Speaker 1: My welcome Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of
Speaker 1: I Heart Radios How Stuff Works. Hey, are you welcome
Speaker 1: to Stuff to Blow your Mind? My name is Robert
Speaker 1: Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick. And here it is the
Speaker 1: fifth and final installment in our series on psychedelics. We
Speaker 1: made it to part five, right, Part five. Then we'll
Speaker 1: move on to some other topics and probably come back
Speaker 1: around to other episodes that involve psychedelics in the future,
Speaker 1: because there's just so much research going on, and that's
Speaker 1: ultimately what this episode is about. What what are some
Speaker 1: examples of the stuff that's going on in our century,
Speaker 1: in the twenty one century regarding psychedelics, like with the
Speaker 1: Friday Thirteenth movies. Part five is a new beginning. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's right, it's the Psychedelic Research Revival. So yeah, So
Speaker 1: we've been teasing this, I guess throughout the past four
Speaker 1: episodes that at some point we're going to talk about
Speaker 1: research that's taken place on the clinical significant of psychedelics
Speaker 1: in the twenty first century. After some of the veil
Speaker 1: of stigma has lifted from from psychedelic assisted therapy and
Speaker 1: psychedelic for treating various conditions. UM, So to quickly look
Speaker 1: at one important study, I think this would be a
Speaker 1: good place to start, from the early days of the
Speaker 1: twenty first century psychedelic renaissance. I just checked and this
Speaker 1: one has been cited seven hundred and eighty nine times
Speaker 1: now according to Google scholar. This is a study from
Speaker 1: Roland Griffith's, William Richards, Una Macon and Robert Jesse And
Speaker 1: this was published in Psychopharmacology and the year two thousand
Speaker 1: six called Psilocybin can occasion mystical type experiences having substantial
Speaker 1: and sustained personal meaning and spiritual significance. And I think
Speaker 1: we'll we will talk more about spiritual significance as we
Speaker 1: go on, maybe later in the episode. But UH, to
Speaker 1: give a brief summary, Basically, psilocybin has been used for
Speaker 1: religious purposes for centuries, but what does it actually do? Uh?
Speaker 1: This research for suit a similar line of inquiry to
Speaker 1: the marsh Chapel experiment from nineteen sixty two, which we
Speaker 1: talked about in the third episode of the series. This
Speaker 1: was dosing people with psychedelics and then letting them loose
Speaker 1: in to church basically well seminary students, and so they
Speaker 1: were there you know, to learn about the divine and
Speaker 1: to become ministers. I guess probably. And they were there
Speaker 1: for the Good Friday service in this church, and some
Speaker 1: were given psilocybin and some were given an active placebo.
Speaker 1: I think it was niacin, which causes tingling and flushing
Speaker 1: and so. In. In that that experiment, they did find
Speaker 1: that the people who had been given the psilocybin for
Speaker 1: this religious service reported having largely reported having these very
Speaker 1: profound and positive mystical experiences while on psilocybin that they
Speaker 1: believed largely changed their lives for the better. Right, not
Speaker 1: just memorable experiences, but life changing experiences and believed subjectively
Speaker 1: to be spiritually significant to religious people, right, not not
Speaker 1: just a situation of where it's like, oh yeah, I
Speaker 1: saw something or or felt something and it kind of
Speaker 1: made me think about some religious concepts. I was already
Speaker 1: turning over in my head. You know. It was it
Speaker 1: was it was like an order of magnitude beyond that. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Uh So this study from two thousand and six it
Speaker 1: was to study whether psilocybin causes people to have these
Speaker 1: same types of experience as mystical or religious experiences that
Speaker 1: they rate as positive and profound when compared to a placebo.
Speaker 1: And this was a double blind study using high doses
Speaker 1: of psilocybin and an active placebo control. The active placebo
Speaker 1: they used in this case was not niacin. It was
Speaker 1: methyl finitate hydrochloride, which stimulates the central nervous system. It's
Speaker 1: a stimulant. And I could be wrong, but I think
Speaker 1: this one also what they definitely injected it, right, I
Speaker 1: think so because you do so. Actually I'm not sure, Okay,
Speaker 1: a lot of these a lot of these studies, they
Speaker 1: do end up injecting it just because it's fast acting
Speaker 1: and also sometimes a little stronger, I mean a lot
Speaker 1: stronger too, because it's just hitting me like that as
Speaker 1: opposed to you know, gradually coming up. That's and yeah,
Speaker 1: that does happen in some studies. I did not know
Speaker 1: the methodical administration here, but so quote, volunteers completed questionnaires
Speaker 1: assessing drug effects and mystical experiences immediately after and two
Speaker 1: months after sessions. And then they also say that community
Speaker 1: observers rated changes in the volunteers attitudes and behavior, so
Speaker 1: they didn't just ask people their own subjective impressions of
Speaker 1: how they've changed. They also asked other people, Hey, how
Speaker 1: has Jeffrey changed? Right, So it's not just Scrooge saying
Speaker 1: oh yeah, I'm totally cool with cratch It. Now you're
Speaker 1: like you're actually asking cratch It, Hey, what do you
Speaker 1: think about Scrooge? Just like, oh, yeah, he's totally different now.
Speaker 1: I don't know. He must have he took something Christmas Eve.
Speaker 1: Didn't you write something once about how Scrooge was on
Speaker 1: d MT? Yeah? Yeah, I and I can't be there.
Speaker 1: I'm sure I'm not the only person to make this commentary,
Speaker 1: but I feel like, um, a Christmas Carol. The story
Speaker 1: of Evanezer Scrooge is like such a psychedelic experience, Like
Speaker 1: really he had. I mean, he has a supernatural experience
Speaker 1: that makes him reassess his life and his life choices
Speaker 1: and ultimately changes his trajectory. And I think it has
Speaker 1: a tremendous amount in common with some of the psychedelic
Speaker 1: experiences we've been discussing. Yeah, I think I think that's
Speaker 1: about right. It was that bad potato that he ate, right,
Speaker 1: you know what he says. It was like a bit
Speaker 1: of cheese or meat that had gone off. Okay, so
Speaker 1: results of this experiment, the the updates sort of on
Speaker 1: the marsh Chapel model the author's right quote, Psilocybin produced
Speaker 1: a range of acute perceptual changes, subjective experiences, and labile moods,
Speaker 1: including anxiety. Psilocybin also increased measures of mystical experience. At
Speaker 1: two months, the volunteers rated the psilocybin experiences having substantial
Speaker 1: personal meaning and spiritual significance and attributed to the experience
Speaker 1: sustained positive changes in attitudes and behavior consistent with changes
Speaker 1: rated by community observers. So the authors write that that
Speaker 1: the life change is experienced by people who took psilocybin
Speaker 1: in this study are similar to the changes reported by
Speaker 1: people who have spontaneous mystical experiences without drugs that change
Speaker 1: their lives. Quote. The ability to occasion such experiences perspectively
Speaker 1: will allow rigorous scientific investigations of their causes and consequences.
Speaker 1: And this kind of comes back to William James territory here, right,
Speaker 1: because this is not just a study about psilocybin. It's
Speaker 1: not just well, what can psilocybin do? It sort of
Speaker 1: opens a doorway of generally studying the religious brain to
Speaker 1: studying what's happening in our brains when we have a
Speaker 1: self described mystical experience, and how do these experiences work
Speaker 1: to change behavior? As they often do? But again, this
Speaker 1: is a different sort of experiment than a lot of
Speaker 1: the other stuff we've been hinting at, because it's the
Speaker 1: kind of subjective positive experience we've heard reported anecdotally so
Speaker 1: many times for people have an encounter with something something
Speaker 1: profound and ineffable, that is a is a meaningful emotional
Speaker 1: experience for them causes them to reflect on their life
Speaker 1: in ways that might change their behavior in their habits. Um.
Speaker 1: But what about the more clinical, more clinically significant uses
Speaker 1: like modern research using psychedelics to treat psychiatric disorders, addiction,
Speaker 1: and other issues. Yeah, and and this is where we're
Speaker 1: seeing just a lot of tremendous research taking place. Yeah. Uh,
Speaker 1: and um, we're still i think, on the on the
Speaker 1: cusp of it, like we're still in the early days,
Speaker 1: but exactly. Yeah, but but we Yeah, we are seeing
Speaker 1: a lot of progress and a lot of promising, uh,
Speaker 1: promising results. One of the key figures in the modern
Speaker 1: research of psychedelic addiction research is a man by the
Speaker 1: name of Dr Stephen Ross of the n Y u
Speaker 1: psilocybin cancer anxiety study. We We mentioned him in a
Speaker 1: previous episode already, Paul and Michael Paulan discusses his work
Speaker 1: at length in his book. And as I mentioned already,
Speaker 1: he was one of the panelists at the two thousand
Speaker 1: nineteen World Science Festival, which I was in attendance for.
Speaker 1: Uh and uh This talk, by the way from the
Speaker 1: World Science Festival should be available online at some point
Speaker 1: um in the months ahead. I'm not sure when, but
Speaker 1: when it goes up, I'll make sure I share it
Speaker 1: on our social so people can view it. Because it
Speaker 1: was a great talk cover some of what we're talking
Speaker 1: about here and have been talking about that gets into
Speaker 1: other areas as well. UM so uh. Dr Stephen Ross
Speaker 1: discussed how psychedelics were not a part of his training
Speaker 1: in psychiatry and the study of addiction. Um and and
Speaker 1: like when you when you see pictures of him and
Speaker 1: you see him in person, um, you know he he
Speaker 1: doesn't fit. You don't look at him and say like, oh,
Speaker 1: there's a psilocybin research tree. If he doesn't look like
Speaker 1: Willie Nelson's right, he doesn't look like Terence McKenna or
Speaker 1: Timothy Learry. He looks just like a like just an
Speaker 1: everyday human being. Um. And if you're said, if you're
Speaker 1: told that that he's a you know, a professional or
Speaker 1: an academic, you know, you wouldn't instantly think psilocybin. But anyway,
Speaker 1: he discuss discussed, you know, this wasn't part of his training,
Speaker 1: despite the fact the psychedelics were such a huge part
Speaker 1: of psychology for a while. And uh, he says that
Speaker 1: all the research findings from the fifties and sixties were
Speaker 1: still out there, quote hiding in plain sight. And and
Speaker 1: when he you know, he looked closer, he saw, you know,
Speaker 1: you had this high success rate. Um using you know,
Speaker 1: mainly it was like LSD with alcohol addiction is the
Speaker 1: one that I think really caught his his attention. But
Speaker 1: but yeah, we had these we had these really promising
Speaker 1: results from the original period of modern psychedelic research. And
Speaker 1: so he thought, well, let's let's try it again. Let's
Speaker 1: see what else we can learn. How can we we
Speaker 1: actually move on from what they had learned decades ago. Uh.
Speaker 1: The only problem is that, there were, of course huge
Speaker 1: administrative hurdles to studying it. But he was able to
Speaker 1: push through with an initial focus on terminal cancer patient
Speaker 1: studies alleviating end of life anxiety via psilocybin. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: this is a big important early thing, I think, also
Speaker 1: from the mid two thousands. Yeah. His initial work though,
Speaker 1: actually took place at the n y U Dental School
Speaker 1: because Bellevue and the n y U Cancer Center wanted
Speaker 1: to just stay to stay clear of it because it was,
Speaker 1: you know, still it was early days getting back into
Speaker 1: and igniting what would become this renaissance of research. So
Speaker 1: there was still even in the scientific and medical community,
Speaker 1: something of a stigma around psychedelics, even for clinical uses. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean even you know, even today, like in the
Speaker 1: culture at large, I feel like there's still you still
Speaker 1: have to push through that, right, Um, Like you still
Speaker 1: have to, you know, get to the point where you're
Speaker 1: not using the phrase magic mushrooms in the science headline,
Speaker 1: right uh. And we're not there yet. I mean, it's
Speaker 1: still the popular press reporting about it. It plays up
Speaker 1: the kind of you know, hey, or you having depression symptoms,
Speaker 1: maybe you should try dropping acid, a new study says,
Speaker 1: And and it's understandable that would be the reaction for
Speaker 1: so many of us, because again we're coming on the
Speaker 1: heels of of the moral panic and so many of these, uh,
Speaker 1: these ideas about what LSD and psilocybin are. But that's
Speaker 1: another attitude actually that we were just hinting at. That's
Speaker 1: not even it's not even the same as the moral
Speaker 1: panic that looks at psychedelics as this sort of culture
Speaker 1: destroying threat, you know, that's going to turn your children
Speaker 1: into acts murderers. It's more the kind of the trivialization
Speaker 1: of the psychedelic experience that looks at it not necessarily
Speaker 1: as this horrible threatening thing, but as this like ho
Speaker 1: ho ho, you know, oh, here's the stoner coming to
Speaker 1: take the psychedelics. Yeah, Which it's kind of twofold, right.
Speaker 1: On one hand, like maybe that's a necessary part of
Speaker 1: of its transformation and and maybe that's one way it
Speaker 1: survives through the through the decades of darkness there. But
Speaker 1: on the other hand, it does it hurts the potential
Speaker 1: of it, right because it creates a idea that it
Speaker 1: is purely recreational, that is pure hallucination and fireworks and
Speaker 1: just and there's nothing of value there, certainly not not
Speaker 1: medically valuable, right, or I mean even within the recreational use.
Speaker 1: What a lot of these enthusiasts have been emphasizing is
Speaker 1: like spiritual significance, ability to change habits and and have
Speaker 1: profound emotional experiences, not like the frivolous, trivial party drug
Speaker 1: kind of approach. So Rossa's studies ended up using psilocybin
Speaker 1: rather than LSD. LSD had been the primary substance in
Speaker 1: previous trials, but psilocybin made more sense for a number
Speaker 1: of reasons. So it's it's less stigmatized, has less political
Speaker 1: badge baggage, it's easier to obtain, it's gentler, and it
Speaker 1: also doesn't last longer than a researcher's work day. I
Speaker 1: think that's that's something that's worth driving home and a
Speaker 1: lot of this, you know, the LSD trip just takes
Speaker 1: up so much more time and people need to get
Speaker 1: home right. A number of studies, though, have have looked
Speaker 1: at this, have examined uh end of life anxiety and
Speaker 1: cancer depression and to what extent psilocybin could alleviate this condition,
Speaker 1: and there there have been some we've been seeing some
Speaker 1: rapid success. Yeah, you can imagine why this is fruitful,
Speaker 1: just given people subjective experiences what they report about high
Speaker 1: doses of psilocybin and LSD trips. A common thing is
Speaker 1: reduced fear of death afterwards, the like. Again, this is
Speaker 1: just anecdotal, but the thing people often say is like
Speaker 1: I went through ego dissolution. You know, I I went
Speaker 1: to this place where I was having experience, but there
Speaker 1: was no me anymore, there was no self. And people
Speaker 1: often talk of this in terms of some analogy of death,
Speaker 1: you know, it's like ego death or something like, I
Speaker 1: felt what it would be like to die or to
Speaker 1: to have me not exist anymore, and I didn't mind.
Speaker 1: It didn't feel bad in a way. It actually felt
Speaker 1: peaceful and good. I mean, obviously, it also sounds I'm
Speaker 1: sure counterintuitive to a lot of people, because yeah, you
Speaker 1: might you might think, well, I'm if I'm on my deathbed,
Speaker 1: or I'm you know, I'm facing a terminal illness or whatever.
Speaker 1: The you know, particular situation is like this sounds like
Speaker 1: a horrible time to take a mind altering drug. But
Speaker 1: I think, you know, based on what we've been discussing
Speaker 1: on the show, I think there's strong evidence for the
Speaker 1: counter argument, like, no, this is the time to take
Speaker 1: a mind altering job, especially because it seems like it
Speaker 1: might have this ability to reduce death anxiety, to reduce
Speaker 1: the sensation that the fact that you will die is
Speaker 1: a horrible thing. Right, So effectiveness with psilocybin in these
Speaker 1: situations it's something like with the placebo at like and
Speaker 1: again we're not just talking about psilocybin itself, but rather,
Speaker 1: you know, the result of a lot of set and
Speaker 1: setting um priming the individual for the experience, having the
Speaker 1: experience of the mind alterning experience, you know, guiding them
Speaker 1: through it, helping them then to consolidate it all on
Speaker 1: the other side. And again it's not the substance itself,
Speaker 1: but the state of mind that the substance creates that
Speaker 1: see is to be useful for psychiatric improvement, the experience,
Speaker 1: not just the compound acting within the body. Right, It's
Speaker 1: not take two of these and call me in the morning.
Speaker 1: It's take two of these. Um, let me tell you
Speaker 1: what's gonna happen. I'm gonna be there while it happens,
Speaker 1: and then we're gonna spend time unpacking it afterwards. Now
Speaker 1: it also gets into the research also gets into other
Speaker 1: areas though, so it gets into just treat looking at
Speaker 1: possible treatments for depression, and Ross says that the work
Speaker 1: is promising there, but thus far the work hasn't been
Speaker 1: too broad. On the addiction front, researchers are making headway
Speaker 1: to treat addiction issues with not only alcohol but also tobacco, opiates, crack, cocaine,
Speaker 1: and other substances. But in all of this, Ross stresses
Speaker 1: that is often the case in any of these studies,
Speaker 1: more research is required. Uh, you know. Even he admits
Speaker 1: that in some cases the findings are almost too good
Speaker 1: to be true. We just have to we have to
Speaker 1: keep going, like you know, there's no point where you're
Speaker 1: just like, all right, that's it. Psychedelics are are good
Speaker 1: across the board. Let's just let's just you know, prescribe
Speaker 1: them in every instance. Well, I mean, I do think
Speaker 1: that there are there. We're tending toward a future where
Speaker 1: we're gonna have more confidence in the results than we
Speaker 1: have now. There are a lot of promising basically pilot studies.
Speaker 1: In fact, I think maybe it would be good to
Speaker 1: just talk through a few examples of recent studies. But
Speaker 1: maybe we should do that after we come back from
Speaker 1: a break. Thank alright, we're back, alright, So I thought
Speaker 1: it would be good to just look at a few
Speaker 1: examples of what these pilot studies on psychedelic clinical use
Speaker 1: of psychedelics in recent years has been. And a good
Speaker 1: place to turn here is a pretty recent meta analysis
Speaker 1: of clinical research on psychedelics by Albert Garcia, Remew Brennan,
Speaker 1: Carisguard and Peter Addie. Uh This was in Experimental and
Speaker 1: Clinical Psychopharmacology in twenty sixteen called Clinical Applications of Hallucinogens.
Speaker 1: And so this is like a meta review of all
Speaker 1: the existing research out there right now. And they've got
Speaker 1: a great just table in this paper that summarizes findings
Speaker 1: from a bunch of existing clinical research up to the
Speaker 1: year sixteen. And so I thought we could just go
Speaker 1: through here and cite some examples from the categories of
Speaker 1: treatment you were talking about a little while ago. And
Speaker 1: so one thing is a couple of studies that looked
Speaker 1: at the treatment of alcoholism. One is Bogan shoots at
Speaker 1: all from and this tested psilocybin enhanced therapy therapy sessions. Specifically,
Speaker 1: it was a type of therapy I had not heard of,
Speaker 1: I think, called motivational enhancement therapy. Robert, are you familiar
Speaker 1: with the uh NO? I don't believe. Yeah, but it's
Speaker 1: some kind of therapy. Uh. And so like many of
Speaker 1: the other studies, this is not just looking at taking
Speaker 1: a drug in isolation, but taking the psychedelic in concert
Speaker 1: with some kind of therapy or or session with a
Speaker 1: counselor or therapist. I believe Michael Pollen pointed out there
Speaker 1: they tend to be a par of therapists. You tend
Speaker 1: to have like a male a therapist and a female therapist. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: in most of these studies. Yeah. Interesting. Um, so this
Speaker 1: is uh, this was to treat alcohol dependence in this study,
Speaker 1: and they found quote, significant reduction in self reported drinking
Speaker 1: days and heavy drinking days for thirty two weeks after
Speaker 1: psilocybin administration compared to baseline. Another study by Krebs and
Speaker 1: Johansson in was a meta analysis of previous research on
Speaker 1: LSD assisted therapy or counseling, and it found across a
Speaker 1: total sample size of more than five hundred participants that
Speaker 1: a single dose of LSD, which was two d to
Speaker 1: eight hundred micrograms paired with alcoholism treatment found uh quote
Speaker 1: that that therapy produced significantly reduced reports of alcohol misuse.
Speaker 1: That follow up compared to a control group receiving treatments
Speaker 1: without the psychedelics. So so it really there are several
Speaker 1: studies now showing that it really does seem to be
Speaker 1: working with alcoholics. There are also a number of studies,
Speaker 1: as you mentioned, about depression. For example, car Harris at
Speaker 1: all In tested psilocybin quote in a supportive setting on
Speaker 1: patients with treatment resistant unipolar major depression, and it found
Speaker 1: significant reductions and self reported depressive symptoms from one week
Speaker 1: to three months after treatment. According to one scoring method
Speaker 1: for depression symptoms, eight of twelve participants showed complete remission
Speaker 1: of depression symptoms after one week and five of twelve
Speaker 1: showed complete remission after three months. And these results are
Speaker 1: twenty milligrams of psilocybin um. So I think that's interesting
Speaker 1: because one thing it shows there is something that I
Speaker 1: think has showed up in a few other studies, is
Speaker 1: that again, while these compounds appear very promising, they're not
Speaker 1: a cure all and they don't appear to last forever.
Speaker 1: It appears like they do have an effect, Uh, the
Speaker 1: effect seems to be very positive, but the effect fades
Speaker 1: over time, and this might be a thing where some
Speaker 1: applications of psychedelics and the clinical setting, maybe something that
Speaker 1: is a like a type of arapy that you would
Speaker 1: repeat at intervals over time, the same way that you
Speaker 1: would repeatedly visit a therapist for psychotherapy sessions, right or
Speaker 1: certainly the same way that in a lot of these
Speaker 1: traditional science societies one would, um would continually go to
Speaker 1: the shaman or would partake of psychedelic substance as a
Speaker 1: part of a regularly occurring religious observance. Another study on
Speaker 1: depression was Osorio at all Infen. They tested ayahuasca for
Speaker 1: recurrent major depressive disorder UH. This, like some of the others,
Speaker 1: was open labels so not placebo controlled as test group
Speaker 1: of six so like many of these small groups, but
Speaker 1: found significant reductions in reports of depressive symptoms after one,
Speaker 1: seven and twenty one days. Um and and Michael Pollen
Speaker 1: has an interesting section in his book How to Change
Speaker 1: Your Mind about Treating Depression with Psychedelics, in which he
Speaker 1: talks to the psychologist Rosalind Watts, who she she so
Speaker 1: she talks about these master themes discovered in studies about
Speaker 1: what's going on with depression. And I just wanted to
Speaker 1: read a couple of sections from Pollen's book that I
Speaker 1: thought were interesting concerning these these master themes. Quote the
Speaker 1: first was that volunteers depicted their depression foremost as a
Speaker 1: state of disconnection, whether from other people, from their earlier selves,
Speaker 1: their senses and feelings, their core beliefs and spiritual values,
Speaker 1: or nature. Several referred to living in a mental prison,
Speaker 1: others to being stuck in endless circles of rumination they
Speaker 1: likened to mental gridlock. I was reminded of Carhart Harris's
Speaker 1: hypothesis that depression might be a result of an overactive
Speaker 1: default mode network, the site in the brain where rumination
Speaker 1: appears to take place. And so, of course you know
Speaker 1: what might be going on there is that we we've
Speaker 1: talked about psychedelics as having at least metaphorically being these
Speaker 1: boundary dissolvers that they, you know, seem a kind of
Speaker 1: ultimate remedy for symptoms related to disconnection. That they encourage
Speaker 1: the sensation of being connected to other and all things,
Speaker 1: and to other people and to the environment and all
Speaker 1: these things that people feel disconnected or cut off from. UH.
Speaker 1: And then going to the second master theme that Rosalind
Speaker 1: Watts explains to Pollen. Quote the second master theme was
Speaker 1: a new access to difficult emotions, emotions that depression often
Speaker 1: blunts or closes down completely. What hypothesizes that the depressed
Speaker 1: patient's incessant rumination constricts his or her emotional repertoire in
Speaker 1: in other cases, the depressive keeps emotions at bay because
Speaker 1: it's too painful to experience them. Uh So, like often
Speaker 1: I think a lay person's understanding of depression might be,
Speaker 1: uh like that you feel intense sadness, you know, like
Speaker 1: this this really intense single emotion, which is not exactly
Speaker 1: what depression seems to be. Like, I mean, I always
Speaker 1: come back to, um, was it was it C. S.
Speaker 1: Lewis that referred to depression as the black dog, like
Speaker 1: this this kind of thing that would come and like
Speaker 1: just weigh him down. Um, you know, I always come
Speaker 1: back to those kind of descriptions. Do those feel more
Speaker 1: accurate when when you're experiencing depression or when you're encountering
Speaker 1: some of the depression it's not just like uncontrolled weeping,
Speaker 1: you know it is it is more in line with
Speaker 1: this disconnection we're talking about, this feeling of being trapped
Speaker 1: within something or within yourself. In some ways, I think
Speaker 1: it can be thought of as a sort of like
Speaker 1: a hyperd motivated state, yea where it can just be
Speaker 1: difficult to do anything or to feel anything. And I
Speaker 1: guess hopefully, hopefully more people were aware of that. Now.
Speaker 1: I feel like the messaging about what depression is is
Speaker 1: is better today than it was like when when when
Speaker 1: I was you know, a kid, or when I was
Speaker 1: in high school. You know, yeah, I don't think we
Speaker 1: had a good idea of it. I think you had
Speaker 1: like occasional to be like a newsweek article about it,
Speaker 1: but it wasn't really something that was particularly discussed in school.
Speaker 1: As I recall, Yeah, that does seem like something that's
Speaker 1: very important, like helping people understand what depression is, and
Speaker 1: like being able to recognize the symptoms so that it
Speaker 1: can be diagnosed, rather than you know, people just thinking
Speaker 1: like what's wrong with me? Now. Come back to a
Speaker 1: couple of other areas mentioned in this meta analysis of
Speaker 1: of recent research on the clinical use of psychedelics. One
Speaker 1: is studying obsessive compulsive disorder, so moreno at All in
Speaker 1: sixteen did a double blind experiment with psilocybin to treat
Speaker 1: obsessive compulsive disorder, and they found quote marked reductions on
Speaker 1: the Yale Brown Obsessive Compulsive Scale, which is a scoring
Speaker 1: scale for for those symptoms for all participants during one
Speaker 1: or more psilocybin sessions, and these effects lasted for at
Speaker 1: least twenty four hours, though they're not sure how long
Speaker 1: after that. Obviously, I think it would be less use
Speaker 1: full in a clinical setting, for if it only treated
Speaker 1: something while you were on the drug. Right, it's more
Speaker 1: important to look at like these kinds of lasting changes
Speaker 1: that come about from an experience, but we don't know
Speaker 1: how long the changes might be operant on obsessive compulsive here. Uh.
Speaker 1: And then another thing is tobacco dependence. I guess that
Speaker 1: goes into similar category to alcohol dependence. But Johnson at
Speaker 1: all in tested psilocybin paired with cognitive behavioral therapy or CBT,
Speaker 1: and they found quote biologically verified smoking abstinence in eight
Speaker 1: percent of volunteers at a six month follow up, as
Speaker 1: assessed by exhaled breath, carbon monoxide and you'urine cottoning levels.
Speaker 1: I'm not sure what cotening is. It's probably some downstream
Speaker 1: thing of nicotine. But the authors here also listed a
Speaker 1: couple more studies showing that both psilocybin and LSD assisted
Speaker 1: psychotherapy were linked with decreased anxiety and depression symptoms and
Speaker 1: people who were facing life threatening illnesses and cancer. But
Speaker 1: we we should, I think, acknowledge, as we've mentioned several times,
Speaker 1: that we're still in the early stages of the psychedelic
Speaker 1: research renaissance because a lot of these studies have small samples.
Speaker 1: A lot of them are small samples, a lot of
Speaker 1: them are like open labels, so they're not placebo controlled,
Speaker 1: people know what they're getting, uh, and you know, they're
Speaker 1: not necessarily randomized controlled and all that. So I think
Speaker 1: the future looks bright. But as you were saying a
Speaker 1: little while ago, to invoke this much hated scientific cliche,
Speaker 1: much much more research is needed, and specifically it's more
Speaker 1: rigorous and larger, more statistically powerful research is needed. I
Speaker 1: can only imagine too, that rescheduling these substances would also
Speaker 1: help broaden some of these studies hugely. Yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: it's you're talking about small study sizes, but with a
Speaker 1: schedule one narcotic that has that has had, you know,
Speaker 1: a lot of taboos associated with it, even for clinical
Speaker 1: and research purposes. Yeah, exactly, And so to some up
Speaker 1: I think where where we stand. I want to quote
Speaker 1: from the discussion section of that that meta meta assis
Speaker 1: by Garcia remu at all quote. The psychedelics including LSD, psilocybin,
Speaker 1: mescal and d m T, and the d MT containing
Speaker 1: admixture ayahuasca, have shown promise in treating a range of
Speaker 1: psychological disorders for which currently available treatments are often insufficient,
Speaker 1: such as mood, substance use, and anxiety disorders. These studies
Speaker 1: have mostly been conducted in small, relatively homogeneous samples, limiting
Speaker 1: the generalizability of their findings. However, safety and feasibility of
Speaker 1: psychedelic facilitated treatment models have been established by these initial studies,
Speaker 1: paving the way for further investigation in larger, more diverse
Speaker 1: samples using randomized controlled designs. So essentially, these small studies
Speaker 1: up front have been very important in establishing protocols, UH
Speaker 1: demonstrating legitimacy and safety of these methods of research. And
Speaker 1: we're sort of on the way now to look and
Speaker 1: see what the results are once we try this with
Speaker 1: lots more people, in more settings and and more rigorous methods. Alright, Well,
Speaker 1: on that note, we're going to take another break, and
Speaker 1: when we come back. We're gonna get more into the
Speaker 1: you know, some of the possible future scenarios for psychedelic use,
Speaker 1: and we're gonna we're gonna kind of take this in
Speaker 1: both the grand direction in a very mundane direction. We're
Speaker 1: gonna look at uh, psychedelics as a as a radio
Speaker 1: for speaking to God, and also we're gonna look at
Speaker 1: micro dosing. Okay, thank you, Alright, we're back. So we've
Speaker 1: talked a little bit about about the religious experience and
Speaker 1: psychedelics already. Sure, the March Chapel experiments of nine two
Speaker 1: with psilocybin on on seminary students and in a good
Speaker 1: Friday service, and then the follow up study, the two
Speaker 1: thousand and six study by Griffith's at All It looked
Speaker 1: at mystical or religious experiences people had on psilocybin and
Speaker 1: found that people did view these as profound, significant experiences
Speaker 1: and that they were positive. Yeah, and we see all
Speaker 1: these different examples of of this kind of thinking, this
Speaker 1: kind of interpretation of of psychedelic experiences that people have had.
Speaker 1: You know, Terence McKenna, who we talked about in some
Speaker 1: of the earlier episodes, certainly he got into some of
Speaker 1: these more elaborate ideas of saying, like the machine elves,
Speaker 1: but I mean in food of the Gods. He discusses this,
Speaker 1: this idea of that the possibility of the holy other,
Speaker 1: and we see that in other people's writings as well.
Speaker 1: Huxley wrote of the mind at large. Uh. And then
Speaker 1: we even have these various uh, you know, other religious
Speaker 1: encounters to consider things that are maybe seemingly like a
Speaker 1: little less grandiose in terms of just you know, how
Speaker 1: the writers using them. Uh. One of these examples being
Speaker 1: a cancer patient Dina Baser, who describes feeling quote bathed
Speaker 1: in God's love during her experience as part of a
Speaker 1: two thousand, ten n y U cancer anxiety study. By
Speaker 1: the way, she also made an appearance of that World
Speaker 1: Science Festival talk she was in the audience. This is
Speaker 1: a really interesting point because actually Paullen interviews Beser for
Speaker 1: his book and How to Change Your Mind and mentions
Speaker 1: this experience interestingly, at least to me. He points out
Speaker 1: that despite her belief that she was bathed in God's love,
Speaker 1: that's a quote. Bezer does not believe that God exists,
Speaker 1: so to quote from pollen quote during the climax of
Speaker 1: a journey that extinguished her fear of death. Beser described
Speaker 1: being bathed in God's love, and yet she emerged with
Speaker 1: her atheism intact, and he wonders how it's possible like
Speaker 1: to hold these contradictory ideas at the same time. Eventually,
Speaker 1: he writes, quote, not only was the flood of love
Speaker 1: she experienced ineffably powerful, but it was unattributable to any
Speaker 1: individual or worldly cause, and so was purely gratuitous a
Speaker 1: form of grace. So how to convey the magnitude of
Speaker 1: such a gift? God might be the only word in
Speaker 1: the language big enough. And I think that's really interesting.
Speaker 1: It's like we don't have the language to describe these
Speaker 1: experiences without keying on other signs pointing to the unsayable
Speaker 1: and the indescribable, and religious words are the words that
Speaker 1: seem to fit that best and fall most within reach,
Speaker 1: even if we don't. I mean, some people do mean
Speaker 1: them exactly in their traditional sense, but a lot of
Speaker 1: people on psychedelics use these words without meaning them in
Speaker 1: their traditional sense, but still because they're the only word
Speaker 1: they can find to suggest what they felt. Yeah, now,
Speaker 1: and now they had just to critique Paul and a
Speaker 1: little bit. I mean, I would argue that, uh, most
Speaker 1: of us have uh contradictory ideas in our head. You know,
Speaker 1: I think there are a lot of us that both
Speaker 1: believe and don't believe in a god or some sort
Speaker 1: of spiritual model. So we probably have multiple spiritual models
Speaker 1: regarding some you know, vague aspect of the metaphysical realm
Speaker 1: floating around our head right alongside like a a very
Speaker 1: like stern scientific interpretation as well. But but that's that's
Speaker 1: kind of beside the point. But uh, but but I
Speaker 1: do think that I do think his interpretation is really
Speaker 1: interesting here, and I think that the baser is a
Speaker 1: story is his interesting. You know, we we often encounter
Speaker 1: this idea of glimpsing God, or if not a God
Speaker 1: or a deity or a goddess or something, glimpsing what
Speaker 1: is often referred to as the ultimate reality um which
Speaker 1: which of course this gets into. You know, this is
Speaker 1: not new to the psychedelic realm. Like this is something
Speaker 1: as a as a very old consideration in Hinduism as well,
Speaker 1: the idea of like seeing through the veil of illusion
Speaker 1: and like seeing the world as it really is, and
Speaker 1: so one doesn't have to take a psychedelic in order
Speaker 1: to have this experience, but it certainly seems to be
Speaker 1: one of the pathways to to to having it. UH
Speaker 1: So we there's actually another Roland Griffith's study that comes
Speaker 1: out comes up and this is what this one is
Speaker 1: actually is from this year from nineteen. This is from JOHNS.
Speaker 1: Hopkins and it was published in PLS one, and it
Speaker 1: looked at data from four thousand, two hundred and eighty
Speaker 1: five people worldwide who responded to online advertisements to complete
Speaker 1: one of two fifty minute online surveys about God encounter experiences.
Speaker 1: And it particularly asked about encounters with the Ultimate Reality
Speaker 1: or God or divine beings you know, like angels, etcetera,
Speaker 1: that sort of thing of those. Uh. Four thousand, two
Speaker 1: hundred eighty five individuals. One thousand, one hundred and eighty
Speaker 1: four attributed their experiences to psilocybin um. One thousand, two
Speaker 1: hundred fifty one said they took LSD, four hundred thirty
Speaker 1: five UH said they took ayahuasca, six hundred and six
Speaker 1: said they took D m T. In total, three thousand,
Speaker 1: four hundred seventy six individuals responded to the psychedelic survey
Speaker 1: uh part of the study, and then eight hundred nine
Speaker 1: responded to the non drugs say, uh, it's you know,
Speaker 1: zeroing in on people who are uh claiming to have
Speaker 1: had some sort of divine experience encounter without the aid
Speaker 1: of a of a psychedelic But it is interesting to
Speaker 1: look at the numbers the way they fall out here
Speaker 1: because in both studies, seventy of people said it was
Speaker 1: among the most meaningful events of their lives, which I
Speaker 1: guess shouldn't be that surprising. If you encounter something that
Speaker 1: you perceive as being the ultimate reality or a God
Speaker 1: or an angel or what have you, like, it better
Speaker 1: be memorable, right, Yeah, I met God, but it wasn't
Speaker 1: a big deal. Yeah, you don't want to be like,
Speaker 1: oh yeah I met God. I don't know why that
Speaker 1: didn't come up before. Oh yeah I saw an angel? Yeah, um,
Speaker 1: and then frank, god was kind of boring. But then
Speaker 1: they're also these differing factors to like. So seventy percent
Speaker 1: said that there was communication involved, So not only do
Speaker 1: they behold the divine or behold the objective reality, they
Speaker 1: also had some sort of communication with it. Seventy five
Speaker 1: reported there being this this air of benevolence to it,
Speaker 1: reported a sense of intelligence, uh, se reported sacredness, and
Speaker 1: seventy described an eternal nature to it. So it was
Speaker 1: you know that this is something that has always been
Speaker 1: and always will be. Now, obviously these are just these
Speaker 1: are subjectively applied labels. It's the sense to which people
Speaker 1: thought these words applied to their experience. But we still
Speaker 1: learned something from asking people these kind of questions. Yeah, uh,
Speaker 1: to keep going here. Seventy reported a decreased fear of
Speaker 1: death in the psychedelic group, fifty seven percent in the
Speaker 1: non drug group. Interesting, in both groups, fifteen percent said
Speaker 1: that it was the most psychologically challenging experience of their life.
Speaker 1: Of the psychedelic group described it as the ultimate reality,
Speaker 1: fifty nine percent of the non drug group described an
Speaker 1: encounter with a god or an angelic beings. So I
Speaker 1: think that's interesting. I'll come back to that. The people
Speaker 1: that had asy cadelic experience, they tended to they were
Speaker 1: more likely to describe it as just a like they
Speaker 1: saw through the veil, They saw the universe or the
Speaker 1: world as it really is, whereas the non drug group
Speaker 1: were more inclined to encounter a being. Now, Griffith says
Speaker 1: that there's a lot more to explore here. You know,
Speaker 1: he's he's not drawing any ultimate conclusions from any of this, uh,
Speaker 1: but you know, some of the things to tease out
Speaker 1: might be, like, you know, what factors may pre predispose
Speaker 1: one to have these interpretations like um, Like I wonder,
Speaker 1: for example, if the tendency UH to interpret it as
Speaker 1: the ultimate reality over a God, goddess, angel encounter in
Speaker 1: the psychedelic experience has more to do with the religious
Speaker 1: ideals of the individual, you know, like here's somebody that
Speaker 1: they took LST or took psilocybin, so maybe they weren't
Speaker 1: like super religious, or it has something to do maybe
Speaker 1: with the you know, the dissolution of boundaries uh in
Speaker 1: the you know, the pressing down of the ego, the
Speaker 1: the the turning off of the default mode network for
Speaker 1: a little bit. So maybe you're you're less inclined for
Speaker 1: this experience to be boiled into this egoic entity and
Speaker 1: you're more likely to have this broader, dissolved experience. But
Speaker 1: then at the same time, I mean, you know, McKenna
Speaker 1: and others have talked about encountering and other while you know,
Speaker 1: having a you know, a rather intense trip. So and
Speaker 1: I guess it basically comes down to their multiple factors
Speaker 1: involved here, and it will be interesting to see how
Speaker 1: how future studies might tease that out and determine like,
Speaker 1: you know what, what is impacting the scenario versus the
Speaker 1: other and ultimately like you know what is the you know,
Speaker 1: how each can be beneficial, the the psychedelic experience or
Speaker 1: the like purely non drug religious experience. Well, when you
Speaker 1: encounter some kind of reality beyond that with which you
Speaker 1: were familiar. Yeah, what what tends to be correlated with
Speaker 1: people believing that there is an entity there, like a
Speaker 1: person or a mind or something versus just some kind
Speaker 1: of plane of existence or or you know, state of
Speaker 1: truth or I mean you sound kind of silly when
Speaker 1: you start trying to put it into words yet again, right,
Speaker 1: but I mean it is worth pointing out that, um,
Speaker 1: you know, you're still looking at you know, seventy in
Speaker 1: both studies saying that there was communication. So it's it's
Speaker 1: like something is communicating with that there's some sort of communication,
Speaker 1: but maybe it's you know, it's it's less directed, it's
Speaker 1: less tied to an individual. H But anyway, it was,
Speaker 1: you know, an interesting study to look at. And again
Speaker 1: this was this is Roland Griffiths who we talked about earlier,
Speaker 1: and that that earlier religious study going from two thousand six. Yes,
Speaker 1: so that's one sort of grandiose way of looking at
Speaker 1: the future of psychedelics and psychedelic research, right, figuring out
Speaker 1: how we interpret the divine and how they could even
Speaker 1: be as psychedelics can be used as part of some
Speaker 1: sort of religious experience, like not only uh, you know,
Speaker 1: the traditional religious experiences, maybe some sort of new religious experience. Well, yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm curious to see how the idea of psychedelically prompted
Speaker 1: religious experience squares with traditional beliefs in dogmas, because there
Speaker 1: are very different attitudes that people can come at this with.
Speaker 1: I mean some people, I think some people look at
Speaker 1: the psychedelic experience and say, oh, this proof of God,
Speaker 1: you know, because all these people take these compounds, have
Speaker 1: experiences of meeting another higher power or something like that.
Speaker 1: It's got you know, the consistency of these reports indicates
Speaker 1: there's got to be a real being up there that
Speaker 1: that people are encountering. And then people come at it
Speaker 1: from completely the opposite way and say Look, if you know,
Speaker 1: if people are taking drugs that are causing them to
Speaker 1: have these experiences, that would tend to show that the
Speaker 1: experience is something going on in the brain and not
Speaker 1: like an actual spiritual being or entity up there that
Speaker 1: that's doing something right, Like why would that entity only
Speaker 1: be communicating with people are primarily communicating with people who
Speaker 1: have taking a certain compound into their brains. And it's
Speaker 1: interesting that this exact same reality causes completely opposite reactions. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: that to one person it is uh, you know, faith
Speaker 1: in God restored, and the other it may be a
Speaker 1: sign that there was nothing there to begin with. So yeah,
Speaker 1: we'll be interesting to see how I see what kind
Speaker 1: of light future research sheds on this issue. Well, though,
Speaker 1: I also want to make clear that, at least from
Speaker 1: my perspective, I mean, I don't think that even if
Speaker 1: you don't think that there are actual other entities out
Speaker 1: there that people are encountering on these drugs, that doesn't
Speaker 1: mean that the mystical experience is not fascinating and useful
Speaker 1: and revealing. If we are encountering other entities, even if
Speaker 1: they're not like ghosts or some kind of being that acts,
Speaker 1: you know, outside of our control, we are encountering something
Speaker 1: inside our mind that is a latent potential there. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and if you're communicating with that, even if you're just
Speaker 1: communicating with yourself, well, uh there, there could be something
Speaker 1: of value there. Um. So so that's kind of the
Speaker 1: grandiose view into the future, you know, communicating with with God,
Speaker 1: envisioning God and communicating with the self, etcetera. On the
Speaker 1: other end of the spectrum, uh, Silicon Valley bros. Micro dosing.
Speaker 1: So I don't want to be too judgmental, but yeah,
Speaker 1: I see what you're saying. Yeah, yeah, So I mean obviously,
Speaker 1: like the intended um goal with micro dosing is not
Speaker 1: to uh justify the ways of God's to man, but
Speaker 1: to rather like be a little better your job, right,
Speaker 1: creative in your job. So we touched on this in
Speaker 1: the last episode of Well I Guess the uh the
Speaker 1: episode prior to the last episode, uh and uh, and
Speaker 1: I wondered if any research had looked at whether Silicon
Speaker 1: Valley types would actually benefit from micro dosing to enhance
Speaker 1: creativity or novel thinking. Micro dosing, by the way, the
Speaker 1: idea is generally there's no like, you know, definite definition,
Speaker 1: but generally it's taking one tenth of a tripping dose
Speaker 1: of a psychedelic, So you're not having a you know,
Speaker 1: perceptually altered experience or not in any significant way. It's
Speaker 1: more just kind of like thinking, this kind of loosens
Speaker 1: the mind a little bit, right, Yeah, just kind of
Speaker 1: like not shaking the snow globe of the brain all
Speaker 1: the way up, but just kind of like giving it
Speaker 1: a little shuffle and then like doing an eight hour
Speaker 1: work day. So anecdotal evidence would indicate that it elevates
Speaker 1: mood and mental acuity. But then ultimately, what do we
Speaker 1: have in terms of studies, Well, we don't have much,
Speaker 1: but there was there there was actually a study that
Speaker 1: came out this year that looked into this a bit um,
Speaker 1: looking at micro dosing in rats. It was a University
Speaker 1: of California Davis study headed up by Dr David Olsen,
Speaker 1: and they micro dosed rats with d m T. So
Speaker 1: they gave them one tenth of the estimated hallucinogenic dose
Speaker 1: in rats. So that's one milligram per kilogram of body
Speaker 1: weight every third day for two months. And this is
Speaker 1: you know, again more or less andreed one tenth of
Speaker 1: a tripping dose. They treated them for two weeks and
Speaker 1: then began studying mood, anxiety, and cognitive function over a
Speaker 1: two day period. And these were the basic results. An
Speaker 1: improved ability to overcome fear UH, antidepressant effects associated with
Speaker 1: reduced immobility, and no obvious impairments or improvements in cognitive
Speaker 1: function or social ability. Then, but there were also some
Speaker 1: potential downsides. They observed significantly increased body weight in male
Speaker 1: rats and neuronal atrophy and female rats. This despite the
Speaker 1: fact that a previous study from Olson and company had
Speaker 1: shown that a single high dose of d MT and
Speaker 1: I should a single high dose of d MT showed
Speaker 1: increased your own old growth. So again, this is one
Speaker 1: of those studies that is not is just the beginning
Speaker 1: of a story rather than anything like an end to it.
Speaker 1: More study is needed, but it ultimately shows that there
Speaker 1: may be some quantitative benefits to micro dosing, but there
Speaker 1: also may be some key risks, and Olsen says that
Speaker 1: that likely dose frequency and length of time are going
Speaker 1: to be key here to whether we're talking about a
Speaker 1: therapeutic dose or a potentially harmful effect. Yeah, and of course,
Speaker 1: as always, you know, rats are not humans and our
Speaker 1: brains are working very differently. But yeah, this is an
Speaker 1: interesting indication of what might be going on. I'm especially
Speaker 1: interested in in the idea of overcoming fear and to
Speaker 1: what extent if that's an analogy for what's going on
Speaker 1: with micro dosing and human brains. Uh. If I don't
Speaker 1: know that, it could be that there's some kind of
Speaker 1: like positive disinhibition quality. I mean, this is something I think, Uh,
Speaker 1: people have thought about alcohol before. You know that that, like,
Speaker 1: sometimes people drink alcohol at parties because it makes them
Speaker 1: more sociable. You know, you feel disinhibited. A lot of
Speaker 1: the kind of like fear that would keep you inside
Speaker 1: your shell goes away. But then of course there are
Speaker 1: tons of negative effects that come with alcohol. You know
Speaker 1: that that also, like it might make you less inhibited
Speaker 1: and and better at us socializing with people you don't
Speaker 1: know very well, but also makes you stupid erth just
Speaker 1: like you're not at your peak in every possible way.
Speaker 1: And I would be interested to see if there are
Speaker 1: ways in which small doses of psychedelics could be relevantly
Speaker 1: disinhibiting without having some of the negative effects that come
Speaker 1: with other disinhibitory drugs like alcohol. Now, obviously there's a
Speaker 1: great deal to focus on in this episode about you know,
Speaker 1: clinical research and and it is essential, but you know,
Speaker 1: I don't think it's our only means of looking at psychedelics. UM.
Speaker 1: Michael Pollen and others. They point out that the psilocybin
Speaker 1: is not marijuana, and we can't really look to a
Speaker 1: you know, one to one comparison on how decriminalization or
Speaker 1: legalization will or even should proceed in regard to psilocybin,
Speaker 1: for example. But but another, you know, I think important
Speaker 1: note here is that even if we're not seeing, even
Speaker 1: if we were not seeing all these potential benefits for therapy, UM,
Speaker 1: are there enough negatives in place to rationalize the continue
Speaker 1: you to illegal status of psychedelic substances. I mean, I
Speaker 1: would think about it more from the other direction. I'm like, well,
Speaker 1: are those negative effects enough that it should be illegal
Speaker 1: and punished by police officers and law enforcement community and
Speaker 1: the justice system for people to just have some? I
Speaker 1: don't know. I mean it seems to me more like
Speaker 1: the reasoning should be that there should be a really
Speaker 1: good reason to make things illegal, not there should be
Speaker 1: a good reason to make them not illegal. Yeah, And
Speaker 1: I mean especially I mean we were talking about plants
Speaker 1: too and fun guy, and you know, to what extent
Speaker 1: should we outlaw fungus um, you know, or multiple species
Speaker 1: of fungus you know, and especially if we're we're talking
Speaker 1: about like all the other things that happened when you
Speaker 1: outlaw substance. You you know, you you take these and
Speaker 1: you these these things and you leave their traffic, their trade,
Speaker 1: and their culture to fringe, underground and criminal elements. Um.
Speaker 1: You know, because one of the issues with a lot
Speaker 1: of illicit drugs is that by making them illicit, we
Speaker 1: limit our ability to regulate them, to effectively educate people
Speaker 1: about them, and to help people when they encounter problems,
Speaker 1: be that problem a challenging trip or something like um,
Speaker 1: you know, uh, addiction to a substance like cocaine. I
Speaker 1: was actually looking at a study recently taught looking at
Speaker 1: legalization of marijuana uh and in UH in the areas
Speaker 1: they were looking at how it it lessened cases of
Speaker 1: underage use just because since it was available legally but
Speaker 1: it was regulated, um, there were fewer people below the
Speaker 1: appropriate age acquiring the substance. That's interesting, So uh, you
Speaker 1: know that easily we could do you could do a
Speaker 1: whole episode, multiple episodes, just talking about all these issues
Speaker 1: and drug legalization and regulation, what should be what should
Speaker 1: be illegal, and what shouldn't be illegal, not only in
Speaker 1: terms of substances, but pretty much anything within a given society. Um.
Speaker 1: But um, I mean, hopefully in these episodes we've given
Speaker 1: everybody some food, some food for thought, uh God, some
Speaker 1: food of the gods for thought on that topic. Uh
Speaker 1: and in gen role, hopefully you know, we've provided everyone
Speaker 1: of a bit more information about the history, nature, and
Speaker 1: reality of psychedelics so that you can make up your
Speaker 1: own minds about it, or even change your mind if
Speaker 1: you so wish. All right, So there you have it, psychedelics. Uh.
Speaker 1: It only took us five episodes, but here we are,
Speaker 1: and I feel I feel frustrated because we still like,
Speaker 1: there's so much stuff we wanted to get to that
Speaker 1: we never did. I just remembered we were going to
Speaker 1: come back to the stuff about adult personality change the
Speaker 1: psychedelics that. Uh, maybe we can explore that in a
Speaker 1: future episode. Absolutely. Yeah, this is one of those rich
Speaker 1: topics where you you know, the more you look into it,
Speaker 1: the more stuff you bring up, the more you realize
Speaker 1: you're missing out. And not even exploring. So if we
Speaker 1: didn't talk about your favorite sub topic or issue in psychedelics, sorry,
Speaker 1: we we just didn't get to it right. So we
Speaker 1: would obviously love to hear from anybody. So if there's
Speaker 1: there's a particular part of this five part journey that
Speaker 1: you would love to hear a future episode on, you
Speaker 1: want a deeper dive, you want to come back to it,
Speaker 1: let us know about that. Uh. If you have general
Speaker 1: thoughts right into us. Also, if you have you know,
Speaker 1: particulars about your own experiences with any of these substances
Speaker 1: or even with just uh, you know, hallucinatory experiences that
Speaker 1: are not tied to psychedelic use, uh, feel free to
Speaker 1: share those with us. And if you want to remain
Speaker 1: anonymous on a future listener mail episode, you can make
Speaker 1: a note of that as well, and we will definitely
Speaker 1: honor that. Uh. In the meantime, heading over to stuff
Speaker 1: to Blow your Mind dot com. That's the mothership. That's
Speaker 1: where we'll find all the episodes of the show. If
Speaker 1: you want to support our little show here, the best
Speaker 1: thing you can do is to rate and review us
Speaker 1: wherever you have the power to do so, and make
Speaker 1: sure that you have subscribed huge thanks as always to
Speaker 1: our excellent audio producer, Maya Cole. If you would like
Speaker 1: to get in touch with us with feedback on this
Speaker 1: episode or any other, to suggest a topic for the future,
Speaker 1: or just to say hi, you can email us at
Speaker 1: contact at stuff to Blow your Mind dot com. Stuff
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