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Speaker 1: You're listening to a Muma Mia podcast. Mumma Mea acknowledges

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Speaker 1: the traditional owners of land and waters that this podcast

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Speaker 1: is recorded on.

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Speaker 2: Hi.

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Speaker 1: I'm Claire Murphy. This is MMA MIA's daily news podcast,

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Speaker 1: The Quickie. Recently, over at mummamea dot com dot au,

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Speaker 1: we published an article about Suburbanozzi mums turning to microdosing

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Speaker 1: mushrooms to get through their days. But why are they

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Speaker 1: choosing an illegal drug over traditional medicines like antidepressants. How

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Speaker 1: are they doing it and what potential risks are they

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Speaker 1: potting themselves in? Do they outweigh the benefits? Today we

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Speaker 1: go in search of the mums on mushrooms. But before

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Speaker 1: we do that, here's the letters from the Quickie newsroom. Wednesday,

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Speaker 1: September eighteen, Sean Diddy Coombs has pleaded not guilty to

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Speaker 1: three charges of sex trafficking, racketeering and transportation to engage

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Speaker 1: in prostitution. The fifty four year old music mogul was

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Speaker 1: arrested yesterday. The fourteen page indictment describes allegations that he

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Speaker 1: turned his business empire into a criminal enterprise, engaging in

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Speaker 1: sex trafficking, forced labour and other crimes, including threatening and

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Speaker 1: coercing women to fulfill his sexual desires. It includes allegations

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Speaker 1: he assaulted women and gave women drugs in exchange for

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Speaker 1: them participating in highly orchestrated sexual performances with male sex workers,

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Speaker 1: referred to as free coughs, which he would watch. Prosecutors

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Speaker 1: are hoping to keep Comb's in custody until he faces trial,

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Speaker 1: but his lawyer says he's doing everything he can to

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Speaker 1: free his client, saying he's an imperfect person, but he's

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Speaker 1: not a criminal. He faces a mandatory minimum of fifteen

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Speaker 1: years behind bars if he's found guilty. In a wave

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Speaker 1: of blasts replicated across the country, at least eight people

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Speaker 1: have died and two thousand, eight hundred others were injured

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Speaker 1: when pages used by the militant group Hezbala all exploded

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Speaker 1: simultaneously in Lebanon. The group had recently switched from using

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Speaker 1: mobile phones to the pages, fearing their phones could be

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Speaker 1: tapped or tracked by Israel. The Iranian backed group blaming

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Speaker 1: Israel for what they're describing as their biggest security reach

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Speaker 1: that they've been subjected to in the nearly year long

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Speaker 1: war with them, saying Israel will receive its fair punishment

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Speaker 1: for the blasts. Iran's ambassador to Lebanon was slightly injured, Hezbela,

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Speaker 1: saying two of its fighters died, as did a nine

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Speaker 1: year old girl. Instagram is launching teen accounts for underage

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Speaker 1: users across Australia, the US, UK and Canada. The new

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Speaker 1: accounts will be set to private as a default. They'll

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Speaker 1: be placed on the most restrictive settings for sensitive content.

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Speaker 1: An anti bullying feature will filter out offensive words and

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Speaker 1: phrases in comments and dms. A notification will be sent

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Speaker 1: every day advising users to leave the app after sixty

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Speaker 1: minutes of use, and sleep mode will automatically switch on

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Speaker 1: between ten pm and seven am, which stops notifications. Similar

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Speaker 1: to Kids Messenger accounts, parents will be able to see

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Speaker 1: who their child has been messaging, but not read the

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Speaker 1: actual messages. They can also set time limits for daily use,

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Speaker 1: be able to block them from using the app at

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Speaker 1: night or during specific time periods, and parents can view

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Speaker 1: the content topics their kids have chosen to. The platform's

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Speaker 1: parent company, Meta said the changes will apply immediately for

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Speaker 1: all new accounts, while they aim to switch existing accounts

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Speaker 1: to the title rules within the next two months. A

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Speaker 1: US Court of Appeals has upheld the twenty twenty one

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Speaker 1: conviction of Jeffrey Epstein accomplice Gallaine Maxwell. The sixty two

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Speaker 1: year old has been serving a twenty year sentence after

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Speaker 1: she was convicted on five charges of recruiting and grooming

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Speaker 1: underage girls for Epstein to abuse between nineteen ninety four

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Speaker 1: and two thousand and four. Maxwell appealed the sentence, her lawyers,

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Speaker 1: focusing on a two thousand and seven non prosecution agreement

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Speaker 1: that Jeffrey Epstein, her former boyfriend, had struck with federal

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Speaker 1: prosecutors in Florida, which she claims barred her from being

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Speaker 1: prosecuted in Manhattan thirteen years later. She also claimed that

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Speaker 1: she was being used as a scapegoat as Epstein himself

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Speaker 1: could not be brought to justice after he was found

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Speaker 1: dead in his jail cell before he could face trial.

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Speaker 1: Maxwell will continue to serve out her sentence at a

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Speaker 1: low security prison in Florida. She'll be eligible for release

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Speaker 1: in twenty thirty seven. STEI Latest news headlines next Mums

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Speaker 1: on mushrooms horizon. The trend has many wondering what's driving

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Speaker 1: modern mums to a very ancient drug. In recent years,

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Speaker 1: a controversial trend has been quietly growing amongst Australian mothers

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Speaker 1: micro doosing psychedelic mushrooms. This practice involves taking very small

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Speaker 1: amounts of psilocybin, the active compound in magic mushrooms, in

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Speaker 1: an attempt to ease the stresses of modern parenting and

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Speaker 1: boost their well being. While the exact number of women

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Speaker 1: turning to mushroom microdosing are difficult to pin down due

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Speaker 1: to the illegal nature of these substances, anecdotal evidence suggests

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Speaker 1: a significant increase in mothers experimenting with it. Online forums

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Speaker 1: and social media groups dedicated to the topic have seen

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Speaker 1: a surge in membership, with many mums sharing their experiences.

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Speaker 1: For some, it's a desperate search for relief from the

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Speaker 1: overwhelming pressures of parenting in today's world. Between juggling work, childcare,

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Speaker 1: household responsibilities, and the constant demands of social media, you know,

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Speaker 1: the whole mental load. Many mums report feeling burnt out

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Speaker 1: and struggling with anxiety or depression. Jacinta is in her

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Speaker 1: forties and she says she started to hear about micro

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Speaker 1: dosing mushrooms through friends.

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Speaker 3: I've got a friend who is a psychologist and she's

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Speaker 3: an academic and she's been researching psilocybin trials, and so

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Speaker 3: she'd been telling me about it, and actually my.

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Speaker 2: Hairdresser also had been telling me about it.

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Speaker 3: Well, I think I was in the hairdress's chair and

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Speaker 3: reading an article about it or something, and.

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Speaker 2: She was like, oh, yeah, I did that every day

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Speaker 2: for two years. It's like, oh cool.

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Speaker 1: She says she had previous experience with mushrooms, but her

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Speaker 1: friend made her feel comfortable with giving this a try.

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Speaker 3: So I've founde magic mushrooms, like as a teenager, but

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Speaker 3: like high dose magic mushrooms where you have a proper

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Speaker 3: trip kind of thing. And obviously I have not done

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Speaker 3: those kind of drugs in the intervening decades. So for

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Speaker 3: so micro dosing was a little bit weary. I was

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Speaker 3: at her fortieth birthday because I don't drink, and so

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Speaker 3: my friend was like, you know, I've been doing it

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Speaker 3: a lot. It's just like a little buzz kind of thing.

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Speaker 3: Because I was really worried. I didn't want to feel

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Speaker 3: high or like I was dripping or like I was

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Speaker 3: seeing things that's not my vibe. And she assured me, no,

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Speaker 3: it's fairly perceptible and it's not a hallucinogenic dose.

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Speaker 2: It's not psychotropic in that way.

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Speaker 3: So she mixed a teeny tiny little amounth and when

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Speaker 3: I say teeny tiny, I mean like smaller than your

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Speaker 3: little fingernail into some water and I drank it, and

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Speaker 3: then yeah, about forty five minutes later, just started feeling

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Speaker 3: I would say, like an increased sense of well beat.

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Speaker 3: If I didn't know i'd taken it, I don't know

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Speaker 3: if I would have even recognized it as being an influence,

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Speaker 3: if that makes sense. It was more like I was

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Speaker 3: having a really good time. I was, you know, feeling

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Speaker 3: a bit tingly. I felt maybe a bit more aware

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Speaker 3: of things being beautiful, like visually, but definitely no visual

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Speaker 3: disturbances or anything like that.

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Speaker 1: Jasinka has now micro dosed mushrooms about a dozen times

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Speaker 1: and says for her, it's a better alternative to drinking.

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Speaker 3: I've chosen to do it as like an alternative because

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Speaker 3: drinking doesn't really agree with me. You know, I've gone

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Speaker 3: out with friends and when they've all had a kind

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Speaker 3: of glass of wine a few hours beforehand, I maybe

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Speaker 3: had a little microdose with mushrooms. People are becoming more

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Speaker 3: curious about it. I think people are becoming more curious

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Speaker 3: about their health in general and their mental health in particular,

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Speaker 3: and things like this that have been, you know, increasingly

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Speaker 3: proven by scientific studies to maybe enhance mental well being

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Speaker 3: without some of the scarier impacts of high dose hallucinogenics

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Speaker 3: or antidepressants or whatever else is pretty attractive to people.

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Speaker 1: She is concerned about the drug being illegal, but so

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Speaker 1: she feels no moral issue with purchasing it, but she

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Speaker 1: is a little worried about not fully knowing what might

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Speaker 1: be in it.

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Speaker 3: The way I and I've only ever bought it once

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Speaker 3: and that's lasted me for like the however many times

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Speaker 3: that I've done it, but it was impowdered form, and

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Speaker 3: so I guess I know where I got it from

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Speaker 3: and I know exactly what that amount does.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that's definitely a concern.

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Speaker 3: And obviously the mushroom lady from last year is something

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Speaker 3: that I think about a lot. I'm like, oh my god,

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Speaker 3: what if someone puts a death cat mushroom in a

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Speaker 3: magic mushroom that allegedly allegedly like, how would people know

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Speaker 3: about that?

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Speaker 2: I would be more worried about the health concerns of that.

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Speaker 1: Other mums have been reporting benefits from mushroom micro dosing,

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Speaker 1: from increased patience and empathy, to reduced anxiety and a

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Speaker 1: greater sense of connection with their children. For some, it's

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Speaker 1: seen as a natural alternative to antidepressants or anti anxiety medications.

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Speaker 1: As someone who personally sometimes has stress creep up on

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Speaker 1: them due to professional expectations and personal life pressures, it

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Speaker 1: is easy to understand while some may turn to micro

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Speaker 1: dosing when that little square box of anxiety that sits

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Speaker 1: squarely in the middle of your chest, all teeth and

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Speaker 1: claws trying to desperately escape while you try and keep

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Speaker 1: a lid on everything. It all gets a bit much.

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Speaker 1: Sometimes you just need a break from it. But the

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Speaker 1: practice remains illegal here in Australia, with psilocybern classified as

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Speaker 1: a prohibited substance, But one of the most popular ways

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Speaker 1: mums are consuming it is through chocolate bars infused with

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Speaker 1: mushroom extract. Now these products, often marketed as magic mushroom

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Speaker 1: chocolate bars, have gained popularity for their discretion and ease

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Speaker 1: of use. Now. While some mums may attempt to source

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Speaker 1: these chocolates locally through underground networks, many are turning to

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Speaker 1: online vendors, particularly on certain social media platforms, where a

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Speaker 1: quick search reveals numerous listings for magic mushroom chocolate, though

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Speaker 1: it's important to note many of these are likely fake

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Speaker 1: or could even be dangerous. While scientific research on micro

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Speaker 1: dosing is still in its early stages, some studies have

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Speaker 1: shown promising results. One of those whose research in the

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Speaker 1: impacts of micro dosing mushrooms is doctor Vince Palito, a

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Speaker 1: senior lecturer at Macro University and principal investigator of the

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Speaker 1: microdeb trial investigating low doses of psilocybin as a treatment

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Speaker 1: for moderate depression. Now, Vince, you don't have any specific

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Speaker 1: data on mums increasing their use of mushrooms in micro dosing,

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Speaker 1: but have you seen a cultural shift around micro dosing

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Speaker 1: in general? Has it become more popular and are people

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Speaker 1: turning to this in place of, say, other more traditional medications.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, for sure.

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Speaker 4: I mean microdosing is a very interesting phenomenon. I suppose

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Speaker 4: it's something that's relatively new. It's not at all like

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Speaker 4: there's a long history of microdosing. It's only really been

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Speaker 4: something that's sort of been on the public radar for

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Speaker 4: maybe eight or nine years. To talk a little bit

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Speaker 4: about where microdosing came from. People have used psychedelics in

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Speaker 4: other cultures for thousands of years, and in Western cultures

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Speaker 4: certainly since the fifties and sixties, psychedelics started to become

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Speaker 4: very popular. Obviously, there was prohibition and most psychedelic us

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Speaker 4: became illegal, but people have continued to use psychedelics socially

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Speaker 4: and recreationally all throughout that time, but not microdosing. Microdosing,

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Speaker 4: as I said, it is pretty new. That was only

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Speaker 4: about twenty fifteen there started to be news stories about microdosing.

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Speaker 4: In particular, in twenty fifteen there was a big Rolling

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Speaker 4: Stone article about the practice of microdosing, and from that

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Speaker 4: time it has really exploded in popularity. It kind of

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Speaker 4: went from being virtually unheard of to something that was

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Speaker 4: talked a lot about in media and in online discussion

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Speaker 4: groups very rapidly. And so since then there've been researchers

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Speaker 4: such as myself have been trying to explore this in

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Speaker 4: a more kind of controlled and systematic way, and culturally,

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Speaker 4: it's really part of this big shift in attitudes around

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Speaker 4: psychedelics where they've gone from something that were quite taboo

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Speaker 4: and quite fringe to something that is much more understood

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Speaker 4: within mainstream culture and certainly is increasingly being seen as

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Speaker 4: something that at high doses might have beneficial medical applications,

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Speaker 4: and potentially that might also be the case for low

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Speaker 4: doses and microdosing as well.

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Speaker 1: Can we talk about some of the things that you've

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Speaker 1: learned since you have started researching this, And just to

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Speaker 1: be clear, this microdosing is not a hallucinogenic effect, right,

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Speaker 1: So it's not like when you were taking LSD tabs

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Speaker 1: at university or something. This is a very different experience, right.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, So let's just talk from a bit about what

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Speaker 4: we mean by micro dosing. It's generally what we're talking

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Speaker 4: about is people taking very low doses, doses that don't

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Speaker 4: lead to significant changes in people's state of consciousness or

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Speaker 4: subjective sense of the world. They might notice some slight

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Speaker 4: kind of alteration in maybe their like level of emotional,

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Speaker 4: level of attention or something like that, but it's extremely subtle.

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Speaker 4: It's a completely different ballpark to when someone would take

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Speaker 4: a recreational dose or a clinical dose. It might be

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Speaker 4: a tenth or even a twentieth of the doses that

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Speaker 4: would be used in those other sorts of contexts, and

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Speaker 4: so there's not much in the way of acute effects

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Speaker 4: at all. It's not quite imperceptible. It seems like people

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Speaker 4: can notice something is going on. It's just that it's

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Speaker 4: very hard to describe because it's a very subtle, minimal

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Speaker 4: sort of shift in awareness. A lot of the time

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Speaker 4: people micro dose and just go about their daily lives

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Speaker 4: doing all of the things that they normally do. So

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Speaker 4: it's absolutely not impairing in any way. It's certainly not

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Speaker 4: hallucinat You've.

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Speaker 1: Kind of touched on this already that it might have

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Speaker 1: some medicinal benefits for those taking it in higher doses.

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Speaker 1: But what are the benefits of microdosing. What can we

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Speaker 1: actually say that we have researched and can see for

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Speaker 1: real the benefits of.

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Speaker 4: Well, it's not totally clear yet because microcing science is

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Speaker 4: in a pretty early stage, and initially the sort of

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Speaker 4: first stage of research was a lot of self report studies,

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Speaker 4: questionnaire studies, interviews, those kinds of things, and the results

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Speaker 4: from those studies we're quite promising people talking about all

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Speaker 4: sorts of benefits, more focused attention, better social relationships, relief

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Speaker 4: from chronic pain, relief from some mood disorders, and anxiety.

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Speaker 4: But then as the research has got more rigorous and

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Speaker 4: studies have been done in more controlled sort of settings,

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Speaker 4: not all of those effects have been sort of replicated

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Speaker 4: or found, But from the studies that have been done

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Speaker 4: looking at those long term effects, we can see that

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Speaker 4: there are some brain changes and those neural changes may

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Speaker 4: be related to mood and affect and there's pretty solid

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Speaker 4: evidence of an increase in feelings of energy. There's some

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Speaker 4: data showing that microdosing increases sleep a little bit, and

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Speaker 4: there is some data showing that microdosing seems to reduce

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Speaker 4: people's reactions to pain.

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Speaker 1: Also, Fince, what about the potential dangers of microdosing, And

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Speaker 1: I guess the most obvious one at this point is

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Speaker 1: that psychedelics are still an illegal drug here in Australia,

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Speaker 1: So the people who are microdosing are sourcing an illegal drug,

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Speaker 1: so it is not regulated in whatever dose they might

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Speaker 1: receive it in a lot of the mums we've been

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Speaker 1: talking to get it in little chocolate squares. So I'm

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Speaker 1: guessing the dangers there is that when it's sourced illegally,

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Speaker 1: there's no idea of just how much you're getting or

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Speaker 1: what you're getting.

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Speaker 4: Right, absolutely, Yeah, there's definitely legal risk just in terms

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Speaker 4: of someone potentially coming in contact with the legal system.

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Speaker 2: That's a big risk.

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Speaker 4: And then there's the sorts of risks around purity that

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Speaker 4: you're talking about. Because it's an uncontrolled substance and that's

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Speaker 4: not really produced in a licensed or regulated way, there's

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Speaker 4: not a lot of certainty for many people about exactly

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Speaker 4: what they're getting, and certainly exactly what dose they're getting.

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Speaker 4: It's not always easy to measure and sow. That's certainly

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Speaker 4: a risk. Beyond that, the risks of microdosing also aren't

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Speaker 4: super well known, just because we haven't had enough research

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Speaker 4: on it yet. It doesn't seem like there's the same

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Speaker 4: risk profile as there is for high dose psychedelics, Like

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Speaker 4: because we're talking about very low doses, there's not really

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Speaker 4: such a risk of someone having like something like a

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Speaker 4: bad trip or a very negative subjective experience. That doesn't

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Speaker 4: appear to be the case, but it does seem like

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Speaker 4: microdosing makes a proportion of people feel more anxious and tiory,

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Speaker 4: more emotional in a way that's unpleasant. And then there's

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Speaker 4: this other set of potential risks that's also not very

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Speaker 4: well understood, which is that it's possible that there might

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Speaker 4: be some cardiac health risks associated with microdosing. There are

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Speaker 4: some similar medications that in the past have led to

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Speaker 4: cardiac health harms. There's no evidence of that yet with microdosing,

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Speaker 4: but that is a potential risk that many of us

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Speaker 4: in the scientific community kind of have an I radar

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Speaker 4: and are paying attention to.

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Speaker 1: Vince, do you think with what we know now about

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Speaker 1: micro dosing, we have enough information to look at maybe

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Speaker 1: changing the classification of psychedelics like psilocybin to make it

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Speaker 1: more accessible to people and maybe have it used in

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Speaker 1: a more controlled environment like issued via your GP for example.

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Speaker 4: Well, it's quite a long process to change the scheduling

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Speaker 4: around prohibited drugs, and that's probably good that it is.

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Speaker 4: There's a set kind of conventional procedure that drug developers

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Speaker 4: need to follow to show that there is evidence firstly

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Speaker 4: that a drug is safe, secondly that it's effective, and

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Speaker 4: then that it's effective at a large scale amongst diverse populations.

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Speaker 4: And so it's a long road to get to before

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Speaker 4: we get that kind of change for microdosing.

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Speaker 2: That research is happening.

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Speaker 4: I'm doing some of that research looking at the efficacy

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Speaker 4: of of microdosing for mood disorders, and if the results

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Speaker 4: of my study and other studies like that are positive,

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Speaker 4: then certainly that does put these drugs on the trajectory

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Speaker 4: eventually to becoming a medicine. But that's years off, and

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Speaker 4: I think that there's already a lot of momentum of

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Speaker 4: change around the legal status of psychedelics. Australia now has

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Speaker 4: an access pathway for people to be treated by psychiatrists

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Speaker 4: for very serious mental illnesses with high dose psychedelics, and

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Speaker 4: that's quite groundbreaking. There's not many places in the world

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Speaker 4: where that's the case. So there is already a lot

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Speaker 4: of momentum and change in this area, and so if

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Speaker 4: the results continue to be positive, I expect that that

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Speaker 4: will continue, but it is going to be a slow process.

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Speaker 1: The rise of microdosing amongst suburban Aussie mums presents a

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Speaker 1: complex ethical and legal dilemma. On one hand, many women

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Speaker 1: report significant benefits to their mental health and family life.

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Speaker 1: On the other, they're engaging in illegal activity that could

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Speaker 1: have serious consequences. Purchasing, possessing, or consuming these products easy

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Speaker 1: illegal in Australia and importing them from overseas also carry

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Speaker 1: significant legal risks, but there are signs that things are changing.

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Speaker 1: Last year, the Australian federal government committed fifteen million dollars

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Speaker 1: to psychedelic research, signaling a potential shift in attitude. However,

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Speaker 1: a proposal to downschedule psilocybin to a controlled substance for

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Speaker 1: medical use was rejected by the Therapeutic Goods Administration. For Jacinta,

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Speaker 1: though she thinks alcohol, a drug that is very legal

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Speaker 1: in this country, is arguably causing the public more harm.

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Speaker 3: Everybody can do whatever they want, but in my life

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Speaker 3: I've noticed that alcohol has had a hugely detrimental effect

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Speaker 3: on almost everybody who uses it regularly, just because alcohol

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Speaker 3: is a substance that's taxed and controlled by the government.

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Speaker 2: Not to sound like a conspiracy theorist, but.

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Speaker 3: I think people are looking for other ways, especially with

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Speaker 3: what we're now learning about the way that alcohol interviews

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Speaker 3: with anxiety and hormone.

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Speaker 2: As a woman in.

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Speaker 3: Her forties, you know, things like that are a big

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Speaker 3: concern for me, and I think it's so normalized that

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Speaker 3: people aren't necessarily aware of how much dammage they're doing

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Speaker 3: when they get together with their mum friends and have

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Speaker 3: eight drinks or twelve drinks.

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Speaker 1: Thanks for taking some time to feed your mind with

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Speaker 1: us today. The quickie is produced by me Claire Murphy

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Speaker 1: and our senior producer Taylor Strano, with audio production by

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Speaker 1: Tom Lyin.