#511: Hamilton Morris on Iboga, 5-MeO-DMT, The Power of Ritual, New Frontiers in Psychedelics, Excellent Problems to Solve, and More

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Optimal minimal. At this altitude, I can run flat out for a half mile before my hands start shaking. And I'll do a personal question. No, it is time. A cybernetic organism living tissue over metal endocellar. Hello, boys and girls, ladies and gents, this is Tim Ferris, and welcome to another episode of the Tim Ferris Show, and I'm gonna keep the intro short.

I guess today. is Hamilton Morris on Twitter at Hamilton Morris. That's with

A graduate of the new school. Hamilton conducts chemistry research at the University of the Sciences in Philadelphia. He's the writer and director of one of my favorite documentary series. That you can find anywhere. Hamilton's pharmacopia. Pharmacopia? Tomato Tomato.

Take your pick, lots of vowels at the end, in which he explores the chemistry and traditions surrounding psychoactive drugs. His research has allowed him to study psychoactive plants, fungi, and chemicals, as well as the culture or cultures that surround them in more than thirty countries, using an interdisciplinary approach that combines anthropology and chemistry. His recent republishing of a book on Bufo Alvarius has at the time of this writing raised more than one hundred fifty thousand dollars. For Parkinson's disease. Research. You can find him, as I mentioned, on Twitter at Hamilton Morris, Instagram at Hamilton Morris, Facebook.

Hamilton Morris. And on Patreon at patreon P A T R E O N dot com Forward slash Hamilton Morris. And the reissued pamphlet. on what some of you may

referred to as five M E O D M T, at least derived from the Sonoran Desert Toad. Can be found at W dot psychedelic. Toad of the Sonoran Desert Dot. Calm.

Hamilton. Welcome back to the show. Thank you so much for having me. And I'm looking at a summary Of our first conversation.

And we covered a lot. We will have no shortage of new material, but for people who didn't Listen to episode one. I'll just provide. A few

Points. That we explore quite deeply. Alexander aka Sasha Shulgan. We spoke a lot about him. What is the news?

This new book that's coming out? No. Oh yeah, I don't even know if this has been publicly announced, but Sorry to cut you off right as you were about to summarize. Please cut off. Should I allow you to finish what you were saying? No, you shouldn't. Okay. Okay. I guess. Just very briefly for anyone that doesn't know who Alexander Sholgan is, he was this brilliant

medicinal chemist who is responsible for the discovery of an estimated two hundred novel psychedelic compounds. And he wrote these two amazing books, Pe Call and T Call, that came out in the nineties. And he died maybe five or six years ago. They recently

found some tape recordings of a class that he gave in nineteen eighty seven. And they're publishing it as a three volume set and I was sent a review copy of the first volume And it is so cool. It is one of the most amazing because this man Is no matter how you define it.

The greatest expert that has ever lived on the gigantic subject of drugs. І understood the anthropologie, the chemistry, the botany, the mycology. the law, the history, he understood every dimension of it and was Truly.

A genius. And At this time in nineteen eighty seven It was I think a very important moment in the history of drug policy and the history of that

sort of research. Nineteen eighty seven being when this class was recorded. Yes. And it was I think a moment when he was becoming Radicalized. When he was realising That

There could be no more playing nice the way he had in the past, because he'd had this very close relationship with law enforcement throughout his career. And then Things were getting worse.

Go back to episode one, but in part because he'd done a lot of work for Established Pharma companies. Yes, yeah. He'd work for Dow Chemical, he'd done Pharmaceutical research.

Worked with law enforcement. He And deep ties to the counterculture. He'd done a little bit of everything. He was friends with everyone. But During the Reagan administration

It was becoming increasingly clear That Things were getting worse and worse with every passing year. There was an idea that okay, psychedelics have to be illegal because They cause hallucinations, and that's unacceptable in our society.

But M D M A is different. M DMA doesn't cause hallucinations and it can be used therapeutically And physicians were recognizing that. In the nineteen eighties, and then it was placed in schedule one. So that was the first

moment I think where he started to think This can't go on the way it's been going on because they will destroy Every new medicine that I create. And then on top of that

They had just passed the federal analog act as well. So This was a a law that exists to this day where they said If you're making something that we will Arbitrarily define as an analog of a schedule one controlled substance.

We can Prosecute as if it is that controlled substance. So If you We can just say that that is

DMT And charge you accordingly. So Those two things combined the destruction of any potential use of MDMA and the passage of the

Federal Analog Act. had made him Enraged. This is also the period that led to his writing and publication of P Call. So this class that he's teaching is razor sharp and extremely educational. And I think it's gonna be wonderful when these books are published this summer. Will the audio also be made available? I haven't asked them yet. I certainly hope so. Please ask them if they would like a cross promotional opportunity to put some of the audio on this podcast.

I would be very interested uh to help them. And So that's Shears a bit about Sasha Shulgan, who also I think it was

Dave Nichols. Dave Nickels or Nickel? Nichols. Yeah, Dave Nichols, who is is featured prominently in one of the episodes of season three of your television show. Who had a lot of correspondence with

Sasha and said that he was more he considered him more of an alchemist than a scientist because he was almost like an ethnobotanist not trying to preserve a first person objectivity. I mean he Consumed. And tested.

Many of the if not all of the compounds. that he produced at least for tasting parties and things like that. Yes, and was proud of it. He made No secret of the fact that he consumed the compounds that he synthesized. And I think that there's an idea, it's a very widespread idea that if you have personal experience with a psychoactive drug, this biases you in such a way

That the research that you do is not trustworthy. But this is something that we don't evenly apply to other disciplines. No one would ever say that

An ethnomusicologist is biased because they've listened to music. Or because they enjoy music themselves. Or that A sports commentator is biased if they have a past as an athlete. Instead we would say that this

It's something that makes them An expert. who is qualified to discuss the subject. So He was

Very open about the fact that he tried an enormous number of substances. But Was not dependent on any of them. He did it. In order to

better characterize them so that he could speak authoritatively to his students to law enforcement and to inform his own research. Really brilliant guy. And This book is a a very exciting text. It actually

Can you tell people where they should look for this? Yes. I mean you ca I think you can pre order it on Amazon. Alexander Shulligan's family has a a press called Transform Press. It's called The nature of drugs. That's a great title.

For people. Who don't know P call. T call. Those are phenethelamines I have known and loved and tryptomines I have known and loved. respectively. I mean these are encyclopedic

compilations of Not just trip reports or descriptions of experiences. But also details to synthesis. Yes. And

Back to the experience, I mean, that's been a big part of this psychedelic renaissance is Talking about how the new wave of researchers are these sort of Objective Dispassionate people who have never used them. Yeah.

But Not only is that not true, most of in Facts all of them have Use psychedelics but they sometimes publicly say that they haven't, which I think is

Not a good Way to go about this. You know. Yeah, there's a big difference I think between long term and short term strategies when it comes to

being part of a marginalized subculture. The Short term strategy is to be dishonest and to hide. And to lie about who you are and what you care about because

if the dominant culture tells you that it is wrong, that it's immoral, that it's illegal That's what you do. You hide. And that way you can protect yourself. But that only protects you. What if you have children who feel the same way?

They're not protected. What about your grandchildren? Do you want to actually Креат а культур чан. You have to be open about who you are and what you care about. And

So one of the most disturbing things that I get sometimes in response to my show as a is when people say, Oh, you should never talk about this chemistry. Don't you realize if you talk about this chemistry Then They'll make it illegal. You can't talk about that synthetic root. We've got to keep it secret.

You can't show yourself consuming a drug, then that acknowledges the fact that people actually use these things and we've got to keep it A an objective And

Sure, if the point is to distort reality in order to sell something. Fine. But that's not what it really is. And that's not gonna help people long term. Yeah. I I

could not agree more. This is also part of the reason why Slightly different example, but in the process of fundraising for, say, the psychedelic and consciousness research center at Johns Hopkins or for phase three studies for MDMA assisted psychotherapy when I was talking to potential donors It was a prerequisite in my mind that they be willing to use their names. And not.

Donate as anonymous and thereby Reinforcing stigma that I think is largely unearned. So I wanted people to not just take a public stance, but to be proud of their involvement and to show there was some I know these are slightly different examples, but reputational.

Upside potential, not just reputational downside potential. And Also coming back to your Ethno musicology example. We don't even apply the same standard to researchers of other

Drugs or compounds. Right. So if you're studying So you're studying morphine and you happen to have been administered morphine in the course of being a patient in a hospital. I don't think it is assumed that that's somehow Jeopardizes your scientific integrity.

Oh of course not. No, there's a tremendous amount of inconsistency and hypocrisy in the way these things are discussed. And I think a lot of it Boils down to Puritanical objections to euphoria and joy. You know, I

Don't think anyone would care about scientific Self experimentation with topical capson. Or something like that. Why? Because it's not going to cause any sort of euphoria and might even cause pain. And pain is dignified. Pain is good. Pain shows that you're working hard. You're self sacrificing, that's all right. If you're having

A good time? That's a different story. Yeah. Contemplating where to go next. I still I still have three pages from our last conversation. I don't think we'll make it through. Just to give a quick

Disjointed recap of a few things I underlined. From our previous conversation. Bullet. He realized in high school after taking Salvia That psychedelic misunderstood and likely had more potential than people realized.

Jump forward. For those who would like to learn more about psychedelics. Neuropsychedelia. Uh by Nicholas Langlitz. Is that correct? He's got a new book as well. Oh, so many updates. Is is it out already? It's out, yeah. What's it called? It's um it's a meta primatology.

Book that's about Not about primatology, but about Primatologists. It's like the primatology of primatologists. It's really good. We will put a link in the show notes to that new book as well. So Tim.blog forward slash podcast. We will we will have that. We talked about your experience with your cameraman in a hotel in China with the synthetic cannabinoid

You are Which led to a quote. fractal of uncertainty, end quote. That was very unsettling. We have Covered a number of stories of The unsettling experiences one can have or

The Put it different way, the dangers of Use of some psychedelics. Or more accurately, use of psychedelics in uncontrolled or improperly supervised settings. includes document

Fatalities. So I don't want to give anyone the impression here. That These compounds are without risks because there's so many other factors that also come into play, not just the compound itself.

And I have to give a disclaimer here. So excuse me, Hamilton, while I do so, but nothing we're gonna talk about in this episode is intended to constitute medical advice. We are not going to be able to do it. Doctors. Neo Shamans.

And uh this is all for informational purposes only. So caveat amp tour. Be safe out there. Don't break any laws. But Jumping to the next point real quick. Low doses. I want you to fact check me if I'm getting any of these recaps. Wrong, but

Low doses of drugs. Including Say cocktails like ayahuasca can be more beneficial than the overwhelming what do I do with this experience at high doses. That you have had low dose experiences. That helped you to see, I think in this case, quote, the nicotine gum was inside of me, end quote.

Ha ha So there's there's a long story about the nicotine in our First conversation. And we also talked a bit about Ibegain. A bit about two C D.

And then topics that we might cover next time, which is now this time. Including Oliver Sachs and Claudio Naranjo. So now, here we are in the present moment. We didn't discuss. We've already talked about Sasha Shulgan a bit.

Oliver Sachs or Claudio. How do those figure into your life as influences or How would you explain Either of them. Either of those figures.

Those are Just to go back to what we were saying earlier about people who are in the closet about their drug use. You know, of course when Oliver Sachs wrote The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat. And describe the

medical student who's having the olfactory hallucinations after using P C P He's talking about himself. But he didn't want to acknowledge that he'd used PCP because he didn't want to acknowledge that he'd used drugs at all. You know he was addicted to amphetamine for a period as well. Possibly methamphetamine, I don't know.

There's a a biography written by Lawrence Weeshler that came out recently that I I know Lawrence Weeshler, but I haven't had the opportunity to read it. It might go into that. But yeah, he didn't want people to know. You know, many people, uh Carl Sagan would be another example. You know, he Wrote A portion of

Lester Grinspoon's marijuana reconsidered. and talked about his revelatory experiences with cannabis. But didn't want his name attached to it. Prominent.

Brilliant minds that have benefited from the use of these things, but they're afraid to publicly acknowledge that fact. And that Is I think Damaging.

But Oliver Sacks in general, you know, he's He's wonderful. Amazing writer. I think he's one of the greatest science writers that has ever lived. Uncle Tungsten, the man Mistook his wife for a hat.

These are really beautifully written books. His book on hallucinations is also very good. So you can hear that airplane overhead, folks. This is Audio Verite. Uh-huh. Do you hear palm fronds in the background also? Part of our experience in the world of Covid.

I would imagine you have had to pause For audio a fair amount in your life. So much pausing. The joke. Tell me one point.

Is they said uh Why does thunder come after lightning? Cause even God has to wait for sound. All right, so Claudio. Yeah.

Did you ever interview him or talk to him? No. Yeah. Sadly. Yeah, me neither. You know, he wrote some enormous number of books and I've only read The Healing Journey I really enjoyed that book. Me too. Me too. I mean

I can't imagine being a psychologist. And Working with a patient for months or years. and seeing such gradual change, maybe no change at all, must be very discouraging. Right.

Someone that really wants to affect some kind of positive change in somebody that they're working with. And then When you look at the sorts of accounts that are described in the healing journey It's like a psychological fantasy of having this you know, these

immediate revelations that Fact profound and lasting change. In the people that use these substances. And of course there are similar, you know, for people that are interested in books that describe

Um psychologist. Administering psychedelics and their patients having very positive experiences is another Book.

Written by William. Richards. Hold on Sacred knowledge. Excellent book. It's a really, really good book.

kind of half clinical primer on best practices with psychedelics. But then it also has a number of Biographical sections on Bill Richards' life, which is just

Fascinating. And I've been moved to tears by have you seen the video of him administering DPT to the Dying cancer patient. No. I have not.

This was uh it was on sixty minutes in the seventies. And I mean it's one of the most moving pieces of television I've ever seen. Uh I'm not going to be able to do it. Yeah, DPT, although I don't believe they specify it in the report. I uploaded it to my YouTube channel recently for anyone that's looking for it.

And Watching people who are at the end of their life make peace with their own mortality. In the presence of their family And the effect that that has on their family.

Is It causes so many emotions, one of which is It's almost infuriating to think that this wouldn't be available to everyone that might want it. When you see how beneficial it is. And I remember when I first heard about end of life

psychedelic psychotherapy when I was in my early twenties. I kinda thought, well what's the point of that? If the people are at the end of their life, wouldn't that be the lowest priority? Psychologically, wouldn't you want to help people that have their entire life ahead of them? That way you can Affect the greatest change.

But I had no idea. That The way somebody ends their life. can have a tremendous impact on their family.

And if they are at peace with their own mortality at the end of their life. That can be. Relieve a lot of the trauma of losing a loved one. I Have not seen that video and I'll I'll look for it.

On your YouTube channel. Bill Richards, for those who want a little bit more context on him. is a beautiful human being. I've felt very privileged to be able to spend time with him. I don't know if he's still associated with Johns Hopkins, but he was for a very long period of time. He along with Mary Cosimano, who I want to give a nod because she's just an an exceptional human and also very experienced.

I suppose therapist therapist may not be the right term. Facilitator. I don't know what term they actually use within Johns Hopkins, but she and Bill have They have one of the kind of l larger Sample sets. Uh, that is in the hundreds of sessions that they have administered legally.

Um mostly involving I would say psilocybin at this point. Probably in the kind of thirty milligram range, something like that. But Bill Is Not just an excellent, from my perspective, clinician, but he he also thinks very deeply about

The philosophical theological underpinnings and or implications of administering these compounds. So for all those reasons and more, I d I definitely recommend that people Check out. His book. Have you met him before? I've spoken with him, I've never met him in person, though.

And he's so good it almost worries me a little bit because when People talk about the potential of psychedelics, I think one thing they don't realize Is that The people that are working on this right now Are the best people in the world.

Bill Richards is one in a million. And by definition One in a million people are hard to come by. You're not going to have someone as compassionate. And skilled as Bill Richards. Working.

In every psychedelic psychotherapy start up. And so when we look at how promising the results are. From some of this clinical research that's coming out of Johns Hopkins, I think it's important to remember that these are some of the most talented and passionate people to ever enter the field. And it might not be the case that all of these results generalize to a larger population, though of course I hope they will.

It's a really a important point. I mean th these are people who have been able to withstand in many cases decades of not just resistance, but abuse by various establishments. So they're not fair weather entrance to this space.

They've really endured a lot, and that includes many people at Hopkins, including Roland Griffith. And many other. Research Institutions.

And I suppose this is as good a place as any to say. that since you and I last spoke on the podcast, which was a few years ago, a lot has happened. Been an extraordinary amount of acceleration. space as well as in the for profit.

sector related to psychedelics. Is there anything in particular that Worries you. We could talk about the promise, but then there are Maybe the concerns one of which I'm just inferring from what you said would be

The assumption that we can scale results And scale. In therapists based on say the the results obtained through someone like Bill Richards. Although there has been a high level of replicability within the MDMA phase three trials because they had similar concerns.

Or similar questions at least. related to Michael and Annie Mithofer. Or very, very skulled. therapists in the MDMA assisted psychotherapy space.

And do any particular concerns come to mind for you? Well yeah. Back to this Shulgin book, there's a really funny moment where he says that every drug has no side effects for the first five years. So if you're gonna use a drug, you have to use it in the first five years when it comes out before people realize that it has any problems associated with it.

And Every new drug does have a hype phase. Ketamine is in its hype phase right now. Then after the hype phase You enter a more sobering confrontation with its limitations.

Right now you have a lot of people with treatment resistant depression taking ketamine and they're experiencing Miraculous results. Five years from now. Some of those people might start to suffer. Euro genital

Toxicity of one kind or another. That could make people less optimistic about using this as a treatment casually. Right, it's known to Cause we're going to be able to do

damage to the urinary bladder under some circumstances and We're going to see In a few years. What happens with more widespread use of it.

So And cannabis is also somewhat in its hype phase. Where If we're talking about cannabis as an intoxicant relative to alcohol, which sets the bar very low, in my opinion. Yeah, it's great. It's not going to cause Liver damage, it's not associated with

Overdose it doesn't cause. The same sort of physical addiction in the vast majority of instances, though of course. Some people do. develop problematic relationships with it. But

I predict in a few years we're going to start to Scrutinize a little bit. Whether or not it's a good idea. To be as stoned as many people are all the time. I mean, I think it's

Almost certainly. It is certainly better than being drunk all the time. But You know, there's the cannabis hyperemesis disorder. Which is something that wasn't discovered until relatively recently, and it seems that that's a product of

new patterns of cannabis consumption. Just a quick thanks to one of our sponsors and we'll be right back to the show. This episode is brought to you by Dry Farm Wines. I'm a wine drinker. I love it. Love a few glass over meals with friends. That said I hate

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Other Compounds that you think are Undervalued or overhyped? At the moment. For therapeutic purposes. So let's just say and with and this this could segue to your experience actually, which I'd love to hear about.

Iboga or Ibogaine for Opiate use disorder. or opiate addiction. What is your a valuation of that.

I think there's a lot of promise there. I think there's a lot of promise for pretty much all substance abuse disorders and I Predict? Many Sorts of

compulsions and addictions in general. Which is something I didn't fully come to appreciate until I went to Central West Africa. And participated in these Iboga rituals which gave me a far greater appreciation

Of Both the ritual elements and kind of the larger spirit of a boga. Beyond it's antagonism of the alpha three beta four nicotine acetylcholine receptor. I think that's the first time I've personally ever heard you use spirit. I know. I I I as I said it, I said, Oh, did I go there and I just say the word spirit they say the S word.

Uh. Yeah. Could you tell us more about your experience? I thought that episode of uh of season three And do you say pharmacopia or ph or pharmacopia? I ask this every time. Pharmacopia is correct, but I say pharmacopia. Pharmacopia. It's always the battle of do you say yeah, there's endless

ones of these where you you look like a an asshole and say Critom And or do you say Kratum like an American and say it wrong. Both ways are Leaving aside. Leaving aside psilocybin and our friends across the pond. What was your experience? Like could you speak to some of the Experience

Weather sort of phenomenologically. In the drug experience or plant experience if people prefer Or Considering the ritual elements, what were some of the Bits and pieces that you felt were particularly impactful.

Because in that particular episode. In contrast to some episodes like the Xenon Gas episode. There's relatively little footage of you. Yes. In the actual ceremony. Yes. And that was very important.

I want it to be entirely absent from it and I have almost complete creative control of my show. Within the bounds of the law. But one thing that was very problematic

Just within the bounds of the law just refers to showcasing chemical synthesis. I mean, even then I do pretty much everything that I want to do, but you know, I can't I don't know, depict myself committing a crime. I don't know that I would want to. Either. But

The one thing that was real there's a lot of pushback was showing myself. And I didn't want to be a part of that episode. There have been a number of Voga documentaries made. Or a white outsider goes to central West Africa. And participate in buy rituals.

And I felt that This was one time I didn't want to do that. I wanted to show I wanted to

Sho that the tradition is changing. I think a lot of people have this idea. Of traditions as being the static Unchanging And

In some cases actually there are many aspects of the Bui religion that appear unchanged since Anthropologist document them in the sixties. But one Big cultural shift that has occurred.

Is there are now opioids in Cameroon and Gabon that were not there previously. There is no tradition of using opioids in that region. There is no heroin trade there. Historically pharmaceutical opioids have been far too expensive to be street drugs.

It just wasn't a market and the naturally occurring opioids Don't exist there. So You have a New

That Didn't grow up watching train spotting and Requiem for a Dream and Christian F and Permanent Midnight and Daytime. television specials about addiction. We're inundated with this stuff. Imagine if you'd never even heard that an opioid is addictive before.

how much more difficult it could be to develop A Responsible pattern of use. And so Tramadol is being

tablets specifically Or the West African market And

They're extremely inexpensive and the addiction has become pretty widespread. So what I found so interesting is that What is the clinical application of tremidol? What's what's the indication? Tramadol is sort of Lycodean, it is a low potency opioid analgesic that is unregulated in many countries. It is in Canada, it's not a prescription drug in Canada until a few years ago in the United States it wasn't a prescription drug. It wasn't controlled.

So because it's considered to have a low abuse potential. It paradoxically ends up being one of the more used compounds because it's more available. This is like What you know, this is why it's really hard to talk about

abuse potential as some sort of intrinsic factor of a drugs. chemistry or pharmacology because it's so much dependent on these social regulatory factors as well. So Tramadol is relatively unregulated because it's considered relatively Non abusable.

But ironically gets used all over the place for that reason. And It's a mild kind of codeine like effect. But if you take a lot of it, it becomes less mild. And like all opioids if you use it chronically. can induce dependents and in some instances.

Problematic addiction. So The idea that Ibogaine is an anti addictive drug. is not

an African tradition. That is something that was discovered in the United States by a New York. Based heroin addict named Howard Lotsov. Do you know the story? I don't Yeah. He was a guy who

In the sixties was Using heroin, he was friends with the chemist. The chemist said There's a psychedelic called Iba Gay and you might think it's fun and that's all it was. It was just a psychedelic. And he tried it. He tripped, he had a fine time with the Ibagain.

And then when he came down. He realized That he hadn't used heroin. And He wasn't experiencing withdrawals.

And Had changed. Suddenly he didn't consider heroin desirable.

He saw it as symbolic of death. And Repulsive. And had no desire to ever use it again and didn't. And

Dedicated the rest of his life to being a sort of crusader for the anti addictive effects of Ibege, which he had discovered. And they were later. validated in laboratory experiments with rodents. So it is pretty well confirmed at this point in humans and rodents and a number of different models that Ibogaine is in fact An anti addictive drug.

I don't know. the names of many researchers involved with IBegin, IBoga, or any Similar compounds. Was that in Deborah Mash's laboratory that those studies were done with rodents or was that somewhere else? Deborah Mash may have been one of the early researchers on it. It's been replicated in a number of different labs. This is one thing that's pretty well characterized at this point. And of course there are also

synthet derivatives of Ibogaine like eighteen M C That have slightly different pharmacology that also exert the same anti addictive effect that's hypothesized to be derived from antagonism of this one subtype of the nicotinic acetylcholine receptor, the alpha three beta four.

Nicotine acetylcholine receptor. So this is not part of the tradition in Kaban. Because A there's no tradition of using opioids. And because it's a religious sacrament, it's part of a religion called buiti. So

Now that opioids are Present in that region. They are modifying their traditions to accommodate The treatment of local addicts.

And that's what I wanted to document in my piece. I thought the documenting of A local being shepherded through the process by these buiti elders was really well done.

I thought that was a very strong episode. Yeah, and I think it it is Important that they understand that they have this amazing medicine available to them because I always also struck me as ironic that everywhere else in the world People are exclusively using and talking about Ivyane as an anti addictive drug

But the one place where there's actually a tradition of using it Where there's now A problem with Tramadol. They're just now beginning to recognize that they can use their own medicine. to

treat people in their community. And it was really cool to see that happening and to see how well it worked. Providing that as sort of historical and cultural backdrop. What elements of the experience stood out for you personally, since I can't ask anyone else About the experience that was

Depicted in that episode. It is for those who may have some experiences with psychedelics in the Let's just call it. Perhaps in the Western

Kind of psychotherapeutic or pseudo psychotherapeutic model where you you lay down, you listen to Spa music, basically, with eyeshades on this ritualized setting could not be more different. It's the opposite of Sensory deprivation. It's

the most stimulating thing I have ever been a part of. It's Continuous dancing, continuous music, continuous drumming. No sleep.

No food. No water. No break. Maximum exertion. And they divide the ceremonial space into different regions dedicated to different purposes. So

for people that are there for medicinal purposes. They occupy A sort of recessed zone where they lay. Side by side.

And everyone dances around them. And they take such high doses of aboga. That it has an almost An aesthetic effect.

Believe in Prick people. to make sure that they're still responsive to the sensation and if they are unresponsive That's the indication that they've had enough a boga. It's time to stomp. And

allow them to recover a little bit. But there's continuous Consumption and everyone must consume. Babies. Children, adults, the elderly, everybody takes to Voga.

But there is a different dose for each person. depending on who they are, what they're doing in the ceremony. And What sort of treatment they're trying to receive.

And then It's really Very amazing. They have People that wear military outfits. And they are

Н армі, а спірчу амі. Who guard the Aboga ceremony from bad spirits and they have Iboga guns and eboga knives that they use to Prevent. anyone from entering that might interfere with the healing of the participants. There's a a lot of incredibly beautiful symbolism in these rituals, including burying people alive.

And I had read about this and I had always wondered If this is still something that's practiced. But they will Dig a grave. And

You will lay in the grave on a boga. With your Base up. looking at the stars and just your head protruding from the ground. And

You spend the night in the ground to contemplate your own mortality. Now I can't see that being integrated into our Western medical practice. But I can

Imagine How profound that could be. Even without a psychedelic. Do they observe any cardiac complications? In their tradition, I ask because my understanding is that they're

Have been documented. Associated with Perhaps not IBoga, maybe it's I began administration in places like Mexico. Do they

Appear to run into any health complications. I asked about that. And they told me that they were aware of people that had died. Using it.

And so it seems that they are Aware. There's no Pretense that this is a medicine that can't hurt anyone under Any circumstances they're aware

That it is very powerful and has to be. Dost very Carefully. Because I began

binds to something called her channels and these are Potassium ion channels that regulate heart rhythms. A lot of Topical anesthetics bind to her channels and Ivygain actually has a mild topical anesthetic effect. So

If you take high doses of it. It can Cause fatal arrhythmia. They didn't say that specifically. They they didn't talk about, you know, observing Q T interval prolongation or something like that, but they knew that

It had to be used very cautious and you had to observe each person as they used it. There's certainly a lot more to say about How the we T use I bought uh there are many different directions we could go. This is as good a place as any

To Ask you to describe Or actually just to answer the question. Is I boga itself.

This plant from which they derive this sacrament. at risk or threatened in any way. And and this this is a question of So sustainability as the global demand for this Continues to

Accelerate. Yes. Yeah. No, I I've been thinking about this a lot recently and I was I was thinking that It's funny that these drug laws were Ostensibly.

Drafted to protect us. From drugs but may have Actually Protecting drugs from us.

And now that More and more people are recognizing the benefit of these substances. there is going to be a tremendous burden on the natural reserves of things like Yeah boga. Ayahuasca.

Boof well various. Then um Not to mention the even more unusual things that are out there. And For anyone that does recognize

The benefits of these things. It's very important. To Take sustainability seriously because medicinal plants and especially medicinal animals. Or

widely document to be destroyed when they are integrated into a popular medical practice. It doesn't even need to exert a therapeutic effect. Rhinoceros horn Hang on scale. These are things that have no pharmacological effect whatsoever.

Although penguin scales were reputed to contain Tramadol at one point, but Yeah. Absolutely do not. But that's all it takes is someone to say something. Like that and before you know it. Hang on.

Severely. threatened or even worse, human intervention with some of these animals can Pause. The transmission of viruses cause pandemics. I mean there's a a lot of reasons

You Be very careful about the way that you interact. With animals. In medical practices, unless it's absolutely necessary to do so. And I feel conflicted about

Iboga because on one hand I want so much to sing its praises and and talk about the tremendous benefit that I think it had For me, even using it just this one time.

people hear that and understand that, the natural response is going to be, Well, I wanna try that myself. And And a boga tree has to be about five years old before you can even begin To harvest. The roots.

There's talk about sustainable harvesting where you only cut off half the roots and leave The rest of the Shrub live. I certainly never observed that in Gabon every time I saw anyone Harvesting roots. They would kill the entire tree.

There's talk about different types of sort of hydroponic growth or hairy root culture that can be done to increase the yield. It could also be grown on a larger scale. I did see some people that had

Small Iboga farms in both Cameroon and Gabon. It's possible. But There has to be a strong incentive, and the consumer has to be willing to pay. The price to know that

what they are consuming has been responsibly sourced. So you know that I I recently wrote and published. A blog post. On Considering

A more ethical menu. The piece was targeted. at psychedelic users or people who use compounds that often overlap with psychedelic use. Or administration like combo. Yeah.

And discussing some of the Telescoping. potential ramifications of these things becoming ten times more popular, a hundred times more popular, a thousand times more popular, which is not Outside the realm of imagination. Or possibilities.

Uh actually very easily could be the case. And There are a lot of points that I tried to describe or or make in this piece and people can find it at Tim.blog forward slash conservation. It's kicked up quite a lot of

Discussion. And also blowback because some of my recommendations hit a lot of people directly in the wallet. Who are Providers of various things. If we grab one example

Let's just take Bufal Varius. And Five M U D M T as an example. How contained is the ecological impact of synthesising Versus

procuring it from these these toads. I mean this is a fairly I suppose easy example and this is is maybe a good example to start with because others become maybe a bit more complex to talk about in the sense that if we're talking about M D M A People can point to deforestation in Cambodia or they can look at the dumping of various chemicals used in producing MDMA in Holland and so on.

And in other locations, but How should people think of Synthetics and environmental impact. Is there a way to to minimize the impact in the case of say five M E O D M T.

Oh absolutely. Absolutely, yeah. A lot of the examples that you just gave are interesting because they're completely true. Yes, there's Deforestation in Cambodia. to

Extract. Saffron from these trees. But that doesn't need to be a source of saffron, that's a product of the black market. That's just because It can be done that way. You can make saffron.

Any number of other ways. M DMA from black pepper, you can make it from catacol, you can make it from a just endless different petroleum products, whatever. There's it's it's a relatively simple molecule. There's hundreds of ways that it conceivably could be made that don't involve the destruction of old grow trees in Cambodia. The only situation where that is a necessity is where MDMA is a schedule one controlled substance and the manufacturing distribution of it is controlled by the black market and it's completely unregulated.

It's sort of like when people say Well how could you possibly do cocaine? You're supporting the cartels. And I understand the point.

But Yeah. Issue isn't doing cocaine. The issue is the prohibition of cocaine that makes it a black market commodity that has to be sold by cartels. It could just as easily be a regulated market like anything else, like aspirin. So

I think that there's a a lot of misplaced moralism in some of these areas. Um and synthesis does not have to involve destruction of the environment at all. Bibamure DMT especially. Because You know, you can make five meal DMT from melatonin.

And melatonin I think is produced microbially. At least, you know, a lot of amino acids are produced microbially or There's you know, such an enormous industry for the Production of amino acids. Like Tryptophan and

that uh they've they've figured out ways to produce those on an enormous scale with minimal ecological repercussions. So you can take A hundred grams of melatonin.

And convert that to about a hundred grams of five MO DMT, which is the equivalent of milking thousands and thousands and thousands of toad. And so the question is why not do that? Well one reason Is that there's a sort of Vitalist.

Animist. Interest in the fact that it comes from a toad, which I understand. I actually think that's really interesting myself. I don't want to discount that entirely. And So then the The issue is how can we make

Synthetic materials Have the same Value As something that is derive from nature. How could you feel that same connection to a synthetic material? Because we think of

A synthetic material is something that is soulless, something that is bad. Oh it comes from some. Laboratory in China. That means it's bad. It's dirty. It doesn't have the sacred goodness of something that is derived from this Toad that lives in Sonora. And

Estivates underground for nine months just like the period of human gestation and there's so much beautiful symbolism there that of course this is a transformative good experience. How could you find that same beautiful symbolism in a synthetic compound? Well what if You knew that the compound was synthesized by someone who cared.

who did it lovingly, who is very dedicated to purity. I mean you hear stories of Nick Sand Clutching. Yeah flask of L S D as he synthesizes it and trying to project love. into the molecule itself.

You know, you can do this to a synthetic compound if you want. And you can Confer those same sorts of positive associations. Yeah, you can Have

Animist. Essentialist attachments to anything if you want, if you choose. And that's what I think is so funny when people say How dare you say there's no difference between Synthetic and natural. That's actually not what I'm saying. I do believe that there is a difference, but I think we have control over that difference. I think that difference is a product of.

the value system that we have and we could just as easily shift it if we wanted to. Furthermore. I would say and this is also what I wrote in that piece at one point is even if we assume That some of these Animal or plant derived options.

R twenty percent superior in whatever sense to a synthetic. I would find it hypocritical. Two Inflict.

ecological damage or encourage increasing levels of ecological damage. in the name of pursuing one's own healing, if other tools may be adequate. And For that reason. Also if we're just looking at this. From a historical and cultural perspective.

I think lots of people and I'm not to malign this, but they want to kind of put a stamp For every Plant or animal experience into their psychedelic passport. And I understand the drive.

I'm a novelty seeker. I get it. But It's hard to find. I don't think А ценілнос культур.

That has used the entire pantheon of psychedelics. It's just not something that we see demonstrated by these traditions that are venerated by the very same people Who would then reject a synthetic.

Let me ask a question before I lose the thread. For those people who might synthesize. 'Cause I watch footage, whether it's in your show or I do reading and I hear about the dumping of solvents and other things after illicit manufacture of different

Compounds. What would your advice be to Someone who is synthesizing Anything. In terms of minimizing how to dispose of their waste or otherwise

To minimize damage. And I'm asking this as a non chemist. I've never synthesized anything. what chemicals you're using because there are many things that are relatively innocuous. You know, you could be using alcohol as a solvent and then you could just evaporate it. into the air and it's just alcohol. It doesn't Matter or

sodium borohydride might form various borate salts that are innocuous and then you can do whatever you want with them. You can probably put them in your garden if you want. And other times you might be working with Mercury salt that are deadly poisons, and in that case it is your responsibility not to introduce them into the environment where they could hurt someone or enter the groundwater.

And again This is why having a regulated system is ideal because you don't have to depend on good intentions of every single person that's Making these sort of things you can leave it up to people. That are

Professionally invested in doing the right thing. That said. Um, for every story that you hear about clandestine chemists dumping Solvents and

waste material into the environment. There are actually a good number of people who are aware of that stereotype. who go far out of their way not to be like that. Casey Hardison. who's a sort of controversial LSD chemist who many people

now have some problems with but One of the things that he was most proud of Was that in his entire LSD lab? All of the waste could be put in one trash can that he he was extremely aware.

Of You know, I'm doing something that society says is wrong, so I'm gonna go above and beyond to do it as well as I possibly can so that no one can accuse me of having damaged the environment. And the process of creating this chemical.

And I've known a number of other chemists who have the same attitude who actually Not only do they do the right thing. They almost take neurotic pride. in never doing any harm to the environment with their synthesis. And there's a whole subclass of chemistry called green chemistry that is dedicated

Two finding the most environmentally friendly way of producing a given chemical or a given reaction. If someone let's just say ends up With their garbage can of waste. I don't know if this is something we can

Talk, but hypothetically, how would they dispose of that in a responsible way? And I know it depends on the chemicals involved, but let's just say some of them are toxic. While minimally identifying themselves as someone who is engaged in illegal behavior. Does that make sense? I think of course, of course. It's a really good question. And I again I hate to keep saying this again and again, but it comes down to

one of the problems when something is illegal. Is you could be somebody that genuinely wants to do the right thing. I've got a little bit of mercury waste. I don't wanna just pour this down the drain. I wanna do the right Thing. And

Give it to A hazardous waste disposal company. What? I'm afraid that in doing so I will

Incriminate myself and end up in prison and so I don't wanna risk it. This is a another attitude that you Buying. And In those cases I don't know how to advise people. I would say that Before you get involved in anything like that.

Make sure that you have a plan for absolutely everything. I'm I'm not Suggesting The people indiscriminately start. Synthesizing these compounds. That's not what I'm saying. I'm saying that synthesis is an alternative

Mm. Chemists that are trained and want to do so. Um I do have a sort of Utopian vision where more people are involved in chemistry

Because I actually think That one of the best ways to reduce problematic relationships with drugs. is to have people make their own drugs and grow their own plants. And I think the same is also true of food, by the way. I think if more people

grew their own food and prepare their own food, they'd have much, much healthier diets. No one would be eating gummy worms. There would be a lot less obesity. And It's because we are

Detached from the process of manufacturing a lot of the things that sustain our life. And If people grew their own mushrooms. I think That

they would have a much better experience with those mushrooms because they would know everything that went into producing them. I think the same is true of cannabis. I think the same is true of mescaline containing cacti. And I think although this is where it enters a slightly idealistic and unrealistic territory, I think that it's also true of synthetic drugs as well. If you Spent a year figuring out how to make MDMA.

And how to dispose of the waste effectively. There's no way that you would abuse it by the time you were done. You'd have so much respect. for what you had created and the work that went into creating it, that you would have to take it seriously. So to recap, just for the benefit of this podcast.

With the assumption that most people are not gonna read the piece that I wrote. Even though I'll plug it again. It's nothing for sale there. Well, th actually that's not true. There's one link to your pamphlet on uh related to five MEO and synthesis, but all proceeds from that go to supporting Research related to Parkinson's disease. Yes.

Uh so People can read this at Tim Dotblog slash But A few options in terms of lessening damage. And I say this I should say because we're we're talking a lot about synthetics.

As someone who's very fond, extremely fond. Uh whole plant derived or fungi derived psychedelics, whether they be Slossive mushrooms or Ayahuasca, which is a combination of the Benesteriapsis copy vine and most commonly the chakruna or psychodria virutus shrub leaves thereof.

I've Derived incredible therapeutic value from these things. And I've

had to accept the uncomfortable truth that a lot of the sourcing that is currently going on in the psychedelic world is just unsustainable. It is not scalable and totally unsustainable. I'll offer a few alternatives for people who may be interested in peyote. I would say please do not use peyote, reserve that for indigenous use. Consider Like you mentioned, other mescaline containing cacti San Pedro regenerates much more quickly.

Combo. I would say just don't do it. Most civilizations have survived and thrived and developed deep spiritual practices without using toads. Of any type, so I can like animals.

So y I would argue that you do not need to either or you shouldn't until you have exhausted all other options. The Sonoran Desert Toad. We talked about synthesis options that have I mean the yield is pretty incredible.

Oh yes. I mean this is the other thing is if you believe in this medicine And you want people to have access to it. This is the way to actually make it available. There's no comparison. to toads in terms of how much can be produced this way. This is how to actually get it out there.

And There hasn't been a lot of research published on how Toad populations have been altered by their recent Popularity.

But I think it's very telling. You know, if somebody Is selling a product and they say it's Great. You have to really scrutinize The claim.

But if someone's has everything to gain and they're telling you that they're doing something bad not to do it. You have to listen very carefully. So people that were Making their living harvesting toad venom. We're telling me

This is not sustainable. The populations are dwindling. And they had every reason to lie about that. They could have just as easily said, Don't worry about it. There's so many, they're probably just hibernating. But they did not say that.

There needs to be an alternative available to people. And I actually see it as a you know, a source of inspiration. If you care about these things Then

You can show your admiration by studying them and trying to recreate them synthetically to better understand them. You know, I think that there's a tribute to nature in all natural product chemistry. where you're recognizing this amazing feat of enzymatic synthesis that was conducted by a plant or an animal. And you're saying all right.

That's a great challenge. I'm gonna see if I can do it as well. I'm gonna see if I can do it. And if there's more in the Venom, although I Don't actually think that There is all that much that is

Contributing. Why not try that out as well? You can synthesize bufotanine. You can Synthesize serotonin O sulfate if you want. You can synthesize any of these compounds and try them in different combinations and Let that be a challenge. And A way of showing your admiration to the toad.

Let's stay on five M E O D M T for a little bit longer. Uh well. Specifically the toad derived. quote unquote toad, as it's often referred to. And I wanna preface the question that I'm gonna ask'cause it's gonna upset people.

By saying I Am in love with many of the traditions related to sacred plants. in Central and South America. I've spent a lot of time in both places. I've read libraries Full of books.

And have tremendous respect for these indigenous Cultures and traditions. That said. Let me ask the question. How much evidence is there to support

That there is A long history of indigenous use of the Sonoran desert toad. As far as I can tell, there's absolutely no history whatsoever. Yeah. And it's a complicated point that I tried to make in my piece and I think I

ended up confusing a lot of people. Because Yeah History is that there was a an anthropologist named

Jeanette Runquest. Who had Found A Cherokee Midden pile that contained a lot of toads. And had concluded

I think maybe even partially on the basis of some work Alexander Shulgin had done and her correspondence with Shulgin. That it was maybe possible. That They were using it as a psychoactive drug. Which was a a compelling hypothesis and it's worthy of consideration.

But Subsequent investigations have shown that those toads Could not have been Buf Walvarius, which is the only species that produces five amo DMT. And that there is really almost no way that it was any psychoactive toad and that there's very strong evidence

That they were using the toads as food. So You have no evidence of a psychedelic toad in that region and a a history of using Toads. As

Food by those same people. It seems pretty clear. That You can't point to that and say this is evidence of ancient smoking. It simply isn't.

But To make things more complicated. This misconception Served as the inspiration for an independent researcher named Ken Nelson in the eighties. So he read this article which got a little bit of

popular press and magazines like Omni which were very very influential in the nineteen eighties. And he decided to investigate it himself. Thinking that he was rediscovering an ancient practice, but he wasn't rediscovering it, he was actually discovering it for the first time.

Which is just a really actually very confusing turn of events. But That is what happened. He is according to Known history.

The first human being To smoke. The venom of Bufal Varius. I mean just the trial and error. And

Balls. Yeah. And also intelligence that are encapsulated by Ken. I mean it's it's really Mind boggling.

How much he was able To do and document. Oh yeah. I mean, I think it's inspiring because it shows, you know, during the same period in the nineteen eighties When things were looking really, really bad for psychedelic research. How one person

Could Make such an interesting and now culturally very important important discovery just on the basis of their own curiosity. I'll also add one more thing and please Hamilton, call me out if I'm

wandering astray uh and getting things wrong. But I think another element or aspect of this that might be confusing to people is I think what you're saying, if I'm hearing you correctly. Is that there's no compelling evidence to suggest Indigenous

Or historical use. Up until a handful of decades ago. Of the Sonoran Desert Toad. as a source of five M U DMT. That is correct, yes.

What you are not saying is that There's no historical evidence. Of Indigenous use of Five M E O DMT.

Containing. Plants. That is correct. That's an important distinction. Yeah, that is the case. But If if we're looking at Toad specifically. And and I'm I'm kind of

beating this dead horse, folks, because I've seen How popular Toad. has become in psychedelic circles and it's very, very worrisome to me just in terms of scalability. So that's why we're spending so much time on this.

I I should also say just as a caveat that I have quite apart from the ecological impact. Seeing uh Some very experienced psychonauts.

Get knocked sideways and untethered by a five MU DMT experiences. Not to say that that is But At least anecdotally.

Among the circles that I know well. It has been alarming how many examples. There are people getting Destabilized. By their experiences. I don't know if

If if you have any thoughts on that. Oh yes. I mean I think one of the unfortunate things about FiveMe O DMT is its name. So people think five MEO DMT that must be a version of DMT. It must be similar to DMT. But it's more distant from DMT than psilician and psilocybin.

Yeah, it's a Pharmacologically and chemically and experientially crucially. Different compound. It's so different. That

I don't even think the word psychedelic Really fully captures what it is and what it does. It's operating on a level that is different from any

other psychedelic, and I'm not just talking about its potency. There's something else going on. It's not Doesn't cause visual hallucinations for most people. It dissociates you entirely from your environment, you become Largely unresponsive at high doses, almost as if you've taken an anesthetic.

And it can produce very violent physical reactions for people as well. It's really like a near death experience more than what people think of when they think of a psychedelic experience. For all of those reasons and more, folks. Please consider

Other options or a synthetic route. With respect to Toad. In the new season. Not to go from like

Horror to horror. You explored Xenon gas. Yes. Uh so I think this is a

A useful place to talk about Not necessarily risks of compounds. But Risks that can exist. External

To the compound or even the dose of a compound itself. So we were texting about this. A few days ago, but Can you provide a little bit of of background on

Why you have a gas In the most recent season. Yeah. What some of its effects are. And then uh

Talk about what you observed. in this clinic that scar the living shit out of me. Yes. Yeah. So For those that aren't aware of xenon, it is an element. It's on the periodic table of elements in a column called the noble gases. It's on the rightmost side and at the top you have helium, which everyone is familiar with then Neon, which again everyone is familiar with, then Argon, which maybe a few less people are familiar with. Then crypton and then xenon. Xenon is the heaviest noble gas that is not radioactive. Then you have radon, which is unstable.

And If you've heard of xenon, you probably only know about it in the context of lighting. It's used in car headlights and projector lights and things like that. It's very, very rare in our atmosphere. It's point zero zero zero zero zero eight seven percent of Earth's atmosphere.

So there's a little tiny bit in every breath that you take. But In order to concentrate enough of it to fill a tank, you need to To still

millions of liters of air. You have to compress it and cool it down to a liquid and then fractionally distill off the nitrogen and the oxygen and finally after you've removed all the other gases, you're left with a a small xenon fraction. Which is why it's so expensive. A single breath of xenon costs somewhere in the range of

Sixty dollars. And That's unfortunate because For anesthesiologists that have examined xenon clinically They've concluded that it has

a number of attributes make it essentially the perfect anesthetic. It is not metabolized in any way. It can be recycled indefinitely. It's extremely potent, more potent than nitrous oxide. when it's given to a patient, they recover very, very rapidly after The xenon gas is removed within

Seconds. And the anesthesia also begins within seconds. And it has no known toxicity. So it is arguably The perfect

An aesthetic and maybe even The perfect drug. It's incredibly, incredibly euphoric. But and this actually goes back to these again, I was saying earlier about how there's so many different factors that determine addiction when people are talking about addiction potential. There could be the greatest drug in the world, but it doesn't matter if

A single Dose of it costs thousands of dollars or it's impossible to obtain. And I think xenon is an example of that. It is a drug that Is Extremely enjoyable, but it it's just something that nobody has access to. I never thought I would have the opportunity to use it.

And it wasn't until I was visiting a chemist friend in New Zealand. I was um In two thousand fourteen. I was on my way back to the United States. I was about to get on the plane He said before you go.

I need to show you I have this tank of xenon. And I couldn't believe it. the it seemed so absurdly extravagant. It seemed almost on par with, you know, using gold or diamonds as a psychoactive drug. And I had that opportunity to inhale one balloon full of xenon and I it was a cherished memory of this, you know, one Absurd, extravagant.

encounter with xenon gas, which is a source of fascination for Uh anyone that cares about the periodic table. Yeah. He Yeah.

It was a balloon of sorts. May or may not have been a condom. So so you you talk about this perfect Drug.

I think you're talking about it as a perfect drug from the standpoint of Euphoria. I want you to correct me if I'm wrong. The first time that Xenon ever came on my radar outside of hearing about it in passing maybe in High school.

on the periodic table. Possible performance enhancing drug. At the Sochi Olympics. for endurance. I think it was for biathlon or Any number of other sports, but that it was being used.

For endurance enhancing properties. As a performance enhancing drug. I don't know if there's any real plausible mechanism to explain that but what are the Medical

Uses. of Xenon outside of Inducing euphoria. First is an anesthetic, but it's not used for that. in the United States at this time. It was used experimentally for a brief period by an anesthesiologist named Mervin Mays and a few others have investigated it, but it has not been approved by the FDA for that purpose and all uses

Experimental. There is a pharmaceutical company called Nobilis that's trying to develop and release a xenon inhaler for PTSD. They actually sent me a prototype of it. Which is the first time I've heard of a psychoactive drug inhaler. Or treatment of a

psychological disorder. very interesting idea. I don't know if it will ever come to market, but it was really cool to see somebody Looking into that. In terms of performance enhancing, I think that it's Basically

Working is it's sort of Oxygen deprivation. Type. Intervention where In

Addition to the anaesthetic euphorien effects that conceivably could allow an athlete to get a little extra work out in. I mean this is I think among elite Olympic type athletes it would be far too expensive to use under any sort of normal

Training. And that was about it. You know, I had this one experience I wrote it up as a fun novelty that I Never get to do again. And then somebody wrote to me

And they said Yeah, I was just in the sauna at the gym and some guy said that he's uh owns a Xenon clinic. What's the deal with that? And I thought Well, I don't know what the deal is with that. I've never heard of a xenon clinic.

And I said, you know, could you get me this guy's phone number and could I talk to him? And he said, Oh, you know, I'll do what I can. He sends me his phone number, we start talking. And The English language, there's almost nothing about this. This is all happening in Russia, the Czech Republic. India as well, apparently.

But if you look online at least before I released my episode, there was almost nothing about xenon as a psychoactive drug. But these clinics are opening up. Where they give people xenon. as a therapy for a variety of different ailments.

And so I went and spent some time at one of these clinics and it was a Fascinating and somewhat frightening experience. It was one of the most Sreal I would say maybe that's the word.

S real twenty or thirty minutes. of television I've ever seen. I won't ruin the surprise, but There's Xenon Gas. There's operatic singing.

Yeah. Ha ha. There are Breatharians, in other words, people who claim To survive on prana alone without eating food.

Which ends up being particularly relevant. When we get to the horror story that I hope Share. It's uh And also the

Bizarrness of hearing how deep your voice becomes. Oh yes. On Xenon. Yeah. Yes, it's it's really funny. It it's al also funny, I There's a number of videos on YouTube of people inhaling xenon.

Exclusively For the purpose of altering the sound of their voice. I think this is another example of this sort of puritanical attitude that people have. So all these if you inhale xenon gas to change the sound of your voice for a YouTube video. That's totally fine.

I Upload. A video of myself. Inhaling xenon gas. My voice has changed.

But like everyone else I get high. The only difference is in They want to change their voice, the highness is incidental. In my video I want to get high and the voice change is incidental, but in my case the video is demonetized. You backanalian hedonists. emblematic of the way

These things are carried out in our culture. Two people can inhale the exact same gas. But if you're doing it with the intention of feeling euphoria That's unacceptable. But if you're doing it. To playfully alter the sound of your voice.

Then Sure, that's fine. You can advertise with that. Since I've been dragging this out with foreshadowing, what was the horror story? Okay, okay, the horror story, yes. So

In order to do the work that I do, I've Had to cultivate a very non judgmental attitude. And I often get messages from people saying, you know, how could you have possibly let this person say this or how could you have talked to this or that sort of person? But I think the best strategy if you're trying to learn from someone else is just to listen.

and to not judge them. And I've never been the sort of person that wants to catch people looking their worst. I always want To give people the opportunity. To be shown the way they want to be seen. And I certainly did not go to this clinic with the intention of making anyone look bad. The novelty of Xenon being used as a therapy was more than enough for me.

And if People had had a a perfectly Good time. And everyone had benefited, that would have been the episode. There was footage of people having Positive experiences. Yeah, it's my experience was extremely positive.

But Over the time that I was there It became clear. that there were some risks associated with the xenon therapy. They were giving it to children.

That I don't think is inherently bad, but it does raise the bar in terms of medical supervision. A lot of the research that has been done in the use of xenon as an anaesthetic has actually been done on neonades. So it's Not as if there's something inherently bad about giving this to

Children, or in that case, infants. But You want to make sure that there's Someone with training At least as an anesthetist who is available should anything go wrong.

Then there was the issue with People potentially developing a problematic relationship, some sort of dependents. And again, you would never Your xenon discussed as an addictive drug because

Most people don't have a tank of xenon. They could never hope to become addicted to xenon. But I think for some of these people who were working with it continuously. they may have developed a slightly problematic relationship with it. And I even heard a rumor that is unconfirmed, so maybe I shouldn't say it, but I heard a rumor that there was another Xenon Clinic operator in the Czech Republic.

Who died as well. So This is an occupational hazard. The same thing is true of nitrous oxide. It's a problem in dentistry that dentists and dental hygienists Develop.

addiction to nitrous oxide because they have tanks of it available and it's very easy after a stressful day to sit down in the dentist chair and Unwind for a few hours. I I spoke with one dentist. Who um

Yeah, had Pretty much. Lost everything. Because He enjoyed he told me that he wasn't

addicted to nitrous oxide. And he wasn't addicted to prints. But he was addicted to the combination of listening to Prince on nitrous oxide. Dangerous dangerous cocktail. Yeah, so that's something to avoid.

So The other thing of course is that When you're administering an anesthetic somebody is by definition unconscious, and if they vomit While they are unconscious, it can very easily be

fatal if they inhale any of their vomit. So you have people laying on their backs who haven't fasted, which is Standard. Before in this clinic, you mean. Fasting was not standard, yes. But before the administration of a a general anesthetics, someone should always fast.

Because if you vomit while you're unconscious, it can be fatal. So they were not asking anybody to fast. Yes. Ironically, Breatharian, someone who Claims to never consume

Food. started to vomit while they were unconscious, while wearing this mask which is quadruple strapped to the face in order to prevent any leakage of the precious xenon gas. And

It was Absolutely terrifying. And That was a moment where I realized You know, I don't want to make anyone look bad. That's not what I

Got into this to do. But I also don't want to hide. bad things that I observe because you can very easily hurt people that way as well. And it was a kind of difficult moment of realizing that There was something potentially dangerous going on and I had to

Acknowledge it. The final thing. that was not captured on film and was not part of the episode. Because again, xenon is so precious it has to be recycled. When it's recycled it's passed through a closed loop.

It contains calcium hydrox, which scrubs CO two. I wanted to film a time lapse of this Colour change indicator in these Calcium hydroxide. speeds changing just to show the passage of time.

So I asked a producer that I was working with. to just inhale into the calcium hydroxide repeatedly so I could Film. This color change reaction. And he's doing that. I'm filming the time lapse. I go into another room to film something else.

When I come back Someone who's working at the clinic said, Why don't we just give him some xenon as well? You know, he's here, he's sitting. And I said, Oh, it's very expensive, you don't have to do that. He said, Oh no, I insist, I insist that we we give him some xenon. And I said, Okay, well it's very generous of you and

the producer wanted to try the xenon and so He hooked him up to the Xenon. And I left again. And then when I came back twenty minutes later Not only was this producer unconscious under the influence of Xenon

The Propriet of the clinic. Was using Xenon himself and was also unconscious and wasn't watching him. You couldn't wait. To use it himself.

And that's when I thought, Okay. There's something that's terrifying. There's something terrifying going on here. And that same person tragically died shortly after We finished the episode. So You know

I I don't want to claim that Xenon is dangerous. I don't even know that I think that those clinics should be shut down. But I think that it's very clear. That Additional caution is required.

You have a very Interdisciplinary. Bent. And interdisciplinary. Approach.

You have a journalistic eye, you have scientific training. You are a practicing chemist. You are doing research. And you have become this this figurehead. And magnet.

For all sorts of correspondence. So I think you have a very good thirty thousand foot view of a lot of Intersecting areas of interest and activity within the let's just call it the psychedelic realm. Does anything come to mind?

If I ask what would you like to see more or less of In the psychedelic space. Yes, one thing that comes to mind That I don't have a good answer for, but something that I've come to appreciate.

More and more as I've gotten older. Is w you know when I first started researching the subject. I was a pure reductionist. And I

had very little appreciation Or the ritual associated with a lot of these things. And The more I experienced these rituals, the more I came to respect them.

And The aboga ceremony was The moment where I realized That the ritual could be as powerful as

The substance itself. and the integration of that ritual. Could Dramatically. magnify the therapeutic properties of the drug.

The reason that I felt that way is because This is it an endurance ritual. It's five days of fasting. Five days of almost continuous dance and drumming. And With

the aboga you start to appreciate Things that are very difficult to articulate. I had a rattle in my hand. And I was tired.

At times. I didn't want to rattle anymore, and I would think there's twenty people around me that are rattling. Do I really Have to rattle. Continuously, all night long?

Is haven't we rattled enough? And then and then it it hit me. Yeah. Yes. I did have to rattle.

Because my rattle motivated everyone else's rattle in the same way that their rattle motivated my rattle. And Every single person's movement. played off of everyone else's movement and it was my responsibility, no matter how tired I was, to put every ounce of energy that I had

into this ceremony. Because I was a part of it and because we were all connected. Now that sounds like a pretty kind of new age idea. But it felt entirely logical. It felt completely rationalist to me.

I am a part of this. Everything that I do influences everyone else. If I Let my motivation slip for a moment, it could have an effect on someone else. It could have a butterfly downstream effect.

That Diminishes the entire ceremony and I can't Allow that to happen. I have to give this every ounce of energy and enthusiasm that I have. And that was part of it.

I would actually liken, bizarrely enough, to Breatharianism. Which is I watched some documentaries on Bretharianism and I you know, after this experience I started reading about it and learning about it. And it's very, very easy to make fun of Breatharians. Uh I, of course, would have made fun of them because

Of course, you need food to survive. Of course you need water to survive. Obviously, this is one of the most obvious things in the world. But then I started thinking. Well wait a second. Is it really fair? To just call these people idiots. Why might somebody do this? Why might somebody even

Think about the idea of Brotherianism. And what I came to realise is that it's A tremendously empowering idea. to think that there are reserves of energy within you that you can tap into. And if you

Have enough will, enough power within you. You can subsist off your own life force indefinitely. And while there was no Breatharianism in the Aboga ceremony, I think that spirit of reserves of energy within you. Was

A tremendous part. There is no need to get tired because there's more inside you. There's no need to eat. You can keep going. There's no need to drink water. You're not going to die of dehydration right there and then. You'll be okay. You don't even need to pee. You don't you can just keep going. It's all within you. And That was a really empowering idea. And it it doesn't matter if you are addicted to drugs or not. It doesn't matter if you're religious or not. The idea that there are tremendous reserves of energy within you

is something that can benefit everyone, and I don't know how that could be applied In our Current Medical practice. Mm.

Yeah, the translation. Of ritual although I suppose it's We already have ritual. In our medical practices. They are just

They just differ very widely from the indigenous Rituals, right? We've got There's certain protocols and outfits and hierarchies. I'm not saying they're unnecessary, but they form in some ways their own Codified set of

Of rituals. And they've started to introduce them, you know. Bill Richards does talk about the things that are done in Johns Hopkins. And You know, they serve the psilocybin capsule, which of course is synthetic psilocybin.

In a copal burner that's sort of like a chalice. And they have a rose at the end of the session that people examine. And which has become a sort of psychedelic tradition in

twentieth century psychotherapy in and of itself where people can see the rows at the end and in The pedals. They can recognize their own mortality. So there there are rituals that are being integrated How widespread these will become. is another question. But I think that's actually

А з біга кєн. as the chemistry and the pharmacology of these substances is how Can we Develop. The best rituals.

To ensure that people are getting the best. And the most out of them. Yeah, set and setting, right? I mean I wanna pursue this same question a little bit further, but before I do Let me ask. Given the multiplication.

of fly by night rent a shamans in South America. And the fraud and disaster and sexual abuse and other things that can befall a tourist in South America. Are there also fly by night operators Who are dealing in Iboga. Oh, I'm sure. And by the way, I am

Not saying this To Make any sort of claim like You have to have a traditional

buiti a boga ceremony. That's not what I'm saying at all. I'm really just trying to appreciate The power of some of these traditions. And I actually think that they can paradoxically be disempowering as well. If you think that you need someone else to give you this experience, that you have no intuitive understanding of your own psychology, that you need someone else to explain life to you, that's a problem as well. There's a balance. And I actually think that it probably helps me a little bit that I don't speak French.

And so I was Able to absorb some of the symbolism, I was able to absorb some of the rituals. But I didn't

Fully understand any of it. And I learned what I could. I had a translator, I asked questions. But It would be a

Their rituals. I just think that There's a lot. to be done in

The way that we administer these substances. and the cultures that have spent a few generations figuring it out, some of them seem to have done a really remarkable job, but that's not to say that People should um invalidate their own intuition and they should obviously be very, very careful. There are some.

Really. outstanding scientists who are not first and foremost psychedelic researchers who are gonna be coming into this field who I think will do a really nice job of of looking at context and some of these inputs, although they might not But Transplanting of ritual.

on their initial list. They might be looking at old factory cues and things like that. But Adam Gazali at UCSF. is gonna be stepping into this world. I'm really excited. To see what he does. I'm sure there are others.

Let's talk about the ritual a little bit further. So we so I may Get a little bit more. Far from sure with the initial question which was what would you like to see more or less of? We can just bookmark that. I think it's important to also note which you already described in part with this

Changing of Buy ceremony. to Address this. new problem of, say, Tramadol addiction or addiction.

that they're experiencing in their society. Or surrounding societies. That's rituals. Are not static. In the sense that

one shouldn't feel that in order to have the one and only authentic ayahuasca ceremony, they need to go find A certain person from a certain tribe. Because The real thing has been frozen in the ember. Amber? Amber.

Has been frozen in the amber. In a certain village in South America. People are have been mixing and matching all along. So if you look at the traditional ayahuasca Uh and by traditional I mean pre Spanish Inquisition kind of pre

Mestizo tradition. Ayahuasca ceremonies, very often it was only the ayahuascaro, only the Shaman, all they wouldn't call themselves that. Who would drink for purposes of diagnosis or divination or whatever the purpose might be, prophecy. And uh

That if you look at Even in the remotest parts of the upper Amazon, for instance, some of these ceremonies you're gonna find Elements of Other languages. Say certain types of Quechua that don't

occur. natively in those regions, you're gonna find things like Agua de Florida, Florida water, which we both had Which was originally manufactured in the United States.

And is a very strong cologne. I don't know how it's it made its way into the remotest parts of the Amazon. Maybe you do. I suspect it it might have something to do with The rubber. Industry. That's a great question. I'd love to know the answer. But you find it all over the place. Agua de canga. Cananga water also, at least.

one of the most common versions of it initially manufactured in the United States. And uh so these kind of syncretic hybrids are found everywhere, which is to say I think we should give ourselves license to continue to experiment with these new combinations. Oh absolutely, yes. I mean Christianity has permeated every great psychedelic tradition internationally. It's part of the buiti tradition, you bow down to Christ.

It's part of Mars attack. Salvia and mushroom ceremonies. The native American church in the United States.

part of we choose hole traditions as well. It certainly. Present in the A lot of South American.

Shamanism. So I don't think I can think of a single psychedelic tradition that doesn't Strongly include Christianity and Christian symbolism. So that right there is evidence

That These traditions are evolving. They evolved to reflect the environment to reflect The

best practices of the people who are engaging with these plants. And I think that we have a lot of room for growth and improvement. Mm. Is there anything else that worries you?

Right now with respect to the explosion of attention and popularity. And Capital. The influx new participants In the psychedelic space.

Like what are you most optimistic about and what are you most concerned by? I'm very concerned by the hype phase that we talked about. That There's a lot of people that are interested in the money and that's okay. I don't think there's anything wrong with money. And I don't think there's anything wrong from wanting to sell or profit from psychedelics.

What? It's definitely a problem. If that interferes With people's appreciation of them if they start behaving in corrupt or unethical ways.

And Journalists right now. Love to write positive stories about psychedelics because the pendulum of novelty has swung in the direction of describing psychedelics as something new and good, and it's fashionable to talk about how Prohibition is a mistake and these psychedelics are valuable medicines. And look at all these people at Johns Hopkins University. They just did this or that. So That's the big new thing.

Well, what happens when that gets a little bit old? And what happens when I don't know, someone has a bad experience. Maybe a celebrity has a bad experience and they decide that mushrooms caused their Psychosis.

And then what? And we start writing stories about that. Maybe we went too far. Maybe someone has some kind of problem. I mean, historically that is the way these things go. They become very popular. Then Art Link Letter's daughter jumps out a window.

Or Someone decides that Timothy Leary is crazy and he's emblematic of the problems with psychedelics, and that becomes the story. So I just hope that everyone's

will be responsible in their use and will recognize that it is up to them To Ensure that the mistakes of the past aren't repeated. What books? There's a long list. I've seen your library. You have a lot of books related to psychedelics.

If you could assign required reading for anyone involved with psychedelics, whether using Administering Pursuing them. In the form of a business.

I know that's very, very broad, but are there any books That stand out. To you? Oh, of well pe call and tea call are the two that I would say Read those first and

Thankfully they're long enough that I think if people actually took my advice and read them by the time they got to the end. They wouldn't need advice on further book recommendations. But Those are the

The big ones, you know. With Iboga and Buiti religion, there's a very rare book that you can find PDFs of online. By U Chicago anthropologist whose last name is Fernandez. I'm trying to remember his first name.

It's called uh Buiti, is the name of the book. Published in the sixties or early seventies. That's a great text. That's pretty much all that's out there in English. Most of the we T Literature is in French, unfortunately.

When it comes to Silicine, psilocybin mushrooms, obviously there's Terrence McKenna. And Paul Stamets. That have contributed really interesting books on the subject, depending on whether you're interested in

cultivation or mushrooms in general. For Mezcaline containing cacti. Douglas Sharon wrote a a beautiful book called The Wizard of the Four Winds. That goes into Peruvian cactus shamanism.

that I recommend I could recommend a lot of books. They they might For the average reader. I mean there's a there's a lot. It it really depends on what you want to learn about. In some of these areas there's less literature.

There aren't. Many books that I would recommend on five of me O DMT and Buofall Various with And this is very self serving, I'm aware, with the exception of this book that I am republishing right now. It's the original book. It's maybe 10 pages long, something like that, 15 pages long. It's very short. But I think that it's a

Tells you Everything that you need to know about Ufalis written by the man who discovered that the venom could be smoked, Ken Nelson. And then I expanded it a little bit to include some Historical background. The whole thing is thirty pages long. It's a booklet. Very, very short.

It's good and I think that the other books that are not scientific texts, like there's a U Texas. monograph called Evolution of the Genus Bufo. But that's chemical analysis. I mean it's great if you're a scientist who's interested in Bufolvarious

But In terms of a larger Appreciation of five M E O D M T. I mean you have other books but they tend to be a little bit more in the new age vein.

There's a lot of garbage out there. Yeah. On all of these things that we're discussing. What is the URL again for the pamphlet? Yes, that is www. psychedelic toad of the Sonoran Desert dot com. I wish I'd just gotten psychedelic toad, but

Well, Hamilton, we've covered a lot of ground. And We could go for another Five hours, but

Maybe we'll save a little in reserve for our next round. I don't think there will be Even if I I exhausted myself, I think we would still have lots of material. It's about to get really interesting. I think there's gonna be a lot to talk about in the coming years. Oh, I think so too. I think there's going to be an

Absolute. Cyclone. of activity and also Conflict. Uh intellectual property.

being one of of kind of the the flag poles that I'm gonna watch. very closely And innovation. I mean a lot of novel psychedelics being Pursued by many for profit companies. Bigger and bigger players coming into the space.

Lots of research. Centers. Being established. Uh various universities.

And I'm thrilled that this Appears to be A field that is more and more viable as a career path for researchers and scientists. Yes, me too. Is there anything else that you'd like to do?

Say to my audience, request of my audience. A haiku that you'd like to read? Anything at all? No, it's just great talking to you. Yeah, you too, man. It's good to see you.

Yeah. And uh Special thanks to the uh Red Baron. Yeah. Did many fly by's.

In our audio verite conversation. You're in downtown Austin and for everybody listening. We will put show notes at Tim Dotblog forward slash podcast with links to everything that we've discussed. And until next time. Be safe, be open minded, and

Try the Hippocratic Oath when it comes to psychedelics. First do no harm, or at the very least, do as little harm as possible. And thanks for listening. Oh. Hey guys, this is Tim again. Just a few more things before you take off. Number one, this is Five Bullet Friday. Do you want to get a short email from me? Would you enjoy getting a short email from me every Friday that provides a little morsel of fun before the weekend? And Five Bullet Friday is a very short email where I share coolest things I've found or that I've been pondering over the week. That could include favorite new albums that I've discovered. It could include gizmos and gadgets and all sorts of weird shit that I've somehow dug up in the the world of the esoteric as I do. It could include favorite articles that I've read and that I've shared with

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