Alleged to have produced “90% of the world’s LSD,” William Leonard Pickard is a former drug policy fellow at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, research associate in neurobiology at Harvard Medical School, and deputy director of the Drug Policy Analysis Program at UCLA. With two life sentences without parole, he served 20 years in maximum security federal prisons, and was given compassionate release in 2020.

His book “The Rose of Paracelsus” – written in pencil while imprisoned – is published by Synergetic Press (Santa Fe/London), and in Italian translation by Mondadori (Milan). His 1996 prediction of the fentanyl epidemic, and recommendations for prevention, were confirmed by the RAND Corporation in its seminal volume “The Future of Fentanyl and Other Synthetic Opioids”.

Currently he is a senior advisor for JLS Fund II LP and the Fireside Project. He is a research affiliate with Harvard Law School, Petrie-Flom Center on Health Law Policy, Biotechnology and Bioethics, Program on Psychedelics Law and Regulation.

Leonard is a public speaker on the history and future of psychedelics, genomic and pharmacological cognitive enhancement, AI in drug development, the fentanyl epidemic, and criminal justice reform.

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