The conference portion of the festival is divided into 25 tracks, ranging from civic engagement and climate change to food and, yes, weed and mushrooms.
South by Southwest 2023 (SXSW) is right around the corner. And this year, those who attend the Conference portion of the festival have the option to learn in-depth about a controversial topic: drugs.
To make navigating the festival easier, SXSW has divided the conference portion into 25 tracks that each include a variety of sessions, including keynote and featured speakers. The track topics include, among others, “Civic Engagement,” “Climate Change,” “Food,” “Health and MedTech” and “Sports.”
But two tracks in particular might catch attendees’ eyes while they’re scrolling through the conference’s offerings: “Cannabis” and “Psychedelics.”
The Cannabis track at SXSW describes itself as an exploration of “the future of the rapidly-expanding cannabis industry.” The festival notes that cannabis and related laws vary, and programming in this track is “designed to inform attendees about this fast-changing industry and does not promote the use or sale of illegal drugs.”
The Cannabis track includes the following sessions, among others:
- Accelerating the Science of Cannabis
- The Art of Cannabis and Food Pairings
- Athlete/Stone: Pros Pushing for Cannabis Reform
- Behind the Headlines: The Real Story of Medical Cannabis Access in the U.S.
- Cannabis and Psychedelics: Where the Parallels Align and Diverge
- The Future of Chemically Derived Cannabinoids
- Green or Not? Is Cannabis Actually Good for the Environment?
- Which Political Party Will Legalize Weed?
All badges receive primary access to sessions in the Cannabis track. Learn more about the other sessions.
Of course, those who have attended SXSW before know that there has been attention shone on cannabinoids in the past – for example, a “cannabusiness” track was offered during the 2019 festival. But something that feels a little fresher this year is an entire track of sessions dedicated to psychedelics.
SXSW describes its Psychedelics track as a way to “explore how breakthrough research and a growing business environment will impact the future applications of these novel and traditional drugs.”
The Psychedelics track includes the following sessions, among others:
- Beyond the Hype: The Business of Psychedelics 2.0
- Building an Equitable Psychedelic Medicines System
- Featured Session: How Psilocybin Mushrooms Can Help Save the World
- Featured Session: To Trip or Not to Trip
- How to Study the Government’s “Most Dangerous” Drugs?
- The Psychedelic Renaissance: High Hopes and Rising Criticisms
- Psychedelics for First Responders
- Women in Psychedelics Talk Psychedelics for Women
All badges receive primary access to sessions in the Psychedelics track. Learn more about those sessions, or explore all the sessions being offered this year.
SXSW 2023 runs from March 10 through March 19 Learn more about attending the festival. (Full Story)