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105 LABYRINTH * receiving melatonin. When I included this comment in the DMT consent, prospective volunteers objected. Nevertheless, there had to be some mechanism by which legitimate investigation into possible long-term health risks resulting from DMT could occur. However, it must be voluntary. The compromise we developed was that ifthe FDA or the DMT manu- facturer wanted to interview research volunteers or look at their medical records, they first had to go through me. I would check with the individual volunteers to see who was interested. Research records certainly could be subpoenaed, but without the key to the code numbers they would be of limited use. I would refuse to divulge the key on the grounds of patient- doctor privilege. It would be a mess, but it was worth it. As it turns out, in five years of studies with over sixty DMT volun- teers, not one breach of confidentiality or anonymity ever occurred. Neither have there been, five years since the studies' completion, any requests by the authorities to review volunteers’ charts. The Research Center's Scientific Advisory Committee acknowledged that the science of the DMT protocol was relatively direct and uncomplicated. They realized the primary obstacles were ethical, political, and adminis- trative, areas in which they had less authority and responsibility than the ethics committee. There were security and liability concerns, however. The Research Center asked me to keep volunteers in the hospital overnight, to make sure they were watched by the nursing staff for a full day after their par- ticipation. I replied that this would cut down on the number of prospective volunteers. Previous DMT studies had sent their volunteers home in the afternoon, following morning studies, with good safety results. They ac- cepted this. The Research Center scientists also wanted to establish the best time of day to give DMT. Was there a daily rhythm in DMT sensitivity? Were responses greater in the morning or evening? I answered that I didn't know, but that by giving DMT to everyone at the same time of day, in the morning, we would standardize that factor. We could investigate possible changes in sensitivity throughout the day in a different study.