PSYCHOACTIVE

Jockeying over patents is driving investment and competition among the growing number of people and companies trying to profit from the psychedelics renaissance. Graham Pechenik is one of the smartest and most respected attorneys specializing in this area. We started off by discussing a recent victory against the DEA, which had tried to put a number of promising compounds into Schedule I. Most of our conversation thereafter focused on current battles among investors, activists and researchers, the challenges of trying to reform a patent system that is widely seen as flawed and even broken, and alternative paths for maximizing the benefits and accessibility of psychedelic medicine.

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Here's a bonus episode of Psychoactive. I was was recently a guest on the Dear Chelsea podcast, a weekly advice show hosted by comedian Chelsea Handler. I thought our listeners might enjoy hearing this fun, lively discussion, so we're dropping it in your feed as a bonus episode.

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There is probably no other country in the world with such a fluid and counterintuitive history of drugs as Iran,” says Maziyar Ghiabi, professor at the University of Exeter, in his book, Drugs Politics: Managing Disorder in the Islamic Republic of Iran. Its problems with illicit drug misuse are among the greatest in the world. It is unique among Muslim countries in having embraced syringe exchange and other harm reduction programs on a large scale. It also executed more people for drug offenses in recent decades than any other country. It probably ranks #1 in the proportion of the country using methadone or buprenorphine. It likely also ranks #1 in the proportion of the population involved with Narcotics Anonymous. All this in a country in which a Shiite cleric is the ultimate political authority. It’s a fascinating story, and ever evolving.

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The Narcotic Farm was a remarkable institution. Opened in Lexington, Kentucky in 1935 and closed in the 1970s, the massive hybrid prison/treatment facility was for many decades one of the only publicly available drug treatment facilities in the United States. The writer, William Burroughs, spent time there, as did his son. So did jazz musicians like Chet Baker, Sonny Rollins, Elvin Jones, Jackie McLean, Sonny Stitt, Joe Guy and many others. Staff and patients described it "as more like a prison than any hospital but more like a hospital than any prison,” and fully 1/3rd of its residents opted to go there entirely voluntarily. Moreover, the Farm’s Addiction Research Center was a pioneering, highly regarded center for addiction studies. It benefited from the ample number of experienced drug users willing and often eager to participate in experiments in which they were given opioids, barbiturates, all sorts of novel pharmaceuticals as well as psychedelics through CIA-funded studies. No one knows more about the Narcotic Farm than Professor Nancy Campbell, an historian of science, technology, and medicine who is one of America’s leading scholars of drug issues. Among her books are The Narcotic Farm: The Rise and Fall of America’s First Prison for Drug Addicts, which she co-authored with JP Olsen and Luke Walden.

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Chesa Boudin, a public defender and child of “radical royalty,” was elected as district attorney of San Francisco in late 2019 and recalled by voters in mid-2022. Derided by critics as soft on crime and heralded by supporters as a principled and effective proponent of reforms that voters actually favored, we talked about his accomplishments and challenges, including his interactions with San Francisco’s mayor and police officials. I asked Chesa for his reflections on what he might have done differently as well as what any district attorney can really do about issues like homelessness and overdose fatalities. We also discussed why national media was so eager to draw national implications from his defeat.

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Many people consider ayahuasca “the queen” of psychedelic plant medicines – and few people know more about ayahuasca than the Brazilian anthropologist, Bia Labate. She has authored, co-authored or co-edited over twenty books about ayahuasca as well as other plant medicines, shamanism, ritual, religion and drug policy. The U.S.-based educational and advocacy organization she founded and directs, The Chacruna Institute of Psychedelic Plant Medicines, is an extraordinary resource on all these issues. Whether you’re already experienced with ayahuasca or are thinking of trying it for the first time, this conversation will prove insightful.

Bia and I discussed the varied uses of ayahuasca by indigenous peoples in the Amazon region, syncretic religions and the millions of people who have consumed it around the world in recent decades. We talked about its potential medical uses, the challenges and opportunities presented by “ayahuasca tourism,” and some of the controversies generated by groups that don’t live up to the enlightened ideals typically associated with respectful use of plant medicines. And Bia offered her advice about making the most of one’s ayahuasca experience while staying safe.

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Hitler’s military forces achieved immense success in the early years of World War II by making the Blitzkrieg (or “Lightning War”) central to their offensive strategy. Norman Ohler, author of Blitzed: Drugs in the Third Reich, tells the story of how methamphetamine enabled this success, sometimes over the opposition of medical and military skeptics, and how its value diminished as the war dragged on. Even more fascinating is the story Ohler tells about Adolf Hitler’s extraordinary consumption of oxycodone, cocaine and an ever evolving concoction of hormones, steroids, vitamins and quack remedies administered by injection by his personal physician, Dr. Theodor Morell. Initially helpful in enabling Hitler to perform and project strength, the drugs ultimately fed his megalomania and delusion and quite likely shaped the decisions he made in the latter years of the war, when Dr. Morell became his most frequent and trusted companion.

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"You know, it's a funny thing,” said President Nixon to his aide, H.R. Haldeman, “every one of the bastards that are out for legalizing marijuana is Jewish. What the Christ is the matter with the Jews." Well, today you'll find out. Eddy Portnoy is the curator of a novel exhibit at the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research in New York City entitled “Am Yisrael High.” It explores the role of Jews in all aspects of marijuana: scientific research, legal and illegal commerce, the counterculture, music, politics, and advocacy for and against reform of marijuana laws. References to cannabis in the Bible, the Talmud and other Jewish texts are presented, as is evidence of cannabis at archeological sites dating back to the 3rd century BCE. The idea for the exhibit, Eddy says, first occurred to him when he stumbled across a glass bong in the shape of a menorah.

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

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Immortalized in Tom Wolfe’s famous book, The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, the Merry Pranksters were a pivotal link between the Beat Generation of the 1950s and both the Grateful Dead and the hippie generation that emerged later in the 1960s. Mountain Girl was romantically involved, and had children, with both the Pranksters’ leader, Ken Kesey (author of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest), and the Grateful Dead’s, Jerry Garcia. She thus was both witness to and participant in many of the central events of the 1960s counterculture, including the famed Acid Tests. MG and I talked about the incredible cast of characters she got to know, the role of LSD and other drugs, and the challenges of raising young children in the midst of it all. And we discussed her more recent involvement with cannabis and psychedelics, including co-founding the Women’s Visionary Congress.

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Philip Morris International (PMI) is a leader in Big Tobacco, profiting from the sale of Marlboro, Chesterfield, Virginia Slims and other cigarette brands. It’s also at the forefront in transitioning to the sale of non-combustible nicotine products, which now make up 30% of PMI’s revenue. André Calantzopoulos has worked for PMI for almost forty years, most recently as CEO and now executive chairman. We talked about the opportunities and challenges PMI confronts in making this transition. I pressed him on why PMI still opposes some government regulations to limit smoking. Is their ultimate objective to replace the market for cigarettes with an even bigger market for less dangerous forms of nicotine consumption? What about the potential medical value of nicotine? Do they have plans to get more deeply involved in the cannabis industry? And why did he decide, as a young man, to go to work for Big Tobacco?

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

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