People First: How MAPS Centers Humans in Psychedelic Policy, Research and Education

I am not a psychedelics advocate. I’m just a guy living with cancer. And I consider myself an advocate for the cancer community. While I see tremendous value in psychedelic medicines to help people living with cancer, I'm an outsider to the psychedelics advocacy community. 

From that outside perspective, I've noticed something: psychedelics conversations can quickly become ideological and even divisive. Arguments about decriminalization versus legalization. Debates about medicalization and cultural appropriation. Disagreements about which compounds should be prioritized. 

These conversations matter. They're ensuring we move forward thoughtfully. But sometimes those debates abstract away from the people who will actually be impacted. Away from human lives and real suffering.

When I sit in the cancer center waiting room, I see my sisters and brothers living with cancer. I see so much suffering. The exhaustion etched into faces. The fear barely concealed behind brave smiles. And I'm reminded of the tremendous potential psychedelic medicines have to reduce that suffering.

I always want to keep those humans in view. Because this work isn't ultimately about psychedelics or the psychedelics movement. It's about people.

During my recent podcast conversation with Ismail Ali, co-Executive Director at the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Science (MAPS), I was struck by how deliberately he centers human lives in MAPS's work. Not abstract ideologies. Not movement politics. Real people seeking relief from real suffering.

Forty Years, Three Pillars, One Mission

MAPS is celebrating its 40th anniversary this year. Four decades of sustained effort to create legal access to psychedelic medicines through three interconnected pillars: policy advocacy, scientific research, and public education.

"We've also realized over the years that education, policy, research - they all really influence each other," Ismail explained. Policy decisions enable research. Research generates evidence that informs education. Education shapes public opinion that makes new policies possible. "So we're really looking at the continuum," he explained. 

But as MAPS enters this new chapter, Ismail described a fundamental shift. After years focused on FDA approval for MDMA-assisted therapy, Ismail shared that MAPS is asking bigger questions: "What is MAPS and what is the movement?"

His deeper question reveals their core values: "How do we help the coordination and the growth and development of all of these emergent critical voices and diversify the breadth of the conversation in a way that feels like integrity and care about the people who are suffering?"

People who are suffering. That's the North Star guiding all three pillars.

"In Islam, and I think in Judaism," Ismail shared, "there's this idea that if you save one life, you save all of humanity. If one person gets impacted by the possibility of just being able to live the rest of their lives with their family and with the community, then the policy really matters. But at the end of the day, that’s where people live their lives."

At the end of the day, that’s where people live their lives. Not in policy papers or research protocols. But in moments with family. In bodies experiencing pain or relief. In minds grappling with fear or finding peace.

Policy: Who Decides What Risks We Can Take?

Mental health and suffering sit at the heart of policy conversations about psychedelics. And for cancer patients, two federal policies matter tremendously: Right to Try and the Freedom to Heal Act.

Right to Try legislation allows people with terminal diagnoses to access experimental treatments that have passed basic safety trials but haven't yet received full FDA approval. The concept makes intuitive sense: if someone is facing imminent death, why should the government prevent them from trying medicines that might help? But Right to Try has been unclear about whether it includes Schedule I substances like psychedelics. Recent legislative efforts have aimed to clarify that these psychedelic treatments should be available to people who are dying.

The Freedom to Heal Act takes a different approach, creating pilot programs and centers of excellence to access psychedelic-assisted therapies. While focused on veteran populations, these programs could establish models that benefit cancer patients seeking similar access. The bill builds infrastructure and gathers real-world data while providing care to people who need it now.

Both policies ask a fundamental question: who decides what risks a terminally ill person can take with their own body? This fundamental question is acutely familiar to people living with cancer. 

"If someone is nearing the end of their life or they're really aware that it is coming," Ismail reflected, "then what are you trying to protect them for? If they are seeking experimental treatments or yet to be approved treatments, what's the logic of preventing that possibility?"

But here's the danger Ismail identified: policy work can become "dehumanizing and abstract." When policy conversations happen at population levels, they can become "increasingly more and more abstract and you see some of the most extreme conclusions in politicians who are just so detached from the day to day."

This is where patient voices become essential. Cancer patients have made impossible choices between treatment and quality of life. We've weighed severe side effects against potential benefits. We've lived with uncertainty as our constant companion. That lived experience should shape policy decisions.

Research and Education: Widening the Lens

The research pillar is what many people often associate with MAPS: conducting clinical trials to establish safety and efficacy. Decades of work demonstrating that MDMA-assisted therapy and other psychedelic medicines deserve serious scientific investigation.

But Ismail discussed how MAPS's research vision is expanding beyond individual mental health diagnoses, describing "precedent-setting research that looks at care for people who don't have a DSM diagnosis, and care for non-mental health issues like peace-building, couples therapy and so on."

The research lens is widening from individuals to relationships and community wellbeing. This matters for cancer patients because our suffering isn't neatly contained in diagnostic categories. And because suffering extends to impact our families. We're navigating existential questions while trying to maintain relationships with people we love. We're watching how our disease impacts our families.

MAPS’s education pillar makes all this work accessible. Policy and research generate mountains of complex information. Education translates that complexity so people can actually use it. As Ismail put it: "We should know how these massive systems impact our lives and that we can change them. Humans created the rules and humans can change them."

Humans created the rules. Humans can change them. But only if we understand how those rules work.

Orchestrating an Ecosystem

After 40 years, MAPS is stepping into a new role: orchestration.

"There's now dozens of organizations that are taking on these specific aspects and in many ways better than we could," Ismail told me. "So where we're at is, how do we help the coordination and the growth and development of all of these emergent critical voices?"

MAPS isn't trying to play all the parts anymore. Different organizations bring specialized expertise: cancer-specific groups, veteran-focused organizations, indigenous medicine keepers, harm reduction educators, policy advocates, research institutions. Each plays their part.

But movements need coordination. Someone to hold the larger vision. Someone to help different voices harmonize. Someone to ensure the work builds toward something coherent rather than devolving into fragmentation.

That's the role MAPS is growing into. And they're doing it while keeping actual humans at the center. Not as abstract case studies. Not as data points. But as people whose flourishing hangs in the balance.

For the cancer community, this orchestrated approach means we're not alone in advocating for access. MAPS is coordinating policy efforts that create legal pathways. Research that establishes safety and efficacy. Education that helps oncologists and patients make informed decisions. All three pillars working together, all centered on reducing human suffering.

I'm grateful for MAPS's 40 years of work. For their human-centered approach across policy, research, and education. For their vision of orchestrating an ecosystem that can serve the cancer community and countless others seeking healing.

The symphony is building. And at the center are the humans this work is meant to serve.

Let's journey together.