High Times just recognized District216 as a psychedelic third space, and we are feeling it all the way down to the floorboards of the District House.
The piece is called “Psychedelic Gold Rush: Picks and Shovels,” and it looks at the businesses and organizations building the infrastructure around psychedelic culture: media, education, advocacy, cultivation, testing, and community spaces. In the third spaces section, High Times describes District216 in Santa Barbara as a membership-driven psychedelic social club with year-round programming built around education, networking, art, music, wellness, and psychedelics. They place us next to Los Hongos Cafe in Portland, a café and plant bar built around fungi, food, and connection.
The phrase “third space” is the heart of it for us. A third space is the place beyond home and work where people belong. For many of our members, District216 is the first room where they can speak openly about their experiences and be met with curiosity. Seeing High Times name that function as part of the psychedelic ecosystem tells us the need is real and the world is noticing.
The article also points to a cultural shift we feel in the room every week. It cites Gallup data showing only 50% of Americans ages 18 to 34 said they drink alcohol in 2025, down from 58% two years earlier. People are looking for places to gather that center connection, conversation, and ideas. Our Wednesday night District House events bring together roundtables, workshops, healing circles, and fireside chats, with speakers like Edward Crowe and Stephanie Karzon Abrams, whom High Times mentioned by name.
One line in the piece stood out to us. These spaces, High Times says, do not require a mature legal psychedelic market to function. They offer memberships, events, education, and community, and they give people a real place to meet before legal access catches up. That is how we have built District216 from day one: education first, community at the center, and a standing invitation for anyone curious to walk in and feel at home.
This honor belongs to everyone who has shown up. It belongs to the members who return week after week, the speakers who share their knowledge, the partners who believe in what we are building, and the first-timers who took a leap and came through the door. Members from their 20s to their 80s share the same room here, and that mix is a big part of why the space works.
If you have been curious about what a psychedelic third space feels like, come find out. Join us at an upcoming District House event, explore a membership, or step into the conversation online at app.district216.com. Your place at the table is ready.
Read the full High Times feature here.
Thank you for being the reason this space exists. 💜
