The Trip Chauffeur: 5 Questions for Sunshine Rides’ Alan Currie
Currie discusses his vision for a psychedelic transportation service.
Alan Currie credits psilocybin with giving him his life back. For years, he battled depression, but after reading Michael Pollan’s How To Change Your Mind in 2018, he spent two years carefully researching psychedelics and self-administered his first dose in 2020. After that, he said, he felt better, and he continued his self-treatment with a microdosing regimen based on well-known microdosing advocate Jim Fadiman’s protocol. In 2022, when a doctor told him he was pre-diabetic and would need to begin taking medication if he didn’t lose weight. So he lost more than 100 pounds in two years — and credits psilocybin and specifically, Paul Stamets’ “Stamets stack” microdosing regimen with helping him maintain the optimism and motivation to press ahead. Psilocybin, he said, gave him a different lens with which to view the world, one “not clouded by my history.”
By 2023, Currie was ready for even more big changes in his life. Over the years, he’d worked in corporate sales and training, but now recognized how stressed that work made him; he wanted to work in an area that he felt made more of a contribution to the world. Helping people access psilocybin was one of his passions, and after talking with his friend Kelly Milan, owner of transportation company Sunshine Rides, the idea hit him: he wanted to provide rides to people going to psilocybin sessions. Colorado’s Natural Medicine program, which just launched earlier this summer, requires clients to have a transportation plan, and strongly recommend that the plan include getting a ride rather than driving themselves home.
Currie calls the idea “embryonic,” but he’s hoping it will grow. The Microdose spoke with Currie about his vision for a psychedelic transportation service.
Why might someone want a dedicated ride service to and from a psilocybin appointment?
Everyone knows how important set and setting can be, and your mindset begins the minute you start approaching the journey. That includes travel to your session. I’ve heard from a lot of people at ketamine clinics that many people are grabbing an Uber to or from sessions, or trying to drive themselves home. No one really seems to be happy with that mode of transportation, but there aren’t many choices. But jumping into a Sunshine Rides car — where all of our drivers are background checked and trained to be certified transport specialists — adds a layer of sensitivity that Uber drivers wouldn’t have.
What does Sunshine Rides currently do?
My business partner has been operating Sunshine Rides for more than 30 years on Colorado’s western slope. We’re based in Grand Junction, and 80% of our business is providing non-emergency medical transportation to people who need to get to doctor’s appointments, dialysis treatments, and recovery centers — a lot of that is covered by Medicaid. We have a fleet of several hundred vehicles, and the company provides around 5000 rides a month.
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Would your employees or your fleet of vehicles need to be adapted for those kinds of sessions, compared to rides to medical appointments?
I would like to introduce an additional layer of sensitivity for these programs by developing best practices for drivers working with clients going to a ketamine or psilocybin session. When I was at the MAPS conference, I met someone from the Psilocybin Assisted Therapy Association in Oregon, where they’re gathering resources on best practices and are doing trainings for facilitators in Colorado. I’ve put them in touch with an organization called NEMTAC, the Non-Emergency Medical Transportation and Accreditation Agency, which is interested in developing a curriculum for non-emergency medical drivers on this. Together, the idea is to establish national standards and best practices to ensure safe and reliable transportation services.
Do you envision your clients to be individuals booking their rides, or businesses hoping to provide their clients with rides? Or both?
I was actually just on the phone today with a probation officer who said sometimes people can’t get to medical appointments, an intensive outpatient program, to their court dates or mandated drug testing, and when they can’t find a ride, they’re hitchhiking. In my current role I am working on developing accounts with regular clients; for instance, Colorado hospitals, particularly in rural areas, urgent care centers, recovery centers, or dialysis clinics, so that people can get to those appointments reliably. We’d want to take that existing account model and build on its infrastructure and perhaps provide vouchers to clients.
But we may also work with clients directly. I’m imagining that if you book a retreat or session, you can perhaps have the option to book a ride with us as well, just like when you’re booking a flight, booking sites often will ask you if you want a rental car, too.
How much do rides cost, and is insurance reimbursement possible?
Many of the medical rides we provide are paid for by Medicaid. Some ketamine clinics take Medicaid as well, so it’s possible. As for the cost of our rides, rates are regulated by a price book, which is regulated by the Colorado Department of Health Care Policy and Financing. The base is $6 a pick-up and then several dollars a mile, depending on what region it’s in. The total can be anywhere from tens of dollars to hundreds, depending on how far people are being driven.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity and length.
