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115 blood. LABYRINIH * need to amend his current permits, saying how much DMT he'll make. I'll check with our pharmacist to be certain it's a reasonable amount." "Okay," I said. "That sounds great. I really appreciate your help." Icalled Dr. W. He confided that "off the record," my project was pointing out a flaw in the drug laws: How do researchers study drugs of abuse? He then described exactly how to respond to the twenty requirements the FDA had written about in the four-page letter that had arrived from them several months earlier. These steps would provide the FDA the in- formation they needed to determine if the DMT was "safe for human use." The UNM Department of Psychiatry agreed to pay Dave Nichols three hundred dollars for the DMT. However, they would not write the check until the DEA issued the Schedule I permit. The DEA would approve neither Dave's request to make DMT nor my Schedule I permit to possess it until the FDA approved the protocol. The FDA couldn't give me permission until I possessed the drug and tested it for safety. The DEA also required verification from the FDA that Dave could go ahead and make the drug. Four months later, in January 1990, Dave finally received DEA ap- proval to make the DMT. He ordered the precursors immediately and began working on it. In the meantime, I had gotten laboratory-quality DMT from Sigma and put it into the special locked freezer in the narcotics vault in the hospital pharmacy. One hundred milligrams, a tenth of a gram, in a little vial. The Research Center began developing a method to measure DMT in human In addition, I received a high score from NIDA for a grant application to actually run the DMT study, and it was likely to be funded. Two grants approved, but no drug! It was bizarre. Everyone wanted the study done, but no one knew how to get me the drug necessary to perform it. By February the DEA had obtained enough information from the FDA to know that the protocol was sound enough for the FDA to approve "in