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111 the FDA. out." LABYRINTH * Lou laughed on the phone as he said, "We just told them it was pure— ‘95 percent, more or less.' Things were a lot looser then." I wrote to the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), asking if they had some human-grade DMT. When a month elapsed, I wrote again. Mr. W. replied and said NIDA drugs usually came from a laboratory in North Carolina. Dr. C. directed this group. I called Dr. C, who told me they could not make human-grade drugs. When reminded of a recently published study in which his laboratory did so for another research project, he said he'd look into it. Even if he did agree to make the drug, he wouldn't put the drug master file together for He said, "I don't want the liability. I don't have insurance for human use. It's not in my contract." Dr. C. recommended getting some DMT from NIDA and purifying it to the required 99.5 percent purity. He thought they might have 5 grams or so "on the shelf." When asked about this, Mr. W. answered, "Our DMT is too old. And we don't have any manufacturing data." He continued, "We've got a contract with Dr. C. They make what we ask them. There's another laboratory that prepares their drugs for human use. I think the bigger issue is that there's not a lot of movement on DMT these days. It wouldn't be very cost-effective for us to use much money from our contract for such an obscure drug. Let me see what I can find A few weeks later Mr. W. called back, saying Dr. C. could make DMT, but I would have to pay for it. Dr. C. agreed to calculate an estimate, but repeated that he would not put together the required drug file for FDA. "It's too much work." This seemed minimally promising. When I asked Ms. R. at the FDA about putting together my own drug file on Dr. C.'s DMT, she said she'd get back to me. "If Dr. C. made the DMT, could I really use it?" "T'll check with the drug abuse staff here," she answered.