Meet Zappy Zapolin, The Psychedelic Concierge Who Turned Lamar Odom On To Ketamine – Forbes

Mike "Zappy" Zapolin is a filmmaker, entrepreneur, and investor in the psychedelic space. He ... [+] predicts that soon, many more will hold the title of psychedelic concierge.

As a psychedelic concierge to the stars, Mike Zappy Zapolin doesnt just rub shoulders with celebritieshe isa shoulderforthem.

When I first heard that moniker, I thought, oh, thats interesting, saysZapolin, who has helped celebrities like Lamar Odom and Michelle Rodriguez navigate psychedelic experiences with drugs like ketamine and ayahuasca.

I realized that its pretty accurate. When you go to a hotel and you say to the concierge, where should I go to dinner tonight? theyre going to ask you certain questions, says Zapolin.

Its the same sort of thing, only the questions are a little different.

Where a hotel concierge might ask about dining preferences or ambiance, a psychedelic concierge will go deeper, says Zapolin: Whats your intent for doing this? What are some of the traumas that youre trying to heal from? (And like any good hotel concierge, he recommends that a psychedelic concierge only makes recommendations about experiences theyve had themselves.)

While he has no medical training, Zapolin is a filmmaker, entrepreneur, and investor in the psychedelic space and predicts that soon, many more will hold the title of psychedelic concierge; not just because psychedelics are becoming more popular, but because society is in desperate need of alternative solutions for mental health conditions such asdepression, anxiety, and PTSD.

In his latest film,Lamar Odom: Reborn,Zapolin introduces the NBA star to a protocol of psychedelics and daily practices to help him overcome his battle with depression and addiction.

Zapolin says he learned quickly that Odom wasnt the spoiled celebrity he had been made out to be in the media. He lost his mother at age 12, just seven years before being awarded his first NBA contract. Not long into his career, his grandmother and six-month old son both died on the same day, just a few years apart. Then in 2015, Odom experienced a near-fatal overdose and fell into a coma, suffering several heart attacks and strokes.

There was so much trauma that hed never dealt with and so he did whatever he had to do to forget about it, says Zapolin. Though hed never had an experience with hallucinogens before, Odom was willing to give psychedelics a try with Zapolins guidance. He began with ketamine, a dissociative anesthetic shown to have fast-acting anti-depressant effects.

During a ketamine session shown in the film, Odom sits up gently, eyeshades intact, and repeats to himself, Im reborn; Im reborn.

The next step for Odom, according to Zapolin, was to take a trip to Mexico to doibogaine, a powerful alkaloid derived from the root of a shrub native to Gabon that has been shown to help interrupt opioid dependence. (The schedule I substance is unregulated in Mexico.)

The last part in the formula is a daily practice, so meditation, therapy, breathing; things like that, that are going to reconnect you to present moment awareness, says Zapolin. That formula is going to lead to a conscious transformation. We went through it all with Lamar, and it was beautiful to see.

Some viewers might be drawn to Zapolins films for their celebrity appeal, but the director hopes the impact they leave goes further. His goal is to reduce stigma and make psychedelics less scary.

Lamar Odom is featured in Zappy Zapolin's latest film, Lamar Odom: Reborn.

My motivation is to have someone finish my movies and say, you know what, I could handle that, he says.

Im always asking myself; how do I bring the fear down? What do I have to show people without candy-coating it? What can I do to frame this in a way that if somebody is suicidal, or struggling with addiction or depression or anxiety, that theyre going to be comfortable enough to show their family and say, Can you watch this with me?

So far, the film has been streamed more than 15 million times.

Zapolin believes strongly that psychedelics have the power to interrupt the ongoing global mental health crisis, which has only been exacerbated by Covid-19. A futurist who found himself on the leading edge of the dot-com boom after a stint as a VP at Bear Stearns in the early 90s, Zapolins interest in converting the rest of the world into psychedelic believers doesnt stop with his films.

In 2020, he co-founded KetaMD, a telemedicine platform offering at-home ketamine treatments. He is also the chief visionary officer atPsycheceutical, a company with two delivery patents that allow psychedelic drugs to bypass the stomach, liver, and blood-brain barrier, increasing bioavailability and potentially eliminating unwanted side effects.

One patent uses layered nanoparticles and enables the delivery of multiple medicinal compounds at different rates. We can time-release different layers, so we could start with an anti-nausea drug, and then five minutes later, have ketamine, and then maybe an hour later, end with CBG, says Zapolin of the patented technology.

The second is a patent for delivering compounds at the back of the neck, directly to nerves at the base of the brain. Were doing this right now in a trial, says Zapolin. It eliminates the psychedelic effect, but they get the neurogenesis of the ketamine metabolizing, and it comes on immediately.

Rather than competing with other companies in the space, Zapolin uses the word coopetition to refer to Psycheceuticals place in the industry and says if its patents can help make another companys psychedelic drugs more effective, thats a good thingespecially if it puts psychedelics on more peoples radar.

How do we get the doctors, the medical establishment, and the government to be okay with this? It has to look like a pharmaceutical, and thats what Psycheceutical is doing, he says. Its like the movies. How am I going to get someone to think about ketamine and ibogaine? Ill give them to a celebrity.

More here:

Meet Zappy Zapolin, The Psychedelic Concierge Who Turned Lamar Odom On To Ketamine - Forbes