Hamilton Morris (born April 14, 1987) is an American journalist, filmmaker, chemist, and scientific researcher. He is most well-known for his television series Hamilton's Pharmacopeia, which aired from 2016 to 2021 and covered the chemistry, history, and cultural impact of various psychoactive drugs, particularly psychedelics. Morris also started a podcast called The Hamilton Morris Podcast in 2020. He is considered to be among the leading psychoactive drug journalists.
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Early life and education
Hamilton Morris was born in New York City, the son of Julia Sheehan, an art historian, and documentary filmmaker Errol Morris. He was raised in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Morris has described being a pyromaniac and interested in explosives and poisons as a child. In his teenage years, he appeared in television commercials, notably a 2002 advertisement for the first-generation iPod.
Morris first explored psychoactive drugs by trying Salvia divinorum with his friends in high school around the age of 14, which left him in a state of "astonishment" and led him to learn how to chemically extract salvinorin A from the plant. However, it was not until Morris learned about Alexander Shulgin and novel research chemicals via a New York Times article a few years later in 2005 that he became more interested in and "obsessed" with psychoactive drugs. Relatedly, Morris discovered and began frequenting psychoactive drug websites such as Bluelight and Erowid.
Morris attended the University of Chicago and The New School, where he studied anthropology and chemistry, including under the psychedelic drug expert Nicolas Langlitz. He earned a bachelor of science (BSc) degree in liberal arts from The New School, with his credential described as a "weird interdisciplinary science degree".
Career
Morris began writing for Vice magazine as a college sophomore in 2008. He wrote a piece called "The Magic Jews" in 2008 documenting his experience taking LSD with a group of Hasidic Jews. Vice later hired him to write a monthly print column titled "Hamilton's Pharmacopeia" in 2009 that evolved into a series of articles and documentaries for VBS.tv focused on the science of psychoactive drugs. He was the science editor of Vice magazine in Manhattan by 2013. Morris has also written for Harper's Magazine and the The Brooklyn Rail.
In his Hamilton's Pharmacopeia web series for Vice Media, which ran from 2009 to 2016 and spanned 11 episodes, Morris covered topics including Phyllomedusa bicolor (sapo or kambo), Haitian zombies and tetradotoxin, Alexander and Ann Shulgin, Krystle Cole and William Leonard Pickard, magic truffles, sensory deprivation tanks with Joe Rogan, zolpidem, efavirenz, cannabinoids, and Matt Bowden, among others. Morris subsequently did his Viceland show Hamilton's Pharmacopeia, which ran for three seasons and spanned 20 episodes, from 2016 until 2021. The show had episodes covering a variety of psychoactive drugs, including LSD, psilocybin, mescaline, bufotenin, DMT, 5-MeO-DMT, methamphetamine, methaqualone (Quaaludes), phencyclidine (PCP), ketamine, xenon, ibogaine, kratom, Salvia divinorum, Amanita muscaria, and hallucinogenic fish, among others. In one episode, Morris revealed Ken Nelson as the author of the 1984 Bufo Alvarius: the Psychedelic Toad of the Sonoran Desert pamphlet, which described how to use Incilius alvarius toad venom containing 5-MeO-DMT as a psychedelic drug. Other topics that Morris has covered or been interested in covering include the Temple of the True Inner Light, Lizard Labs, Ariadne, and 7-OH.
Morris worked part-time as a chemist and pharmacologist in Jason Wallach's lab at the University of the Sciences's Philadelphia College of Pharmacy for more than a decade, from 2010 until at least late 2022. He has coauthored scientific papers on hallucinogens with Wallach, including a 2014 review on dissociatives and a 2023 study identifying serotonergic psychedelics as mediating hallucinogenic-like effects (i.e., the head-twitch response) via activation of the serotonin 5-HT2A receptor Gq signaling pathway. In September 2021, Morris left Vice to work as a full-time chemistry consultant at the biotechnology startup, Compass Pathways. Wallach's lab has a contract with Compass Pathways to develop novel psychedelic therapeutics. Although Morris left Vice, he said that he plans to continue to write, podcast, and make additional films in the future. In 2020, Morris started an ongoing podcast called The Hamilton Morris Podcast, interviewing people from the psychoactive drug world.
Reception
Morris is considered to be among the world's leading psychoactive drug journalists. His work has been described as gonzo journalism analogous to that of Hunter S. Thompson. In addition, Morris has been said to be "doing for drugs what Anthony Bourdain did for food". He has also been credited with helping to change the way society thinks and talks about drugs, with efforts towards the end of drug prohibition.
Personal life
Morris describes himself as scientifically oriented, a hardened and cynical atheist and materialist, and "not spiritual at all", though he is sympathetic to spiritual and shamanic traditions employing entheogens. Some of his personal heroes and influences include Wade Davis and Alexander Shulgin. Morris is a psychonaut and has extensively experimented with psychoactive drugs. He believes in the right to personal freedom regarding psychoactive drugs and altered states of consciousness, has prominently criticized the war on drugs as unsuccessful, harmful, and counterproductive, and advocates for the legalization of all drugs. Morris has been diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and takes stimulant medication for his symptoms. He has also used nootropics.
Projects
Some notable projects of Morris include:
Hamilton's Pharmacopeia (web series, Vice Media, 2009–2016)
Hamilton's Pharmacopeia (TV series, Viceland, 2016–2021) (see also concise episode list)
The Hamilton Morris Podcast (2020–present)