David ERRITZOE

David Erritzoe arrives at our meeting on a fold-up bike, perfectly coiffed and turned out in navy, ready to talk about drugs. As the clinical director of the Centre for Psychedelic Research at Imperial College London, he is at the forefront of a new wave of scientists researching the therapeutic potential of psychedelics. Their early results have indicated that psychedelic compounds, such as psilocybin [the active ingredient in magic mushrooms] could work as powerful treatments for a range of mental illnesses including depression and addiction.

Sitting by a canal in the bright winter sunshine of Hackney Wick, near his East London home, he navigates deftly between two languages to speak about psychedelics: the meticulous doctor with a deep knowledge of brain imagery and psychopharmacol...