Leonard Pickard on Making LSD and the Brotherhood of Underground Chemists

The federal government claimed that Leonard Pickard was quite possibly the biggest producer of LSD in history. There’s no telling if that was true, but a judge sentenced him to two life sentences without parole in a high-security prison. Leonard thought he’d die there, but he was released late last year after serving twenty years.

We talked about the Brotherhood of Underground Chemists who produced much of the world’s LSD in the late twentieth century – their motivations, beliefs and what distinguished them from major producers of other illicit drugs.

Leonard talked about his many years behind bars, living with the belief that he’d never get out. And we talked about the recent explosion of interest in psychedelics research and medicine, as well as his growing involvement in this increasingly legal domain.

Listen to this episode and let me know what you think. Our number is 1-833-779-2460. Our email is [e-mail]. Or tweet at me, @ethannadelmann.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hi, I'm Ethan Natalman, and this is Psychoactive, a production
of I Heart Radio and Protozoa Pictures. Psychoactive is the
show where we talk about all things drugs. But any
views expressed here do not represent those of I Heart Media,
Protozoa Pictures, or their executives and employees. Indeed, heed as

(00:23):
an inveterate contrarian, I can tell you they may not
even represent my own. And nothing contained in this show
should be used as medical advice or encouragement to use
any type of drug. Hello, Psychoactive listeners. You know, one

(00:44):
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

(01:05):
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

(01:25):
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.

(01:47):
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

(02:10):
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

(02:32):
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,

(02:54):
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

(03:14):
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

(03:36):
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

(04:00):
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

(04:21):
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

(04:44):
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,

(05:07):
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

(05:30):
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.

(05:52):
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

(06:14):
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

(06:35):
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

(06:58):
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

(07:23):
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

(07:46):
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,

(08:13):
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

(08:34):
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

(08:57):
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

(09:19):
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

(09:41):
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,

(10:04):
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

(10:27):
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,

(10:49):
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

(11:12):
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

(11:35):
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

(11:58):
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

(12:22):
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

(12:47):
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,

(13:13):
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

(13:37):
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

(13:58):
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

(14:20):
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

(14:40):
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,

(15:03):
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

(15:23):
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,

(15:44):
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

(16:06):
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

(16:30):
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,

(16:53):
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

(17:14):
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?

(17:36):
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

(17:56):
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

(18:20):
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

(18:46):
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

(19:09):
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

(19:36):
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.

(19:56):
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

(20:18):
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

(20:41):
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

(21:03):
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

(21:25):
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

(21:48):
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

(22:09):
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

(22:30):
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

(22:51):
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

(23:13):
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

(23:34):
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

(23:56):
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

(24:18):
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

(24:39):
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

(25:01):
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

(25:23):
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

(25:46):
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

(26:08):
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

(26:28):
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

(26:53):
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

(27:16):
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

(27:40):
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

(28:03):
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.

(28:24):
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.

(28:48):
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

(29:10):
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

(29:33):
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

(29:55):
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,

(30:15):
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

(30:40):
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

(31:00):
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

(31:23):
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,

(31:45):
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

(32:06):
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.

(32:26):
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

(32:47):
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

(33:10):
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

(33:33):
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

(33:57):
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

(34:18):
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,

(34:39):
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

(35:01):
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,

(35:24):
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

(35:47):
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

(36:09):
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,

(36:30):
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,

(36:53):
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,

(37:17):
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

(37:40):
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,

(38:01):
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

(38:25):
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

(38:45):
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

(39:06):
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

(39:28):
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,

(39:49):
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,

(40:11):
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

(40:32):
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

(40:54):
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

(41:17):
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

(41:39):
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

(42:02):
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

(42:22):
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

(42:45):
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

(43:05):
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

(43:27):
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

(43:51):
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

(44:12):
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

(44:33):
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

(44:54):
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

(45:17):
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

(45:38):
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

(46:00):
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

(46:20):
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

(46:43):
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,

(47:03):
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

(47:26):
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,

(47:53):
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

(48:15):
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.

(48:35):
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

(48:56):
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

(49:19):
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

(49:43):
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

(50:05):
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

(50:27):
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,

(50:51):
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

(51:13):
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

(51:34):
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

(51:56):
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

(52:18):
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

(52:40):
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

(53:00):
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

(53:20):
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

(53:44):
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

(54:05):
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,

(54:28):
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.

(54:48):
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

(55:09):
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

(55:33):
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

(55:53):
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

(56:15):
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

(56:36):
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.

(56:58):
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.

(57:21):
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,

(57:42):
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

(58:06):
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,

(58:33):
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

(58:54):
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,

(59:20):
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

(59:40):
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

(01:00:00):
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

(01:00:21):
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

(01:00:43):
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

(01:01:07):
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

(01:01:30):
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,

(01:01:51):
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,

(01:02:14):
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

(01:02:37):
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

(01:02:58):
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

(01:03:20):
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

(01:03:42):
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

(01:04:05):
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

(01:04:28):
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

(01:04:53):
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

(01:05:14):
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

(01:05:36):
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

(01:05:58):
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

(01:06:20):
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

(01:06:42):
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

(01:07:06):
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,

(01:07:27):
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

(01:07:47):
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

(01:08:11):
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.

(01:08:34):
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.

(01:08:55):
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

(01:09:15):
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,

(01:09:38):
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

(01:09:59):
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

(01:10:24):
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

(01:10:45):
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

(01:11:08):
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

(01:11:30):
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

(01:11:53):
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

(01:12:15):
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

(01:12:38):
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

(01:12:59):
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

(01:13:22):
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,

(01:13:43):
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

(01:14:05):
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,

(01:14:30):
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

(01:14:51):
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

(01:15:13):
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

(01:15:35):
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

(01:15:56):
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.

(01:16:18):
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

(01:16:38):
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.

(01:17:02):
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

(01:17:23):
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,

(01:17:46):
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.

(01:18:07):
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

(01:18:27):
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.

(01:18:49):
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

(01:19:10):
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,
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(01:19:36):
You can also email us as Psychoactive at Protozoa dot
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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

(01:20:01):
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
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