Speaker 1: All right, Greg, when are illegal drugs good for your
Speaker 1: mental health? Thought we already talked about this. We might have,
Speaker 1: but we got more to talk about. A new study
Speaker 1: published in Nature Medicine shows that for people suffering with
Speaker 1: severe PTSD, the benefit of talk therapy could be greatly
Speaker 1: improved with an unlikely drug, MDMA, popularly known as ecstasy.
Speaker 1: Everyone said PTSD can't be cured. I'm leaving proof that
Speaker 1: that isn't truth. MDMA itself, best known as the active
Speaker 1: ingredient in ecstasy, wasn't actually criminalized until the mid nineteen eighties.
Speaker 1: This morning, the Drug Enforcement Administration is announcing its intention
Speaker 1: to place the drug known as m DMA under emergency
Speaker 1: controls and Schedule One. Fact, there was a gay club
Speaker 1: in Nollas, Texas that was kind of really well known
Speaker 1: for kind of being the hub of culture in the
Speaker 1: mid eighties, and as you can probably imagine, a representative
Speaker 1: from Texas heard about this kind of freakeda in Dallas,
Speaker 1: hidden federal drug and four agency cameras were rolling for
Speaker 1: the first designer drug bust following an emergency fan on
Speaker 1: the substance known as ecstasy. Dallas Police, a federal drug agencies,
Speaker 1: the total of four thousand tablets, but in estimated street
Speaker 1: value of one hundred thousand dollars. It sounds like if
Speaker 1: what you just said was it was a gay club
Speaker 1: in Dallas during the eighties where they were doing ecstasy.
Speaker 1: That's all the things Texas is afraid, though, Do you
Speaker 1: understand what I'm saying? Like these cowboys are having way
Speaker 1: too much fun and then like we gotta shut this down.
Speaker 1: I'm Greg Glad, I'm Clayton Engle, and this is the
Speaker 1: war on drugs. Greg. How are you doing, man? I'm
Speaker 1: doing great, Clayton. Yeah, good, good day. Yeah, beautiful day
Speaker 1: in Atlanta today, having a good time. I'm liking your city. Yes, Atlanta,
Speaker 1: I hope it's been treating you right. I know the
Speaker 1: uber ride was a little you know, traumatizing. Yeah we can,
Speaker 1: we won't get in there, but yeah it was. He
Speaker 1: did most of a drift. I've been looking back at you. Yeah,
Speaker 1: a lot of picture sharing, um looking at me and
Speaker 1: just bumper to bumper Atlanta traffic a little a little
Speaker 1: little death to fine. But yeah, yeah we're good now.
Speaker 1: I already know what we're talking about today, but I'm
Speaker 1: gonna ask you before you know, we get anybody here. Okay,
Speaker 1: you ever been to you know, a rave, like a
Speaker 1: real rave, like one of them in the warehouse, dabbled, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I've been to. I've been, really I want to go.
Speaker 1: I've been to some events that felt ravesh yeah, but
Speaker 1: they weren't right. So did you do the whole thing?
Speaker 1: Did you participate? Did you take any substances? Well, you
Speaker 1: were there. I don't want to get you in trouble. No,
Speaker 1: I don't know, because you know, I'm they just assume
Speaker 1: I do everything. Yeah, exactly, Yeah, No, I I gotta
Speaker 1: keep the key clean cut profile here. Um I'll say no, Um,
Speaker 1: did not participate. And I'd think, you know, we're talking
Speaker 1: about like molly and ecstasy and yeah, yeah and things
Speaker 1: like that. But I know I've you know, there's definitely
Speaker 1: always been curiosity just working in this field on effects,
Speaker 1: and there's definitely people and around me looks like they're
Speaker 1: having a good time. Yeah, some people do. Yeah, some
Speaker 1: people do. Is I've done. I've done a few things before, yea,
Speaker 1: and yeah the closes I've been to a rabe was
Speaker 1: a comic book convention, Yeah, and I was I might
Speaker 1: have ate some mushrooms, some mushrooms might have ate me,
Speaker 1: who knows? Who knows at this point, right, it's cool
Speaker 1: because it's like nerd mardy girl. And it's also like
Speaker 1: that thing they told you, like, you know, when you
Speaker 1: do drugs, you're gonna see all the cartoon characters and
Speaker 1: they're gonna come. That's the closest you're ever gonna get
Speaker 1: to it because their cartoon. Everybody's dressed up in these
Speaker 1: in these like the Joker was the DJ at the party.
Speaker 1: It was the coolest thing ever. Like Batman wasn't even
Speaker 1: trying to break his neck like Batman was like had
Speaker 1: a little oh man fits pumping. That's crazy. Like yeah, no,
Speaker 1: So I've had some good experiences with some of those things.
Speaker 1: But I think, you know, uh, our guest today is
Speaker 1: gonna tell us about a whole other way of maybe
Speaker 1: some of these same substances being used for you know,
Speaker 1: the benefit, not that I didn't benefit from that night.
Speaker 1: Had a good time. Yeah, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: Writer took home poison ivy or something. Yeah, no, might
Speaker 1: smoke some poison. Yeah, man, she would be a great
Speaker 1: weed smokers girl. Yeah, absolutely, Yeah, she seems very right
Speaker 1: or dye plans grow bigger. Yeah, immediately love her. But yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, yeah, they're not just for that, and that's
Speaker 1: kind of you know, they've been stigmatizing that way that
Speaker 1: you know, kind of psychedelics Molly MDMA, that they're only
Speaker 1: for just like partying and the overdoses that have occurred
Speaker 1: from it and all this other stuff. But yeah, our guest, um,
Speaker 1: you know, Ismael Alie is you know, going to talk
Speaker 1: to us. He works at MAPS, which is a organization
Speaker 1: that specialized multidisciplinary association for psychedelic studies. So yeah, I'll
Speaker 1: go with MAPS on that. But yeah, no, but yeah,
Speaker 1: we had to get the Christian name out. Yeah, because
Speaker 1: you know, I'll say it and then you know, because
Speaker 1: I learned so much stuff from you. Yeah, but I
Speaker 1: don't learn all of it. Like I'll learn the name
Speaker 1: like MAPS, and then somebody I'll talk about it in
Speaker 1: the real world, somebody like what's that stand for it?
Speaker 1: I'm like, lick man, Just listen to what else I'm
Speaker 1: saying about that. Yeah, you can google it later. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, I need flash cards to keep up with
Speaker 1: some of this stuff. It's yeah, it's it's a lot.
Speaker 1: I do love this stuff though, because it's so funny,
Speaker 1: like bringing the stuff that you're just interested about, like
Speaker 1: in life, and that you hear here about like this,
Speaker 1: and how they're using like the same stuff that you
Speaker 1: know is the rave scene to potentially cure PTSD. I
Speaker 1: mean that's nuts and all these other things with you know,
Speaker 1: severe depression and anxiety and all the other uses for it.
Speaker 1: It's it's fascinating, um. And then you read about how
Speaker 1: we were getting so close to maybe being able to
Speaker 1: use lize this in a medical feel like in the seventies,
Speaker 1: and then just like everything else, you know, the War
Speaker 1: on drugs kind of just overtakes it and instead of
Speaker 1: a couple bad things happen where you have an overdose
Speaker 1: here or something else there, or an ABC News report
Speaker 1: comes out, and then everyone's just terrified of this stuff.
Speaker 1: And the first inclination is just criminalize it, make the
Speaker 1: penalties really strong, and you know, just it cuts off
Speaker 1: every medical use. And now you're learning the stuff that
Speaker 1: MAPS is doing potentially curing PTSD, particularly combat veterans and
Speaker 1: other people, and you just think, like how many lives
Speaker 1: could have been either saved you know, literally or just
Speaker 1: like you know, metaphysically, where they're just like gone through
Speaker 1: depression their whole life through this, and we have just
Speaker 1: decided this substance is no longer going to be able
Speaker 1: to be utilized with this. So the fact that they're
Speaker 1: doing this stuff and hopefully moving towards being able to
Speaker 1: use this in a clinical you know, field, would be amazing.
Speaker 1: I mean, just the fact that you're saying being able
Speaker 1: to cure PTSD, yeah, because I don't know if I
Speaker 1: don't know if I've ever even heard people talk about
Speaker 1: curing it like you know, this keep you know, you
Speaker 1: can get your little medicine or something and just try
Speaker 1: to subdue it, but like curious. Yeah. With that being said,
Speaker 1: grote enough from us, let's hear from Ismael himself. Let's
Speaker 1: get it it, Smile. I cannot wait to dive into
Speaker 1: everything that we're going to talk about today. But thanks
Speaker 1: for coming on the show. I really appreciate it. I'm
Speaker 1: so glad to be here and I'm looking forward to
Speaker 1: having this conversation with you guys. Ye're glad to have you, Smile.
Speaker 1: You know, I'm very familiar with what MAPS does. I'm
Speaker 1: really excited to talk to you today about everything that
Speaker 1: y'all are doing. But for our listeners, you know, talk
Speaker 1: a little bit about the history of maps. What's your
Speaker 1: core vision and goals and what do you all know?
Speaker 1: What do you'all do? Yeah, it's it's helpful to know
Speaker 1: about kind of some of the basic history of the
Speaker 1: War on Drugs to understand the history of maps. So
Speaker 1: many people are familiar with the passing of the Control
Speaker 1: Substances Act in the early nineteen seventies and then the
Speaker 1: calling of the War on Drugs. What fewer people know
Speaker 1: is that MDMA itself, best known as the active ingredient
Speaker 1: in ecstasy, wasn't actually criminalized until the mid nineteen eighties.
Speaker 1: It was sort of rediscovered in the lab in the
Speaker 1: late seventies and then kind of utilize in the underground
Speaker 1: in a semi unregulated context as an adjempt to therapy
Speaker 1: for couples and other people in the late seventies and
Speaker 1: early eighties. And it wasn't until MDMA kind of you
Speaker 1: could say, broke out of the therapist office in the
Speaker 1: mid eighties and started getting sold in clubs that the
Speaker 1: kind of criminalization actually started. And in fact it was
Speaker 1: it was a club in Dallas, Texas, a gay club
Speaker 1: in Dallas, Texas that was kind of really well known
Speaker 1: for kind of being the hub of ecstacy culture in
Speaker 1: the mid eighties, and as you can probably imagine, a
Speaker 1: representative from Texas heard about this, kind of freaked out
Speaker 1: and then kind of petition the DA to emergency schedule
Speaker 1: m DMA. So after a couple that was in nineteen
Speaker 1: eighty four, nineteen eighty five, perhaps it was actually founded
Speaker 1: in nineteen eighty six as a response to what was
Speaker 1: eventually the Schedule one kind of placement of MDMA after
Speaker 1: this emergency scheduling process. Literally, Clayton, it feels just like
Speaker 1: deja vu. Like every we've talked about, you know, marijuana, cocaine,
Speaker 1: all these the things. It's like some bad things happen
Speaker 1: where people, you know, abuse the substance experts come out
Speaker 1: and suggest like one way to do something about it,
Speaker 1: like hey, we should make it a Schedule three there's
Speaker 1: certain things, or we should decriminalize, and then the government
Speaker 1: just says, ah, fuck that we know better than you all.
Speaker 1: Let's just make it a crime and increasing somebody's really possible.
Speaker 1: Somebody gets scared. And it sounds like if what you
Speaker 1: just said was it was a gay club in Dallas
Speaker 1: during the eighties where they were doing ecstasy. That's all
Speaker 1: the things Texas is afraid of, exactly. Do you understand
Speaker 1: what I'm saying? Like these cowboys are having way too
Speaker 1: much fun and then like we gotta shut this down.
Speaker 1: And actually it's funny because I had a friend who
Speaker 1: was at some of those clubs in their early eighties.
Speaker 1: I found out recently. I've known her for years, and
Speaker 1: she was like, yeah, they used to sell it over
Speaker 1: the counter in nineteen eight Wow. Imagine being able to
Speaker 1: go up to a bar just good ecstasy, not cut,
Speaker 1: you know, not the stuff that you find now on
Speaker 1: the street, but like really anyway, that's right. It's like
Speaker 1: two vaka, so us let others have and let's let's
Speaker 1: because you know, you know, I feel like black people
Speaker 1: didn't know about ecstasy until about the two thousands. I
Speaker 1: feel like from my group of people, we saw white
Speaker 1: people going crazy. We didn't know what was going on.
Speaker 1: We saw y'all with Vick's vapor rub on your face,
Speaker 1: or you know, they might be rolling blade with glow
Speaker 1: sticks and we were like, what that doesn't look like weed. Yeah,
Speaker 1: what are they doing? And then around two thousand we
Speaker 1: were like, oh, that's what they were doing. Well, it's
Speaker 1: my kind of on that what we see also, it's
Speaker 1: just communities and people that could really benefit from these
Speaker 1: substances are essentially left out in the dark because they're
Speaker 1: either you know, they're criminally in force. And then also
Speaker 1: the research aspects of it, and so I think people
Speaker 1: really do think of you know, MDMA and other psychedelics
Speaker 1: like that as just party drugs, things that people just
Speaker 1: want to do because they you know, want to have
Speaker 1: a good time and has nothing to do with any
Speaker 1: treatment or health. A lot of that's because of the
Speaker 1: rhetoric and fear that we've been put into. I remember
Speaker 1: the just say no to drugs commercials and all this
Speaker 1: other stuff, Like I remember being scared. I'd see those things.
Speaker 1: Someone would take a tab and then five minutes later
Speaker 1: be dead in the street, and you know, it's like, well,
Speaker 1: this is what the remember they used to say taking
Speaker 1: ecstasy puts holes in your brain. Yeah, that was that
Speaker 1: was actually a claim made I think on Oprah's show
Speaker 1: in two thousand and one. There were some there there
Speaker 1: was i would say misinterpreted uh scans of the brain
Speaker 1: and there are actually two things that were happening at
Speaker 1: the same time. One there was a really well known
Speaker 1: kind of scandal in the early two thousands where it
Speaker 1: became clear that a bunch of the studies that were
Speaker 1: supposedly using MBMA were actually using that competitive meum. And
Speaker 1: exactly as you said, there was another study that showed
Speaker 1: where the activity of the brain was when something was happening,
Speaker 1: and they interpreted that as it took ice cream scoops
Speaker 1: out of the brain because certain parts of the brain
Speaker 1: were shut off. Now, ironically, we know that shutting off
Speaker 1: some of those parts of the brain when the substances
Speaker 1: in your system is actually one of the ways that
Speaker 1: it has a therapeutic benefit. Yeah, what does therapy look
Speaker 1: like for this? Do think people just have that perception
Speaker 1: that you know, you take it and you sit in
Speaker 1: some room and you to think about some stuff and
Speaker 1: dance and listens to some great music and then just
Speaker 1: trying to figure things out. But obviously there's it's it's
Speaker 1: not that. And so can you talk a little bit
Speaker 1: about you know, some of the therapy either with MDMA
Speaker 1: or ketamine that we've been hearing about just kind of
Speaker 1: like thirty thousand foot what does that actually look like
Speaker 1: in and what are some of these benefits that we're seeing. Yeah, sure,
Speaker 1: so I'll talk, I'll talk really broadly, and now i'll
Speaker 1: get a little bit more specifics. So, first off, with
Speaker 1: respect to psychedelic therapy in particular, one of the ways
Speaker 1: that it's helpful to characterize psychedelic therapy, so that's any
Speaker 1: therapeutic intervention with any of these psychedelic substances, psychedelics being
Speaker 1: LSD and mushrooms and DMT and in the slightly less
Speaker 1: obvious definition drugs like MDMA and ketamine. Generally, the way
Speaker 1: they tend to work has to do less with symptom management,
Speaker 1: which is the way a lot of other psychiatric psychiatric
Speaker 1: medications work, where they're trying to adjust different levels of
Speaker 1: certain receptors in the brain to kind of neutralize or
Speaker 1: mitigate certain extreme or highly limited emotional reactions. That's a
Speaker 1: whole lot like SSRIs work. A lot of the current
Speaker 1: kind of psychological pharmaceutical interventions that we have now tend
Speaker 1: to work through a symptom management framework, and that works
Speaker 1: well for some people, it really doesn't work well for others.
Speaker 1: But but it's you know, this isn't to say that
Speaker 1: those never work or they're not good they just work
Speaker 1: for a limited number of people in a certain number
Speaker 1: of cases. Right, the way that psycho therapy tends to
Speaker 1: work is kind of the opposite it actually, it kind
Speaker 1: of opens up channels internally within the psyche to have
Speaker 1: more contact with the thing that's happening, whether that's a
Speaker 1: trauma or a depression. In some ways, it's almost like
Speaker 1: an exposure therapy for the mind, where it's saying, like, Okay,
Speaker 1: it's going to change the way that your mind approaches
Speaker 1: a certain problem. It's going to put certain guardrails in place,
Speaker 1: and it's going to allow you to look directly at
Speaker 1: the problem and work with the problem in a way
Speaker 1: that kind of reduces or removes the underlying issue instead
Speaker 1: of just trying to manage the symptoms at the top.
Speaker 1: And the reason that's important is because it's a little
Speaker 1: bit more I don't like to compare to surgery necessarily,
Speaker 1: but it's a little bit more of a procedure. It's
Speaker 1: not just like you take a pill every day and
Speaker 1: you do it. It's more like you have the intervention
Speaker 1: and it allows you to get really deep into the
Speaker 1: trauma or the particular issue that you're dealing with, and
Speaker 1: then kind of see it, you know, how to heal
Speaker 1: it at the root, and with MDAMA therapy in particular,
Speaker 1: kind of going back to the ice cream scoop thing,
Speaker 1: it actually completely significantly reduces the activity in the amygdala,
Speaker 1: which is the part of the brain that regulates fear.
Speaker 1: So what it does is it puts the brain into
Speaker 1: a state of having less fear or not being able
Speaker 1: to feel the same kind of fear that it might be.
Speaker 1: Some people call it fear extinction. And as a result
Speaker 1: of that, it allows people to kind of relate to
Speaker 1: what might be a very traumatic memory and memory that
Speaker 1: their brain has otherwise created all kinds of ways to
Speaker 1: get around and to avoid in a way that doesn't
Speaker 1: feel the same fear, and then rebuild the pathways to
Speaker 1: that memory so it doesn't have the same traumatic effect.
Speaker 1: Some people call it as a colloquialism, memory reconsolidation. It's
Speaker 1: a way to think about how do you rearrange your
Speaker 1: relationship with your memory. Of course, that's a really hard process.
Speaker 1: I like to remind people, especially when I'm in my
Speaker 1: advocacy role, that psychedelic therapy, whether it's with MDMA or
Speaker 1: other drugs, is actually not that fun. And it's actually
Speaker 1: very hard because it's actually well it does. You know,
Speaker 1: you do have the support from the substance and from
Speaker 1: the therapist that are with you to kind of be
Speaker 1: there with that memory. It's still hard to deal with
Speaker 1: your own trauma, and it's still a hard, difficult process.
Speaker 1: But as a result, people often not always, but often
Speaker 1: feel like when they go through that process it's actually
Speaker 1: more empowering because it's them working through their own work
Speaker 1: with some support to come out on the other side
Speaker 1: in a way that allows them to kind of live
Speaker 1: their lives in a different way. I'm glad you said
Speaker 1: that it's work and it's it's not easy because I think,
Speaker 1: you know, when most people probably hear it, I think
Speaker 1: some of the people are going to think automatically, like
Speaker 1: you said, celebratory party drug, what benefit could it be?
Speaker 1: And I think other people are like, oh, all I
Speaker 1: gotta do is take m DMA and I'm gonna be good.
Speaker 1: It's like, no, you're gonna have to deal with those
Speaker 1: things and everything that you kind of may say it
Speaker 1: made sense about, like it extinguishes fear. It does that
Speaker 1: in a party setting too. You know, you'll you'll start
Speaker 1: talking to people you would never talk to before you
Speaker 1: dancing your ass off. You know what I'm saying. Like,
Speaker 1: we have a few bills to pag so we're gonna
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Speaker 1: by Stand Together. Stand Together is a philanthropic community that
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Speaker 1: causes of our country's biggest problems. The Libertas Institute is
Speaker 1: working to solve one of those problems and is fighting
Speaker 1: for common sense reform in Utah. Right now, twenty nine
Speaker 1: percent of adults are experiencing mental health challenges in Utah,
Speaker 1: where the suicide rate is also one and a half
Speaker 1: times of national average. Psilocybin, the psychoactive substance naturally found
Speaker 1: in mushrooms, is considered by some of the most renowned
Speaker 1: medical facilities in the world to be one of the
Speaker 1: most promising sources of hope for people experiencing depression where
Speaker 1: traditional medication has failed. Even though it's safe and effective,
Speaker 1: psilocybin remains classified as the Schedule one drug under federal law.
Speaker 1: Our neighbors who have not found hope with current treatments
Speaker 1: should not have to choose between potentially life saving medication
Speaker 1: and incarceration. The Libertas Institute is working to change state
Speaker 1: law so that patients can use psilocybin under the supervision
Speaker 1: of a therapist. To learn more about Stand Together their
Speaker 1: partners or how you can partner with Stand Together. Go
Speaker 1: to Stand Together dot org. Okay, so you kind of
Speaker 1: explain the overview of what the therapy, what the goal is,
Speaker 1: and what you're trying to do. But what is it like,
Speaker 1: what does it look like once you're in there with
Speaker 1: the therapists and you're tripping. I don't know if that's
Speaker 1: the right word, but yeah, yeah, Like how does the
Speaker 1: MDA therapy treatment? How long does it last? Like, yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm curious about that too. Yeah, Clayton tripping is actually
Speaker 1: the scientific term that we do, so is it if
Speaker 1: I did not see that in any scientific paper. So
Speaker 1: the way that the MBMA assisted therapy works, and I'll
Speaker 1: clarify now that the indication that we are currently researching
Speaker 1: it for his post traumatic stress disorder, and practically speaking,
Speaker 1: that means that a lot of the people that we
Speaker 1: were working with, of course, have been better ends who've
Speaker 1: been to who've dealt with both war and moral injury,
Speaker 1: as well as people who've survived physical or sexual assault
Speaker 1: or accidents or kind of other related things. So the
Speaker 1: way that it works though is right now, our protocol
Speaker 1: has it's about twelve to fifteen sessions, only two to
Speaker 1: three of which actually utilize m DUMA. So you have
Speaker 1: three preparatory sessions, which are basically normal talk therapy sessions
Speaker 1: in which you know a person is building a relationship
Speaker 1: with a therapist. And in the case of the MDAMA
Speaker 1: therapy mobility specifically, there's actually a two therapist team, a
Speaker 1: co therapist team, so the two people who are collaborating
Speaker 1: on the care of this particular person. There's three sessions
Speaker 1: that the two of them have and then they'll have
Speaker 1: a six to eight eight hour long session that's with
Speaker 1: the medicine and in that situation. In that case, it's
Speaker 1: usually what we call a self directed process. The therapists
Speaker 1: are not imposing their own world views on you. They're
Speaker 1: not trying to like they might, like you know, ask
Speaker 1: questions or based on the first few sessions, help you
Speaker 1: deepen your own relationship to whatever the issue is that
Speaker 1: you want to work on. But the reason we kind
Speaker 1: of focus on self directed therapy in the sense that
Speaker 1: we kind of the therapists are kind of there to
Speaker 1: reflect the empathy that comes out of the MBAMA back
Speaker 1: toward you, so you can then kind of utilize that
Speaker 1: compassion and empathy on yourself, which is a huge part
Speaker 1: of especially trauma treatment. A lot of that it often
Speaker 1: looks like self forgiveness and other things like that. So
Speaker 1: they'll have the three preparatory set three or four preparatory sessions,
Speaker 1: they'll have the medicine assistant sessions, and then they'll have
Speaker 1: a couple or a handful of integration sessions, and those sessions,
Speaker 1: again are short normal one hour long sessions where the
Speaker 1: patient is then talking through what they've learned in that
Speaker 1: longer session with the medicine to integrate that into their
Speaker 1: lives and see what can they learn from that, how
Speaker 1: do they grow from that, where were they stuck, etc.
Speaker 1: And then they might do that whole process again and
Speaker 1: then maybe maybe one more time. Right now, our Phase
Speaker 1: three protocol only has up to three MDMA assistant sessions
Speaker 1: with the pre and post kind of prep and integration
Speaker 1: sessions that occurring before and after. So what that basically
Speaker 1: looks like is a two to three months long procedure
Speaker 1: where you have multiple sessions, only a couple or a
Speaker 1: few of which are you know, have medicine assisted as
Speaker 1: part of the those sessions, and the therapists are really
Speaker 1: there to kind of guide your process into yourself. What's
Speaker 1: the efficacy of this treatment compared to you know, current
Speaker 1: you know therapy, you know, particularly for treating PTSD. You
Speaker 1: had mentioned that you guys are doing studies right now.
Speaker 1: Just talk through a little bit about that if you could. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So the Phase two trial that we did, which was
Speaker 1: published at the end of twenty sixteen, showed a sixty
Speaker 1: two percent that's sixty two percent of the people who
Speaker 1: went through the trial no longer qualified for having PTSD
Speaker 1: at the end of that trial. And what I thought
Speaker 1: was really interesting about that is that the one year
Speaker 1: follow up that number actually increased to sixty eight percent,
Speaker 1: which to me, I think show is really the effectiveness
Speaker 1: not just of the drug, but of the empowerment and
Speaker 1: of the value that the experience has for people to
Speaker 1: then make changes in their own lives. And I think
Speaker 1: that's a key piece here where we're not trying to
Speaker 1: get people dependent on another drug. We're really trying to
Speaker 1: make sure that people can figure out how to empower
Speaker 1: themselves to make the decisions that they need. So that
Speaker 1: that's that's one teacher man at a point, Yeah, exactly exactly.
Speaker 1: And you can kind of like put some sale in there,
Speaker 1: you know, put some win in their sales, sale in
Speaker 1: the right, a win in their sales to kind of
Speaker 1: move them forward and support them and kind of building
Speaker 1: their own life independently of like having to be dependent
Speaker 1: on anything necessarily. And that, if I'm not mistaken, our
Speaker 1: Phase three result there was a similar efficacy. I think
Speaker 1: it was sixty six percent from that one, So it's
Speaker 1: it's pretty it's pretty impressive compared to other modalities, especially
Speaker 1: because it's not like an ongoing thing, and I think
Speaker 1: that's partially a testament to the mechanism that it works.
Speaker 1: Of course, that doesn't mean that people come out like
Speaker 1: totally healed and cured. People still struggle, people still have
Speaker 1: a lot of issues that they have to deal with
Speaker 1: because life is happening. But there's no question that for
Speaker 1: a good number of people, when they're working with a
Speaker 1: particular trauma, they do tend to benefit from that modality
Speaker 1: in a way that's different from the way they mind
Speaker 1: from other kinds of modalities. Wow. Yeah, I think I'm
Speaker 1: reading from the study that two months after the final session,
Speaker 1: about two thirds of people who received MBMA assisted therapy
Speaker 1: no longer met the diagnosic criteria for PTSD, compared with
Speaker 1: one third of those who received the PLACEDO. So that's
Speaker 1: on that third trial that you're talking about, which is amazing. So,
Speaker 1: you know, we we've talked about it in kind of
Speaker 1: the PTSD realm. What other you know, therapeutic uses do
Speaker 1: you see either that have been studied or do you
Speaker 1: feel like would translate very effectively. I remember, like Clay
Speaker 1: were actually we're talking about it before. Like I don't
Speaker 1: know if it's just like TV shows and things like that,
Speaker 1: but I felt like therapist back in like the sixty
Speaker 1: seventies would give it to like married couples to like
Speaker 1: sort out their stuff during like counseling and things like that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: like marriage, because I used to always say about MDMA,
Speaker 1: like nobody needs to feel that good. If you feel
Speaker 1: that bad, maybe you do need to feel that good
Speaker 1: to get you brought out of however you feel is
Speaker 1: so yeah, but we were talking about like counseling before.
Speaker 1: But yeah, yeah, that's that's hilarious actually because you know,
Speaker 1: I kind it kind of depends on you on your
Speaker 1: framework too, because it's like, you know, like is that
Speaker 1: okay that people feel good. We also, as kind of
Speaker 1: a side note, we have we have a bit of
Speaker 1: a fear of pleasure in our country. That's another kind
Speaker 1: of another part of the pure ten thing where it's like, oh,
Speaker 1: people aren't allowed to feel good, Like don't don't think
Speaker 1: that your healing can feel good. It has to be
Speaker 1: hard to work, and people are it's hard for people
Speaker 1: to imagine they can be both hard work and feel
Speaker 1: good at the same time I have that it's like
Speaker 1: something taste too good or something like that. I'm like, well,
Speaker 1: this is this this guy. Yeah, it's not gonna work. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's gotta beat yes. Um. So yeah, to answer your question,
Speaker 1: so there's a couple of what I'll do maybe right
Speaker 1: now is list off some of them the different indications
Speaker 1: that not the MDMA but also other psychedelics are being
Speaker 1: steadied for. Um. And you know, it's important to clarify
Speaker 1: that people are studying these that doesn't necessarily mean that
Speaker 1: it's effective for all these things. So you're absolutely right
Speaker 1: by the way. First off, so MBMA itself was totally
Speaker 1: utilized for couples counseling in the late seventies and early eighties.
Speaker 1: That was one of the first kind of indications or
Speaker 1: first kind of methods that it was used to bring
Speaker 1: in to treat people in the underground or like in
Speaker 1: the kind of preregulated era you could say. And today
Speaker 1: there's probably a dozen different indications that MDMA itself is
Speaker 1: being studied for. I know that cities that we've conducted
Speaker 1: include end of life anxiety, social anxiety for adults with autism,
Speaker 1: and I think that with psychedelics more broadly, including psilocybin LSD.
Speaker 1: You're also seeing treatment for alcoholism, various forms of depression,
Speaker 1: various forms of anxiety. I think that one of the
Speaker 1: most interesting things that I've seen so far is the
Speaker 1: use of certain psychedelic substances, including psilocybin for example, but
Speaker 1: also I begain and others, as a treatment for different
Speaker 1: forms of addiction and dependency. So there's a few really
Speaker 1: well known studies about psilocybin for smoking cessation to bacco
Speaker 1: smoking cessation, which I think is quite interesting. And just
Speaker 1: for listen, mushrooms exactly, pilocybon being the active ingredient mushrooms.
Speaker 1: And I think that that that's something that really breaks
Speaker 1: people's brains, the possibility of using drugs to get people
Speaker 1: off of drugs'. There's this meme that's basically like, eventually
Speaker 1: you get to the point where it's not just your
Speaker 1: parents or society telling you to stop doing drugs, it's
Speaker 1: the drugs that are telling you to stop doing drugs.
Speaker 1: And I think that's funny because because like it really
Speaker 1: is about this kind of perception that when you do
Speaker 1: deep reflective work with yourself, when you have access to
Speaker 1: your own kind of spiritual or emotional body that what
Speaker 1: you get told by yourself is how to be in
Speaker 1: better balance. And balance looks like a lot of different
Speaker 1: things for different people, but ultimately balance is a kind
Speaker 1: of wholeness or holisticness. Is a way that people look
Speaker 1: at how I be less dependent on things? How do
Speaker 1: I use fear of coping mechanisms. Another way that people
Speaker 1: are looking at this is through the frame of group therapy.
Speaker 1: Not everyone heals and then one on one context, so
Speaker 1: bringing in group therapy, community therapy. I myself have done
Speaker 1: some really deep work with certain medicines with my family,
Speaker 1: with multiple members and generations of my family. After my
Speaker 1: mother passed away in twenty thirteen, I've been doing work
Speaker 1: with my family for the last almost ten years to
Speaker 1: really work through our grief as a collective. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: love the family therapy Aspecyah. My family therapy was always
Speaker 1: just huck it deep down inside and never speak about
Speaker 1: it again and then just lash out randomly at people
Speaker 1: you love for no apparent reason. Very healthy, incredibly healthy.
Speaker 1: I'm a good old fashioned American Irish light there. Yeah,
Speaker 1: this has been absolutely amazing. I've really really enjoyed this talk,
Speaker 1: and you know, yeah, like you said, the only thing
Speaker 1: that's I mean, it's just like that, you know, I
Speaker 1: think we were almost at a point to get this
Speaker 1: so much further along, and the fact that we're still
Speaker 1: kind of in this trial stages. It's probably very frustrating
Speaker 1: you as well seeing the efficacy of it. But hopefully,
Speaker 1: I mean, the worth that ye all are doing is
Speaker 1: is the only reason that this is really hopefully going
Speaker 1: to get out there and we can get this to
Speaker 1: a larger scale as this time. Yeah, right of severe PTSD.
Speaker 1: That's big, It's amazing. That's Steph. Sorry, that's Steph Curry
Speaker 1: on a great night. Yeah, yeah, yeah, So thank you again.
Speaker 1: This has been terrific and we hope to speak you soon.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much. Really appreciate you our questions on
Speaker 1: my time with you guys. Clayton wasn't cheap to get
Speaker 1: so we had to cut a couple of commercials. We'll
Speaker 1: be right back. Somebody gotta pay me, Clayton. We love
Speaker 1: origin stories on this show, hey man. This show is
Speaker 1: one big origin story. Yeah. Yeah, so I have the
Speaker 1: origin story of mdma um kind of the modern day
Speaker 1: use of it. So it was made like in the
Speaker 1: nineteen tens or that far back. Yeah, they didn't really
Speaker 1: know what to do with it. And then finally this
Speaker 1: man who's known as like the godfather of ecstasy, he
Speaker 1: was the first person to kind of like figure out, um,
Speaker 1: like the kind of the therapeutic uses of it. So
Speaker 1: nineteen twelve is when it was actually invented, but no
Speaker 1: one could really do anything with it, and they probably
Speaker 1: wasn't fun in nineteen twelve. It wasn't no glow sticks. Now, like,
Speaker 1: you know, there's a lot of stuff that they you know,
Speaker 1: they probably don't even have vapor rub like that. Yet
Speaker 1: suppose some guy in the violin you're vibe into it,
Speaker 1: like I don't know, it doesn't hit the same way,
Speaker 1: no bass dropping. Yeah, yeah, and so yeah, An Sholgan
Speaker 1: and Alexander Shulgan they were the first people to fit.
Speaker 1: They didn't invent ecstasy, but they were the first people
Speaker 1: to figure out like this could be used in therapy
Speaker 1: and very effectively either PTSD, couples, counseling, things like that.
Speaker 1: Like they did all this so extasy at this point
Speaker 1: is legal, um, and so they're doing these things. But
Speaker 1: also on the side, they were inventing new drugs, old
Speaker 1: break that down for people, so kind of like moving
Speaker 1: around a certain molecule of taking something out is how So. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they would develop like literally invents and experiment with hundreds
Speaker 1: of psychedelic drugs that you know, he and she would
Speaker 1: concoct in their laboratory in California. It's pretty remarkable. They
Speaker 1: call themselves psychonots. They would have like little doses of
Speaker 1: these things that they concocted, and then they would like
Speaker 1: bring their friends over, not bad friends, to have good friends.
Speaker 1: Most friends come over and use up your drugs, right,
Speaker 1: and if they're inviting you over to try new drugs, like,
Speaker 1: that's crazy that they just whip up drugs and triumph
Speaker 1: on their friends. Yeah, it's nuts. I think they said
Speaker 1: that she's done like two thousand, you know, psychedelicturs in
Speaker 1: her life, and their husband did four thousand. That seems
Speaker 1: like a pretty big fish. Will Chamberlain numbers. Yeah, when
Speaker 1: did you have time? My psychedelic trips last for hours.
Speaker 1: You must have been like on a double yeah, clocked in.
Speaker 1: He literally ninety five years. Like inventing new psychoactive drugs
Speaker 1: is composing new music, that's what he said, you know.
Speaker 1: And so these people were on the cutting edge of
Speaker 1: what they're doing, and then it was you know, banned.
Speaker 1: In nineteen eighty five, they finally made extasy schedule one drug,
Speaker 1: and a lot of that research and a lot of
Speaker 1: that development from a therapeutic use was just it's gone
Speaker 1: um kind of up until you know, MAPS have been
Speaker 1: able to do what they're doing with a very narrowed exception,
Speaker 1: you know, through that, So the treatment and therapy that
Speaker 1: we're seeing again in that medical setting like literally cure
Speaker 1: people of severe PTSDA. So I'm you know, I'm happy
Speaker 1: Anne was able to see, you know, the world. I'm
Speaker 1: sure she was aware of the work that MAPS was
Speaker 1: doing and so like before she passed to actually see
Speaker 1: like this start to come back, and like hopefully she
Speaker 1: she passed with hope that a new generation could potentially
Speaker 1: kind of see her and her husband's life work. Yeah, man,
Speaker 1: shout out to Anne, and I hope you left some
Speaker 1: of them recipe somewhere, Like I don't know, maybe her
Speaker 1: tombstone has a recipe on it. Make sure you followed
Speaker 1: War on Drugs podcasts so you don't miss any new
Speaker 1: episodes or any of our quick vics bonus content, and
Speaker 1: we'll be back next week with another episode of War
Speaker 1: on Drugs. Until then, thank you for listening. Executive producers
Speaker 1: for War on Drugs are Jason Flam and Kevin Wordis.
Speaker 1: Senior producer is Michael Epstein, Editing by Nick Massetti and
Speaker 1: Michael Epstein, Associate producer and mix and mastering by Nick Massetti.
Speaker 1: Additional production by Jeff Cleburne and Anna mcinteem. Be sure
Speaker 1: to follow the show on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook at
Speaker 1: Lava for Good. You can follow Greg on Twitter at
Speaker 1: Greg Glode and you can follow Clayton English on Instagram
Speaker 1: at Clayton English. The War on Drugs is a production
Speaker 1: of Lava for Good Podcasts and association with Signal Company
Speaker 1: Number One. I'm your host, Clayton English, and I'm Greg Glode,
Speaker 1: and thanks for listening to the War on Drugs podcast.