Power, Ethics, and Silence: The trouble in paradise of the Vancouver psychedelic community

As originally published by Reality Sandwich

By Mia Cara Cosco

As someone born and raised in Vancouver, BC, I grew up in what many tourists have called a “paradise” (before they visit the downtown Eastside). As I grew up, I realized in my 20s that this West Coast posturing wasn’t for me. When you think of Canada, you may think of healthcare for all. Newlyweds and retirees. I joined MAPS Canada (MAPSC) as a volunteer during my studies at The University of British Columbia (UBC) and my starry-eyed days reluctantly became more nuanced over the years. 

This is just my story and my attempt to speak a difficult truth. Please know that this is what happens when unchecked narcissism continues even in a small and idyllic corner of the world. I write as someone embedded in this community for my entire adulthood as a spirited organizer, advocate, and survivor of ridiculous encounters. While the past five years have illuminated abuse in the psychedelic-assisted therapy world in the Lower Mainland of British Columbia in Canada, you haven’t heard these stories before–because I haven’t told them yet. 

Let this be a reminder to anyone that either needs to hear it or wants to hear it that the failure to repair ruptures and the missed opportunities for real maturity is meant to raise discomfort. Remaining silent serves nothing but the status quo and feeling isolated or alone is, well, not very psychedelic.

In 2016, I met a young man at a university event: Michael Oliver. I recommended him for a leadership position at the UBC Psychedelic Society in 2016. I attended MAPSC volunteer meetings when I could, outside of work. A position came up to be the next Executive Assistant at MAPSC in 2019 after the last EA had stepped down. I interviewed for the position, however I realized in the interviewing process that the position would not be important for my specific career trajectory. Once I passed, Michael Oliver was the next in line and was hired.

I also met two other colleagues for the first time in 2019: older women that I saw as potential guides for navigating a space that I still felt fresh within. Their names are Zoe Helene and Pamela Kryskow. Zoe was someone that I collaborated with for an event once I had met her at the annual Spirit Plant Medicine Conference at UBC. She hosted a women’s gathering and, due to the sheer popularity of the event, we spent most of the time listening to Zoe speak before other women spoke their introductions and intentions in what seemed like a circle of 50.

Pamela was someone that I collaborated with as a speaker for an event, knowing that she was connected to another psychedelic researcher that I know. Together, those two spoke at an event of mine. I didn’t get to connect with Pamela much in my preparation, but she was content to speak at the event, and I was dealing with what I can only describe as Zoe’s micro-management. In everything from specific words used in the description of the event to the brightness of the poster used to market it, she was highly opinionated. I had been warned from another friend of mine who had experience collaborating with her.

Moving forward to the charity event where the mission could be completed, the event was a success. However, Zoe couldn’t make it in person. I was completely fine with this because I trusted everyone from the caterer to the videographer.

I relied on a popular event platform. However, it’s funds in ticket sales from my event also became delayed. Late-night hostile texts from Zoe began and escalated quickly. She threatened disparagement campaigns aimed at damaging my reputation in the psychedelic community at large. I wasn’t frightened about my own reputation but I was worried about her fixation on putting me in my place. I am three decades younger than her and she enjoyed repeating that to me. It didn’t bother me. I had been transparent in my communications. I remained responsive. The charitable donation was sent to her within a month as planned.

The psychedelic community in Vancouver and across Canada once saw MAPSC as the frontier institution for legitimizing psychedelic-assisted therapy. 

We would pass the hat after meetings in its humble beginnings; in order to maintain the momentum for these scientists to continue investing in this organization, we would need to keep the engine going somehow.

However, in 2020, MAPSC was dangerously close to chaos. What happens next should be no surprise for historians who know these cycles well: In March 2020, reports surfaced that MAPS Canada had misrepresented the credentials of an unlicensed therapist, who was later accused of sexually abusing a participant in an MDMA-assisted psychotherapy trial for PTSD. 

I remember an individual close to the controversy said: “It doesn’t matter if she was the most seductive, manipulative succubus in the history of mankind. As a therapist, you do not sleep with your patient–especially during a groundbreaking, landmark psychedelic research trial.”

Shortly after this erupted and many key characters implicated fell to the margins, I found something insidious in the Vancouver community: a small psychedelic echo chamber known as The Flying Sage.

I was happy to agree to co-facilitate a psilocybin journey with Michael. I was content that he asked, as we were colleagues. I let him know of the limits of my abilities and communicated up front with him. He appreciated my disclaimer. We agreed on a set rate and time agreement for my co-hosting and began. After the ceremony concluded, Michael asked me on a date. I declined. However, Michael did not take that well. 

A few months later, when I had heard negative and untrue rumours about me, I was able to trace the source back to Michael. When I met him in an East Vancouver coffee shop soon before the next Spirit Plant Medicine Conference, he admitted it, saying, “I can’t admit that I’m saying nice things about you.” When I asked him why, he said that he couldn’t trust me after denying a date with him. I was never paid. He did not uphold our agreement.

None of this would have felt problematic for me if The Flying Sage wasn’t growing in Vancouver. It seemed that many mutual friends were attending events and becoming members. I thought, amidst all the flyers I was seeing, that I should see what the hype is about, despite my negative experience. This was me gaslighting myself. At a breathwork ceremony I attended in early 2023, I was confused for 2 hours:

Participants, all friends of the organizer, called each other “angels” and giggled in micro-dosed glows with pashmina scarves and harem pants on. The praises for this amateur breathwork ceremony being charged way beyond its skill level was laughable. It didn’t matter to me how many times people threw around terms like goddesses and queens.

There was a controversial letter penned by two women who co-led the MAPSC diversity committee in late 2020. I remember I went on a run at Pacific Spirit Park with a fellow psychedelic researcher. I asked what she thought of everything and if she was worried about MAPSC. She turned to me and said, “they’ll figure it out. And if not, they need new leadership. It’s time for them to take accountability.”

In the Spring of 2022, I saw a brief email from Pamela in response to a video of mine on YouTube (that she had been sent by someone else).

^ I want to erase my name out of this screenshot so as to remain anonymous.

I didn’t immediately respond to it because I double-checked my video: the information was cited and the sources were available in both the video directly and in the description. 

This was awkward. I was confused why such a well-known colleague in the psychedelic space–and so high profile–was concerned enough with my YouTube video on my small-time channel, especially when my sources were cited?

Close to the Summer, I decided to respond, having heard nothing since this email:

While packing for Burning Man, I got a response from her:

I made sure to put it to rest:

All good, apparently. Apology received. I saw her at Burning Man with Paul Stamets at the Zendo volunteer training that I go to almost every year and we peacefully greeted each other.

I had heard of a New Year’s Eve party hosted by The Flying Sage a few months after Burning Man. What made it so memorable and went so late? MDMA dispensed to every single person. When a trusted friend (and many other friends) reported this to me, I immediately asked: Was there a waiver circulated? Participant screening? Harm reduction measures taken?

I was met with shrugs. “No.” My jaw dropped at the recklessness. I had heard there was roughly 100 signups and it was a public event. If you bought a ticket, you got in. That was it, that was all. What if someone there, unknowing of the health risks of MDMA, had a negative interaction in their body? Had a bad reaction?

In late 2023, I accompanied a girlfriend to (what we found out) was a ketamine ceremony by The Flying Sage, knowing our experience with this molecule was safe. During the ceremony, Michael was playful and flirtatious. He confessed his childhood crush on my friend (which he had done the same with me not so long ago) and was shamelessly affectionate. I knew his girlfriend and I was nervous to say, don’t you have a girlfriend?

I had already made plans to move out of Vancouver by the Spring of 2024. Vancouver has hosted the annual TED mainstage event for years now at the Convention Center downtown, bringing together the likes of Bill Gates and the Clintons. This year, Rick Doblin from the original MAPS was in town, and I was tasked to help lead the volunteers at the afterparty.

On my way up, I ran into Pamela in the elevator. She was quiet and skeptical of my involvement; I clarified with her that I was leading the volunteers to help cater this event. I waited upstairs in the penthouse venue, organizing the food and waiting for the volunteers to park and help out.

Pamela came over to me. She volleyed insult after insult for a parody video I had published on Instagram months earlier. In the video, I was poking fun of the over-spiritualized language in the Vancouver psychedelic scene. I was playful and many people, Michael included, reacted with laughter and appreciated the comedy.

Not Pamela.

As my throat tightened and my calm responses were politely cut off, she accused me of slandering people needlessly, especially her boyfriend. When I explained that that was not my intention and that she didn’t understand my satire or the sarcasm in the script, she cut me off: comparing me to Trump and threatening me with showing the video to others. After the initial shock wore off, my nervous system regulated into calm confusion.

Again, this was an older woman, respected and revered in this space (that I was seeing the cracks in), trying to put me in my place over a misunderstanding. Harassing me and hazing me with no one else around made me feel silenced and frozen. I reacted inside of a trauma response. 

The event started. I shielded myself with my friends and overseeing the catering. Later on, she spoke about creating “a field of love” and accepting praise for her work with Roots To Thrive. I felt that I had to leave before the talk finished. I was tired and overwhelmed by her. I wasn’t willing to participate in confrontations framed in silencing and gaslighting. I wasn’t in the mood to applaud this “professional.”

When I moved to Boston, I sat in the Summer sun of 2024 to speak with a colleague about the community here. They mentioned Zoe: event organizers confirmed Zoë’s broader pattern of controlling, micromanaging, burning bridges, and leveraging high-profile partnerships through her husband, Chris, for access while sabotaging relationships. I reflected on the particular harm when an elder woman engages in patriarchal-style silencing of emerging younger women.

We have not spoken. I have seen her present virtually at Spirit Plant Medicine Conference and I have heard of health struggles on her end. I wish her the best.

With Michael, I sincerely hope he is conducting an ethical and completely transparent business. 

With Pamela, misogyny and patriarchy have led me to reflect on unethical behaviours disproportionately silencing women and weaponizing reputation against them. Whether in underground facilitation or institutional leadership, there are no clear systems of repair or redress. Silencing mechanisms remain in reputational attacks, armies of yes-men, and deliberate gaslighting. The myth of psychedelic utopia exists in belief systems of Vancouver and beyond.

There is a need for third-party accountability structures in psychedelic networks. I encourage a call for cultural maturity: psychedelics cannot heal society if psychedelic communities tolerate abuse, coercion, or silencing internally.

I speak my truth not to sensationalize but to highlight patterns that I and others have endured. I write this to acknowledge others who have been silenced or intimidated, encouraging them to know they are not alone. I am a stand for a psychedelic renaissance grounded not just in medicine, but in ethics, equity, and accountability.

About the Author: Mia Cara Cosco is a Boston, MA-based writer, researcher, child behavorial therapist, and psychedelic community leader. While studying psychology at UBC, Mia worked at the Childhood Lab and saw how childhood grief became disorders in adulthood. After learning about psychedelics, she co-founded the Psychedelic Club. In 2025, she presented research at Psychedelic Science and Burning Man of QC’s Code Red, looking at how psychedelics alleviate PMDD. She is a children’s behavioural therapist and writes for Psychedelic Spotlight and New Lines. Her essays can be read at “The Beauty of Grief” on Substack.