I mean, starting off, right, from the early 70s, up through the 90s, and even into the 2000s, like, the federal government has pretty much just stopped any, you know, any significant research happening on this. So I think as, as more research starts to happen, I think these things are gonna come more clear, and the therapeutic impacts are also going to become more clear.
Serena Wu 46:28
Right? Right. And I think that's the exciting thing about all of this is that in just two years, I've just seen video, I'm paying attention to it more, but just seeing a lot more clinical studies, new studies are coming out. And Maps is a lot further along. So is like some of the psilocybin clinical research as well as like further law, it's getting pretty close. And going back to social entrepreneurship, like Maps is structured in a way where there's like, it's a public benefit, but also has a nonprofit component, the nonprofit does all the research and the public benefit portion, they're going to be the ones, I think they're going to be the ones that are then going to sell the substance, MDMA, but then the it gets funneled back to the nonprofit to continue doing what research. And there's also another nonprofit that's doing clinical trials with psilocybin. And at the same time, there are definitely for profit models in this space. And it'll be interesting to see how it all kind of plays out, because the ones that have a particular mission, or certain values they want to drive, and their legal model reflects that they're going to be in a better position to actually fulfill those missions, right. Whereas the ones who are more for profit, I think they can have their mission that they're going after, and and pushing forward. Towards the end of the day, people are always always going to see like, well, you're you're always going to take the shareholder first, right? Because that's, that's what's required under your medical, your business model and the legal entity. And we'll see like, maybe there might be ways to create partnerships to further our mission. Yeah, we don't really know, I just think that it's really exciting again, because like the benefit public benefit corporation in California, it was It wasn't authorized until 2012. So it's hasn't been that long. Now, it's relatively new. So
Morgan Bailey 48:39
I'm curious. So you know, because as we kind of wind down here, I could talk to you for hours and hours about this. And, you know, I also want to give our listeners an opportunity to just to learn a little bit about radical law, your law firm and how you help people through that entity.
Serena Wu 48:57
So we were just, we just started as a boutique law firm, and we're focused on social impact and helping mission driven entrepreneurs, businesses, companies, founders, investors, things like that. We really work with startups in the startup space. My business partner, she has extensive experience with corporate, the corporate world and helping startups from basically formation to exit with an IPO. And she's worked with. She's worked with, like really big companies with different types of financing, doing different financing deals. I come from a more regulatory background, I think I've been helping a lot of the psychedelic startups and helping them in the initial stages with their very early stage fundraising, and just really helping them navigate through the regulatory component and basically understanding the legal contours of what they can do or not do in the psychedelic space. Then, the other two ways I've really worked in this space is also working with religious institutions, angiogenic churches. Because that's another way of operating and organizing around psychedelics. And that's like, that can be like its own talk by itself, and also really helping therapists and doctors as they figure out, how can they create their practice? But then also, can they scale? Like we talked about before? Because it is, it is an interesting question, and that that scaling piece is difficult. So helping them navigate their corporate practice of medicine laws, but also just general corporate rules to abide by and, and helping them like understand what they need to do legally to run their business in a successful way.
Morgan Bailey 50:56
Yes, and having gone through that process myself, and haven't gotten letters from the government saying, You didn't fill out this paperwork. It's really nice having someone there at your side who can advocate that for you.
Serena Wu 51:09
Right. And I know like for us, like we're starting out as like a traditional entity and LLP. But our goal is to be able to do what these businesses are doing. Because I'm not saying like people have to do a BIA benefit corporation from the get go. I'm not saying that, I think there's just different ways to do it, that could be more alignment with what the business owners like. And the investors to like what they want to do. And sometimes it might be that you start off as like a traditional in a traditional form. But then you might change to a different form. Like we've seen that happen with a lot of startups, because many startups are usually cost conscious in the beginning. And some of the things they want to do might be expensive.
Morgan Bailey 52:05
Yeah, absolutely. So looking forward, what what's next for radical law? And how can people get in touch with you if they want to learn how you can help their business,
Serena Wu 52:18
we are looking forward to expanding more like education offerings about social entrepreneurship. As well as offerings for education pieces, like about psychedelics, there is a lot that's happening in this space. And we're doing our best to put as much information as we can out there. If they want to get in touch with us, the best way is probably through our website, there is a forum for contact us. Or they can email at email us at info at radical law.com.
Morgan Bailey 52:52
amazing to me, I really appreciate the heart you bring to all of this the heart you bring to law, the psychedelic conversation, and just all that you're doing for the world. And I really curious to have a conversation with you and a year 18 months to see, okay, where we are now because I feel like this is a dynamically changing landscape. But I want thank you so much for the conversation today.
Serena Wu 53:17
Yeah, and I want to thank you so much for all the work that you're doing to basically broadcast amazing people who are working in this space and in the space and really not just psychedelic space, but the social impact space, and really having these conversations about profit meeting impact and what are the ways that we can do business so that's not business as usual.
Morgan Bailey 53:38
Thank you so much. I appreciate that and look forward to our next conversation. Likewise, thanks for listening to another episode of the Prophet meets impact podcast. If you enjoy this experience. Please subscribe wherever you find your podcasts and leave a positive review. You can also find out more about the podcast at www.profitmeetsimpact.com