North Star Project MAPS
Executive Director, North Star Project Advisor & Alum, MAPS
Oakland, CA
Liana Sananda Gillooly is a pioneering leader and sought after strategist in the fields of psychedelics and drug policy reform. For the last 14 years, she has seeded and built some of the most influential organizations in the space, including the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS), Lykos Therapeutics, Chacruna Institute, Global Psychedelic Societies, and the Shulgin Foundation. Additionally, she worked on statewide campaigns to legalize cannabis and helped build the largest investor network in the cannabis industry, the Arcview Group. She currently advises companies and funders in the sector under Lodestar, LLC.
As Founder and Executive Director of North Star Project, Liana works across stakeholders to implement ethical frameworks that honor the profound responsibility of bringing powerful medicines into society. North Star bridges the psychedelic renaissance with next economy practices, recognizing that enduring healing requires reimagining our economic systems to prioritize regeneration over extraction, collective wellbeing over short-term profits, and stakeholder value over shareholder returns. Central to her vision is the understanding that advances in psychedelic medicine and drug policy reform must serve collective liberation, foster health equity, and uphold our sacred duty as stewards of life on Earth.
As a curator and convener, Liana has designed and built transformative gatherings including the world’s largest psychedelics conference in 2023, as well as numerous immersive art spaces that shape culture. Liana has shared her insights on stages like TEDx, SXSW, SOCAP, and Summit. As a death doula, she brings reverence for life's cycles and wisdom from sitting at the threshold between worlds.
Offer
I offer expertise in the field of psychedelics, non-profit management, and fundraising; insight into the challenges of implementing "next economy" practices at scale; banter in the name of inventing pranks and immersive art concepts; and peer support in the form of holding space for processing big feelings, especially grief from loss.
NEED
I am leading a cohort of ~20 companies who are seeking to enhance their ethical practices through a one year learning and accountability journey. Our goal is to co-develop ethical guidelines & best practices for our emerging industry. I am seeking any insights, practices, or frameworks that may support operating a cohort like this. I am interested in connecting with anyone building local community health centers that focus on mental wellbeing. The most favorable format to create safe and wide access to the careful uses of psychedelics will be held in local communities of care and on a peer to peer level, outside of government or corporate controls. I am interested in fostering the conditions for collectively stewarded community care centers (that not necessarily centered on psychedelic use) to emerge.
Call-to-Action
Learn the art of deep listening and peer support to engender a culture of care. Serve others: in your family, your neighborhood and the broader community (not only your immediate friend circle). Build a permaculture garden, connect with those who you share a watershed with, consider building health in your bioregion through coordinating together. Interrogate the axiom of shareholder primacy and perpetual growth. Believe a better way is possible. Make a clear and simple prayer for your life, repeat it often. Educate yourself about the risks and harms of psychedelics before trying them, then please approach only with reverence, respect, and a deep sense of responsibility. Stop abusing psychedelics. Listen to your elders. Move slowly.
