The Reason Roundtable

In a career spanning 30 years, Reason Senior Editor Jacob Sullum has been one of the most insistent voices in favor of "pharmacological freedom," the right of individuals to use whatever substances they want to control, modulate, and change their mind, emotions, and moods. In the latest issue of Reason, Sullum reviews Michael Pollan's popular new book on psychedelic drugs and boldly asks the question, "Who Controls Your Cortex?" The answer, he says, is the individual.

In a wide-ranging and personal conversation, Nick Gillespie talks with Sullum about the immense changes in drug policy over the past quarter-century, why the marijuana legalization movement has succeeded, and what the future holds for less-popular and more-potent substances such as MDMA (ecstasy) and psilocybin as they gain various forms of government approval as "legitimate" medicines. Sullum and Gillespie talk frankly about our own experiences and how, as parents, we talk about legal and illegal drug use with our children. Sullum is the author of 1998's For Your Own Good, a history of the anti-smoking movement, and 2004's Saying Yes: In Defense of Drug Use.

Audio production by Ian Keyser.

LSD, psilocybin, and other hallucinogenics are gaining new acceptance as serious medicine. But what if you want to do them just for fun, asks Jacob Sullum.

Remy falls in love with the City of Angels.

What are the libertarian takeaways from Tuesday's election? Nick Gillespie, Peter Suderman, Matt Welch, and Katherine Mangu-Ward discuss on the Reason Podcast.

Audio production by Ian Keyser.

Before the news cycle spins forever into crazy-land, Reason editors pause to assess the deep meanings, and lack thereof, of this week's elections

Before the news cycle spins forever into crazy-land, Reason editors pause to assess the deep meanings, and lack thereof, of this week's elections

There will be a lot of confident predictions and tortured exit-polling analysis over these next 30 hours. Don't believe it, says Stephanie Slade on the latest Reason podcast, also featuring Nick Gillespie, Katherine Mangu-Ward and Matt Welch.

Audio production by Ian Keyser.

'Three Stories' by Blue Dot Sessions is licensed under CC BY-NC 4.0

Polling uncertainty and a surge in voter enthusiasm could make tomorrow an embarrassing day for many in the political class.

Polling uncertainty and a surge in voter enthusiasm could make tomorrow an embarrassing day for many in the political class.

Blockchain, the decentralized, incorruptible ledger system that undergirds bitcoin, "gives you an actual power to affect change in the world," says hacker Lauri Love. "It's gonna scare the shit out of some very powerful people."

Love is one of the people featured in actor and filmmaker Alex Winter's new documentary, Trust Machine, which explains how blockchain works and how businesses are using it to reinvent power grids, music distribution, and even grocery stores. For today's Reason Podcast, Nick Gillespie talks with Winter, whose previous documentaries include Downloaded, which looked at how Napster and other file-sharing services disrupted the music industry, and Deep Web, a sympathetic portrait of Silk Road and similar websites, about the potential for blockchain to change how governments—and corporations—go about their business.