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LABYRINIH «+ 107 days, though, I received the entire application back. They needed the correct drug number for DMT. This number was on a sheet of paper they enclosed with the returned application. The person with whom I had spo- ken earlier had given me the wrong number. I entered the correct number and mailed back the "revised" application that day. The DEA also wanted a New Mexico Board of Pharmacy Schedule I permit; I applied for and received this certificate within a few weeks. "It's all up to the DEA," the staff at the New Mexico Board said. The DEA then told me they would approve the request for laboratory- grade DMT if the hospital pharmacy and staff passed necessary security checks. The paperwork went from Washington to Denver, and from Den- ver to Albuquerque. The local Albuquerque DEA field officer, Agent D., came to the uni- versity to meet me and look over the pharmacy in early June of 1989. She asked for the names of all those pharmacy staff who might have contact with the DMT, as well as our addresses, phone numbers, and social secu- rity numbers. She found several breaches in security and asked us to get a locked freezer. That freezer was to be placed in the locked narcotics vault. She said I could not have a copy of the freezer key—only the hospi- tal pharmacists should. If any of the drug ended up missing, they didn't want to suspect me of stealing it. She had the unsettling habit of joking, every so often, "Well, that won't land you in jail." And, "Don't worry—we won't take you away in handcuffs for that." I tried to laugh with her. When we said good-bye that day, she summed it up: "It's your ass on the line. If anything goes wrong—theft, loss, bad record keeping—we look to you for explanations." As anxious as her visit made me feel, Agent D.'s last words were the most troubling: "By the way, where will you get the DMT you'll give to your volunteers?" Later that month, the DEA approved in principle my request for permission to possess laboratory-grade DMT. I promised not to give this lower-grade drug to volunteers and would await FDA approval on