Benadryl Part 1: The Hatman Cometh

It's a beautiful day in Topanga Canon. The breeze is blowing, the birds are chirping, and as we wait for some extravagantly priced breakfast burritos we're joined for Business Lunch by psychedelic media icon Shelby Hartman. After some of the hottest months in psychedelic capitalism to date, there is much to discuss, and with such special company, no location would be more idyllic than the breathtaking Inn of the Seventh Ray. Despite Kai’s ill timed and quite frankly unprofessional digestional distress (gross) we make the most of our afternoon as we reflect on our president making quips about trying Ibogaine in the Oval Office, the implications of the largest pharma company in the world purchasing ATAI Beckley, and the consequences of drinking unfiltered water from a stream in a fire ravaged canyon.

We're giving you a taste, a beautiful bite, of what Trip Report Report Reserve listeners are calling a delectable auditory meal. For our first ever Reserve episode, we're exploring aa scandal from an esteemed educational institution of the far east: Penn State. It appears some naughty fraternity boys have been caught up in something of a cocaine trafficking scandal. Oh dear! Later in the episode we explore cocaine use while everyone else is on shrooms and at a "low-grade" strip club probably somewhere in the UK.

Over the last hundred years, cocaine has morphed from a glitzy Hollywood indulgence, to the drug of choice for tens of millions of people worldwide. We discuss the last hundred years of cocaine's history — with no shortage of side quests and indulgences of our own. Later in the episode we cap things off with a report from a very responsible drug user in Las Vegas, and a singularly awesome Erowid poster. Finally, we're giving an update on our mission to get enough podcast reviews that Cheth's Dad will allow us on his yacht (don't call it a boat) for the end of the summer season in St. Barthes.

Many of us have heard some version of this story, often oversimplified and misconstrued by Hollywood or the mainstream media, content to ignore primary sources in favor of demonizing the drug user. The truth as told by those who lived it goes like this. In the early 1980s, the CIA coordinated cocaine trafficking operations in order to fund a violent paramilitary group attempting to topple the Nicaraguan government. A significant portion of that product was sold to enterprising drug dealers at bargain prices who processed it into crack, bringing devastation to LA's South Central neighborhood and beyond. Between August 18th and 20th 1996, Gary Webb published a groundbreaking series of articles titled Dark Alliance, which shed light on this whole affair and brought millions of people to the same conclusion. On the 30 year anniversary of this historic exposé, we're discussing Webb's findings in detail, outlining how and why the CIA trafficked cocaine into the United States, the key players involved in the explosion of the crack trade, and the devastating repercussions for black communities nationwide.

We’re back with Cheth to discuss the first ever FLINTA trip reporter in the Western Cannon… Annie C. Meyers