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THIS WEEK ON THE VIKING YOUTH POWER HOUR...
The Trouble with Halpern
In this half of our celebration of
Albert Hoffman's
100th birthday, we discuss the controversy which befell Basel when blotter artist Mark McCloud
outted MAPS MDMA researcher John Halpern
as an informant for the DEA. The accusation dates back to the 2000 bust of Halpern's friend Leonard Pickard
who is now serving 2 life sentances for running the largest LSD manufacturing facility in the history of the chemical. Apparently
Halpern cooperated with the DEA to the extent of a number of interviews and tape recording several phone converations. Here are the
two records McCloud produced indicating this.... Document #1 and Document #2. Here
is video from the event of McCloud confronting Halpern about the matter (WMV only).
And finally here is the email response from MAPS director Rick Doblin
clearing up some of the innaccuracies of the accusations, but leaving some very large questions unanswered as well.
There is no doubt that Doblin has his heart in the right space and that MAPS has done a great many things in it's course of existence and
that it will continue to do great things, but there are some hard questions that should be asked - and should be answered - as we as a
community chart a path of this sort. See our Forum for
a discussion related to this topic already started.
We also discuss the anti-Americanism that Justin faced at Hoffman's birthday party, the good old days of the 1960's, and the 10,000lb heart that
was Allen Ginsberg.
UPDATES: Some recently released stuff concerning the controversy. Jon Hanna's article
for the Entheogen Review and a fairly comprehensive page from the folks at Erowid.
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