Alpert Asks Freedom For Drug Studies

Richard Alpert, assistant professor of Clinical Psychology, said last night that attempts to restrict his research with consciousness- expanding drugs limit the "freedom of the individual to explore himself."

He said that he and Timothy Leary, lecturer in Clinical Psychology, do not want control of the drugs, but emphasized that "we don't want others to control them either."

Claiming that existing legislation prevents the Food and Drug Administration from making proper provision for the use of such drugs as psilocybin, mescaline and LSD, Alpert said that society must make it possible for drugs to be used for "growth and education." In fact, he questioned whether consciousness expanding drugs ought to be classified as drugs. "Perhaps they should be called mental vitamins or mental health foods," he suggested.

Alpert Regrets Harvard's Decision

In response to a question, Alpert said he felt "very badly" that Harvard had found it necessary to rule that no undergraduates could take part in his experiments. Expressing understanding of the University's position, he said that he and the University had "parted amicably" although he was disappointed that the experiments "could not go on at a university which prizes freedom and inquiry."

While stating that undergraduates, as a group, were not especially significant as experimentees, Alpert did not specifically say that undergraduates would not be permitted to enter the experiments carried on under the auspices of the International Foundation for Internal Freedom (IFIF), a group Alpert and others organized last fall. He said "We have tried to deal openly with the interests of undergraduates."

Drug Experience Indescribable

Alpert said it was impossible to recount the drug experiences to persons who have not taken the drugs. This 'breakdown in communications," he suggested, was partially responsible for the "fear and hostility" he has encountered.

Trying to explain his dilemma in communicating results, Alpert drew on Plato's cave analogy, implying that those who had taken the drugs had seen the sun, and persons still enchained in the cave were unable to believe their story. The drug experience, he said, is "nonverbal, without space and time coordinates."

Defending his research methods, Alpert said it was "absolutely essential" that the experimenter take the drugs with the subject in order to be able to provide proper guidance of the experience. He said the subject often feels he is losing his identify, or that he is "melting away physically." When this occurs, the subject must be encouraged to "let himself go" in order to "gain significant insights" into his existence.

He stated that he and Leary had found that the conditions of the experiment strongly influence the results obtained. If a subject is told he is going to have a "psychotic experience", he will have one.

On the other had, if he is told he will see great color pattern, or have a religious revelation, that is what will happen. Physical surroundings also affect the reactions, Alpert said.

Because the individual, who sometimes emerges from a drug experience with a desire to "change his life patterns", is thwarted by society from taking advantage of his insights, Alpert said he hoped to set up "centers across the country where groups of people could live together" While taking the drugs.

Experimental in Mexico

He said a group experimental in Mexico last summer had made him" less cynical about the possibility of a utopian society," such as the one described by Aldous Huxley in island. The Mexican experience, he related, prompted the creation of the Newton Center headquarters, where several unrelated persons are now living as a family unit. "This is not a blood-related family," he said, "it is like a family of man."

IFIF, he said now trying to set up other centers, and will provide legal information medical advice, and eventually drugs and manuals to others group experimenters. In addition it is publishing a journal on consciousness-expanding research.

Stressing the positive results of his three years investigation (92 per cent of those taking drugs report "pleasure experiences" and "significant insight"), Alpert predicted that drugs will play "an important hope that those who do not understand the drugs or fear new developments will not prevent him and others from continuing the experiments