Psychedelic Professionals Meet: BOULDER

Psychedelic Professionals Meetup Groups are in Boulder, Denver, and Fort Collins! Let's keep Colorado on the leading edge of psychedelic medicine work by coming together in community to learn, share, and grow. Each Psychedelic Professionals Meetup Group starts with an informative topic relevant to research, practice, policy, or activism around psychedelic medicines, followed by open discussion and an opportunity to connect with like-minded others.

For September, we are excited to feature a very special event series in Denver and Boulder on ibogaine!

From Protocols, Prognoses, and Pathologies to Play: Ibogaine, Harm Reduction, and the Future of Psychedelics

A public dialogue with Dimitri Mugianis, Kevin Franciotti, and Ross Ellenhorn

There is a movement in our midst that is increasingly guided by a decidedly anti-psychedelic ethos. It prizes normalcy over non-conformity, habit over novelty, the application of general labels to unique experience, functioning over playfulness, and sees human suffering as something to be solved by magic pharmaceutical bullets—not through human care and attentiveness.
That movement is the psychedelic movement.

At the same time, Colorado is at the forefront of a new debate: should ibogaine, a powerful psychedelic with a long history of use in addiction treatment, be part of the state’s regulated natural medicine framework? With local policymakers and communities weighing risks, benefits, and access, these foundational conversations have never been more urgent.

In this event, Dimitri Mugianis, Kevin Franciotti, and Ross Ellenhorn guide participants into an improvisational dialogue, exploring how psychedelics are being pulled into the very systems they once challenged—and how we might shift course. Together, we’ll consider what it takes to return to their more radical, relational, and truly psychedelic potential.

We’ll ask: What happens when we reduce the unpredictable to protocol? When we elevate substances over relationships? When care becomes correction? When transformation becomes treatment? When healing is measured only in function?

And what would it mean to return—to practices that embrace spontaneity, nuance, and emergence? To relationships that hold rather than fix? To a space that values not the promise of more plastic brains—but the presence of more playful souls?

Let’s leave not with definitive conclusions, but with a boatload of living, evocative questions—questions that stir curiosity, invite connection, and make room for more dialogue: a spirit, in other words, that we can comfortable call psychedelic.

Dimitri Mugianis – A renowned sound ceremonialist, harm reduction pioneer, and cultural provocateur with over thirty years of experience facilitating transformative psychedelic ceremonies. Dimitri has been featured in major media outlets including The New York Times, Rolling Stone, Vice‑HBO, and This American Life for his groundbreaking underground ibogaine work and his fearless advocacy for people in extreme states of mind and marginalized communities. A former musician whose life bridges indigenous traditions, punk sensibility, and radical community care, Dimitri brings a rare depth of improvisation and artistry to every ceremony. His work dissolves the line between ritual and rebellion, creating containers that are both deeply compassionate and fiercely alive.

Ross Ellenhorn, PhD is a psychotherapist, sociologist, and author of three books and numerous articles. He is known for challenging protocol-driven approaches to mental health by championing relational, improvisational models of care. Ross created and now leads the most robust community integration programs in the United States—programs dedicated to helping individuals experiencing complex experiential and behavioral events live outside of institutional settings as they recover. A national voice in harm reduction and the dignity of risk, his current book, Purple Crayons, explores the healing role of play and imagination—ideas further developed in his Time Magazine article, “What Psychedelics Can Teach Us About Play.” Ross is also the co-founder, with Dimitri Mugianis, of Cardea, a psychedelic program that resists the clinical and procedural frameworks now dominating much of psychedelic care.

Kevin Franciotti – Licensed Addiction Counselor and advocate for a humanistic approach to recovery, whose curiosity in the personal narratives of those he works with seeks to co-create containers where shared insight, play, and emotional honesty can unfold. Kevin’s background in psychedelic harm reduction includes volunteering for organizations providing peer support services at live music events and festivals around the world. For over a decade, he’s provided leadership and service as co-founder and Board President for Psychedelics in Recovery, a mutual aid community supporting members’ right to define their own sobriety and integrate psychedelic experiences in their program of recovery. Kevin’s co-presentation with Nowak Society Board Member Lucia Terpak on Ibogaine & Addictions Treatment in March, 2023 provided an overview about ibogaine following the passage of the Natural Medicine Health Act.
Suggested donation of $10, payable at the door. Door fee goes toward paying for the rented venue and supporting the non-profit work of The Nowak Society. If you have ideas for topics or presentations for these meetup groups or would like to be more involved, please contact us!

Finally, if you have a brochure, flyer or business card you want to display, please bring them! We kindly request that anything advertised is legal and aboveboard, but otherwise we're happy to make space for you to share your offerings with the larger community.

For more information and to RSVP, visit:
[Events | Nowak Society | Colorado (thenowaksociety.org)](https://www.thenowaksociety.org/events-1/psychedelic-professionals-meet-boulder-2025-09-18-19-00)