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# Bringing Burning Man to DC | Rick Doblin, MAPS | Drug War Stories
- URL: https://ghost.psymposia.com/bringing-burning-man-to-dc-rick-doblin-maps-drug-war-stories/
- Published: 2016-11-12T16:26:27.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-01T06:31:20.000Z
- Description: "I wanted to bring my Burning Man self back to Washington DC"
- Author: Mike Elliott
- Tags: Videos, #youtube, #youtube-transcript

"I wanted to bring my Burning Man self back to Washington DC"

Drug War Stories, Catharsis on the Mall 2015

Filmed by Kenny Reff, Evan Roberts, Bryce Montgomery  
Edited by J Warner

Sponsored by the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS)  
[http://maps.org](http://maps.org/?ref=ghost.psymposia.com)

[http://catharsisonthemall.com](http://catharsisonthemall.com/?ref=ghost.psymposia.com)  
[http://psymposia.com](https://ghost.psymposia.com/)

## Transcript

*This transcript was generated automatically from YouTube's captions, then cleaned up by removing filler words, repeated words and background sounds. It may still contain errors.*

[\[00:01\]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yGyqM4P2Zps&t=1s&ref=ghost.psymposia.com) So, here I'm pleased to introduce our friend Rick Davlin. Wow. Well, thank you all for joining us here tonight. And I'd like to thank the Psymposia people and all the people with Adam Idinger and all the people that have worked so hard to get the permits to get us here tonight.

[\[00:47\]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yGyqM4P2Zps&t=47s&ref=ghost.psymposia.com) And I'd like to if you just take a moment and just look at the Washington Monument and just think about what a symbol it is. It's such a symbol of the foundation of America, American freedom, George Washington. And I'd like to explain a little bit how it is that the idea of having some event on the mall came to me and it came in the midst of 10 years ago. There was a lawsuit against the DEA and we were trying to break the monopoly that the federal government has on the supply of marijuana for medical research through the FDA and I had worked with a professor Ly Kraker at UMass Amherst. he was willing to be the test case.

[\[01:39\]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yGyqM4P2Zps&t=99s&ref=ghost.psymposia.com) And we ended up in 2001 filing an application for a license for Professor Kraker to grow marijuana for maps for us to use in medical research. And the license DEA ignored the application for about three and a half years. So we sued them in the appeals court for unreasonable delay. And the court said that it wasn't necessarily unreasonable, three and a half years, but that the at least DEA had to explain why it was taking so long. And once they explained their rationale, that was actually a good thing. Once they finally said no, because then we could sue them on their rationale, which we did. And so getting to turned down was actually a step forward. and we were able to get these administrative law judge hearings in inside the DEA headquarters.

[\[02:34\]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yGyqM4P2Zps&t=154s&ref=ghost.psymposia.com) And one of the days that we were having the testimony that was about four days in a row of testimony in August of 2005, then there was going to be a break of a couple months and then we'd come back for more testimony and in the middle of that break was Burning Man. So during the testimony, I ended up being on the stand for a very long time and actually was explaining why we were trying to do this, that this was for science, this is for research, it would be regulated by the FDA. The studies would be licensed by the DEA, but we just would be trying to be out from under the NAIDA monopoly. We'd have our own supply like any other pharmaceutical company trying to develop any other schedule one drug or any other drug.

[\[03:22\]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yGyqM4P2Zps&t=202s&ref=ghost.psymposia.com) We'd have our own independent supply and we wouldn't need to go to the government to get it and we'd be able to produce it. It would be the kinds of strains that we wanted and that would be the way it should be and that's all we wanted to do is have a fair playing field to try to evaluate the medical use of marijuana. The reason I was so interested is because we were making such progress with psychedelics and I felt like if politics can be blocking research with marijuana that could be a backlash against psychedelics that if we could end up really ending federal obstruction of medical marijuana research that would help medical marijuana research flourish and it would also protect the psychedelics. So during this testimony, it I really made a pretty good impression on the judge.

[\[04:09\]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yGyqM4P2Zps&t=249s&ref=ghost.psymposia.com) And at the end of the day, the DEA lawyers came to me while I was on the stand and tried to destroy my credibility. And they decided to ask if I was a marijuana user. And we had anticipated this line of attack. And the lawyers were going to say that's has nothing really to do with the case. I wasn't actually even applying for the license. It would be Professor Kraker. I would never even be near the marijuana. I would just be designing studies, getting approval, directing the marijuana the same way we're doing with the MDMA, which I ever never actually need to touch or see. So, the idea was that the that this was irrelevant. And so, the our lawyers said, "No, it's irrelevant whether Rick smokes pot or not."

[\[04:55\]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yGyqM4P2Zps&t=295s&ref=ghost.psymposia.com) And the judge surprised us and said, "This is actually a question I'd like to know if you're willing to answer because in a criminal case, you can plead the fifth." And the judge cannot draw any negative inferences because you refuse to answer. But in a civil case, which this was, if you refuse to answer a question, the judge can take whatever assumptions that they want. And I thought that might hurt the case. So I agreed to say I decided to say, "Yeah, I do smoke marijuana. I just smoke it once a week or so. I'm not doing it all the time. I'm not in danger. I'm not going to be so crazy that I'm going to try to steal this legal marijuana that we've been trying for all these years to grow when there's illegal marijuana all over the place. You know, there's like no need for me to try to steal it.

[\[05:42\]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yGyqM4P2Zps&t=342s&ref=ghost.psymposia.com) I'm trying to do the research. And I knew though that the DEA was going to use that against me and that was and against our case. And I felt really bad. And I felt that they had taken the fact that I was a marijuana user and were trying to use it to hurt our case. And I felt like I in a way let the team down. We hadn't we you know thought I wouldn't have to answer that question and so I felt like the DA kind of demoralized me and the next day in court I was kind of quiet. I was sullen. I didn't want to contribute. I felt like you know anything I did was sort of tainted. And then we I just thought they're pushing me away. I should not let them do that. And so I kind of came back the following day and was back active in court and felt like I kind of helped the case and dealt with the lawyers.

[\[06:35\]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yGyqM4P2Zps&t=395s&ref=ghost.psymposia.com) And then we had a break and we went off to Burning Man. And while I was at Burning Man, I kind of thought about how the sacred space of I wanted to bring my Burning Man self back to Washington DC to all to my full self, bring it and be in this courtroom inside the DEA headquarters for the next testimony. And I started looking at this similarities between Burning Man and Washington DC. And the Burning Man is like the Washington The Man is like the Washington Monument. this vertical structure and kind of the sacred space at Burning Man is between the Washington between the Bernie man and the temple. And the temple grew up as a place for people to sort of mourn those that had passed to mourn things that they had lost.

[\[07:27\]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yGyqM4P2Zps&t=447s&ref=ghost.psymposia.com) And it had a more somber tone. And the temple in those years, this is now in 2005, was this structure that was not that tall, but it was kind of spread out horizontally. And it seemed to me it was like the capital. So that this pathway from the man at Burning Man to the temple was like the sacred space of Burning Man. And the sacred space in America is from like the Washington Monument to the Capitol, the mall. I thought if I can superimpose my Burning Man self on the Washington Mall self that then that would be more freedom that I'd be if I could be free here in this space. And I thought, all right, well, part of that would mean an all night dance till the sunrise, which is what we're doing at Burning Man a lot.

[\[08:16\]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yGyqM4P2Zps&t=496s&ref=ghost.psymposia.com) And but I felt like you can't really just get a permit for an all night dance on the mall. You have to protest something. And I thought, okay, well, it should be, of course, a protest against the drug war, a protest in favor of amending the Rave Act, a protest for harm reduction. And I thought, but I thought, how could we do that? How could we end up having this dance all night till sunrise, having something like a temple burn, you know, how could I do it? And then it started to be clear that actually there was also in 2005, I had come here for a SSDP conference in Washington. And at the end of the conference, people came out to the mall and there was a protest against the Iraq war and they had a lot of bands playing.

[\[09:09\]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yGyqM4P2Zps&t=549s&ref=ghost.psymposia.com) One of them was Thievery Corporation and they played till 2 in the morning. And after that concert was over, I went up to talk to the people who were had organized it to see who they were. And that was Adaminger who had organized that helped organize that event. So I started thinking if they could do something till 2 in the morning, why not till sunrise? Eventually we could do it. So once we heard that the Drug Policy Alliance was having their conference here in Washington, we started thinking, all right, maybe now is the time. Maybe we can bring all these elements together. We can protest the drug war. We can have temple burn. We can align with the Burning Man community. And we could speak out about harm reduction and about ending the drug war. And we could do it all in a both a protest and a celebration and do it with full permission.

[\[10:01\]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yGyqM4P2Zps&t=601s&ref=ghost.psymposia.com) And part of our ability to try to get permission for things. And so to our utter astonishment, we actually have the permits and you're all a testimony to that that we can do this. And I felt like listening to the stories before about the people that were disappeared that if we were doing some of the things that we're doing, challenging the government to the extent that we are here, suing the DEA multiple times, that if we were doing this in another country, we might not be alive today to do it. the disscent would really be suppressed. So we have more opportunity to be freed and we have because of that more of an obligation to try to exercise that freedom and that's what we're trying to do with this event.

[\[10:52\]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yGyqM4P2Zps&t=652s&ref=ghost.psymposia.com) And my brother in past years and my sister both worked for members of Congress and they lived here in Washington. And when I would come to visit them, I'd have a pattern of u late at night u after they'd kind of gone to sleep, I would smoke pot and I would just wander through the night through Washington DC. And a lot of times these buildings and these monuments and this whole there's enormous weight of history and during the day I think it's more powerful. you're kind of almost depressed by the weight of history and everything seems so big and we all see I seem so small and you know hundreds of years ago things have happened and you know we're just one little brief lifetime in this you know vast story of our country and of the world and so during the day it's kind of hard to find your place and during the night when you wander around I think I'm you know you're able to kind of have a different relationship ship

[\[11:55\]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yGyqM4P2Zps&t=715s&ref=ghost.psymposia.com) With the symbols of your country or you can kind of develop a more personal relationship because there's not all sorts of other people around. You're more private. And so I've spent a lot of time sort of wandering around Washington DC and kind of coming to terms with the symbols of the c the capital and the Supreme Court and just getting a feel for it. And I felt like this idea of us spending all night on the mall and kind of appropriating the cultural symbols and it's our time to be alive. all these people that have lived hundreds of years ago and you know built up to where we are now that they're they've sort of h handed the torch to us and it's our responsibility now to really live as fully as we can and to bring a little bit more freedom to the world to others and particularly to those people that don't have the freedom and don't have the resources that we do.

[\[12:47\]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yGyqM4P2Zps&t=767s&ref=ghost.psymposia.com) So, I hope that I'll see as many of you at sunrise on the mall. We have breakfast coming at 7 in the morning for 150 people. We've organized breakfast. So, please join us and think about this as an energizing moment of the freedom that we can have and the energy that we use to help that freedom radiate even further. Thank you. Nailed it. Great. Thank you. All right. And a thank you for Rick Dland for his story and for all his work trying to get these drugs out there as medicines. Great. Thank you.