The Trip Report by Beckley Waves
The Trip Report
#15: Brandon Deroche: How Social Movements Form and Grow
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#15: Brandon Deroche: How Social Movements Form and Grow

Welcome back to The Trip Report Podcast, a production of Beckley Waves, a Psychedelic Venture Studio.

Today, I am speaking with Brandon Deroche, founder of the PORTAL—the Partnership of Responsible Trippers Advocating Legalization. 

PORTAL is a project from Propeller, the social impact and advocacy organization Brandon started more than 15 years ago to drive awareness and action for social movements. 

I was intrigued when I first learned about Propeller–and their methodology for advocacy and advancing causes.

Propeller collaborates with big-name artists and musicians to leverage their platforms to raise awareness and inspire action.

With PORTAL, Brandon and his team are taking this approach to advancing the psychedelic cause.

I wanted to speak with Brandon because I love a good acronym, and PORTAL may be the best I’ve ever heard—and because I wanted to learn more about how social movements form and grow.

In this episode, we discuss:

  • Brandon’s experience working with some of the biggest celebrities in the world, like Justin Bieber, Lizzo, and Brian Cranston

  • His experience working with the spiritual teacher Ram Dass

  • The cultural adoption and destigmatization of psychedelics through artists with massive audiences—like Dua Lipa, Post Malone, and Zach Bryan

  • Leveraging these voices for psychedelic education, harm reduction, and best practices

  • The eventual political polarization of social movements

  • And much more

And now, I bring you my conversation with Brand Deroche.

Listen to the episode on Substack, Spotify, Google or Apple.

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The Trip Report by Beckley Waves
The Trip Report
The Trip Report is a podcast and newsletter about the business, science, and policy developments of the evolving psychedelic field. While the main organizing theme is psychedelics, it is really about the many different domains that are converging to bring about this field and the assembly of what many believe to be a “New Paradigm” in science, medicine, and our understanding of the human experience. Our goal is to foster an educated and informed psychedelic ecosystem, and to do that, we will feature in-depth conversations with scientists, entrepreneurs, investors and stakeholders at the forefront of the psychedelic renaissance.