'DoubleBlind' Wants To Transform Our Relationship With Psychedelics

In Denver, as well as Oakland and Santa Cruz, CA, they have decriminalized psilocybin. You can’t buy it, you can’t sell it, but it’s not exactly a terrible thing to have it on you, and they certainly can’t throw you in jail for possession. But even with decriminalization, there are still limits. While it's OK to carry natural psychedelics—peyote, ayahuasca, and plants or fungi containing psilocybin—you can't use synthetic LSD or MDMA. 

What's more, this November, psychedelic mushrooms will go on the ballot in Oregon, potentially legalizing the substance in therapeutic sessions.

Now, you might bristle at the idea of people tripping in public parks or music festivals, but the truth is, psilocybin is highly beneficial when it comes to treating depression, trauma, drug addiction, and PTSD and what we’re seeing is likely the beginning of a moment. Similar to how many states have legalized recreational or medicinal cannabis, psychedelics could find their way into mainstream culture as new research dispels the negative connotations we’ve long associated with these drugs.

A media company and biannual print magazine, DoubleBlind covers the world of psychedelics, from the indigenous communities that have used these medicines for thousands of years, to the pharmaceutical companies developing drugs for therapeutic consumption. They even offer a course on how to grow magic mushrooms.

“When I was more focused on the cannabis beat, I used to say that cannabis is a way to talk about everything else,” says co-founder and DoubleBlind managing editor Madison Margolin.

“Medicine, policy, social justice, criminal justice, technology, international markets, and the same applies to psychedelics,” she adds. “The only thing is that psychedelic is an ‘industry’ five to ten years behind cannabis.” 

Both Madison and her fellow co-founder and editor-in-chief Shelby Hartman both went to Columbia for journalism, and while they attended at the same time, they never crossed paths. Their careers, however, would take them in the same direction, as they reported on cannabis for outlets like Vice, Playboy, and LA Weekly. Both journalists met while working at Herb, and the idea to start a publication took shape, as there was an emerging conversation taking place about the therapeutic qualities of psychedelics—Michael Pollan released How To Change Your Mind and even comedian-turned-meathead-Terry-Gross-interviewer-extraordinaire Joe Rogan talks about it on his podcast. There was a movement happening, and they wanted to explore and document its comeback, digging into how our perceptions about these drugs and medicines are transforming. 

And this isn’t just a fad championed by your ayahuasca tourist pal; the psychedelic drug market could potentially be worth almost $7 billion by 2027, fueled in part by drugs like Johnson & Johnson’s SPRAVATO, an eskatamine nasal spray used for treatment-resistant depression.

“We're devoted to healing,” says Shelby of DoubleBlind’s mission. “We believe that not just psychedelic, but alternative healing modalities that haven't been regarded seriously by the western medical community have a lot of potential to heal.” 

They also want to destigmatize psychedelics, and they do this with rigorous, critical reporting, unearthing stories that culturally resonate with readers while expanding our understanding of this world that we've gotten wrong. They’re also working on a database for folks who are interested in going abroad to have a safe, transformative experience and making sure the industry is fair and equitable, respecting the cultures that have been prominent supporters of these medicines for so long. Ultimately, they want to transform how we view wellness, taking these drugs out of the stereotypes that have long plagued them, and they advocate for making them accessible to the general public, particularly in light of pharmaceutical businesses and venture capitalists who are incentivized by profits.

In just three issues, they’ve shared stories about how psychedelics can help with gender identity and transition, the dark side of music festival culture, microdosing for your anxiety, DMT-based addiction treatment, as well as instructions on how to store mushrooms or even survive a bad trip.

This is not really for your psychonaut, hardcore adherent to LSD, though they’re certainly welcome. But you also won’t find evangelizing either; they’re speaking to anyone who has a passing interest in psychedelics, whether it's for recreation, finding a deeper spiritual connection, or, yes, a viable solution for fixing your brain.

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While the psychedelic renaissance is taking shape, you still can’t go to your local dispensary and purchase magic mushrooms.

At least not yet. 

Decriminalization isn’t sweeping the nation, but if you think we’re a handful of years away from seeing pharma companies pushing synthetics, then some form of legalization could occur. And that means brands are coming, some of which Shelby and Madison have seen, even if they're only in the preliminary stages of their genesis and are very hush-hush. While we're in the early days of how this might play out, cannabis is now very much a part of our world, and as more states continue to legalize recreational or medicinal marijuana, we now have a wide swath of brands in a variety of delivery methods, some that even have a premium, luxury quality to them. Just look at Canndescent, a high-end cannabis brand that does away with silly strain names and focuses on how users want to feel, a product that purposefully wanted to channel Hermès and Starbucks. 

So, if you have a drug that has the potential to change Western medicine as we know it, how do we better brand it and change how people view the drugs themselves?

If you look to DoubleBlind, you get a window into how those brands could potentially exist in the world. We carry so many misconceptions about what psychedelics and tripping are, and the most prominent hurdle is bridging that gap, taking the drugs out of the dark ages of the counterculture into something relatable and beneficial.

If you try to imagine the packaging or visual identity for a hypothetical psychedelic product, you might conjure up images of dragons or talking monkeys, a veritable nightmare factory of fractals, or the kind of glowing neon colors that would make Lisa Frank blush. Instead, because DoubleBlind discusses a taboo subject in much of America, they've opted for something tasteful. There’s a minimalist aesthetic at play that elevates the experience of the magazine, and while it is both colorful and expressive, it creates a path to understanding what these drugs are while also stripping away our biases about them.

Designer David Good handled the branding identity for the media upstart, and he remains their creative director. With a stunning layout and the serif typeface Recoleta that dominates their visual guidelines and brand touchpoints, along with captivating photo essays, a humanistic portrait emerges, one that tells you that the branding is very much intentional and welcoming.

Part of humanizing their approach meant talking at a high level of not only what Shelby and Madison wanted to accomplish with their brand, but figuring out who their audience was. “Whether it's the tissue paper that comes wrapped around the totes that you order from our website or the images on our Instagram or in the physical magazine, everything matches in terms of color and font and feel,” Shelby says.

“We didn't want an aesthetic that screams this is for psychonauts and psychonauts only,” Shelby says. Taken together, the look of the print magazine combined with the visual art and their content creates a prompt for their readers, one that allows them to think about what it means to have a revelatory, opening experience. “Something as simple as fonts or a color or an image can kind of change the way that people perceive a particular movement," Madison says.

“I think what we're doing is making this conversation more palatable to an audience who otherwise wouldn't be having it,” she adds.

It’s also fair to say that the psychedelic world hasn’t caught up to what DoubleBlind is doing, which is not to say that Shelby and Madison have somehow "disrupted" LSD and psilocybin; it’s just that no one has established or shaped how the space will look (aside from the sterile identities of Big Pharma "corporadelics"). Of course, you now have PR firms and venture capitalist groups that are specific to psychedelics, and, according to Shelby, lots of designers in the cannabis industry are now looking to pivot or broaden their skillsets by diving into this entirely new category.

And while they’re cultivating a nuanced conversation about healing, they also know they’re relatively new to this world.

“I think that there are a lot of really amazing organizations and nonprofits who have been working in the space for a long time who have played a much, much bigger and more significant role than we have or will ever play in destigmatizing psychedelics and birthing the psychedelic Renaissance,” Shelby says. “I think it's really important as newcomers in the space to be humble and to say we're standing on the shoulders of giants.” 

DoubleBlind isn’t just High Times for the psychedelic set; they're opening the door to a much larger conversation that continues to redefine what wellness and self-care mean. And while it could be some time before we see any movement around legalization or decriminalization, we know that the drugs have the potential to transform how we treat trauma and depression while expanding our own consciousness and understanding of ourselves.

DoubleBlind’s third issue came out last week and is available for purchase here.