“With more states legalizing psychedelics, activists are interested in exploring their power.”
drugs
Drugs Killed 8 Friends, One by One, in a Tragedy Seen Across the U.S.
“It just, it took them.”
‘The Evanescence is the Thing’: Five Writers on the Power of the Dance Floor
Five reads on dancing, techno music, and rave and club culture.
‘These Kids Are Dying’ — Inside the Overdose Crisis Sweeping Fort Bragg
“A staggering total of 109 soldiers assigned to Fort Bragg died in 2020 and 2021. Dozens have lost their lives there to drug overdoses. Now, their families are demanding answers — and accountability.”
The Top 5 Longreads of the Week
This week, our editors recommend stories by Yessenia Funes, Carl Elliott, Courtney Shea, Jillian Steinhauer, and Ed Simon.
The High-Stakes Race to Engineer New Psychedelic Drugs
As the drumbeat of psychedelic drugs’ therapeutic impact grows louder, it’s little surprise that companies are looking for new compounds that can rival psilocybin and LSD — while also being proprietary and patentable. Enter Compass Pathways and their star chemist, Jason Wallach. As John Semley reports for Wired, Wallach’s mad-scientist act is a childhood dream […]
Pregnant, Homeless and Living in a Tent: Meet Mckenzie
In 2018, reporter Gale Holland, photographer Christina House, and videographer Claire Hannah Collins spent time with young unhoused people in an encampment above the Hollywood Freeway. Their Hollywood’s Finest series for the Los Angeles Times tells the stories of three women, including Mckenzie Trahan, a young woman who has been in and out of foster […]
Acid Church
An essay by Courtney Desiree Morris on Louisiana, her grandmother, drugs, feeling alive, and finding one’s queer tribe. I roll my hips like the Mississippi, joints loose and easy, feeling light and free. I cannot remember the last time I felt this way. That makes me sad. I accept this insight and let it go […]
A Carefully Constructed Li(f)e
Tim Brown seemed like a typical Florida retiree: He loved doting on his wife, fishing with friends, and flying his plane. But his life was built on a secret.
The Gentrification of Consciousness
“San Francisco’s Mission district has become synonymous with well-paid tech workers displacing non-white longtime residents. It’s now the setting for a new battle, as the coming psychedelic-industrial complex threatens to strip hallucinogenic drugs of their historical and religious significance.”