#605: Hamilton Morris and Dr. Mark Plotkin — Exploring the History of Psychoactive Substances, Synthetic vs. Natural Options, Microdosing, 5-MeO-DMT, The “Drunken Monkey” Hypothesis, Timothy Leary’s Legacy, and More

This episode is brought to you by Athletic Greens. I get asked all the time what I would take if I could only take one supplement. The answer is invariably athletic greens. I view it as all in one nutritional insurance. I recommended it, in fact, in the four hour body, this is more than 10 years ago, and I did not get paid to do so. With approximately seventy-five vitamins, minerals, and whole food sourced ingredients, you'd be very hard pressed to find a more nutrient dense and comprehensive formula on the market. It has multivitamins, multi-mineral greens complex. probiotics and prebiotics for gut health and immunity formula, digestive enzymes, adaptogens, and much more. I usually take it once or twice a day just to make sure I've covered my bases if I miss anything I'm not aware of. Of course I focus on nutrient dense meals to begin with, that's the basis. But Atletic Greens makes it easy to get a lot of nutrition when whole foods aren't readily available from travel packets. I always have them in my bag when I'm zipping around. Right now, Athlet Greens is giving my audience a special offer on top of their all in one formula.

Which is a free vitamin D supplement and five free travel packs with your first subscription purchase. Many of us are deficient in vitamin D. I found that true for myself, which is usually produced in our bodies from sun exposure. So adding a vitamin D supplement to your daily routine is a great option for additional immune support. Support your immunity. Gut health. and energy by visiting athleticgreens.com slash Tim. You'll receive up to a year's supply of vitamin D and five free travel packs with your subscription. Again, that's athleticgreens.com slash. Tim.

This episode is brought to you by Five Bullet Friday. My very own email newsletter. It's become one of the most popular email newsletters in the world with millions of subscribers. And it's super, super simple. It does not clog up your inbox. Every Friday I send out five bullet points, super short. Of the coolest things I've found that week, which sometimes includes apps, books, documentaries, supplements, gadgets, new self experiments, hacks, tricks. and all sorts of weird stuff that I dig up from around the world. You guys, podcast listeners and book readers, have asked for something short and action packed for a very long time. Because after all the podcasts, the books, they can be quite long. And that's why I created Five Bullet Friday.

It's become one of my favorite things I do every week. It's free, it's always gonna be free, and you can learn more at Tim.blog forward slash Friday. That's Tim.blog forward slash Friday. I get asked a lot how I meet guests for the podcast, some of the most amazing people I've ever interacted with. And little known fact, I've met probably twenty five percent of them because they first subscribe to Fible Friday. So you'll be in good company. It's a lot of fun. Five Bullet Friday is only available if you subscribe via email. I do not publish the content on the blog or anywhere else. Also, if I'm doing small in-person meetups, offering early access to startups, beta testing, special deals, or anything else that's very limited, I share it first with Five Bullet Friday subscribers. So check it out. Tim.blog forward slash Friday. If you listen to this podcast, it's very likely that you'd dig it a lot. And you can, of course, easily subscribe any time. So easy peasy. Again, that's Tim.blog forward slash Friday.

And thanks for checking it out, if the spirit moves ya. Optimal minimal. At this altitude, I can run flat out for a half mile before my hands start shaking. And then I'll see you personally quite. Now we're just seeing it. A cybernetic organism, living tissue over metal mental skeleton.

Well, hello, boys and girls, ladies and germs. This is Tim Ferris. Welcome to the Tim Ferris Show, where it is usually my job to deconstruct world class performers to tease out their routines, habits, et cetera, that you can apply to your own. Life. This time around we have a very special edition of this podcast featuring two of your favorite guests from the past, Dr. Mark Plotkin and Hamilton Morris. Mark takes over my duties as host and interviews Hamilton for an episode of the Plants of the Gods podcast. You, my dear listeners, are hearing this audio before anyone else, so it's a Tim Ferriss show exclusive. I've previously featured some of my favorite episodes from the Plants of the Gods podcast here on this podcast, and you can find all those at Tim Dotblog slash Plants of the Gods. These episodes cover a lot of fascinating ground. So let's get to the BIOS. Who is Mark? If you don't know Mark on Twitter at Doc.

DOC Mark Plotkin is an ethnobotanist who serves as president of the Amazon conservation team, which has partnered with roughly eighty tribes to map and improve management and protection of roughly one hundred million acres of ancestral rainforests. He is best known to the general public as the author of the book Tales of a Shaman's Apprentice, which One of the most popular books ever written about the rainforest. His most recent book is the Amazon What Everyone Needs to Know. You can find my interview with Mark at Tim.blog slash Mark Plotkin. That's M-A-R-K-P-L-O-T K-I-N. And the guest His guest today is Hamilton Morris. Love Hamilton. Hamilton on Twitter at Hamilton Morris, M O R R I S, is a chemist, filmmaker, and science journalist. Graduate of the New School, he conducts chemistry research at Saint Joseph's University. Hamilton is the writer and director of the documentary series Hamilton's Pharmacopia, or Pharmacopeia, depending on how you like to say it, in which he explores the chemistry and traditions surrounding psychoactive drugs, very often subjecting himself to personal intake. You can find my most recent interview with him at Tim.blog slash Hamilton. And what you're about to hear is a tightly packed sixty minute interview.

Mark and Hamilton cover the history of different psychoactive substances, Timothy Leary's legacy, the drunken monkey hypothesis, conservation, microdosing, the differences between five MEO, DMT, that's five methoxy, dimethyltryptamine, and DMT, a disease that afflicts people who smoke enormous quantities of cannabis. Yes, really. The impact of the placebo effect. Synthetic versus natural options. in this psychoactive spectrum of things, the role of ritual and much, much more. Please enjoy.

Well Hamilton, I want to thank you for agreeing to do the interview. And I would like to start by talking about the Sonoran Desert Toad. Which as you know is an object of fascination. Uh not only regionally, but certainly Nationally and

Perhaps internationally. So Perhaps you give us some thoughts on this recent fascination with this intriguing creature. Yes, it really does seem to be gaining popularity. Every time I think that it's peaked, it gets more and more popular and In the last month.

There were two major articles that came out one day after another in the New York Times and the New Yorker. The New York Times one actually. Was largely focused on conservation issues. I thought that that was pretty responsible in its orientation.

The New Yorker one was more a profile of Octavio Redig. But I think that even though it wasn't focused on conservation Implicitly a lot of those issues were evident. If only in terms of the magnitude of his work, how many people I think he claimed to have

personally turned on ten thousand people. And so If you want to use a rough estimate that Each mature Bufuel various toad when milked if all of the glands are milked.

Could produce Enough venom to supply five people. That's, you know, the milking of two thousand toads from one man. And You add to that his partner, Jerry Sandoval or his former partner.

makes that four thousand toads. And then everybody else was inspired by them. You can just easily knock that up to ten thousand toads and I think it becomes clear that even if it wasn't a problem for a few people to do this. If it continues to gain popularity at the current rate, it's going to become a problem very quickly. There's an excellent ethnobotanist by the name of Gary Nabhan, very prolific, but his best book.

My favorite is called The Desert Smells Like Rain. Came out about forty years ago. And it talks about how the Hohokum people have expanded agriculture In the desert. And this apparently has expanded the habitat for this toad. But I think as you're pointing out that there'd be a lot more habitat needed to support this toad.

And I know you've been one of the leaders in terms of natural product chemistry in recreating some of these Uh chemicals in the lab. So I wonder if you could share with us your thoughts on the role of the chemist in terms of taking the heat, taking the pressure off natural populations of plants, animals and fungi. Yeah, I mean it's an interesting time because

A lot of these things can be synthesized somewhat trivially in an industrial lab with the appropriate resources. So Something like I begin. Fully synthetically.

would be totally impossible for a normal person to do. On a you know multi-gram scale to supply a clinic for something like that. But

If it were, you know, a large industrial manufacturing operation, it would then be possible. And that was what Howard Lostov was trying to do. With I began. Uh the same is not true of something like five MEO DMT. It's synthetically more approachable, which is really Nice. This is one of the advantages is that

It could be produced. industrially for a pharmaceutical company, there's actually uh quite a few different pharmaceutical companies right now that are pursuing Five M E O D M T. as a therapeutic

product, um and all of them are using synthetic material, which I think is really a good thing, actually a necessary thing because there's No way that Uh the toad could supply of pharmaceutical demand.

Um but What's nice about this is that there's a sort of intermediate that exists. It doesn't need to be pharmaceutical and it doesn't need to be Extracted from a toad. possible.

If it is done it legally, you know, in a in a region where they won't potentially lose their freedom for doing this, it's possible to produce it synthetically. In a one step reaction starting from five methoxy tryptamine. And

This is very approachable, somewhat safe. Chemistry. I don't want to say that it's completely safe because it isn't. But I would say in the grand scheme of synthesis. This is certainly on the easier side of the balance.

And That means that, you know, if somebody were operating a clinic in Mexico. They conceivably could Hire a chemist to Make

enough to supply their clinic for years very easily at a low cost. And that was what I was trying to show people, because this idea that Okay, chemistry, there there's no way that's not accessible to an average person. Well maybe not to everybody. But it is accessible to people with a little bit of training. And so people should be aware that that exists as a viable Option. Well you mentioned Howard's name and I heard you talk a bit about him in an interview you gave with our friend Tim Ferris.

And I'll link to that interview in the show notes. But I wonder if you could tell a little bit of background about Howard's story and how he discovered that this was in some cases an effective treatment for addiction. Yeah, it's a it's a fascinating story because if you look at the history of Iboga and even the the early pharmaceutical history of Ibogaine, In Central West Africa

It's a religious sacrament and part of a religion called Buiti. And it's used for medicinal purposes there. But it is not traditionally used as a treatment for addiction. Uh there was not opioid addiction in Central West Africa until the twenty first century.

So at least on a large scale, I'm sure there were, you know, a couple of people. But Um So this idea that Ibogaine or a boga could serve as a treatment for substance abuse disorders.

Was Not something that was circulating at all. And there was a guy in New York named Howard Lotsov. Who is friends with a chemistry. And the chemist gave him Ibigaine.

Because it was a psychedelic. that was available, I believe that he had either synthesized it or ordered it ordered it from a chemical supply catalog. And Howard Lotsov was

dependent on heroin at that time. And he took the I began. Not Because he wanted to stop using heroin necessarily, he just wanted to use a psychedelic. And

What he found in the wake of that experience was that he lost his craving for heroin. And not only did he lose the craving for it. the very way that he conceptualized the heroine had changed. He didn't Think of it as something that was desirable or good. He started to think of heroin

As Essentially a symbol of death. Something that Uh was Not only did he not need it, he didn't want it either.

And This was something that emerged accidentally. This was a serendipitous discovery. He wasn't looking for this, but he found it. And What he experienced was not unique.

Other people tried Ibogaine and a boga for the same purpose as a treatment for addiction and it was found to be the case that actually quite a large number of people responded similarly. And this is even been demonstrated in animal models of addiction. So this is Uh a demonstrated effect.

It's doesn't work for everyone all the time. But it seems that maybe a solid uh third to a quarter of people that undergo this therapy. are able to stop using. Heroin.

Or other opioids. Well there's many fascinating nuggets of information tucked in that answer, but one that stands out to me Is that This is a powerful and effective use for something that the indigenous peoples weren't using it for. And so what the the the point of this and I think the relevance for this podcast is that not only are these mind altering substances important and useful for things they've always been used for,

But there's new things that come to the fore. I'm reminded of Charles Nichols at LSU, who's using tiny doses of hallucinogens. To treat asthma. And they're not causing hallucinations. And I'm wondering if you think that this Kind of explains this whole micro dosing.

uh movement that people aren't really sure how it works or what it's for, but people seem to like it and find it effective. Variety of purposes. Well yes, that's microasting is difficult to talk about because it it doesn't really have a precise definition. So what I might call a microdose could be completely different, especially when you factor in

The Issue that psilocybin containing mushrooms and LSD are the two psychedelics that people typically have access to, and both of these are psychedelics where people do not know the precise dose of chemical they're consuming.

due to variation in mushrooms and due to uncertainty about the concentration on blotter. So You might say a microdose is half of one tab of a blotter, but you don't know how much LSD is on that tab, so it could be completely different.

For some people a microdose is a low dose of a psychedelic. For some people they define microdose as sub perceptual. And In the research that has been done thus far. Yeah.

Seems like It's a placebo effect. But that's not to say that low doses of psychedelics couldn't Have some kind of Therapeutic property.

under the appropriate circumstances and like you said, the work of Chuck Nichols is great. Evidence of that. So Maybe the other thing is that you know, what the the therapeutic endpoints aren't well to find in a lot of these micro dosing, you know, what is it exactly that people are looking for? Enhanced creativity? Enhanced focus, enhanced energy, mood lift. I mean people

uh seem to be pursuing microdosing for in almost unlimited number of different applications and so Maybe it works for one thing for one person, maybe somebody with uh you know, suffering from chronic inflammation with a certain psychedelic could Have some benefit.

And maybe for someone else there would be no benefit at all. So it I think the real issue with talking about micro dosing is a lack of precision in the definition of what a microdose is, what psychedelic is being used, and what the application of that microdose of a psychedelic would be A

Excellent. Thank you. Which ties back into something else you're alluding to. The famous pamphlet by Albert Mos that you've helped bring back to the fore. Uh was actually written by Ken Nelson. And he's a fascinating figure in his own right. So I wonder if you could uh give us a little bit of detail and background on this incredible fellow.

Yeah, and it was nice to see his name in these articles. It's nice to really see him integrated into this history because I think what he did is so fascinating. And Um

You know, I I think that because our culture has done such a terrible job dealing with psychedelics and psychoactive drugs in general. It's just about As bad as it could possibly be. Um locking people in cages for using them is really is not uh

And for that reason, I think we tend to look to indigenous cultures for guidance because they've done a far better job. at learning how to use these things constructively And medicinally. And so

We're almost uncomfortable. With our own contributions. I think there's a tendency to try to exclusively look. Some people go too far. And in the case of Buf Walveris I think that they have done that. They have

Essentially fabricated an indigenous history of use. Because If it's ancient, if it's traditional, if it's indigenous, that means that it's good. That means that it's okay. That justifies it. Well

All known evidence. Points to there not being a tradition of using Buffal Varius. This is something that emerged in the United States with a white man in Texas named Ken Nelson.

Who Was He was actually inspired by a misunderstanding by an anthropologist named Jeanette Runquist. Who

had hypothesized that there was ancient use of psychoactive toads. So he read about this in Omni magazine. And thought, well that's cool. Uh I'd like to you know, I'd like to try that myself. not realizing that in his imitation of what he thought was an indigenous practice, he was actually inventing a new practice himself.

Uh very Interesting twist in all of this. And So he was By all known accounts, the first person

to Find this toad, milk it, and smoke the venom. And At the beginning it was obscure. There were

You know psychedelic cognizente like Andrew Weill or Wade Davis who pursued this and were very interested in it, but this was not a phenomenon. The celebrities weren't talking about toad venom in the nineteen eighties. Um And if it was popular, it was probably equivalent in popularity to synthetic five MEO DMT at that time, which had been available uh from chemical supply companies since at least the nineteen sixties.

So The synthetic Five Mio DMT. History actually. Pre dates.

The use of Buffal various venom. It just Talked about as much. And there's something I suppose something cool about the idea of smoking toad venom. People like to talk about it. We're talking about it right now. There's something weird about it. It's a it's a Good story.

And It wasn't until celebrities really started doing this in the twenty first century and until Octavio Redig and Jerry Sandoval Started. Going on a uh crusade as Toad Venom Evangelists.

that this really became the phenomenon that we're currently talking about. Well that's a new phrase for me, toad venom evangelism. I'm gonna have to be lifting that one. So why are people calling this the God molecule versus just plain old DMT? Well the experiences are very different. This is one of the unfortunate things about Five M E O DMT is its name. people think that because the name contains DMT that it is

a form of DMT or that it is You know. uh very, very closely related to DMT. But Silicine, the you know, the active metabolate of psilocybin and a component of psilocybin containing mushrooms is closer to DMT.

than five MEO DMT is structurally. Um you could call silicon four hydroxy DMT. So it's really the name more than anything. That I think causes people to have this association. It was actually a big problem when I was

Planning A large scale synthesis of five MEO DMT in Mexico. Because the lawyers looked at this and they said Well this is DMT and I said, No, it's not, it's five M E O DMT, five methoxy DMT, and they say, Well it contains DMT in the name. And it'd say, Okay, well what if I call it N N O trimethyl serotonin? Then can I synthesize it?

And They uh They Thought that was okay. Of course it's the same chemical.

Um So but the difference experientially between five Mio DMT and DMT is enormous. Uh I I would say that DMT is very much a prototypical, classical, psychedelic. It's highly, highly visual.

You have uh profound visual distortions. You often see your environment in a different way. You think about yourself, your relationships. It's a personal experience. Whereas five MEO DMT Is often non visual.

It's often. sort of impersonal. I think it tends toward universal. Where it's not about your life, but life in general. And It doesn't have a lot of the qualities that people think of when they talk about psychedelic drugs. I mean, for many people, myself included.

The experience is losing consciousness entirely for a brief period and then having something that could be termed a near-death experience. Physiologically speaking, it isn't. But experientially It uh does feel that way. Well I want to make the point here that we're not doing commercials for any of these substances.

And in all the episodes I point out that these things can be lethal, and you've mentioned that on your show and in some of your writings and interviews. But even of cannabis. Which people sort of think of as this harmless thing that can't hurt anybody and I was reading something uh of yours recently that talked about problematic relationships with cannabis. So I wonder if you could give an example of that. So that people understand that all of these plants are the gods and fungi are the gods and frogs are the gods, uh may have a downside.

Yeah. I think it's it's Very important. to Have a balanced perspective on these things because There's been something.

really polarizing about the way they've been publicly discussed from the very beginning. They're either a panacea, It's going to cure all of society's ills. They're going to prevent us from being mean to each other. They're gonna end all wars. Or They're Poisonous.

Agents that will destroy your mind and leave you intellectually crippled. And of course the Truth is somewhere in the middle. where for some people under some circumstances they can have a tremendous benefit and they can be

Truly life changing. And under other circumstances they can have a damaging effect. And with you know, cannabis I think is an interesting example because it also includes the political dimensions of all this because the people the people that have been using these substances

For Decades. Have been Persecuted. And

That creates a sort of Insecurity complex. Understandably, justifiably. If the government says that this is dangerous and they're willing to lock you in a cage for it.

If your employer can terminate your employment if they find traces of this substance in your hair or your urine, which is an insane invasion of privacy that nobody should tolerate. Then it makes sense that you'd wanna really stand up for this stuff and say, Hey, wait a second. It's never killed anybody.

It's safer than alcohol, safer than toба. This stuff is innocuous. And in fact, you can smoke it every single day and you'll be totally fine. And in many instances that might be true, but that doesn't necessarily mean that you should. And it doesn't mean that We I think this is the tendency as we go too far in one direction or another.

And a lot of it has to do with this Um Yeah, this insecurity from people demonizing these substances for so long. Agreed. But uh can you give s perhaps an example of a problematic relationship with cannabis.

Because your your point is well taken, but that is even cannabis can have a downside. Oh certainly, yeah. I mean w I think one of the most interesting Examples is there's a Disorder called cannabis hyperemesis disorder. Are you familiar with this? um it wasn't described into in the medical literature until somewhat recently

It's a very Odd phenomenon where people who Smoke enormous quantities of cannabis. Will Start vomiting.

Continuously. And the only thing that relieves their nausea is taking a hot shower. And People started showing up in emergency rooms when they ran out of hot water because they couldn't control their vomiting.

And This seemed really bizarre because wait a second, people have been using cannabis for thousands of years. What are the chances That Now all of a sudden a new cannabis related disorder would emerge. It couldn't be the cannabis itself. It must be

A pesticide. It must be some contaminant in the cannabis, otherwise how could this possibly be explained? And the explanation is that yes, it is the cannabis itself. This is a product Of chronic

hyper stimulation of C B one receptors, and the reality is that people are smoking More cannabis now. than any other time in human history. So new use disorders are actually emerging. And although this is described as a somewhere phenomenon, it's not as obscure as people think. I've known two people.

That had this disorder. Both of whom They didn't know they had it. And And it's especially insidious because Cannabis has an anti emetic effect.

So you're nauseous. You think, Oh man, I'm so sick. I uh I need to smoke some cannabis because I'm really nauseous, but the cannabis is actually making it worse. It's the cause it's the source of the nausea. And This uh during the pandemic I had a a friend who this uh happened to'cause he was just getting Really, really stoned all the time.

And uh and I had noticed that he was constantly Soaking wet And I thought like why is this guy Is he like taking showers five times a day? Why is he always so wet? And

And he then told me, you know, I don't know what's going on, I've just been You know, vomiting all the time in a hot shower is really the only thing that that helps. And I thought, Wow. All right. Yeah, I know what you have. This is a so th that's you know, to I don't wanna bring that up as a an example of something that

everyone should be really terrified of because this is something that only afflicts people who are extremely stoned All the time. Um But it's just an example of how It's

Plant that's considered totally innocuous. uh under some circumstances can have a negative effect. Also, I think there's something to be said for Uh maybe just not being stoned all the time. And I say this as somebody that likes cannabis personally. I'm not Uh trying to Hate on cannabis. It's just there's a like I said, a tendency to go

to these extremes of either cannabis is terrible or you should be stoned all the time because cannabis is a medicine. Well my mentor Richard Schultees would often describe mind altering plants as scalpels in the hand of a shaman, it can heal. But it can also harm if it's not used. Correctly. And so once again, all of these plants, all of these fungi, all of these substances need to be used with caution and approached with reverence.

And carefully. And uh that's why uh I often tell people You shouldn't be experimenting on your own with very powerful substances. Uh I also wanted to ask you, Hamilton, about other frogs before we move into a few other uh topics. And that is when I was working on a book called Medicine Quest about thirty years ago, I interviewed John Daly And at that point, thirty years ago,

A daily had isolated 40 novel chemicals just from frogs. So I'm wondering what's your perspective on frogs and other Plants, animals and fungi as to what's still out there. Mm.

I love frogs and they are Amazing chemists. I mean Are f I imagine you're familiar with epibadidine? It's such a Beautiful molecule.

And for a terrestrial species to even produce a chlorinated natural product like that is already sort of unusual. Then you have the Seven as a Norbornane ring, which is Uh just bizarre. I mean it the chemistry of it is really, really fascinating.

And These Frogs and toad are capable of biosynthetic feeds that uh would be very difficult for human chemists. It's remarkable.

And I don't doubt that there are amazing things left to be discovered. Well I Have read recent reports of two venomous frogs found in eastern Brazil. Genus Corothromantis and a Parisphenodon.

Or they have toxins more poisonous than the bushmaster. And these are recent finds. So the idea that we've kinda got everything from the natural world or even just from the frogs Probably the most sensitive of any group.

So the race is on is to find, utilize and protect these creatures at the same time that we seem to be destroy destroying them. Faster than ever. There's about a thousand species of frogs are known in the Amazon. And we're finding more all the time. But I wanted to to turn to uh one of your uh

Idols or mentors or heroes. I don't know how you'd best describe them. Alexander Shulgan, better known as So sure. And since we're talking about mental states, I wonder if you'd share with us the story about Sasha and the surgery on his thumb. Oh yeah. Yeah, of course. Um

And and this is a sort of foundational story in psychedelic history. Because Alexander Shulgan was in the Navy. And When he was in the Navy he was injured. He injured his thumb.

And he was having a I believe a small surgical procedure, or maybe it was just stitches on his thumb. And The nurse gave him a glass of orange juice. That had crystals.

That he could see. Present in The Jews. And he thought, Okay, well they're giving me Morphine in my orange juice makes sense. This is gonna be a you know, it's a painful procedure.

He drank it and the morphine had this, you know, miraculous analgesic effect. And he thought that was great. That was exactly what I needed. And Later he asked the nurse, you know, how much morphine was that? In the juice. And she said, Oh no, that it was sugar.

Those are sugar crystals. So He came to realize That His own mind.

was capable of producing these sorts of experiences. I mean, this is the placebo effect and it's very, very powerful. And As somebody who spent his career Evaluating

completely unknown substances, substances that did not exist in the known universe until they were synthesized in his lab and he would be the first human being to try those substances. You have to be ultra aware of not just the placebo effect, but also the nocebo effect. The Uh

the belief that something that is pharmacologically inactive that you have consumed is a poison. Because it could go either way. You could take something and suddenly think, Oh no, what did I just do? Oh no, this could be some kind of uh cardiac toxin. I could be It could be dying. You can have a Both are totally possible and both are

established phenomena in the medical literature. This is not some kind of, you know, speculative thing. This is why placebo controlled trials are done because the placebo effect is a real effect. This is one of the complicated things about it. Understood. But we've got two pieces of the puzzle that don't fit together well. Here you have a man who invented more wild mind altering chemicals than anybody ever had or ever will.

And is a big fan of the placebo effect. So what's the lesson we draw from his life and work in terms of the future and healing if we get this right? Well, I think the first Thing is to not always believe your own senses immediately, to scrutinize your own experiences and to Try your best to

be skeptical and to Conduct your work in an evidence based manner. Because yes. there is nobody who is not vulnerable to the placebo effect. You might think, Oh, that's just for the people out there that don't really they're not, you know, really knowledgeable like me, but someone like me, so knowledgeable

I could Obviously tell the difference between the Well, The whole issue with placebo is that you can't tell. That's the whole purpose of this effect. And

So I think this actually Comes back to the conservation issue. Because People will say

Uh well, of course toad venom is different than a synthetic material, and of course Uh. Eboga. total alkaloid extract is different from isolated Ibigaine and of course uh one variety of psilocybin containing mushroom is going to be different than another.

Well Not so fast. If you're going to make that claim. Especially if that claim could have serious ecological consequences. You need to be sure that it's real.

Well everybody in our field is repeatedly asked or told I would never take a synthetic, I will only take the natural product. So what's the difference between synthetic mesculine and mesculine? Mm. I I love that. question because it's uh you know it's there there's a really beautiful study that was done between two

groups of researchers, one in France and the other in Germany. And it was a a group of natural product chemists in France who were studying a Traditional medicine and Cameroon.

Uh called Nauclea Latifolia. And they knew that this plant had been used to treat pain for generations. So they brought it to the lab, they extracted it, what's in this stuff, and they find that it contains tremidol. Which is a Completely synthetic.

pharmaceutical opioid that was thought to have been discovered in Germany in the nineteen sixties. So wait a second. There's no Two parallel histories of Tremidol, one that is pharmaceutical starting in Germany, and the other that is a multi generational traditional medicine history in Central West Africa.

And this was kind of a a remarkable claim. It was very exciting to me. But Then A group of

chemists in Germany. decided that they were gonna try to replicate these findings. They went back to the same region. They started collecting samples and they found that Tramidol was actually distributed. throughout the environment.

And Then the question emerged, okay, so there one group is saying this is being biosynthesized by a plant. The other group is saying this is a product of anthropogenic contamination of the environment. And If you're comparing these two samples.

What is the difference? How would you ever know? And What it came down to was radiocarbon. Because If something is a natural product, it will contain traces of radiocarbon. If something is synthesized from petrochemicals, it will contain no radiocarbon. So in the strictest sense, if you were going to say what is the difference between synthetic masculine and masculine biosynthesized by

A plant Hypothetically the Biosynthesized masculine would be Slightly more radioactive. Uh but this is not not something that would have any health consequence we're talking about. Uh

Uh amounts of radioactivity that are barely detectable with the most sensitive known analytical instruments. Um But effectively, you know, the short answer is nothing. There's there's nothing Different, but again, back to the placebo effect, just because there's nothing different about it doesn't mean that you won't have a different experience. This is why it's so complicated because

This is dependent on your values. So if you're somebody that really likes plants and you have a sort of animist relationship with plants where you see them as having a vital essence of one kind or another, and that is important to you. then you are going to probably have a better experience with plant.

drive masculine because of the associations and the psychological priming associated with that. If you also think that Synthetic artificial substances are bad. And dangerous and undesirable. you will be inclined to have a negative experience. So it's again, this is not to say that people don't have different experiences, but that the experience is

psychologically mediated as opposed to being mediated by the psychopharmacology of these effectively identical substances. Which links to another issue. And that is that of ritual, and the role of ritual and the importance of ritual. The best description I was able to find.

It was Ritual is the performance of ceremonial acts prescribed by tradition Or sacred decrees. So many of these traditional uses involve a lot of ritual. So what in your view is the importance of this ritual?

In terms of the placebo effect setting the stage, Uh or convincing you of something that might not Happen without it. Mm. Oh, there I mean there's so many different purposes that a ritual can have depending on the ritual and the plant and

and what is being done and where it's being done in the culture, but I think that ritual can be very important for emphasizing and accentuating certain dimensions of an experience. So Traditionally.

Iboga was not used to treat substance abuse disorders in Gabon, but in recent years it is being used that way. And what really struck me was that even without the ceremony being explicitly oriented toward that purpose. I felt that something of that nature was being implicitly communicated. Which was

Uh a sort of Endurance feet. Where you dance. And you fast. and you give yourself entirely to this experience

And Because you abandon comfort. Because you abandoned All of your associations and everyday life.

Yeah. causes you to Rely on yourself in a different way. And I think That

That could have a sort of anti addictive effect because it's it's you know What we refer to as addiction in the substance abuse sense, I think is a ramification of a far more common human tendency, which is

a a sense of being dependent on anything. Could be your phone. It could be Someone that you're in a romantic relationship with It could be sweet foods. It could be a specific comfortable bed.

And you feel that if you don't have that thing, you're just U that's necessary for your life. You're not whole without it. You need it. You're dependent on this external force. And I think that That ritual. emphasizes a a certain

core independence and a endurance and a feeling that you have so much within you that you can withstand the deprivation of sleep or water because The reserves exist inside you.

Well, again to to drill down a little deeper on this. When I was in Oaxaca twenty years ago I had the honor and privilege of working with Doña Julieta, who certainly didn't get the press that Maria Sabina did, but the local people's consider her Every bit is powerful. At one point she told me, she said, You know Before the gringo started showing up here, before people like Wasson showed up here.

We use the the the niños santos, the little sainted ones, the mushrooms. To heal And to search for lost objects. That was the two purposes. Very different than what people are going there for now. And so when I hear about people starting to combine cannabis with ayahuasca and thing like this and saying it's it's traditional Uh what are your thoughts on this sort of combination of these different traditions and these new uses? It's oh yeah, it's it's really actually remarkable. I'm repeatedly surprised by

how common that has become. And this is something that's actually not talked about. I'm glad you brought this up. Um because I'll talk to people. And they'll say, you know, I just did a A uh uh combo ceremony with Philom Badusa Bicoller.

And I'll say, Oh, where was it? And say, Oh, you know, it was it was in Brooklyn. And uh I'll say, Okay, what was it like? And they say, you know, they gave me five burns and Then as soon as I'd recovered from the vomiting, they gave me Bufalvarius venom. I'll say oh. Mm.

So they're throwing that in the mix as well. And they'll say, and then when I came down from the Buff Wall Varius Venom, they gave me Sanga eye drops. And they'll think, Wow, all right, they're just really uh giving you the witman sampling. And that is not uncommon. I actually when I talk to people that are um you know, not a part of an indigenous group, but they've created a sort of uh Let's I uh it's sounds mean, but you know, sort of pseudo traditional, pseudo indigenous practice where

They use pieces of those ceremonies, but they're not actually from those groups themselves and The way I know that that sounds kind of unsavory the way I just described it, but I think some of these people have good intentions and they're not necessarily harming anyone, but they do tend to mix and match these traditions in a way that Is

surprising to me. I don't even want to go so far as to say it's necessarily bad, but it's something that I would be very cautious about and it it is a I think cause for concern. Multi day Multi substance. retreats where you know, day one, you do ayahuasca, day two, you do psilocybin containing mushrooms, then you do Ivygain, then you end the whole thing with boofwall various

Venom. And I don't know. I I think your guess is as good as mine when it comes to whether or not that's a a constructive practice. I also wanted to ask you one thing really quickly. So you were in Well the

In the Early two thousands. I'm curious. So and Maria Sabina was dead by then. Um And I'm curious what it was like then.

It was sort of just becoming discovered. And I remember being in the plaza and there would be people walking through the plaza with uh Plants of the Gods, the Schulte's in the Hoffman book going like I think I'll try that one. Sort of like a Chinese menu. So it was changing at the time. Tourists were doing this. Tourists. Yeah. Gringous. Yeah. But I was working with a Mexican physician who had lived with the weach holes for eight years. and was actually uh dating the daughter of the most powerful shaman. So I kind of sidled into a very traditional

healing tradition rather than being all these guys who showed up in the Plaza looking for people saying mushrooms, mushrooms, hongos, hongos. So it was just at that cusp where things were Becoming more commercial and and more open to the outside world. And as you know, this type of psychedelic tourism. Uh has positive and negative aspects.

And that's one of the things I want to ask you about. Because you talked about good intentions. And Michael in his book talks about the fact that a lot of people who were Seeking out the psychedelic healing tend to be people with emotional problems who may not be all that together. And or the ones most likely to come apart.

If they're not under the care of Really a skilled practitioner Who's not in it for the money or just for the money. So uh I'd like to get your thoughts on this type of psychedelic tourism and the potential downsides and the real downsides that, you know, we we we we see. Yeah.

And this is one of the fundamental changes that occurs in a medical model. If you talk to somebody like William Leonard Picard, who is a very prominent LSD chemist and is considered to have been responsible for producing more LSD than any person in history. And his

philosophy when it came to the distribution of L S D was you give it to healthy people. This is not a substance that you give to somebody who just broke up with their boyfriend or girlfriend. This is not something you give to somebody who's mentally unstable. This is something that is used

for the betterment of healthy people. And in a medical model That is The complete opposite. And instead.

These by necessity must be used for treatment of disease because this is the way our current medical system works, there is no provision for The use of medicines by healthy people. That's not

how health insurance works, it's not how the FDA works, for better or worse. And Uh And so In these trials and

at these retreats. So this occurs on both the gray market black market and the medicalized market. um there is a tendency for people who are pursuing these things for treatment of disease. And You

run the full gamut of problems that can come with that. Um I think on One end you have a lot of the sorts of things that happen in the realm of unregulated cancer treatments. Where You have desperate people.

Because a lot of diseases will put somebody in a state of serious desperation. You have a terminal neurodegenerative disease, you want something that will halt that degeneration and you'll try anything. And if somebody says, Hey You know, I begin is a treatment for Parkinson's disease, which is a claim. That is uh made quite often

And the evidence for it is not very strong. I've actually talked about this in the past and Is it possible that it could treat Parkinson's? Yeah, I think it's possible. But there certainly isn't sufficient evidence that People who have Parkinson's disease should

take I begin thinking that this is going to cure all of their problems. I mean it it really has not been adequately studied. Um so you have that sort of thing happening. And then you have The problems with after care, with integration where

If somebody you know, has some kind of trauma and they have this experience at uh let's say a toad venom retreat. Then what? Is there a follow up? No. Then they're on their own. And what and we don't live in a society that

Has provisions for caring for people after an experience like that, which can be Really? Disruptive to their Functioning.

I think this integration issue is much overlooked in our field. Uh my organization, the Amazon conservation team, does a lot of work with the original Ayahuasca's and the Northwest Amazon that Chiltees work with. In the forties. And many times you'll finish a ceremony and three days later you're walking down the street and you'll give some realization or you'll have some weird sort of semi vision. And you're able to go back to the shaman and say, What does that mean? And they'll be able to explain it to you usually.

But in our culture where you go to the doctor and then you're done, what happens afterwards? It's it's your issue, your problem. And these powerful substances in our heads, our minds, and our souls. If you don't have somebody there. Guiding you through The aftermath

I think you're kinda asking for Asking for trouble and I and I think again this is one of the reasons why their medicine is effective in some cases when ours is not. Yeah. But Uh I I'm just wondering if you think that that fungi are as promising as frogs in terms of

New substances, new mind altering substances. New stuff for microdosing. What's your perspective? Well, from a sustainability perspective, mushrooms are about as good as anything anyone could ask for. Um and a lot of that has to do with the natural abundance of proliferation of different species and different genera that produce psilocybin. And that

is a product of people being obsessed with mushrooms and searching for them everywhere, because this wasn't always the case. You know, there was a time When people thought this was exclusively something that was found in Oaxaca and if you wanted to try You had to go to Woutla. And it wasn't until

People started finding them in the United States. And more importantly, until Dennis McKenna adapted laboratory techniques for the cultivation of psilocybin containing mushrooms and published it in an underground non scientific guide intended for Lay readers.

that not only did people recognize that these things grew naturally in the United States, but that they could cultivate them themselves. And that really sparked a revolution that dramatically increased the availability of psilocybin containing mushrooms. They went from something so obscure That Essentially nobody could try them to the most common psychedelic and that was exclusively a product of innovation, really scientific innovation and cultivation techniques.

And I think that That is why it's so important to think about these things. If People hadn't done that. It could have been very different. It could have been even more overcrowding and tourism.

to Mexico if the people thought that by necessity they had to make this voyage and instead it had a effect where people were empowered to pursue these things independently. Which I think can be a very positive thing. And The issue is that we just haven't

developed equivalents for a lot of these other things. That was sort of what I was trying to do. It's five MEO DMT. It's a little more complicated. But If there were a way to empower people To use these things sustainably then a lot of these

Problems would go away. Excellent point. I mean we send ethnobotanists to the jungle searching for magic frogs, and it turns out here they are in Arizona. Uh Richard Schultees left Massachusetts to the wilds of Oaxaca in nineteen thirty six in search of magic mushrooms, but according to Juliana Furchie, who was on Tim Ferris' show recently, there's probably twelve or fifteen magic mushroom species growing in Massachusetts. So i i i on one hand, it's a bit like the wizard of oz. There's no place like home. But I think that what it what it brings home was that all species everywhere are valuable and need to be investigated. So where do we look next for these new and wild substances? It is the coral reef?

Is it the Boreal Forest? You're the natural product chemist. What do you think? Well I'm uh to be I don't actually do all that much work with natural products. Almost everything that I do is uh synthesis of novel compounds, although I've done a little bit. I've synthesized Fi Bromo DMT, for example, which is the Only psychedelic that has ever been isolated from a marine organism. And it's really the only known psychedelic from the ocean and only the ocean. Um

I think it is possible that there will be other marine psychedelics discovered. But again. the same problems emerge. I mean thankfully People don't really like five Bromo DMT that much because And also thankfully it's easy enough to synthesize that

Nobody has considered Uh attempting to poach the Sponge source, Menos Spongi Orea. Um

But What if that were not the case? What if it were like five MU DMT and it produced a really remarkable, life changing type experience and that it would rapidly become a conservation issue and you probably run into the same phenomenon or some

Uh Shaman or Zalot would say, Well, you know, look, I found a ancient engraving of a sponge and This shows that in fact people have been using sponges for thousands of years and it is our ancestral responsibility to remove these sponges from the ocean and figure out a way to smoke their alkaloids.

I think it's gonna present a more challenging case for these neo shamans to claim that it was always used as a lucinogenic by the indigenous peoples who lived on the coral reef, but time will tell. Now I'm wondering if you have any thoughts to share on the preponderance of hallucinogenic substances in the New World, the New World tropics versus the old world. Lot of people have paid a lot of lip service to this and I haven't heard a Convincing case as to why we have so much from Central and South America and relatively So m so little from Africa or Asia.

I think one answer. Seems to be that people have not looked as hard. I mean People are finding new species of psilocybin containing mushrooms. There was a a species found in Congo not so long ago. That uh

Yeah. Just It seems very possible to me that nobody had Looked. until somewhat recently, there's even uh evidence of traditional use of psilocybin containing mushrooms in Uganda.

Which would be really interesting. Because That would suggest that this is that there was maybe a parallel evolution of

psilocybin containing mushroom traditions in both Africa And in Mexico. uh the the evidence for the use in Uganda is relatively slim, but there is one paper on it that suggests that this could be the case. Um yeah. Well if you get me that reference, put it in the show notes because I'm sure that'll uh

Now Weston Labar, who was on uh Shulti's early expeditions to Oklahoma in search of Peyote, wrote a classic paper on the shamanic origins of religion and medicine. And I'm wondering if you have a a personal opinion or insight as to whether these disciplines were essentially the same or how much overlap there was Thousands, tens of thousands, or maybe a hundred thousand years ago.

Oh, well, certainly traditionally there would have been an enormous amount of overlap, uh depending on what culture you're talking about as well. Um and I think that this is one of the Things about modern medicine that has been lost is These Sort of

ceremonial or ritual or psychological dimensions to the administration of a medicine. Which will necessarily change the outcome. I mean they've even Done. uh experiments with a

treatment for hair loss called finasteride. And they gave one group of people uh information where they said, you know, this drug, it's gonna cause sexual dysfunction It's going to be a uh cause depression, it's gonna have some negative side effects. And the other group, they didn't say any of this. And the people had been told that There was risk of

These adverse effects experience them more prominently. So there's no question that the way a medicine is administered changes the outcome. And that's something that is not Really integrated into our current medical practices.

You have talked about the importance of strychnos and strychnine in medicine. In Sherno where I've done a lot of my work. There have long sold a male aphrodisiac. T. Made from a species of strychnos. Now I don't know whether there's strychnos in it.

Um, and I'm not advocating the use of strychnose, but I wonder if you could elaborate on this use of poisons as medicines and vice versa. Have you ever tried it? I'm I have not tried it. Yes. I mean, but yeah, strychnine was used as a medicine. Um it was actually used as a performance enhancing drug by athletes, whether or not That

is really uh effective for that purpose is unclear to me. Obviously it It's Potentially very unsafe. But I think Strict Nine is a really good example of this, you know, foundational concept in toxicology, which is the dose makes the poison.

There is nothing that is inherently therapeutic or inherently toxic. These are all a function of dose. So there is a dose of streptine that is not. Dangerous to consume. It's a very low dose. The therapeutic index of strychnine is quite a bit lower than other substances. But that doesn't mean that it is intrinsically a poison. Almost everything that we call a poison is under some circumstances, at least conceivably could have a therapeutic effect, including radiation.

So Um Yeah. So So in terms of strectine use, um, you know, I've always been curious about it because uh one thing that I've learned over the years is almost any time somebody classifies a substance as really, really bad or extremely dangerous, it tends to be the case that

uh it's at least partially misunderstood. And it wouldn't surprise me all that much if maybe a very, very low dose of strychnine did elicit some kind of Desireable effect, but Obviously I am not suggesting anyone listening to this

uh go out and Try to evaluate that on their own. Agreed, we're not advocating for the use of poisons to see with the therapeutic dosage. Uh I'm interested in the case of Salvia. You know, we talked about medicinal plants before we knew much about medicinal fungi.

And then Wasson comes back from Oh, the medicinal Mint. Uh this was Stunning to the chemical world. Yeah, I love the story of Salvia because

It's no shortage of brilliant researchers. I mean, this was Albert Hoffman who had little trouble isolating and then synthesizing psilocybin and psilocybin. Yeah

obviously synthesized LSD. He did a very complicated work with ergalines. And yet when he was given a sample of Salvia Divinorum He couldn't figure it out. And that was the case for many people for many years. They would make extracts of it. They would inject that extract into it.

Cat. There's a a Mexican psychiatrist named Jose Luis Diaz who did that work and it was clear that it was having a effect on animals. Humans tried it. It was also Seemed clear it was having effect, but the effect was somewhat subtle. And part of this had to do with the way that it was administered, usually as an aqueous infusion.

Um so Th you know, Wasson tried it, Hoffman tried it, they said that there was some effect that it was sort of mushroom like, but they couldn't quite put their finger on it. And People were trying to figure out what is this stuff? What does it do? If you extract it, inject it into a cat, it does something, has a subtle effect in humans. or what chemical is responsible for this. There's no nitrogenous alkaloid in it that's responsible. So what's going on here?

And I was actually talking to Dennis McKenna on my podcast recently and he told me a really funny anecdote where he was working for shaman pharmaceuticals and he was studying extracts of Salvia. And looking at their affinity for the kappa opioid receptor, and it was off the charts, and he thought, okay, I'm this doesn't make any sense. There's no way that this. plant contains something this potent, I must have made a mistake. So he actually discovered this, but then discounted his own finding because it seemed too

Extraordinary to be real. And it wasn't Until Uh Brian Roth, actually. started working with uh another

Citizen scientist named Daniel Siebert. that they were able to definitively demonstrate that the active principle of Salvia divinorum with Salvinor in A. and that Salvinorin A was an extraordinarily potent and selective agonist for the kappa opioid receptor and

That it was the most potent naturally occurring psychedelic. So That is quite a curveball. coming from a plant that there was some ambiguity whether it was active at all.

Well when I was in Oaxaca and asked the shaman about it, she said, I'm not gonna give it to you. It's too strong and you don't need it. And uh eventually she changed her mind, but it was really very unpleasant. And I d I d I didn't feel uh a healing uh Result from it.

But now that it's uh uh obtained such wide popularity, I have to say I I remain very surprised. But it clearly is not Similar to many of the other mind altering substances that I've had experiences with. Did you chew the leaves or use a aqueous infusion? No. It was the leaves. Yeah.

So that's how she administered. She said she didn't use it much'cause it was so powerful. And it was like sort of a last ditch. or very serious cases. Whereas as you point out that the shamans often give you medicines when you're not sick. What we probably call adaptogens or immunostimulants, which twenty years ago W weren't words that were in common parlance.

But I I was just struck by how different it was and how Unpleasant it was, frankly. And what was it that you didn't like? I felt that I was underwater in the dark. For nine hours.

I I I I didn't feel uh a sort of healing therapeutic effect. It just was almost like a punishment. Mm. So, but I mean, you know, shamans will tell you, i if you want a light show, go to Disneyland. Okay. If you take ayahuasca and you don't see anything, it doesn't mean it's not working. That the the Behuco, the Romadios giving you what you need. And sometimes you see the ninth dimension and sometimes you just fall asleep, but you're getting out of it what you need. The plant knows, that's what they say.

So again I can't say that I was disappointed'cause I didn't see fireworks. I mean I'm I'm I'm Uh not a person who is seeking thrills this way. It's just that, you know, many tim we've all had experiences with these substances where we felt better for it or felt relief or stressed or whatever and You know, sometimes you don't, and sometimes maybe you feel a little worse off.

And how I felt. Yeah. So Anyway, I w I wanna wind up here, but since you uh brought up our friend Dennis McKenna, Dennis McKenna is organizing a Conference which will discuss, among other things, the drunken The Stoned Ape theory.

Uh first promulgated by his late brother Terrence. And uh at the same time we have people who are putting forward the drunken monkey. Uh theory. And I wonder uh what you think of of these Uh ideas that these mind altering subs may have played a fundamental role in not only uh cul human culture, but human evolution.

The stoned ape theory, uh, which was put forward by Terrence McKenna, is of course stating that once we discovered mushrooms or whatever mind altering substances, it created consciousness. And we began to wonder. It wasn't just about what's to eat or what plant do I use when I get sick. The drunken monkey theory is. Is that Our ancestors lived in the trees, and And the ripest fruit would fall to the ground, which is the sweetest fruit. Which in some cases is fermented fruit.

So they were catching a buzz from alcohol. And so these are sort of presented as different cases. But they kinda point in the same direction. And so we can just talk about the the stoned ape theory, as to whether mind altering substances really played a fundamental role or may have played a fundamental role.

Or maybe no role. In the evolution of consciousness, culture. History and evolution. Well, evolutionarily I I think the evidence for that is Pretty slim to non existent.

And I think that Terrence McKenna is sometimes taken too literally. You know, I I think of him as a a poet. I love everything that he says and I think that a lot of the things that he said were intended to provoke people. to cause them to really think about these things and To value them and I think that In that capacity, he was extraordinarily effective.

But from a evolutionary biological perspective, that would not be my Uh first explanation for how consciousness emerged in humans. That said I think that

Yeah. Today in our culture with all of the distractions and all of the things that exist. we can still look to this experience and see it as one of the most momentous and amazing in an entire life. You think, Well, what would that have been like?

If you didn't have all these distractions. If it's that If it's this valuable to us now. What would it have been like in the past? And if it Allows people to have religious epiphanies and even start religions now. than what would it have been like in the past. And I think that it's reasonable to assume that it might have been similar.

That said, I think that people get into trouble. When they You know try to explain everything with psychedelics, which is the the extreme that people tend to go to. They either want to again back to these uh polarizing dichotomies, either psychedelics are purposeless and have no historical value or their

the origin of consciousness, religion, and everything else. And I I don't doubt that they did play a role in some ancient religions. But Uh the question is how significant that role was and Yeah. So I wanna thank you for your kindness and your insights. It's a pleasure to

Listen to somebody so well spoken, but I want to conclude by asking you about your mentor, Nikolas Langlitz, and the primatology of primatologists. Huh. Yeah, I love I mean Nicholas Langlitz is a really brilliant medical doctor who then became an anthropologist and He wrote a book called Neuropsychedelia, which I really admire.

Which is a Anthropological analysis of neuroscientific research on psychedelics. And he's really great at Taking A different perspective on these issues and really

Asking questions about What are the motivations for these people? Why are they doing it? What biases are integrated into the work they do. And I He then switched to doing a sort of meta primatology.

analysis where you'd look at the primatology of primatologists, which I thought was also really interesting, but I think he might get back into psychedelics right now because When he wrote Neuropsychedelia, this was somewhat You know, he was spending time with The you know, dozen or so researchers that were doing this work, like Franz Vollenweider.

But now it's hard for somebody to keep track of it, even if it's their full time job. I mean, by some estimates there are hundreds of pharmaceutical startups that are pursuing these things therapeutically. I am repeatedly amazed by the proliferation of new scientific papers and patents

Coming out. on psychedelics. I mean this is really expanding at a pace that has never before been seen. I mean only rivaled by the nineteen sixties. And so it's good that there are people carefully monitoring what's happening because it's an important time in history.

Last question. Uh Timothy Leary's legacy. And and from your perspective. Well, I get like McKenna, I think that Leary is somebody who's often misunderstood and possibly taken too literally. I see.

Larry As A comedian. And a very good one at that. I mean when I read his books, when I listen to him speak, I am repeatedly struck by how hilarious he is.

And uh And I think that He Was blamed. for a lot of the problems that emerged in relation to psychedelic drug use, because the people would say, Okay, everything was going right.

this was all gonna be a medicine and then Timothy Leary came along and this zealot Wanted to Go on some kind of ego crusade to create a counterculture that would delegitimize psychedelics. And

I think that's a a really uncharitable interpretation of what was going on. I mean I think that The history of psychedelics had been profoundly elitist. And Timothy Leary was somebody who wanted to break with that tradition of elitism and he wanted to say, This experience was good for me.

And I think it's gonna be good for you as well. I have no reason to say that this isn't gonna be good for you. So in fact Go for it. Um, you know, is that the most responsible thing to have done? Probably not. But I think that there was Something honest about it and something

democratic about it and something that um actually put faith in the intelligence of the broader community, whether or not that was a good or bad idea. And If it hadn't been him, it would have been somebody else. I think that's the other

thing to keep in mind with all this. You can't Hiding is a great short term strategy and it's a terrible long term strategy. And if people think that these problems are going to be solved by hiding or being silent. It's just not the case. Maybe for one person, for one generation, you can hide But if you wanna see progress in the long run, you have to be open, you have to be honest, and ultimately

What Timothy Leary did. in the long term is the right thing. Because he was honest about what he felt about these things. He thought they were amazing. He wasn't gonna hide that and say, Oh no, this is only For medical use because he didn't believe that.

And I think that The same is true for these conservation issues. I remember somebody criticizing me and saying Well, don't you realize that by even talking about toad conservation, you're simply informing more people about toads. So what you really should do is just not talk about it. And again That might be true if I were the only person talking about it, but people are gonna talk about it whether I like it or not, and so the question is are you going to talk about it responsibly?

Agreed. Thank you very much. This is great. Hey guys, this is Tim again, just one more thing before you take off, and that is Five Bullet Friday. Would you enjoy getting a short email from me every Friday that provides a little fun before the weekend? Between one and a half and two million people subscribe to my free newsletter, my super short newsletter called Five Bullet Friday. Easy to sign up, easy to cancel. It is basically a half page that I send out. every Friday to share the coolest things I've found or discovered or have started exploring over that week. It's kind of like my diary of cool things. It often includes articles I'm reading, books I'm reading.

albums perhaps, gadgets, gizmos, all sorts of tech tricks and so on that get sent to me by my friends, including a lot of podcast guests, and these strange esoteric things end up in my field and then I test them and then I share them with you. So if that sounds fun, again, it's very short, a little tiny bite of goodness before you head off for the weekend, something to think about. If you'd like to try it out, just go to Tim.blog slash Friday. Type that into your browser, Tim.blog slash. Friday, drop in your email and you'll get the very next one. Thanks for listening. This episode is brought to you by Athletic Greens. I get asked all the time what I would take if I could only take one supplement.

The answer is invariably athletic greens. I view it as all in one nutritional insurance. I recommended it, in fact, in the four-hour body, this is more than 10 years ago, and I did not get paid to do so. With approximately 75 vitamins, minerals, and whole food sourced ingredients, you'd be very hard pressed to find a more nutrient dense and comprehensive formula on the market. It has multivitamins, multi-mineral greens complex, probiotics, and prebiotics for gut health and immunity formula, digestive enzymes, adaptogens, and much more. I usually take it once or twice a day just to make sure I've covered my bases if I miss anything I'm not aware of. Of course, I focus on nutrient dense meals to begin with, that's the basis, but Athic Greens makes it easy to get a lot of nutrition when whole foods aren't readily available. From travel packets, I always have them in my bag when I'm zipping around. Right now, Athlet Greens is giving my audience a special offer on top of their all-in-one formula. which is a free vitamin D supplement and five pre-travel packs with your first subscription purchase. Many of us are deficient in vitamin D. I found that true for myself, which is usually produced in our bodies from sun exposure. So adding a vitamin D supplement to your daily routine is a great option for additional immune support. Support your immunity, gut health, and energy by visiting atleticgreens.com slash Tim. You'll receive up to a year's supply of vitamin D and five free travel packs with your subscription. Again, that's athleticgreens.com slash Tim.

What you see above is a preview of the first minutes. One unlock costs 3 credits and covers this episode forever: full segment and word-level timestamps on this page, plus .txt, .srt, .vtt and word-level JSON downloads, as many times as you like.