I tried to retire as I approached a landmark birthday. (OK, I turned 75.) It didn’t go well. I missed reporting and writing. I had things that I wanted to say–and things I wanted to understand. Working as a reporter for more than half a century has given me a lifelong license to learn. I get to ask all kinds of people questions about all kinds of things, and then share what I learn with readers…
When my oldest friend, a baseball historian, visited last summer, we spent a pleasant afternoon at Nationals Park watching my beloved Washington Nationals lose to the Miami Marlins. Pleasant, that is, until we left the ballpark on a packed escalator. Halfway down, a young man threw up on my friend’s leg. He laughed uproariously and, without a hint of an apology, walked away. “Unbelievable,” my…
I’ve written about foundations and nonprofits for more than a decade, Yet I continue to be surprised and distressed by the indifference, incompetence and arrogance — and especially the lack of accountability — of some foundation boards. Scandal or mismanagement by senior executives of a foundation almost always reflect a failing board. See, for example, the Silicon Valley Community Foundation, the…
As consumer products, combustible cigarettes are looking like more and more like videocassettes, encyclopedias and Kodak film. In the US, they are being displaced by superior technologies, including e-cigarettes, oral pouches and devices that heat tobacco without burning it. Tobacco markets in other countries, notably Sweden and Japan, are moving away from cigarettes even faster. They are on the…
Yikes! This is my first blog post in more than six months. I’m writing less than ever (obviously) as I gradually ease into what a friend calls “rewirement.” But I can’t let go of the story of vaping and smoking, largely because the US government gets it so wrong, as does much of the coverage in the mainstream press. Meantime, the so-called public interest groups that continue to oppose safer…
Nerd alert: Here comes another story on tobacco policy. This one looks at what appears to be the undue influence of Michael Bloomberg, the billionaire former mayor of New York City, and his philanthropic arm, Bloomberg Philanthropies, on the World Health Organization. Bloomberg, his foundation and the nonprofits they fund, including the Campaign for Tobacco Free Kids, crusade against e-cigarettes,…
Lately, I’ve been writing less and enjoying life more. (Pickleball!) I’m surprised to see this is my first blog post of 2024, although that’s partly because a couple of stories that I filed with the Chronicle of Philanthropy are still awaiting publication. I’m planning to take the summer off, and then continue my graduad rift towards what a friend has decided to call “rewirement.” Meantime, I feel…
When big automakers turn away from polluting, gasoline-burning cars to make cleaner electric vehicles, they’re cheered. Likewise, fossil-fuel companies are praised when invest in solar or wind power to help drive the transition to renewable energy. Yet when tobacco companies develop safer ways to deliver nicotine–a concept known as tobacco harm reduction– they are denigrated and demonized by…
For Thanksgiving, here are 23 things for which I’m grateful in 2023. Some are drawn from the world of philanthropy–so please read on if you are planning to make donations during the holiday season–while others are political or personal. In no particular order. Philanthropy Effective altruism: The brand has been tarnished, to say the least, by Sam Bankman-Fried. But the fundamental insights of the…
America’s biggest foundations wield power. They deserve scrutiny, which is why I like to report on what they do and how they do it. And yet. These billion-dollar institutions are so lacking in accountability that it’s not clear to me that critical journalism about foundations can make a difference. So I wonder whether it’s worth my time and trouble to write about their work. This month, the…
The clinical trial that set the stage for today’s fast-growing ketamine industry runs just three pages long and involved only eight patients. It was published, not in the New England Journal of Medicine or The Lancet, but in a specialized journal called Biological Psychiatry. Psychiatrists at the Yale School of Medicine did the research. They were seeking to understand the basic biology of…
When Ocean City, MD, banned smoking and vaping from its boardwalk, the city manager said visitors to the popular seaside resort would police themselves. “Will we haul people off to jail for smoking on the boardwalk?” asked David Recor. “No, that’s not our approach.” It hasn’t worked out that way. This month, Denzel Elam Ruff, a 34-year-old tourist, defied an order from police to stop vaping. He…
Historic is a word much overused in journalism, so we’ll leave it to others to say whether Psychedelic Science 2023 will be long remembered. But the gathering staged last week in Denver by the nonprofit Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Science (MAPS) certainly felt momentous: It showcased the size, strength and diversity of the fast-growing movement to bring psychedelics into…
It’s an exciting time for psychedelics. Clinical trials using psychedelics to treat PTSD, addiction, depression and anxiety are proceeding apace. Oregon and Colorado are preparing to regulate psilocybin-assisted therapy. Cities are decriminalizing so-called natural medicines, and the state of Kentucky, of all places, recently decided to spend $42m to research the healing potential of ibogaine, a…
This week, The Chronicle of Philanthropy published two long stories (here and here) about foundations, nonprofits and racial justice. Reporters Alex Daniels, Sono Motoyama and I talked to about 45 people, trying to better understand how foundations and nonprofits responded to the so-called racial reckoning set off by the murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis police officers in 2020. To the degree…
Psychedelic medicines are generating excitement everywhere — among academic researchers and therapists, in the press, even with members of Congress — everywhere, that is, but among investors. Several startups developing psychedelic therapies have gone bust. Shares in others sell for less than the price of a latte. Companies developing psychedelics struggle to raise capital. So it was with…
This week, the UK government made a startling announcement about electronic cigarettes — startling, at least, to those who have absorbed the barrage of anti-vaping messaging here in the US. The Brits said they would hand out free vaping starter kits to about 1 million people who smoke. The UK health ministry will also pay pregnant women to quit smoking cigarettes and switch to vapes. These…
Several years ago, an investor offered to pay $150 million for 20 percent of MAPS public benefit corporation, the for-profit drug-development subsidiary of MAPS, according to Rick Doblin, the nonprofit’s founder and president. MAPS — it stands for the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies — has for nearly 40 years been working to bring psychedelic medicines to the mainstream. It is…
Most of you, I’m sure, have friends or relatives whose lives have been upended by cancer. Oncologists are better than ever at treating cancer; death rates from common cancers, including lung, breast, and prostate cancers have declined steadily for years. But they are not as well-equipped to deal with the emotional suffering – the depression, anxiety or fear of death – that often accompany a cancer…
Welcome to my new blog. Here you’ll find my writing about the business, science, politics, culture and history of psychedelics. I can assure you that there’s lots to write about. Yesterday, for example, I went to an event on Capitol Hill organized by the Psychedelic Medicine Coalition, a new Washington DC-based advocacy group whose mission is to “create, protect, and promote safe, equitable access…