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hospital. There was a relatively steady turnover of clinical, administrative, and teaching personnel in them. Several had little courtyards and gardens, 284 «© TAKING PAUSE psilocybin in ways that were impossible in the ease of DMT's debilitating and brief peak effects. However, the setting of the Research Center was an obstacle to de- signing and thinking about psilocybin protocols. Many of our DMT volunteers would have leaped at the opportunity to participate in a psilo- cybin project if it were not for the prospect of spending an entire day in an altered state of consciousness in the hospital. The short duration of DMT's effects usually allowed us to find a win- dow of tranquility at the Research Center. Even so, there were many times when the sounds of jet planes, laughing and debating medical personnel, crashing carts, groaning and screaming patients, the overhead duct fan, and roaring compactors had a major negative impact on people's DMT sessions. The smells of burning food, medication, and powerful disinfec- tants were especially grim. And the rare but regular occurrence of hospital service personnel walking into Room 531 was a constant source of anxi- ety. They all would combine to make a full-day psilocybin session an exercise in tension. The university owned several small houses within a city block of the and they seemed perfect for taking the psilocybin research "off-site." 1 approached the Research Center nursing and administrative staff, the University Hospital legal counsel and risk-management office, and the Department of Psychiatry about moving the psilocybin research out of the hospital. They all considered my request reasonable, prudent, and within the realm of possibility However, the Human Research Ethics Committee, many of whose current members were not familiar with our research, was not comfortable with the safety issues off-site studies might raise. They wanted to make sure that security guards were close at hand to manage any volunteers who might act dangerously, and they wanted us to keep studies in the more contained hospital setting. As is so often the case, their fears led to exactly the outcome they hoped to avoid.