The 2nd annual Colorado Psychedelic Cup took place this past weekend at the Seawell Ballroom in the stunning and centrally located Denver Performing Arts Complex of downtown Denver, Colorado.
The Psychedelic Club of Denver-organized event showcased the fruits of the Colorado psychedelic community produced with legal protection courtesy of Prop 122. This ballot proposition that was passed by Colorado voters in 2022 allows for the growing, gathering, and gifting of five natural psychoactive substances: psilocybin and psilocin (the predominantly recognized psychoactive compounds in ‘magic mushrooms’), as well as DMT, ibogaine, and mescaline. There were no ibogaine samples submitted for the Cup, though it is an area of potential interest moving forward, considering the law specifically provisions for this natural substance in its scope of decriminalization.
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Colorado Psychedelic Cup blends expo and awards
The event was broken into two parts over the course of Saturday, November 2nd. The Mindful Marketplace was a free showcase of local psychedelic organizations, activists, and entrepreneurs that ran from 11 am to 4 pm and included a number of breakout sessions such as speed networking, mushroom cultivation seminars, and more.
After a three-hour break, the tradeshow-style layout of the floor was transformed into the ticketed gala-style awards ceremony that ran from 8 to 11 pm. I served as the emcee of the awards portion of the event and, as such, was immersed in the action while conducting the ceremony’s flow.
The Psychedelic Cup showcased a range of analytical data sourced from hundreds of samples of psilocybin mushrooms tested by Tryptomics Elevated Natural Product Research lab, the testing partner for the Colorado Psychedelic Cup.
“While at Tryptomics, we’ve noticed Psilocybe cubensis mushroom potency increase over time; however, we didn’t expect to see nearly double the highest cubensis potency in the Panalaeous cyanescens mushroom samples submitted this year,” says Tryptomics co-founder Christopher Pauli.
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This push beyond the “ordinary” magic mushrooms that many people who have experienced such are accustomed to – such as “Golden Teacher” Psilocybe cubensis mushrooms – is part of the trend we’re seeing towards more potent, “exotic” psychoactive mushrooms (“Pan Cyans”) as the movement becomes more widespread.
A ‘symphony’ of active compounds
Psilocybin and psilocin content, as well as over a dozen other minor alkaloids, are often missing from the public conversation. While many people in mainstream society are likely familiar with “psilocybin” after a deluge of high-profile press and the declaration of this curious molecule as a ‘Breakthrough Therapy’ for Treatment-Resistant Depression by the FDA in 2018, the broader profile of compounds that synergistically contribute to the enigmatic effects of the “magic mushroom” experience are largely unrecognized even within the ever-growing psychedelic community.
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It turns out that while psilocybin is the best-known active compound in magic mushrooms, dozens of other “minor alkaloids” contribute to the “symphony effect” of the psychedelic mushroom experience. An alkaloid is defined as an organic compound within a plant or mushroom that has a pronounced physiological effect on humans.
Baeocystin, norbaeocystin, aeruginascin, and norpsilocin are alkaloids present within psychoactive mushrooms and were also analyzed and recognized in Cup results. As a parallel, morphine and quinine are examples of well-known alkaloids, though neither of these was present in any of the samples tested for this Cup.
Unique contest and VIP speaker cap off successful Cup
Awards categories for the cup were broken down into subcategories such as “Edibles,” “Extracts,” and “Biomass,” noting the different iterations of mushroom, cactus, and DMT samples submitted. There was also an award for “Most Homogenous,” referring to how standardized the dosing was in a chocolate or other finished product. This type of standardization in dosing is essential as the market evolves, considering that strain potency and dosing can vary considerably from one square of chocolate to the next or from one batch to the next in current market conditions.
The Cup featured a keynote presentation by esteemed psychedelic researcher Rick Strassman, who began conducting government-funded clinical research into DMT between 1990 and 1995 at the University of New Mexico. Rick has published numerous books on the subject of psychedelics, perhaps most notably his seminal work DMT: The Spirit Molecule in 2001.
I was fortunate to fulfill the role of emcee at the Cup and wasted no time in making light of this often heavy and polarizing time in contemporary American society. Infusing an element of humor and satirical panache into the scientifically dense testing data helped to balance the festivities and make them palatable to a general audience in addition to the hardcore science crowd present for the cup.
Colorado Psychedelic Cup a preview of what’s to come
Regulations governing the rollout of Prop 122 with a regulated access model are set to go into effect over the next few months, potentially tightening the restrictions on who is allowed to provide the substances outlined under the ballot initiative and narrowing the parameters of legally available psychedelic services.
For the last few years, a wild west psychedelic product marketplace of sorts has taken shape in Colorado as entrepreneurs and activists took advantage of the lax regulatory setting to create businesses that stretch the boundaries of the decriminalization protections afforded by the measure.
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It seemed particularly noteworthy to me that this event hosted up to a thousand people throughout the free mindful marketplace event during the day and the ticketed Cup awards ceremony in the evening, and not one disturbance occurred. The event ran smoothly and was unequivocally a “slam dunk,” yet there was a conspicuous lack of media attention afforded to this impressive and sizable psychedelic event.
With the surprising rejection of MDMA-Assisted Therapy by the FDA in the first psychedelic New Drug Application submitted to the FDA by Lykos Therapeutics during the summer of 2024, psychedelics have faced somewhat of a cultural backlash in the media over recent months. A more nuanced and tempered approach to the benefit and risk profile of psychedelic substances is definitely a good thing, but the fact that a major psychedelic event in a high-profile location flew entirely under the radar of the media feels like an oversight given the undisputable success and pristine safety record of the event.
There is so much incredible science emerging from the “psychedelic underground” that should be weighted as real-world data and given the same credence as expensive, as of yet largely unproductive clinical trials that cost millions of dollars and have yielded little meaningful insight beyond speculative research with no connection to real-world outcomes beyond the clinic.
The Colorado Psychedelic Cup serves as an inspiring case study of what can be accomplished when community access models and education are centered as the guiding ethos in the mainstreaming of psychedelics, and the third edition next year will surely expand upon the insights and data gathered this year to solidify the value offered by this independently organized and impressively executed event.
*This article was submitted by a guest contributor. The author is solely responsible for the contents.
