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In 19th century America, trains symbolized modernity. Passenger rail connected the east and west coasts and helped settle the frontier. By 1916, rail accounted for 98 percent of intercity travel.

As it became easier to drive or fly, passenger rail use plummeted. In 1971, the government created Amtrak, which survives on federal subsidies. And most recently the Biden administration gave Amtrak $66 billion in federal subsidies as part of the federal infrastructure bill.

But in Florida, Brightline is showing that it's still possible to run a viable, privately operated passenger rail line under certain conditions. The company is starting service from Miami to Orlando on September 22.

Not only is Brightline the first privately funded intercity rail line in the U.S., but it's also the fastest train in the country outside of the northeast corridor. Topping out at 125 mph in Florida, it will travel from Miami to Orlando in about three hours. For comparison, the Amtrak in the area takes about six and a half hours to complete that same trip.

Mike Reininger, CEO of Brightline, told Reason that passenger rail makes commercial sense under specific conditions, such as the case in Florida, where it connects two populous, tourist-friendly cities that are about 250 miles apart. At that distance, Reininger says, "It is too far to drive and too short to fly. You can approximate the time of flying significantly, improve the time of driving, and you can offer it at a price point that makes it an economic proposition."

There has been one other ambitious effort to build high-speed rail in the U.S.—in California. But that project turned into something so "foolish" that it's "almost a crime," according to Quentin L. Kopp, the former state senator who was crucial in rallying support for a $10 billion bond measure to build high-speed rail in California. He became a fierce opponent of the project when it ran out of money and the agency in charge, he says, broke its promises to voters.

The 520-mile railway between San Francisco and Los Angeles was supposed to be completed by 2020. But after 15 years of construction, they've only laid track for a 170-mile stretch in the Central Valley. The project, which has received more than $20 billion in state and federal subsidies, is now projected to cost over $128 billion.

Following on its success in Florida, Brightline is also starting to develop a high-speed rail line out west—connecting Las Vegas to Los Angeles. The 218-mile line will have just a handful of stops and plans to reach speeds over 186 mph. But the company is pursuing about $3 billion worth in federal subsidies to complete the project, or about a third of the total estimated cost. Though not even close to the amount of money California needs to finish its project, Robert Poole, the director of transportation policy at Reason Foundation, is "skeptical" once federal money gets involved at all in large infrastructure projects.

"It becomes far less of a business venture. And much more of this attitude that we can do grand things because we don't have to worry about what it costs," says Poole. 

But Brightline's Florida project remains a true test of whether there are narrow cases in which American travelers value passenger rail enough to pay for it with their own money.

Photo Credits: akg-images / Paul Almasy/Newscom; Chris Kleponis - CNP/Newscom; Ron Sachs - CNP/Newscom; DPST/Newscom; Everett Collection/Newscom; Everett Collection/Newscom; Everett Collection/Newscom; National Motor Museum / Heritage Images/Newscom; Gary Reyes/TNS/Newscom; Gary Reyes/TNS/Newscom; Gary Reyes/TNS/Newscom; Underwood Archives/Universal Images Group/Newscom; Underwood Archives/Universal Images Group/Newscom; Underwood Archives/UIG / Universal Images Group/Newscom; Darryl Heikes/UPI/Newscom

The post How Florida Beat California to High-Speed Rail appeared first on Reason Magazine.

Erika Dyck is a professor at the University of Saskatchewan who studies the history of psychedelics with a special interest in the legacy of Humphry Osmond, the British-born psychiatrist who coined the term pyschedelic, gave Aldous Huxley his first dose of mescaline, and conducted pathbreaking work using LSD to help alcoholics stop drinking. Among Osmond's best-known patients was Bill W., the co-founder of Alcoholics Anonymous.

Reason sat down with Dyck at the MAPS Psychedelic Science 2023 conference held in Denver this June, where a reported 13,000 people gathered to talk about all aspects of today's psychedelic renaissance. We talked about why drugs such as MDMA, psilocybin, and LSD are making a comeback; how tensions are rising between indigenous people and medical practitioners; and whether prohibitionists have finally lost the war on drugs.

Music Credits: "Life's Journey Begins" by idokay via Artlist

The post The Secret History of Psychedelics appeared first on Reason Magazine.

"I never pictured a world where marijuana would be anywhere close to legal, and it's mind-blowing to me that mushrooms are being decriminalized everywhere," says Shane Mauss, a comedian who tours the country discussing his psychedelic experiences.

Reason caught up with him at the Psychedelic Science 2023 conference, held in Denver this June, where he participated in a "roast" of the psychedelic scene. The conference was sponsored by the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies, or MAPS, and a reported 13,000 people gathered in The Mile-High City to discuss every aspect of drug policy, research, and culture.

Mauss, who also hosts a science podcast called Here We Are, shared his thoughts about the mainstreaming of psychedelic drugs, the surprising pace of legalization efforts, and the role that Joe Rogan and other public figures play in normalizing psychedelics.

Watch the full interview above.

Music Credits: "Cool on the Moon" by Alchemorph via Artlist

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In June, I traveled to Denver with Zach Weismueller to cover the Psychedelic Science 2023 conference, organized by the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS), a group that has been working to gain Food and Drug Administration approval of MDMA-assisted therapy for PTSD since the late 1980s. We produced a 30-minute documentary about today's "psychedelic renaissance."

The most surprising speaker at the conference was Rick Perry, the former Texas governor and Trump administration energy secretary. What in tarnation was a conservative Republican doing on the stage, extolling the virtues of drugs long associated with hippies and 1960s counterculture? 

I sat down with Perry to learn why he believes psychedelics should be legal medicine for veterans and others suffering from PTSD, how to allow more immigrants to come to America lawfully, and why if he were ever to take a psychedelic drug it would be Ibogaine, a notoriously powerful substance made from the bark of an African tree.

Photo Credits: Riccardo Savi/Sipa USA/Newscom; Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call/Newscom; Bob Daemmrich/ZUMAPRESS/Newscom; David Peinado/ZUMA Press/Newscom; Kgjerstad, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons; Marco Schmidt, CC-BY-SA-2.5,  via Wikimedia Commons

Music Credits: "The Ride" by Itamar Doari via Artlist

The post Rick Perry: The Conservative Case for Psychedelic Medicine appeared first on Reason Magazine.

"Welcome to the psychedelic '20s!" Rick Doblin, founder of the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies, or MAPS, proclaimed in his keynote speech to open the Psychedelic Science 2023 conference. At the event organized by MAPS in Denver this June, a reported 13,000 people gathered to talk about what seemed like every possible topic related to the productive use of these substances.

Founded in the late 1980s, MAPS has spent decades working to get approval from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for MDMA-assisted therapy for PTSD and related conditions.

The payoff for those decades of work are coming to fruition. The FDA is expected to approve therapy using psilocybin—the psychoactive ingredients in magic mushrooms—and MDMA—the drug also known as ecstasy and molly. And Oregon and Colorado have decriminalized the recreational use of plant-based psychedelics.

Watch Nick Gillespie's full interview with Doblin, which was featured in Reason's 32-minute documentary on the psychedelic renaissance, discussing the long path to FDA approval and what comes next in the world of psychedelic legalization.

The post Rick Doblin: 'Welcome to the Psychedelic '20s!' appeared first on Reason Magazine.

Everywhere around us, there are signs of a psychedelic renaissance: in medicine, therapy, commerce, and the arts.

These drugs are getting serious, positive coverage in glossy magazines, best-selling books, literary memoirs, documentaries, and hit podcasts. Performers like Reggie Watts, Melissa Etheridge, and members of the Flaming Lips openly acknowledge the role of hallucinogens in their work. And a flourishing psychedelic comedy scene is springing out all over the place.

But federal prohibition of psychedelics—a term that refers to a broad category of consciousness- and perception-altering substances—is also changing. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is expected to approve therapy using psilocybin, the psychoactive ingredients in magic mushrooms, and MDMA, the drug also known as ecstasy and molly. And Oregon and Colorado have decriminalized the recreational use of plant-based psychedelics.

Word is that even the president—famous as a teetotaler, for having an addict son, and as a major force behind the half-century-long drug war—is "very open-minded" about medicinal use of psychedelics.

The most recent, pulsing Day-Glo sign that the psychedelic renaissance is here took place in Denver in late June at the Psychedelic Science 2023 conference, organized and hosted by the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies, or MAPS.

Founded in the late '80s, MAPS has spent decades working to get FDA approval for MDMA-assisted therapy for PTSD and related conditions. At the conference, a reported 13,000 people gathered to talk about what seemed like every possible topic related to the productive use of these substances.

According to MAPS founder Rick Doblin, this is not the far-out, radical reordering of society envisioned by Timothy Leary, the Harvard psychology lecturer-turned-psychedelic evangelist.

"We look at what happened in the '60s, and a lot of the things that came about from psychedelics were frightening to the culture," says Doblin.

In pursuit of mainstream acceptance, and to gain the approval of federal regulators and establishment figures, MAPS is emphasizing the medical benefits of psychedelics over their potential to bring spiritual enlightenment and societal transformation. Large pharmaceutical companies have entered the field, putting much-needed capital into research. But they've also stirred controversy by attempting to patent compounds that the grassroots say shouldn't be commercialized because they belong to everyone, especially indigenous communities that used them first.

But the biggest takeaway from the MAPS conference is that there's no inherent conflict between the science and spirituality of psychedelics and that a former Republican governor, a current Democratic governor, religious seekers, tech bros, and unapologetic recreational users can be allies in pursuit of the same goal.

This event may be remembered as the beginning of a new renaissance, with immense potential to radically change therapy, medicine, work, art, and community.

Nobody exemplifies the psychedelia of the 1960s quite like Leary, who thought that these drugs would radically alter every aspect of human society and famously encouraged his followers to "tune in, turn on, and drop out."

"I believe that the revolution is a neurological revolution. It's a revolution of consciousness," Leary said in 1973 to a journalist interviewing him from Folsom Prison, where he was serving a sentence for a previous jailbreak on a cannabis charge. 

States started to ban LSD in the mid '60s, and the feds outlawed it in 1968, which is often blamed on Leary. He once theorized that an enemy state might drop LSD in the water supply, advising readers to "sit back and enjoy the…exciting educational experience" under such a scenario.

Leary's rhetoric, combined with hysteria over '60s youth culture, stoked fears that a psychedelic revolution had sinister implications. Perhaps LSD turned people into psychopathic killers like the Manson Family, who combined LSD with amphetamines and other drugs. In 1969, TV personality Art Linkletter started a public campaign to discredit Leary and LSD,  claiming a bad acid trip caused his 20-year-old daughter to jump to her death from a sixth-floor window, even though an autopsy failed to turn up drugs in her system.

"We're determined to do it right this time and to not, as a counterculture, stick a middle finger in the face of the conservative American mindset and say, 'We're going make you all obsolete and make all your values obsolete,'" says 74-four-year-old Charley Wininger, a gestalt therapist and the author of Listening To Ecstasy. He remembers the psychedelic movement of the 1960s.

"We actually traumatized the Greatest Generation by fomenting the kind of revolution that we did. So we're not making that mistake again," says Wininger. 

Doblin says it's time for the psychedelic movement to move "into the heart of the system" rather than remain a countercultural force.

Ironically, LSD first emerged from the heart of the system.

It was synthesized in 1938 by Swiss chemist Albert Hoffman in the laboratories of what would later become pharma giant Novartis and used by psychiatrists and therapists to treat alcoholism and depression. Some of its most enthusiastic early adopters worked for the CIA. In the 1950s, the agency, typically without  consent, dosed its own employees, soldiers, prisoners, and mental patients with LSD as part of an experimental mind-control program called MKUltra. Convinced that Soviet and Chinese communists had developed "brainwashing" techniques, U.S. intelligence agencies wanted to make sure that Americans had equal or better tools.

"There's a tendency, I think, to kind of push against the past and suggest that now we're doing it anew or in a fresh way. But I like the concept of renaissance that also reminds us to think about what we missed in the past," says Erika Dyck, an historian of psychedelia at the University of Saskatchewan. "I think that kind of wild landscape for experimentation of the 1950s is something we should embrace here." 

Before psychedelics became associated with hippies and radicals, psychiatrists and psychologists were incorporating them into their medical and research practices. Aldous Huxley helped make discussions of mescaline respectable when he published The Doors of Perception in 1954, describing the "sacramental visions" he had while tripping. Cary Grant testified to LSD's redemptive powers in Look magazine, and Alcoholics Anonymous (A.A.) co-founder Bill Wilson became a believer in the power of LSD to help alcoholics quit drinking.

After the federal government banned nonmedical use of psychedelics in 1970, clinical research basically halted.

For psychiatrist Julie Holland, the author of a best-selling account of working in the mental ward at New York City's Bellevue Hospital, today's psychedelic renaissance presents the opportunity to resume that research.

"The field of psychiatry desperately needs new tools and a new way of thinking," says Holland. "And so to me, the psychedelic renaissance is really informing how we can transform and sort of upgrade the field of psychiatry."

One thing the conference made clear is that the rejection of Timothy Leary's approach is partly strategic.

MAPS' focus on winning the approval of the scientific and medical establishment first mirrors the approach of marijuana reformers, who demonstrated that legal medical cannabis could lead to recreational approval. But while cannabis is still prohibited at the federal level, Doblin went straight to Washington.

MAPS began funding research that looked at the safety and toxicity of MDMA in the late '80s, and its efforts led to the first FDA-sanctioned trial in 1994. Researchers have since accumulated robust evidence that this drug, known to clubbers as molly or ecstasy, is an effective treatment for PTSD.

Doblin predicts that MDMA will clear FDA approval by the summer of 2024.

"But it won't be like a normal drug that's [FDA] approved," says Doblin. "It will be approved only under direct supervision of therapists. And what we're hoping is that we'll be only under direct supervision of therapists who have been trained in the method that we've used in phase 3 [clinical trials]."

Doblin also believes it's beneficial for therapists to have personal experience with the drugs that they're giving to patients.

Marcus Capone, a Navy SEAL deployed to Afghanistan shortly after 9/11, says traditional pharmaceuticals and talk therapy didn't help the severe PTSD and depression he experienced after leaving service. But then he tried a plant-derived psychedelic called ibogaine, which he had to travel to Mexico to use legally. He says he feels as if the drug "power washes" its taker from the inside.

"It's a very powerful, very long, very difficult experience," says Capone, who describes a feeling like "the world has just been kind of lifted off your shoulders" after the trip.

After Capone's ibogaine experience, he and his wife Amber co-founded Veterans Exploring Treatment Solutions, a nonprofit devoted to making psychedelic therapies available to military veterans. His cause has attracted some surprising advocates.

In 2007, special operations veteran Marcus Luttrell, author of the book Lone Survivor, was experiencing a mental health breakdown and showed up unannounced at then-Texas Gov. Rick Perry's mansion. Perry took him in.

Perry appeared on stage at the MAPS conference, jokingly describing himself as the token "knuckle-dragging conservative" to a mostly progressive crowd. He says the experienced with Luttrell awakened him to the reality of psychedelic therapy.

"It started to make a lot of sense to me that, you know, these are medicines that were taken away for political purposes back in the early '70s," says Perry. "We need to reintegrate and study them, do the appropriate things, but the potential here is stunningly positive."

In 2021, Perry lobbied for a state bill directing the Texas Health and Human Services Commission to study the efficacy of psilocybin as a treatment for veterans suffering from PTSD. He says he believes that there's substantial support in the Republican Party at the federal level for this kind of research because of the high number of military special ops veterans in Congress' Texas delegation.

"Dan Crenshaw, Morgan Luttrell, Wesley Hunt, Tony Gonzalez, August Pfluger, those individuals have seen this firsthand. They know the trauma that has been inflicted on these individuals, and they've also seen the results of the use of psychedelics in treating this trauma," says Perry.

Psychedelics have the potential to outperform SSRIs like Prozac in treating depression, according to psychiatrist Jonathan Sporn. He's the founder and CEO of Gilgamesh Pharmaceuticals, a biotech company developing drugs that have psychedelic properties.

"A lot of people get on these SSRIs and complain that they feel as if the drugs are sort of more masking symptoms or sort of governing down their emotions," says Sporn, who describes psychedelics as possibly more akin to "rebooting your computer" by temporarily disengaging what's known as the brain's "default mode network."

MAPS' focus on clinical trials is a sharp departure from Timothy Leary's approach, but it's not to the exclusion of recreational and spiritual applications.

"I think that the psychedelic renaissance is very much tied to the validation of psychedelics as a therapeutic modality within Western medicine," says Shelby Hartman, co-founder and editor in chief of the psychedelics general-interest magazine, DoubleBlind. She sees clinical research as the bridge to a broader cultural reawakening.

"So what we're actually seeing within science, maybe for the first time in generations, is sort of this bridging of this historical divide between spirituality and science," says Hartman.

But not everyone is so eager to build that bridge.

Activists who said they were speaking out on behalf of indigenous peoples interrupted Doblin's closing remarks to complain about what they said was cultural appropriation on the grounds that indigenous groups were using psychedelics long before LSD was synthesized in a lab.

"Please look at the cycle of colonization and how this continues to happen," said one protester. "Decades from now, you're gonna see the medicine harming you because they're living beings, and they don't like to be abused. They're gonna come back to you and harm you."

The mystical and spiritual pervade all aspects of psychedelic culture. LSD's creator, Albert Hoffman, referred to it as a "sacred drug," and fans of the drug DMT called it "the God molecule." Psychedelic researcher Terence McKenna popularized the "stoned ape theory" that eating magic mushrooms transitioned our homo erectus ancestors into homo sapiens by bootstrapping human consciousness.

Some movement figures today still talk about psychedelics as a solution to all the world's problems, evoking Timothy Leary, who once claimed that they could help free the world from "the white, menopausal, mendacious men" who ran everything while hating beauty, sex, and life itself.

The interest in spiritual and cultural transformation was on display at the conference's darkened Deep Space area, filled with psychedelic art, music, and immersive exhibits. The contrast with the fluorescent expo floor packed with booths hawking psychedelic paraphernalia was striking. And not far from that were M.D.s and Ph.D.s taking the mainstage to share their research.

But maybe the spiritual explorers and the buttoned-down researchers aren't so different after all.

"Psychedelics, and plant medicines more broadly going back thousands of years, have been used as spiritual and ceremonial tools by indigenous communities. And even in the clinical trials that are investigating psychedelics for depression and other indications, they're measuring the core correlation between the profundity of a mystical experience that someone has while on a psychedelic and the therapeutic outcome," says Hartman.

Nobody better bridges the divide between science and spirituality than psychopharmacologist Roland Griffiths, who's the director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Psychedelic and Consciousness Research, the movement's premiere research center.

Griffiths has spent much of his career studying the spiritual effects of psychedelics from a scientific perspective.

"What we know now is the psychedelics can occasion with high probability these profound awakened experiences having meaning," said Griffiths in his keynote address. "They can produce enduring positive changes in pro-social and ethical attitudes."

After spending  decades running experiments on how psychedelics can help cancer patients with anxiety and depression, Griffiths was diagnosed with stage 4 metastatic colon cancer and says he's unlikely to survive into the new year.

"I came quickly to recognize that we can turn with great interest to investigate the present moment and, in this case for me, cultivate gratitude for this astonishing mystery in which we find ourselves," said Griffiths to rapturous applause.

In moves that blur the line between conventional therapy and recreational use, Colorado and Oregon voters have already decriminalized the possession and use of naturally occurring psychedelics, like magic mushrooms. The month before the conference, Colorado Gov. Jared Polis signed into law a regulatory framework for implementing the 2022 state ballot initiative legalizing psychedelic therapy.

"It really took the mandate from the voters," says Polis. "The people are ahead of the politicians. I think, by and large, people have said Colorado's done a great job on cannabis. The negative consequences opponents talked about never happened.… I think if we fast forward 10 years, we want to have that same story to tell on natural medicine and psychedelics."

In the conference expo hall, there was a mix of major corporate players promoting medical products and high-end ketamine treatments, alongside artisanal purveyors selling mushroom-growing kits. All these vendors shared the goal of lowering barriers to access.

But one major point of contention is whether pharmaceutical companies can patent psychedelic compounds. In 2020, the $400 million giant COMPASS Pathways received a patent for a synthetic form of psilocybin meant to treat depression that was upheld in court following a legal challenge. The company is now in phase 3 trials  with FDA approval expected some time over the next year.

Protesters warned that users should beware of psychedelics in the hands of big pharma or "medicines" ripped from their contexts in nature.

Others say more commercialization and capital investment are the only way psychedelics can reach more people and achieve their potential.

In 2019, best-selling author, podcast host, and investor Tim Ferriss pulled together half of the $17 million in commitments that led to the creation of a new psychedelic research center at Johns Hopkins University, including kicking in $2 million himself. On the conference's mainstage, Blake Mycoskie, founder of Toms Shoes, pledged $100 million toward future psychedelic research and education.

The support of regulators and politicians like Polis and Perry is just one component of gaining mainstream acceptance; writers, podcasters, musicians, and comedians are crucial in America's psychedelic reboot.

Off-site from the conference, a comedy show featured several performers lovingly "roasting" the psychedelic scene, including comedian Shane Mauss, who has toured the country discussing his psychedelic experiences.

"As someone who was born in 1980 and experienced much of the Reagan era, 'Just say no to drugs,' and early '90s PSAs and the frying egg and 'This is your brain on drugs'–type stuff, I never pictured a world where marijuana would be anywhere close to legal, and it's mind blowing to me that mushrooms are being decriminalized everywhere," says Mauss.

In his standup, Mauss roasted the "optimizers" like Silicon Valley execs who microdose just enough to up their productivity a tad and hucksters in the scene selling unproven supplements and "telling people you can like cure their cancer with coffee enemas and stuff like that."

It's a diverse scene. Some scientists might be uncomfortable with the spiritualists, capitalists with the social justice activists, therapists with the thrill seekers, progressive NPR listeners with the Joe Rogan fans. Many present at the conference lean left and may assume that wider use of psychedelics will shift the political winds their way. But what if these substances are politically neutral?

"It's easy to romanticize psychedelics, but there are a lot of fundamental questions too about the degree to which psychedelics are reaffirming our biases," says Hartman. 

In other words, rather than leading to any specific conclusions, psychedelics might be what the pioneering researcher Stanislav Grof called "nonspecific amplifiers," meaning they heighten whatever thoughts or experiences users are already having rather than inducing a large shift in perspective.

Doblin says one thing we've learned is that it's crucial not to overstate the power of psychedelics for good or for ill.

"It's not like one dose miracle cure," says Doblin.

If managing expectations in a more realistic way is key to policy and cultural success, so are institutions like Erowid, a well-respected online clearinghouse for all sorts of information about psychedelics. Community-building organizations, such as The Psychedelic Assembly, which runs a workshare, library, and event space in New York City, are also essential. There's also Psychedelics in Recovery, a group that is blending A.A.-style counseling with acknowledgement of drugs in a way that Bill Wilson might have found interesting; and Moms on Mushrooms, a grassroots organization trying to fill the void for curious parents. The Zendo Project is a mainstay at raves, festivals, and other events where psychedelics are heavily used. They "sit" and help guide users through bad trips.

"We can acknowledge what the risks are. There's things you can do to prevent those risks," says Chelsea Rose Pires, Zendo's executive director. "Then we're really setting the movement up for success because we're both acknowledging the risk and addressing it." 

Psychedelics, in the end, aren't a menace nor a cure-all; they're a tool—for treatment, self-improvement, exploration, and fun.

Marijuana legalization looked like a sure thing in the late 1970s before a series of high-profile incidents provoked a backlash that took decades to overcome. Psychedelics are more powerful and frightening than weed, and yet, thanks to the mix of caution and optimism on display in Denver—and the emphasis on doing the revolution right this time—turning on and tuning in won't mean dropping out.

Photos: imageSPACE/ImageSpace/Sipa USA/Newscom; Keiko Hiromi/Polaris/Newscom; Julie Edwards/Avalon/Newscom; Kenny Brown/Mirrorpix/Newscom; CNP/AdMedia/Newscom; Andrew Harnik/UPI/Newscom; CNP/AdMedia/SIPA/Newscom; KEYSTONE Pictures USA/ZUMAPRESS/Newscom; Everett Collection/Newscom; picture-alliance/Fred Stein/Newscom; DPST/Newscom; Rod Lamkey - CNP/Newscom; Graeme Sloan/Sipa USA/Newscom; Lev Radin/ZUMAPRESS/Newscom; Michael Brochstein/ZUMAPRESS/Newscom; BONNIE CASH/UPI/Newscom; Oliver Contreras/Sipa USA/Newscom; Facebook/Johns Hopkins Center for Psychedelic & Consciousness Research; U.S. Navy; CNP/AdMedia/Newscom; Tim Wagner/ZUMAPRESS/Newscom; David Wong/SCMP/Newscom; White House via CNP / MEGA / Newscom/RSSIL/Newscom

Music: "The Path of the Himalayas" by Max H. via Artlist; "Clockwork" by Borden Lulu via Artlist; "Can You Make It" by Out of Flux via Artlist; "Magic Forest" by Itamar Doari via Artlist; "Sonokota" by Guy Buttery via Artlist; "Discovery" by We Dream of Eden via Artlist; "The Ride" by Itamar Doari via Artlist; "Cool the Moon" by Alchemorph via Artlist; "The Undertake" by Borrtex via Artlist; "Everlasting Flower" by DaniHaDani via Artlist; "Cool Tees" by Lahis via Artlist; "Oscillating Form" by Charlie Ryan via Artlist; "Theta" by Michael Ellery via Artlist; "Sun Salutation" by Yotam Agam via Artlist; "Canto Delle Sciacalle" by Cesare Pastanella via Artlist; "Morning Sunbeams" by Yehezkel Raz via Artlist; "Life's Journey Begins" by idokay via Artlist; "Flying Above the Sun" by Yehezkel Raz via Artlist; "Percussive Ideas by Max H. via Artlist; "Tibet" by Ben Winwood via Artlist; "Fur Mushon" by Electric Zoo via Artlist; "Knowledge" by Colors and Carousels via Artlist; "Living It Up Letting You Down" by Bunker Buster via Artlist; "18 Kilograms" by Family Kush via Artlist

The post The Psychedelic Renaissance Is Here appeared first on Reason Magazine.

The global movement against free trade and capitalism that burst into public consciousness at the 1999 protests against the World Trade Organization coalesced around the idea that Western elites had ensnared Third World nations in a debt trap to coerce them into adopting neoliberal policies. 

When poor nations couldn't afford to repay what they owed the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), these Washington-based organizations agreed to restructure the loans of debtor countries, if they would agree to move in the direction of privatization, deregulation, and free trade—a policy agenda pejoratively termed "shock therapy."

Leftist leaders like Hugo Chávez claimed that this was part of a pattern of elite subjugation of Latin America that stretched back to Christopher Columbus. He used it as evidence to support Venezuela's turn toward Cuba-style socialism.

Columbia University's Joseph Stiglitz, a former chief economist at the World Bank and a Nobel Prize–winning critic of free market capitalism, promoted the same narrative. He blamed the Washington Consensus for pushing policies he deemed too radical and wrongheaded to ever get through in the U.S.

Unlike Stiglitz, Alex Gladstein identifies as a classical liberal. The Human Rights Foundation, where he works as chief strategy officer, condemns socialist dictators like Chávez for their crimes against humanity. 

Yet in his recent book Hidden Repression: How the IMF and World Bank Sell Exploitation as Development, Gladstein argues that the story told by the radical left about these two organizations is largely correct. 

His work over the last few years has focused on "monetary colonialism," in which the U.S. and European nations use their control of global currency to override the sovereignty of poor nations in Latin America and Africa. The fix, he says, is for the world to transition to bitcoin, a form of freedom money that no country or corporation can manipulate or control.

Reason sat down with Gladstein at the Miami Bitcoin Conference in May to talk about his new book.

Photo Credits: James W. Prichard/ZUMAPRESS.com; James W. Prichard/ZUMAPRESS.com; Erik Castro/BlackStar Photos/Newscom; Jim Bryant/UPI Photo Service/Newscom; Jim Bryant/UPI Photo Service/Newscom; Seattle Municipal Archives, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons; Steve Kaiser from Seattle, US, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons; Ph0kin, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons; geraldford from Seattle, via Wikimedia Commons; Joe Goldberg from Seattle, WA, USA, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons; Xinhua News Agency/Newscom; Li Ye Xinhua News Agency/Newscom; Michael Brochstein/ZUMAPRESS/Newscom; AgnosticPreachersKid, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons; Lev Radin/Sipa USA/Newscom; Mihail Siergiejevicz/ZUMAPRESS/Newscom; imageBROKER/Inga Backen/Newscom; Franco Trovato Fuoco/dpa/picture-alliance/Newscom; Allison Sales/dpa/picture-alliance/Newscom; Dilma Rousseff, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons; Walter Vargas from San Cristóbal, Venezuela, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons; nicolas genin from Paris, France, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons; SIU MUI LUN ALAN/Newscom; World Economic Forum, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons; Shiny Things, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons; APK, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons; MohitSingh, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons; Graeme Sloan/Sipa USA/Newscom; imageBROKER/Wibke Woyke/Newscom; Jimmy Villalta/ZUMAPRESS/Newscom; CY, Meng, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

Music Credits: "K," by Night Rider 87, via Artlist.

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Before Matt Taibbi was sparring with Democratic members of Congress on Capitol Hill earlier this year over the Twitter Files, he was a darling of the progressive left, appearing regularly on shows like Democracy Now! and others hosted by Bill Moyers and Rachel Maddow.

Though he was always a fierce critic of the Democratic establishment, the rise of Donald Trump suddenly meant that anyone nominally left of center—including progressive journalists like Taibbi—was expected to support Hillary Clinton unconditionally. So when he attacked her as a sellout, argued that the Russiagate narrative was mostly bullshit, and equated the manipulative tactics of right and left media personalities, progressives gave him the cold shoulder. Elected Democrats started treating him like a puppet of the right.

In 2020, Taibbi started publishing his work on Substack and quickly became one of the platform's most popular writers, earning far more than he ever did at Rolling Stone, where he had been chief political reporter. He became even more of a pariah by publishing exhaustive reports that documented how the government sought to control what was said on Twitter about COVID-19 and efforts by Russia to influence U.S. elections. Congressional Democrats unconvincingly pilloried him as a fake journalist, an apologist for Vladimir Putin, and a stooge for Elon Musk.

I caught up with Taibbi at FreedomFest, an annual gathering held this year in Memphis, to talk about the new challenges to free speech, why legacy media is dying, and how identity politics are poisoning political discourse.

Photo Credits: om Williams/CQ Roll Call/Newscom; Gage Skidmore from Peoria, AZ, United States of America, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

Music Credits: "Fun Fun Fun - Instrumental Version," by Dimitrix, via Artlist.

The post Matt Taibbi: How the Left Lost Its Mind appeared first on Reason Magazine.

Mike Rowe is a bestselling author, Emmy winner, and podcaster best known for his stint hosting The Discovery Channel's long-running Dirty Jobs, where he performed the sort of work we all rely on but don't want to think about too much.

From cleaning septic tanks to putting hot tar on roofs to disposing of medical waste, he's done it all—and loves to talk about the value of the hard, honest work that he thinks is devalued by a society fixated on sending everyone to college. I caught up with Rowe at FreedomFest, an annual gathering held this year in Memphis. 

We talked about how his mikeroweWORKS Foundation matches young people interested in learning trades with employers dying for applicants, why men continue to fall farther behind women in school and work, and how Knobel Whiskey, named after Mike's maternal grandfather, is fueling his nonprofit's impact.

Photo Credits: U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Southeast Region, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons; Mikerowe.com; Mikerowe.com/Ben Franze; Paul Souders / Danita Delimont Photography/Newscom; Bill Vaughan/Icon SMI 726/Bill Vaughan/Icon SMI/Newscom; Tom Williams/Roll Call Photos/Newscom; CHAD CAMERON/UPI/Newscom.

Music Credits: "Robot Revolt," by Alex Growl via Artlist.

The post Mike Rowe on Well-Paying Dirty Jobs, Nonprofit Whiskey, and Male Decline appeared first on Reason Magazine.

"Próspera is the first time in human history that a group of people has said there's a way to deliver governing services, privatized for profit in a completely free market way," says Joel Bomgar, a Mississippi state representative and president of Próspera Inc., the company that's building a privately run charter city on the Honduran island of Roatán called Próspera Village.

In Honduras, about half of the population lives in extreme poverty, and gross domestic product per capita is 25 times higher than in the United States. And yet the country has abundant natural resources and is close to major shipping lanes.

The problem is governance: Nobody wants to invest in Honduras because the country has a long history of political instability, expropriating private land, and legal agreements that aren't particularly binding. Honduras is ranked 154th out of 190 countries in contract enforcement on the World Bank's Ease of Doing Business Index and 133rd overall in ease of doing business.

Narco gangs once made Honduras the murder capital of the world, and though crime has dropped in the last 12 years, life there is still extremely dangerous in comparison to the U.S., which is one reason so many Hondurans make the risky journey to immigrate. U.S. Customs and Border Protection has reported more than 73,000 encounters with Hondurans at the U.S.-Mexico border so far this year.

Recently, the country's politics have been especially turbulent: A president was ousted by the military in 2009, and another was extradited to the U.S. for drug trafficking.

The nation recently elected its first democratic socialist president, Xiomara Castro, who has called for a "refounding." She wants to rewrite the constitution to recognize that "the capitalist system doesn't work for the majority" of people. She's calling for electricity to become a "public good…and a human right" and is laying the groundwork for the outright nationalization of the entire energy sector. And she's spending billions on cash transfers.

"Every millimeter of the [Honduran] homeland that [capitalists] took over on behalf of the sacrosanct free market…was watered with the blood of the native people," said Castro, who ran on abolishing the very law that authorized Próspera and similar zones in Honduras, in a September 2022 speech to the United Nations. "My government has embarked upon a process of national rebirth and is bringing profound change."

Meanwhile, a group of foreign investors has embarked on its own "refounding" of sorts. They've started a radical experiment in private governance, which they hope will become a model for how to create prosperity in poor countries all over the world.

"The concept of free private cities and charter cities, specifically what Próspera is trying to do, is the most transformative project in the world," says Bomgar. "There's not a big financial hub in Central America. There's not a sort of Singapore of Central America right now. And so that's what we're trying to create."

On the island of Roatán, a tourist hub with a land mass similar to Hong Kong, a group of libertarian entrepreneurs, including Bomgar, are trying to build a country within a country that's free of the dysfunction that hobbles the national government. And they're starting with a clean slate.

Próspera is based on the principle of true voluntarism, they say: All who live and work there have opted into the rules that govern the land, and they can change their minds and opt out at any time.

The first location being developed as part of this privately run charter city is called Próspera Village, but the project's co-founder and CEO, Erick Brimen, says that the particular plot of land doesn't matter as much as the rules governing it.

"Próspera is not a location. Próspera is a platform that delivers governance as a service in partnership with host governments that create a legal framework that allows that public-private partnership to emerge," says Brimen.

In 2017, the company began acquiring its first 58 acres, which at the time was mostly an undeveloped jungle. Today, Próspera Village is occupied by an office building, a schoolhouse, a factory for prefabricated building materials that's under construction, and a shared workspace for remote office workers. A 14-story luxury condo tower is also nearly complete. Development is happening here at a pace unheard of in a country where it can take years and several well-placed bribes to obtain a permit to put up a building of that size.

Próspera has so much autonomy thanks to a 2013 law authorizing Zones for Economic Development and Employment, or ZEDEs.

ZEDEs don't merely have favorable business and labor regulations, like China's Shenzhen. They make their own laws and regulations. Próspera created its own zoning code and levies its own taxes. Only the country's criminal laws still apply.

To become a full-time resident of Próspera, you just fill out an online application and pay a $1,300 fee, though Honduran nationals get an 80 percent discount. In lieu of a court system, they have access to the Próspera Arbitration Center to resolve any civil disputes, or they can opt for a different arbiter.

Companies can select their own regulation from a menu of options. Like Japan's biotech regulation? Use that. Singapore's banking laws? Use those. Or mix and match.

Depending on what industry they're in, some companies can opt out of regulation altogether, though at a cost.

"Then you're under common law legal liabilities, which can be very harsh. So you do have an incentive to be under regulation, and you need to have liability insurance that covers you," says Niklas Anzinger, who runs Infinita VC, a venture capital fund based in Próspera.

"So this way you have insurance [companies] looking at what you're doing in your regulation and like, 'Yeah, this [regulatory scheme] has been done multiple times before [in] multiple jurisdictions, it's cheap. And this one, ah, that's quite new, right? It's not been really tested. So there's gonna be a higher premium because we have to pay experts to assess the risk of what you're doing.' So, this way you have an open process to improve and develop and find the right kind of regulations for different businesses."

When Reason visited, Anzinger was hosting a seminar for companies that operate or are interested in operating here, including a biotech firm, which found it easier to run gene therapy trials at Próspera than in the U.S.

But President Castro has vowed to repeal the ZEDE law, calling it "criminal" legislation and an attempt to "steal our sovereignty."

Brimen says that even if a repeal vote is ratified by the Honduran congress, Próspera is protected by international treaties, and the government will risk paying damages of over $10 billion if it violates them. Brimen says he expects the Honduran government to back down.

"It's not just the cash cost to us [that will stop them]. It's the message that the Honduran government is appropriating a U.S. investment," says Brimen."So, on the one hand, you have this very bad outcome, and on the other, which I think they're starting to realize, begrudgingly to some extent, you have not [only] $10 billion [in damages] but a multiple of that in upside benefits in not just direct investment but of jobs, positive externalities…what would you do?"

Fernando Garcia, a former economic Minister whom Castro appointed as presidential commissioner against the ZEDEs, says what Brimen and his company are trying to pull off in Honduras is outrageous.

"It is as if I came to the United States with $500 million or $1 billion and asked for a constitutional amendment to buy Central Park in New York, to create a state within a state," says Garcia, speaking in Spanish.

He says that President Castro is defending the Honduran constitution and its national sovereignty by dismantling the ZEDE law because zones like Próspera "will later become free states, independent of her [political] process" if she doesn't act now. Brimen says ZEDEs are far from a threat to political sovereignty.

"It's the opposite. It's an exercise of sovereignty" says Brimen. "One has to more fully understand what sovereignty is to begin with. Sovereignty is about self-determination. And the power to be self-determined properly rests upon the people, not upon some institution that rules them."

Jorge Colindres is the technical secretary of Próspera ZEDE,* roughly the equivalent of its mayor. He says that his experience running a law firm in Honduras has made him acutely aware of the ways in which corruption and weak rule of law have crippled the country, which is why he became involved with the project early on.

"I've seen corruption at almost every government or institution. I've seen it at the municipalities, I've seen it with the prosecutor and the judges, at the environmental agency, at the health care agencies, essentially all over," says Colindres. "And on top of that, you have people demanding bribes and payments. It's horrible."

Colindres says that because Próspera must work to attract and keep investors and citizens, it's incentivized to eliminate corruption from its governance. Bomgar says this competitive structure will make all the difference.

"Unlike other governments, we don't have a monopoly of the use of force and coercion," says Bomgar. "So we live by the principles of nonaggression, self-ownership, and the rule of law and property rights. And unique to Próspera is the right to join but also the right to exit."

Voice matters here at Próspera—residents will be allowed to elect five of the nine members of the city council once the population surpasses 10,000—but political power mostly derives from exit, or voting with your feet. Colindres says that, for example, in a 10-story building, floor seven could be in Próspera, floor six in the general free zone regime of Honduras, and the remaining floors governed by the national regime.

"The basis of the legitimacy of government is consent of the people," says Colindres. "We do have consent of 100 percent of our residents, and that's where our powers stem from."

This opt-in arrangement has allowed Próspera to expand from five acres to 58, and then, during the height of the pandemic, the project expanded to more than 1,000 acres of a nearby resort and villa called Pristine Bay. The hotel at the center of that development remains outside Próspera's jurisdiction, and individual homeowners in the villas will be able to opt in or out.

Another major problem that many South and Central American countries have faced is runaway inflation. In the '90s, Honduras' inflation peaked at around 34 percent; it currently stands at about 9 percent. Próspera will have its own financial overseer who will make sure businesses have selected an applicable regulation standard for themselves, and Próspera is home to a bitcoin cafe and education center devoted to promoting the use of the cryptocurrency on Roatán.

"We provide educational support, technical support setting up [point-of-sale bitcoin infrastructure]," says Dusan Matuska, who runs the Roatán Bitcoin Center and says more than 50 merchants currently accept bitcoin on the island. "I think Próspera's main payment infrastructure will be bitcoin over time."

Próspera is primarily a governance model, so its territory doesn't have to be contiguous. We took a ferry ride to the mainland city of La Ceiba to visit another large territory that's participating in the project.

Though everything about Próspera has been voluntary to date, it's no wonder that Hondurans are worried about foreign businessmen violating their national sovereignty.  La Ceiba happens to also be a key battlefield in a successful 1911 coup backed by the American business magnate Sam Zemurray, who would later become the president of the United Fruit Company. Concerned that the president was hostile to his expansion plans, Zemurray used his wealth and influence to bring about regime change in a foreign country.

We drove along an unpaved road once partly occupied by railroad tracks that used to carry banana harvests to the port. The land was eventually abandoned and now is part of Próspera, which hopes to develop it into a major manufacturing hub.

Eric Paz manages the site, which is currently occupied by a tiny office building, a rundown schoolhouse, and several single-room homes lacking electricity and running water.

"Historically, this has been a community that has had a great lack of opportunities to develop, to be able to study, to be able to have access to health care, to be able to have access to decent work or to decent housing," says Paz.

Paz says Próspera has letters of interest from three companies eyeing the site—a medical supplies manufacturer, a maker of prefabricated housing materials, and an aeroponic farmer.

"Próspera is an opportunity for the region, and I could dare to say that it is an opportunity for the country, because we are trying to do something different," says Paz.

The ZEDE law made it through Congress on the grounds that it would attract investment and bring new opportunities. Garcia says that it hasn't made good on that promise because Próspera said it would generate 10,000 jobs by December 2021 but has only reported 1,000 to the government.

But Colindres says that it's absurd for the Castro regime, which has hamstrung special economic zones and imposed economically destructive policies after several years of COVID pandemic stagnation, to criticize the rate of job growth within the ZEDEs.

"Frankly, the Honduran population, they're not happy with this new socialist government," says Colindres. "In their first year, they butchered over 100,00 jobs and left tens of thousands of people without a formal job. While we are seeing an economic and democratic deterioration at the national level, here in Próspera, we're still creating jobs."

Back on the island of Roatán, some of those jobs have gone to locals from the island, like a carpenter who repurposes excess construction material to make furniture. Or Virginia Cecilia-Mann, Próspera's head cook, who lives in the neighboring village of Crawfish Rock.

"Until Próspera came here, there are moms that never had a job in their life," says Cecilia-Mann. "They don't have the educational level. Or maybe they don't speak the language that they need or just maybe other things, like they have kids at home and there's no one to watch them so they can't get a job that offers mother hours. All of those things, Próspera is offering to them."

Cecilia-Mann also spearheaded the creation of Próspera's on-site school, which teaches local kids using Khan Academy virtual learning. Victor Andino, who lives with his family in a house on the beach that directly abuts Próspera, sends his kids to the school.

"Nobody [else] is going to give you a teacher, who teaches English for free," says Andino. "I don't know much English. I can learn from my boy."

Andino is an electrician, and his wife works maintaining Próspera's many plants.

The company fills many of the location's administrative, security, and construction jobs with workers from the mainland. A mason from the mainland told us that work dried up during the pandemic and that outside of Próspera new construction projects tend to get held up by red tape.

"The permitting process is really slow," he said, speaking in Spanish. "You have to make bribes."

At a fork in the road at the top of a hill leading down into Próspera Village is a small convenience store where construction workers congregate at the end of the work day.

The owner, Lorena Webster, has lived here for 36 years. She's suspicious of her new neighbors.

"[Próspera's leadership] used to come and eat with us and talk with us and talk about the development that they [would] bring in [a] project to benefit the community in the future," says Webster. "So then we [were] always, well, happy because, at last, the place is going to grow, you know?"

Webster says members of the community changed their minds when they found out that the ZEDE law allows companies like Próspera to partner with the government to expropriate their land.

"Never again will the stereotype of a banana republic wear heavy upon us," said Castro in her U.N. speech. She regularly compares ZEDEs like Próspera to the United Fruit Company, which took advantage of politically weak Central American countries to boost its profits in banana cultivation.

Forty-three years after financing a coup in Honduras, United Fruit CEO Sam Zemurray helped orchestrate covert CIA operations in neighboring Guatemala, which led to the removal of another president he considered hostile to his company's business interests.

This legacy of corrupt governments colluding with powerful private landowners has left many locals wary of the ZEDEs.

"Maybe [at] the beginning it will benefit us because they may give us jobs. But in the future, the laws give them the privilege to take our land," she says, though she told Reason that nobody from Próspera has ever threatened to take her home or even offered to buy it.

"They say 'No, we won't [take your land.]' But does that guarantee that they won't? No," she says.

In the adjacent fishing village of Crawfish Rock, a store owner expressed the same fears.

"We live here. We [were] born here, we [were raised] here, and this is what we have," she says. She believes Próspera plans to take all of Crawfish Rock but told Reason they haven't done anything yet to make life worse in her village.

"They haven't bothered us, not at all," she says.

Though Prospera prohibits expropriation in its charter, the ZEDE law does permit the zones to partner with the government to take private lands for public infrastructure development.

Brimen says that Próspera's charter prohibits expropriation and that anyone who attempted to do so on behalf of the organization could be held personally liable. He says he's long supported a reform to the ZEDE law that would make the practice illegal.

"Próspera specifically cannot receive expropriated land into its jurisdiction, period. End of story. It's in our charter, it's in our bylaws, and, if we did, the people involved are personally liable," says Brimen. "I'm against expropriation as a matter of principle."

Brimen is originally from Venezuela, where socialist President Hugo Chávez became notorious for expropriating land and businesses, which eviscerated the economy.

"I think [seeing Venezuela's collapse under socialism] was a very visceral experience of what otherwise would've been read in a book and not understood firsthand," says Brimen.

Brimen says that when he enrolled in college, he wanted to study economic development and poverty to figure out why some countries get rich while others, like Venezuela, stay poor despite having abundant natural resources.

"I thought that what I wanted to do in my life was somehow eradicate poverty," says Brimen. "Yet I realized that I was asking the wrong question. It's not about how you end poverty but rather how you catalyze prosperity."

He says that when he studied the problem from this new perspective that the answer became obvious.

"I was unavoidably led to the empirical evidence that shows that in order for there to be maximized human prosperity, you need freedom. You need economic freedom," says Brimen. "And so the invention of Próspera is mostly around the business model, the public-private partnership approach to deploying an economic system with rule of law that is proven throughout history to unleash human potential."

Will this ambitious experiment catalyze prosperity in Honduras? Can a properly designed private government thrive and avoid the corrupt and violent fates of the 20th-century banana republics?

A lot is riding on Próspera's success or failure: the future of ZEDEs in Honduras, the promise or folly of separating governance and state. It's a bold test of the limits of the proposition that the private sector does everything better and that the profit motive is less corrupting than political processes for obtaining state power.

Brimen and his team say they'll deliver on the promise of creating a bastion of freedom and prosperity, just as long as the national government holds up its end of the deal.

"My vision for the next one to five years is you come back and see as big a leap it was to go from nothing to 1,000 acres," says Bomgar. "Perhaps not in just sort of geographic size but in vertical development…building the city toward the sky."

Brimen says that growth and investment are accelerating and that their biggest obstacle in the near term isn't economic or physical but political.

"The main wild card is how the Honduran government chooses to proceed," says Brimen.

*CORRECTION: The video version of this story originally identified Jorge Colindres as the "technical secretary of Prospera Inc." He is the technical secretary of Prospera ZEDE, which is a different legal entity.

Photos: TEDxJackson/Flickr/Creative Commons; TEDxJackson/Flickr/Creative Commons; Everett Collection/Newscom; Everett Collection/Newscom; Inti Oncon/dpa/picture-alliance/Newscom; Camilo Freedman/SOPA Images/Si/Newscom; Inti Oncon/dpa/picture-alliance/Newscom; Simon Liu/Flickr/Creative Commons; Seth Sidney Berry/SOPA Images//Newscom; Seth Sidney Berry/ZUMAPRESS/Newscom; Milo Espinoza/ZUMAPRESS/Newscom; Milo Espinoza/ZUMAPRESS/Newscom; Gustavo Amador/EFE/Newscom; Milo Espinoza/ZUMAPRESS/Newscom; Humberto Espinoza/EFE/Newscom; Seth Sidney Berry/ZUMAPRESS/Newscom; Seth Sidney Berry / SOPA Images//Newscom; Album/Oronoz/Newscom; Gustavo Amador/EFE/Newscom; 總統府/Flickr/Creative Commons; 總統府/Flickr/Creative Commons; Seth Sidney Berry/ZUMAPRESS/Newscom

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