Dr. Bronner, Soap Company, Into Illusion

VISTA, California – Dr. Bronner, the water soap company known for its teen lettering labels that preach brotherly love and world peace, wants you to consider the benefits of mind-altering drugs .

Sentiment fueled on praise limited edition soap bottles psychedelic aidsand through the hilarious statements of David Bronner, the grandson of the company’s founder and one of the company’s top executives, who isn’t afraid to share the details of its many hallucinogenic journeys. mine.

“Let’s face it, the world would be a much better place if more people experienced hallucinogenic drugs,” David said. ketamine therapy as part of its employee healthcare coverage.

Perhaps less well known is Dr. Bronner’s role as one of the country’s biggest financial backers for the winning efforts. mainstream acceptance of illusion and loosen government restrictions on all illegal drugs.

According to company documents. They include scientists who study the healing properties of drug club Ecstasyactivist groups helped identify the psilocybin “magic mushroom” in Oregon and Washington DC., and a small non-profit organization works to preserve habitat for the peyote, the hallucinogenic cactus that is central to several Native American spiritual traditions.

Over the years, the company has also spent millions of dollars on efforts to legalize marijuana, including a lawsuit in 2018 that helped overturn a federal ban on marijuana. grow industrial hemp.

Although Open Society Foundations, the left-wing charity founded by George Soros, has quietly spent millions of dollars on drug policy changeRarely has any company accepted an issue as vehemently controversial as Dr. Bronner did.

Rick Doblin, moderator Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Research, a research and advocacy group. It has already received nearly $6 million from Dr Bronner, with an additional $1 million committed for each of the next five years.

The Bronner family’s growing fortune comes at a pivotal moment in the decades-long campaign to reduce the nation’s say-no habits. attitude towards illegal drugs. The changes have caused earthquakes, from bipartisan congressional support for drug sentencing reform to state-by-state tiered recreational marijuana use.

Ketamine therapy for depression has become a multibillion-dollar industry, and many states and cities are looking to join Denver, Seattle and dozens of other cities that have decoded psychedelics. Another watershed moment is approaching: The Food and Drug Administration is considering approval, researchers say. MDMAor Ecstasy, to treat post-traumatic stress disorder.

University of Texas, Johns Hopkins and Yale is one of several solid organizations that has created divisions to explore whether psychedelic compounds could advance the treatment of anxiety, depression, addiction and a range of other mental health disorders. or not. “We’re really at an inflection point where the whole paradigm of these drugs is changing,” said Dacher Keltner, a psychology professor at the University of California, Berkeley, who is helping to found the new school. Center for Illusion Science.

Founded in 1948 by Emanuel Bronner, a German-Jewish immigrant and third-generation soap maker, Dr. Bronner’s pungent mint soap became a 1960s pacifist favorite. counterculture, who are enamored with all-natural origins and Bronner’s “All One God” dedication to ending the tribalism behind so much human suffering. A fake origin story credits Woodstock for expanding its distribution. “The joke is that it left the festival with three times as many VW minibuses as it came in,” said his grandson, Michael Bronner.

Emil, as he was known, was a free-spirited, free-spirited rebel whose outstanding genius often danced on the brink of madness. (In any way, he wasn’t a real doctor.) In 1945, not long after learning his parents had been murdered in the Nazi death camps, Emil had moved to one. mentally ill in Chicago, raped by his sister, where he is electrically controlled. shock therapy, according to his family. After making a daring prison break, he hitchhiked to California, where he began his lifelong crusade to heal humanity.

Bronner would hand out bottles of his product after giving public lectures on humanity’s need to save “Spaceship Earth,” but he soon realized that most people were interested in his free soap rather than his spiritual thought. His remedy? He started to print the philosophical ramblings on the label, also explains the 18 in 1 use for his liquid Castile soap concentrate. (Clean teeth! Wash dishes! Dog shampoo!)

Although the proposed use of birth control was dropped, the Bronners left the label’s 3,000-word text intact, a decision that reflects the family’s deep reverence for a man whom the family has held dear. the inescapable frenzied presence more than two decades after he died at the age of 89.

His works and photographs are scattered throughout the company’s headquarters in Vista, California, about 40 miles north of San Diego. His grin grew menacingly welcoming the guests in the lobby. Nearby, a papier-mâché figure wears a leopard-print Speedo that is a goofy homage to his trend of skimpy swimwear business. (Fun fact: For decades, the phone numbers printed on soap bottles have called to a collection of red rotary phones that Emil Bronner answered every hour from the recliner in his living room.)

The company is still a family affair. Michael, who describes himself as a “buttoned brother,” is the chairman; his sister, Lisa, helps promote the brand’s work on environmental sustainability and fair trade issues; and their mother, Trudy, is the chief financial officer. David, the eldest son, is the CEO – Cosmic Engagement Officer.

Last year, Dr. Bronner made nearly $170 million in sales, according to company documents, up from $4 million in 1998, years after the company went bankrupt with the help of two children. son of Emil, Jim and Ralph.

That pretty much trumps the company death tied to Emil’s decision to register his company, “All One God Faith, Inc.” as a religious non-profit organization. The Internal Revenue Service was not satisfied and fined a small amount.

But the founder’s unusual business approach live on. The highest salary at the company cannot exceed five times that of the lowest-paid worker with five years of service, which means Michael and David each earn about $300,000 a year. Their 300 employees receive a range of benefits, including childcare support up to $7,500 and an annual bonus of up to 10 percent of their annual salary. The cafe’s vegan meals are free, as are Zumba classes, back massages, and a solar-powered electric vehicle charging station.

The company regularly declines the kinds of acquisition offers that have claimed other independent brands such as Burt’s Bees (now part of Clorox), Tom’s of Maine (Colgate-Palmolive) and Kiehl’s (L’Oréal). The suggestions, the brothers said, went right into the trash. According to the company’s annual report, in a good year, the company brings in 45% of its profits, or about $8 million. “If we were to cash out, we would be less effective as a charitable motive,” says David.

His own love affair with hallucinations began shortly after college, at a dance club in Amsterdam, where he was introduced to the candy flip game – a combination of LSD and Ecstasy. The journey includes glimpses of Jesus, his grandfather, and “a profound self-dialogue,” all of which helped him overcome what he describes as a masculinity. Toxic disability and a troubled relationship. David, 49, a vegetarian, loves hemp clothes and is especially fond of the adjective “rad,” which says: “I died five times but it brought me out of the dark hole and brought me back to life. go on your way.

He also has a showman’s eye for attention-grabbing gestures, which got him arrested twice; once to plant hemp seeds on the front lawn of the Drug Enforcement Administration and once to grind hemp oil while locked in a cage in front of the White House.

The company’s move to combine a large part of its corporate identity with psychedelics and drug reform politics hasn’t always gone downhill, especially for Trudy, 79, a former middle school math teacher. A junior and frequent Methodist churchgoer, who winces when he recalls the excesses of the 1960s. “I had friends who did the chore and it wasn’t always good,” she said. . “On the other hand, this country has a lot of mental health problems that need to be addressed.”

Her lingering skepticism was dispelled by Michael’s recent diversion to hallucinations. The change came last year, when drugs he had long used to treat anxiety and depression stopped working. Then he decided to try talk therapy in combination with ketamine, a legal anesthetic and party drug that is increasingly being adopted by mental health professionals.

He compared the experience to a brain massage that helped relieve much of his anxiety and despair. “I don’t want to overestimate ketamine therapy as a miracle cure but it just removes the layer of rust, helps me reset and takes me to a really good space,” he says.

So far, 21 employees or their dependents have signed up for the treatments, which can cost several thousand dollars.

A battlefield anesthetic also used in veterinary medicine, ketamine has only recently gained popularity as a treatment for difficult-to-treat depression and suicidal ideation. Although the drug is not FDA-approved for mental health conditions, doctors are allowed to prescribe it for off-label use when they think it will benefit patients.

Enthea, the health plan’s benefits manager for the treatments, said 10 other companies have followed in Dr. Bronner’s footsteps. Many are motivated by the prospect of reducing spending on mental health insurance and also increasing employee productivity, says Lia Mix, founder and chief executive officer of Enthea.

Emil Bronner is not addicted to drugs, and he distrusts Western medicine, refusing to see a doctor even when he started losing his sight in his 60s. But his grandsons are sure he will approve. their decision to make psychedelics a central component of the family business.

“Our grandfather just wanted to transform consciousness and open hearts and minds,” David said, pausing for comic effect and flashing a mischievous grin: “He probably put LSD on the bar. my room.”