psychedelic pharmacology by LEAH KELLY interview with HAMILTON MORRIS We wake up wanting to feel different. A cigarette, espresso, drink, or joint marks our desire, conscious or unconscious, to shift our mood, moment to moment. But there has been another shift. We don’t want simply to feel different. We want to feel differently. Psychedelic drugs, long-synonymous with recreation in the West, are making their way over the counter to pry open our well-worn synapses, promising new ways to be. Ketamine- and MDMA-assisted therapy are increasingly used to treat depression and PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder). Microdosing is the personal and professional problem-solver du jour. Will these compounds lead to long-lasting changes in society? Or are they just the latest trend in lifestyle marketing from the pharma-industrial complex? The chemist Hamilton Morris, a psychedelic-drug veteran, discusses the limits of psychopharmacology and its influence on his work. LEAH KELLY — Do you think about…