The mission of the Heffter Research Institute is to conduct research of the highest scientific quality with psychedelic substances in order to contribute to a greater understanding of the mind, leading to the improvement of the human condition, and the alleviation of suffering. This mission has already begun to attract scientists and researchers of the highest caliber. The information and new knowledge gained will be disseminated to the medical and scientific communities.
The Heffter Research Institute was incorporated in New Mexico in 1993 as a non-profit, 501(c)(3) organization in the belief that such research was not only viable but critically important. The Institute is named after Dr. Arthur Heffter, a turn-of-the century German research pharmacologist who discovered that mescaline was the principal psychoactive component in the peyote cactus.
The Heffter Research Institute will provide support, facilities, and opportunities to conduct both basic and clinical scientific research on psychedelic drugs that is legitimate and scientifically sound. The Institute is based on the belief that such investigations hold great potential for producing genuine breakthroughs in the understanding of the human mind. The Founders intend that the Heffter Research Institute will be an enduring institution in the service of humankind.
The general objectives of The Heffter Institute include:
Developing knowledge regarding, and standards of practice for, the appropriate and safe use of psychedelic drugs in a medical context.
Conducting basic chemical, pharmacological, and neurobiological investigations on psychedelic substances and their mechanisms of action.
Conducting ethnopharmacological investigations designed to clarify our understanding of the role played by psychoactive plants in the religious, medical, and social institutions of other cultures.
Conducting phytochemical and pharmacological investigations of plants and other naturally occurring materials, designed to discover, isolate, and characterize novel natural products with psychedelic or other types of psychoactivity.
Publishing scientific reports, earning grants and awards; organizing and sponsoring scientific conferences to present research results, and providing a forum for discussions of the appropriate medical and scientific uses of psychedelic drugs.
Conducting clinical research studies to investigate potential therapeutic applications of psychedelic drugs.
Informing the scientific and medical communities about the issues of safety, adverse effects, and therapeutic potentials related to psychedelic drug use in a medical context.
The current political and intellectual climate offers new opportunities to reopen avenues of research that have been extremely difficult, if not impossible, to pursue in the past within conventional frameworks. Government agencies will provide support to legitimate researchers of psychedelic agents, as the Institute Founders can testify from long periods of research funding. Nevertheless, when it comes to extending the investigations from animal models to human subjects, or to testing hypotheses that the effects of psychedelics may in certain circumstances be beneficial rather than entirely detrimental, the government's role as a supporter of research has been insufficient.
In order for truly uncompromised and creative research in the field of psychedelic neuropsychopharmacology to have any hope of fulfilling its promise, it must be pursued from within the context of an independent research institute whose operations and research programs are independent of government funding. The Heffter Research Institute will neither condemn psychedelic drugs nor advocate their uncontrolled use. The sole position of the Institute in this regard will be that psychedelic agents, utilized in thoughtfully designed and carefully conducted scientific experiments, can be used to further the understanding of the mind.
