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Speaker 1: From UFOs to ghosts and government cover ups. History is

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Speaker 1: riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or

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Speaker 1: learn the stuff they don't want you to. Now. Little

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Speaker 1: by little, I would begin to enjoy the unprecedented colors

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Speaker 1: and plays of shapes that persisted behind my closed eyes.

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Speaker 1: Kaleidoscopic fantastic images surged in on me, alternating variegated opening

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Speaker 1: and then closing themselves in circles and spirals, exploding in

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Speaker 1: colored fountains, rearranging and hybridizing themselves in their constant flocks.

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Speaker 1: Then are you okay? Oh yeah, I'm fine. I'm actually

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Speaker 1: just reading a quotation from guy named Albert Hoffman. This

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Speaker 1: comes from April nineteenth, ninety three, a day that some

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Speaker 1: of you out there will recognize for its importance. But

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Speaker 1: who are you again? What are we doing? Oh? Yeah,

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Speaker 1: this okay. So we're in the podcast room. My name

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Speaker 1: is Matt, and then we're here with our super producer,

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Speaker 1: Noel Owsley Brown, and that makes this stuff they don't

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Speaker 1: want you to know. Yes, are you're doing all right? Matt? Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I'm fine, man. Everything's good in the neighborhood, right, guys, right,

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Speaker 1: you can just look a little paranoid a little different. No, No,

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Speaker 1: I'm fine. I just want to talk about Albert Hoffman, right,

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Speaker 1: Oh yeah, tell us about Albert Hoffman. So he's the

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Speaker 1: guy who is considered the person who discovered LSD as

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Speaker 1: a hallucinogen because he took a famous bike ride, right,

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Speaker 1: he accidentally spilled a little on himself, Yes, and took

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Speaker 1: the most astonishing bike ride in history up to that time,

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Speaker 1: probably since the invention of the penny farthing. This idea

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Speaker 1: of LSD as a lucinogen was relatively new, but LSD

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Speaker 1: had been synthesized before and since that time, numerous people

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Speaker 1: have claimed that LSD and other drugs called hallucinogens have

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Speaker 1: abilities far beyond those of the typical recreational drugs like

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Speaker 1: alcohol or marijuana. That's right, And there are lots of

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Speaker 1: weird stories that go along with LSD that kind of

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Speaker 1: create this, uh, this mythos of LSD. There's one that's

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Speaker 1: kind of a true story about Francis Crick. You may

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Speaker 1: have heard that name before, and how he quote discovered

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Speaker 1: the double helix shape of DNA that we're all familiar

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Speaker 1: with while he was on an acid trip. However, while

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Speaker 1: it is true that Crick and James Watson, along with

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Speaker 1: Maurice Wilkins did work on d N A, they didn't

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Speaker 1: necessarily discover it right. The person who is the m

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Speaker 1: v P of the DNA story, there is a British

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Speaker 1: biophysicist named Rosalind Franklin photo rapt DNA, but she was

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Speaker 1: snubbed at the Nobel Prize ceremony. She also died for

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Speaker 1: years before it was awarded, and for those familiar with

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Speaker 1: the Nobel Prize will recall that they are not awarded posthumously.

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Speaker 1: But it sounds like Crick and Watson. Crick and Watson

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Speaker 1: snubbed her. Make no mistake, Crick huge fan of LSD.

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Speaker 1: But that story in itself has uh grains of things

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Speaker 1: that are not entirely true. And if you if you

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Speaker 1: hear a lot of people talking about Krick, make sure

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Speaker 1: that you mentioned Rosslyn Franklin as well. There is, however,

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Speaker 1: a story about LSD which is absolutely true. It's the

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Speaker 1: old tale you may have heard about once upon a

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Speaker 1: time a professional baseball player here in the States being

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Speaker 1: just tripping balls high out of his mind, yes, and

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Speaker 1: pitching a no hitter. And there have only been I

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Speaker 1: think maybe two hundred and forty seven no hitters in

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Speaker 1: the history of pro baseball. Any, yeah, not many, but

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Speaker 1: listeners right in. I'm sure our baseball fans will check

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Speaker 1: me on this one because I can't remember where I

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Speaker 1: found that number. But how did this happen? Matt Well,

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Speaker 1: The gentleman's name is Doc Ellis, and there's a documentary

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Speaker 1: out on Netflix right now. You can watch called No

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Speaker 1: No a documentary with spelled d O c K. It's

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Speaker 1: pretty funny. I actually watched it. This is one of

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Speaker 1: my father in law's favorite stories. So Doc Ellis was

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Speaker 1: kind of known for, uh, doing some strange things while

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Speaker 1: he was pitching, like drug He was the Belushi of

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Speaker 1: the Pirates. He really was. Um. But yeah, when when

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Speaker 1: he did this, he he he said that times slowed down, right,

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Speaker 1: the size of the ball would change while he was

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Speaker 1: on the field. Um. In the documentary, he just he

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Speaker 1: kind of makes light of it. Actually, he's like, yeah,

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Speaker 1: it wasn't even a really a big deal, right, But

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Speaker 1: it really did happen, and unfortunately, his drug use is

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Speaker 1: probably part of the reason that he did not go

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Speaker 1: on to continue his rise to fame. But that story

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Speaker 1: is absolutely true, and there are other stories with varying

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Speaker 1: degrees of truth about the strange and at this point

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Speaker 1: still mysterious interaction that hallucinations can have with the human

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Speaker 1: being's brain. But there is one big question that comes

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Speaker 1: up time and time again and isn't encountering a resurgence

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Speaker 1: in popular culture today, and that is this, So can hallucinogens?

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Speaker 1: Can these substances have some kind of curative effect when

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Speaker 1: dealing with things like addiction? Ah? Yes, addiction. Yeah, it's

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Speaker 1: an ugly topic, but let's let's talk about it just

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Speaker 1: for a little bit. For some people, addiction is like

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Speaker 1: a ghost to a skeptic. Right, It's something you might

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Speaker 1: not necessarily believe in because you have not encountered it yourself,

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Speaker 1: but you still find yourself whistling ever so uncomfortably when

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Speaker 1: you walk through a dark place at night. Right. For others,

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Speaker 1: the term addiction conjures the image of someone in their life,

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Speaker 1: a friend, a relative, a loved one gone or on

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Speaker 1: the way out, like a guttering candle. For others, the

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Speaker 1: word addiction invokes a shame, right, a memory, or a

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Speaker 1: desire for substance behavior and action or feeling. But what

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Speaker 1: is clinically speaking, what is an addiction. Right, Well, clinically speaking,

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Speaker 1: it's a primary chronic disease of brain reward. It's something

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Speaker 1: like a motivation or a memory or some kind of

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Speaker 1: related circuitry in the brain that associates one thing with

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Speaker 1: pleasure usually, right, And that is a very important thing

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Speaker 1: to note for our purposes today. An addiction has a

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Speaker 1: physiological observable, a process in the human body and effect.

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Speaker 1: So addiction this is a quote. Your addiction effects neurotransmission

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Speaker 1: and interactions within reward structures of the brain, including the

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Speaker 1: nucleus acumbans, the anterior singulate cortex, the basil forebrain, the amygdala,

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Speaker 1: such that motivational hierarchies are altered and addictive behaviors supplant

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Speaker 1: healthy self care related behaviors. So what this means is,

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Speaker 1: it's kind of a it's it's kind of a detour

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Speaker 1: if your brain is an inner state, which is yeah, sure,

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Speaker 1: it becomes the priority. You're gonna take this exit every time,

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Speaker 1: and all the rest of the stuff on that highway

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Speaker 1: doesn't matter, which could be everything from eating, from getting

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Speaker 1: your body nourishment to taking care of responsibilities in your life. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and a lot of those things you hear about with addiction,

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Speaker 1: the priorities or the the behaviors, right, A lot of

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Speaker 1: that can be traced to specific areas of the brain. Again,

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Speaker 1: one thing that is very difficult for a lot of

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Speaker 1: people who are dealing with addiction or have whether it's

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Speaker 1: their own addiction or someone in their life. Right, One

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Speaker 1: thing that can be difficult to accept is that there

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Speaker 1: is a physiological basis. It's not just someone being a jerk. Right, yeah, yeah,

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Speaker 1: absolutely so. Um, we also know that this is a

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Speaker 1: widespread problem. Right, we have statistics to back it up. Oh, yeah,

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Speaker 1: there are tons of statistics. This thing, addiction, this whatever

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Speaker 1: you want to call it. Uh, it is rampant. There

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Speaker 1: are let's see, in the U s Alone, twenty three

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Speaker 1: million people over the age of twelve suffer some from

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Speaker 1: some sort of addiction, either alcohol or drug related. According

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Speaker 1: to the w h OH, the World Health Organization, the

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Speaker 1: harmful use of alcohol alone results in three point three

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Speaker 1: million deaths each year. Despite the fact that less than

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Speaker 1: half of the global population drinks alcohol, so less than

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Speaker 1: half of the world drinks there are still three point

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Speaker 1: three million deaths a year. Yeah, that's uh. When we

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Speaker 1: say less than half, we mean a little over thirty

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Speaker 1: eight percent, right, so it's still it's still more than

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Speaker 1: a third of the population. I think that statistics tricky

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Speaker 1: because it's how you phrase it. But yeah, three point

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Speaker 1: three million documented deaths at least that we were not

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Speaker 1: certain at how why the methodology goes for that number.

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Speaker 1: So for instance, it could just be counting uh, deaths

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Speaker 1: due to srotic livers. It could be counting deaths due

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Speaker 1: to drunk driving. It could and it doesn't necessarily mean addiction,

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Speaker 1: right right, Like it could be an overdose or a

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Speaker 1: car crash or something harmful. Use of alcohol is a

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Speaker 1: specific phrase they used to but we we do know regardless.

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Speaker 1: Um oh, and I guess we should say here, Matt two,

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Speaker 1: that addiction itself is not always something like alcoholism or

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Speaker 1: opium or even caffeine or nicotine or some other drug.

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Speaker 1: It could be a behavioral thing that your brain has

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Speaker 1: latched onto, right, And we we've seen these kinds of

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Speaker 1: addictions before, uh not in our personal lives, hopefully, But

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Speaker 1: addiction is real and it's dangerous worldwide. Again, we can

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Speaker 1: see the mechanisms of addiction leaving physical marks in the

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Speaker 1: human brain. So given all of these the financial and

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Speaker 1: the human cost of addiction on the world on a

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Speaker 1: global scale, all the way from petty crime to massive

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Speaker 1: illegal drug markets. Let's take a second, hey, HSBC, look

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Speaker 1: at that. Some people still remember that you hang out

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Speaker 1: hardcore with drug cartels and you haven't gotten in trouble,

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Speaker 1: you haven't gotten in any serious trouble, but you you

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Speaker 1: run money for drug cartels. I'm sorry to interrupt. Well,

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Speaker 1: I think it's safe to say that some of the

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Speaker 1: traditional programs, this the twelve step programs, they've been I

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Speaker 1: don't want to say debunked, because that's not true. They've

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Speaker 1: been shown to be a lot less effective than I

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Speaker 1: guess we had fought, right, Yeah, that is that is

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Speaker 1: true because there are some difficulties grabbing numbers there. But

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Speaker 1: also at this point, research has shown that there are

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Speaker 1: several factors that may contribute to a better chance at

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Speaker 1: rehabilitation from addiction, you know, like a support of community,

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Speaker 1: a family, a sense of purpose, things like that. However,

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Speaker 1: there is no one size fits all solution at this point.

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Speaker 1: Absolutely not. Now, this is something that we kind of

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Speaker 1: want to look at. That doesn't maybe it doesn't necessarily

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Speaker 1: pertain to this episode. I'm not sure. Let's let's let's

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Speaker 1: look into it and see what you think. Um, So,

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Speaker 1: do are there governments and corporations out there that don't

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Speaker 1: necessarily want people to be free from addiction? Okay? I see, Okay,

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Speaker 1: I think I see where you're going. Right, Yeah, I

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Speaker 1: think what I'm trying to say is money, Well yeah, money,

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Speaker 1: but also also control. And this is this is a tangent,

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Speaker 1: it's a bit conspiratorial. But we do know that this

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Speaker 1: kind of encouragement of addiction has occurred at a state

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Speaker 1: level before. In the Opium Wars, right, the primary British

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Speaker 1: export that they were pushing was opium, which can have

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Speaker 1: a horrendous effect on a population, right, And and it did,

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Speaker 1: and the Opium Wars were essentially an economic attempt to establish,

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Speaker 1: you know, severenity over an independent civilization. Right. But it's true,

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Speaker 1: It's totally true the British were slinging opium and encouraging

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Speaker 1: addiction amongst these people. And arguably, especially if you're Gary Webb,

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Speaker 1: you would say that that occurred more recently in the States,

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Speaker 1: and while the British government was profiting like gangbusters because

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Speaker 1: they were just shipping opium out like crazy, right, Yeah, yeah, yeah, um,

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Speaker 1: so there is truth that drugs could be used to

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Speaker 1: divide and control of population in a more I guess,

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Speaker 1: a more current stance. Iran has all but openly accused

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Speaker 1: Western powers of financing an illegal drug trade to destabilize

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Speaker 1: the country, and crystal meth is quickly replacing or quickly

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Speaker 1: catching up to opium is one of the most abused drugs.

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Speaker 1: And another thing we talked about in our episode on

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Speaker 1: the DPRK was their meth habits. Right, Yeah, there's also

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Speaker 1: a massive rise in the use of crystal meth there

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Speaker 1: in DPRK or North Korea, so we have to have

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Speaker 1: that question present when we ask ourselves about the nature

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Speaker 1: of addiction and addiction treatment. We've seen a lot of studies,

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Speaker 1: especially in Western Europe, which is on the whole a

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Speaker 1: little bit more humane with its treatment of prisoners or

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Speaker 1: people on the wrong side of the law, and what

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Speaker 1: they've found is that they have more success when they

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Speaker 1: have rehabilitation centers rather than I guess, punitive measures at

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Speaker 1: the forefront. Right. But also, these are very different places

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Speaker 1: with very different populations, so I'm not by a new

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Speaker 1: means saying it's a one to one comparison. The enclosed

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Speaker 1: culture is so different, I would be interested to see

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Speaker 1: how one of those facilities would function in the US. Right, yeah,

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Speaker 1: So where do hallucinogens fit in with this? If we

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Speaker 1: if we go past the tangent, and we do really

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Speaker 1: want to hear what you think about it. H If

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Speaker 1: addiction is a thing that can be fully found in

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Speaker 1: the human brain, a real thing, not an attitude, right,

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Speaker 1: not an opinion, but a a neurochemical, neurological thing, then

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Speaker 1: where do hallucinogens fit in with this? Right? Because hallucinogens

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Speaker 1: are drugs, right sure? Yeah, I mean totally legally, definitely technically.

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Speaker 1: So let's look at the definition here, or just define

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Speaker 1: some things before we hop in. Um. So, hallucination is

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Speaker 1: a substance, such as a drug, that causes people to

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Speaker 1: see or sense things that are not real. It's also

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Speaker 1: a substance that causes hallucinations. Now, I know it sounds

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Speaker 1: pretty simple, maybe a little too simple, but there are

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Speaker 1: three common types of hallucinogens. Okay, there are There are psychedelics,

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Speaker 1: there are dissociatives, and there are deliriums. So let's look

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Speaker 1: at LSD, which we mentioned at the very top with

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Speaker 1: Albert Hoffman it's a psychedelic like mescaline or d m T,

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Speaker 1: which we have an episode on. If you're interested, check

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Speaker 1: it out, it's in the video category. Here's the thing,

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Speaker 1: there's still quite a few questions about what exactly LSD

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Speaker 1: or mescaline or d MT due to the human brain.

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Speaker 1: While they could be class of as lucting gen's together

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Speaker 1: in a group, it doesn't mean that they are the

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Speaker 1: exact same. Thing We think that might it might work

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Speaker 1: is what's called a five H T two a receptor agonist.

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Speaker 1: But again we think this basically means that one of

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Speaker 1: the mechanisms they see it doing is that it binds

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Speaker 1: to serotonin receptors. However, right, yes, serotonin the field goods uh,

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Speaker 1: the scratches behind the ears of your brain. However, Uh.

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Speaker 1: There haven't been many, at least publicized studies on neurological

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Speaker 1: effects or processes of LSD experimentation, but it has been

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Speaker 1: studied as a possible treatment for alcoholism. And we'll have

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Speaker 1: more on that in a second, because that's not the

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Speaker 1: only drug. We'll talk about too, Like, what's a disassociative.

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Speaker 1: So dissociative is something like ketamine K special K special K,

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Speaker 1: which confused me because you know I'm square when I

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Speaker 1: created here. Uh, this is these have been used experimentally

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Speaker 1: to treat heroin addiction, or at least there are attempts

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Speaker 1: currently to try and make that work. And delirious that

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Speaker 1: third thing. These are a little bit less fun, but

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Speaker 1: they're fascinating to talk about. You may have heard about

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Speaker 1: things like Man Drake or Deadly Nightshade or Jimpson Weed,

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Speaker 1: you know, the witchcraft stuff. I've heard of some of

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Speaker 1: that from my RPGs that I play, right, Yeah, yeah,

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Speaker 1: I'm sure you can collect Man Drake and a lot

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Speaker 1: of RPGs. So these plants contain a thing called atropine,

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Speaker 1: which is considered an essential medicine by the World's Health

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Speaker 1: Organization because as a variety of uses. However, if you

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Speaker 1: go to UM a website called Arrowwood dot com which

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Speaker 1: has it's like a user run thing about a user

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Speaker 1: run forum about drug use. Yeah, people talk about their experiences, right, right,

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Speaker 1: And we're not in any way, of course, condoning the

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Speaker 1: use of something illegal, because is if you use something illegal,

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Speaker 1: then the consequences are probably going to outnumber the benefits, right,

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Speaker 1: It's true. But but on that site, I would say

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Speaker 1: it is. It is maybe a helpful tool to see

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Speaker 1: some of the negative and positive experiences with drugs if

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Speaker 1: you're trying to get an objective viewpoint of what it

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Speaker 1: is like to do that drug. Sure, I'm just saying

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Speaker 1: that if you're going to take an illegal drug because

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Speaker 1: you think it will help you quit smoking or something,

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Speaker 1: that's that's that's a terrible reason to go to jail. Agreed,

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Speaker 1: Because I'm sure you'll go to a nons fucking jail,

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Speaker 1: find a clinical trial. That's all I can say. So,

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Speaker 1: But this is, this is the thing, these deliriums, right,

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Speaker 1: this atropine. Most people, at least the people we found

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Speaker 1: on rowit and people who had talked about trying it,

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Speaker 1: did not seem keen to repeat the experience. This seems

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Speaker 1: one of the more unpleasant drugs to do. But if

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Speaker 1: we put all of this together, it turns out that

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Speaker 1: this general group of drugs making neurochemical changes to parts

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Speaker 1: of the brain might also, as a side effect, disrupt

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Speaker 1: that cycle of reward and motivation, the engine powering addiction.

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Speaker 1: So we know that these different drugs have all been

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Speaker 1: used two hopefully to combat some form of addiction. Right,

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Speaker 1: that's right, and these substances, these these drugs, hallucinogens have

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Speaker 1: been they've been tested for quite a while, maybe maybe

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Speaker 1: not a long time. Well, you can go back through

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Speaker 1: history and you can look at some of the tribes

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Speaker 1: that use things like ayahuasca, and you can say hundreds

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Speaker 1: of years, sometimes thousands of years. But if we go

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Speaker 1: back to the nineteen sixties, we can actually look at

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Speaker 1: colleges like Harvard who were who were conducting studies with hallucinogens.

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Speaker 1: You can look at the Harvard Psilocybin Project. This was

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Speaker 1: UM a study by Timothy Leary and Richard Albert you

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Speaker 1: might recognize as those names. It was done at the

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Speaker 1: Department of Psychology at Harvard from nineteen sixty to nineteen

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Speaker 1: sixty three. UH. In these studies, psilocybin was administered to

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Speaker 1: volunteer subjects. These were mostly graduate students, a couple of

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Speaker 1: times undergraduate students, and that's why the studies stopped in

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Speaker 1: nineteen sixty three. UM. But the way they were studied,

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Speaker 1: this is what they would do. Then they would have

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Speaker 1: these graduate students come into their the place where they

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Speaker 1: were testing, and both the subject and the tester, the

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Speaker 1: person who was supposedly administering this thing, would take psilocybin

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Speaker 1: and they would see what happened to make a recording

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Speaker 1: of it. And that was the extent of their testing.

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Speaker 1: That sounds a little bit like just people hanging out

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Speaker 1: and recording themselves doing drugs, right, And that's what a

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Speaker 1: lot of the faculty at the at Harvard said, And

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Speaker 1: that's ultimately I think why it got shut down. But

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Speaker 1: then those two guys Leary and Albert Albert became rom

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Speaker 1: Doss Timothy Leary. They both became huge members of the

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Speaker 1: counterculture with hallucinogens. Yeah, you're right, turn on, tune in,

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Speaker 1: drop out. I think that's the way it went exactly.

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Speaker 1: Then you've got a second one at Harvard, Ben, I'm

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Speaker 1: just gonna mention really fastly. I found pretty pretty funny.

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Speaker 1: It was called the Good Friday Experiment. Now, this one

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Speaker 1: was actually a double blind test, unlike the Lerian Albert study,

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Speaker 1: where there were there were twenty students who were given capsules.

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Speaker 1: Each one is given a capsule. Ten of them had

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Speaker 1: psilocybin in them. Uh, I'm not sure about the dosage.

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Speaker 1: It didn't say in the document I was reading. But

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Speaker 1: then the other ten had an active placebo and nice

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Speaker 1: cnic acid. It'll give you nice and rush, so you

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Speaker 1: feel like something's going on, but there's no hallucinogen. And

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Speaker 1: nice and rush also used in scientology. The it gets

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Speaker 1: your skin hot, kind of itchy, and you feel flushed.

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Speaker 1: That's one of the big that's one of the biggest,

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Speaker 1: most obvious symptoms, but you definitely feel like something's happening exactly.

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Speaker 1: So what they did is they all all these twenty

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Speaker 1: students went in, they took their pill, and they went

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Speaker 1: to a Good Friday service at Harvard. This was done

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Speaker 1: at Harvard University, but it was at Boston University where

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Speaker 1: they went to a Good Friday service, and eight of

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Speaker 1: the ten who received the hallucinogen reported quote mystical experiences,

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Speaker 1: though it is kind of funny. One of the students

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Speaker 1: apparently had to be restrained and given thorazine, which is

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Speaker 1: an anti psychotic, after he ran around, ran out of

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Speaker 1: the chapel down the street and proclaimed that he had

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Speaker 1: to tell the whole world about the new Messiah coming in.

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Speaker 1: So that's one of those stories that you would hear

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Speaker 1: in the news maybe about a drug like this. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and one thing that's what's fascinating there is that we

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Speaker 1: see if you check out studies like that um and

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Speaker 1: leaving alone in k Ultra and other cetto experiments, because

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Speaker 1: those those happened as well, and those those were not

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Speaker 1: related to addiction as much as they were the possibility

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Speaker 1: of controlling someone. Right. But one thing that all of

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Speaker 1: those studies show is that the usual patterns of the

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Speaker 1: way your mind works. If we go with the interstate

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Speaker 1: the road system, uh starts to get detours, It gets chaotic,

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Speaker 1: traffic is weird, you know what I mean? The same

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Speaker 1: roads you drive every day don't lead you to the

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Speaker 1: same place. Cognitively, the whole road becomes hyperdimensional? Right, and

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Speaker 1: where are we? What? What is this thing asking we? Uh?

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Speaker 1: So there's another study that that applies this, this eyebo

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Speaker 1: gain stuff, which has been used as a bark showed

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Speaker 1: by various tribes I think, including people identifying as the

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Speaker 1: pygmy people. Uh. This this has been used as in

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Speaker 1: small amounts as a stimulant and larger amounts to encourage

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Speaker 1: a mystical experience. In study called the treatment of Acute

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Speaker 1: opioid withdrawal with eyebo gain found that it's a promising

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Speaker 1: tool for combating heroin addiction, and the study specifically argues,

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Speaker 1: and this is something that's weird to mean, the study

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Speaker 1: specifically argues that chemists should make a form of the

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Speaker 1: drug divorced from the psychoactive feelings it creates that instead, uh,

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Speaker 1: this should be this should just function like methodone, right,

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Speaker 1: like nothodone remove some of the pain of heroin withdrawal,

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Speaker 1: but doesn't get you high, if I understand, or it's

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Speaker 1: similar to this is a thing that's happening here in Georgia.

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Speaker 1: It's similar to the Yeah, the politicians who want to

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Speaker 1: take a moral stance and they say, well, we're going

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Speaker 1: to make this thing purely as a medicine, and we

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Speaker 1: assure you, we can ensure you one thing. Definitely, it

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Speaker 1: is a medicine and it won't be something people will

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Speaker 1: do for fun. And that's that's because you know, here

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Speaker 1: in the States, there is this the state this country

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Speaker 1: is very very different to Portugal or some other place. Right. Uh,

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Speaker 1: there are punitive measures taken for drug abuse. And there

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Speaker 1: is a very very strong argument that this attitude is

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Speaker 1: economically motivated. Right, but so so I think that's weird.

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Speaker 1: But what they found in this Eyebogain study is that

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Speaker 1: it did work. It helped people get off heroin, which

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Speaker 1: is a tremendously difficult drug to to free oneself from,

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Speaker 1: and other studies indicate that it has been useful in

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Speaker 1: treating other other issues, not necessarily addiction issues, but other issues,

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Speaker 1: dating all the way back to nine seven. Yeah, the

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Speaker 1: CIA studied it in the fifties and one of the

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Speaker 1: one of the things that you'll read often is people

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Speaker 1: have even used it to get folks off of addiction

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Speaker 1: to crack cocaine. Yeah. I, And people aren't tremendously sure

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Speaker 1: how they estimate that. There are maybe two two big

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Speaker 1: things that occur here. The first is metabolic, so ibocaine

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Speaker 1: creates a protein that blocks receptors in the brain that

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Speaker 1: trigger those cravings. So it kind of nips withdrawal in

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Speaker 1: the bud because your brain doesn't recognize that at once

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Speaker 1: that itch scratched, right. Yeah, And here's the weird thing.

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Speaker 1: It tends to remove those withdrawals immediately, just like that,

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Speaker 1: bringing people back to their pre addiction stage and a

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Speaker 1: normal rehabilitation. That journey can take months. The second effect

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Speaker 1: is much less clinical. It's where we verge into the

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Speaker 1: philosophical spiritual stuff, which is that eye Bolcaine seems to

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Speaker 1: inspire a dream like state with intense introspection, so people,

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Speaker 1: you know, journey back through the matrix of their mind

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Speaker 1: and find out, you know, they look at themselves from

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Speaker 1: outside in. I guess that's one of the things that

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Speaker 1: I keep hearing as I was looking into this. It's

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Speaker 1: that these psychedelics, more so than anything, give a wider perspective,

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Speaker 1: almost perspective outside of the ego of the person who

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Speaker 1: is going through addiction, and there they can finally look

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Speaker 1: at themselves and say, why the heck am I doing this?

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Speaker 1: At least that's that's that seems to be the common

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Speaker 1: thread that I've been reading throughout these studies. But hype, again,

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Speaker 1: isn't the only thing that they've been testing, not just psilocybin,

424
00:27:35,760 --> 00:27:39,920
Speaker 1: not just lsd UM. If you look at ketamine, it's

425
00:27:39,920 --> 00:27:43,080
Speaker 1: been used in psychotherapy for heroin addiction as well. Uh,

426
00:27:43,160 --> 00:27:47,760
Speaker 1: it appears to have immediate effects. And also um they

427
00:27:47,840 --> 00:27:49,680
Speaker 1: I think there's a study where they did a two

428
00:27:49,720 --> 00:27:54,159
Speaker 1: year follow up already, so they looked at patients, um

429
00:27:54,280 --> 00:27:57,000
Speaker 1: who are who are using ketamine as a psychotherapy, and

430
00:27:57,040 --> 00:28:00,240
Speaker 1: they seem to be less likely to to relapse after

431
00:28:00,280 --> 00:28:03,000
Speaker 1: two years. They also seem to be less likely to

432
00:28:03,080 --> 00:28:09,000
Speaker 1: crave heroin, which is really nice, right, Yeah, And then

433
00:28:09,040 --> 00:28:11,359
Speaker 1: if we go back, I think we mentioned earlier this

434
00:28:11,400 --> 00:28:14,800
Speaker 1: study on LSD and alcoholism to write in two thousand twelves,

435
00:28:14,800 --> 00:28:19,440
Speaker 1: some researchers Terry Krebs and Paul or John found that

436
00:28:19,400 --> 00:28:22,320
Speaker 1: they did a retrospective analysis. So what that means is

437
00:28:22,359 --> 00:28:24,920
Speaker 1: they took a bunch of existing studies from the sixties

438
00:28:24,920 --> 00:28:27,640
Speaker 1: and the seventies, they put them all together. They ran

439
00:28:27,720 --> 00:28:30,880
Speaker 1: the numbers on the results across all of these studies,

440
00:28:30,920 --> 00:28:34,000
Speaker 1: many by people who did not know one another, and

441
00:28:34,040 --> 00:28:37,560
Speaker 1: what they found is that fifty of people who took

442
00:28:37,800 --> 00:28:41,200
Speaker 1: LSD in these studies who are alcoholics reported lower levels

443
00:28:41,200 --> 00:28:44,320
Speaker 1: of alcohol abuse compared to thirty eight percent of people

444
00:28:44,320 --> 00:28:49,800
Speaker 1: receiving a placebo. So there especially. I know those numbers

445
00:28:49,920 --> 00:28:52,920
Speaker 1: might not sound super impressive if it were one study,

446
00:28:53,000 --> 00:28:57,760
Speaker 1: but across multiple studies spanning decades, that is a compelling point.

447
00:28:58,040 --> 00:29:01,800
Speaker 1: And these types of trials, it's teams are continuing, if anything,

448
00:29:01,880 --> 00:29:05,120
Speaker 1: experiencing a bit of a renaissance, which leads me to

449
00:29:05,160 --> 00:29:08,080
Speaker 1: a question, Matt, what why did this take solong. If

450
00:29:08,120 --> 00:29:12,320
Speaker 1: addiction is such a big problem, then why didn't doctors

451
00:29:12,520 --> 00:29:16,120
Speaker 1: and governments go down this route earlier? Well because of

452
00:29:16,240 --> 00:29:19,960
Speaker 1: Nixon ben yeh, that's I'm just kidding, because not just

453
00:29:20,000 --> 00:29:22,680
Speaker 1: because it's because of things that were put in place

454
00:29:22,720 --> 00:29:26,600
Speaker 1: during the Nixon administration though, about classifying Schedule one drugs

455
00:29:26,600 --> 00:29:32,080
Speaker 1: with hallucinogens other even marijuana. Uh, some of the uses

456
00:29:32,120 --> 00:29:36,160
Speaker 1: of th HC in high enough doses can be hallucinogens.

457
00:29:36,200 --> 00:29:38,560
Speaker 1: And there are all these drugs that were placed under

458
00:29:38,600 --> 00:29:43,680
Speaker 1: this restrictive Schedule one tier. And uh, I think that's

459
00:29:43,680 --> 00:29:48,600
Speaker 1: why because doctors nobody wants there there, you know, prestigious

460
00:29:48,960 --> 00:29:51,880
Speaker 1: university or wherever you're going to be conducting studies to

461
00:29:51,960 --> 00:29:56,360
Speaker 1: be you know, using illegal substances, right, because Schedule one

462
00:29:56,640 --> 00:30:01,000
Speaker 1: is bad business here here in the US, drugs are

463
00:30:01,320 --> 00:30:06,160
Speaker 1: classified according to these groups that are for some reason

464
00:30:06,200 --> 00:30:08,640
Speaker 1: called a schedule, which has to be so confusing if

465
00:30:08,640 --> 00:30:10,880
Speaker 1: you've never heard of it. So they're like schedule to

466
00:30:11,080 --> 00:30:14,720
Speaker 1: Schedule three. Schedule one is the worst of the bunch.

467
00:30:14,960 --> 00:30:20,200
Speaker 1: No medical use right, no medicinal value. Yeah, what highly

468
00:30:20,680 --> 00:30:27,000
Speaker 1: highly addictive, high likelihood of of health effects, right of

469
00:30:27,000 --> 00:30:30,720
Speaker 1: of dilatorious effects on your health. There's something I can't

470
00:30:30,720 --> 00:30:32,840
Speaker 1: remember the exact wording, but the biggest one is no

471
00:30:33,000 --> 00:30:36,840
Speaker 1: medical use, right, there's no reason to prescribe it. And

472
00:30:37,000 --> 00:30:41,200
Speaker 1: certain things have in the past been miss placed in

473
00:30:41,280 --> 00:30:44,920
Speaker 1: that schedule or moved, but it's very, very difficult right

474
00:30:45,040 --> 00:30:48,920
Speaker 1: to get that changed. And of course there are conspiracy theories,

475
00:30:51,240 --> 00:30:53,000
Speaker 1: especially if you go back to the idea of control,

476
00:30:53,400 --> 00:30:56,320
Speaker 1: several of which you can hear in our earlier shows. Yeah,

477
00:30:57,040 --> 00:30:59,000
Speaker 1: we highly recommend you check it out. What do we

478
00:30:59,040 --> 00:31:02,120
Speaker 1: do we did, We did the marijuana conspiracy, did a

479
00:31:02,200 --> 00:31:03,760
Speaker 1: little bit on it. I don't think we've done an

480
00:31:03,800 --> 00:31:06,840
Speaker 1: audio show on it. No, there are special and d

481
00:31:06,960 --> 00:31:10,400
Speaker 1: MT just about whether or not there's a whole another

482
00:31:11,040 --> 00:31:13,680
Speaker 1: realm that you can access through that drug. And why

483
00:31:13,760 --> 00:31:17,440
Speaker 1: so many people taking d MT tend to report the

484
00:31:17,800 --> 00:31:21,480
Speaker 1: same or very similar experiences energy beings or the gnomes,

485
00:31:22,120 --> 00:31:25,400
Speaker 1: the machine els or the spirit machines. But again, and

486
00:31:25,440 --> 00:31:27,120
Speaker 1: I would just like to say, we are not encouraging

487
00:31:27,160 --> 00:31:32,280
Speaker 1: anyone to go out and do these things. Yeah, consult

488
00:31:32,360 --> 00:31:36,480
Speaker 1: your doctor, don't do it illegally. It's not It just

489
00:31:36,520 --> 00:31:40,880
Speaker 1: seems so ironic and terrible and unfair, I know, for

490
00:31:41,000 --> 00:31:45,840
Speaker 1: someone who has a problem that they feel might be helped,

491
00:31:46,040 --> 00:31:50,400
Speaker 1: you know, uh, and then find themselves in jail or

492
00:31:50,400 --> 00:31:53,840
Speaker 1: even prison for attempting to do it. And unfortunately that

493
00:31:54,040 --> 00:31:57,880
Speaker 1: is that is a possible consequence. Also, Matt, neither of

494
00:31:57,960 --> 00:32:02,120
Speaker 1: us are doctors. No, don't think you're a doctor. Roll

495
00:32:02,240 --> 00:32:04,960
Speaker 1: is more of a doctor of love, you know. But

496
00:32:05,480 --> 00:32:10,760
Speaker 1: so we we know that other people have experimented with this.

497
00:32:10,920 --> 00:32:13,920
Speaker 1: Let's talk about Bill Wilson, one of the founders of

498
00:32:13,960 --> 00:32:17,520
Speaker 1: Alcoholics Anonymous. He tried LSD in a study and it

499
00:32:17,640 --> 00:32:22,040
Speaker 1: inspired him, in part to start Alcoholics Anonymous, and he

500
00:32:22,080 --> 00:32:25,640
Speaker 1: even told other members of the organization to try it out.

501
00:32:25,720 --> 00:32:29,880
Speaker 1: But however, the fellowship at large disagreed because and I

502
00:32:29,920 --> 00:32:32,160
Speaker 1: see how this is, this is a valid point to them,

503
00:32:32,240 --> 00:32:34,920
Speaker 1: They said, the the idea of treating those who cannot

504
00:32:35,000 --> 00:32:38,800
Speaker 1: control their substance use with another substance seemed then is

505
00:32:38,840 --> 00:32:43,800
Speaker 1: now heretical. Uh. The link between spirituality and sobriety, however,

506
00:32:43,960 --> 00:32:47,960
Speaker 1: remains a mainstay of the modern a recovery thing, which

507
00:32:48,000 --> 00:32:51,960
Speaker 1: is interesting because Bill Wilson said that he had a

508
00:32:52,040 --> 00:32:56,120
Speaker 1: mystic experience like a spiritual experience, and that story comes

509
00:32:56,160 --> 00:32:58,280
Speaker 1: to us by a writer named Kelly board Debt writing

510
00:32:58,320 --> 00:33:02,520
Speaker 1: for The Fix. So if we look at that the

511
00:33:02,600 --> 00:33:06,840
Speaker 1: politics of alcoholics anonymous or at least that's the opinion

512
00:33:06,880 --> 00:33:09,800
Speaker 1: that piece may have held back some progress on LSD.

513
00:33:10,000 --> 00:33:11,960
Speaker 1: Now that's a very small part of it, of course,

514
00:33:12,040 --> 00:33:15,640
Speaker 1: because as you said, the seventies, the the scheduling of

515
00:33:15,680 --> 00:33:19,920
Speaker 1: stuff is really what was a hindrance to this kind

516
00:33:19,920 --> 00:33:23,520
Speaker 1: of research. But these aren't the only things holding back

517
00:33:23,760 --> 00:33:27,880
Speaker 1: these studies. Let's look an example. Dr John Halpern. He's

518
00:33:27,920 --> 00:33:31,480
Speaker 1: the head of the Laboratory for Integrative Psychiatry at the

519
00:33:31,640 --> 00:33:36,080
Speaker 1: McLean Hospital. He's running an m d M A cancer study. Well,

520
00:33:36,080 --> 00:33:39,120
Speaker 1: he told the New York Times, quote, what drug company

521
00:33:39,200 --> 00:33:42,120
Speaker 1: is going to invest millions in a substance widely available

522
00:33:42,160 --> 00:33:46,960
Speaker 1: in our flora and fauna? Government regulations are predictively tight. Also,

523
00:33:47,280 --> 00:33:52,040
Speaker 1: stigma looms large for those interested scientists. Okay, so that

524
00:33:52,120 --> 00:33:54,320
Speaker 1: sounds like there are a couple of different things going

525
00:33:54,360 --> 00:33:57,600
Speaker 1: on there. One it's there. This seems like there's not

526
00:33:57,720 --> 00:34:01,600
Speaker 1: much of a financial incent to especially if something's already

527
00:34:01,640 --> 00:34:05,760
Speaker 1: on a schedule, to to pay for it. Yeah, because

528
00:34:05,800 --> 00:34:07,120
Speaker 1: you can go out and pick it. Is what this

529
00:34:07,120 --> 00:34:09,560
Speaker 1: guy is saying, why would you pay for it outside?

530
00:34:09,560 --> 00:34:13,239
Speaker 1: Why would you monetize ayahuasca or something right, uh? And

531
00:34:13,280 --> 00:34:15,560
Speaker 1: then or what would be the use? And then it

532
00:34:15,600 --> 00:34:19,080
Speaker 1: also sounds like the strict government regulations up the price

533
00:34:19,120 --> 00:34:22,759
Speaker 1: tag even more. The stigma part is interesting to me

534
00:34:22,920 --> 00:34:27,120
Speaker 1: because academic stigma is such a big deal, and more

535
00:34:27,160 --> 00:34:29,839
Speaker 1: so than people know outside of the Ivory Tower. It's

536
00:34:30,000 --> 00:34:34,560
Speaker 1: chilling to wonder how many legitimate things have been shut

537
00:34:34,600 --> 00:34:37,640
Speaker 1: down because they didn't fit with the current orthodoxy of

538
00:34:37,640 --> 00:34:40,520
Speaker 1: a given discipline. Or we're just chosen not to even

539
00:34:40,600 --> 00:34:44,520
Speaker 1: be be looked into by someone because they were afraid

540
00:34:44,520 --> 00:34:47,520
Speaker 1: of that stigma. And but there's another reason here too,

541
00:34:47,640 --> 00:34:50,239
Speaker 1: and I think that's a great point. You don't want

542
00:34:50,280 --> 00:34:54,560
Speaker 1: to risk your career for something that ends up being malarkey. Right.

543
00:34:55,080 --> 00:34:59,800
Speaker 1: There is another point here, though, that is exciting dangerous territory.

544
00:35:00,480 --> 00:35:03,839
Speaker 1: We we mean, the human species, don't know a lot

545
00:35:03,880 --> 00:35:06,120
Speaker 1: about how many of these drugs work. I mean, m

546
00:35:06,200 --> 00:35:08,360
Speaker 1: d m A doesn't just show promise for cancer. It

547
00:35:08,360 --> 00:35:12,480
Speaker 1: shows promise for uh, post traumatic stress disorder treatment. Right,

548
00:35:12,800 --> 00:35:15,000
Speaker 1: But like the rest of these drugs, it has side

549
00:35:15,040 --> 00:35:18,279
Speaker 1: effects that we have yet to comprehend. And and the

550
00:35:18,320 --> 00:35:21,080
Speaker 1: analogy it makes me think of is it might be

551
00:35:21,120 --> 00:35:24,120
Speaker 1: the equivalent of trying to shave with a chainsaw. I mean,

552
00:35:24,120 --> 00:35:27,719
Speaker 1: you're gonna you're gonna get the hair off, but what

553
00:35:27,840 --> 00:35:33,920
Speaker 1: else will you lose in the process? Or So, if

554
00:35:33,960 --> 00:35:36,080
Speaker 1: you want to learn more about all of this stuff,

555
00:35:36,080 --> 00:35:38,120
Speaker 1: there are a lot of places you can go. One

556
00:35:38,160 --> 00:35:42,760
Speaker 1: of them is MAPS dot org. That's the Multidisciplinary Association

557
00:35:42,880 --> 00:35:48,520
Speaker 1: for Psychedelic Studies again, that's MAPS, m APS dot org. Yes,

558
00:35:48,600 --> 00:35:50,560
Speaker 1: and we have a question for you as well, listeners.

559
00:35:50,840 --> 00:35:54,040
Speaker 1: Do you think this research has been actively suppressed? We

560
00:35:54,160 --> 00:35:59,120
Speaker 1: hear this sometimes in stories that relate to uh, you know,

561
00:35:59,360 --> 00:36:02,959
Speaker 1: the the idea of cure for HIV or a cure

562
00:36:03,040 --> 00:36:06,560
Speaker 1: for cancer. Is there is there a silver bullet cure

563
00:36:06,640 --> 00:36:08,919
Speaker 1: for addiction that was being suppressed? And if so, why

564
00:36:09,040 --> 00:36:11,799
Speaker 1: we know there's a stigma for scientists. We know, you know, Matt,

565
00:36:11,880 --> 00:36:13,799
Speaker 1: as you said that the anti drug culture of the

566
00:36:13,880 --> 00:36:17,120
Speaker 1: seventies in the in the West, at least in the States,

567
00:36:17,160 --> 00:36:20,719
Speaker 1: held this back. But as that changes, are we going

568
00:36:20,760 --> 00:36:22,960
Speaker 1: to see more stuff? Or because we want to be

569
00:36:23,000 --> 00:36:25,640
Speaker 1: fair to the other side, Matt, or is this a

570
00:36:25,719 --> 00:36:28,080
Speaker 1: bunch of bunk by people who want to get paid

571
00:36:28,600 --> 00:36:32,479
Speaker 1: to trip acid. Right, But before we move on, let's

572
00:36:32,520 --> 00:36:34,560
Speaker 1: make an important point here. We want to make this

573
00:36:34,640 --> 00:36:39,279
Speaker 1: abundantly clear. While we might be joking around about some

574
00:36:39,440 --> 00:36:42,560
Speaker 1: aspects of this kind of stuff, we are by no

575
00:36:42,719 --> 00:36:49,160
Speaker 1: means cavalier about the horrors of addiction. Statistically speaking, it

576
00:36:49,280 --> 00:36:52,560
Speaker 1: is quite possible that someone listening to this show right

577
00:36:52,600 --> 00:36:57,600
Speaker 1: now has some sort of relationship with an addiction, whether

578
00:36:57,640 --> 00:37:01,360
Speaker 1: it's your own addiction, whether it's the addiction of someone

579
00:37:01,400 --> 00:37:06,000
Speaker 1: else you know, right, And this is a disease. This

580
00:37:06,120 --> 00:37:11,640
Speaker 1: is not again, this is not someone just being crappy,

581
00:37:11,719 --> 00:37:13,919
Speaker 1: you know what I mean? There there is a there's

582
00:37:13,960 --> 00:37:16,880
Speaker 1: a reason for this, there's a physiological reason. This is

583
00:37:16,920 --> 00:37:21,480
Speaker 1: not an attitude. And the best thing that we can do,

584
00:37:22,120 --> 00:37:25,319
Speaker 1: we again being the human species, of course, is to

585
00:37:25,520 --> 00:37:31,200
Speaker 1: attempt to help anyone in that kind of situation and

586
00:37:31,760 --> 00:37:35,439
Speaker 1: ways to treat it right. And if you yourself need

587
00:37:36,040 --> 00:37:39,359
Speaker 1: some sort of you know, you need some sort of help,

588
00:37:39,440 --> 00:37:42,439
Speaker 1: don't know what to do? Then now more than ever,

589
00:37:42,520 --> 00:37:45,400
Speaker 1: although I hate to steal that line, it is possible

590
00:37:45,600 --> 00:37:48,719
Speaker 1: to find help. So please. I know it's probably a

591
00:37:48,719 --> 00:37:52,360
Speaker 1: corny cliche thing that people say, but a lot of

592
00:37:52,440 --> 00:37:55,719
Speaker 1: corny and cliche. Things are corny and cliche because they

593
00:37:55,760 --> 00:38:00,359
Speaker 1: are true. Please, it is easy now, easier now than ever,

594
00:38:00,480 --> 00:38:04,120
Speaker 1: to to find some sort of light in the darkness.

595
00:38:05,320 --> 00:38:07,759
Speaker 1: With that in mind, and in pardon the soapbox, what

596
00:38:07,840 --> 00:38:10,879
Speaker 1: do you think about doing some listener mail? Absolutely been

597
00:38:15,880 --> 00:38:18,520
Speaker 1: I've got one right here, and this is kind of

598
00:38:18,560 --> 00:38:20,840
Speaker 1: a long one, listeners, So Ben and I are going

599
00:38:20,920 --> 00:38:24,680
Speaker 1: to switch back and forth and tell you all about it.

600
00:38:26,080 --> 00:38:29,600
Speaker 1: This is a message from Dan, and Dan says, Hey, there,

601
00:38:29,880 --> 00:38:32,000
Speaker 1: I'm a longtime fan of how Stuff Works, but I've

602
00:38:32,000 --> 00:38:35,640
Speaker 1: only recently started listening to your particular podcast. I've listened

603
00:38:35,680 --> 00:38:37,680
Speaker 1: to s Y s K that stuff you should know

604
00:38:38,440 --> 00:38:41,360
Speaker 1: right back from two thousand eight, back when I was

605
00:38:41,440 --> 00:38:44,360
Speaker 1: but a wee lad of fourteen, but I've rarely felt

606
00:38:44,400 --> 00:38:47,360
Speaker 1: motivated to contact Josh and Chuck. Well, hey, you should

607
00:38:47,360 --> 00:38:50,560
Speaker 1: contact them, dude. They'll probably listen to you. They're pretty kill,

608
00:38:51,440 --> 00:38:55,680
Speaker 1: especially after the move over towards antisocial media. Your show. However,

609
00:38:55,760 --> 00:38:58,000
Speaker 1: I've only just discovered suffice it to say that I

610
00:38:58,040 --> 00:39:01,239
Speaker 1: haven't been seen without earphones, and since then, and with

611
00:39:01,280 --> 00:39:03,919
Speaker 1: a myriad of other videos left to check out, I've

612
00:39:03,960 --> 00:39:09,359
Speaker 1: been info binging and we uh, We're gonna go through

613
00:39:09,600 --> 00:39:13,160
Speaker 1: parts of this story here Dan uh So. Dan said,

614
00:39:13,200 --> 00:39:15,520
Speaker 1: from a very young age, I've always just been so

615
00:39:15,600 --> 00:39:19,240
Speaker 1: into learning, learning about anything I could, discovering at first

616
00:39:19,239 --> 00:39:21,400
Speaker 1: how stuff works, then later stuff you should gave me

617
00:39:21,480 --> 00:39:23,560
Speaker 1: plenty and plenty to think about. And I certainly got

618
00:39:23,600 --> 00:39:27,000
Speaker 1: into thinking, but as anyone who knows me knows, with me,

619
00:39:27,040 --> 00:39:29,880
Speaker 1: there's always been a yearning for something more than just thinking.

620
00:39:30,160 --> 00:39:33,520
Speaker 1: I got it first into psychedelics, then deeply into philosophy,

621
00:39:33,760 --> 00:39:38,239
Speaker 1: a stud a philosophy of religion, uh, biology, chemistry, geography,

622
00:39:38,239 --> 00:39:41,440
Speaker 1: critical thinking at a level which, from what I can guess,

623
00:39:41,480 --> 00:39:43,640
Speaker 1: is sort of like high school for you guys. It

624
00:39:43,800 --> 00:39:46,399
Speaker 1: was at college where I first discovered critical thinking, which

625
00:39:46,480 --> 00:39:48,840
Speaker 1: leads me back to the point of my email. And

626
00:39:48,880 --> 00:39:50,919
Speaker 1: then he goes on to summarize just a little bit

627
00:39:50,960 --> 00:39:55,480
Speaker 1: about how he passes A levels, got into a good university,

628
00:39:56,160 --> 00:40:03,320
Speaker 1: and he realized that he didn't just like learning and

629
00:40:03,920 --> 00:40:07,279
Speaker 1: something was missing right because he wanted to study, uh,

630
00:40:07,360 --> 00:40:10,640
Speaker 1: something other than philosophy. But then he decided he needed

631
00:40:10,640 --> 00:40:13,839
Speaker 1: to study philosophy, so he went to the department and

632
00:40:14,040 --> 00:40:18,239
Speaker 1: asked them if he could study in their department to

633
00:40:18,320 --> 00:40:20,799
Speaker 1: my delight. They said that I'd impressed them so much

634
00:40:20,800 --> 00:40:22,600
Speaker 1: in their interview that they love to have me as

635
00:40:22,600 --> 00:40:26,279
Speaker 1: a student there in their faculty. But I'd have to

636
00:40:26,320 --> 00:40:28,799
Speaker 1: wait until the next year because there's no aya i'd

637
00:40:28,840 --> 00:40:30,760
Speaker 1: be able to catch up on what I had already missed.

638
00:40:30,800 --> 00:40:34,719
Speaker 1: I was devastated. Before long, everything hit the fan. It

639
00:40:34,800 --> 00:40:36,880
Speaker 1: went down the pan, out the window, to the dogs,

640
00:40:36,880 --> 00:40:39,000
Speaker 1: and spread around in a few other areas. The fan

641
00:40:39,080 --> 00:40:42,040
Speaker 1: was powerful. It got very messy. I won't go into

642
00:40:42,080 --> 00:40:45,920
Speaker 1: the details because I could write you ten emails about why, what, who, where?

643
00:40:46,000 --> 00:40:48,760
Speaker 1: But I found myself with a pretty bad heroin addiction.

644
00:40:49,960 --> 00:40:52,719
Speaker 1: And I'll summarize a little bit here. Uh. He ended

645
00:40:52,840 --> 00:40:58,239
Speaker 1: up eventually dropping out of university, and he decided to

646
00:40:58,280 --> 00:41:01,160
Speaker 1: go to rehabilitation, and he had a lot of help

647
00:41:01,239 --> 00:41:04,080
Speaker 1: from his parents or pushing on that, and he was

648
00:41:04,160 --> 00:41:09,720
Speaker 1: relatively isolated. And in this time he began focusing on

649
00:41:09,760 --> 00:41:12,200
Speaker 1: what he was hearing and remembering lots of stuff he'd

650
00:41:12,200 --> 00:41:15,759
Speaker 1: forgotten in his addiction. I'll pick it up here, remembering

651
00:41:15,800 --> 00:41:19,120
Speaker 1: back the philosophy and books such as Manufacturing Consent by

652
00:41:19,120 --> 00:41:22,440
Speaker 1: Noam Chomsky, the no Logo by Naomi Klein, as well

653
00:41:22,480 --> 00:41:26,799
Speaker 1: as existentialist and dystopian literature like Nausea by Sartre, Fear

654
00:41:26,840 --> 00:41:30,240
Speaker 1: and Trembling by Kirka, Guard Human, All Too Human by Nietzsche,

655
00:41:30,320 --> 00:41:33,840
Speaker 1: and of course Brave New World in N four And

656
00:41:33,920 --> 00:41:37,600
Speaker 1: he says, after leaving rehab and after many relapses, right

657
00:41:37,680 --> 00:41:40,120
Speaker 1: up until basically the time I found your podcast a

658
00:41:40,160 --> 00:41:43,160
Speaker 1: few weeks ago, I find myself now writing this email,

659
00:41:43,400 --> 00:41:45,800
Speaker 1: remembering back to my A levels and thinking to myself

660
00:41:46,000 --> 00:41:48,600
Speaker 1: how critical thinking classes were an odd thing to find

661
00:41:48,600 --> 00:41:52,399
Speaker 1: back then. This is why I'm emailing you. I am

662
00:41:52,440 --> 00:41:55,320
Speaker 1: writing to thank you for confronting me with the power

663
00:41:55,360 --> 00:41:58,640
Speaker 1: of critical thinking and helping me to remember why I

664
00:41:58,719 --> 00:42:03,680
Speaker 1: was so fascinated with knowledge to begin with. And Dan

665
00:42:03,760 --> 00:42:06,000
Speaker 1: goes on to say, thinking in itself is half of

666
00:42:06,040 --> 00:42:08,719
Speaker 1: my problem. I over analyzed and overthink to the point

667
00:42:08,760 --> 00:42:11,279
Speaker 1: that I have no firm ground to establish myself upon.

668
00:42:11,719 --> 00:42:14,240
Speaker 1: But in discovering your podcast, I've learned some new things,

669
00:42:14,239 --> 00:42:17,319
Speaker 1: been reminded of a lot I've learned before, but most importantly,

670
00:42:17,640 --> 00:42:20,360
Speaker 1: been inspired to go out and learn more. I know

671
00:42:20,440 --> 00:42:23,120
Speaker 1: I have the power to shape my life with knowledge, thoughts,

672
00:42:23,160 --> 00:42:25,840
Speaker 1: and ideas, but I had forgotten I don't want you

673
00:42:25,880 --> 00:42:28,560
Speaker 1: to feel responsible in case I trip up again. But

674
00:42:28,640 --> 00:42:31,320
Speaker 1: it is in this reignition of my passions I'm able

675
00:42:31,360 --> 00:42:34,600
Speaker 1: to say no to heroin once more. This time, five

676
00:42:34,719 --> 00:42:36,960
Speaker 1: or six weeks ago, I was laying in a squat

677
00:42:37,040 --> 00:42:40,800
Speaker 1: injecting any vein I could find, with no friends, no family,

678
00:42:40,800 --> 00:42:43,960
Speaker 1: no values, morals or any hope, just an iPod. And

679
00:42:44,000 --> 00:42:46,080
Speaker 1: today I stid proud, saying that even though it's early

680
00:42:46,160 --> 00:42:48,560
Speaker 1: days again, I found the courage to pick myself up

681
00:42:48,600 --> 00:42:50,960
Speaker 1: off the floor yet again. It doesn't matter if you

682
00:42:51,040 --> 00:42:53,799
Speaker 1: fall over as long as you can stand up afterwards.

683
00:42:54,920 --> 00:42:57,239
Speaker 1: You know, Dan, we we can't read the whole letter,

684
00:42:57,239 --> 00:43:01,240
Speaker 1: and they're probably parts that we shouldn't read, but uh,

685
00:43:01,280 --> 00:43:04,680
Speaker 1: this this is uh, this is a powerful thing, and

686
00:43:05,880 --> 00:43:08,000
Speaker 1: we I know that I can say. I can't I

687
00:43:08,040 --> 00:43:10,160
Speaker 1: can't speak for everybody on the show, but I can

688
00:43:10,239 --> 00:43:13,759
Speaker 1: definitely say that keep going, man. I hope that when

689
00:43:13,800 --> 00:43:17,279
Speaker 1: you hear this this this is um a few months

690
00:43:17,320 --> 00:43:21,160
Speaker 1: old now, but I hope when you hear this episode

691
00:43:21,680 --> 00:43:25,440
Speaker 1: that you're able to, you know, lift your chin up

692
00:43:25,760 --> 00:43:30,600
Speaker 1: and think about the amazing role you're on, the amazing streak. Yeah, yeah,

693
00:43:30,600 --> 00:43:33,319
Speaker 1: I keep keep going strong, Dan, I think maybe you

694
00:43:33,360 --> 00:43:35,520
Speaker 1: give Ben and Ben and I a little too much

695
00:43:35,560 --> 00:43:39,880
Speaker 1: credit there, for sure, But we are certainly glad that

696
00:43:39,960 --> 00:43:42,600
Speaker 1: you appreciate what we're doing. What we're doing here, and

697
00:43:42,640 --> 00:43:45,120
Speaker 1: we appreciate the effort that you're putting in every day.

698
00:43:45,160 --> 00:43:48,560
Speaker 1: So keep going, man, and uh, we'll be here. So

699
00:43:48,719 --> 00:43:52,239
Speaker 1: keep listening. We hope we'll be here, yes, But and

700
00:43:52,280 --> 00:43:56,920
Speaker 1: also for for anybody else listening again, there are there,

701
00:43:56,960 --> 00:43:59,799
Speaker 1: There is light at the end of the tunnel, and

702
00:44:00,000 --> 00:44:04,480
Speaker 1: and we hope that you have enjoyed this episode despite that,

703
00:44:04,520 --> 00:44:08,279
Speaker 1: this is despite it being a very heavy subject um.

704
00:44:08,360 --> 00:44:11,400
Speaker 1: And we will keep you updated as we learn more

705
00:44:11,480 --> 00:44:16,560
Speaker 1: about the legal status of hallucinogens used to treat addiction

706
00:44:16,840 --> 00:44:19,319
Speaker 1: and the upcoming studies, because there are a lot that

707
00:44:19,400 --> 00:44:22,040
Speaker 1: are still out there. The one thing I'm super hooked

708
00:44:22,040 --> 00:44:25,239
Speaker 1: on is caffeine, and I haven't found any study about that.

709
00:44:25,360 --> 00:44:28,000
Speaker 1: You and me both, buddy, You and me both, and

710
00:44:28,080 --> 00:44:31,480
Speaker 1: probably most people actually want to look around, I don't

711
00:44:31,480 --> 00:44:33,480
Speaker 1: know how many people. I don't think there are many

712
00:44:33,480 --> 00:44:36,319
Speaker 1: of that aren't addicted to caffeine here. I don't know

713
00:44:36,360 --> 00:44:38,839
Speaker 1: how we would do this job without it. Yeah, yeah,

714
00:44:38,920 --> 00:44:42,000
Speaker 1: you know, it's strange out One one thing for anybody

715
00:44:42,040 --> 00:44:46,160
Speaker 1: who is contemplating twitting caffeine. Uh, you know, I guess,

716
00:44:46,520 --> 00:44:49,680
Speaker 1: do do what you will, but do be careful. If

717
00:44:49,680 --> 00:44:52,279
Speaker 1: you get the caffeine headaches and you take a pain

718
00:44:52,280 --> 00:44:55,560
Speaker 1: reliever to stop those headaches, check the pain reliever first

719
00:44:55,560 --> 00:44:57,799
Speaker 1: because a lot of them contain caffeine as well. Uh.

720
00:44:57,920 --> 00:45:02,480
Speaker 1: And those caffeine headaches are real. I have tried a

721
00:45:02,480 --> 00:45:05,760
Speaker 1: couple of times to stop, and man, I get splitting

722
00:45:05,760 --> 00:45:11,320
Speaker 1: headaches when I don't have enough. That's terrifying. So anyway, wait,

723
00:45:11,360 --> 00:45:15,879
Speaker 1: what what is that noise? I'm not sure, but I

724
00:45:15,920 --> 00:45:19,600
Speaker 1: think it means it's time for our movement with normal. Hey, Neil,

725
00:45:19,680 --> 00:45:22,080
Speaker 1: how's it going? Man? It's going okay, how are you?

726
00:45:22,320 --> 00:45:25,160
Speaker 1: We're doing all right? Pretty pretty heavy subject here today.

727
00:45:25,680 --> 00:45:30,160
Speaker 1: But but there's there's an inspiring thing or possible good news.

728
00:45:30,200 --> 00:45:33,040
Speaker 1: You know, if we have if we have this ability

729
00:45:33,280 --> 00:45:35,480
Speaker 1: being civilization, not the three of us, but if we

730
00:45:35,560 --> 00:45:40,680
Speaker 1: have this ability to help people out of an addiction,

731
00:45:41,280 --> 00:45:44,560
Speaker 1: you know, it's it's food for thought for sure. What

732
00:45:44,600 --> 00:45:47,320
Speaker 1: do you think? Yeah? I mean one thing that occurred

733
00:45:47,360 --> 00:45:49,480
Speaker 1: to me when you guys were talking about alternatives for

734
00:45:49,560 --> 00:45:53,560
Speaker 1: treating serious addictions, like like heroin and opiate addiction. Um,

735
00:45:54,239 --> 00:45:56,919
Speaker 1: how you know there aren't a ton of inroads being

736
00:45:56,920 --> 00:45:59,680
Speaker 1: made to alternatives and things like a methodone And it

737
00:45:59,719 --> 00:46:01,759
Speaker 1: kind of got me thinking about this documentary I saw

738
00:46:02,120 --> 00:46:05,040
Speaker 1: years ago called Methodonia that's sort of about like how

739
00:46:05,400 --> 00:46:09,799
Speaker 1: many methodone clinics are privately owned and almost treated like franchises,

740
00:46:09,960 --> 00:46:12,920
Speaker 1: like of a McDonald's or something, And so there's a

741
00:46:12,920 --> 00:46:14,319
Speaker 1: lot of profit, there's a lot of money to be

742
00:46:14,400 --> 00:46:16,840
Speaker 1: made in in that kind of treatment, and you know,

743
00:46:16,920 --> 00:46:18,919
Speaker 1: to your point of like, well, are are they really

744
00:46:18,920 --> 00:46:20,840
Speaker 1: trying to get people off it? Are they just substituting

745
00:46:20,920 --> 00:46:23,960
Speaker 1: one addiction for another? And a lot of people that

746
00:46:23,960 --> 00:46:25,680
Speaker 1: that take methodon end up taking it, you know, for

747
00:46:25,719 --> 00:46:27,759
Speaker 1: the rest of their lives or for a very coolent time.

748
00:46:28,080 --> 00:46:30,200
Speaker 1: And it kind of got me doing a little internet

749
00:46:30,280 --> 00:46:32,920
Speaker 1: rabbit holing, and I found this article from the Boston

750
00:46:32,920 --> 00:46:36,120
Speaker 1: Globe from last year about how this private equity firm

751
00:46:36,160 --> 00:46:39,799
Speaker 1: Bank Capital spent seven hundred million dollars acquiring a chain

752
00:46:39,840 --> 00:46:43,200
Speaker 1: of methodone clinics in the Boston area. And it just,

753
00:46:43,239 --> 00:46:45,000
Speaker 1: I mean not to say that because someone's making a

754
00:46:45,040 --> 00:46:47,840
Speaker 1: profit on something that means necessarily an insidious thing, but

755
00:46:47,960 --> 00:46:49,920
Speaker 1: It just does kind of get you thinking, especially when

756
00:46:49,920 --> 00:46:53,320
Speaker 1: there are you know, more natural alternative I did not

757
00:46:53,440 --> 00:46:57,360
Speaker 1: know that they were privatized. Yeah, it's a mix, but

758
00:46:57,400 --> 00:46:59,920
Speaker 1: I mean there's definitely a large, a large contingent of

759
00:47:00,000 --> 00:47:04,000
Speaker 1: private methodical Well, I guess from a business perspective, it

760
00:47:04,120 --> 00:47:06,680
Speaker 1: sounds terrifying to say it, but from a business perspective,

761
00:47:06,719 --> 00:47:12,719
Speaker 1: there is a built in demand. Yeah. No, this might

762
00:47:12,760 --> 00:47:15,600
Speaker 1: be one of the this is the worst moment we've

763
00:47:15,640 --> 00:47:20,719
Speaker 1: had with you. You got me internet rabbit holing. But

764
00:47:20,760 --> 00:47:23,560
Speaker 1: while I was doing that, I did receive a call

765
00:47:23,960 --> 00:47:26,279
Speaker 1: saying that I want a free trip to the Bahamas,

766
00:47:26,360 --> 00:47:28,200
Speaker 1: So I may not be back next week to have

767
00:47:28,239 --> 00:47:30,560
Speaker 1: another one of these downer moments. Wait, oh man, wait, wait,

768
00:47:30,600 --> 00:47:33,399
Speaker 1: don't don't leave us. It's a bitter sweet don't know. Man.

769
00:47:33,560 --> 00:47:36,880
Speaker 1: You can skype. You can skype, man, we can skype

770
00:47:36,920 --> 00:47:40,840
Speaker 1: in our producer. Yeah, let's try it. We're on the

771
00:47:40,960 --> 00:47:44,160
Speaker 1: we're on the forefront. I am going to check out that.

772
00:47:44,680 --> 00:47:48,000
Speaker 1: I'm going to check out that issue about privatization of

773
00:47:48,120 --> 00:47:52,440
Speaker 1: methodone clinics. And also no no offense to know, but

774
00:47:53,360 --> 00:47:56,120
Speaker 1: I hope that if you do go on a cruise,

775
00:47:56,160 --> 00:47:58,440
Speaker 1: it's it's not too long because you know you're part

776
00:47:58,480 --> 00:48:01,920
Speaker 1: of the show, right, or just take us with you, right,

777
00:48:02,000 --> 00:48:04,359
Speaker 1: or take us with you right, and listeners, you are

778
00:48:04,400 --> 00:48:06,960
Speaker 1: also part of the show, and in our opinion, the

779
00:48:07,000 --> 00:48:10,000
Speaker 1: best part of the show. So I think it's wrong

780
00:48:10,080 --> 00:48:12,160
Speaker 1: for us to say we hope you enjoyed this podcast

781
00:48:12,160 --> 00:48:14,799
Speaker 1: as much as we enjoyed making it. But we do

782
00:48:14,920 --> 00:48:19,080
Speaker 1: hope that this piqued your interest and that you found, um,

783
00:48:19,680 --> 00:48:22,040
Speaker 1: you found something worthwhile or something you want to look

784
00:48:22,080 --> 00:48:25,000
Speaker 1: into more. We'd like to hear from you. You can

785
00:48:25,080 --> 00:48:29,279
Speaker 1: find us on Facebook and Twitter, and we have a website.

786
00:48:29,880 --> 00:48:34,120
Speaker 1: Stuff they don't want you to know dot com. Yeah, uh,

787
00:48:34,160 --> 00:48:36,360
Speaker 1: it's all about the journey when you're typing, I guess

788
00:48:36,640 --> 00:48:38,480
Speaker 1: I know. On that website you can see everything that

789
00:48:38,520 --> 00:48:42,480
Speaker 1: we have ever done, all of it, all the audio podcasts,

790
00:48:42,480 --> 00:48:45,840
Speaker 1: all the videos, everything, and so many great pictures of

791
00:48:45,880 --> 00:48:49,040
Speaker 1: you and me, buddy, oh man, I forgot about those.

792
00:48:49,640 --> 00:48:53,560
Speaker 1: But if you can get past the pictures of our

793
00:48:53,680 --> 00:48:56,480
Speaker 1: of our but ugly mugs, you might find some stuff

794
00:48:56,480 --> 00:48:59,439
Speaker 1: in there that's pretty interesting. That's right. If you want

795
00:48:59,440 --> 00:49:01,000
Speaker 1: to write to us, you don't want to do the

796
00:49:01,040 --> 00:49:04,440
Speaker 1: social media thing. We understand go ahead and send us

797
00:49:04,440 --> 00:49:12,960
Speaker 1: an email. We are conspiracy at how stuff works dot com.

798
00:49:12,960 --> 00:49:17,080
Speaker 1: From one on this topic, another unexplained phenomenon, visit YouTube

799
00:49:17,120 --> 00:49:20,520
Speaker 1: dot com slash conspiracy stuff. You can also get in

800
00:49:20,560 --> 00:49:23,760
Speaker 1: touch on Twitter at the handle at conspiracy stuff