Since its founding 77 years ago, Dr. Bronner’s evolved from a niche soap company favored by hippies and homemakers to a powerhouse brand that trades on the progressive ideals of sustainability, free expression and social justice.
The family-run company based in Vista saw its annual revenues balloon from $4 million to $200 million in the last 25 years. Known for its bottles and bars of soap wrapped in micro-font musings about love and world peace, Dr. Bronner’s can be found on the shelves of supermarkets and drugstores nationwide.
In recent years, the current generation of Bronner family executives has taken the company’s progressive ethos to another level by openly embracing psychedelic drugs. Since 2019, Dr. Bronner’s has contributed more than $14 million to psychedelics research and drug policy reform. The company’s social media pages are filled with posts touting the medicinal and spiritual potential of hallucinogens, from psilocybin to ketamine to MDMA, also known as ecstasy.
But a wrongful death lawsuit filed in December alleges the company has also fostered a risky culture of drug use among some leaders and employees, claiming they routinely use potent psychedelics as an unregulated form of “healing” and for recreational purposes. The complaint filed in San Diego County Superior Court was brought by the family of Denise Lozano, a former Dr. Bronner’s employee who, in 2022, died of an accidental overdose at the age of 50.
For much more on this, see KPBS here.
An overdose of what? You would have a very difficult time ODing on shrooms or acid. Entheogens (“psychedelics”) are not exactly deadly.