Speaker 1: Hi, I'm Ethan Natalman, and this is Psychoactive, a production
Speaker 1: of I Heart Radio and Protozoa Pictures. Psychoactive is the
Speaker 1: show where we talk about all things drugs. But any
Speaker 1: of views expressed here do not represent those of I
Speaker 1: Heart Media, Protozoa Pictures, or their executives and employees. Indeed,
Speaker 1: heat as an inveterate contrarian, I can tell you they
Speaker 1: may not even represent my own. And nothing contained in
Speaker 1: this show should be used as medical advice or encouragement
Speaker 1: to use any type of drug. Welcome Psychoactive listeners. This
Speaker 1: podcast episode is a really really special treat for me
Speaker 1: for for a number of reasons. I mean, first of all,
Speaker 1: the guests today, Dr Andrew Wile is internationally famous, tensive
Speaker 1: millions of people know his name, have read his books,
Speaker 1: have watched his videos. And that's not because of so
Speaker 1: much of the stuff about drugs. It's because of his
Speaker 1: work on integrative medicine, on basically integrating the best of
Speaker 1: conventional medicine and alternative medicine in really remarkable ways. He's
Speaker 1: written about a dozen books, been translated to dozens of languages.
Speaker 1: You know, everything from healthy eating to us spontaneous healing,
Speaker 1: to spontaneous happiness, to stuff about diets, to stuff about cancer,
Speaker 1: to you name it really about how to lead a healthier,
Speaker 1: better life. But the real reason I asked Andy t
Speaker 1: beyond there's actually two reasons is that before he really
Speaker 1: emerged as the pioneering figure in integrative medicine and started
Speaker 1: all the writing and started a medical program about this,
Speaker 1: he wrote a trio of books about drugs psychoactive drugs
Speaker 1: that were formative for me and formative for a huge
Speaker 1: number of people beginning in the nineteen seventies. Uh, and
Speaker 1: how we think about drugs and alteration consciousness. And then
Speaker 1: the last reason quite frankly, I wanted to have a
Speaker 1: yahn Andy, is because going back thirty idea years ago, Um,
Speaker 1: you played a major role in my life, not just
Speaker 1: um your intellectual influence, but as I was going through
Speaker 1: probably the greatest emotional trauma and physical trauma of my life,
Speaker 1: you played a pivotal role by helping me see how
Speaker 1: they were really integrated with one another. So maybe we'll
Speaker 1: have a chance to get into that. So Andy, thank
Speaker 1: you so much. I mean I have to say too,
Speaker 1: is that one of the things I really admired about you,
Speaker 1: is that, even as you become this globally famous person
Speaker 1: talking about food and diet and health, you've never shied
Speaker 1: from putting out the most provocative and I think correct
Speaker 1: ideas about drugs. And that goes back to I guess
Speaker 1: when you were just what a college student or something
Speaker 1: like that and beginning to study all this. So what
Speaker 1: were the origins for you about thinking and talking about
Speaker 1: drugs in the ways that has such an influence? Oh gee,
Speaker 1: I told some of that story in my first book,
Speaker 1: The Natural Mine. But I've read about mescaline, uh, right
Speaker 1: after I graduated from high school, and I just fascinated
Speaker 1: me and I wanted to know more about it, and
Speaker 1: so I began reading everything I could and asking people
Speaker 1: if they knew anything about the psyched that I think
Speaker 1: the word psychedelic wasn't even used then. And um, as
Speaker 1: an undergraduate at Harvard, I majored in botany and had
Speaker 1: the good fortune to be mentored by Richard Schultz, who
Speaker 1: was the godfather of modern ethnobotany. And you know, as
Speaker 1: I began studying that and learned learning about psychoactive plants,
Speaker 1: it struck me that there was a great dearth of
Speaker 1: knowledge about them, and people in the medical field scientific
Speaker 1: field really had not studied them, did not know what
Speaker 1: they were talking about. And that was certainly true of cannabis,
Speaker 1: you know, it was true of the psychedelics, and so
Speaker 1: it fascinated me to try to get reliable information about them.
Speaker 1: And as you know, um, well, I I experimented personally
Speaker 1: with mescal and psychedelics while I was an undergraduate. But
Speaker 1: then in my last year of medical school, I organized
Speaker 1: and carried out the first double blind human experiments with marijuana,
Speaker 1: and I you know, at the conclusion of that study,
Speaker 1: mainly it was to show that you could study marijuana
Speaker 1: on a laboratory and get away with it, because many
Speaker 1: people said it was impossible. And we concluded that marijuana
Speaker 1: was a relatively mild and toxican that in people who
Speaker 1: were familiar with its effects, you couldn't really show uh,
Speaker 1: deficits and performance. Um And I thought that marijuana would
Speaker 1: be legalized within ten years, that it was just a
Speaker 1: matter of getting the correct information out there. Yeah, sorry,
Speaker 1: it took so long, Andy, boy, was I wrong? Well,
Speaker 1: at least it's happening, and at least we're one of
Speaker 1: the first countries. I mean, Colorado Washington were the first states,
Speaker 1: even before other countries started doing it. But one thing
Speaker 1: that hasn't changed is you still can't get to National
Speaker 1: Suit on Health to really spend any money to look
Speaker 1: at the medical benefits of marijuana. Yeah, what's it gonna
Speaker 1: take to get it out of ski to one. You know,
Speaker 1: it may just become increasingly irrelevant as more and more
Speaker 1: states move towards legalizing this stuff, and the absurdity of
Speaker 1: federal prohibition just persists. I mean, there's even some ambivalence
Speaker 1: about moving out of schedule one to schedule too. I
Speaker 1: think the real objective is basically just to deschedule it
Speaker 1: and treat it like any other substance, and then the
Speaker 1: pharmacy companies can come up with their specific versions of it.
Speaker 1: But by and large, you know, the cat is out
Speaker 1: of the bag or whatever the metaphor is. So I
Speaker 1: think we're moving forward there. You know. Now, you also
Speaker 1: at that point in your life you were interacting. I mean,
Speaker 1: Timothy Leary and Richard Albert who became ron Dust were there.
Speaker 1: They were doing those experiments. As those things began to
Speaker 1: evolve into less than scientific experiments, but you were trying
Speaker 1: these things and then all this leads to you going
Speaker 1: down into Latin American the Amazon, and uh, how did
Speaker 1: that shape who you became in subsequent years? It was
Speaker 1: a very great influence. First of all, travel has been
Speaker 1: a big part of my life, and I think there's
Speaker 1: no substitute for spending time at other cultures and seeing
Speaker 1: that there are other ways of of interpreting reality. Uh,
Speaker 1: and whether that's about drugs and or health and medicine,
Speaker 1: it's I think a problem in America is that so
Speaker 1: many Americans really have no experience of of anything outside
Speaker 1: of it. One of the things that I learned in
Speaker 1: my looking at other cultures views of drugs and drug
Speaker 1: plants is that every culture says that some drugs are
Speaker 1: okay and we're going to use them, and other people's
Speaker 1: drugs are not okay and we're going to prohibit them
Speaker 1: and try to make them go away. But there's really
Speaker 1: no agreement from culture to culturists to which are the
Speaker 1: okay drugs and which are they not okay drugs. So
Speaker 1: that was an interesting perspective to say. Yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: we've also talked about plants, his allies and plant allies.
Speaker 1: What did you mean by that? Well, I think that
Speaker 1: plants can be very useful to us, and I feel
Speaker 1: that it's foolish to try to banish a plant or
Speaker 1: demonize a plant, as we've done with cannabis. You know,
Speaker 1: that is a multi use plant that only wants to
Speaker 1: serve human beings. It lets us manipulate its genome, It
Speaker 1: produces fiber, medicine, edible oil, uh and intoxicant. And yet
Speaker 1: in our culture, we've tried to banish that plan and
Speaker 1: make it go away. And that's stupid. We let a
Speaker 1: you know, a multibillion dollar industry and hemp text will
Speaker 1: slip away to China, and a multimillion dollar industry and
Speaker 1: edible hemp products go to Canada just because of that
Speaker 1: stupid attitude that we've got another plant that I looked
Speaker 1: at a lot as coca. I think that's a perfect
Speaker 1: example of how to go completely wrong in the relationship
Speaker 1: with a drug plan. When Europeans first came to South America,
Speaker 1: they saw native people's chewing coca, they thought it was
Speaker 1: a satanic habit and tried to stamp it out. And
Speaker 1: then they realized they can get more work out of
Speaker 1: natives if they let them chew it and taxed it
Speaker 1: and then European scientists got cocaine out of it and
Speaker 1: released it to the world as a wonderful thing, you know,
Speaker 1: created a wave of cocaine addiction, uh, and then blame
Speaker 1: the plant for this and the ultimate steps then trying
Speaker 1: to stop native people from using their sacred plant. I mean,
Speaker 1: just ridiculous. There's obviously been these issues of class and
Speaker 1: ethnicity and race. I mean, oftentimes, when we look at
Speaker 1: why certain substances and band and others are tolerated, has
Speaker 1: less to do with the relative risk and dangers of
Speaker 1: these substances than with who uses and who is perceived
Speaker 1: to use these substances. And we've seen this in the
Speaker 1: US with cocaine and opium and even alcohol in some
Speaker 1: respects and cannabis. But I think in Latin America you
Speaker 1: had these sort of westernized elites looking down their noses
Speaker 1: at the coca chewing indios and wanting to ban that stuff. Exactly.
Speaker 1: At one point, the Europeans sent in people from the
Speaker 1: World Health Organization to give Stanford Bennett and Wexler intelligence
Speaker 1: tests to Andian natives UH and try to blame low
Speaker 1: scores on their use of coca caused mental deterioration, and
Speaker 1: that was justification for eradicating it. And with cannabis in
Speaker 1: the US, it was introduced by way of Mexican migrant
Speaker 1: workers in the South and black jazz musicians starting in
Speaker 1: New Orleans, and that was those, you know, and then
Speaker 1: later became associated with political radicals and hippies. So it
Speaker 1: was those associations that made the dominant culture view it
Speaker 1: in a certain way. You know, I'm thinking back, there's
Speaker 1: another drug plant substance um. You know. I remember you
Speaker 1: and I first met back in seven I just started
Speaker 1: teaching at Princeton. I was teaching a drug policy seminar.
Speaker 1: You were just beginning on your integrative medicine work and
Speaker 1: still very connected to drug stuff. And so I invite
Speaker 1: you to give a talk at the university, and I
Speaker 1: remember you invited your parents up from Philadelphia to be
Speaker 1: in the audience. And I'm expecting you to talk all
Speaker 1: about marijuana and cannabis and messlin psychedelics, and you spent
Speaker 1: half the talk talking about coffee. So what was that about? Well,
Speaker 1: it just struck me. You know, first of when people
Speaker 1: offer me coffee, I often say I don't touch hard drugs.
Speaker 1: I'm not a coffee user. And I think coffee is
Speaker 1: a quite strong drug, and many people who use it
Speaker 1: have no awareness at all that it's a drug, let
Speaker 1: alone a strong one that causes physical addiction and many users,
Speaker 1: and it just is one of the cultural incongruities that
Speaker 1: I like to get people to focus on. It just
Speaker 1: points up how inconsistent we are in our attitudes about
Speaker 1: psychoactive substances. Yet it's a vast majority of people who
Speaker 1: drink coffee seemed to do so in a way that
Speaker 1: doesn't really undermine health. And there are some health benefits
Speaker 1: associated with coffee, right, there's certainly our health benefits associated
Speaker 1: with coffee. But when I was in active clinical practice,
Speaker 1: I used to say that I produced about one miracle
Speaker 1: cure a week just by getting someone to stop drinking coffee.
Speaker 1: And it can be caffeine. I remember a friend of
Speaker 1: mine who had serious knee problems, and he went to
Speaker 1: a half dozen doctors, some who recommended various forms of surgery,
Speaker 1: and then finally somebody quarrying about his diet, and he
Speaker 1: revealed that he was drinking a six pack of diet
Speaker 1: coke every day. The doctor said, stop that, and then
Speaker 1: knee pain went away. So I mean it's basically the
Speaker 1: caffeine and coffee, which is a key ingredient, or is
Speaker 1: a caffee plus other stuff. Well, it's caffeine plus other
Speaker 1: things because other forms of caffeine tea does not. You
Speaker 1: don't see that as that's such an association of physical
Speaker 1: addiction with tea consumption, and the stimulation of tea is different,
Speaker 1: possibly because it's the caffeine is modified by other substances
Speaker 1: and tem We know, I've seen you, know, I remember
Speaker 1: you being an advocate for drinking tea instead of coffee
Speaker 1: and green tea, and then I've seen you in recent
Speaker 1: years getting very excited about uh much a tea. You
Speaker 1: even have a little dot com website where this is.
Speaker 1: But so, what's so special about macha and can that
Speaker 1: actually be abused as well or is it pretty difficult
Speaker 1: to do? So I've never seen anyone abused much. First
Speaker 1: of all, it's expensive, so it's a luxury item. And uh,
Speaker 1: I guess cocaine is too, and people certainly abuse that.
Speaker 1: But mauches is a beautiful color. It's brilliant green. It's
Speaker 1: the only form of tea in which you consume the
Speaker 1: whole leaf. It's got a higher content of antioxidants and
Speaker 1: other healthful substances. And it's got a fascinating cultural history
Speaker 1: associated with then Buddhism and with Samurais and with the
Speaker 1: ceremony and uh, something that I like very much. We'll
Speaker 1: be talking more after we hear this ad. Go back
Speaker 1: to coca, right, I mean sometimes you know, I mean
Speaker 1: Coca cola, right. Hang. I don't know whether it was
Speaker 1: Litto's cocaine or or coca leaf extract in it until
Speaker 1: nineteen hundred and so far as we know, there was
Speaker 1: no major problem, any bigger problem with co cola addiction
Speaker 1: when it had cocaine or cocaine, and then then there
Speaker 1: is now. I mean, I sometimes wonder would we all
Speaker 1: be better off if you know, Coca Cola would puts
Speaker 1: a coca back in it and maybe substituted for caffeine.
Speaker 1: What do you think I have long advocated for introduction
Speaker 1: of coca I think it's got many potential therapeutic uses.
Speaker 1: I think it would be a very good thing to
Speaker 1: have to teach people how to use coca the whole leaf, uh,
Speaker 1: and why it is different from and a much safer
Speaker 1: thing to use than isolated cocaine, and if it would
Speaker 1: replace coffee in our society more globally, I think that
Speaker 1: could be a good thing. I think it is it
Speaker 1: is less less associated with it with jangling stimulation and
Speaker 1: aggressive energy that can happen with too much coffee consumption.
Speaker 1: And I don't want to trash coffee, as you know.
Speaker 1: Even my general belief is that there are no good
Speaker 1: or bad drugs. They're only good or bad relationships with drugs. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, I think that was really a pivotal idea
Speaker 1: that you put forward in that first book, The Natural Mind,
Speaker 1: and and carried forward. Right. Then, on some level, people
Speaker 1: all having innate need to alter their states of consciousness, right,
Speaker 1: and the different plants and drugs are useful vehicles for
Speaker 1: doing this, And it's about the relationship you have with
Speaker 1: these substances. Yeah. And there are of course non drug
Speaker 1: ways of altering consciousness that may be preferable. You know.
Speaker 1: It's everything from um skydiving to sex, to music to fasting.
Speaker 1: I mean, there's endless ways to alter conscious and that
Speaker 1: drugs are very convenient because they work very rapidly and
Speaker 1: don't require a lot of work, and they also have
Speaker 1: their disadvantages. But I think the root idea here is
Speaker 1: that alteration of consciousness is a human need and drive,
Speaker 1: and that if a society doesn't come to terms with
Speaker 1: that in some way, it's going to get into trouble,
Speaker 1: as I think we have. And which of the most
Speaker 1: successful societies that achieving that sort of insight, you know? Uh?
Speaker 1: I think traditional societies, indigenous societies are much better at
Speaker 1: that than we are. And in many cultures you can
Speaker 1: see still there has been stable use of psychoactive plants
Speaker 1: um causing no problems, and then offer we've come in
Speaker 1: and meddled with those societies and created the kinds of
Speaker 1: problems we have here. An example is opium use in
Speaker 1: countries like Afghanistan, for example, in Iran, which is a
Speaker 1: very stable culture, opium was mostly smoked by older men
Speaker 1: when they had stopped working, and it was a social drug,
Speaker 1: not closing problems. And the US went into these countries
Speaker 1: and tried to eradicate opium and that use was replaced
Speaker 1: by heroin use and younger people. So I think that's
Speaker 1: there are many examples of that kind of thing where
Speaker 1: our shortsightedness has has backfired and led to worse problems
Speaker 1: than were there to begin with, right, you're reminding me,
Speaker 1: there was this classic article by Joe Westernmire and the
Speaker 1: Archives of General Psychiatry, maybe forty years ago more, and
Speaker 1: he called it the pro heroin Effects of anti Opium Loves,
Speaker 1: pointing out that both in Southwest and Southeast Asia, how
Speaker 1: when these governments um suppressed when had been legal opium monopolies. Uh,
Speaker 1: that what happened was, you know, people still wanted the opioid,
Speaker 1: but they went to the drugs that could be more
Speaker 1: easily smuggled, condensed, you know, in this sort of way,
Speaker 1: are hidden from the authorities, and that was had horrifying impacts,
Speaker 1: especially when HIV and injection drug use came around in
Speaker 1: the nine eighties and nineties, you know. So no, no,
Speaker 1: it was definitely that element, you know. But I mean also,
Speaker 1: like you know, with with with a thing with drugs,
Speaker 1: as you said, right, is that the upside is that
Speaker 1: there were fairly easy and accessible way to achieve some
Speaker 1: not just mild, but sometimes substantial alterations of consciousness. But
Speaker 1: that's also their downside, right, that people can go to
Speaker 1: them too easily. Um. But one thing I've heard you
Speaker 1: talk about at times is how one of the benefits
Speaker 1: of these drugs, whether it's cannabis or psychedelics especially, isn't
Speaker 1: helping one appreciate insights or or potential uh that then
Speaker 1: one can accomplish without the use of these drugs. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think that's especially true of psychedelics. They can show
Speaker 1: you possibilities that you otherwise would never have believed in.
Speaker 1: But when they wear off, you don't necessarily know how
Speaker 1: to get back there, how to maintain that, and you
Speaker 1: have to find other ways to do it. But I
Speaker 1: think that's the magic of psychedelics. And you know, everyone
Speaker 1: talks about them now is being useful for mental health conditions,
Speaker 1: But I see tremendous uh widespread applications of them in
Speaker 1: physical medicine as well and chronic pain and autoimmune disease.
Speaker 1: I think they're quite remarkable. Yeah, I've heard you talk
Speaker 1: about some of your personal experiences, the ways in which
Speaker 1: psychedelics had some physical impact on you. Well, you know
Speaker 1: a famous one that's been quoted many times. It is
Speaker 1: my instant loss of a cat allergy lifelong cat allergy
Speaker 1: as a result of an LSD experience in which I
Speaker 1: was feeling terrific and uh, I interacted with a cat
Speaker 1: and had no allergic response and never have since. So uh,
Speaker 1: you know, I'd love to open at some point and
Speaker 1: an allergy lost clinic using that. Uh. By the way, ethan,
Speaker 1: have you you know that also the the there's less
Speaker 1: written about the the spiritual potential, the potential for spiritual development.
Speaker 1: But you know, if I don't know whether you're familiar
Speaker 1: with this, have you seen the the YouTube clip housewife
Speaker 1: on LSD. No, no, please google that and all your listenership.
Speaker 1: Just google housewife on ls D on YouTube. It's a
Speaker 1: video of an experiment. I think it's from the nineteen fifties,
Speaker 1: and it's like youatric clinic in l a of a
Speaker 1: housewife who takes a dose of LSD. Everything is so
Speaker 1: beautiful and lovely and and a lie. I wish I
Speaker 1: could talk in technicolor. You can't see it being never
Speaker 1: or not. I feel sorry for you. You know. It
Speaker 1: was striking some years ago when Roland Griffiths said Hopkins
Speaker 1: and others did this study testing the spiritual effects of
Speaker 1: psychedelics in a fairly scientific way, and I think it
Speaker 1: helped open things up into other areas well. It's all
Speaker 1: happening now. Who would have I mean, I'm quite an
Speaker 1: As I saw last month, Vogue had a cover story
Speaker 1: on psilocybin mushrooms. I mean, if that's not mainstream, I
Speaker 1: don't know what it is. Well, there was a period
Speaker 1: right back in the late fifties or early sixties when
Speaker 1: Gordon Wasson was exploring when this stuff was showing up
Speaker 1: on the cover of Life magazine and Carry Grant and
Speaker 1: other famous actors and actresses were trying these things. And
Speaker 1: then of course it all got blown out. But it
Speaker 1: looks like maybe this you know, people have learned the
Speaker 1: lessons from the past, and they're going to be more
Speaker 1: careful about how this uh, how this thing evolves. The
Speaker 1: interest is so tremendous out there. In the past few years,
Speaker 1: when I was traveling a lot and speaking all over
Speaker 1: the country, no matter what I was talking about, whether
Speaker 1: the subject was integrated medicine or healthy aging or nutrition,
Speaker 1: I would get questions about psychedelics. You know, this is
Speaker 1: really on people's minds. So if you're Integrative Medicine Center
Speaker 1: in Arizona, right you have thousands of graduates, they're sort
Speaker 1: of spreading the world all around the country, in the world,
Speaker 1: what are they being taught and what are they teaching.
Speaker 1: There's about things like cannabis and about psychedelics or even
Speaker 1: other psychoactive substances. There's quite a bit of curricular material
Speaker 1: on cannabis, on medical applications of cannabis, and they're also
Speaker 1: we have teaching about psychedelics, and a lot of people
Speaker 1: in our training programs are interested in in learning how
Speaker 1: to be psychedelic guides and how to refer patients to
Speaker 1: psychedelic therapy. So we are trying to accommodate that interest
Speaker 1: m hm. And so will there be are you doing
Speaker 1: any research on psycholics at the university? Now? There was
Speaker 1: research going on there um on psilocybin, but I think
Speaker 1: that stopped now and whether there will be more in
Speaker 1: the future, I don't know, uh huh. And when you
Speaker 1: sort of take what's going on now and you go
Speaker 1: back to your days in the uh what was it
Speaker 1: the early seventies or something, traveling around the Amazon region
Speaker 1: and I presume doing psychedelics with indigenous groups and all this,
Speaker 1: you know, what's how do you compare can Trashed what
Speaker 1: those groups were doing when you were in your younger
Speaker 1: years and observing this with what's going on now, with
Speaker 1: all this new research in the U s and elsewhere. Well,
Speaker 1: you know that that what I saw was mostly use
Speaker 1: of psychedelic plants by shamans, and they would deal with
Speaker 1: patients who came to them or clients that came to them. UM.
Speaker 1: I think what's happening in our culture now is that
Speaker 1: the possibilities of psychedelic therapy are being embraced very widely
Speaker 1: by uh, you know, much much more diverse groups of people, UM,
Speaker 1: and particularly particular interest on using it for conditions like
Speaker 1: anxiety and depression and PTSD and o c D and
Speaker 1: so forth. And I think it's you know, we're going
Speaker 1: to see these things made available for therapeutic use fairly quickly.
Speaker 1: How important is it that they're being done with the
Speaker 1: assistance have trained psychotherapists or counselors or whatever, as opposed
Speaker 1: to doing you on your own or with a friend.
Speaker 1: I think that's all all important. I mean, it's fine
Speaker 1: if people want to do things on their own with friends,
Speaker 1: that's fine. But for you know, therapeutic use, I think
Speaker 1: it's it's very very important that you do this with
Speaker 1: a qualified guide. And I'm happy to see now that
Speaker 1: there are a few institutions who are offering training programs
Speaker 1: in how to be psychedelic guides? Are there other I mean,
Speaker 1: you know you're seeing the research being done a lot
Speaker 1: with psilocybin. I think with mescalin we'll think we'll get
Speaker 1: into m d M A in a moment. Not so
Speaker 1: much with LST, probably because it still has that bad
Speaker 1: rep left over. Are there other planted substances of psychedelic
Speaker 1: power that you think might prove well? Actually ayahuasca d MT,
Speaker 1: I mean, are the ones that you think are going
Speaker 1: to prove interesting in the in the future that they're
Speaker 1: not really doing the work on, you know what you
Speaker 1: mentioned ayahuasca d m T certainly, but also now there
Speaker 1: are a lot of pharmacologists and pharmaceutical companies that are
Speaker 1: working to develop analogs of some of these compounds that
Speaker 1: may have more specific corapeutic effects and fewer of what
Speaker 1: are perceived as adverse effects. And one of the things,
Speaker 1: Ethan that's I think driving this is that our health
Speaker 1: care system is so burdened with conditions that don't respond
Speaker 1: to conventional treatment, things like chronic pain syndromes and and PTSD,
Speaker 1: and there's a real desperation to find methods that work
Speaker 1: and the possibility that some of these compounds may be
Speaker 1: very useful for that, I think is making them much
Speaker 1: more acceptable. M h. I mean I can imagine that
Speaker 1: you're that you're fairly critical of the widespread use of
Speaker 1: these antidepressants, the prozacts and all these other society. But
Speaker 1: is there any role for them? I mean, do they
Speaker 1: help some people? Is it something that should be out
Speaker 1: there still? I think that there are some of these
Speaker 1: psychiatric drugs that are useful, particularly for treatment of bipolar
Speaker 1: disorder for example. But the antidepressants have a pretty poor
Speaker 1: track record. You know, they don't live up to the
Speaker 1: claims made for them by manufacturers, and the theory that
Speaker 1: they're based on I think is weak. Um, if you
Speaker 1: look at the ads and psychiatric journals for the drugs,
Speaker 1: you would think that there'd be no depression or anxiety anymore,
Speaker 1: but that's not how it is. So I think that
Speaker 1: there is a great need to find better methods and
Speaker 1: that those will fall by the wayside. Yeah. Well, I mean,
Speaker 1: we know the psychedelics as well as ketamine, which is
Speaker 1: the psychedelic in the way, are showing interesting results. Are
Speaker 1: there other things that you recommend or suggest to patients?
Speaker 1: Who are struggling with serious depression. I think there's a
Speaker 1: lot of new treatments. The one that I'm interested in
Speaker 1: is transcranial magnetic stimulation. You know, it's a non drug approach,
Speaker 1: relatively safe, and really good data on that as being useful.
Speaker 1: There's a quantitative e g. Neuro feedback and novel method
Speaker 1: that you know offers great promise. UM. Now, since there's
Speaker 1: a lot of things out there that you know, are
Speaker 1: not yet in the etical mainstream but show great promise
Speaker 1: that their cost effective, TOM effective M. I mean, I've
Speaker 1: also seen this stuff about the important role of exercise
Speaker 1: in dealing with depression. But I'm wondering if any of
Speaker 1: the kind of lower potency, more common stimulants, the tease
Speaker 1: kind of you know, all these other sort of South
Speaker 1: American stimulant plants, is there anything there in terms of
Speaker 1: addressing depression. I frankly, among the stimulant plants, I would
Speaker 1: say no. UM. But there may be other things out there,
Speaker 1: but I don't think any of them have the power
Speaker 1: of the psychedelics or you know, some of the major
Speaker 1: pharmaceutical drugs. I just don't see anything out there that
Speaker 1: works the way except However, kava for anxiety. You know,
Speaker 1: that's a very significant, powerful herbal remedy, quite safe, and
Speaker 1: it's a South specific thing. Yeah, oceany. It's a root
Speaker 1: of a pepper plant used as a social recreational intoxicant
Speaker 1: than in many of those island cultures and now of
Speaker 1: available here. It's quite safe. Uh. It is a very
Speaker 1: effective anti anxiety agent, much better than any of the
Speaker 1: drugs that we use for that. Let's take a break
Speaker 1: here and go to an ad h. Let me bring
Speaker 1: you back to the issue of stimulus. Right when we
Speaker 1: talked about caffeine, coffee, tea, much as things like that. Um,
Speaker 1: but you know, there's also a very interesting history with
Speaker 1: good old dextroamphetamine amphetamy, right, and for a long time,
Speaker 1: but we've seen it. It's use in military. I think
Speaker 1: there was a long period when long distance pilots in
Speaker 1: the US I think Navy would be allowed to use
Speaker 1: extra amphetamine. And they found nobody ever had an accident
Speaker 1: within effect. The principal cause of accidents was people suffering
Speaker 1: from fatigue. Um, it wasn't from this. And I've sometimes
Speaker 1: wondered if you were to construct not you personally, but
Speaker 1: but a huge study where like ten thousand people were
Speaker 1: to just continue the normal life to control group, and
Speaker 1: ten thousand people would be taking a five milligram dexter
Speaker 1: amphetamine every day and then they'd be evaluated after three months,
Speaker 1: six months, a year, five years on various quality of
Speaker 1: life indicators as well as any harms. I sometimes wonder
Speaker 1: whether or not the group that was taking the UH
Speaker 1: the low dos amphetamine every day over many years might
Speaker 1: land up faring better than the control group. Well, that
Speaker 1: that is possible, even and you know, there is no
Speaker 1: there's a great enthusiasm for some of these newer ones,
Speaker 1: like adderall for example, and incredibly widespread use among students.
Speaker 1: And I've talked to many UH college students who say
Speaker 1: that they can't afford not to take adderall because they
Speaker 1: know the person next to them is taking it and
Speaker 1: that's going to give them an edge on studying and exams,
Speaker 1: which is true, right. I mean, it's a short term
Speaker 1: performance enhancer for everything from sports to study into exam taking.
Speaker 1: It's like with many of these things, if you just
Speaker 1: use it occasionally in the right ways, it's probably perfectly okay,
Speaker 1: if not good exactly. What about fighting to get a
Speaker 1: coca chewing gum um so that people for their afternoon
Speaker 1: break instead of taking that coffee which is harsh on
Speaker 1: their stomach, or the diet coke um. Do you think
Speaker 1: that could work? Oh, I definitely think it could work.
Speaker 1: I've written a scientific paper about that, and I tried
Speaker 1: to get that going. This is years ago, and now
Speaker 1: there is It looks as if Columbia might be close
Speaker 1: to legalizing coca uh and commercializing it. You know, there's
Speaker 1: been some effort in Bolivia, less so in Peru, but
Speaker 1: the Colombian seemed quite enthusiastic about it, and maybe you know,
Speaker 1: this will stinally start to happen. Cocus in schedule to
Speaker 1: not schedule one, so you know, it is technically available
Speaker 1: for medical use, but there's no source of it here.
Speaker 1: But I would love to see that happen. I think
Speaker 1: it is such a useful plant and it's just a
Speaker 1: shame that we've been denied the use of it. Yeah. No,
Speaker 1: I mean I think the former president of Bolivia, Able Morales,
Speaker 1: you know, who had been ahead of the coca growers
Speaker 1: union beforehand. I mean, he was a big advocate for
Speaker 1: this thing, and he would even go to the United
Speaker 1: Nations meetings in Vienna and publicly chew the coca leaf.
Speaker 1: The problem, however, was he wasn't much when it came
Speaker 1: to the diplomacy of advocacy for this stuff, so it
Speaker 1: never went anywhere, you know, I mean, while perusing a
Speaker 1: shambles politically. So hopefully Columbia can move forward on this.
Speaker 1: It might. It's there, there's progress there now. You know,
Speaker 1: one of your other books that you wrote in the
Speaker 1: early years, which I remember taking to read with me
Speaker 1: on my honeymoon, was The Marriage of the Sun in
Speaker 1: the Moon, right, and you know, you start off with
Speaker 1: hunting for mushrooms and you're looking at different types of
Speaker 1: alter states of consciousness. But then the next chapter was
Speaker 1: about eating mangoes in Central America. I mean just explained
Speaker 1: that one. Well, I get high eating very right mangoes,
Speaker 1: and that's just an example of, you know, another way
Speaker 1: of altering consciousness. I think they're just infinite ways of
Speaker 1: doing it. So, um, that book was really essays about
Speaker 1: my period of travels, most the Latin Americus, some elsewhere,
Speaker 1: but just about things that I'd done and seeing that
Speaker 1: I found made me high. Everything from being in the
Speaker 1: Native American sweat lodges to watching total eclipses of the sun. Yeah,
Speaker 1: actually I remember you and I went together on a
Speaker 1: trip to this southern coast of Turkey for a solar
Speaker 1: eclipse about fifteen twenty years ago, and it was it
Speaker 1: was my only experience of that and and it was
Speaker 1: really quite traumatic when it happened. Was that kind of
Speaker 1: special sort of altered states. I forgot we had all
Speaker 1: that history. So talk to me about the placebo and
Speaker 1: placebo effect and how how central I mean it seems
Speaker 1: to play. I mean, I guess there are ethical issues,
Speaker 1: and the extent to which physicians can use it in
Speaker 1: many ways are recommended. A bigger problem is that physicians
Speaker 1: are just uncomfortable with it because they don't understand it.
Speaker 1: They think placebo medicine is a form of tricking patients,
Speaker 1: and that's not how it is. Placebo responses are pure
Speaker 1: healing responses from within. To me, that's the meat of medicine.
Speaker 1: That's what you want to make happen more the time,
Speaker 1: you know, I'm mostly here the word placebo used in
Speaker 1: phrases like how do you know that's not just the
Speaker 1: placebo effect, And the most interesting word there is just
Speaker 1: or we have to rule out the placebo effect. No,
Speaker 1: you want to be ruling it in. You want to
Speaker 1: make it happen more the time. I'm happy to see
Speaker 1: that in fairly recent years, and this is a result
Speaker 1: of functional MRI scans of brains that we've been able
Speaker 1: to you know, people have been able to show that
Speaker 1: placebo responses are associated with activity in particular brain regions,
Speaker 1: and this makes them more real. Uh, two doctors. So
Speaker 1: I think the views on them are changing. You know,
Speaker 1: I never give patients sugar pills, but I often give them,
Speaker 1: say herbs that I think are weaker forms of medicine
Speaker 1: and pharmaceutical drugs, but I believe in them because I
Speaker 1: know they work, and I can convey that belief to patients.
Speaker 1: And I don't really care how much of a favorable
Speaker 1: response is due to the intrinsic action of that herb,
Speaker 1: and how is due to a mind mediated mechanism and whatever.
Speaker 1: I'm just want to see the good result m H.
Speaker 1: And it can operate both on the planet. I mean,
Speaker 1: in dealing in terms of immense pain or pleasure or
Speaker 1: absolutely the fact that there's there's accumulating evidence that a
Speaker 1: great deal of chronic pain is not really arising from
Speaker 1: the body it's a problem in the brain that the
Speaker 1: brain is misinterpreting receptions from the body, and there are
Speaker 1: ways of retraining the brain to make that go away,
Speaker 1: and that may have profound implications for getting us out
Speaker 1: of the opioid crisis that we're in at the moment.
Speaker 1: And you've had personal experience of that even Yeah. No,
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, I it's funny in my life
Speaker 1: with this thing. I remember it was you were part
Speaker 1: of a working group of academics I had at Princeton
Speaker 1: in the early nineties trying to think through it over
Speaker 1: the optimal drug policy. And one of these sessions, you know,
Speaker 1: I had had a recurrence of really bad back pain.
Speaker 1: I had been diagnosed with her need discs, and uh,
Speaker 1: you started advising me at that time and you suggested
Speaker 1: I read this book by John Sarno, Feeling Back Pain,
Speaker 1: And that was really pivotal in my life. I mean,
Speaker 1: it was coming to realize it wasn't the hurting yet
Speaker 1: disc that were causing the pain, but rather underlying emotional
Speaker 1: angst that was turning itself into physical pain. Yeah, very dramatic. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think I think that view is gaining more ground
Speaker 1: these days. Yeah, it was interesting because I thought you
Speaker 1: was Sarno's book coming out and uh, and then I
Speaker 1: remember when you wrote your breakout book, Spontaneous Healing, the
Speaker 1: chapter on back pain was ethan story. And then I
Speaker 1: remember my you know, I was on TV all the
Speaker 1: time talking about drug post before, but my only time
Speaker 1: ever being on OPRAH was sitting in the front row
Speaker 1: is your patient talking about the back pain experience? And
Speaker 1: I thought, guys, you're on OPRAH. That's gonna change. Everybody's
Speaker 1: going to see the light. But it's amazing how long
Speaker 1: it takes for that type of insight and wisdom to
Speaker 1: really get out there, right. You know. That's what I
Speaker 1: said when I did my Marijan experiments that I thought
Speaker 1: it would be legalized in five years. It was just
Speaker 1: a matter of getting the correct information and out. And
Speaker 1: I saw, however, that people believe what they want to believe,
Speaker 1: and don't believe that they don't want to believe, and
Speaker 1: you can show them all kinds of stuff, but they
Speaker 1: don't change their views. It was also include serious physicians
Speaker 1: who should know better, right exactly. And one of the
Speaker 1: things I think moved me was the evidence that showed
Speaker 1: that for people who had these herniated disks. The people
Speaker 1: who had surgery had an immediate relieving of the pain
Speaker 1: that was dramatic, but that if you compared them three
Speaker 1: years later with people who have not had surgery, they
Speaker 1: had the same incidents of pain all over again. But
Speaker 1: it was also I remember, it was hard for me
Speaker 1: to believe that that intensity of pain and the fact
Speaker 1: that I couldn't even stand up straight and that my
Speaker 1: toes were numb, it was hard to believe that there
Speaker 1: was not some physical cause for that saying. And that
Speaker 1: was the leap that had to be taken you. But
Speaker 1: you took it. I took it, and I got there,
Speaker 1: and it changed my whole understanding of the of mind
Speaker 1: body relationship in a in a in a really important way.
Speaker 1: In fact, I think it was just a few months
Speaker 1: after that that I took M D m A for
Speaker 1: the first time, and that was I think a very
Speaker 1: important thing for me in my in my marriage at
Speaker 1: the time. But I have a question for you now.
Speaker 1: M D m A has not worked for me for
Speaker 1: the last fifteen years. What might work? Why not? First
Speaker 1: of all, why does he keep working for other people
Speaker 1: for decades and other people who just stopped working and
Speaker 1: then what might be an alternative. Well, I do see
Speaker 1: that pattern. You know, we change as we get older.
Speaker 1: Maybe your biochemistry has changed. I don't know the answer
Speaker 1: to that, but maybe you got what you needed from
Speaker 1: it and it doesn't work anymore. This is what I
Speaker 1: was saying earlier about that these drugs can show you possibilities,
Speaker 1: but then they don't really show you how to maintain
Speaker 1: the possibilities, and you have to work and to find
Speaker 1: some other ways of doing it. Mm hmm. I remember
Speaker 1: you telling some story about um yoga and showing the
Speaker 1: possibilities or something. Yeah, that's a you know classic. I
Speaker 1: was learning to do yoga. This was in the around
Speaker 1: nineteen probably sixty nine seventy, and there was one posture.
Speaker 1: I couldn't get the plow where you lye on your
Speaker 1: back and try to touch your feet behind your head
Speaker 1: on the floor, and I just could not do that.
Speaker 1: I had was about to give up. I thought I
Speaker 1: was too old, my body was too stiff. I could
Speaker 1: get my toes about a foot from the floor, and
Speaker 1: there was excruciating pain in my neck. And one day,
Speaker 1: it was in spring, I took LSD with a group
Speaker 1: of friends in Virginia. It was fabulous day. I felt
Speaker 1: terrific and my body felt totally a lastic and I thought, yee,
Speaker 1: I had to try that. And I lay on my
Speaker 1: back and was lowering my feet and I thought I
Speaker 1: had about a foot to go, and they touched the ground.
Speaker 1: I couldn't believe it, and there's no pain, and I
Speaker 1: raised them and lowered them. I was just, you know,
Speaker 1: so delighted. The next day, I tried to do it,
Speaker 1: and I got within a foot of the floor, and
Speaker 1: there was excruciating pain in my neck. But now there
Speaker 1: was a difference. I knew it was possible, and I
Speaker 1: was motivated to keep at it. In a few weeks,
Speaker 1: I was able to do it. If I had not
Speaker 1: had that experience, I would have given up. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: wonder you think you can help with our writing blocks,
Speaker 1: that's all. That's a lot harder. Yeah. I've always I've
Speaker 1: always admired an envy you for your incredible I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, you start off being a journalist when you
Speaker 1: were in college, right, and you've been writing ever since
Speaker 1: and just been incredibly prolific. But at this point in
Speaker 1: my life, I'm not that interested in writing very much anymore.
Speaker 1: I think I've said everything I have to say. You know,
Speaker 1: I heard you say that to me fifteen years ago
Speaker 1: and you kept writing, so we'll see. Well, you know
Speaker 1: another thing I remember remember visiting you a two signs
Speaker 1: sometimes in past years, and you always had dogs around.
Speaker 1: And then I heard you saying someplace it means another
Speaker 1: podcast that there's a similarity between cannabis and dogs in
Speaker 1: the relationship to you remember it. Just stand on that
Speaker 1: because I found that fascinating. Well, you know, dogs are
Speaker 1: really unusual. They are the the only animal that has
Speaker 1: thrown in its genetic lot with us. You know, sometime
Speaker 1: in the distant past, dogs decided to co evolved with us,
Speaker 1: and they have adapted behavior and remarkable ways. You're the
Speaker 1: only animal that can hold our gaze, for example, um,
Speaker 1: and you know that's remarkable. And they've learned to read
Speaker 1: human emotions. Well. Cannabis, in a similar way, has decided
Speaker 1: to co evolve with human beings. As far back as
Speaker 1: we can go in history, we can't find truly wild
Speaker 1: hemp that has no association with human beings as far
Speaker 1: back as we have evidence for, it always grew in
Speaker 1: association with human settlements, and it has allowed us to
Speaker 1: manipulate its genome and it wants to live with us
Speaker 1: and serve us, and so I say, it's the dog
Speaker 1: of the plant world. Is there something similar with mushrooms
Speaker 1: going on as well? That's more complicated. There certainly is
Speaker 1: a there's a sudden explosion of awareness of mushrooms in
Speaker 1: our culture maybe around the world at the moment that
Speaker 1: people are, you know, becoming fascinated with mushrooms, or more
Speaker 1: species of mushrooms, food, mushrooms being cultivated. There's oldest interest
Speaker 1: in and psychedelic mushrooms. It's a change and consciousness. Whether
Speaker 1: the mushrooms are driving that or it's us, I don't know,
Speaker 1: something's happening. I remember you used to organize these conferences
Speaker 1: to tell your ride mushroom conference until you're right, Colorado.
Speaker 1: Remember that's one time. Remember hearing Paul Stamus give a
Speaker 1: very playful talk about the ways in which some of
Speaker 1: our mushroom spores found a way to keep putting themselves
Speaker 1: in interesting places where human beings gathered, including around the
Speaker 1: local courthouse or something like that. Right, and then Terence
Speaker 1: mckennah had a whole theory around mushrooms and human evolution
Speaker 1: as well. I think, right, yeah, well, there are some people.
Speaker 1: I think he was the chief advocate of the idea
Speaker 1: that it was still psychedelic mushrooms that really provoked the
Speaker 1: leap from apes to humans and development of the modern brain.
Speaker 1: I don't I don't buy that one, but uh a
Speaker 1: lot of people like that idea. Uh huh. How about
Speaker 1: the idea if they came from outer space could be possible? Right,
Speaker 1: there was an old there was an old science fiction
Speaker 1: movie called The Invasion of the Mushroom People. So maybe
Speaker 1: you know there's another fact, which is that you know,
Speaker 1: here we have uh opioids outside but endorphins inside. We
Speaker 1: have cannabis outside um, but the endocannabinant system inside. I
Speaker 1: remember hearing you talk about oxytocin and such. Well, it's
Speaker 1: fascinating the the interconnectedness of the natural world. You know,
Speaker 1: why why do we have receptors in our brain that
Speaker 1: fit molecules made by poppy plants were by hemp plants.
Speaker 1: I mean, that's remarkable, and we have our own idogeneous
Speaker 1: psychedelic probably d m T. To me, that just points
Speaker 1: up some deep, profound relationship between us and the natural world,
Speaker 1: whether it's plants or mushrooms. You know, we're connected. M hm.
Speaker 1: Are you still doing psychedelics yourself? Not really. I mean
Speaker 1: I feel like that that was part of a different
Speaker 1: phase of my life and I don't really feel that
Speaker 1: motivated to use them anymore. I think I got I
Speaker 1: got what I needed to get from them. Yeah, I'm
Speaker 1: sort of torn because, you know, yeah, sometimes it feels
Speaker 1: like psychedelics are wasted on the young. You know that
Speaker 1: they they're all into the colors and this and that.
Speaker 1: But that's the real value of psychedelics, um, you know,
Speaker 1: is about going deeper. And I've analogized it to you know,
Speaker 1: growing up fairly traditionally Jewish, and fact, I still fast
Speaker 1: on young people are every year, and I think it's
Speaker 1: a basically a good thing to do, good for the soul,
Speaker 1: good for reflection, and that on some level doing psychedelics
Speaker 1: like once a year is a kind of good sort
Speaker 1: of annual ritual to stir up the emotional intellectual sediment
Speaker 1: that can settle, because that's one thing that psychedelics and
Speaker 1: a higher dose can really do, is stir up all
Speaker 1: sorts of sediment. I do know, as most people I know,
Speaker 1: generally as we age we get more hesitant, and I
Speaker 1: don't know whether it's that we're more wary of it now,
Speaker 1: or it's just that we really did learn everything we did,
Speaker 1: or I don't know. I just find that I'm not
Speaker 1: motivated to do it. Uh. Alan Watts wrote a blurb
Speaker 1: for The Natural Mind, my first book, and the last
Speaker 1: line of it was, when you get the message, you
Speaker 1: hang up the telephone. And I sort of feel that,
Speaker 1: you know, that's my sense that I did a lot
Speaker 1: of experimentation with psychedelics, especially in my thirties, forties, fifties,
Speaker 1: and I think I learned from them what I had
Speaker 1: to learn, and I don't I don't feel that I
Speaker 1: need to do that again. But if the opportunity presents itself,
Speaker 1: I mind, I'll say, yeah, yeah. Well, you know the
Speaker 1: other book that you did, part I think of your
Speaker 1: Andrew Wild's Drug Trilogy, UM, was Chocolate to Morphine. It
Speaker 1: was really a fantastic drug education book. We made sure
Speaker 1: to order use numbers of copies and give them out,
Speaker 1: you know, through Drug Policy Alliance. UM. And I remember
Speaker 1: back in the day the Republican Senator of Florida, Paul Hawkins,
Speaker 1: wanted to have the book banned from schools and all
Speaker 1: this stuff. But it does raise the issue of what
Speaker 1: about the kids, right? I mean, you think about how
Speaker 1: the whole war on drugs is oftentimes justified as one
Speaker 1: great big child production act. But I mean, what's your
Speaker 1: view about what parents should be doing visa the their
Speaker 1: kids on psycleactive drugs. I think they should be exchanging
Speaker 1: truthful information with their kids, and that's why I wrote
Speaker 1: that book, uh, to facilitate that. I don't want to
Speaker 1: make general rules for whether kids should or shouldn't use
Speaker 1: drugs or at what age it's appropriate. Frankly, I'm more
Speaker 1: concerned about the vast medicating of kids with psychiatric drugs. No.
Speaker 1: I think we have no idea what their effects are
Speaker 1: on the developing brain, and we're doing this tremendous experiment
Speaker 1: with our nation's youth. Now. A lot of kids are
Speaker 1: on multiple psychiatric drugs, very strong ones, and as I say,
Speaker 1: we have no idea what the long term effects are.
Speaker 1: I mean, there's also concerns about this growing number of
Speaker 1: synthetic substances, because you know, tendency for younger people just
Speaker 1: kind of be reckless about this thing and pop whatever's around.
Speaker 1: And this incredible proliferation of these synthetic drugs which is
Speaker 1: also I mean obviously not being used as broadly as
Speaker 1: the as the you know, the antidepressants and the really
Speaker 1: enty drugs and things like that, but clearly a concern. Well,
Speaker 1: I think as we move toward legalization or general availability
Speaker 1: of these drugs, it is appropriate to think about, you know,
Speaker 1: what are the rules for younger ages, for people in
Speaker 1: sensitive occupations. I think that's on society is gonna have
Speaker 1: to come to terms with. When I think of the
Speaker 1: few people I know who did psychedelics, either with their
Speaker 1: parents or with their teenage kid, I mean the cases
Speaker 1: I know of, actually we're quite beautiful stories, you know,
Speaker 1: and it's something you can't really talk about. Nobody could
Speaker 1: ever talk about quite openly or publicly. But we tend
Speaker 1: to say, you know, we here, we have laws that
Speaker 1: you can't touch marijuana or alcohol to your twenty one,
Speaker 1: and yet there's something about integrating this in perhaps in
Speaker 1: a responsible way. Well, we will see. It's going to
Speaker 1: be an interesting time. I mean it's even a question,
Speaker 1: you know, like growing up Jewish, we're having wine on
Speaker 1: the Sabbath, and then you see buy and large Jews
Speaker 1: having higher rates of drinking but lower rates of alcoholism.
Speaker 1: Whether or not that kind of acculturation really helped to
Speaker 1: uh provide a protective effect. And conversely, I mean, now
Speaker 1: we're a point with cannabis legalization where cannabis is becoming
Speaker 1: so widely accepted. And I fought for this all my life,
Speaker 1: and I feel very proud of the accomplishment, but I
Speaker 1: worry at times about cannabis beginning to be used in
Speaker 1: such a cavalier way a that it's specialness begins to fade.
Speaker 1: I mean, do you see that as a risk that's
Speaker 1: probably already happening? And I see that. You know that's
Speaker 1: a risk with psychedelics as well. You think so even
Speaker 1: with psychedelics, Oh, I think that's that's happening. Sure. What
Speaker 1: about the whole microdocing thing. You know, I don't know
Speaker 1: what to make of that. I know a lot of
Speaker 1: people who are doing it and claim that they've gotten
Speaker 1: very good results in terms of enhanced creativity or lowered
Speaker 1: anxiety or improvement of depression. You know, I've tried it
Speaker 1: a bit. It's not something that I was really motivated
Speaker 1: to continue with long term, but fascinating to watch it happen. Well, Andy, listen,
Speaker 1: it's great to catch up Thank you so much for
Speaker 1: having this conversation with me. Look forward to seeing you
Speaker 1: before long, okay, and wish you all the vest on
Speaker 1: your your next ventures, even if you think you've given
Speaker 1: up writing U, which I don't really believe. We'll see
Speaker 1: good to talk to you, okay. Take care. Psychoactive is
Speaker 1: a production of I Heart Radio and Protozoa Pictures. It's
Speaker 1: hosted by me Ethan Neatleman. It's produced by Katcha Kumkova
Speaker 1: and Ben Cabrick. The executive producers are Dylan Golden, Ari Handel,
Speaker 1: Elizabeth Geesus and Darren Aronovski for Protozoa Pictures, Alex Williams
Speaker 1: and Matt Frederick for I Heart Radio and me Ethan Nadelman.
Speaker 1: Our music is by Ari Belusian and a special thanks
Speaker 1: to Avivit Brio, Sef Bianca Grimshaw and Robert Beatty. If
Speaker 1: you'd like to share your own stories, comments or ideas,
Speaker 1: please leave us a message at eight three three seven
Speaker 1: seven nine sixty. That's one eight three three psycho zero.
Speaker 1: You can also email us as Psychoactive at protozoa dot
Speaker 1: com or find me on Twitter at Ethan Nadelman. And
Speaker 1: if you couldn't keep track of all this. Find the
Speaker 1: information in the show notes. On the next episode, I'll
Speaker 1: be talking with Yale law professor James Forman Jr. Who's
Speaker 1: Puliticer Prize winning book, Locking Up Our Own provides a
Speaker 1: truly unique perspective on the war on drugs. You know,
Speaker 1: without taking heroin into account, one cannot understand African American
Speaker 1: attitudes towards the drug war. The heroin really devastated Black communities,
Speaker 1: and I think set the stage for some of these
Speaker 1: punitive Black attitudes. Subscribe to Cycleactive now see it, don't
Speaker 1: miss it.