Jets' Aaron Rodgers receives warm reception at psychedelics conference

New York Jets quarterback Aaron Rodgers was quite popular as a featured speaker at the Psychedelic Science 2023 conference in Denver earlier this week. 

"I was moved," nurse practitioner Terry Braud told Jonathan Lehman of the New York Post about Rodgers' appearance. "I thought it was amazing that two people that have such standing in our society could stand up and talk about this and the potential." 

Per Jesse Bedayn of the Associated Press, Rodgers spoke alongside podcaster Aubrey Marcus at the psychedelics conference on Wednesday night. 

As Lehman noted in a different piece, Rodgers supports the legal approval of psychedelics across all 50 states and claimed during the conference that "hundreds of NFL guys" have reached out to him about his use of ayahuasca, a plant-based psychedelic tea. The NFL and NFL Players Association informed Pro Football Talk in August 2022 that the use of ayahuasca isn't banned under any league policy. 

Rodgers generated headlines this past December when he said ayahuasca and psilocybin (mushrooms) allowed him to see "the other side," which made "the idea of death more of a passage and less of an ending" for the future Hall of Famer. Professor Draulio B. de Araujo from the Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Norte in Brazil has researched ayahuasca and told Lehman about what Rodgers may have experienced. 

"In ayahuasca, the visions, most of the time, come with your eyes closed," Araujo explained. "Very intense with very different natures and contexts. It can vary from geometric images to a conversation with someone that you know. … A lot of times people feel as if they have died, and then they are reborn from that experience." 

Douglas Finkelstein, a Seattle Seahawks fan who works with what is known as An Empathic Society, also attended the conference and somewhat trolled the Jets over the fact the franchise hasn't won a Super Bowl since January 1969 while speaking with Lehman. 

"For Jets fans specifically, how to cope with misery," Finkelstein said about what those unfamiliar with psychedelics could learn from Rodgers' message. "For football fans as a whole, that really, at the end of the day, he is a human being, he has problems like all of us do, and we all have to find what works best for us to tackle those problems, pun intended." 

If nothing else, at least some New York media members will likely have a little fun with Rodgers regarding the conference once players report for training camp later this summer.