Leonard Pickard is a living legend. Allegedly, he once produced 95 percent of the world’s LSD supply in a former nuclear missile silo in Kansas. When the DEA got wind of the operation, Pickard fled—triggering an epic chase (described in the foreword to my book TRIPPED), which ended in not one, but two life sentences in maximum-security prisons.

Fast forward a few decades: during the pandemic, Pickard received a pardon and was released. Today, he is a sought-after advisor to psychedelic companies. Few biographies reflect the grotesque zigzags of American drug policy more clearly than his. Pickard’s life is, in that sense, symbolic: underground science, overground punishment, and a belated, awkward rehabilitation by the very system that tried to erase him.

Paul has graced the largest podcasts across the globe, and now, inevitably, he has made it to the Dopecast. Why inevitable? Because we were trapped together on a ship bound for the southernmost reaches of our planet. And while hardly a mushroom grows in Antarctica, Paul’s energy was anything but dormant—he was at once entertaining, illuminating, and inf…

Have a listen, it was a fascinating conversation. We recorded it in Berlin with a live audience this summer, but the right moment to listen to it is today.