Tim Ferriss on Giving for Psychedelic Research: It’s Personal

For Tim Ferriss, the best-selling author, podcaster, and investor, the decision to devote his philanthropy to research into psychedelic drugs is built on a solid foundation of peer-reviewed science. “I’ve spent hundreds of hours interacting with researchers to get a better understanding of the science,” he says.

It’s also deeply personal. Ferriss’s best friend from childhood died of a fentanyl overdose. An aunt, after injuring her shoulder, became addicted to Percocet and alcohol and died last year. Recently, Ferriss decided to help fund research at John Hopkins to see if psilocybin-assisted therapy could treat opioid addiction.

What’s more, Ferriss himself struggled with depression and anxiety as a college student at Princeton. He tried “magic mushrooms,” which contain psilocybin, and found relief. “I was able to finally see things clearly,” he says, “to appreciate all of the incredible chance blessings that I experienced in my life.”

Ferriss, who is now 42, is quick to caution that no one should experiment with illegal drugs under uncontrolled circumstances. But like many, if not most, of the donors to psychedelic science, his passion is driven both by the head and the heart. Usona founder Bill Linton, Cody Swift of the Riverstyx Foundation, and David Bronner, who leads Dr. Bronner’s, which makes organic personal-care products, have all experienced or seen up close the healing potential of psychedelics.

Donors are also motivated because, they say, conventional treatments for the pain caused by PTSD, depression, anxiety, and addiction often fall short.

Drug overdoses killed more than 70,000 Americans in 2017, which is more than the number who died during the entire Vietnam War, Ferriss notes.

“These compounds are by no means a panacea,” Ferriss says. “But they show tremendous promise for serious conditions that currently have few or no effective treatments.”

Ferriss has formed a foundation and pledged $2 million of his own money to fund psychedelic science. “Having done a few years of due diligence,” he adds, “I’ve decided to push all my chips in.”