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Speaker 1: Hi, I'm Ethan Edelman, and this is Psychoactive, a production

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Speaker 1: of I Heart Radio and Protozoa Pictures. Psychoactive is the

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Speaker 1: show where we talk about all things drugs. But any

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Speaker 1: views expressed here do not represent those of I Heeart Media,

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Speaker 1: Protozoa Pictures, or their executives and employees. Indeed, heed, as

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Speaker 1: an inveterate contrarian, I can tell you they may not

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Speaker 1: even represent my own. And nothing contained in this show

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Speaker 1: should be used as medical advice or encouragement to use

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Speaker 1: any type of drug. Hello, Psychoactive listeners. So today I

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Speaker 1: thought we'd bring you a sort of bonus episode. It's

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Speaker 1: my old interview from last year with Michael Pollen. I

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Speaker 1: did it back then because he had just written a

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Speaker 1: new book called This Is Your Mind on Plants. But

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Speaker 1: you know, last week Netflix released his spectacle Cular documentary

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Speaker 1: based upon Michael's previous book called How to Change Your Mind,

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Speaker 1: all about psychedelics research and its medical value. So in

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Speaker 1: honor of that coming out, I thought, why not bring

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Speaker 1: back that old episode. If you haven't listened to it before,

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Speaker 1: I'm sure you'll enjoy it, And maybe even if you

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Speaker 1: have listened, you'll enjoy it. Again Hello psychoactive listeners. Today

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Speaker 1: is uh, well, we have quite a guest. He's an

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Speaker 1: extraordinary writer and author. He is a professor of journalism

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Speaker 1: at you see Berkeley. Uh. He's somebody I've known for

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Speaker 1: quite a while who I think whose writing is changing

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Speaker 1: the world, and that is Michael Pollen. So, Michael, thank

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Speaker 1: you so much for joining me today. I'm very grateful

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Speaker 1: for your time. Thank Yeah, we do go back. I

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Speaker 1: guess too when I was writing about medical marijuana, right,

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Speaker 1: I think I interviewed you then as exactly I was

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Speaker 1: going to bring that up, which is it was back

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Speaker 1: in the spring of nineties seven, and I think you

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Speaker 1: had just maybe maybe around that time, you had published

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Speaker 1: the piece on poppies and Opium and Harper's which is

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Speaker 1: part of the chapter of your new book, This is

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Speaker 1: Your Mind on Plans, And I had put together that

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Speaker 1: ballot initiative in California on legalizing medical marijuana, hadn't drafted it.

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Speaker 1: That had been a local activist, Dennis Room. So you

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Speaker 1: came to see me. We spent a couple of hours

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Speaker 1: together in my office, and we're beginning to plan out

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Speaker 1: the next cycle. And I think since then we've crossed

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Speaker 1: passed over the years. But let me open up by

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Speaker 1: asking you. I mean, the next thing I saw you

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Speaker 1: writing about drugs was The Bodany of Desire, where you

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Speaker 1: wrote about what apples, potatoes, tulips and maria. Well, what

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Speaker 1: I remembered about that piece I remember sitting around everywhere

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Speaker 1: after you did it, was that what you did was

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Speaker 1: really when you raised the question, is this victory for

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Speaker 1: Proposition to fifteen, the medical marijuana initiative in California twenty

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Speaker 1: five years ago, did it represent a tipping point or

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Speaker 1: beginning of a tipping point at ending the war on drugs?

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Speaker 1: And the second key point you made there was that

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Speaker 1: what it had really done was to open up a

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Speaker 1: dialogue between the people in the government, between the cops

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Speaker 1: and the growers, and the docks and the patients and

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Speaker 1: you name it. And I just thought that in both

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Speaker 1: rose respects, it was prescient. But I'm curious now when

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Speaker 1: you look back on these last twenty five years. I mean,

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Speaker 1: marijuana has not been a focus of your writing in

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Speaker 1: recent years, But what do you think about this evolution?

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Speaker 1: I mean, what's I Do you have concerns about it?

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Speaker 1: Do you feel very good about it? I basically feel

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Speaker 1: good about it. I think that what we learned from

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Speaker 1: that episode was that a very important tool for changing

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Speaker 1: attitudes towards drugs was um and this was your your idea,

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Speaker 1: I think, was to reframe marijuana as a medicine rather

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Speaker 1: than a kind of cheech and chong, you know, fun thing.

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Speaker 1: And when the public began to see that it was

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Speaker 1: helping people, and then it was AIDS patients of course,

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Speaker 1: and some people with epilepsy UM and these were mostly

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Speaker 1: anecdotal stories about how they had helped people, but that

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Speaker 1: completely changed the public's attitude. The simple demonization of these

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Speaker 1: obstinces became much harder when we began to think of

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Speaker 1: them as medicines for some people. And I think it's

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Speaker 1: that same game plan, and I don't use that word

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Speaker 1: in a cynical way, has really driven the shifts around

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Speaker 1: psychedelics too. What's interesting is there was never as much

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Speaker 1: science around cannabis as a medicine. It was really largely anecdotal.

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Speaker 1: It was a citizen science kind of movement, whereas the

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Speaker 1: science around psychedelics has been um, you know, more conventional control,

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Speaker 1: double blind studies. Yeah, I mean in a way, right,

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Speaker 1: because you also had marijuana was in the farm of

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Speaker 1: Copella until the twenties or thirties. Oh yeah, there was history,

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Speaker 1: There were studies out there. There was the fact that marinol,

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Speaker 1: that synthetic version of marijuana, was already available. They're on

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Speaker 1: collegists already saying they were using it, and in fact,

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Speaker 1: you know, it was really a previous generation before me.

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Speaker 1: That helps shift opinion on medical marijuana, because with ballot initiatives,

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Speaker 1: you weren't really going to run a ballot initiative unless

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Speaker 1: you went into it with already fifty or more public support.

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Speaker 1: I think somewhat so only with the psychedelic stuff. You know,

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Speaker 1: those local initiatives that began to win in Denver and

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Speaker 1: in Oakland and now the big state went in Oregon

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Speaker 1: last year. I mean, those were doable because of the

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Speaker 1: work of others. And when I look at the work

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Speaker 1: of others, I give a huge amount of credit to

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Speaker 1: Rick Doblin's organization MATS. I give a lot of credit

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Speaker 1: to the researchers, the Rolling Griffiths and Bob Jesse's and

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Speaker 1: the others. But your book had to change your mind.

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Speaker 1: I just think that had an explosive impact just personally.

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Speaker 1: The number of people would come up to me and say, Ethan,

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Speaker 1: I just read Michael Polland's latest book. I mean, where

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Speaker 1: can I get some mushrooms? I've never done them, or

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Speaker 1: I haven't done them in three or four years, So

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Speaker 1: I mean, what do you think about that? I really

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Speaker 1: think that you've been this major catalytic writer about food.

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Speaker 1: I'm the worst dilemma. But that book was extraordinary in

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Speaker 1: its impact. Well, you know, I do hear that a lot,

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Speaker 1: and people such as the couple that started the organ initiative,

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Speaker 1: you know, have told me that it was reading not

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Speaker 1: that book, but the New Yorker piece that preceded the

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Speaker 1: book that inspired them. And it's incredibly gratifying. I mean,

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Speaker 1: people write things and nothing happens all the time. To

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Speaker 1: have anything happened. But I also feel that I was

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Speaker 1: amplifying the voices of the researchers because these were incredible

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Speaker 1: um findings, and I would interview the patients and tell

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Speaker 1: their stories, and that's really what moved the needle. As

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Speaker 1: with medical marijuana, hearing about individuals whose lives were transformed

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Speaker 1: for the better. There's nothing more powerful than that. And

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Speaker 1: of course that's what happened in Oregon, right. I mean

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Speaker 1: they began that ballot initiative underwater. They were at forty six,

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Speaker 1: I think, and they did have the resources that you

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Speaker 1: didn't have back in the nineties. Um, they had a

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Speaker 1: lot of advertising money. But what did they do with it? Well,

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Speaker 1: they told the stories of cancer patients whose fear of

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Speaker 1: death had been removed by their use of of psilocybin

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Speaker 1: and picked up ten points in a very short amount

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Speaker 1: of time. So the public is ready to hear these stories.

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Speaker 1: I think the public is ahead of the politicians on drugs.

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Speaker 1: And uh. They know that the drug war has been

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Speaker 1: a failure, and they see the collateral damage, and they

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Speaker 1: know now that the lies they've been told about drugs

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Speaker 1: are just that, and they're much less likely to buy

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Speaker 1: the propaganda. In the beginning of your new book, This

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Speaker 1: is Your Mind on Plans, you write, my wager in

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Speaker 1: writing this book is that the decline of the drug war,

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Speaker 1: with its brutally simplistic narratives about your brain on drugs,

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Speaker 1: has opened to space in which we can tell some other,

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Speaker 1: much more interesting stories about our ancient relationship with the

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Speaker 1: mind altering plans and fun guy with which nature has

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Speaker 1: blessed us. And that opening to the book is actually

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Speaker 1: a good description for why I'm doing this podcast now.

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Speaker 1: It's the same thing, and we need this new conversation.

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Speaker 1: I mean, I think just ending the drug war is

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Speaker 1: not enough because these are powerful substances. They're going to

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Speaker 1: be part of our lives, They're going to be accessible.

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Speaker 1: We're gonna have to talk to our children about them. Uh,

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Speaker 1: and we have to learn how to live with them,

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Speaker 1: which is, you know, not obvious. Yeah, well you know.

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Speaker 1: So let me give you a little shit about something

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Speaker 1: and see how you respond to it. Right. You wrote

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Speaker 1: an OpEd piece in the spring of I think in

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Speaker 1: New York Times, right, and it was a reaction to

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Speaker 1: Denver legalizing uh you know, plant medicines or pilocipic mushrooms

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Speaker 1: I can't remember. Was narrow short, and you said, hold

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Speaker 1: on here, you know, maybe the country isn't ready for

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Speaker 1: this debate. And I was thinking, oh, well, Michael's just

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Speaker 1: covering his ask this. His book is having such a

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Speaker 1: huge impact. The last thing he needs is to be

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Speaker 1: identified as a new Timothy Leary of psychedelics. But afy,

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Speaker 1: tell me what you were thinking then and what you're

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Speaker 1: thinking now about this, because now you're talking about opening

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Speaker 1: up the debate. Yeah. So, Um. At the time, I

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Speaker 1: was strongly influenced by the scientists that I had been

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Speaker 1: interviewing and that we're really at the heart of my book,

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Speaker 1: and they were all very nervous. Um. You know, this

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Speaker 1: path had been laid out by Rick Doblin, originally of

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Speaker 1: FDA approval. Right, We're gonna go through the phase one

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Speaker 1: to three of the trials, then we're gonna get FDA approval,

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Speaker 1: and then we'll reschedule psychedelics. And the fear then was

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Speaker 1: that if this became a popular issue rather than this

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Speaker 1: more or less hidden regulatory path, um, it would blow it.

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Speaker 1: It would politicize psychedelics, and that I expected a backlash.

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Speaker 1: I expected us to fall into the old culture war

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Speaker 1: drug war narrative and that suddenly this research, which had

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Speaker 1: not been controversial, would get to be controversial. So I

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Speaker 1: was in effect being protective of this research, which I

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Speaker 1: thought was so important and so promising that I didn't

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Speaker 1: want anything to get in the way. As it turned out,

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Speaker 1: that process is going on. It hasn't been affected for

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Speaker 1: reasons I don't entirely understand. The Republicans have chosen not

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Speaker 1: to fight this. Uh, you know, this suing for peace

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Speaker 1: in the drug war that's happened. I think they've decided

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Speaker 1: it's a losing issue. Uh. And and given that the

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Speaker 1: how how the culture war is raging, it's very interesting

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Speaker 1: they're leaving this one alone. And in fact, psychedelic research

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Speaker 1: has has friends on the right. Rick Perry, the former

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Speaker 1: Energy secretary and governor of Texas, as a supporter of

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Speaker 1: psychedelic medicine. Rebecca Mercer gave money to MAPS, and Steve

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Speaker 1: Bannon says friendly things about it. So as you know,

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Speaker 1: and I evolved, I mean, what can I say. I

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Speaker 1: still don't support the commercialization of psychedelics. I don't think

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Speaker 1: that cannabis is the proper model. And cannabis you know

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Speaker 1: where I live. You know their billboards on the Bay Bridge,

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Speaker 1: you know, promising delivery of cannabis within two hours if

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Speaker 1: you call them, like you know, by the time you

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Speaker 1: get home in traffic, it'll be there. There'll be a

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Speaker 1: guy you're on a bicycle with your with your cannabis.

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Speaker 1: And um, that kind of active promotion of psychedelics is uh,

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Speaker 1: you know. I mean maybe I'll be ready for that

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Speaker 1: in a year too, but I'm not yet. And I

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Speaker 1: think that decriminalization is very different, and I see all

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Speaker 1: this capital moving into the psychedelic space, most of it

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Speaker 1: for medical treatment, and I do believe there is a place,

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Speaker 1: or there should be access for psychedelics for people who

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Speaker 1: are not clinically you know, mentally ill um. I think

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Speaker 1: they have a lot to offer all of us. But

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Speaker 1: I'd love to find a model that is well suited

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Speaker 1: to psychedelics, to magic mushrooms, and not as many people

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Speaker 1: in the cannabis world want to do follow that path

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Speaker 1: so that the magic mushrooms are sold right next to

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Speaker 1: the to the cannabis, you know, vape cartridges, in the

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Speaker 1: in the dispensaries. Um, that doesn't feel right to me. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I mean, you know, Michael, I'm actually fairly sympathetic to

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Speaker 1: your viewpoint. I'm also wary of the kind of over

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Speaker 1: the counter commercialization and advertising. I think with marijuana, we

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Speaker 1: recognize that it was inevitable and there probably was no

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Speaker 1: other better model, and you just have to hope for

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Speaker 1: good regulatory approach is at the state and ultimately the

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Speaker 1: federal level. I mean, I do look at places like

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Speaker 1: the Netherlands or Jamaica where they do seem to sell

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Speaker 1: magic mushrooms in the same places that oftentimes cannabis is

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Speaker 1: clause legally available and those don't seem to be an

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Speaker 1: issue yet. But I agree it has to be careful

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Speaker 1: and I don't want to see that that backlash either.

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Speaker 1: I mean that definitely scares me that possibility. Right, we

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Speaker 1: went through that backlash once, of course, and uh, it

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Speaker 1: could happen again. Um. You know, this country is prone

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Speaker 1: to moral panics around drugs and it has been for

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Speaker 1: a very long time. What's happening with the truffles in

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Speaker 1: Amsterdam though, that's a that's a pretty weak form of psilocybin.

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Speaker 1: You have to consume enough truffles to get a stomach

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Speaker 1: ache for it to actually work. And you know some

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Speaker 1: of these substances are you know, LSD is obviously very powerful,

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Speaker 1: and uh, I do think that we have to find,

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Speaker 1: you know, the proper cultural container. I was very influenced

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Speaker 1: by rereading Andrew Wild's book The Natural Mind. It's like

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Speaker 1: fifty years old. It's a very wise book, and he

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Speaker 1: talks a lot, since he's done all this research in

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Speaker 1: South America, of what we have to learn from indigenous

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Speaker 1: cultures about how to safely use these powerful psychedelics. Well,

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Speaker 1: you know, I'll tell you Michael Andrew was my first guest.

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Speaker 1: I did it in part because he has such a

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Speaker 1: huge influence on me back in the eighties, reading The

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Speaker 1: Natural Mind at the time, and then his other books

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Speaker 1: Chocolate to Morphine in the Marriage of the Sun of

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Speaker 1: the Moon. I mean. The other thing, of course, is,

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Speaker 1: you know, he goes from drug writing to writing about

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Speaker 1: integrative medicine, and he and he writes about coffee for example,

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Speaker 1: which we'll get into that shortly. And you also go,

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Speaker 1: you know, you do the stuff on marijuana, but the

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Speaker 1: embodying desire gardening in this and then you become, you

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Speaker 1: know the world's leading writer about food stuff. But I

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Speaker 1: wonder how you think about your back and forth in

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Speaker 1: the merging of these two issues. Yeah, well, for me,

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Speaker 1: there of a piece. I mean, you have to go

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Speaker 1: back in time to the beginning of my writing, which

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Speaker 1: was very much about uh, you know, I began writing

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Speaker 1: in the garden. I was very interested in the symbiotic

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Speaker 1: relationship between us and plants and how plants have evolved

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Speaker 1: to gratify our needs and desires. And that's a very

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Speaker 1: successful strategy. Just look at the edible grasses, which now

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Speaker 1: you know, have this huge amount of territory. We a

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Speaker 1: lot to them because we depend on them for corn

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Speaker 1: and rice. This has been a really winning strategy to

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Speaker 1: hitch their wagon to ours. And so if you're interested

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Speaker 1: in that, if that's the kind of trunk of my work,

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Speaker 1: of the tree of my work, this interest in plants

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Speaker 1: and people, ethnobotany, you might call it um. One big

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Speaker 1: branch off of that trunk is food and agriculture. And

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Speaker 1: I spent a couple of years writing about that, and

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Speaker 1: I still do from time to time. I'm still very

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Speaker 1: interested in that. And that's kind of the most profound

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Speaker 1: way we change nature um is through our eating and

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Speaker 1: what our agriculture does to the planet. Um. We change

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Speaker 1: the land, we change the atmosphere, we changed the composition

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Speaker 1: of species. So it was kind of natural I would

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Speaker 1: dig into that first and and wrote three or four

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Speaker 1: books about that. But another really interesting thing, we use

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Speaker 1: plants for us to change consciousness. And this turns out,

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Speaker 1: as as Andy says, in the natural mind, to be

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Speaker 1: virtually universal. And so that's another interesting branch um of

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Speaker 1: our use of plants and their cleverness in enlisting us

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Speaker 1: in their their mission to expand their habitat they're also

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Speaker 1: you know, both things we ingest that changes us. And finally,

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Speaker 1: they're both critically involved in health, physical health for the

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Speaker 1: most part with food, and mental health for the most

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Speaker 1: part in drugs. But as we know, those lines even

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Speaker 1: are not what you would think, and Andy has made

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Speaker 1: a very strong case that the psychedelics can have, you know,

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Speaker 1: real physiological effects and heal physical elements, not just mental elements,

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Speaker 1: and that there's not a real difference between the two

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Speaker 1: at some level. I also like moving on as a

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Speaker 1: writer at a certain point. I prefer to write as

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Speaker 1: an amateur and then I become an expert, and that

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Speaker 1: kind of sucks it up from a literary point of view.

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Speaker 1: I mean, it's very gratifying as an advocate that you know,

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Speaker 1: I learned about a said check, I published a book

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Speaker 1: about it, and then I have a platform to argue

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Speaker 1: for the world I want to see, and that's great.

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Speaker 1: But as a writer, I really prefer being at the

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Speaker 1: beginning and being the idiot on page one who has

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Speaker 1: a set of questions but doesn't have his answers. Read

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Speaker 1: the first page of any of my books and you'll

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Speaker 1: see I really am very naive at the beginning, and

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Speaker 1: what I like to do is dramatize the process of

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Speaker 1: learning and what I have to do to learn, which

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Speaker 1: includes not only talking to people and reading lots of books,

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Speaker 1: but having experiences that are really relevant that teach us

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Speaker 1: in a way that books can't teach us. And so

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Speaker 1: you know, when I was writing about the cattle industry,

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Speaker 1: I bought a cow and followed it through the process

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Speaker 1: for Omnivor's dilemma. And as you know, when I wrote

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Speaker 1: about psychedelics, I took you know, a menu of psychedelics,

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Speaker 1: because there's no substitute for personal experience, um, And there's

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Speaker 1: a perspective you have doing something for the first time

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Speaker 1: that you'll never have again. So even though I'm a

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Speaker 1: relatively green or young psychonaut as Andy reminds me every

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Speaker 1: time we're on the stage together and he lists the

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Speaker 1: hundreds of experiences he's at all. Right, I actually think

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Speaker 1: there's a virtue in being a newbie that I see

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Speaker 1: things that you might not see on your hundredth trip um,

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Speaker 1: and that there's a quality of wonder. Not to mention

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Speaker 1: the fact that the reader can identify more easily with

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Speaker 1: someone doing something for the first time than for the

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Speaker 1: hundredth time. Um, so there's a there's a bit of

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Speaker 1: narrative strategy involved to right. One of the things I

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Speaker 1: loved there was a piece of The Times a year

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Speaker 1: or two ago, and it had you having a lunch

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Speaker 1: at your home and it was with Isolet Waldman, who

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Speaker 1: had written a book on micro dosing in fact, and

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Speaker 1: I think she actually interned a Drug Policy Alliance when

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Speaker 1: she was in her twenties. And then the novelist uh

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Speaker 1: TC Boyle, who I remember reading his wonderful book about

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Speaker 1: growing marijuana and paranoia in Humboldt back in eighty four,

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Speaker 1: Budding Prospects. But then he wrote a very recent novel, Yeah,

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Speaker 1: Timothy Leary, Yeah exactly. It's called Outside Looking In. And

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Speaker 1: one of the comments they quote you saying there is

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Speaker 1: you're debating about what's going on American culture with with

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Speaker 1: Isolet and TC Boiled and you say, I think part

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Speaker 1: of what's going on is it's a reaction or or

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Speaker 1: it's linked to the growing anxiety in American society, you know,

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Speaker 1: and not not just Trump is um, but a whole

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Speaker 1: range of other things. Does that still feel true to you?

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Speaker 1: That or you just kind of speculating with them. When

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Speaker 1: you said that, I don't remember saying that. I mean

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Speaker 1: that it was the anxiety that was leading to interest

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Speaker 1: in psychedelics. Yeah, that's interesting. I mean I see it

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Speaker 1: more as a dissatisfaction with the tools we have to

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Speaker 1: deal with mental illness and anxiety and depression and the

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Speaker 1: you know, the fact that s SR eyes are increasingly

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Speaker 1: um not working as well as they once did, and

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Speaker 1: people really don't like taking them. I see it being

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Speaker 1: driven by like a willingness to do something really outside

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Speaker 1: of the box that people feel. You know, the underground

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Speaker 1: use of psychedelics is booming also, and I think people

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Speaker 1: are looking for hell uh, and that people are in

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Speaker 1: a very stressed state. It has partly to do with

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Speaker 1: our politics, it has partly to do with climate change,

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Speaker 1: and the pandemic has has only intensified this, and many

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Speaker 1: people are looking for healing and uh, And here are

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Speaker 1: psychedelics that offer some relief, but a very different kind

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Speaker 1: of relief. And that this is not self medication in

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Speaker 1: the sense of using an opiate or alcohol to kind

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Speaker 1: of dull your senses. As you know, psychedelic experience is

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Speaker 1: really hard work and it's an attempt to go inside,

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Speaker 1: which can be a very scary place to go. But

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Speaker 1: people are looking for something more radical, something that in

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Speaker 1: the in the true sense of the word, that will

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Speaker 1: deal with the roots of their problem. It's depression, it's anxiety.

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Speaker 1: It's just this sense that we're in a very very

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Speaker 1: difficult time and the future, you know, has not looked

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Speaker 1: this dark in my lifetime. Um, you know, the questions

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Speaker 1: being raised not just about the environmental crisis, but about

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Speaker 1: our political system, and well whether our political system can

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Speaker 1: cope the environmental crisis, whether our political system can survive.

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Speaker 1: And I think all these things make the potential of

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Speaker 1: psychedelic healing very attractive to people. And they're they're willing

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Speaker 1: to take a chance, right, They're willing to do something

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Speaker 1: that may be way out of their comfort zone. I

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Speaker 1: am really surprised at the people. I mean, many people

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Speaker 1: come to me now like looking for psychedelic therapy, and

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Speaker 1: we should tell your listeners, please don't come to me

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Speaker 1: for this. I can't make referrals. It's just too dangerous

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Speaker 1: for everybody. UM, find your own guide. But I'm amazed

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Speaker 1: that who comes to me. They're just not the people

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Speaker 1: you would think They're people in very prominent positions, people

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Speaker 1: who look like they've got everything worked out in their lives,

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Speaker 1: and they're willing to roll the dice and do something

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Speaker 1: they never would have considered a few years ago. We'll

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Speaker 1: be talking more after we hear this ADM. I have

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Speaker 1: to say reading your chapter on mescalin in the current

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Speaker 1: book was fascinating for me. First of all, I mean,

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Speaker 1: I I must confess I've only done mescaline. I think

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Speaker 1: once back, you know, years ago, I did synthetic mescaline

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Speaker 1: and I didn't I did not appreciate the differences that

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Speaker 1: you describe in your latest book between mescaline and LSD

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Speaker 1: and psilocybin. And then you also quote Sasha Alexander Shulgin Uh,

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Speaker 1: you know, the brilliant backyard chemist who actually I was

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Speaker 1: quite friendly with him. We visited his home in Latvia,

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Speaker 1: California often times, and who was generous with me and

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Speaker 1: having the experiment. Um. But he calls mescaline the queen

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Speaker 1: of the psychedelics, and you had I think a Rabbi

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Speaker 1: psychelic friend who said the same things, the king of

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Speaker 1: the materials. So is your experience would you would you

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Speaker 1: agree with that description? Yeah. I mean I had a

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Speaker 1: really interesting, uh and positive experience with mescaline. I had

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Speaker 1: a more profound one with psilocybin. And given the choice,

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Speaker 1: what I do mescaline again, I guess I would. I mean,

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Speaker 1: I really liked this quality of you know, the way

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Speaker 1: it immerses you in the here and now. Um, it's

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Speaker 1: very different than the psychedelics that at high dose take

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Speaker 1: you somewhere else, take you to another world, another dimension.

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Speaker 1: I was just more here than I'd ever been, and

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Speaker 1: more absorbed in what was right in front of me.

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Speaker 1: And in a way, it was the perfect drug for

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Speaker 1: the pandemic. You know, where we were kind of claustrophobic,

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Speaker 1: we were stuck in place. It felt like our worlds

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Speaker 1: had shrunk down, still feels that way. And here was

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Speaker 1: this drug that made what you had, the room you

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Speaker 1: were in, the life you were leading so interesting and

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Speaker 1: so nuanced and so rich with possibility and insight that

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Speaker 1: you were completely content with your little nutshell. And I

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Speaker 1: thought that was a very interesting experience. I think Huxley's account,

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Speaker 1: and you know, these accounts influence us. You know, there's

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Speaker 1: no innocent psychedelic experiences, right, They're very much constructed by

426
00:23:12,680 --> 00:23:17,399
Speaker 1: our expectations, as Timothy Leary understood. But Huxley in The

427
00:23:17,480 --> 00:23:20,679
Speaker 1: Doors of Perception, a lot of what I felt chimed

428
00:23:20,760 --> 00:23:23,119
Speaker 1: with what he said, which was that he felt like

429
00:23:23,400 --> 00:23:26,920
Speaker 1: the reducing valve of consciousness, the fact that our consciousness

430
00:23:27,119 --> 00:23:29,840
Speaker 1: is trying to reduce the amount of information coming in

431
00:23:30,520 --> 00:23:33,159
Speaker 1: because it threatens to overwhelm us, and it's more than

432
00:23:33,240 --> 00:23:37,359
Speaker 1: we need for the business of living in survival. But

433
00:23:37,480 --> 00:23:39,800
Speaker 1: there's so much more out there, there's so much more

434
00:23:39,880 --> 00:23:44,280
Speaker 1: sensory information than we're taking in. That felt really right

435
00:23:44,359 --> 00:23:46,680
Speaker 1: to me, and Shulgin says this too. He said he

436
00:23:46,720 --> 00:23:49,800
Speaker 1: saw colors or nuances of colors that he didn't know existed.

437
00:23:50,640 --> 00:23:52,960
Speaker 1: And it is that kind of child mind, which is

438
00:23:53,040 --> 00:23:56,400
Speaker 1: taking in information from in all directions, is not focused.

439
00:23:56,560 --> 00:23:59,000
Speaker 1: It's the opposite of caffeine. I think psychedelics and caffeine

440
00:23:59,040 --> 00:24:02,280
Speaker 1: are on two ends of a spectrum. Where caffeine helps

441
00:24:02,320 --> 00:24:06,560
Speaker 1: you focus the lens where you want, which is very

442
00:24:06,600 --> 00:24:09,119
Speaker 1: powerful for getting work done, which is why it suits

443
00:24:09,160 --> 00:24:13,480
Speaker 1: capitalism so well. Psychedelics, you're bringing in information from all

444
00:24:13,560 --> 00:24:17,480
Speaker 1: these you know, corners of the room and doesn't necessarily

445
00:24:17,600 --> 00:24:21,280
Speaker 1: encourage you to focus, but can be incredibly enriching to

446
00:24:21,400 --> 00:24:24,879
Speaker 1: see what's out there. So it was interesting. I didn't

447
00:24:24,960 --> 00:24:29,439
Speaker 1: have that experience of ego dissolution. I didn't have hallucinations,

448
00:24:29,520 --> 00:24:31,480
Speaker 1: with the one exception of there were a couple of

449
00:24:31,520 --> 00:24:33,600
Speaker 1: moments where I was a little bit overwhelmed by how

450
00:24:33,680 --> 00:24:36,560
Speaker 1: much information was coming in and I closed my eyes

451
00:24:36,800 --> 00:24:41,600
Speaker 1: to meditate. But the me that was meditating with somebody else. Um,

452
00:24:41,760 --> 00:24:43,760
Speaker 1: And this happened a couple of times. I was like,

453
00:24:44,080 --> 00:24:48,160
Speaker 1: who is this Latin American woman who's in my head meditating?

454
00:24:49,240 --> 00:24:52,119
Speaker 1: I know that sounds crazy, but um, but in general,

455
00:24:52,200 --> 00:24:55,879
Speaker 1: it wasn't about hallucination. It was about perception and it

456
00:24:56,000 --> 00:25:00,520
Speaker 1: was about taking in this information. The only negative experience

457
00:25:00,560 --> 00:25:03,880
Speaker 1: I felt, besides this brief period of being overwhelmed by

458
00:25:04,720 --> 00:25:08,000
Speaker 1: as as I quote this poet, the immensity of existence.

459
00:25:08,280 --> 00:25:09,800
Speaker 1: I mean, I was really hit by that a couple

460
00:25:09,840 --> 00:25:12,320
Speaker 1: of times at the peak, the only negative was it

461
00:25:12,400 --> 00:25:15,240
Speaker 1: went on so long. I mean it's like fourteen hours,

462
00:25:15,320 --> 00:25:17,520
Speaker 1: and I was done with the mescaline before it was

463
00:25:17,600 --> 00:25:20,119
Speaker 1: done with me. Um. I wanted to just have dinner

464
00:25:20,160 --> 00:25:23,040
Speaker 1: and go to bed, but it wasn't gonna happen. Well,

465
00:25:23,119 --> 00:25:27,280
Speaker 1: I guess that's why they're not really using mescalin. Right, Yes,

466
00:25:27,640 --> 00:25:30,719
Speaker 1: it means two shifts for your two guides, right, your

467
00:25:30,760 --> 00:25:34,640
Speaker 1: two therapists exactly be kind of expensive. But it does

468
00:25:34,720 --> 00:25:38,080
Speaker 1: seem like it's worth investigating or maybe working on the

469
00:25:38,160 --> 00:25:42,280
Speaker 1: molecule as as Sasha Shulgin did so brilliantly, because it

470
00:25:42,480 --> 00:25:45,280
Speaker 1: has some of M D M as qualities. You can

471
00:25:45,320 --> 00:25:47,680
Speaker 1: feel very connected to somebody else on it, and you

472
00:25:47,760 --> 00:25:50,440
Speaker 1: can hold a conversation, and it seems to me it

473
00:25:50,840 --> 00:25:54,520
Speaker 1: could be useful in a group therapy context um, which

474
00:25:54,600 --> 00:25:57,840
Speaker 1: might justify all the hours of therapist time. And there

475
00:25:57,920 --> 00:25:59,879
Speaker 1: is a company that wants to work with it, Journey

476
00:26:00,000 --> 00:26:02,600
Speaker 1: All that wants to use mescalin to work on alcoholism.

477
00:26:02,720 --> 00:26:05,639
Speaker 1: And you know the Native Americans have used mescaline in

478
00:26:05,640 --> 00:26:08,160
Speaker 1: the form of peyote with great success in a group

479
00:26:08,200 --> 00:26:11,879
Speaker 1: setting and working often on alcoholism. Yeah. Well, you know

480
00:26:11,960 --> 00:26:16,280
Speaker 1: I reread before talking with you now, another essay you

481
00:26:16,400 --> 00:26:18,760
Speaker 1: wrote that. I just thought it was wonderful and it

482
00:26:18,920 --> 00:26:21,800
Speaker 1: was about the challenges of writing about this, you know,

483
00:26:21,920 --> 00:26:24,600
Speaker 1: about putting into the language. And I remember at one point,

484
00:26:24,680 --> 00:26:26,399
Speaker 1: you know, you uh, you had done five M E

485
00:26:26,440 --> 00:26:28,440
Speaker 1: O D M T The Toad Trip, the Signorian toad

486
00:26:28,480 --> 00:26:30,560
Speaker 1: where you squeeze the glands and you get five mm

487
00:26:30,640 --> 00:26:31,960
Speaker 1: o d m T. And you talked about the role

488
00:26:32,000 --> 00:26:35,399
Speaker 1: of metaphors or rocket and the Big Bang or at

489
00:26:35,440 --> 00:26:37,280
Speaker 1: another point, I think in the most recent book you're

490
00:26:37,280 --> 00:26:41,440
Speaker 1: talking about comparing LSD and psilocybin too kind of a

491
00:26:41,600 --> 00:26:44,600
Speaker 1: top down approach and mescalin almost a bottom up one.

492
00:26:44,960 --> 00:26:47,000
Speaker 1: And I realized that as a writer, and as a

493
00:26:47,119 --> 00:26:49,919
Speaker 1: brilliant writer, you have the luxury of looking at your

494
00:26:49,960 --> 00:26:52,240
Speaker 1: words and crafting them words I'm interviewing this moment. You

495
00:26:52,280 --> 00:26:54,800
Speaker 1: don't have that luxury of doing yet. Did you feel

496
00:26:54,920 --> 00:26:56,960
Speaker 1: that when you were writing this most recent book and

497
00:26:57,080 --> 00:27:00,240
Speaker 1: talking about your mescaline experience, that the words or the

498
00:27:00,480 --> 00:27:03,040
Speaker 1: ways of writing flowed more naturally than it had a

499
00:27:03,119 --> 00:27:07,320
Speaker 1: few years ago, just as you've Yeah, I think I

500
00:27:07,480 --> 00:27:10,600
Speaker 1: found a way to write about psychedelic experience for me,

501
00:27:11,119 --> 00:27:13,080
Speaker 1: and that was hard to do when I when I

502
00:27:13,200 --> 00:27:15,800
Speaker 1: first approached the whole issue, and I knew that there

503
00:27:15,840 --> 00:27:17,360
Speaker 1: was going to be a chapter in How to Change

504
00:27:17,400 --> 00:27:19,760
Speaker 1: Your Mind where I'd have to describe my trips, and

505
00:27:19,800 --> 00:27:21,920
Speaker 1: I was very nervous about it because I've read a

506
00:27:22,000 --> 00:27:24,320
Speaker 1: lot of you know, really shitty trip reports we all have,

507
00:27:24,680 --> 00:27:27,399
Speaker 1: and uh, and you know, it's like telling people your dreams.

508
00:27:27,600 --> 00:27:29,720
Speaker 1: You know, the chances are you'll bore them to tears.

509
00:27:30,640 --> 00:27:34,080
Speaker 1: So I approached that as a very you know, nervous

510
00:27:34,240 --> 00:27:37,560
Speaker 1: making part of the writing um. In the event, it

511
00:27:37,800 --> 00:27:42,000
Speaker 1: was actually great fun, much more fun than I thought,

512
00:27:42,560 --> 00:27:44,600
Speaker 1: and as a writer, it was some of the most

513
00:27:44,680 --> 00:27:46,960
Speaker 1: fun I've had, and and writing about this Mescalin trip

514
00:27:47,040 --> 00:27:50,680
Speaker 1: too was really fun. And what unlocked it for me

515
00:27:51,440 --> 00:27:55,119
Speaker 1: was understanding that I was writing for people who probably

516
00:27:55,200 --> 00:27:59,399
Speaker 1: hadn't had this experience, many of my readers, and I

517
00:27:59,600 --> 00:28:03,080
Speaker 1: needed to address them directly about what I imagined they

518
00:28:03,160 --> 00:28:06,720
Speaker 1: were thinking about what I just said. So in other words,

519
00:28:06,760 --> 00:28:09,200
Speaker 1: I I go into the trip and I describe it

520
00:28:09,440 --> 00:28:11,439
Speaker 1: for a certain amount of time. But when I reached

521
00:28:12,000 --> 00:28:15,440
Speaker 1: a moment of incredulousness in my own mind, like there

522
00:28:15,520 --> 00:28:18,320
Speaker 1: was a Latin American woman meditating in my head, I

523
00:28:18,560 --> 00:28:21,720
Speaker 1: stopped and talked to the reader and said, I know

524
00:28:21,960 --> 00:28:25,280
Speaker 1: how crazy this sounds, or yes, I know that love

525
00:28:25,400 --> 00:28:27,119
Speaker 1: is the most important thing in the world. I know

526
00:28:27,280 --> 00:28:30,879
Speaker 1: that there's a hallmark sentiment, but remember it's also profound.

527
00:28:31,400 --> 00:28:34,600
Speaker 1: It can be both, and so this direct address to

528
00:28:34,680 --> 00:28:38,040
Speaker 1: the reader gave me the license to go where I

529
00:28:38,120 --> 00:28:40,880
Speaker 1: had to go, And I felt like I wouldn't lose

530
00:28:40,960 --> 00:28:44,800
Speaker 1: that reader by taking account of their skepticism or their

531
00:28:44,840 --> 00:28:47,719
Speaker 1: wrinkled brow or whatever it was. So once I kind

532
00:28:47,760 --> 00:28:50,800
Speaker 1: of found that that little formula I could let go,

533
00:28:51,000 --> 00:28:53,960
Speaker 1: I could totally cut loose. And you know, for a

534
00:28:54,080 --> 00:28:57,600
Speaker 1: journalist who's normally writing things that have to stand up

535
00:28:57,640 --> 00:29:01,800
Speaker 1: to fact checking right in that all box of checkable facts,

536
00:29:01,880 --> 00:29:03,720
Speaker 1: when there's a lot of other interesting things that you

537
00:29:03,800 --> 00:29:07,960
Speaker 1: can't quite pin down. Here, I'm transcribing the contents of

538
00:29:08,040 --> 00:29:11,000
Speaker 1: my mind. There's no fact checking, right, I have it.

539
00:29:11,600 --> 00:29:14,400
Speaker 1: I'm the expert on this story. And I imagine it's

540
00:29:14,400 --> 00:29:17,680
Speaker 1: how novelists feel because they're they're basically as I imagine,

541
00:29:17,800 --> 00:29:20,640
Speaker 1: I'm I don't write fiction, but they're telling themselves a story,

542
00:29:20,720 --> 00:29:22,840
Speaker 1: or they're enacting a dialogue in their head and writing

543
00:29:22,880 --> 00:29:25,880
Speaker 1: it down, and there's enormous freedom in that. And it

544
00:29:25,960 --> 00:29:28,160
Speaker 1: was it was great pleasure. So I was very happy

545
00:29:28,200 --> 00:29:29,840
Speaker 1: to write a book where I would get to describe

546
00:29:29,840 --> 00:29:32,440
Speaker 1: another trip. You know. I also found sometimes, like when

547
00:29:32,480 --> 00:29:35,600
Speaker 1: I smoke marijuana, if it's strong marijuana, I'll get into

548
00:29:35,680 --> 00:29:38,600
Speaker 1: this thinking, oh my god, great thoughts, great thoughts, but

549
00:29:38,800 --> 00:29:41,800
Speaker 1: so often later in the day, afterwards, the next day,

550
00:29:41,880 --> 00:29:44,920
Speaker 1: they just seem like fluff, you know, Whereas I found

551
00:29:45,000 --> 00:29:47,640
Speaker 1: that when I've done this has happened on mushrooms, has

552
00:29:47,680 --> 00:29:51,360
Speaker 1: happened on ayahuasca, that actually, and especially if I don't

553
00:29:51,360 --> 00:29:53,640
Speaker 1: get high at the end of the trip, that my

554
00:29:53,760 --> 00:29:56,320
Speaker 1: thoughts can be very clear later that day or even

555
00:29:56,360 --> 00:29:59,080
Speaker 1: the next and easy to remember, easy to remember, and

556
00:29:59,160 --> 00:30:01,440
Speaker 1: actually have the really insights I had an influence of

557
00:30:01,520 --> 00:30:05,240
Speaker 1: mushrooms years ago. They still have validity in my life today,

558
00:30:05,880 --> 00:30:07,840
Speaker 1: and so I think that must be a benefit. Actually,

559
00:30:08,040 --> 00:30:10,040
Speaker 1: you had, I think the same experience. Oh yeah, I know,

560
00:30:10,160 --> 00:30:12,760
Speaker 1: I did. There are insights I had, and you could.

561
00:30:12,920 --> 00:30:15,640
Speaker 1: You know, you can also call them banal insights around

562
00:30:15,720 --> 00:30:19,240
Speaker 1: love and connectedness, but they're real, you know, the sense

563
00:30:19,280 --> 00:30:23,000
Speaker 1: of interconnectedness people feel on psychedelics. The illusion is the

564
00:30:23,120 --> 00:30:28,920
Speaker 1: idea of separateness, right, and so there is a veracity

565
00:30:29,120 --> 00:30:32,800
Speaker 1: to some of this these ideas we acquire. But also

566
00:30:32,880 --> 00:30:35,760
Speaker 1: think of the people using psychedelics to quit smoking, and

567
00:30:35,840 --> 00:30:39,200
Speaker 1: they come to the profound conclusion that smoking is stupid

568
00:30:39,280 --> 00:30:41,920
Speaker 1: and it's killing them. They knew that at one level.

569
00:30:42,000 --> 00:30:46,160
Speaker 1: But there is a sturdiness to the insight on psychedelics.

570
00:30:46,240 --> 00:30:48,560
Speaker 1: It's it's what James called the noetic quality, right, that

571
00:30:48,640 --> 00:30:50,880
Speaker 1: this is not just an opinion, this is a revealed truth,

572
00:30:51,640 --> 00:30:56,240
Speaker 1: and some of the truths are really important. Um. And

573
00:30:56,360 --> 00:31:01,520
Speaker 1: they have that etched in stone down from the mountain quality.

574
00:31:01,840 --> 00:31:03,280
Speaker 1: And I think that's one of the keys to the

575
00:31:03,360 --> 00:31:07,200
Speaker 1: success of psychedelics and helping people change bad habits such

576
00:31:07,240 --> 00:31:11,320
Speaker 1: as addiction, is that whatever insights they come to, either

577
00:31:11,960 --> 00:31:14,880
Speaker 1: directed towards them by their therapists or on their own,

578
00:31:15,480 --> 00:31:19,440
Speaker 1: those insights are sturdier than the insights we have in

579
00:31:19,640 --> 00:31:24,040
Speaker 1: everyday life. Well, now let's talk about the powerful role

580
00:31:24,120 --> 00:31:26,480
Speaker 1: of set and setting. And one of the big points

581
00:31:26,520 --> 00:31:28,160
Speaker 1: you make in the mescal in chapter I think it's

582
00:31:28,160 --> 00:31:30,120
Speaker 1: in your other book as well, is for a lot

583
00:31:30,160 --> 00:31:32,640
Speaker 1: of these drugs, there's the synthetic version, right in this

584
00:31:32,800 --> 00:31:35,120
Speaker 1: case mescal in or or you can have that with

585
00:31:35,160 --> 00:31:38,480
Speaker 1: psilocybin as well. And then there's the natural plant version,

586
00:31:38,560 --> 00:31:40,280
Speaker 1: or the one that comes from the toad um in

587
00:31:40,320 --> 00:31:42,239
Speaker 1: the case of five M E O D M T. Right.

588
00:31:42,400 --> 00:31:44,600
Speaker 1: And actually, by chance, I met this guy last week,

589
00:31:44,640 --> 00:31:48,360
Speaker 1: a Mexican guy named Mario Garnier, who is like the latest,

590
00:31:48,480 --> 00:31:51,320
Speaker 1: you know, major advocate for the toad medicine. He actually

591
00:31:51,360 --> 00:31:54,120
Speaker 1: comes from the Sonora area, and when he's asked, there's

592
00:31:54,120 --> 00:31:56,640
Speaker 1: a debate synthetic versus the toad, and the way he

593
00:31:56,760 --> 00:32:00,720
Speaker 1: resolves it is to say they're just different. They're a difference.

594
00:32:00,880 --> 00:32:02,640
Speaker 1: Right now. I think he privately actually believes the real

595
00:32:02,680 --> 00:32:04,880
Speaker 1: stuff is better, but he frames it that way. I

596
00:32:04,920 --> 00:32:07,880
Speaker 1: remember Sasha Shulgin, he was a bit contemptuous. He said,

597
00:32:08,080 --> 00:32:11,240
Speaker 1: use the synthetic, it's the same drug, and in fact,

598
00:32:11,240 --> 00:32:13,200
Speaker 1: if anything, that's a little cleaner, so you're less likely

599
00:32:13,560 --> 00:32:17,240
Speaker 1: to get sick. Now, you talk in the book about

600
00:32:17,320 --> 00:32:19,920
Speaker 1: your own experience with a synthetic and then using I

601
00:32:20,040 --> 00:32:22,840
Speaker 1: think the messical that comes from the sun pedro plant.

602
00:32:22,880 --> 00:32:24,800
Speaker 1: I think in the second case the first ones are

603
00:32:24,840 --> 00:32:27,760
Speaker 1: very high dose and was a kind of a lower dose. Um.

604
00:32:27,960 --> 00:32:31,200
Speaker 1: But you also talk about how our view of this

605
00:32:31,480 --> 00:32:34,040
Speaker 1: is so alien to people in the Native American church

606
00:32:34,200 --> 00:32:37,560
Speaker 1: or Indigenous people's for whom the drug quote unquote is

607
00:32:37,560 --> 00:32:42,000
Speaker 1: almost secondary to the ritualistic context, and they're very devoted

608
00:32:42,040 --> 00:32:45,760
Speaker 1: to their cactus and they're not interested in synthetic mescaline.

609
00:32:45,760 --> 00:32:48,320
Speaker 1: And they're not interested in san pedro, and in fact,

610
00:32:48,360 --> 00:32:52,160
Speaker 1: they're not even interested in peyote that's been grown cultivated.

611
00:32:52,360 --> 00:32:54,239
Speaker 1: They think that's not the same either, that it has

612
00:32:54,320 --> 00:32:56,960
Speaker 1: to be wild. And there may be some truth to that.

613
00:32:57,040 --> 00:32:58,719
Speaker 1: I don't know. We haven't grown a lot of penoty,

614
00:32:58,760 --> 00:33:00,680
Speaker 1: but we're gonna try and see what happens. But it

615
00:33:00,800 --> 00:33:04,640
Speaker 1: may be like hydroponic lettuce, you know, it just maybe

616
00:33:04,720 --> 00:33:08,720
Speaker 1: weak um. You know, I think it depends on the drug.

617
00:33:09,520 --> 00:33:13,000
Speaker 1: I think that synthetics are often cleaner and there's less

618
00:33:13,120 --> 00:33:17,640
Speaker 1: gastro intestinal upset. There are other alkaloids we know that

619
00:33:17,800 --> 00:33:20,960
Speaker 1: are active UM. In the same way, Cannabis is not

620
00:33:21,120 --> 00:33:23,440
Speaker 1: just THHC. It has other things going on and and

621
00:33:23,680 --> 00:33:27,000
Speaker 1: maybe other things we haven't yet found. Same with the

622
00:33:27,080 --> 00:33:30,040
Speaker 1: natural forms of most of these drugs. In the case

623
00:33:30,120 --> 00:33:32,080
Speaker 1: of air got, you would not want to eat the

624
00:33:32,200 --> 00:33:35,200
Speaker 1: natural form. That's you know, you could get gang green

625
00:33:35,400 --> 00:33:38,280
Speaker 1: and insanity. I mean, bad things happen. And I just

626
00:33:38,480 --> 00:33:41,040
Speaker 1: say to our listeners, is the connection with LSD, right, Yeah,

627
00:33:41,160 --> 00:33:44,400
Speaker 1: it's the It's the fungus from which LSD is derived

628
00:33:44,560 --> 00:33:49,080
Speaker 1: and has a dark history in European culture of leading

629
00:33:49,080 --> 00:33:51,160
Speaker 1: to all sorts of problems when people ingested it on

630
00:33:52,080 --> 00:33:55,120
Speaker 1: bad grain. Another way to look at this is, um,

631
00:33:55,280 --> 00:33:58,880
Speaker 1: look at coca versus cocaine. You know, Andy and Wade

632
00:33:58,960 --> 00:34:02,240
Speaker 1: Davis have written l quently about how coca leaves, which

633
00:34:02,240 --> 00:34:05,760
Speaker 1: are used like caffeine is in our culture in South America,

634
00:34:06,360 --> 00:34:10,080
Speaker 1: has a lot of positive attributes and very few negative attributes.

635
00:34:10,880 --> 00:34:14,560
Speaker 1: And it is the refinement into cocaine where you end

636
00:34:14,640 --> 00:34:16,640
Speaker 1: up with a powerful drug that people can get into

637
00:34:16,680 --> 00:34:21,360
Speaker 1: trouble with and dit oh, you know opium, poppies, poppy

638
00:34:21,440 --> 00:34:25,080
Speaker 1: tea is or even opium compared to the powerful synthetics

639
00:34:25,160 --> 00:34:29,640
Speaker 1: like fenyl, and so it depends. I mean, if you're

640
00:34:29,640 --> 00:34:32,080
Speaker 1: talking about things of equal strength, that's one argument. If

641
00:34:32,080 --> 00:34:34,239
Speaker 1: you're talking about the fact that you're refining something from

642
00:34:34,320 --> 00:34:38,040
Speaker 1: nature and making it orders of magnitude more intense, that's

643
00:34:38,080 --> 00:34:40,799
Speaker 1: another story. Um. I think we can get hung up

644
00:34:40,840 --> 00:34:44,719
Speaker 1: though on romanticizing things in their natural form, but there

645
00:34:44,760 --> 00:34:47,920
Speaker 1: are some protections and having them in their natural form too,

646
00:34:48,160 --> 00:34:51,359
Speaker 1: which is that they're often weaker and you know, likely

647
00:34:51,440 --> 00:34:54,000
Speaker 1: to be less overwhelming. Yeah. Well, you know. The other

648
00:34:54,040 --> 00:34:56,000
Speaker 1: thing I like about your writing, and especially in the

649
00:34:56,040 --> 00:34:58,319
Speaker 1: most recent book, is the way you throw things into

650
00:34:58,440 --> 00:35:01,719
Speaker 1: historical context. And I'm reading through it and I'm saying

651
00:35:01,719 --> 00:35:03,640
Speaker 1: to myself, I wonder if he's going to mention Shivel Bush,

652
00:35:03,640 --> 00:35:08,000
Speaker 1: won he gonna? And there there's Wolfgang schildren. He both

653
00:35:08,040 --> 00:35:11,800
Speaker 1: this book Tasted Paradise a couple of decades ago, about spices, stimulants,

654
00:35:11,840 --> 00:35:14,279
Speaker 1: and intoxicants, and he points out how in Europe they

655
00:35:14,320 --> 00:35:17,279
Speaker 1: didn't have coffee or tea until the sixteen hundreds. They

656
00:35:17,280 --> 00:35:20,480
Speaker 1: didn't have tobacco, I don't think till the fifteen sixteen hundreds, right,

657
00:35:20,680 --> 00:35:24,719
Speaker 1: that actually spices played a role almost like Nebrians. They

658
00:35:24,760 --> 00:35:27,040
Speaker 1: had alcohol, and they didn't even have hard liquor, right,

659
00:35:27,080 --> 00:35:30,560
Speaker 1: they had low potency alcohol, So spices played that role. Yeah,

660
00:35:30,560 --> 00:35:32,359
Speaker 1: they had a hard cider and things like that. Yeah,

661
00:35:32,640 --> 00:35:36,319
Speaker 1: I forget when distillation comes in, but that's pretty late too. Um. Yeah,

662
00:35:36,360 --> 00:35:39,640
Speaker 1: spices are the kind of forerunners of drugs. Um And

663
00:35:39,760 --> 00:35:42,520
Speaker 1: you know, I mean if you eat chili peppers, right,

664
00:35:42,800 --> 00:35:45,800
Speaker 1: or black pepper, lots of black pepper, you feel flushed

665
00:35:45,880 --> 00:35:48,520
Speaker 1: and you feel it changes consciousness. I mean, there are

666
00:35:48,520 --> 00:35:51,400
Speaker 1: many foods to change consciousness. Sugar Just watch kids with sugar.

667
00:35:51,480 --> 00:35:54,359
Speaker 1: That's their drug. It's a powerful effect. But I love

668
00:35:54,440 --> 00:35:56,759
Speaker 1: that Chivel Bush book and I remember reading it back

669
00:35:56,800 --> 00:35:59,919
Speaker 1: in the eighties and thinking, wow, this is a fast

670
00:36:00,000 --> 00:36:02,719
Speaker 1: sinating area and and that was one of my inspirations

671
00:36:02,920 --> 00:36:04,960
Speaker 1: to write about drugs. The other is a book I

672
00:36:05,000 --> 00:36:09,720
Speaker 1: wonder if you know by uh By Lenson called On Drugs.

673
00:36:10,160 --> 00:36:13,239
Speaker 1: I think that's just a brilliant book that no one's

674
00:36:13,280 --> 00:36:16,359
Speaker 1: heard of about drugs. And um, he's very good at

675
00:36:16,400 --> 00:36:20,840
Speaker 1: looking at the cultural and economic um identity of different drugs.

676
00:36:21,000 --> 00:36:23,400
Speaker 1: You know that cocaine is a consumerist drug, right, you

677
00:36:23,480 --> 00:36:27,319
Speaker 1: always want more. It drives that consumerist economy, and other

678
00:36:27,400 --> 00:36:29,360
Speaker 1: drugs make you very content with what you have in

679
00:36:29,440 --> 00:36:32,280
Speaker 1: front of you, cannabis. And then he had a wonderful

680
00:36:32,360 --> 00:36:36,160
Speaker 1: chapter on LSD and how it was orientalized by Timothy

681
00:36:36,239 --> 00:36:38,560
Speaker 1: Leary and it's really true. You realize it's it's so

682
00:36:38,719 --> 00:36:40,640
Speaker 1: much of you know. He used the Tibetan Book of

683
00:36:40,640 --> 00:36:44,600
Speaker 1: the Dead as the frame for the experience, and it's

684
00:36:44,600 --> 00:36:47,160
Speaker 1: really just about how constructive these drug experiences are, but

685
00:36:47,280 --> 00:36:49,759
Speaker 1: yet they do have qualities that push them in one

686
00:36:49,800 --> 00:36:54,680
Speaker 1: direction or another. Let's take a break here and go

687
00:36:54,800 --> 00:37:10,720
Speaker 1: to an ad. He also writing me about the ways

688
00:37:10,760 --> 00:37:13,560
Speaker 1: in which society has transformed. I mean, alcohol is the

689
00:37:13,680 --> 00:37:16,879
Speaker 1: far and away the most widely consumed drug and revolutionary

690
00:37:17,000 --> 00:37:20,319
Speaker 1: error early nineteenth century America, other parts of the world. Um,

691
00:37:20,520 --> 00:37:23,120
Speaker 1: but then there's the transition here and in other countries,

692
00:37:23,400 --> 00:37:26,000
Speaker 1: United Kingdom elsewhere, man a bunch of the Western world

693
00:37:26,280 --> 00:37:30,279
Speaker 1: to coffee, and that in an increasingly industrialized world, that

694
00:37:30,600 --> 00:37:32,680
Speaker 1: is more appropriate. I love the point you make that

695
00:37:33,080 --> 00:37:36,440
Speaker 1: it can't be just coincidence that both the emergence of

696
00:37:36,560 --> 00:37:39,520
Speaker 1: coffee and the emergence of the minute hand of the

697
00:37:39,680 --> 00:37:42,800
Speaker 1: clock happened around the same time. Yeah. Well, you know

698
00:37:42,920 --> 00:37:46,360
Speaker 1: what's really interesting about the arrival of caffeine, coffee and

699
00:37:46,440 --> 00:37:50,320
Speaker 1: tea and chocolate in Europe. Those three substances arrive in

700
00:37:50,400 --> 00:37:53,319
Speaker 1: the same decade in England, which makes that a really

701
00:37:53,400 --> 00:37:56,080
Speaker 1: a red letter decade as far as I'm concerned. But

702
00:37:56,360 --> 00:37:58,640
Speaker 1: we see it before and after the introduction of a

703
00:37:58,719 --> 00:38:03,920
Speaker 1: of a powerful drug. Because the older drugs like alcohol, cannabis, opium,

704
00:38:03,960 --> 00:38:07,160
Speaker 1: they've been around, you know, since prehistory probably said, we

705
00:38:07,239 --> 00:38:09,320
Speaker 1: don't know what a world without them was really like.

706
00:38:10,120 --> 00:38:12,919
Speaker 1: But we see the arrival at a moment in time

707
00:38:13,000 --> 00:38:15,680
Speaker 1: of caffeine, and it changes things in a profound way.

708
00:38:16,239 --> 00:38:18,279
Speaker 1: And people at the time noticed they're writing about this

709
00:38:18,440 --> 00:38:21,120
Speaker 1: new sober and civil drink and that you know, clerks

710
00:38:21,160 --> 00:38:23,279
Speaker 1: and offices are no longer drunk and they're doing a

711
00:38:23,360 --> 00:38:27,080
Speaker 1: better job and um. And it was immediately grasped that

712
00:38:27,560 --> 00:38:30,040
Speaker 1: this drug was well suited for mental work in a

713
00:38:30,120 --> 00:38:33,400
Speaker 1: way alcohol wasn't, and was well suited for operating machinery.

714
00:38:34,120 --> 00:38:37,399
Speaker 1: So the the industrial revolution, you know, gets a big

715
00:38:37,520 --> 00:38:40,120
Speaker 1: push from the arrival of caffeine. It creates the kind

716
00:38:40,200 --> 00:38:43,279
Speaker 1: of worker that you want. And you know, before that

717
00:38:43,520 --> 00:38:46,080
Speaker 1: people were doing physical work outdoors and it didn't matter

718
00:38:46,160 --> 00:38:48,200
Speaker 1: if you were buzzed, and people were buzz because they

719
00:38:48,200 --> 00:38:51,120
Speaker 1: were drinking, you know, at breakfast, because alcohol was safer

720
00:38:51,200 --> 00:38:54,440
Speaker 1: than water. And that's why you even gave alcohol to

721
00:38:54,560 --> 00:38:56,839
Speaker 1: your kids. Um, in the form of hartsider, I mean,

722
00:38:56,920 --> 00:38:59,839
Speaker 1: not strong forms of alcohol, but but everybody got al

723
00:39:00,080 --> 00:39:04,280
Speaker 1: hall once you start doing work that involves heavy machinery,

724
00:39:04,600 --> 00:39:08,200
Speaker 1: and especially when you need a night shift, you know,

725
00:39:08,320 --> 00:39:10,360
Speaker 1: because these machines are so expensive and you want to

726
00:39:10,440 --> 00:39:13,920
Speaker 1: run them all night. Caffeine is what allows us to

727
00:39:14,080 --> 00:39:18,640
Speaker 1: stay up late. Caffeine disconnects us from uh natural time.

728
00:39:18,719 --> 00:39:21,080
Speaker 1: The time of the sun used to be would work

729
00:39:21,120 --> 00:39:25,239
Speaker 1: from dawn till dusk. With caffeine and electric light or

730
00:39:25,360 --> 00:39:28,879
Speaker 1: gaslight and a few other things like coal, you could

731
00:39:28,920 --> 00:39:31,719
Speaker 1: have a night shift and an overnight shift. And it

732
00:39:31,920 --> 00:39:36,480
Speaker 1: had a profound effect on creating a human being, a

733
00:39:36,640 --> 00:39:39,360
Speaker 1: human body that could work in the in the context

734
00:39:39,520 --> 00:39:44,680
Speaker 1: of a mill or another kind of technological setup. Um. So,

735
00:39:44,840 --> 00:39:46,880
Speaker 1: I think it had a big effect. And if you

736
00:39:47,000 --> 00:39:50,280
Speaker 1: want an example of what's going on with capitalism and caffeine,

737
00:39:50,360 --> 00:39:52,640
Speaker 1: just look at the coffee break and think about that.

738
00:39:52,800 --> 00:39:55,920
Speaker 1: You know, your employer gives you a drug coffee or

739
00:39:55,960 --> 00:39:59,040
Speaker 1: tea and then paid time in which to enjoy it.

740
00:39:59,440 --> 00:40:02,719
Speaker 1: That's InCred Why is your employer doing that not to

741
00:40:02,800 --> 00:40:04,800
Speaker 1: be nice. They're doing it because they know that you

742
00:40:05,040 --> 00:40:07,680
Speaker 1: you will work better and harder and more efficiently. Yeah.

743
00:40:07,880 --> 00:40:09,360
Speaker 1: So part of what you do is you write this

744
00:40:09,440 --> 00:40:13,480
Speaker 1: broad historical perspective and you also raise concerns about the future.

745
00:40:13,880 --> 00:40:16,360
Speaker 1: You point out that with climate change, many of the

746
00:40:16,440 --> 00:40:19,440
Speaker 1: coffee growing regions maybe hurt the most. You know, you

747
00:40:19,560 --> 00:40:22,040
Speaker 1: point out another place that with you know, we've typically

748
00:40:22,080 --> 00:40:25,360
Speaker 1: gotten our opioids from the opium plant, morphine, heroin, etcetera.

749
00:40:25,760 --> 00:40:28,040
Speaker 1: But now we see fentyl emerging, or we see other

750
00:40:28,120 --> 00:40:31,279
Speaker 1: either semi or total synthetics that may be displacing this.

751
00:40:31,840 --> 00:40:35,719
Speaker 1: We now see a for profit psychedelics world that knows

752
00:40:35,800 --> 00:40:38,400
Speaker 1: that part of its opportunity to make money is by

753
00:40:38,480 --> 00:40:42,520
Speaker 1: designing slight variations on the natural substances which they can't patent.

754
00:40:43,160 --> 00:40:46,000
Speaker 1: And so, I mean, any thoughts about where we're going

755
00:40:46,040 --> 00:40:49,200
Speaker 1: in terms of our psychoactive drug use of the future, Well,

756
00:40:49,400 --> 00:40:51,959
Speaker 1: there's a few different futures out there, and I don't

757
00:40:51,960 --> 00:40:53,719
Speaker 1: know which one is going to predominate, but I think

758
00:40:53,760 --> 00:40:56,640
Speaker 1: they're going to be multiple. I mean, there isn't a

759
00:40:56,760 --> 00:40:59,840
Speaker 1: kind of enclosure movement in the corporate world around psychedelics

760
00:40:59,880 --> 00:41:03,240
Speaker 1: and attempt to patent as much as possible. Compass Pathways

761
00:41:03,320 --> 00:41:06,680
Speaker 1: is most notorious for wanting to patent psilocybin, and you

762
00:41:06,800 --> 00:41:09,880
Speaker 1: can't exactly but they patent of one crystalline form of it,

763
00:41:09,960 --> 00:41:12,360
Speaker 1: and whether that's a meaningful patent or not remains to

764
00:41:12,440 --> 00:41:15,799
Speaker 1: be seen. But you know, psilocybin will continue to grow

765
00:41:15,880 --> 00:41:18,480
Speaker 1: in cow patties, it will continue to grow in closets

766
00:41:18,520 --> 00:41:20,879
Speaker 1: and the gardens, and it's I think it'll be hard

767
00:41:20,920 --> 00:41:23,839
Speaker 1: to control. There will be the you know, the natural form,

768
00:41:23,880 --> 00:41:26,120
Speaker 1: the mushroom form that will still be out there, and

769
00:41:26,320 --> 00:41:29,000
Speaker 1: and underground therapy won't go away. I think it will

770
00:41:29,000 --> 00:41:31,799
Speaker 1: actually get even more successful. There was a period where

771
00:41:31,800 --> 00:41:34,200
Speaker 1: the underground therapists were worried they were going to be

772
00:41:34,280 --> 00:41:37,280
Speaker 1: written out of psychedelic medicine. But they're no longer worried

773
00:41:37,280 --> 00:41:39,160
Speaker 1: about that because the demand is going to be so

774
00:41:39,320 --> 00:41:41,759
Speaker 1: great and they have access to the drug and they

775
00:41:42,000 --> 00:41:43,680
Speaker 1: they're the ones with a lot of experience too and

776
00:41:43,719 --> 00:41:46,759
Speaker 1: administering it. And then there's gonna be this religious path.

777
00:41:47,040 --> 00:41:50,320
Speaker 1: I'm very interested to see these new churches or you

778
00:41:50,360 --> 00:41:53,880
Speaker 1: know that use psychedelic as a sacrament. I mean, already

779
00:41:53,920 --> 00:41:56,320
Speaker 1: we have three of them. There's two ayahuasca churches that

780
00:41:56,400 --> 00:41:58,600
Speaker 1: have the legal right to use ayahuasca, and then there's

781
00:41:58,640 --> 00:42:00,560
Speaker 1: the Native American Church, which has a legal right to

782
00:42:00,640 --> 00:42:02,759
Speaker 1: use peyote. But there will be a church of psilocybin

783
00:42:02,840 --> 00:42:05,920
Speaker 1: in a church of LSD. And I think that it's

784
00:42:05,960 --> 00:42:08,239
Speaker 1: going to be very hard for the Supreme Court to

785
00:42:08,840 --> 00:42:11,239
Speaker 1: deny that they are either religions or that this is

786
00:42:11,280 --> 00:42:14,680
Speaker 1: their sacrament, and that the jurisprudence around religious freedom has

787
00:42:14,800 --> 00:42:17,880
Speaker 1: gotten so crazily expansive that I think it's going to

788
00:42:17,920 --> 00:42:20,360
Speaker 1: be like an exploding cigar when it gets to Samuel

789
00:42:20,360 --> 00:42:24,560
Speaker 1: Alito's desk one of these churches, and yeah, we'll see.

790
00:42:24,600 --> 00:42:26,200
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, they don't always feel they have

791
00:42:26,280 --> 00:42:28,520
Speaker 1: to be consistent, you know, they don't they it was saying.

792
00:42:28,520 --> 00:42:30,600
Speaker 1: I mean, I remember Justice Scalia, you mentioned right and

793
00:42:30,719 --> 00:42:33,360
Speaker 1: shot down the Native American Church is right to use peyote,

794
00:42:33,440 --> 00:42:37,000
Speaker 1: and fortunately Congress overturned them. But Scalia was not consistently

795
00:42:37,080 --> 00:42:39,360
Speaker 1: bad on all drug issues. But he may have been

796
00:42:39,440 --> 00:42:42,200
Speaker 1: somebody who just kind of saw America as a Christian

797
00:42:42,280 --> 00:42:45,960
Speaker 1: nation or Judeo Christian nation, as fundamental to his conception

798
00:42:46,040 --> 00:42:48,920
Speaker 1: and that therefore allowing something like this might threaten it.

799
00:42:49,160 --> 00:42:51,719
Speaker 1: But how outrageous, I mean, given the fact that white

800
00:42:51,760 --> 00:42:54,879
Speaker 1: people came to this country seeking religious freedom, the free

801
00:42:54,920 --> 00:42:58,200
Speaker 1: exercise of religion, and they put it in the First Amendment.

802
00:42:58,600 --> 00:43:02,320
Speaker 1: And here are the people who pre existed us using

803
00:43:03,040 --> 00:43:07,160
Speaker 1: their sacrament and being told by the Supreme Court of

804
00:43:07,160 --> 00:43:09,640
Speaker 1: the United States that the drug war is more important

805
00:43:09,680 --> 00:43:12,799
Speaker 1: than your religious practice. I mean, it was just one

806
00:43:12,840 --> 00:43:15,640
Speaker 1: of the most outrageous decisions, and I'm really glad it

807
00:43:15,760 --> 00:43:18,880
Speaker 1: was undone, so you know, you get into the Native

808
00:43:18,880 --> 00:43:21,319
Speaker 1: American Church. One are the interesting things? Well, first of all,

809
00:43:21,320 --> 00:43:23,920
Speaker 1: you make the point that if people, white people and

810
00:43:24,000 --> 00:43:25,800
Speaker 1: all others who are not part of the Native American

811
00:43:25,880 --> 00:43:29,560
Speaker 1: Church are gonna use mescaline, don't get it from peyote,

812
00:43:29,880 --> 00:43:32,080
Speaker 1: get it from the synthetic or else get it from

813
00:43:32,080 --> 00:43:35,399
Speaker 1: then pedro plant, which grows in abundance and is very hearty. Right.

814
00:43:35,760 --> 00:43:39,040
Speaker 1: But you also interestingly pointed out that Native Americans did

815
00:43:39,120 --> 00:43:42,200
Speaker 1: not actually use this until a hundred years or so ago,

816
00:43:42,680 --> 00:43:46,160
Speaker 1: whereas the traditional use went back hundreds of not thousands

817
00:43:46,200 --> 00:43:48,799
Speaker 1: of six thousand years sixth value among the witch all

818
00:43:48,840 --> 00:43:51,640
Speaker 1: in Mexico and others as well. Yeah, the story of

819
00:43:51,680 --> 00:43:54,840
Speaker 1: the Native American Church and how it was created and

820
00:43:54,920 --> 00:43:57,040
Speaker 1: what it did for Native Americans who is to me

821
00:43:57,400 --> 00:44:00,160
Speaker 1: one of the more moving stories I've I've written about. Um.

822
00:44:00,640 --> 00:44:03,320
Speaker 1: It is true that it wasn't until the eighteen eighties

823
00:44:03,360 --> 00:44:05,880
Speaker 1: at least that white people noticed it that they were

824
00:44:06,000 --> 00:44:09,080
Speaker 1: using peyote in a ceremonial way. Um. It was a

825
00:44:09,160 --> 00:44:13,520
Speaker 1: revival of a practice UM that had been continuous in Mexico.

826
00:44:14,080 --> 00:44:16,680
Speaker 1: And remember the distinction between Texas and Mexico is fairly

827
00:44:16,760 --> 00:44:19,839
Speaker 1: recent and peyote grows on both sides of the Rio

828
00:44:19,960 --> 00:44:22,960
Speaker 1: Grand in a strip there and um, there may have

829
00:44:23,080 --> 00:44:27,520
Speaker 1: been Native Americans in Texas South Texas who used it continually,

830
00:44:27,640 --> 00:44:30,400
Speaker 1: but for most Native Americans, it was really when they

831
00:44:30,440 --> 00:44:34,359
Speaker 1: were forced onto reservations in Oklahoma and brought into close

832
00:44:34,440 --> 00:44:37,800
Speaker 1: contact with one another that this practice spread um and

833
00:44:37,920 --> 00:44:41,279
Speaker 1: became a really an inter tribal um practice and did

834
00:44:41,320 --> 00:44:44,840
Speaker 1: a lot to knit different Indian groups together, because remember,

835
00:44:44,920 --> 00:44:48,800
Speaker 1: before we got here, they weren't Native Americans, uh, in

836
00:44:49,160 --> 00:44:51,560
Speaker 1: both in in both senses, there was no America. But

837
00:44:51,719 --> 00:44:55,040
Speaker 1: also they were separate nations, and many of them hated

838
00:44:55,080 --> 00:44:58,480
Speaker 1: each other. They were agrarian people, and there were nomads,

839
00:44:58,520 --> 00:45:01,239
Speaker 1: and they had many different lifestyle and and so it's

840
00:45:01,360 --> 00:45:03,880
Speaker 1: it's only us that have forced them to be lumped together.

841
00:45:04,239 --> 00:45:06,960
Speaker 1: And the Native American Church when that phrases invented, is

842
00:45:07,000 --> 00:45:09,759
Speaker 1: the first time the phrase Native American is used. And

843
00:45:09,840 --> 00:45:13,160
Speaker 1: that doesn't happen to but anyway. At a at a

844
00:45:13,280 --> 00:45:18,560
Speaker 1: moment of maximum trauma for American Indians in the eighteen eighties,

845
00:45:18,680 --> 00:45:22,040
Speaker 1: this is after the Ghost Dance has been suppressed violently,

846
00:45:22,080 --> 00:45:25,399
Speaker 1: there's a massacre at wounded knee. This is after um,

847
00:45:25,840 --> 00:45:30,239
Speaker 1: we've begun taking Indian children from their parents, cutting off

848
00:45:30,280 --> 00:45:33,640
Speaker 1: their hair, putting them in boarding schools, where the avowed

849
00:45:33,640 --> 00:45:35,680
Speaker 1: aim was to and this is a quote to kill

850
00:45:35,760 --> 00:45:38,480
Speaker 1: the Indian and save the man. It was the policy

851
00:45:38,520 --> 00:45:41,600
Speaker 1: of the US government to destroy Indian culture. Um. Many

852
00:45:41,719 --> 00:45:45,720
Speaker 1: of their religious practices were outlawed, the sun dance, for example,

853
00:45:45,840 --> 00:45:48,680
Speaker 1: and and by the way, we're outlawed until the Carter administration.

854
00:45:49,239 --> 00:45:52,680
Speaker 1: So this is a kind of horrible episode. And um,

855
00:45:53,320 --> 00:45:57,400
Speaker 1: the Native Americans found that peyote used in ceremony was

856
00:45:58,320 --> 00:46:02,760
Speaker 1: helped accommodate them to their new lives, um and helped

857
00:46:02,800 --> 00:46:05,560
Speaker 1: heal them from things like alcohol, which don't really become

858
00:46:05,560 --> 00:46:10,000
Speaker 1: a problem until reservation life. And so you know, this

859
00:46:10,239 --> 00:46:13,720
Speaker 1: is a traumatized people, and they found relief in Payote

860
00:46:13,840 --> 00:46:16,920
Speaker 1: and continue to the Payote is um is is Now.

861
00:46:17,040 --> 00:46:18,960
Speaker 1: You know, there're two or fifty thousand members at least

862
00:46:19,040 --> 00:46:21,440
Speaker 1: in the Native American Church, and and I don't know

863
00:46:21,520 --> 00:46:24,000
Speaker 1: how many different tribes, but dozens and dozens of tribes.

864
00:46:24,320 --> 00:46:26,160
Speaker 1: So it's a very hopeful story. And it's a story

865
00:46:26,239 --> 00:46:28,799
Speaker 1: from which we we stand to learn a lot well.

866
00:46:28,880 --> 00:46:30,800
Speaker 1: And closing let me just say, you know, when I

867
00:46:30,880 --> 00:46:34,040
Speaker 1: think about the future of psychoelic assistant psychotherapy and whether

868
00:46:34,120 --> 00:46:37,040
Speaker 1: health insurance will pay for it. Reading in your book

869
00:46:37,200 --> 00:46:41,960
Speaker 1: that the Indian Health SUS pays for peyote sessions, I mean,

870
00:46:42,120 --> 00:46:45,360
Speaker 1: what a great you know, precedent for covering the costs,

871
00:46:45,440 --> 00:46:48,680
Speaker 1: like sister therapy soles like. Thank you so much for

872
00:46:48,800 --> 00:46:51,200
Speaker 1: joining me. It's great to catch up. I love your

873
00:46:51,239 --> 00:46:53,320
Speaker 1: new book. Um, do you have any plans what the

874
00:46:53,360 --> 00:46:56,520
Speaker 1: next book is? Not yet? Not yet, I'm I'm working

875
00:46:56,600 --> 00:46:58,800
Speaker 1: on that. I've been too busy with this one. Always

876
00:46:58,800 --> 00:47:01,040
Speaker 1: a pleasure to talk to you. Ethan, Yes, YouTube, Michael,

877
00:47:01,120 --> 00:47:06,319
Speaker 1: thanks very much. Psychoactive is a production of I Heart

878
00:47:06,400 --> 00:47:10,280
Speaker 1: Radio and Protozoa Pictures. It's hosted by me Ethan Naedelman.

879
00:47:10,560 --> 00:47:14,360
Speaker 1: It's produced by Katcha Kumkova and Ben Cabrick. The executive

880
00:47:14,400 --> 00:47:18,479
Speaker 1: producers are Dylan Golden, Ari Handel, Elizabeth Geesus and Darren

881
00:47:18,520 --> 00:47:22,600
Speaker 1: Aronovski for Protozoa Pictures, Alice Williams and Matt Frederick for

882
00:47:22,680 --> 00:47:26,480
Speaker 1: iHeart Radio and me Ethan Nadelman. Our music is by

883
00:47:26,520 --> 00:47:29,919
Speaker 1: Ari Belusian and a special thanks to avivt Brio sef

884
00:47:30,239 --> 00:47:34,359
Speaker 1: Bianca Grimshaw, and Robert Beatty. If you'd like to share

885
00:47:34,360 --> 00:47:37,440
Speaker 1: your own stories, comments, or ideas, please leave us a

886
00:47:37,520 --> 00:47:43,359
Speaker 1: message at eight three three seven seven nine sixty. That's

887
00:47:43,560 --> 00:47:49,080
Speaker 1: one eight three three psycho zero. You can also email

888
00:47:49,200 --> 00:47:52,400
Speaker 1: us as psychoactive at protozoa dot com or find me

889
00:47:52,440 --> 00:47:55,399
Speaker 1: on Twitter at Ethan Nadelman. And if you couldn't keep

890
00:47:55,400 --> 00:47:57,759
Speaker 1: track of all this, find the information in the show

891
00:47:57,840 --> 00:48:00,319
Speaker 1: notes zero