Recent York Mets owner Steve Cohen and his wife pledged $5 million to fund efforts to bring psychedelic drugs into the mainstream.
The seven-figure sum was donated by the Steven and Alexandra Cohen Foundation, a company founded by the hedge fund billionaire to encourage community service and philanthropy across a variety of sectors, including psychedelic research.
Foundations website praises the “lively ingredient in ‘magic mushrooms'” for its purported “positive and long-lasting effect on some of the world’s most debilitating and chronic conditions, including addictions, anxiety and major depression.”
The muse donated money to MAPS, the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Research.
The San Jose, California-based organization is financially rooted in pressuring the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to approve MDMA for the treatment of post-traumatic stress disorder.
The non-profit organization MAPS plans to submit a recent drug application for MDMA – also often called ecstasy or molly – to the FDA later this yr, the organization said Bloomberg.
![Hedge fund billionaire Steve Cohen donated $5 million to MAPS, a psychedelic non-profit organization that is working to get MDMA - also known as ecstasy or molly - approved by the FDA for treating post-traumatic stress disorder.](https://nypost.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/06/NYPICHPDPICT000012154273.jpg?w=1024)
If the mind-altering drug is approved by the FDA to help treat post-traumatic stress disorder, MAPS has pledged to create a patient assistance fund that might ensure access to MDMA for those in need.
Cohen’s $5 million shall be used for the fund if the FDA approves the move.
Nevertheless, if the FDA denies wider use of MDMA, the $5 million will simply function a subsidy to support MAPS’s work, according to Bloomberg.
The Steven and Alexandra Cohen Foundation website bills itself as “one of the largest private sponsors of psychedelic research in the country”, donating nearly $19 million to hallucinogenic drug projects, including a previously $5 million donation to MAPS, according to its website.
Representatives for the Cohens didn’t immediately respond to The Post’s request for comment.
Steve Cohen, 67, has an estimated net value of $9.5 billion – a fortune he amassed as the leader of the hedge fund SAC Capital Advisors, which closed in 2016 after the company pleaded guilty to insider trading allegations.
Although Cohen was never personally charged, the hedge fund was ordered to pay a record $1.8 billion in 2013, and Cohen was banned from managing outside money for 2 years.
![If MDMA is approved by the FDA, MAPS will launch a Patient Relief Fund that will provide access to the drug to patients who otherwise cannot afford it.](https://nypost.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/06/NYPICHPDPICT000009960716.jpg?w=1024)
Cohen returned to Wall Street eagerly in February 2018, launching a recent fund, Point72 Asset Management, which brought him greater than $1.7 billion in personal capital gains in 2020.
![The $1 million sum was donated on behalf of the Steven and Alexandra Cohen Foundation, which has already donated $19 million to psychedelic projects.](https://nypost.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/06/NYPICHPDPICT000013040828.jpg?w=600)
That very same yr, Cohen wrote a check to buy the Recent York Mets MLB for $2.4 billion. ESPN boasted the team owner as “a godsend” to Mets fans and “the richest owner in the game”.
Cohen has also spent a fortune on psychedelic research, but he is not the only businessman with deep pockets to achieve this.
On Wednesday, Toms footwear founder Blake Mycoskie pledged $100 million for the effort.
“I do not see a chance in my life to be an element of something else that would end a lot human suffering,” Mycoskie said earlier this week at the MAPS Psychedelic Science Conference in Denver, Bloomberg reports.