James Sanford Ketchum (November 1, 1931 – May 27, 2019) was a psychiatrist and U.S. Army Medical Corps officer who worked for almost a decade (1960–1969) on the U.S. military’s top secret psychochemical warfare program at the Edgewood Arsenal, Maryland, which researched chemicals to be used to "incapacitate the minds" of adversaries.
In 1960, Ketchum agreed to an unconventional assignment at Edgewood Arsenal in Maryland and spent most of the next decade (1960–66; 1968–69) testing over a dozen potential "incapacitating agents", including LSD, BZ and cannabis derivatives.
[2] Ketchum had additional psychiatric training during a fellowship at Stanford University in California (1966–68); during this period, he volunteered at the Haight Ashbury Free Clinics in nearby San Francisco (he did not tell his hippie patients he was an Army doctor).
As a civilian, Ketchum acquired broad experience in the area of alcohol and drug abuse and published numerous scientific articles and book chapters.
Following his retirement, Ketchum resided in Santa Rosa, California until moving to Peoria, Arizona after the Tubbs Fire (2017) came within a few blocks of his home.