Aaron Rodgers Is Speaking at a Psychedelics Conference Alongside Some Unexpected Names

Aaron Rodgers has opened up in the past about how ayahuasca helped him personally. The newly minted New York Jets quarterback is now sharing that experience with others.

This week, the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies is hosting its fourth annual Psychedelic Science conference in Denver. It was a fitting choice of venue as the Centennial State became the second state in the U.S. to decriminalize psychedelic mushrooms last November. Rodgers is among the more than 300 invited guests who will be speaking at the conference about the future of psychedelic research and therapy. He'll be chatting with a podcaster today about his experience with ayahuasca and how he believes it has helped him as a football player.

He's not the only prominent face to be speaking at the conference this week. Former Texas Gov. Rick Perry, a onetime Republican presidential candidate, is also addressing the crowd, as is musician and actor Jaden Smith. Perry is an advocate for researching psychedelics' potential benefits for veterans dealing with PTSD, while Smith has previously spoken about his "ego dissolution" brought on by psilocybin mushrooms.

MAPS was founded in 1986 and is the largest U.S. advocacy group for expanding psychedelics research. By working to reach the full political spectrum, it will hopefully help those in power come to bipartisan solutions on decriminalizing these substances to investigate possible medical benefits. Psychedelic Science 2023 overlaps with World Psychedelics Day on June 20.

Rodgers reflected on how ayahuasca changed him in an interview on The Aubrey Marcus Podcast last August. The NFL star confessed it helped him with love for himself as well as others, including his teammates. "To me, one of the core tenets of your mental health is that self-love," he said. "That's what ayahuasca did for me, was help me see how to unconditionally love myself." He added that that self-love is a key component to be able to love others.

"The greatest gift I can give my teammates, in my opinion, is to be able to show up and to be someone who can model unconditional love to them," he shared. "Obviously it's important I play well and show up and lead and all that stuff. They won't care about what you say until they know how much you care."

The 2024 election is over a year away, but residents in states like California and Michigan are pushing to put magic mushroom decriminalization on the ballot next November. At the very least, if passed, it would allow scientists to legally examine the possible benefits they might bring patients without fear of arrest.