This month the Wall Street Journal reported that Elon Musk's inner circle, SpaceX directors Antonio Gracias and Steve Jurvetson among them, is pouring tens of millions of dollars into making psychedelics mainstream. In July, Eli Lilly agreed to pay up to $3.8 billion for a synthetic nasal spray of 5-MeO-DMT. In April, the White House ordered the FDA to fast-track these medicines.

Why this story matters to us

For Johnny Tabaie, the founder of Holistic Sanctuary and Sanctuary Tulum, none of this is news. It is confirmation. He did not discover psychedelics on a billionaire's terrace. He found them in 2007, at what he expected to be the end of his life, after twenty years on the streets of Los Angeles and San Francisco and seventeen conventional treatment programs that did not work. The medicine reached him first. His brother, who died by suicide inside a licensed American rehab, was not so fortunate.

That is the origin of everything Holistic Sanctuary has done since 2011: no investors, no shortcuts, no seven-day retreats. Ibogaine, ayahuasca, DMT and psilocybin, one guest at a time, in programs of four to twelve weeks, with the medical team screening and monitoring throughout. Fifteen years later, on the facility's own internal record, there has been no death, no serious injury, and no one sent to an emergency room.

What the billions cannot buy

Lilly, AbbVie and Otsuka are buying molecules, because a molecule is the only part of this that can be patented. What cannot be patented is the preparation before, the supervision during, and the weeks of integration after. That is the work, and it is the reason the outcomes are different.

The full story, with links to the Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, CNBC, Forbes, NPR, CNN, Rolling Stone and TIME coverage, and to the reviews and video testimonials guests have left over fifteen years, is here: read the full article on Medium.

How the medicine at the center of Lilly's deal is given under supervision rather than in a nasal spray: medically supervised 5-MeO-DMT ceremonies at Sanctuary Tulum.

Nothing here is medical advice. Psychedelic therapies carry real risks and are not appropriate for everyone. Safety figures are reported from the facility's own internal records and are not independently verified. If you are in crisis in the U.S., call or text 988.