Weekly intelligence on cannabis, psychedelics, and plant medicine. Science, culture, and capital — one dose at a time.
THE ALKALOID Science, culture and capital — one dose at a time. Issue #10 — May 12, 2026 THE DOSE The Part Everyone Throws Away For as long as cannabis has been cultivated, the leaves have been an afterthought. Farmers trim them. Processors discard them. The industry has been almost entirely focused
THE ALKALOID Science, culture and capital — one dose at a time. Issue #9 — May 7, 2026 THE DOSE The Anti-Inflammatory Drug You Already Knew About There is a quiet line of psychedelic research that has been building over the past five years and has almost nothing to do with what
THE ALKALOID Science, culture and capital — one dose at a time. Issue #8 — May 6, 2026 THE DOSE The Quiet Death of the Pot Leaf Walk into a high-end dispensary in Brooklyn, Toronto, or West Hollywood today and try to find a marijuana leaf on the wall. You probably won&
THE ALKALOID Science, culture and capital — one dose at a time. Issue #7 — May 5, 2026 THE DOSE Why You See What You See There is a question that has puzzled curious minds for as long as people have eaten mushrooms or chewed peyote buttons. Why do psychedelics produce such
THE ALKALOID Science, culture and capital — one dose at a time. Issue #6 — May 1, 2026 THE DOSE The Oldest Trip in the Andes In a high mountain valley in the Peruvian Andes, at an elevation of 10,000 feet, a network of hidden stone chambers has been quietly preserving
THE ALKALOID Science, culture and capital — one dose at a time. Issue #5 — April 30, 2026 THE ALKALOID Science, culture, and capital — one dose at a time. Issue #5 — April 30, 2026 THE DOSE The Fuzz on the Seed Coat For nearly ninety years, one of the great unsolved mysteries
THE ALKALOID Science, culture and capital — one dose at a time. Issue #4 — April 29, 2026 THE DOSE The Quiet Eleven Million Somewhere in the past five years, while the legal and political world was preoccupied with what psilocybin should be, a different question was answered without anyone in particular
THE ALKALOID Science, culture and capital — one dose at a time. Issue #3 — April 28, 2026 THE DOSE Five Drugs, One Brain Signature For decades, neuroscientists have asked a question that seemed unanswerable. Why do psychedelics with completely different chemistries — psilocybin, LSD, DMT, mescaline, ayahuasca — produce experiences that participants describe
THE ALKALOID Science, culture and capital — one dose at a time. Issue #2 — April 29, 2026 THE DOSE The Clock Is Ticking on a $28 Billion Industry While Washington celebrated the psychedelics executive order last week, a quieter countdown is running in the background. On November 12, 2026 — less than
THE DOSE The White House Just Opened the Door Four days ago, President Trump signed an executive order that may be the most consequential federal policy shift in the history of psychedelic medicine. The order — titled Accelerating Medical Treatments for Serious Mental Illness — directs the FDA to fast-track review of