William Leonard Pickard: Imprisonment and Thoughts on the Future of Psychedelics
On July 27th 2020, it hit the news that William Leonard Pickard, convicted for conspiracy to manufacture LSD in the largest psychedelic case in history, was released from serving two life sentences. How did Leonard spend his years imprisoned? What does his life look like now? And amidst our ongoing psychedelic renaissance, how does Leonard feel about the future of psychedelics?
We had the honour to chat with Leonard eight months following his release. Now aged 76, Leonard is a charming, rosy-cheeked character with fluffy white hair, calm composure and a friendly smile. Not what one might expect of the media-titled “acid king.” He spoke fondly of Santa Fe, New Mexico, where he now lives and its picturesque landscapes, which he takes daily long walks or runs.
City of Santa Fe, New Mexico
Seemingly, Leonard has become well-integrated into contemporary culture despite being apart from society for so long, yet his strong love of the old and traditional is also evident. For example, his taste in music taste spans from classical opera to contemporary electronic synth-pop, expressing a particular fondness for the “post-internet” icon Grimes. His taste in reading extends from classical Victorian literature, such as Virginia Woolf and Dickens, to some of the latest publications about artificial intelligence and humanity’s technological future.
Electro-pop musician Grimes
His lust for life is unmistakable, describing his first few days out of prison as “like being born again,” and speaks with passion about natural word beauty, from which he spent nearly two decades isolated. Spending such a significant portion of his life spanning the same 50 prison yards back and forth, it’s no wonder why he’s so appreciative of all the little Earthly details, from the feeling of flowers to the sounds of a stream.
Leonard described prison life’s bleakness - the continual handcuffs and arm and leg chains, high walls and the ongoing sounds of men screaming. However, regardless of the miserable conditions, the greatest difficulty during Leonard’s imprisonment was the loss of love he felt. Having to leave his wife and three children, including one newborn, behind, he describes the “losses of the heart” he suffered as the most painful.
Photos taken November 6, 2000 - the morning following Leonard’s arrest
We asked Leonard how he managed to cope with such torment and prolonged seclusion, to which he expressed great gratitude to the “human kindness” of friends that wrote him letters and spoke with him over the phone during his sentence. He also credited his daily meditation as a “clear peaceful pool” amidst the chaos of the prison, in which he could simply “watch his emotions go by.” He explained that with the the background noise of screams, that sometimes wouldn’t stop till four o’clock in the morning, meditation was both “helpful and necessary to survive the mental and emotional captive” he faced.
Photograph from inside Leonard’s cell
Leonard’s passion for reading literature was another mechanism to distract himself from prison life, and he would read for hours on end every day. Prompted by Richard Shelton, a weekly visitor who offered writing workshops to inmates, Leonard began writing literature of his own. Astonishingly, he wrote an entire immense novel, with pen and paper alone, The Rose of Paracelsus - a story of six clandestine LSD manufacturers, which has since been labelled a psychedelic masterpiece. Writing two to three hundred words a day, composing the novel enabled him to dig into the memories of the world of which he was separated. His book is now available to purchase, and the audio is available to stream online for free.
The Rose of Paracelsus, written by Leonard whilst in prison
Leonard has a unique position of being both a contributing academic and a prisoner of drug policy. Before his arrest, Leonard was the Deputy Director of Drug Policy at the University of California and is a former graduate student at the Harvard Kennedy School in Cambridge Masechuessets, where he investigated drug epidemics.
During his years at Harvard, Leonard’s research into morphine analogues led him to predict that fentanyl, a rarely used anaesthetic at the time, would make a “perfect storm for unscrupulous manufacture,” i.e. would become the next major drug of abuse. Just short of 20 years later, his predictions came true, and the fentanyl epidemic exploded, beginning from Mexico and spreading globally. Leonard’s academic advisor sourced his documents on fentanyl predictions and recommendations for control and sent them to RAND - a drug policy and research centre. His positive contribution to the opioid epidemic, which he continued during his imprisonment, aided in his release.
Leonard among the wealth of his book collection
Evidently, Leonard’s intuition regarding drugs of abuse is worthwhile. In light of such, we asked about his predictions for the ongoing psychedelic movement, in which psychedelic drugs are becoming more popular and the legality around the substances reconsidered. Emerging from behind bars to a great deal of discourse around psychedelics by the mainstream media, medical professionals and political leaders, he feels both overwhelmed and hopeful.
Leonard sees the great potentials of psychedelics becoming popularised, suggesting the prospect of “evolution in the arts and sciences with these new technologies for creativity”. However, he also recognises the potentials for drawbacks. With an increase in medicalisation is the likelihood of increased illicit use, of which people may not understand the depth of the drug they are taking and face blowbacks as a result. He quotes:
“People may not realise the strength and depth of the collective experience - one can go from a light-hearted experience to a confrontation with God… Challenges [may arise] when people act in untoward ways because they don’t understand the severity of the compounds.”
He is also cautious of the various psychedelic analogues. Until the present time, only well-characterised psychedelics, like LSD and psilocybin, were available. Now, more and more synthetic hallucinogens, such as the 2C family, and synthetic psilocybin variants, are being produced and brought to the drug trade. Leonard describes a “challenging and wonderful episode over the next 10 years as we learn from these new drugs”.
Photo of Leonard at age 76 taken in Santa Fe, New Mexico by Peter Weiss
He recognises that, unlike classical psychedelics, users, researchers, and medical professionals are more in the dark about the dosages, interactions and potentials of these new modern compounds. He urges the importance of widespread communication about the types of new drugs and deep analysis of any published research.
Asides from the rise in psychedelics’ popularity, I asked Leonard how it must feel coming out of prison in today’s climate, particularly emerging into a world of COVID-19. His reply struck me:
“People wearing masks, people staying indoors more, it’s a bit unusual. But that doesn’t compare to mobile phones.”
Leonard has maintained his research into drugs and altered states and now works professionally as a paralegal, defending the Hispanic community’s rights, among other civil liberties. Though thoroughly enjoying life in New Mexico, where he is reunited with one of his sons, he wishes to visit London and the scenic, architectural landscapes which have inspired much of the literature he relishes. If the bi-annual psychedelic conference Breaking Convention runs in the UK this year, he wishes to attend and be in person with all his friends that kept him going throughout his years of darkness.
The bi-annual psychedelic conference, Breaking Convention, at London’s University of Greenwich
