Robert Anton Wilson spent five years in the '60s as an editor of Playboy, then went on to coauthor (with Robert Shea) the mind-boggling "Illuminatus", got his PhD in psychology, wrote the new age classic "Cosmic Trigger", collaborated on two books with Timothy Leary, wrote a whole bunch more on his own, released a punk-rock album and toured as a stand-up comedian.

Robert A.Wilson has expanded as many minds with his books as all the Sandoz acid ever manifacturated.

High Times: Who do you think is responsible for the "war on drugs"?

R.A.Wilson: I suppose the Eli Lilly Company.

HT: How do you figure that?

RAW: The "war on drugs" is chiefly a war on pot, according to Judge Sweet.

85% of the drug budget is going into pursuing pot-smokers. They're trying to drive pot off the market because the CIA is a making a big profit out of the cocaine business, and Ely Lilly provides the materials that the Colombians need to make cocaine out of the coca. So they want to keep the cocaine business going. By the way, do you know who owns Eli Lilly?

HT: No, I don't.

RAW: The Quayle family owns a large part and George Bush owns a large part.

HT: How much do you think the US government is involved in maintaining that supply of materials from Eli Lilly to Colombia?

RAW: Well, the government isn't doing anything to stop Eli Lilly from sending those materials down to Colombia and there's lots of cases where the CIA has been caught redhanded laundering drug money. They were running a bank in Florida a few years ago - the World Finance Corporation - which was mainly a cocaine-money laundromat. And then there was a bank in Australia which the CIA was running, which was laundering heroin money (the Nugan Hand Bank). Most of their banks were tied with the Swiss Alpine Bank in the Bahamas, which was run by Roberto Calvi and Archbishop Marcinkus , so they could run the money through the Vatican Bank, where it leaves no record.

HT: I've noticed that a lot of the so-called antidrug propaganda is phrased in a strange, negative fashion - sort of reverse suggestion. For instance, "Keep on smoking crack and you'll end up with nothing," could be taken as a suggestion to keep smoking crack. Do you think this is deliberate, or are they just stupid?

RAW: Never understimate the stupidity of the establishment in this country.

The stupidity of the establishment approaches to infinity.

HT: The executive branch of the government, the CIA and the Vatican Bank are pretty monolithic institutions to be working against. Do you think there is much chance of cannabis being legalized in America?

RAW: Yes, because there are more and more people becoming aware of the valuable properties of hemp, thanks to Jack Herer and a lot of others - but especially Jack Herer. There are more and more people who know that we could be running our cars on hemp oil and not polluting the air the way that petroleum pollutes the air. A lot of people know that we can print books on hemp paper, and that will slow down the destruction of the forests. A lot of facts like that are becoming more widely known. It's an uphill battle against deception, greed and ignorance - but it's not hopeless.

HT: Are there some ways do to this that you think haven't been fully explored, but can be?

RAW: I think we should study the samizdat methods that were used in the Soviet Union to transmit information when the censorship was so strict there.

We've got computer networks, that's one avenue for distributing information.

Meanwhile, we do have alternative radio. We have Pacifica and National Public Radio, where a lot of information gets out that can't get into the major media. I think more and more people are aware of that while listening to those radio stations.

HT: We've been talking about hemp being legalized. What do you think is the possibility of any psychedelic being legalized or even just accepted by the public?

RAW: I'm beginning to think that there's a real chance that research will be legalized again. There are more and more people in the psychotherapeutic professions who are speaking out, and it has been relegalized for research purposes in several countries in Europe: in Switzerland, Germany and Holland, among others. There is definitely a movement toward, at least, legalizing research again. It does seem, with the passing of time, that more and more people can see how stupid it is to forbid scientific research in an area where the research that was done thirty years ago was so promising.

There was evidence, in the early sixties when research was legal, that LSD was useful in the treatment of alcoholism, schizophrenia - all sorts of psychological problems. Leary took a bunch of convicts, and when he was through with his therapy, the overwhelming majority of them never committed another crime for the rest of their lives. And for as far as the follow-up studies followed them, they were still law-abiding citizens - the most astonishing feat in the history of behavioral science! There was all the evidence that people learn languages faster with acid. And there was the research on religious experiences, like the Good Friday Experiment.

All of that was so promising that it's hard to believe that we can return to the days of the Holy Inquisition, and that promising areas of scientific research can be forbidden indefinitely. Especially, as I said, when it's beginning to open up in Europe.

HT: You mentioned the Good Friday Experiment - what was that?

RAW: That was an experiment in the early sixties were in a chapel 20 theology students were in a chapel on Good Friday and ten of them got psilocybin and ten of them got placebos. The ten who got psilocybin all had mystical experiences of the highest quality.

HT: What kind of research is being done in Europe, that you know of?

RAW: Mostly, it's clinical. All that I've read about is just that therapists are allowed to use in treatment of their patients.

HT: Is there a way that you'd like to see psychedelics used by this society?

RAW: My personal opinion, based on what was done in the sixties, and what has been done underground - in a clandestine way since - is that it's probably the wonder drug of the twentieth century, much more than penicillin.

Intelligently used, acid has nearly infinite potential.

HT: Do you think that a resurgence in psychedelic use now would produce the same kind of cultural ferment that it did in the '60s?

RAW: Undoubtedly. The main effect of psychedelic is to break down conditioned and imprinted circuits in the brain. You start using your brain in new ways, which means new impressions, new perceptions and new ideas.

HT: How can clandestine experimenters with psychedelics approach these experience?

RAW: It should approached seriously, with a religious attitude or an attitude of philosophical inquiry.

HT: What do you mean by a religious attitude?

RAW: An expectation that your whole world is going to collapse and that you're going to be reborn. If you don't expect that, if you think you're just havin' fun, you're likely to have a terrible shock which can frighten you.

HT: That kind of experience might be frightening to a lot of people.

RAW: It is. It causes acute paranoia in politicians who've never used it, and it's done some damage to people who have tried it. If they're not prepared properly.

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