America’s Secret Drug War: Part 1—The Psychedelic Shack

Charles Burton Ritchie is a hustler.

He’s done everything from sell T-shirts to produce films featured at Sundance. He calls himself a serial entrepreneur and a libertarian. But right before the Fourth of July, a Las Vegas jury called the 48-year-old something else: a drug kingpin. Read Part 1 of a two-part Bloomberg Law investigation.

Tomorrow: Part 2 tells the story of the DEA chemist who was told to be a “team player” when he spoke out, why one lawyer is still angry years after her client got a sweet deal in a synthetic drug case, and what happened when a reporter called the DEA to find out whether it thinks a certain drug is illegal.