Neuropsychedelia. Nicolas Langlitz

high doses of MDMA to human subjects—had to withdraw his sensational study on the neurotoxicity of the substance published in Science one year earlier (Ricaurte et al. 2002, 2003). Based on primate research funded by the National Institute of Drug Abuse, Ricaurte had postulated such a high degree of neurotoxicity for MDMA in doses regularly consumed at raves that ecstasy users should have died very frequently. Many of those who had seen the drug being used in their own social environment regarded Ricaurte’s claims with suspicion. Eventually, he had to concede that he had actually administered the significantly more toxic methamphetamine (speed) to the monkeys. This mistake had been based on a mislabeling of containers, he claimed.

      Such crises of confidence in government-funded research were exactly what Heffter’s competitor MAPS was trying to take advantage of to relegitimize various medical and nonmedical applications of psychedelic drugs. MAPS founder Rick Doblin explained at the LSD Symposium: “The key point here is to build credibility. The government has lost credibility about the risks because they completely exaggerate them. The government has also lost credibility about benefits because they completely deny them. So we need to be at the forefront of looking at risks and at benefits.” The goal was to acquire greater scientific authority than either countercultural propagandists or experts supported by the US government. As an activist organization, MAPS funded both research and lawsuits against the US Drug Enforcement Administration, employing the scientific knowledge it helped to generate to pursue its political goals.

      Even though the Heffter Research Institute also had as a goal the registration of psilocybin as a medicine, the organization tried to stay out of the trenches of the drug war. It was key to Heffter’s strategy of depoliticization to support and conduct clinical research and basic science alike—an approach Gilmore criticized as not sufficiently goal-oriented. The tensions manifesting in this situation arose from a regulatory regime in which the supposed value neutrality of science was simultaneously claimed and undermined by the warring parties. The War on Drugs was also a war of knowledge, in which victories were occasionally based on new scientific findings. But the sharpest weapons blunt rapidly when wielded with too much fervor.