Business

Finding a Fortune in the Market for Bliss

Let’s talk about getting high.

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RESTRICTED -- Finding a Fortune in the Market for Bliss
By
John Schwartz
, New York Times

Let’s talk about getting high.

Not me, personally — my hold on reality is tenuous enough without chemical alteration. I stopped smoking pot in college because it made me feel stupid, and I already felt plenty stupid without it.

As for you, do what you like. But please focus for a moment, as I am, on selling drugs. Without going to prison!

More and more states are legalizing marijuana for medical and even recreational use, and Canada is doing so effective Oct. 17. That is creating a booming young industry in North America. Arcview Market Research sees gazillions of dollars in future sales and enormous investment opportunities.

The Washington Post recently talked about marijuana competing with alcoholic beverages and eventually becoming the focus of what it called “inebriation dollars.” In Canada, the fight for inebriation Loonies is about to begin.

People seem to be getting rich on this already. Sadly, I’m the kind of guy who jumps into investments after the smart money has already gotten out. The good thing is that I recognize this. I’m about slow and steady contributions to my 401(k), which is why I will never be rich but may one day be comfortable. Still! A boy can dream, even hallucinate.

Here’s my brilliant idea: Why stop at pot? That’s just a gateway investment.

I’m not suggesting that we legalize opioids or amphetamines. They are so addictive and ruinous in their effects that it would be like — well, legalizing tobacco.

No, what I am suggesting is embarking on a new venture: hallucinogens.

True, mind-altering substances are already hot. In Silicon Valley, such drugs are being used to open up creativity and reach “the next level of innovation,” Kara Swisher has written, with appropriate skepticism. John Markoff has shown in his book, “What the Dormouse Said,” that drug use is part of the counterculture roots of Silicon Valley. And author Michael Pollan explores mind-altering substances in his newest work, “How to Change Your Mind.”

There’s a growing interest in the medical uses of tiny amounts of hallucinogenic drugs — called “microdosing” — to deal with depression and a range of other problems. This month, researchers at Johns Hopkins published a paper that suggested that psilocybin, the magic in magic mushrooms, be legalized for pharmaceutical use. If weed is any guide, can legalization be far behind, first for medical use and then for fun?

This sounds like a new age of introspection, a dawning of enlightenment — or, as I see it, a promising market.

Again, I won’t be partaking and you might not, either. My own experiments were unpleasant. This was back in college; it was Austin; it was the ‘70s and I make no excuses. Those experiences showed me that there are people for whom these drugs will always be a bad idea.

But some people might benefit. Shouldn’t it be our humanitarian goal to make money off them? If these drugs catch on, consumers might be taking a look at the use of their “travel dollars” for a different kind of trip altogether. Why not turn psychedelics into psychedollars, and rake them in?

Everybody gets his or her own 6-foot white rabbit, like James Stewart in the movie “Harvey.”

It depends on what you’re into. Instead of a rabbit, you could have a rabbi. Or a robot. Or a talking radish! The possibilities are endless. And the business prospects are totally blue sky — or even purple sky — at this point as well. (And, cinephiles, I do know that the central question of “Harvey” is whether the rabbit exists. But stay with me here, please.)

In fact, I’m sure that somebody has already figured out how to combine psychedelic markets with blockchain, the enticing digital ledger technology, because the blockchain fans think that everything is better with blockchain, and blockchain will fix everything. In fact, these folks sometimes sound as if they are already heavy users of psychedelics.

I called an expert, Morgan Fox, the media relations director for the National Cannabis Industry Association. (Where there’s money to be made, there’s a trade association.) Fox noted that, at this early stage, the best opportunities in the cannabis field are direct business investments. (It is possible to invest indirectly through exchange-traded funds, though their long-term record as moneymakers has yet to be established.)

He gave me a practiced spiel. “Cannabis is already widely available,” he said. “The question is do you want it to be controlled by businesses, or do you want it to be controlled by drug dealers?”

This was promising, so I asked him about creating a public psychedelics market. Brilliant, I asked? Or merely perspicacious?

He response was, to put it mildly, cautious. While “there’s a lot of evidence” to support the idea of hallucinogens as potentially therapeutic, he added: “It’s not something that NCIA weighs in on as an organization, and I think, not as pressing an issue, socially.”

OK, I’ve dealt with people who don’t share my visions before. Really, though, in this brave new world with all its stresses, shouldn’t we take this far-out idea farther still? Be bolder? Isn’t this what our society needs?

After watching the recent U.S. Supreme Court nomination hearings, could any of us be blamed for wanting some of Aldous Huxley’s Soma — the drug in his dystopian novel, “Brave New World” — to block out the stress and sit at our desks, humming softly, with faint smiles on our faces?

Despite my personal aversion to drugs, I might benefit from this stuff. My imaginary rabbit wants to argue about politics, and it’s getting stressful. Perhaps it is time for Soma.

Why stop at bliss when we could go to full-on blitzed? Better yet, restful slumber? Ottessa Moshfegh recently wrote a novel, “My Year of Rest and Relaxation,” about a woman who basically sleeps for a year. When I first heard of it, it sounded annoyingly absurd. Now it seems like something a lot of us would shell out plenty for.

I asked Fox about the potential market in oblivion. Though we were on the telephone, I sensed him backing away from me gently, graceful as a Michael Jackson moonwalk.

“I don’t really have any position on that,” he said, and seemed relieved when the call came to an end.

My genius, as so often happens, has gone unrecognized.

But I am looking forward to tasting the waters of Lethe, and enjoying sweet, rabbit-free sleep.

Just remember to wake me in time to vote in the midterm elections.

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