Standards without Labs: Psychedelic Drug Development in the Underground
Guest speaker: Joanna Kempner, Rutgers University. Federal regulations mandate that investigators limit their clinical trials to pre-approved, standardized drugs to assure reliable results. Sometimes, however, unauthorized investigators) develop therapeutic protocols for the use of drugs in the underground, beyond the reach of federal regulators. This presentation investigates how unauthorized investigators engaged in “collective experimentation” standardize drugs given the difficulty of obtaining “laboratory-grade” pharmaceuticals by drawing on a case study of Clusterbusters.