Leonard Pickard on Making LSD and the Brotherhood of Underground Chemists

any type of drug. Hello, Psychoactive listeners. You know, one of the things I love about doing this podcast is that I really get to pick any guest I want, who I think is really smart and has interesting things to say. And you may have listened to the episode with Nora Volcale, the longtime headed National Student Drug Abuse or the ones with Dan Chieroni, the UCSF professor experient

overdose Randy wild Um. And this one is somebody who ranks at the level of brilliance of any of those previous guests, but whose life has been quite a bit different. His name is Leonard Picard, and Leonard Picard is known if you'll look him up on Wikipedia or anywhere else for being allegedly I should say, perhaps the world's greatest producer of LSD in the twentieth century. And now Leonard

is not just that, of course. I mean, he's a brilliant chemist helps explain why he allegedly did what he did. But he's also somebody who ended up with a master's degree in the Kennedy School did really interesting drug research.

He's also somebody who was sentenced UM in the early two thousands to two life sentences in a federal prison and spend something like two decades behind bars in a maximum security prison, and then just got out at the very beginning of this year, I think in good part because of COVID and a sort of compassionate release, although I think there was also a campaign UH to try to get him released early as well, and he remains under supervised release, which also will inhibit a bit what

he can say about his life and his activities. So I've asked Leonard in talking about this, I'm gonna be blunt and asking him every question. He's going to do his best to um answer as frankly as he can, but where he'd feel that there might be some risks, he might answer a little more in the abstract um, and so you the audience should take his comments as maybe or maybe not reflecting his actual real life world experience. Now, Leonard, hello,

thank you so much for joining me on Psychoactive. Well, hello Ethan. Lovely to see you again. A year ago we couldn't have this conversation, so it's um particularly meaningful to be able to speak with you after so many years. I know I've been wondering about my ability to try to get other people who actually are currently behind bars to be on a podcast, but I'm imagining most prison systems in America. Maybe other countries went to allow that. Now, you know, you and I we first crossed paths very

briefly in the mid nineties. I think it was it's some psychedelics conference in the Bay Area, and then had no contact thereafter for you know, really since you got out. And then one of my fellow producers said, hey, how about this fellow letter Picard, and so you and I have now had a chance to spend some time together, both in New York and in Boulder, Colorado. You've introduced me to some of your friends and contacts in the psychedelics investment space. But I wanted to start off really

by um just asking this. When we talk about your reputation as being the biggest or one of the guest uh produces of LSD in global history, can you say, well, yep, that's true, or are you in a position where it's really hard to you know, own that at this point, or whether maybe it's actually it's actually not true? My goodness. Uh, First of all, I should preface this for your audience

and the Ethan. I had a quite a rollicking conversation until midnight some weeks ago in Boulder, Colorado, and which we went over quite a few things that perhaps can't be talked about on this podcast. Um, but I do remain under federal supervision, and h I must maintain my position under oath at federal trial that the allegations are our millarague government conjecture. Okay, fair enough, Leonard. So let

me just go back to your early days. I mean, as people who are allegedly involved in lucy drug production and distribution are at all, yours is a really kind of specialized area in that you were a chemist by many accounts of in chemist and became uh you know, involved in this. Uh you know in making LSD a drug, which is it's not cocaine, it's not heroin or meth amphetamine. I mean it sort of is in a different category in a way. And I just wanted to ask you

if you go back to your early years. I mean, you grew up in a family I'm not sure which city it was, but with a father who was a lawyer and a mother working for the U S Center Disease Control. You've got a scholarship to Princeton, but at some point in your late teens early twenties, you must have got an interest both in chemistry and in psychedelic substances. Well, yes,

I can speak to that a little Ethan. Uh My interest goes back to perhaps nine three, when the only marijuana available was that from jazz bends in New York City. The young people didn't have access. Then things slowly changed and one began to see in cannabis more widely available. At that point, Uh, I left Princeton in order to join what then was a youth revolution spanning the globe. You recall the song if You're going to San Francisco,

were flowers in your hair? And so I was part of that entire youth movement moving west, but also in New York City, London, Rome, throughout the world, youth were experiencing an unusual, very specialized, very potent neurochemical and having subjective experiences that were profound and unanticipated, often very spiritual or religious. So I was part of that early movement. Yes, in nineteen sixty three, you're eighteen. Then Timothy Leary is

kind of emerging on the scene. There's already been quite substantial LSD research. And it's not just LSD, right, there's also mescal in out there in mushrooms and things like that. But does LSD play a special role when you're talking about this set of keem nicles from right to the beginning or early on, was mescaline is of great interest

to you as LSD? Oh? Not not at all. Of course, Mescaline reared its head among the artists of Paris in the twenties and thirties an Twinine are Toad, for example, all through Huxley's days, but I, of course had no access to a pure Mescaline is exceptionally rare, and of course the dosage is several hundred milligrams, so that the first large scale deployment of a specialized psychoactive such as LSD had to be simply that compound, which is potent

at a hundred micrograms um ten million doses a kilogram. So it took this incredibly potent substance to be manufactured by small cadres of underground chemists to deploy ten million doses throughout initially northern California and across the United States, and thus began the revolution of the sixties sixty six sixties seven, and the advent of the Beatles, the shift in music. No one had ever heard songs such as I Am the Walrus was all Detroit bebop, So music changed,

aren't changed. Spontaneous social gatherings occurred, thousands of people coming together peacefully with no police around, no bands, simply sharing sunlight on each other on a warm afternoon. We know LSD, right, I mean, it's created somewhat by accident by chemist Albert Hoffman working for a pharmaceutical firm in Switzerland in three and it's legally available until at some point in the mid sixties or so, so we're people largely obtaining it

through legal or diverted legal sources. Up until that point, well, it was made of legal in sixties six, and before then one could actually buy small quantities from some of the manufacturers in Europe, most prominent among them Sandoz Laboratories and Bossel, which is where Albert Dresser Hoffmann did his inventions. So occasionally magic Grahams as they were called, would appear in the United States, and that's ten to twenty thousand

doses and one gram. And these were very carefully shared among young and psychoanalysts and UH saxophone players and abstract

impressionists and theologians and quite a wide spectrum of humanity. Initially, well, there was a particularly fascinating character I think back in the late fifties early sixties named al Hubbard Right, a businessman who got his hand on some thousands or tens of thousands of doses and supposedly made it his mission in life to go around dosing prominent individuals five or

six thousand people, business leaders, famous actors, UH intellectuals. Did you ever cross paths with him in those days or did you have any special insights into this pioneer sort of Johnny apple Seed of LSD, I'm aware of Hubburry, but I did not cross paths with him. He uh was cauite, a remarkable character, and would often wear a boy scout suit and carry a faux handgun, sort of quasi militaristic spoof on you know, oppressive control regimes. He

was a trickster, had a great deal of fun. But I did become well acquainted with a very beloved psychiatrist named John Beresford, who passed away about John is famous for bringing in the magic Graham into the United States and turning on, or rather exposing, if you will, to the subjective effects of LSD stunning array of scientists and

physicians and uh seekers of every kind. Uh huh. Well, you and I also had a friend come in Alexander A ka Sasha Shulgin, who you know some would describe as one of the most brilliant chemists ever to devise psychedelic oriented substances in his backyard lab. We're both you and I were visitors in Lafayette, California, back when he

was still alive. Now he's most known for discovering a rediscovering M D M A a K ecstasy and its properties, but also inventing to CB and writing some remarkable books with his wife, An children about this. When do you meet Sasha Schulgin And how does he l end up becoming I guess, something of a mentor in your life. Oh, my goodness, Sasha is a truly beloved figure, and frankly I loved him. I first became of his work at

twenty one. I'm standing in Malancroft, the old Malancroft Laboratories at Harvard, and looking through a bound volume of the Journal of Organic Chemistry, and looking at a set of compounds called pylamans, which were psychoactive. And there was this most unusual paper describing the production of ethyl amans, written by an author who's affiliation was not dal Chemical or this or that university, but simply three Shulgen Road, Lafayette, California.

And what is this? And it described the first human effects. It was unusual that prestigious journal such as Organic Chemistry would publish human work, but Sasha did it. That was oh goodness. UM sixty six or so. And I followed every paper that Sasha wrote with his UM co worker Peyton Jacobs, the third for twenty years, but of course never met the man. I was too awed by his capability and statue, and uh at that point I was at Stanford and had a problem involving the synthesis of

Mesklin that was intractable. I was looking at this particular process and it was just no way around a particular synthetic hurdle. And I thought Sasha would be the only person to whom one might dare approach and ask about this. So I braved, writing a letter to Shogun Road in Lafayette, and rather quickly came back an invitation personal invitation signed by Sasha to visit his class at that time in toxicology at San Francisco State, although we also taught at Berkeley.

Thus I appeared, and there was Sasha six five of extraordinarily quite thick mane of hair, with the devoted and always in attendance, and their daughter Wendy with her mane of golden hair. And there was Sasha in front of the class, the great smiles, scribbling these exotic structures on

the chalkboard of the most elegant molecules. And he had a certain lee about him, as though he was respectful of these creations that he had made, and understood how they reached rather deeply into people's hearts and minds, and somehow conveyed that to all of us. I I can you're caall going through that entire semester with a smile. M.

We know. I just want to say to our listeners it's important for me when I mentioned the name of Sasha Shulgin in this conversation with Leonard, or as I have in conversations with other guests, it's because I do think it's important to appreciate who's some of the founders um in drug research and drug policy were, and Sasha Shulgin really was this sort of god father of psychedelics research, and in some respects his wife Anne was the godmother because she was his co writer on so much of

what he did. I'm just trying to get a sense of your life then, right, So you're born in forty five, sixty three or eighteen, You spent a little time at Princeton, you started hanging out in Greenwich Village, the jazz scene, the marijuana scene. You head out West San Francisco and

everything's up there. There's all this leaning to psycholics figures, there's ken Keisi and uh so in that period in your twenties, you know, you don't end up getting arrested for anything until you're in your thirties or forties or something like that. Are you basically just hanging out? Are you a research astician? Are you working for pharmaceutical firms? Are you, to the extent you can say, engaged in beginning to produce some of these things, either legally as

part of projects or not so legally. What can you tell us about your twenties in the West Coast and wherever else? Well, you're very kind to ask me, Ethan, you know, but I I can't say that I'm part of a secret society or than anyone else was. But I think if one were part of a secret society, and in those days one sort of had to be to avoid being persecuted, that it would be most honorable to maintain that secrecy even when there was no longer any need for it. Um. I lived in the mountains,

the far Mountains, the Great Forest, the snow fields. I lived in the far deserts. You could hear the cavities bark and the full moon upon the desert. I lived near the oceans, the ceaseless waves, and I studied. I haunted the libraries of Berkeley and Stanford and San Francisco State San Jose State as much academy as I could gather looking at structurals of molecules, studying what today is psychedelic space, but in those years was almost a forbidden topic.

One did not mentioned these drugs at the risk of one's career, as you well recall. So I became well studied and all aspects of the chemistry and pharmacology of of these compounds, and of course naturally broader aspects of pharmacology, pharmaco kinetics, toxicology. UM I gathered several hundred undergraduate credit from multiple institutions. And in between these forays into reading and thought and practice, UM I lived in most remote

areas imaginable. I see. So even in talking about what you personally were doing independent of what other people in the UH what's the phrase the brotherhood of underground chemists? Um, we're engaged in UH so, and I all I can understand that and defer to your need to be cautious about that. Let me take the conversation this way. What would have been involved in setting up an LSD lab? You know, what are the risk the challenges, what's surprisingly easy,

what's surprisingly difficult? Well, let's of course a very uh deep question. You're asking me about what is required to establish a clandestine laboratory, And of course I can only speak to that giving my present situation by projecting it upon third parties. People that I have interviewed underground miss that I've interviewed, and I cannot of course speak to it personally. But I can't address the topic given those caveats to establish an underground laboratory, and I wouldn't do

this at home. Kids were cars First of all, the rather dedicated faith of a small group of people who have an effect given their lives over to this particular art. Because even through the present day, with bill in dollar corporations proliferating, we must recall that all these materials are still Schedule one, no known medical use for the most severe penalties for an underground laboratory, easily mandatory life without possibility of parole. So I certainly want not suggest anyone

entertained the prospect of doing so. However, those that braved this assembly first collected a small handful of the fateful and experience that had spent their entire lives in the field, and then accumulating the appropriate glassware and technical instruments which could be quite extensive and would fill a room four walls of a hundred and twenty scriffoot room to the ceiling, or several rooms. Appropriate liquids, reagents, exotic specialized glassware, some

of it handmade by pharmaceutical glass firms. A very elegant and sensitive process. Not difficult, more difficult than methamphetamine. But the difficulty arises not so much in the conversion of say lysergic acid to LSD, but in scaling up from a few milligrams to hundreds of grams or kims a world quantity, if you will, ten million doses, twenty million doses. That requires highly specialized equipment and practices, and some of

those practices are not simply technical. One may find oneself in a moon suit with protective face shields and respirators, and glove is made of material which won't permit dissolution by any solvent. One may find oneself in this regalia hundred miles from the nearest paved road, with pump swirring, and at three in the morning, bathed in red light to prevent any breaking of the molecule by normal light.

Synthes is conducted under noble gases such as argon Uh surrounded by things which remind the manufacturer of the responsibility that the manufacturer has for the effect of this substance and potentially millions of minds. And that is not something that's simply a nine to five job and one forgets about and goes home. That's the responsibility which consumes every

moment of one's day, weeks, months, years, one's life. Within the setting, there may be votives, depending upon one's religious tradition, cantles and sins, fires, burning music playing ranging from Gregorian chant to Hildegard von Being into Provian music to chance by Maria Sabino, the Mazatec Curandera in Ohaka. And within

this great assembly of light and sound and music. A number of the principal chemists in the past, Osley Nick sand of the Brotherhood Tim Scully who is still with us, would at the moment of conversion from lysergic acid L s D, the moment when suddenly ten million hits becomes psychoactive, that very five minutes, they inevitably, and Nick mentioned this pup likely the inevitably would pray, and their own tradition, Nick would pray standing others would Neil place their hand

upon their action kettle, and asked that this substance be a true medicine, and the hearts and minds of those that used it, there would be a medicine to heal, to alleviate suffering throughout the world, to act as a

kind of grace upon us. You know, later, when I hear you describe this, part of what it sounds like is almost a hybrid of On the one hand, I love the series Breaking Bad, right about the meth amphetamine manufacturer and who does the highest quality meth amphetamine, and who has this great underground lab in the end, and all of this stuff, and they have to wear suits in the way that you describe, in a high level

of meticulousness and pride in their expertise. Yet another hand, there's this element in what you describe that resembles the preparation of psychodelic and psychoactive substances by shaman's in traditional society. It would it be fair is that an accurate thing to describe it? In some sense that hybrid? Well, I have to challenge the comparison with Breaking Bad. You know,

methamphetamine is um a malaise upon humanity. I've lost kind of a number of individuals I've seen come into federal holding facilities emaciated and picking at their skin from weeks and months of intravenous methamphetamine. So it carries a kind of if you will evil karma. Yeah, now I understand that. I think there's also the difference between meth amphetamine is

being used in a medicinal frame and these others. But I take your point about that, Leaving aside what you regard as the immorality um and that many people regards the immorality of producing methamphetamine for the illicit market, is it fair to say that there's some element of a hybrid between those two things, the modern day lab and the spiritual tradition of the you know, indigenous healers who

are producing these substances. Absolutely, I you know, I'm sure Walter White never prayed that his product act as a grace upon the users. At the same time, there is a shamanic aspect, I suppose underground chemist of course recognize a great responsibility that the material be pure and uh

used appropriately and conveyed appropriately. I think that that may be best summed up in a statement that I think Tim Scully was Nick San's partner made not long ago and is agreed upon by a number of underground manufactors, that the effective acceptance may reflect, in some small way, the intent of the chemist. What the chemist has in their heart may reflect in the heart of the user. And so it's imperative that one ascribed to a certain

purity and a certain compassion. We'll be talking more after we hear this ad. The names you mentioned before, I mean Owsley, there are books now written about him, and I think people sometimes refer to a Owsley L. S DD as a found and a draw somewhere. You know, it's particular qualities. I think I remember watching a documentary about Nick Sands of late. I hadn't know about Tim

Scully till I was researching for doing this episode with you. Um, and I don't know how accurate these books and documentaries are. Could you just give us a little more of a sketch about each of the three of them? Um? What was special about each one of them in that broader brotherhood of which they were a part? Yes, I can speak a little bit too each Um. I was ay fondly known as Bear and the Grateful Dead touring community,

hence the Dancing Bears. Ungrateful Dead Logos was responsible for the first major distribution or drop of LSD and the sixties, perhaps one million doses distributed as double dome white lightnings or press tablets with Batman on it. The first million doses he he made about five hundred grams over his life a million doses, as he self reported. Bear was also created the wall of sound for the Grateful Dead shows, and there enormous number of subtranean tapes which have just

surfaced of Bears recordings of early Dead. He died in Australia. About Nixon, quite a flamboyant and wonderful individual, was the subject of a recent film The Sunshine makers strongly recommended to get a feeling for. Nick and Tim were arrested for making about ten million doses. I attended the trial I think in seventy three and listened to Tim testify, and shortly thereafter Tim went to prison for two years and Nikki absconded to Puna, India where he continued his

manufacturing and became quite a underground figure. Extraordinary individual and very much outspoken and out front and would not limit his his views on matters. Nikki truly seminal figure, and they did uh two kilograms about ten million doses. Nikki over his lifetime produced thirteen kilograms about a hundred and thirty million doses. Is there anyone else who left out? Well,

those are the primary figures UM. There are a number of individuals who manufactured a quilo or two UM Todd, Spenson and Boston, those that I wan't name because they were never arrested. The world of Clandis and LST manufacturer is UM small, perhaps a handful of individuals, five or ten individuals worldwide. It's been that way for fifty years, generally centered in San Francisco, but labs can just as easily be in Belgium or Italy. But if the were

key people in Europe, they never got arrested. There have been quite a number of people have never been arrested. One of the more interesting figures just passed away. That would be Dennis Kelly, who did two years for a very large lab production was called clear Light. This was in the mid seventies. They were producing in burnt Ridge argon form of LSD, known as a window pane because they were little squares of translucent gelatine, a very famous patch.

Dennis again produced about two to three ks. But after his two years of incarceration, Dennis Um entered these Zen Soto Zen community and became a Zen priest and for the next fifty years was known as Kinpo and developed quite a following his um It has a beautiful monastery, die Bosatsu Monastery and Mount Trumper, New York is Dennis's creation. He just passed away a few months ago, and uh

left an autobiography maybe of interest to your listeners. And Leonard, the Buddhist Zen traditional was something that you embraced periodically or maybe throughout your life. Huh. Well, Uh. As a young person, I looked fondly down at Tasahara and the Tasa Horror bread book, which was all the rage during the hippie years. But something sort of called to me about them. But I couldn't quite bring myself to stop what I was doing and go don robes and face

the wall for weeks that seemed rather esoteric. But after my first release from five years in prison, where I was exposed to Um, a Chinese priest that came in from the Chinese monastery in l A, I went directly to Soto was in the oldest Soto was in monastery in North America, and knocked on the door and asked admission, and was taken in and remained there for two years.

Very rigorous practice up at three in the morning, morning sittings at four in the morning, sweeping the sidewalks at five in the morning, robed lots of chanting and very formal, refined practices in the Japanese tradition. Very beautiful and gentle people would bow to you in the hallway, which was quite a change of pace from stabbings in prison. So I became quite fond of the monastic setting and left only when I received a letter of acceptance from Harvard,

and at that point simply had to go. So letter now that one, I'll say, has a lab set up to produce it large volume? How long does it take to produce how big a match? And is this something that you would do for some weeks at a time and then just take off a long time or was this an ongoing process that could go on for months and months and months well. The government's um primary witness stated that the lab I he alleged I was responsible for produced about a kilogram a month for twenty years.

That would be twitter and fifty kilograms. But of course that to me is quite fasciful. We'll let the listener decide on that. UM. In terms of the process itself, the process would depend upon it what stage in history that you're simply doing the synthesis. Nick and Tim were young men late twenties early thirties. They were using an antique cookbook method called guard brick, which is quite toxic

involving sulfur oxide. Patented process UM. I am not quite sure the process howsole used, but probably something quite similar to it, or another patented public process which is relatively low yield or produces number of by products. But as the science evolved over the next thirty and forty years, but the time we get to two thousand, processes existed.

If one were the devotee of the literature and really thought about these things, processes existed which would produce in a non flammable way at room temperature, large quantities of immensely pure LSD. These were never published in the sense that it might destabilize the world market or make entry

into manufacture too simple. People thought it was probably best that UM there'd be some scientific hurdle that would prevent those that were less dedicated from entering the yield, so that simple of cookment methods for these very advanced high yield methods were never published. I see it was anybody you know they ever harmed, uh in the process of producing LSD. Uh, not that I know of what you're describing,

you know suggests. I mean it's like when I when I was, you know, thinking about your ostensibly getting into this line of work and what would motivate you. You wonder how the combination of on the one hand, just the challenge of it all, uh, the natural aptitude and curiosity about chemistry, the appreciation for LSD and some of

these other psycholic substances having special properties for humankind. Um, But there was those element that you know, all of the people or I don't know all, but most were allegedly selling these things and earning sometimes some fairly substantial amounts of money. But many of the key players were also apparently using their money and sometimes more in philanthropic ways as opposed to buying fancy houses or boats or

you know, having you know, this sort of lifestyle. So I'm curious, how is it that mixture of variables in all of this? Uh? Is it one factor that stands out more than others. You know, I realized you can't fully reflect on your own perspectives on this. But speaking a little more in the abstract or among members of the Brotherhood of Underground Chemists, well, I can go back

to UH. I think what Nick said before his death, that he felt there was a calling that one has called upon if you will UH in the next case, by some higher power to UH do this sort of thing. Of course, one easily sacrifices one's life, at least in the past, not so much in the future. I mean, we're going to see corporations manufacturing let's see as they

are now with government licensing. And that brings up an interesting point which goes back to your early question about shamanic manufactor in the future um delicit medicalization and use of psychedelics. The sources will not be by someone who searches their soul and praise over a pure compound. It will be done by a technician, perhaps in China, who simply goes home at five o'clock. And the question is UM, well, this affect the outcome in the hearts and minds of

the users. Well, I mean one pel engage in control double line studies on the road where people could do their own at home control applying study and you know, randomly see and see record those experiences. What do you think. Of course, we're speculating here, Ethan. You know, scientifically, the idea of individual influencing the outcome of a drug and

a third party is not tenable. It's merely myth, but it's an entertaining myth, and it may keep certain manufacturers on their toes if they think they have to harbor a pure heart. You know, it relates to another issue there, right. I mean, there's a conversation that I've had, I think in some of the other interviews, but about the difference between the synthesized chemical the mescaline, on the one hand, and the peote or san pedro from which you know

it can be derived or with psilocybin and mushrooms. And there are those I think Sasha Shilka would be included, who said, you know, whether it's a synthetically produced or whether it's coming from something that's growing in nature, you know,

it's still basically the same chemical. And if anything, the basic chemical may even be a little easier because it doesn't come with the things that upset your stomach and things like that that happened with the plant product, and others who believe that there's something either fundamentally different or

better about having it come from the plant itself. And now you're saying that even when you produce something synthetically, that having a nick Sands or an Owsley produces is somehow going to produce a different product than would bes um. You know, employee of a pharmaceutical company a decade from now, who's just doing this stuff is part of his nine job, And so what about that first point between the natural

plant based substance and is synthetic? I would tend to agree with Sasho that synthesized mescalind hemi sulfite hydrate, for example, the most beautiful long needles. These are ten centimeter needles,

the most beautiful physical substance imaginable. If that mescalin is the same as the mescalin of an all night the Native American church ceremony with prayer, fans and incense around the fire and the tp and the dawn woman bringing water and all the prayers and chants for healing, all those two different, well, the mescaline isn't the circumstances in which it is offered are are quite different. So I think that myths, if you will, or positive setting setting

as a strong factor with a natural sub senances. Of course, so there are many new startups. I see them in pitch decks every week of firms that are attempting to make various elixirs from psilocybin mushrooms, claiming that the other materials psychoactive and nons acktective and the mushroom itself will influence the subjective effect on the healing properties and other larger concerns. Say no, no, pure psilocybin speaks for itself.

So these have yet to be resolved. I suspect the industry will will resolve these gun dundrums in the next two years and we'll all have great fun watching it happen. Well, as I want to come back to this is towards the end of the interview, because part of our connecting or reconnecting in recent months is around some of this new world of the of the investment in the psychedelics for profits. But let me just correct me if I'm

wrong on this. But so when you do the sense I have from what you're saying is of a calling of seeing that this is something called to do, and that a persistence of doing this, even the face of obstacles. And so I came across and tell me if this is factually correct or not. But when I one of the pieces I found said, well, you know, Leonard, your first arrest in this area was a petty arrest when

in nineteen seventies six or possession of payot. And then there's something else about another I think, I don't know how minor, but for creating a small m d M A lab back in the mid seventies, and then some years later, in the late eighties, you get arrested amount of View, California for allegedly having an LSD lab. Spent five years in prison until two come out, and a number of years where you're engaged with academia, getting a

master's degree at Kennedy School, writing in publications. But then the big bust, uh, And I think it was election day two thousand, which puts you in prison for twenty years. Now, if those details are correct, it suggests that you were How could I say incorrigible in the most upstanding sort of way, since fundamentally I do believe that the work that you were allegedally engaged in performed an enormous community

service for humankind throughout this period. But I mean, it does suggest that these criminal justice penalties kept coming after you, but that you kept persisting with something that you love to do. Well. Yes, Ethan, you've kind of got me on the spot there, but yes. So there were multiple arrests involving psychedelic drugs. Perhaps every seven or eight years

one would occur. And these range from minor arrest where one was taken away for a day or two in release because the substance wasn't what they claimed to be or might have been legal, to arrests which required six months in jail, and then the Mountain View seizure which resulted in five years, which is quite a significant LSD laboratory actually, from what I understand, the same size as the later Kansas arrest in two thousand, which resulted in

not twenty years but two life senators mandatory life sentences without possibility of parole, other words, a death sentence. The possibility of sorting it all out by appellate filings um is something of an American dream, and indeed does occur and supports the mercy and wisdom of our judicial system. But it is so very rarely seen that men tend to lose hope. Although at this late date I harbored

no ill will against the government. Mm hm, you know, Leonard, I mean, I was about to get to this point about your sentencing, and I was looking up some of the data on this and among there's something like two point two point three million people behind bars in America today, of whom about two thirds are in state prisons in

federal jails. Of that one and a half million who are in state and federal prisons, roughly two hundred thousand the last that I saw a count are there serving a life sentence, either mandated one or an effectively a life sentence. Half of them are black. But interestingly, about eight percent, seventeen thousand are people who were convicted of non violent offenses. Now, one can make too much of distinction between not non violent and violent offenses. There are

people who committed you know, non violent offenses. Look who made off dead and the fact that he died behind bars I have no ethical problem with. And on the other hand, there are violent offenses, you know that don't seem to me to be in some separate category from some of the horrors of what people can do non violently to one another. But that said, you know, and having been involved in building an organization, a movement opposing

these draconian sentences for drug offenses. I mean, the first thing I want to ask you is, when I read about the judge who sentenced to you to the two life sentences with no possibility of parole, um, you can in your heart forgive that person. And I imagine that he's no longer alive. And part of what I read was he was a highly right wing and maybe somewhat

senile figure. But on you really are able to forgive him because that was a discretionary choice he made right the law did not require him to sentence you in the way he did. Um. That would be Judge of Richard Rogers Um, a very dignified for the pointee Republican, former mayor of Manhattan, Kansas, ardent softball player, well loved in the legal community and Topeka, very distinguished jurish who handed down a number of difficult but well respected decisions.

Of course, I battled in the Judge Rogers court. I wrote over a thousand motions studied the law for years to write UH such briefs, which very thoughtfully refined by the law offices of Billy Rourke in the Topeka A Rugby playing wild Man, the last of the fighting Liberal attorneys and Kansas. The late Billy Rourke. Judge Rogers Uh occasionally entertained the jury during the longest trial in Kansas history. One of his great quotes, I recall this trial is

like something out of the Arabian Nights. It's got a great laugh from the jury. And he once called me a young man, which I really appreciated at. But he was most courteous. I harbored. No. U nowhere a will against Judge Rogers, even though another judge might have sentenced you to a dramatically shorter amount of time. No, I think not. I think that Judge rogers hands were tied

simply by the mandatory nature of sentencing. Ten grams or more of a substance containing a detectable amount of LSD, which might be one microgram, is mandatory life at the quantities that we're discussing. So Judge Rogers, as he mentioned

at sentencing, his hands were tied. I see, okay, Well, I stand corrected on that I thought he had there was a discretionary element of it, you know, And hearing you talk in the past a little bit about your prison experience, just by chance, I've been watching this TV series called Rectify, produced by Sundance now on a m C plus, I think, and it's about, you know, a young man white who is convicted of having killed a

young woman while into the influence of mushrooms. It so happens, uh, and can't accurately recollect what happened, and then gets out twenty years later, having been traumatized by his experience and uncertain about what's going to happen in the future. And I have to say, as I was looking forward to having this interview with you, and I'm watching at night this show, I started thinking about some of these parallels

and just the experience, you know, of being in this place. Um, well, you know, there's an all male environment where physical touch is either something that's either not good that just doesn't happen with a sound of chains and the solitude the act of being in a maximum security setting when that's not called for in your a case like yours or many others to protect other inmates or what have you. It seems purely punitive. Um, But I'm curious, I mean

to get through that. And I imagine you know there must have been substantial periods of time where you thought that there was little to no chance of your ever becoming a freeman during the rest of your life? Were there periods of profound hopelessness and all of this? And how did you sustain yourself through all of that? Yes, that that period of hopelessness, even you're entirely correct, began on November six, two thousand and in it on July and every day in between those two dates twenty years.

I thought I would most certainly die in prison, and everyone I knew thought the same, my attorneys, my friends, my family, and my children, um, those of the public that paid attention to the case. Um, there is no way out from a mandatory life sentence simply does not occur, vanishingly rare, only with the passage and a miracle in itself, the passage in the First Step Act by Congress during

the last few days of session in December. The last few days it was a bipartisan passage of the First Step Act, which for the first time allowed inmates to petition the court for release based on their good works, or their redemption or other factors medical, familial that would persuade the court that they had served an adequate amount

of time and were no longer a threat to the public. Naturally, I filed immediately on that very lengthy briefses, including exhibits, and that matriculated through the system for over a year. Denied at the instituo level by the warden, denied at the regional level by b OP, denied at the national level by the BP director, denied by the United States

Attorney's Office. So what hope was there left? And then a great miracle happened, And there was a merciful and distinguished jurist who, with great courage and wisdom, and I suppose a small amount of faith, read our petition, and the tempo of the times was so moved as to grant release. And since then it's been like being born again. Yeah.

But I noticed Leonard that went I read the decision, and it seems like he went out of his way to say, I'm doing this because of COVID and Leonard seventy or almost seventy five, and there is a risk here. But in terms of the other arguments. He didn't seem to be moved by the petition of people who were fighting for your release, or the good works you've done in other areas, or the insights you'd provided on the

fentinel christ Is two people in law enforcement. Um. Now, maybe he was just covering his butt, and maybe he was in fact moved by those other variables, um, and just using the COVID as the kind of clear reason. But what do you think. Well, I can't speak of what was in the mind of this particular jurist except that I honor his wisdom and decision and whatever factors influenced that decision, and they could only be multiple factors.

I am deeply grateful for that moment of grace. There was somebody else in there with you, I think, UM, a young man named Ross Albert Right who became famous or infamous, as one might have it, because he was the founder of Silk Road, which was a decade or so ago that supposedly the world's biggest dark net site for illicit activities, including obtaining illicit drugs around the world,

and people were horrified when he sentenced for life. Now, there were some accusations he may have put contracts out of some people, but those were never substantiated. His mother actually came to one of the Drug Policy Alliance biennial events and I met her, and she's had a campaign

to try to get him out. But do you see him as somebody sort of similarly situated with yourself, a kind of younger generation version of yourself, who is unjustly incarcerated for far far more time than he ever should

have been. And thank you Ethan for mentioning Ross. Of course I know his mother lend his father Kurt and call him each night during trial in Manhattan, on the very darkest days, And then as he entered the system, suggested that perhaps he should be moved to a institution that would be less gang riddled and threatening, because Ross, uh, it was of course a target people, assuming he had hidden bitcoin, and of course he's a would be a

gang victim. And I recall how happy I was one day on the yard, walking in circles for twenty years on a dirt track to see a young then bearded man walk in. And there he was, and we became great friends and spoke daily and walked quite a lot in my last year incarceration. So I learned of Ross's heart and fears. Of course, the idea that he would harm anyone is this nonsense. Of the course, even homeland security I knew that was nonsense and didn't bring charges.

A very fine looking young man about thirty three, gentle meditative, a deep reader in economics, um, a writer, a sensitive young man that's been in for eight years now, surely has gotten the message and would never, never re offend and would be a tremendous asset in the crypto world, in the bitcoin world, as a speaker, as a teacher. Lynn his mother told me that when Ross heard of my release, he cried not out of self pity, but

out of happiness. Because we talked. We knew every every detail of each other's cases and hopes and fears, and every filing and everything about each other's families, and and so we shared the fear and the dwindling hope and the simple faith of a mustard seed, if you will, in biblical terms, that it all might change. And when it did for me, I guess the reservoirs, and and Ross broke loose. I promised him that when I spoken podcast or spoke publicly, I would always mention him and

draw public attention to his plight. It's time for him to go home. The most heartbreaking thing to me with Ross on the rare occasions I had visits was that Ross always had visits every visiting period from a love a French programmer woman that fell in love with Ross while he was way. They had special permission to see each other a lot. So I'd be in the visiting room and she would come in. They would have a brief hello and goodbye, just a brief brief hog and

spent hours talking. And I would sit there and think to myself, how beautiful, but also how very very sad, because these young people are still in the honeymoon phase. He had only been in eight years, and so they still had faith that something might miraculously changed by emotion, habeas motion, some elegant legal argument, and they don't know the dark, lonely years that stretched endlessly ahead. Ross could be there twenty years, he could be there thirty years.

I've said goodbye to more than one inmate who has done forty years. So my my heartward break watching them. It is important that the public, the public that cares about evolution of computers, evolution psychedelics, UH evolution of simple humanity and freedom for the individual. Recognize that long term imprisonment of the nonviolent what we've seen is uncivilized in the eight or nine ten years is enough for anyone

for a nonviolent crime. No letter. I mean, of course, I agree with you, and I think it's you know, it's part of the dark side of America's exceptionalism that not only have we broken all records in the history of human civilization in terms of the percent of the population or incarcerating, but also the way in which we throw away so many hundreds of thousands of people's lives, you know, for life, and these incredible amounts of time.

You know, I had heard you else. We're talking about how you got through, you know, these decades thinking this might be all it would ever be. And obviously you were writing your legal briefs and those were time consuming. And I read about how you talked about becoming a big fan of nineteenth century British literature and reading vastly in that way, and you had relationships with people like

Ross and others. I mean, there was that, But then I think one other thing you did was you wrote a book, and in reading about the book, it made me think of the book that Sasha Shilgan and his wife and wrote. They wrote a book called pekal p I h k a l which stood for fin Athlens I have known and loved. And the second half of the book is basically the recipes for all these psychedelic substances, but the first half is a sort of thinly disguised

autobiographical account of their lives. And they felt a need to frame it his fiction because of the consequences of law. And you wrote a book which I think integrated some autobiographical um with some fictional elements as well. Maybe you could just tell our listeners a bit about that. Thank you. And the book is called The Rose of Paracelsus. Paracelsus was a sixteenth century alchemists and Basel philosopher, and the title is adapted from a short story by the Argentine

writer Jorge Luis Borges. I wrote this almost seven hundred page tomb and pencil since there were only ten rickety typewriters for eight hundred men, and they were only available a few hours a day. But it was also very nourishing to write by hand. I spent twenty years reading, mostly Victorian edwater in literature, I found that a great respite.

When I looked up, there were bloody gang battles and stabbings and killings, and loud speakers going off in tons of razor wir and guard towers and flash band grenades and tattooed faces with spider webs, And when I looked down into the text, I might be in nineteen century England, with carriages and horses and manners and a gentler world. So it was easy to choose between the too. So The Rose of paracelsis Um is written in a very mannered,

almost Victorian, almost archaic language. It will be familiar to those that are devoted readers of literature, but may be very difficult for those that expect a casual, breezy read. The word craft is dense. There are puzzles and for shadowings, and the little humor not all ponderous. But in writing it, sitting in a sixty square foot steel cell forever, I found myself trying to remember what the world looked like,

because after about five years you forget images. You still see your family's face and your children's face, of course, but not haven't seen a flower or dog or cat or river, forest or tree in so many years that these are majestic recollections, but they are evaporating quickly, and so one tries to hold onto them. So and writing the Rose, I tried to describe, for example, a great forest and had some difficulty in doing that. Let's take

a break here and go to an ad Leonard. You know, we really just met a few months ago, and so I really know the letterd post this experience in prison. But I'm curious when you reflect, or when people who have known you for a very long time re encounter you. Now, um, what are your your and their perceptions about how you have changed or evolved as a human being, as a personality, um, from your days before you went into that life sentence. Oh,

I can't see myself faithan, I don't know. I probably I would put it as the younger version was probably brash and excited and uh, perhaps overconfident. The current version, which is twenty years on, is an elderly man with quade a few wrinkles, but I still managed to twinkle, and I have some laughs and a growing wonderful circle of friends, and my family is reawakening. However, joyous the

times were just before my arrest. As you can possibly imagine the complexity and ecstasies of those days, the simple joys now our transcendent. I've never had more fun in my life. And frankly the last few months, I have to say I was amazed when he met in New York a few months ago, and then when you were in Boulder. We were both in Boulder for a meeting involving also the psychedelics investment area, and then I think you were visiting your son who is in medical school there.

But I was just blown away at the way here you are. When you went away twenty years ago, technology was so radically different, and here you are reconnecting, connecting with whole new worlds of people getting deeply engaged in the whole new you know, breakout research with psychedelics and the investment side of that. You're introducing me to people I didn't know in this field, which was really quite special for me. And I was just struck by you

know how well. I mean, maybe it's just a kind of quasi facade and you go back at home at night and collapse in some pile because of what you've been through, but it's quite extraordinary to see you. I mean, here we are in crazy Manhattan a few months ago,

and you seem perfectly fine. I wonder if if that many people could come out of your experience of twenty years of incarceration in a maximum security federal correctional institute Susan, most of which spent hopelessly thinking you will never get out, and come out with that level of vitality and youthfulness and high spirit and renewed curiosity about all around you. I mean, what you're saying here, it does seem like

you're having the time of your life. That this is this, you know, monumental gift that has been presented to you to make the most of. Uh, You're You're absolutely right, Ethan. It was like, frankly, it's with a circle of friends and startups and investors and just the expanding social nature of the world, which is increasingly intensifying, especially the psychedelic revolution that's now occurring. It feels like coming home. I

feel warmly received wherever I go. It's like a party where everyone knows each other and it's all okay, and one's words are received well and one's thoughts are respected, and uh, there's mutual respect, Rick Shan about it's a new world. You know, it wasn't so long ago, Eathan, that if you mentioned the words psychedelic, you risk your career, and certainly in academia. And now it's a worldwide conversation

of we hope a great promise for new medicines. And now this may or might not occur, that's entirely another conversation, but things look very promising. So it's a type of

reaffirmation and redemption and helps forget all the suffering. M hm. Well, so let me ask you about this, this new focus of your life, because I mean, look, quite frankly, almost entirely because of you, it's possible that I may soon become an advisor for the first time in my life to a for profit investment fund that's investing in a host of psychedelic enterprises. And so I think you and I probably share the kind of both worries and hopes

of this. I mean, not just the the incredible work that's been sponsored by MAPS, you know, Rick Doblin's Multi Disparity Association of Psychelic Studies, you know all it's a wonderful work on m d m A and public education and all of that, and the Heftress Society, the group of academics who have been involved in this research for a few decades or more now, but now with the whole growth of the commercialized for profit side, which seems to hold the potential to provide the hundreds of millions

of dollars in funding that could not be raised philanthropically and therefore is expediting the whole evolution. And yet on the other hand, it involves commercialization and as you said, the risk that this will be taken in the wrong direction by companies that are seeking to maximize profit by you know, securing patents and excluding others, or by manufacturers who don't really care about the special properties what they're producing,

but only the market potential. You know what's going on now from your perspective, I mean, is this really a bubble that's gonna burst and it'll just be a small number of players left? Is the reason why the psilocybin thing is looming so large now in M D M A. But are we going to see more stuff with mescalin and LSD down the road? Um? Do you think it really will replace you know, the SSR eyes or other

you know substances. You know, pharmaceuticals that are taken daily by large numbers of people and make you know, pharmacy companies vast profits, but with you know, only modest efficacy. So I just thrown three different sorts of questions about the future. But take a swing at any one of those you care too. Oh, my goodness, that's quite a breath of questions. Let me go back to say how much you admire the work of Rick Doblin with MAPS. I was privileged to be at Rick's PhD thesis defense

at the Kennedy School. Uh, I can no goodness ninety six and uh have come to admire the great work done by MAPS and by the Hefter Foundation. Dr David Nichols, the foremost medicinal chemists in the world, was an early founder tremendous early and visionary work, and both those organizations were formed in days where the specter of psychedelic drugs

being used for healings was marginalized, if not ridiculed. So it took quite a bit courage of Rick and Dr Nichols to act upon their vision, often at the possibility of the wrong direction of their careers. But now it's all come round And here we are, with over three corporations in counting now formed, some valued at a billion dollars.

Compas Pathways, a tie cybin mind med all evolving out of effectively the twenty fifteen publication The Journal of psycho Pharmacology by Roland Griffiths at Hopkins the Study of Psilocybin and Depression, and Rick's early faith that m d M A would be useful for PTSD. And here we are. Are we in a bubble? Of course, I'm a rather

elderly and devoted hippie who might proselytize. Even so, I think that we're in a time of tremendous enthusiasm, perhaps a little too much in phusiasm, in the sense that, um, you have a core of true believers that hope that these drugs will be useful for various psychiatric illnesses, and indeed they're powerful, and indeed they may and the results seem very promising. But I see an enthusiasm that perhaps is too broad. These compounds are not a panacea for

all known maladies, but the corportization. In the corporization field, we see, um, every known psychedelic being promoted. Salvan orn A fiber toxic d MT, mascular psilocybin slosion, every analog ketamine clinics are popping up worldwide. It's all happening, all at once, billions of dollars, hundreds, if not thousands of chemists and psychiatrists and neuroscientists all focusing in this field.

A milestone was reached the other day a by Francis Collins, director of the National Institutions of Health, truly eminent and conservative leading figurehead, who said psychedelics may well be useful. So looking carefully at a number of pitch decks each week that come across my desk and seeing the range of new founders and ideas. Some are not strongly scientifically supported, others are true gems and may become major major institutions.

That all said, I do feel that we're in a classic bubble stock wise, and that within the next two or three years it probably will be a shakeout. Depending upon the outcomes of the initial clinical trials. MAPS will report first on m b m A, followed by mind med Syban Paul cybin. The outcomes of these trials, which are self reported by the sponsoring corporation and must be by federal law, may define the industry. A trial that goes south will deflate valuations. Trial that is promising in

phase two will enhance valuations. But keep in mind, across pharmaceuticals and their entirety, even antibiotics, only fourteen percent of new drugs are approved by f d A. I suspect that psychedelics will receive no less scrutiny than any drug, and perhaps far more so. We had better be right, and I think in some cases, h we are right. But folks, hold under your head. We're in the wild West and the next few years is going to be

quite a ride. Yeah. Well, Leonard, you know, back in your days of freedom in the nineties and you cut your master's degree to Kennedy School. Uh, you worked with an academic, Mark Leman, who was a devoted friend of yours and a bit of a friend of me of mine. Um. But you know, you wrote a brilliant paper about fentinel at a time when few people knew it was and you correctly predicted that this could potentially become a great

threat to public health. And you missed a bit by thinking that it might be Russia that would emerge as a major source rather than China. But I'm curious bringing back the psychelics area. Does China have a feature in this psychedelics area? I mean, you see them playing this role kind of illegally on the fenital thing. You see them playing a role as a pioneer on some of the e cigarette stuff for better and worse. What about psychedelics?

How interesting you should ask that ethan UH. China, of course, has the world's largest pharmaceutical industry fifty thousand or so firms, and its rather loosely regulated, hence the rather grave influx of every known analog of fentanyl into Europe. Some are quite impotent, you know, four thousand times the ponency of morphine UH, and China, of course is the primary source country, although Mexico, certain Mexican labs have been devastating in terms

of the ethality of their production. It's it's difficult to answer your question on that ethan. Has China wakened the psychedelics? No, it has not. UM. I keep a spreadsheet of UM every known startup I can find over three and nothing coming out of China. A few Japanese pharmacutical firms are looking somewhat at isomers of ketamine, but China remains the

sleeping giant. I feel that it would be wise of activists in this field, especially the corporate figures, to reach out to Chinese venture capital firms and attempt to engage them and excite them UH into this realm. I think that additional billions will flow into research if we managed to do that. Johnah being very conservative, having no broad

underground as we do in the States. In Europe, there was no Brotherhood of Eatun in Love in the sixties putting out tens of millions of doses, So they have no mature investors who had dazzling insights around campfires in

their youth. There's no Chinese versions of our San Francisco young billionaires, but those of us that have Chinese connections, I'm looking at the direction personally, UH might do well to try for a clinical trial and Shendong Province or or Beijing or Hong Kong and gently awakened the Chinese to this as part of the oral community. Yeah, well, I'm interesting to see. I think China. The Chinese government played a sort of leading role a few years ago in a very bad way and trying to ban the

use of kenamine more broadly, uh. You know much of the world kenemine is used for pain relief where opioids are not available. But let let me finish with one

last question. So as all of these news psychedelic compounds are being created by changing a molecule here and there, um and sometimes not psychedelic compounds as well, is there anything out there on the horizon that you think shows really exceptional interests that would take matters beyond where we have with m D, M A LSD the basics that are out there, are there new compounds that you're aware of that could land up being approved or show Greek

potential in one way or another. Well, keep in mind that ethan with the corporatization which has stimulated enormous advances and intensity of new medicinal chemists working feverishly at their benches with novel methods of invention and manufacturer. With this huge um illicit activity going on now, we are seeing historically for the first time, the advent of tens of thousands,

of hundreds of thousands of molecular variants. These generally in previous years twenty years ago would be published in the scientific journals for everyone to see. But with the corportization. Such things are proprietary, I'm told every week, even under nondisclosure E meant that, oh, I'm sorry, we can't share our patent application. So the work is becoming oddly clandestine. Yet again, uh that all said, since I can't point any specific compound, I can say with some confidence that

we will see a variety of new creatures appear. Most of these new creatures will be not very interesting, a psychedelic wash show of buzz if you will, uh somewhat change of consciousness. Some will be, hopefully most precious. They will resolve post traumatic disorders. They may resolve postpartum depression, may resolve certain types of anxiety. They may replace parts of pharmacopeia, or they may replace certain types of ss rs.

Although that's quite a reach to say that. But the fear I have is that within this great generation of new creatures, some may be rather difficult little beast and proved to be quite addictive or quite lethal. Um. We've already seen an example of this um coming out of the Free University of Berlin back about two thousand six,

a post TALC. There was Tinkering, one of Sasa's variations on his remarkable drug to c B, which is a worldwide recreational compound now, and this fellow, a decent researcher exploring, did a series of modifications and he came up with something called, for lack of a better chemical name, in the bomb. And in bomb turned out to be a psychedelic very potent about oh eight micrograms as potent as LSD, and so this was immediately seized upon by hasty underground

people and distributed as LSD. The problem was and it was quite lethal. There were a number of deaths. So my fear is that within this great search and great discovery of thousands and thousands of quite remarkable compounds, we'll see it go both ways. We may see a new drug that will sweep the world and as a positive benefit upon humanity, ranging for medical use to personal seeking, if you will, and it may replace in large part

the legacy compounds LSD, D MT, mescalin, psilocybin. But I think along with that we may also see some some most unfortunate things occur. Yes, it's a responsibility in the psychedelic community to suppress one and promote the other. I mean, so, Leonard, when you were allegedly involved in production and certainly involved in this world and his brotherhood. What was your thinking

about about the broader consequences. I mean, did you basically see the use of LSD by millions or tens of millions of people as a generally positive thing, notwithstanding the risks um And then when you you know, fast forward to today, we are a lot of this is moving forward in this kind of medical research environment, even as larger and larger numbers of people are doing it outside that setting. What is your thinking it hopes these will

be the whole endgame of this. That's a difficult question, Nathan. I think back to our thinking as very young people in the sixties, when we were three. The young people of the era had great hope that the insights provided by these compounds would alter society and benevolent ways, to become less militaristic, less unaware of the environment, more aware of each other, to be delighted by the gifts of

the mind. And then over the years I saw people being lost in different things, lost in methamphetamine and heroin addiction and cocaine addiction, all those malaises that went on forever. And I saw those horrors quite close up and deaths from them, and so I often remark when when so asked, is it best that everybody take LSD? I would say no. I think LSD or any psychedelic is only for a certain section of the population. May be a minority of

the population. It's for some people, but not everyone. In terms of the many analogs proliferating and the tendency of young people to try every known drug in the book available freely online these days, I would say that we should remember that after all our explorations, we have to

come home. We have to come home to the natural mind, the place where we began as young people, before we had exposure to these substances or to extreme experiences, the simple, pure place that as our ultimate gift, that which we be and from and with luck and vision will return too. So I think that after all of the expirations and all the corporatizations, on all the excitement, that we simply

remember to to come home in the natural mind. Mm hmm, Well, Leonard Um, let's just hope that the spirit that animated you and others allegedly involved in the Brotherhood of Underground Chemists continues to infuse the field of research in this area into the future. I want to thank you ever so much for being my guest today. It's been a pleasure to connect with you in recent months, and I look forward to our future intersections with every greater frequency

in the future. So thank you, very very very much. Thank you so much, Ethan. Wonderful to see you again. I look forward to many future conversations. Psychoactive is a production of I Heart Radio and Protozoa Pictures. It's hosted by me Ethan Needelman. It's produce used by Katcha Kumkova and Ben Cabrick. The executive producers are Dylan Golden, Ari Handel, Elizabeth Geesus and Darren Aronovski for Protozoa Pictures, Alice Williams and Matt Frederick for I Heart Radio and me Ethan Nadelman.

Our music is by Ari Belusian and a special thanks to a Vivit Brio, Sef Bianca Grimshaw and Robert Beatty. If you'd like to share your own stories, comments or ideas, please leave us a message at eight three three seven seven nine sixty. That's one eight three three psycho zero. You can also email us as Psychoactive at Protozoa dot com or find me on Twitter at Ethan Nadelman. And if you couldn't keep track of all this, find the information in the show notes. So next week we're gonna

do something different. I'll have my old friend and drug expert Dr Julie Holland joined me in and towering questions from you, the audience. I don't have to pee in a cup to talk to you, do I, Ethan? Oh? Well, you know people used to say if you wanted a job at Drug Policy Alliance, you needed to fail a drug test, but that was never true. Subscribe to Cycleactive now, see it, don't miss it.