Last week, Filter, a nonprofit journalism website that covers drug policy, published my long (3,000-word) story about the Truth Initiative. Truth Initiative, which was formerly known as the American Legacy Foundation, began in 2000 as an anti-smoking group — by most accounts, a very effective one — and later evolved into a nonprofit that seeks to “inspire lives free from smoking, vaping & nicotine.” My story explains, to the best of my ability, how and why Truth Initiative broadened its mission and, arguably, took a disastrous turn in the wrong direction.

The story is unavoidably detailed and complicated, so I won’t try to summarize it here. Suffice it to say that well-respected senior scientists who left Truth Initiative told me that they are dismayed by the organization’s hard-line stance against vaping and all things nicotine.

“They have spun and ignored the science to cherry pick only information and data that supports the ideology of prohibition,” said David Abrams, a professor of public health at New York University, who previously directed the research arm of Truth Initiative.

Sally Satel, a psychiatrist and a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute who writes about medicine and culture, told me: “We’re not talking misinformation. We’re talking disinformation. This is willful misrepresentation of facts. It’s mind-blowing.”

I dearly hope that members of the Truth board will read my story and reconsider the organization’s position. Vaping is literally a life-and-death issue.

You can read the story by clicking here.

MDMA is an illegal drug that, according to the Drug Enforcement Administration, has no medical value and a high potential for abuse.

Yet MDMA -- better known as ecstasy or molly -- is being welcomed into a veterans administration hospital where it will be used to help combat veterans with PTSD.

How can that be?

The research at a Bronx, NY, VA hospital has been permitted by the FDA, which, to its credit, continues to approve clinical trials to assess the therapeutic benefits of psychedelic medicines. Guided by science and not by the politics of the war on drugs, FDA regulators are increasingly aware of the potential of psychedelics; when accompanied by therapy, they appear to be able to help alleviate suffering from a range of mental disorders.

Specifically, this clinical trial took root at a meeting at Burning Man and was made possible by the philanthropy of two colorful billionaires. You can read more in my latest story at Medium.

In my new story for @Medium, I try to figure out whether Richard Nixon called Timothy Leary "the most dangerous man in America." The quote has been published thousands of times. There's no evidence that Nixon ever said it. You can read the story here.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is a progressive champion. Matt Gaetz is a conservative firebrand. They don’t agree on much — except psychedelics.

Ocasio-Cortez, a New York Democrat, and Gaetz, a Florida Republican, have joined forces in Congress to try to make it easier for scientists to research marijuana and psychedelic drugs, including MDMA and psilocybin.

Such bipartisan cooperation will be needed to support the growth of psychedelic medicines and end the drug war, says Jonathan Lubecky, a retired Army sergeant and Iraq war veteran who now lobbies on behalf of the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies, or MAPS.

“This isn’t a party line issue,” Lubecky says. “The polar opposites in the House came together on psychedelics.”

Voters are coming around as well. Last week, Oregon became the first state in the US to legalize a psychedelic medicine; about 56 percent of the state’s voters supported a ballot measure that will allow the medical use of psilocybin, the active ingredient in so-called magic mushrooms.

You can read the rest of this story here at Medium.