Founder and CEO of Drugventures, Dr. Aleksi Hupli has a PhD in Social Sciences specializing in sociology of drugs and drug policy, especially surrounding (medical) cannabis and psychedelics as well as cognitive enhancement. He completed his Master of Social Sciences at the University of Helsinki (2014) and his Master of Science degree in Medical Anthropology at the University of Amsterdam (2013). Hupli defended his doctoral dissertation at the Tampere University in 2021. In his dissertation, he studied so-called cognitive enhancement: students’ use of stimulants such as ADHD medications and other substances to support their studies, as well as microdosing psychedelics, and the medical use of cannabis.
After his doctoral dissertation, Hupli has worked as a postdoctoral researcher at the Emerging Technologies Lab research centre at Tampere University. His post doc research focused specifically on self-medicative use of cannabis, which was funded by the Finnish Cultural Foundation. In addition, he was a clinical coordinator and project manager at A-clinic Ltd. in a multicenter research project investigating psilocybin-assisted therapy in the treatment of alcohol use disorder. Dr. Hupli also holds various expert positions: he is a member of the EU Commission’s Civil Society Forum on Drugs expert group and serves as a board member in the Finnish Association for Humane Drug Policy (Humaania päihdepolitiikaa ry). He is also a vice-member of the board and co-founder of the Finnish Psychedelic Research Association (Psykedeelitutkimusyhdistys ry).
Dr. Hupli has published several academic publications as well as three popular science monographs in Finnish, one of which won the Science book of the year 2024 award by the Finnish Association for Scholarly Publishing (Suomen Tiedekustantajien liitto). He is often invited to different media outlets in Finland to comment on various drug-related issues.
Picture: Dr. Hupli presenting at Lisbon Addictions 2024. Title of the presentation was Cannabis policy and practice in Finland: from social media discussions to citizens initiatives