Program Notes
Guest speaker: Alicia Danforth
Alicia Danforth, who is Dr. Charles Grob’s research assistant, leads a Playalogue at the 2007 Burning Man Festival. In this wide-ranging group conversation, Alicia skillfully guided our eclectic audience through the intricacies of FDA-approved psychedelic research.
“I’m hoping to spark ideas in other people’s minds about what can be done to get a foothold in advancing psychedelic research.” –Alicia Danforth
“I tend to think of music [in a therapeutic psychedelic session] as a little boat you can hop on when you’re journeying and ride to wherever you need to go.” –Alicia Danforth.
ALSO SEE:
Ecstasy : The Complete Guide : A Comprehensive Look at the Risks and Benefits of MDMA by Julie Holland, M.D.
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Transcript
00:00:00 ►
Greetings from cyberdelic space.
00:00:20 ►
This is Lorenzo, and I’m your host here in the psychedelic salon.
00:00:24 ►
This is Lorenzo, and I’m your host here in the Psychedelic Salon.
00:00:33 ►
Well, I hope you didn’t put too much faith in what I said in the last podcast about getting a second podcast out that week.
00:00:43 ►
As you may be able to tell from my nasal-sounding voice, this flu or cold or whatever it is still hasn’t loosened its grip on me, so I apologize for not getting that done,
00:00:47 ►
but my energy level is still somewhat low.
00:00:50 ►
However, here we are, back again together in the salon,
00:00:53 ►
so things can’t be all bad.
00:00:56 ►
What I’m about to play for you now is the pliologue
00:01:00 ►
that Alicia Danforth led at the 2007 Burning Man Festival.
00:01:04 ►
that Alicia Danforth led at the 2007 Burning Man Festival.
00:01:10 ►
And even though the 2007 burn was the first time we tried this format,
00:01:16 ►
I’m here to say that Alicia did a brilliant job of bringing our idea into reality.
00:01:21 ►
Her topic was building a model for sustainable psychedelic therapy.
00:01:26 ►
And as you will hear, she was very effective in drawing the audience into the mix, resulting in a wide range of ideas about how to build such a model. I’ll have more to say
00:01:33 ►
about Alicia after we listen to her plialogue, but as you listen, particularly those of you who
00:01:39 ►
are thinking about a career in psychedelic research, you might want to keep in mind that Alicia has moved
00:01:45 ►
into this rarefied arena in just a few short years and with little specific training in
00:01:51 ►
the field.
00:01:51 ►
What sets her apart from many others who are also thinking about doing this kind of work
00:01:56 ►
is that Alicia was passionate about this cause and so she just kept volunteering and doing
00:02:02 ►
what she could to help until the position she now holds opened up for her.
00:02:07 ►
And by the way, Alicia conducted this fly-a-log in a very dusty yurt, windy and dusty yurt I might mention,
00:02:15 ►
where her audience had to use breathing masks just to keep the fly-a-dust out of their lungs.
00:02:20 ►
And that is a degree of difficulty that not many speakers ever have to overcome.
00:02:25 ►
So let’s join her now.
00:02:31 ►
Because I am a new face and I’m only an aspiring expert at this point,
00:02:38 ►
I just wanted to tell you a little bit about my background and how I came to be doing this work.
00:02:43 ►
I think it does speak to our theme of
00:02:46 ►
building a sustainable psychedelic research and up on the kind of lofty visionary level.
00:02:53 ►
I saw what I thought was a change that needed to take place in the world and realized the
00:02:59 ►
only way we’re going to get there is to put it into action. I had been a television and news
00:03:06 ►
producer for about nine years, and then I segued into a very, very corporate environment.
00:03:12 ►
I worked for a major biomanufacturing company. They now use the term human therapeutics.
00:03:19 ►
And they’re not so sustainable at the moment. I’m not going to mention any names, but they’ve been in the press a lot lately.
00:03:25 ►
So I’ve sort of had a firsthand glimpse at the big corporate model that isn’t really working.
00:03:34 ►
But after leading a very mainstream corporate kind of existence for some time,
00:03:43 ►
I went out after work one day with friends for a drink at a bar,
00:03:48 ►
and they were talking about ecstasy.
00:03:51 ►
And my knee-jerk reaction was,
00:03:53 ►
oh, you guys don’t think you should be messing with this.
00:03:56 ►
I don’t know. It sounds dangerous.
00:03:59 ►
And true to my nature, I got a book.
00:04:01 ►
And it was Julie Holland’s book, Ecstasy, A Complete Guide.
00:04:07 ►
And don’t worry, I’m not going to read from notes the whole time. But I brought a copy
00:04:13 ►
of the quote that marked the turning point that launched the beginning of my work as
00:04:20 ►
a psychedelic researcher and activist. And there’s a section in the book
00:04:25 ►
where she includes some excerpts from emails
00:04:28 ►
that she received from people with chronic mental health problems.
00:04:33 ►
She identifies it in the book as schizophrenia.
00:04:36 ►
People have different feelings about that term,
00:04:39 ►
but this was from a young man
00:04:41 ►
who wrote to her after an MDMA experience,
00:04:43 ►
and this is what he said.
00:04:44 ►
This was from a young man who wrote to her after an MDMA experience, and this is what he said.
00:04:47 ►
I felt as if my mental problems had washed away.
00:04:51 ►
All of my paranoia, all of my reservations about people, all of the pent up anger and
00:04:57 ►
frustration, the bitterness toward my family, all of it had been flushed out with a single
00:05:04 ►
dose. I felt like a real person.
00:05:07 ►
Every time I read it, I almost cry. I felt like a real person. It has given me freedom
00:05:14 ►
from a disease that has plagued me for years, and a bit of that freedom continues on, even
00:05:19 ►
after the drug wears off. I do not think this is a cure for anything, only a new perspective that should be used wisely.
00:05:30 ►
And that catalyzed an entirely new me.
00:05:34 ►
I finally got that sense of that mission coming from my heart,
00:05:38 ►
and I knew I had to try to effect a positive change in the world
00:05:41 ►
just based on reading that one testimonial.
00:05:44 ►
I had no prior medical background.
00:05:46 ►
I had produced some medical television, so I’d worked with doctors and was fairly comfortable
00:05:51 ►
in that world, but I was at a loss for how I might participate.
00:05:55 ►
So because of my media background, I was sort of a natural impulse to just call Dr. Holland.
00:06:03 ►
I got in touch with her and said, I need to
00:06:06 ►
help. I don’t know what I can do. She referred me to Rick Doblin, who in turn referred me
00:06:13 ►
to Dr. Charles Grobe, the principal investigator at Harbor UCLA for the psilocybin trial, which
00:06:18 ►
I’ll update you. I’ll give you an update in just a minute. I contacted Dr. Grobe, and I would say by chance, but
00:06:26 ►
hanging out here long enough, I know that doesn’t make very much sense. I had just landed
00:06:32 ►
the worst job ever. I was in the most spiritually deprived beige cubicle hive ever, right around
00:06:41 ►
the corner from Harbor UCLA. So I contacted dr. grobe and talked
00:06:46 ►
to him and he was kind of scratching his head he gets kind of approached a lot
00:06:50 ►
from graduate students and young doctors and trying to think of something I could
00:06:55 ►
do and then it came up in the course of conversation that he had been carrying
00:07:01 ►
around the most tattered yellowed box with 35 millimeter slides that
00:07:07 ►
he was using for his presentations when he was speaking to medical students and colleagues.
00:07:13 ►
And I realized, this guy needs a PowerPoint presentation. And he was all too happy to
00:07:20 ►
have a volunteer. And I mention it only because I’m hoping to spark ideas in
00:07:25 ►
other people’s minds of use what you’ve got in some way if you want to get a foothold
00:07:31 ►
in advancing psychedelic research. And over the course of several months, I would meet
00:07:39 ►
with him when I had some spare time and created a PowerPoint that kind of enhanced his ability to go out and lecture and have a nice presentation.
00:07:46 ►
And then Lorenzo did one as well that was psilocybin oriented.
00:07:52 ►
So we kind of helped Dr. Grove in that capacity.
00:07:56 ►
And then some time had gone by, a couple years, and I got that phone call that changed my
00:08:03 ►
life.
00:08:03 ►
How would you like to be the new study coordinator?
00:08:07 ►
And, you know, I think anytime you have a calling,
00:08:13 ►
there’s that knee-jerk reaction.
00:08:14 ►
You’re called to do something,
00:08:15 ►
and you think you’ve got the wrong person who me.
00:08:20 ►
But thanks very much to the expert mentoring I received from Mary C.
00:08:26 ►
She’s here in the back of the room.
00:08:27 ►
She was an RN who worked on the study for about the first half of the trial,
00:08:32 ►
and she took me under her wing and showed me the ins and outs of the administration
00:08:38 ►
and the onboarding process when new participants came on board.
00:08:48 ►
onboarding process when new participants came on board. And the skill set I’d acquired as a TV producer and a project manager were applicable. They were transferable. And the team was extremely
00:08:53 ►
gracious about filling in the gaps of my knowledge. And it was a good fit.
00:09:02 ►
So enough about me.
00:09:06 ►
That’s how I came to be doing this work.
00:09:08 ►
I’ve been doing it about two years now. So I’m not an expert, but I am one of the few people on the planet right now
00:09:15 ►
who’s done the FDA-approved, above-board, kind of institutional psychedelic research.
00:09:25 ►
Now, I wanted to just get a show of hands.
00:09:28 ►
Did anybody hear Dr. Preet Chopra’s update on the psilocybin trial here last year?
00:09:34 ►
Because I don’t want to repeat things too much.
00:09:35 ►
Oh, a few of you.
00:09:36 ►
Oh, very good.
00:09:37 ►
Yeah, we were about halfway at that point, maybe six out of 12 participants.
00:09:42 ►
And he came in this forum and gave a talk.
00:09:45 ►
So I can just sort of bring you up to speed.
00:09:48 ►
I’m not going to go into a whole lot of detail, but back, I guess it was in 2004,
00:09:55 ►
they finally, the team, got approval after years and years of back and forth,
00:10:01 ►
of jumping through administrative hurdles, got approval from the FDA to work with a mild to moderate dose,
00:10:09 ►
an analytical dose of psilocybin,
00:10:12 ►
as opposed to a knock-yourself-out-sea-god dose,
00:10:17 ►
0.2 milligrams per kilogram of body weight.
00:10:21 ►
And the study is conducted.
00:10:23 ►
They were approved for 12 participants.
00:10:25 ►
The study is conducted in a special research wing at the county hospital at Harbor UCLA. There’s a
00:10:31 ►
room that was used as a sleep study room, so it has a nice big heavy double door, one
00:10:37 ►
bed in there. My Burning Man experience came in handy, and Mary C. had already done some great legwork helping with the setting part.
00:10:50 ►
We go in before the participants are admitted and hang fabrics and tapestries
00:10:56 ►
and bring in flowers and try to create an environment more conducive
00:11:00 ►
to having a good journey with psilocybin.
00:11:04 ►
During the sessions, we use music, and participants
00:11:08 ►
are encouraged to use eye shades to really go within, to have an analytical experience.
00:11:15 ►
We’re a team of three. Dr. Charles Grobe is the principal investigator. Dr. Preet Chopra,
00:11:23 ►
who spoke here last year.
00:11:29 ►
He was a fellow at the time at Harbor, and he was fantastic,
00:11:35 ►
volunteered so much of his time on multiple Saturdays to support the work.
00:11:38 ►
And I function as the study coordinator.
00:11:44 ►
And together, the three of us sort of co-facilitate the sessions.
00:11:47 ►
Trying to think about the things that people are really interested in. Nobody has freaked out. We haven’t had
00:11:51 ►
anybody run screaming for the room or say, I can’t wait until this is over. I’ve got to get out of here.
00:11:56 ►
Who are you? And whatnot.
00:11:59 ►
I would say the least satisfactory outcome
00:12:04 ►
were people who didn’t have a very strong experience,
00:12:08 ►
maybe because of their particular physiology
00:12:10 ►
or because of other medications that they’re working with.
00:12:15 ►
Oh, I should mention, it is a study
00:12:18 ►
working with people who have stage four metastatic cancer.
00:12:24 ►
Their prognoses vary widely.
00:12:27 ►
It can be any kind of cancer as long as they don’t have metastases to the brain.
00:12:31 ►
An MRI proving that is required as part of inclusion in the study.
00:12:36 ►
No history of major psychiatric disorder.
00:12:39 ►
No kidney problems, cardiac problems, and so on.
00:12:43 ►
So participants are screened.
00:12:45 ►
So although they have advanced cancer,
00:12:47 ►
they have a measure of health that, you know,
00:12:51 ►
safety first on this study.
00:12:53 ►
It is primarily a safety study.
00:12:56 ►
And they come in for two sessions
00:13:02 ►
for a one-night overnight stay at the hospital.
00:13:07 ►
During one session, they’ll receive a placebo.
00:13:10 ►
During another session, they’ll receive the active psilocybin in a capsule form.
00:13:16 ►
It is synthesized in a laboratory.
00:13:18 ►
We don’t use real mushrooms because of the demands of clinical research.
00:13:25 ►
It’s a very gentle experience so far.
00:13:28 ►
The most, you know, the only reports we’ve had of any discomfort
00:13:35 ►
are some very mild queasiness or nausea that was kind of fleeting.
00:13:39 ►
So in general, people don’t tend to get the cramping and nausea
00:13:43 ►
that you can get with mushrooms sometimes.
00:13:46 ►
It’s a very pleasant ride.
00:13:48 ►
They receive the medicine in the morning, and they’re usually ready to go home at about 5 in the afternoon.
00:13:54 ►
And it’s double-blind to us.
00:13:55 ►
We never know which time it’s going to be the placebo or the active drug.
00:14:00 ►
But when I tell people we use a placebo, they usually kind of laugh and say,
00:14:05 ►
can’t they kind of tell?
00:14:08 ►
And the answer to that question is yeah.
00:14:10 ►
We usually have a fairly good idea, but it’s pretty irrelevant because the work continues.
00:14:16 ►
The work starts well before they take the active drug and continues afterwards.
00:14:23 ►
And as I’ve mentioned, we’ve just screened and are ready to onboard
00:14:27 ►
our final participant to close this phase of the study and begin thinking about the
00:14:37 ►
next protocol for the next phase of the trial. And this is where this talk becomes interactive. I’ve just designated a handful of areas.
00:14:48 ►
I don’t know how many we’ll get through.
00:14:50 ►
But areas where, you know, I’ll let you in on a little secret.
00:14:58 ►
Psychedelics require such new and subjective and creative ways of thinking
00:15:06 ►
when you’re approaching them in a clinical setting
00:15:11 ►
that we spend, if a participant is very far under,
00:15:15 ►
while we try to be very present and connected to them,
00:15:18 ►
it’s a bit of a marathon, and sometimes we can’t help but start debating amongst ourselves,
00:15:23 ►
what do you guys think about this?
00:15:25 ►
What do you think about that?
00:15:26 ►
And there are a lot of unanswered questions about how to proceed in a manner that will
00:15:32 ►
allow psychedelic research to remain sustainable.
00:15:37 ►
We want to avoid roadblocks in terms of the cultural roadblock that occurred in the 60s
00:15:45 ►
because of the abuse and misuse out in the general public.
00:15:51 ►
We need to adhere to standard methodologies
00:15:55 ►
so that institutions like the FDA don’t stop the process.
00:16:01 ►
So some very deep thinking is required,
00:16:03 ►
and I thought who better to ask about some of
00:16:06 ►
these ideas? You may tell me something today that I’ll jot down a note and it may find its way into
00:16:11 ►
the protocol in some form or another. So before I start introducing, oh, one other quote I just
00:16:19 ►
wanted to read to you. Dr. Chopra, the colleague that I mentioned, this is a quote from his presentation here last
00:16:26 ►
year that just kind of summarizes what sparked my desire to do this work and keep doing this work.
00:16:36 ►
And I have a feeling a lot of people in the room are like-minded. Dr. Chopra said, I think it’s
00:16:40 ►
kind of ridiculous to be a scientist and a doctor and not investigate and try to understand how we can use these tools in a Western culture safely.
00:16:50 ►
That’s my orientation.
00:16:52 ►
I love being around the visionaries.
00:16:55 ►
I love hearing the presentations here about the people who are so lofty and cerebral and inspirational in their thinking.
00:17:02 ►
I’m much more pragmatic.
00:17:04 ►
I absorb that and then try to figure it out.
00:17:07 ►
All right, how do we do it?
00:17:09 ►
And that’s where I want to enlist your help.
00:17:11 ►
So before we begin, does anybody have any questions about the trial in general?
00:17:18 ►
Do you need a microphone?
00:17:24 ►
Hi. In your screening of participants, do you look for people who have previous experience with psychedelics?
00:17:30 ►
What a brilliant question. That’s one of my bullet points.
00:17:33 ►
So let’s start there. This is an example of the sorts of things that we debate.
00:17:40 ►
Is it important to have experienced journeyers?
00:17:44 ►
Let me back up just one step.
00:17:47 ►
In doing clinical research, minimizing variability is always, or has been in the past, has been the ideal.
00:17:55 ►
So that the drug is the only thing that’s different, so you can see if it’s having any sort of effect or change.
00:18:02 ►
And we, for this study, opted to not make that part of an inclusion or exclusion.
00:18:08 ►
We have had people who were very experienced back in the day. We’ve had some deadheads
00:18:14 ►
that really had a lot of experience with altered states. We have had entirely naive users who have never had a hallucinogen or
00:18:27 ►
psychedelic experience before in their lives. But that is a good question going forward to
00:18:34 ►
minimize variability, or we allow for some flexibility to accommodate the special needs
00:18:41 ►
of psychedelics. Does anybody in the room have an opinion about whether that matters?
00:18:46 ►
Should everybody be a naive user
00:18:48 ►
who’s never done it before,
00:18:49 ►
or should they have some experience?
00:18:52 ►
Hi.
00:19:03 ►
It seems like you should have both so that you could compare. You should document
00:19:10 ►
the differences between maybe the people who’ve done it before and the new people. That’s
00:19:14 ►
an interesting thing in and of itself. And not to discount it, but to work that into
00:19:21 ►
the study.
00:19:22 ►
Yeah.
00:19:23 ►
That seems…
00:19:24 ►
Yeah. I happen to agree.
00:19:27 ►
And when people say,
00:19:28 ►
what instruments are you using
00:19:29 ►
to capture that and evaluate that
00:19:31 ►
and measure that,
00:19:32 ►
that’s the new terrain
00:19:36 ►
that we’re trying to walk wisely
00:19:38 ►
and carefully.
00:19:40 ►
I do think in the future
00:19:41 ►
it would be an asset
00:19:43 ►
to have more sophisticated models for the studies
00:19:46 ►
to accommodate comparisons between naive and experienced users within the same study,
00:19:51 ►
but clearly delineated.
00:19:53 ►
Anybody else have any thoughts?
00:19:54 ►
I agree with what you just said, because it’s so hard.
00:19:59 ►
The exclusionary thing is such a problem anyhow.
00:20:02 ►
So if you don’t exclude anybody anybody whether they have or haven’t,
00:20:05 ►
but if you do track them separately,
00:20:07 ►
I would love to see if you get more
00:20:09 ►
positive results of
00:20:12 ►
one group or the other, or if it’s just
00:20:13 ►
the same. That’s a really curious thing.
00:20:16 ►
Yeah, it’s a fascinating
00:20:17 ►
area to explore.
00:20:20 ►
Oh, you have a mic?
00:20:21 ►
It seems to me in that
00:20:23 ►
I know with this particular study that there’s some difficulty in getting people to partake in the study
00:20:30 ►
because of the end-stage cancer issue and geographic issues.
00:20:34 ►
And so I think that it’s great that you have anyone can participate.
00:20:40 ►
I think that it probably makes this study actually even happening to be easier.
00:20:53 ►
But it could be that this is a point that should be stressed with all psychedelic researchers that worked into the data that they collect.
00:20:57 ►
They collect data related to the statistics of naive users compared to experienced users.
00:21:04 ►
And then if all the different studies that anyone is doing does that,
00:21:08 ►
there can be a meta-analysis of that data later as a project.
00:21:11 ►
So it doesn’t have to actually be something that is a goal of the study.
00:21:15 ►
It can just be something that each researcher is encouraged to do.
00:21:19 ►
Yeah, there’s actually a team at NYU right now.
00:21:22 ►
I don’t know if people are aware that they’re going to replicate our study.
00:21:25 ►
And they’ve called and consulted us on certain points about refining their protocol and so on.
00:21:29 ►
And that’s something I can pass along and say, hey, if you haven’t done so already,
00:21:33 ►
you might want to think about starting to collect data comparing naive and experienced users.
00:21:38 ►
So anything else on this topic before I throw out the next one?
00:21:42 ►
on this topic before I thought the next one.
00:21:49 ►
I’m just curious about,
00:21:53 ►
is the goal of the study for healing the cancer?
00:21:56 ►
Or is the goal of the study for contextualizing the experience of the patient?
00:21:59 ►
Fantastic question.
00:22:00 ►
I should have clarified that earlier.
00:22:02 ►
This is a psychiatric trial.
00:22:04 ►
We’re not focusing on curing cancer.
00:22:09 ►
It’s an anxiety study, cancer and anxiety.
00:22:12 ►
Thank you very much.
00:22:14 ►
We’re looking primarily at anxiety, secondary to that, depression, and attitudes and perceptions of pain.
00:22:20 ►
And I’m very careful in the recruiting process.
00:22:23 ►
If I pick up any inklings
00:22:26 ►
that someone in desperation is looking for a miracle cure
00:22:29 ►
for their cancer, I’ll very gently say
00:22:31 ►
I just want to make sure that you understand
00:22:34 ►
we’re not looking at how this will influence
00:22:37 ►
your cancer, it’s to help with anxiety
00:22:40 ►
and challenges you’re having, existential angst
00:22:44 ►
and end ofof-life issues
00:22:46 ►
and quality of life at the end of life.
00:22:48 ►
So thank you. Good question.
00:22:50 ►
Anyone else before I move on?
00:22:53 ►
Okay, this one, it doesn’t seem like it should be such a big deal,
00:22:58 ►
but it kind of is.
00:22:59 ►
It’s kind of a fun one to ponder.
00:23:02 ►
The use of music.
00:23:05 ►
Do you have a set playlist where everybody has the same set of music
00:23:11 ►
and they all hear the same thing in the interest of minimizing variability
00:23:14 ►
as they’re doing on the MDMA and PTSD study,
00:23:20 ►
the MAP-sponsored study in North Carolina?
00:23:23 ►
the MAP-sponsored study in North Carolina?
00:23:27 ►
Or do you customize your playlist to accommodate the unique tastes and needs
00:23:31 ►
and attitudes of the participant?
00:23:34 ►
Because you lose your variability.
00:23:37 ►
I have an opinion,
00:23:39 ►
but I’m curious if anybody here has any thoughts.
00:23:45 ►
If I think about it, if your goal is to figure out how to kind of cure or relieve anxiety and depression and things,
00:23:55 ►
if someone has anxiety about, like if you use classical music for everybody,
00:23:59 ►
and some people have anxiety about classical music perhaps from their upbringing or something,
00:24:04 ►
then you’re basically countering what you’re trying to achieve.
00:24:08 ►
So it seems like asking them what, while there is a variability thing,
00:24:11 ►
it seems like asking people what kind of music soothes them and makes them comfortable,
00:24:15 ►
those types of things would be helpful.
00:24:18 ►
However, there is that, you know, but then we’re introducing variability.
00:24:20 ►
We’re introducing something that already makes them less anxious.
00:24:24 ►
And then is it the music or is it the drug?
00:24:28 ►
Yeah, yeah.
00:24:29 ►
And playing devil’s advocate,
00:24:31 ►
sometimes you have to be mindful of keeping anybody in their happy floaty place for too long
00:24:37 ►
if what they need to do is some cathartic hard work facing some fears.
00:24:44 ►
Do you have a mic?
00:24:45 ►
Why not music at all?
00:24:48 ►
Why have music at all?
00:24:49 ►
Good question.
00:24:50 ►
I’ve been challenged on this one before by some pretty powerful thinkers.
00:24:55 ►
I think part of it is pragmatic.
00:24:59 ►
You’re in a hospital room with three people in chairs looking at you.
00:25:04 ►
You need some place to go.
00:25:08 ►
I personally just tend to think of the music as a little boat you can hop on when you’re
00:25:13 ►
journeying and ride to wherever you need to go.
00:25:19 ►
We, well, I’ll let you know at this point. We have not standardized our playlist,
00:25:26 ►
but it’s interesting to hear the opinions of people who support the view that perhaps we should.
00:25:32 ►
And some participants have had cancers, you know, neck and above type issues,
00:25:39 ►
where they’re very sensitive to sound and have requested,
00:25:42 ►
can I just have some silence for the next two hours?
00:25:46 ►
And to kind of summarize where we’ve landed for this particular phase of the trial,
00:25:51 ►
this baby step, the skills of a DJ have really been brought forward
00:25:59 ►
meeting people where they are.
00:26:02 ►
The general rules that we follow are we tend to avoid English lyrics,
00:26:09 ►
especially anything leading, no tear jerkers, nothing, you know, we’re going to really make
00:26:15 ►
them cry right now. And, you know, we try not to be too leading. And we found that organic, percussion-based music, didgeridoo, drums, jungle-inspired type music works well.
00:26:32 ►
A lot of Indian-type music, you may have mantras or something.
00:26:38 ►
There may be human voices and lyrics, but we tend to avoid anything that would suggest where the participants should head. We’ve had some funny experiences. Some people said, oh, I love classical music. I
00:26:50 ►
want to hear classical music. And we’ll play the classical music and they’ll start laughing.
00:26:55 ►
Like, oh, no, this isn’t working at all. I thought this was a great idea. And so the compromise we’ve come to, we’ve got an iPod, and we’ve got, you know, building a large library.
00:27:11 ►
We have some old standards.
00:27:13 ►
I’ll share this with you.
00:27:15 ►
The soundtrack to the mission tends to work for a lot of people.
00:27:20 ►
There are pieces of music through trial and error we learn.
00:27:24 ►
This works fairly well.
00:27:28 ►
Doing some sort of, you know, these new age tapes you get, you know, chakra meditation.
00:27:32 ►
You know, the first track is the root chakra and had some interesting outcomes.
00:27:40 ►
I think it helped facilitate.
00:27:42 ►
I think it helped facilitate.
00:27:51 ►
I’ll add a little thing that I learned what happened to the study Myron Stolaroff did in the 60s where at Menlo Park they ran about 350 people through their program,
00:27:56 ►
and it was before LSD became illegal, and it was all LSD.
00:28:00 ►
It was about enhancing creativity.
00:28:02 ►
It wasn’t healing.
00:28:03 ►
But I asked him about the music, and they always used only classical music.
00:28:08 ►
They would allow people to bring their music, and they’d say,
00:28:12 ►
well, is it okay if we start off with a little classical, even though you don’t like it,
00:28:16 ►
and then we’ll put yours on after a while?
00:28:19 ►
And he says, to the best of his memory, that there were only one or two people that wanted their music
00:28:24 ►
after they kind of got into the session on classical music.
00:28:27 ►
Now, I personally have tried classical music a lot of times with sessions,
00:28:31 ►
and I’m more of a Pink Floyd guy myself.
00:28:33 ►
But they only use classical music,
00:28:39 ►
and they kind of allowed the people to bring their own music, but they never wound up playing it.
00:28:44 ►
And they kind of allowed the people to bring their own music, but they never wound up playing it.
00:28:51 ►
One of the very recent participants in the study, when I inquired, what kind of music do you like?
00:28:52 ►
We’d like to have some of that available.
00:28:55 ►
Oh, I pretty much only listen to classical and jazz.
00:28:57 ►
That’s what I like, classical and jazz. session, I had a playlist set up that was more, for lack of a better word, new agey
00:29:08 ►
world music, good, really good, juicy journeying music. And this person was a naive user. And
00:29:16 ►
we’re fairly sure, we don’t know, but we’re fairly sure the first session was the placebo.
00:29:26 ►
we’re fairly sure the first session was the placebo and the second session would have been the first time this person had been altered and well with a substance and as the effect of the
00:29:38 ►
psilocybin started to come on there was this little knowing smirk this little and she said
00:29:44 ►
you know where I’m going a little better than I,
00:29:47 ►
like, you’re right, classical didn’t work.
00:29:49 ►
We asked her later, like, why were you giggling at that point in the session?
00:29:53 ►
She said, you knew better about the music than I did.
00:29:57 ►
So, yeah.
00:29:59 ►
Yeah, that’s, again, the skills of the DJ tend to come in handy,
00:30:02 ►
meeting people where they are and the needs in that session at that moment,
00:30:06 ►
being ready to switch it up if you have to.
00:30:09 ►
But it’s a good point.
00:30:13 ►
Why music at all?
00:30:15 ►
Why not just sound effects, nature sounds, things like that?
00:30:18 ►
Well, that was the question John just asked, why music at all?
00:30:23 ►
Yeah, that’s a consideration.
00:30:26 ►
I actually did download a compilation CD called Nature Sounds,
00:30:32 ►
and it’s crickets chirping in the woods and waterfalls and waves crashing on the beach.
00:30:36 ►
We’ve experimented a bit with that.
00:30:38 ►
It works fairly well.
00:30:40 ►
For a six-hour session, I don’t know how people’s stamina would work
00:30:45 ►
to listen to, you know,
00:30:46 ►
I guess you listen to crickets chirping all night
00:30:47 ►
if you’re out in the woods.
00:30:49 ►
But again, you guys are bringing up
00:30:52 ►
such wonderful points.
00:30:54 ►
It’s really speaking to this idea
00:30:55 ►
that psychedelics require new ways of thinking
00:30:58 ►
and new paradigms.
00:30:59 ►
If it’s going to be sustainable,
00:31:01 ►
all these little intricacies need to be worked out
00:31:04 ►
or experimented with in a responsible way. going to be sustainable all these little intricacies need to be worked out it’s
00:31:05 ►
experimented with in a responsible way yes
00:31:09 ►
since the setting sounds somewhat sterile what what do you do like cognitive therapy in the
00:31:19 ►
session or is it just like they’re there and wherever they want to go, you go?
00:31:25 ►
Or how does that?
00:31:30 ►
Yeah, I can give you a sense of kind of the standard model.
00:31:32 ►
There is pre-work.
00:31:35 ►
The participants meet with Dr. Grobe.
00:31:39 ►
There’s a psychiatric evaluation and kind of assess where they are. And there is intention-setting work.
00:31:44 ►
What are you hoping to get from this experience?
00:31:47 ►
One recent participant was rather experienced.
00:31:51 ►
This person was a burner, is a burner actually.
00:31:54 ►
And said, you know, I’ve done all sorts of experimenting and so on
00:31:59 ►
and hadn’t journeyed with intention before for healing.
00:32:03 ►
and hadn’t journeyed with intention before for healing.
00:32:10 ►
And his real revelation is really a different experience for him.
00:32:14 ►
So some people have journeyed with intention before,
00:32:16 ►
but regardless if they have or haven’t,
00:32:19 ►
they’re encouraged to talk that over with the team. And each session begins with kind of a grounding ceremony.
00:32:25 ►
We call in the four directions and create a sacred space.
00:32:35 ►
That’s part of the unofficial protocol.
00:32:37 ►
I hope someday it makes its way into the official record,
00:32:40 ►
but we are mindful of finding out what people’s spiritual orientations are.
00:32:44 ►
We’ve had people who are very devout Buddhists. We’ve had atheists. And again, that speaks to
00:32:50 ►
the, is there a one-size-fits-all solution in a clinical setting for psychedelics?
00:32:56 ►
During the session, they’re encouraged to go within. It needs to be sort of analytical. We’re not chit-chatting.
00:33:13 ►
However, every hour on the hour, I take a blood pressure and sort of get a general sense.
00:33:16 ►
I don’t want to be in people’s face asking all the time,
00:33:19 ►
Are you okay? Are you high yet? What are you doing? What are you doing?
00:33:21 ►
Nothing would be more annoying.
00:33:23 ►
But just kind of with gesture.
00:33:28 ►
But I tell you, a lot of times we can tell how people are doing.
00:33:33 ►
One recent participant started out kind of like this at the beginning of the session,
00:33:37 ►
and right about the time we thought they’d be coming on,
00:33:42 ►
just spread wide open.
00:33:44 ►
And, you know, we try to read those signals.
00:33:45 ►
Where are they?
00:33:46 ►
Are they struggling?
00:33:47 ►
Are they in a content place?
00:33:49 ►
And I tell them,
00:33:51 ►
I’m going to tap you gently on the shoulder.
00:33:54 ►
If you want to stay in that deep place,
00:33:55 ►
just stick out your arm.
00:33:59 ►
I’ll put the cuff on and then drop it.
00:34:02 ►
So we talk about signals that they can give so that we’re not too intrusive.
00:34:08 ►
Around hour five,
00:34:16 ►
four or five, we check in to make sure they’re not too dissociative and kind of ask them,
00:34:22 ►
we know, especially the naive users, we know this is kind of an ineffable experience, but can you give us some idea of where you are and check on them?
00:34:27 ►
Some people have sat bolt upright when we least expected it, ripped off the mask and said,
00:34:33 ►
I’m getting all sorts of answers to questions and they want to talk about it in the moment.
00:34:38 ►
Again, we try to meet them where we are, going back to that variability issue. Should there be a rule? No talking until the end.
00:34:46 ►
Or you’re required to
00:34:48 ►
check in for five minutes every hour
00:34:50 ►
on the hour. Anybody have
00:34:52 ►
any thoughts?
00:34:55 ►
Something like that
00:34:56 ►
would be extremely frustrating
00:34:58 ►
and annoying. If you’re feeling like you have
00:35:00 ►
to get out what you’re thinking and you’re
00:35:02 ►
not allowed to, I get
00:35:04 ►
like I think they really just make things worse for people.
00:35:09 ►
And that I was, all the time you were talking about this,
00:35:12 ►
I was just thinking the limits of this scientific investigation process are,
00:35:19 ►
this is such a soft science kind of thing
00:35:23 ►
that applying the hard science rules is kind of
00:35:27 ►
going to mess it up, actually. Like, if you’re trying to learn about reducing anxiety, it’s
00:35:32 ►
not physics, you know? And so the variability just has to be there. Otherwise, I mean, if
00:35:40 ►
you’re really trying to reduce people’s anxiety, not just study one, you know what I mean?
00:35:46 ►
Like, maybe it’s music and mushrooms together, you know?
00:35:52 ►
And that’s, you know, and being able to talk.
00:35:57 ►
I mean, not being able to talk, that’s horrible.
00:35:59 ►
Don’t do that.
00:36:00 ►
No, they know at any point that we’re there.
00:36:03 ►
We try to not bring novels to read and so on.
00:36:06 ►
If you want to communicate with us at any point, we leave it up to them.
00:36:11 ►
Like making somebody feel like a lab rat would not reduce anxiety.
00:36:17 ►
It’s true. It’s true.
00:36:19 ►
Yeah, good point.
00:36:21 ►
Anyone else?
00:36:22 ►
I wanted to respond to that as well.
00:36:28 ►
point. Anyone else? I wanted to respond to that as well. For me, psychedelics and life in general, my science would be a subjective one, not an objective one. I just find it
00:36:34 ►
so fascinating that you’re articulating in between the zones of this purely subjective
00:36:39 ►
and the objective view that science holds. I don’t even know how you can do it.
00:36:46 ►
It’s a fine line.
00:36:49 ►
It’s walking in those two worlds is a challenge.
00:36:51 ►
But I know I care about this so much.
00:36:54 ►
I know there’s going to be an FDA to deal with for the foreseeable future.
00:36:56 ►
Other regulatory agencies and IRB
00:36:58 ►
we’re responsible to.
00:37:00 ►
And data safety, monitoring, reports,
00:37:07 ►
renewal reviews, all that,
00:37:10 ►
those P’s and Q’s have to be in order.
00:37:17 ►
Let me just jump in here for a moment to let you know that at this point in Alicia’s pliologue,
00:37:20 ►
the windstorm knocked our generator out again.
00:37:22 ►
And so for about the next five minutes,
00:37:26 ►
you’ll be hearing what it sounded like in the yurt without our sound system.
00:37:30 ►
But hang in there because we eventually get the generator going again,
00:37:35 ►
and the sound will greatly improve once it once again comes directly from our microphones. I think it’s not a problem. I just.
00:37:45 ►
OK, so what I wonder is whether there’s
00:37:49 ►
experience with other kinds of studies,
00:37:51 ►
like if you’re doing a study of whether a particular surgery
00:37:54 ►
works, and you want to know if a particular kind of part-time
00:37:57 ►
surgery works.
00:37:59 ►
That seems like also an environment
00:38:01 ►
where you couldn’t control all the variables.
00:38:06 ►
The idea is that you have a surgeon,
00:38:07 ►
and he goes in and he realizes that every person’s body is
00:38:10 ►
going to be a little different.
00:38:11 ►
And he makes these adjustments here,
00:38:13 ►
and he makes these adjustments based on the needs.
00:38:16 ►
It’s not like you can say, OK, first
00:38:18 ►
we’re going to cut this particular thing,
00:38:20 ►
then you’re going to patch it together
00:38:21 ►
in this particular way.
00:38:22 ►
There’s this idea that if you have a trained person doing it,
00:38:27 ►
that they can make those objective calls
00:38:29 ►
in response to the situation.
00:38:32 ►
And so I wonder if those principles can be brought to,
00:38:34 ►
for example, things like having a skilled DJ, having,
00:38:37 ►
you know, having a case study.
00:38:38 ►
That’s essentially what we’ve been doing,
00:38:39 ►
but we’re flying under the radar a little bit right now.
00:38:42 ►
After the study is published, I’m
00:38:43 ►
curious if there’ll be more scrutiny and
00:38:45 ►
how the subsequent protocols
00:38:48 ►
will be reviewed. But I think
00:38:50 ►
at present, nobody’s
00:38:52 ►
too disturbed by
00:38:53 ►
our somewhat
00:38:56 ►
flexible approach.
00:39:01 ►
How are we doing for time?
00:39:03 ►
Should I just keep going here?
00:39:04 ►
I mentioned a little bit earlier about the notion of using a placebo,
00:39:08 ►
which is really funny.
00:39:09 ►
The drug comes in, I’ll share with you,
00:39:12 ►
the placebo we use is niacin.
00:39:15 ►
The thinking being niacin can create a flush, a creeping feeling.
00:39:20 ►
It doesn’t really leave you feeling altered
00:39:22 ►
and it shouldn’t fall we’ve fooled anybody.
00:39:26 ►
But a lot of these people giggle when you talk about using a placebo in a psychedelic study.
00:39:34 ►
The study, the Roland Griffith study out of Johns Hopkins,
00:39:38 ►
if you haven’t heard about it, it’s worth doing a Google search and reading about it.
00:39:42 ►
Fascinating study with psilocybin.
00:39:44 ►
I believe they used healthy controls and at a higher dose, but they use Ritalin.
00:39:53 ►
And a little bit of minor controversy bubbled up about that, is that really appropriate
00:39:58 ►
to be giving people and so on. But they did have a little bit more of a placebo effect. It did fool people a bit more.
00:40:06 ►
But if you were designing your psychedelic study, what would you use for a placebo?
00:40:13 ►
This is something we debate in those off hours when we’re just chatting amongst ourselves.
00:40:17 ►
Anybody have any thoughts or comments?
00:40:19 ►
Yeah.
00:40:20 ►
Well, I mean, if your goal is anxiolysis, then you thought about using an active anxiolytic
00:40:26 ►
and comparing the two,
00:40:27 ►
and then comparing them short-term,
00:40:30 ►
like, okay, I took this Valium versus the psilocybin,
00:40:35 ►
and right now I feel mellow.
00:40:37 ►
But, you know, hopefully what you’re looking for
00:40:40 ►
is longer-term outcomes with the psilocybin
00:40:44 ►
that, you know, they can carry forward?
00:40:46 ►
I’m making a note.
00:40:49 ►
I’d like to address the use of sound.
00:40:53 ►
I’d like to address the use of sound.
00:40:55 ►
In the ayahuasca traditions, the sound takes you on the journey for healing,
00:41:00 ►
and sound can evoke emotion.
00:41:04 ►
So when you have somebody dealing with anxiety
00:41:06 ►
and there could be lots of reasons for anxiety,
00:41:08 ►
I mean, death is approaching,
00:41:09 ►
but they may have issues with their parents
00:41:10 ►
or something that happened as a child
00:41:12 ►
they want to deal with,
00:41:13 ►
and the sound will help to evoke the emotion in the music
00:41:16 ►
and help them to free up easily
00:41:18 ►
because sound can really tap into emotion.
00:41:21 ►
What exactly is the point of the placebo at all?
00:41:26 ►
Marcy, you might want to speak to this,
00:41:28 ►
but I think it’s adhering to standard methodologies to get the trial approved.
00:41:33 ►
Is it more sophisticated than that?
00:41:35 ►
Yeah.
00:41:36 ►
All those discussions took place before.
00:41:38 ►
I know.
00:41:39 ►
I think also perhaps you might want to explain the Phase I study is really a safety study
00:41:44 ►
to prove that you won’t kill a dying person with psilocybin.
00:41:47 ►
Exactly.
00:41:48 ►
It’s primarily a safety study.
00:41:50 ►
We’re looking at efficacy a bit.
00:41:51 ►
It was such a small sample.
00:41:53 ►
It’s really taking a baby step to reinitiate the work that was cut short a couple decades ago.
00:42:01 ►
So erring on the side of caution really seemed like the best way to go.
00:42:06 ►
So, yeah.
00:42:09 ►
I just wanted to note really quickly,
00:42:11 ►
it would obviously just be,
00:42:13 ►
when you were talking about collecting statistics
00:42:15 ►
on the experiences of naive versus experienced users,
00:42:18 ►
and I was just reminded of what Matt was saying
00:42:21 ►
about certain ayahuasca shamans
00:42:24 ►
who don’t need the drug anymore to experience,
00:42:26 ►
or don’t need the ayahuasca plant anymore even to experience or enter that space.
00:42:30 ►
So I think the placebo effect would be really interesting
00:42:32 ►
in terms of how they affected naive and experienced users,
00:42:36 ►
whether or not either group…
00:42:39 ►
I’m thinking, just my opinion here, that the experience…
00:42:43 ►
I mean, even though it seems counterintuitive,
00:42:44 ►
that maybe the experienced user might have more an effect of the placebo
00:42:47 ►
because they’re expecting something.
00:42:49 ►
Maybe they could call that up within themselves.
00:42:52 ►
I just think that would be really interesting.
00:42:57 ►
Do you just want to shout?
00:42:59 ►
I just wanted to ask why you have to use
00:43:11 ►
synthesized psilocybin
00:43:14 ►
because I have experience with about 25 different strains
00:43:18 ►
of Cubensis and all of them have different personalities
00:43:21 ►
the Gulf Coast strains are very different from like Mazatepec.
00:43:26 ►
The Thai strain is very different from Ecuador.
00:43:29 ►
The Hawaiian scion is very different than all of them.
00:43:33 ►
I mean, there’s some that cause more anxiety than others,
00:43:40 ►
that have bitchier personalities,
00:43:41 ►
and there’s some that will bring on a lot more bliss than others.
00:43:46 ►
Did you just read my mind?
00:43:48 ►
That’s the next note on my list.
00:43:50 ►
Synthetic versus natural.
00:43:52 ►
It’s another debated area that people sort of go back and forth.
00:43:57 ►
When I tell people it’s a pill and it’s synthesized in a laboratory,
00:44:00 ►
some people are very opposed to that.
00:44:02 ►
Oh, it’s a natural plant medicine.
00:44:04 ►
Why are you messing with
00:44:05 ►
what mother nature gave us and so on and there may be others in the room have different opinions
00:44:12 ►
again i think it goes back to the same old story standardization safety minimizing variability
00:44:19 ►
how do you assess the data if someone got a very powerful batch of mushrooms somebody got a very
00:44:25 ►
mild it’s to keep the experience experience as consistent as possible one thing that’s come up
00:44:32 ►
and i i’m no expert on what i’m talking about here but there’s just been some of these little
00:44:37 ►
murmurs the dosage is based on body weight but some people knowledgeable in the psychopharmacology of all
00:44:45 ►
of this think, you know, that might not be the best measure. Brain weight may very well be the
00:44:52 ►
determinant because the people in our study who are heavy are obviously getting a higher dose than
00:44:58 ►
our little petite people. So another challenge, psychedelics present new ways of thinking.
00:45:04 ►
Anybody else have any thoughts on synthetic versus natural?
00:45:08 ►
I mean, I always think of the comment Maria Sabina made.
00:45:13 ►
She had an opportunity to experience synthetic psilocybin,
00:45:17 ►
and her assessment was the little people are in there.
00:45:21 ►
And experienced users have said it feels like a psilocybin experience, just maybe a little
00:45:27 ►
cleaner, a little less toxic without the nausea and so on. Maybe
00:45:31 ►
a little less visual. You don’t get quite such a light show
00:45:36 ►
and so on, but similar to the natural substance.
00:45:40 ►
I was just talking with Sasha about that this morning
00:45:44 ►
because he was talking
00:45:45 ►
about a conversation he had with Terrence
00:45:47 ►
McKenna where McKenna was going on about
00:45:50 ►
DMT and it was natural and
00:45:51 ►
Terrence was really into the naturals
00:45:54 ►
versus the synthetics and the two of them
00:45:56 ►
discussed that from time to time
00:45:57 ►
and he was saying how
00:46:00 ►
important DMT was, it’s in your body
00:46:01 ►
and the plants and Sasha said, but you
00:46:04 ►
know they synthesized it in the 1920s
00:46:06 ►
before they discovered it anywhere else.
00:46:08 ►
And so, of course, Sasha is into, you know, he believes in the chemistry.
00:46:11 ►
The only thing I think the comment you were making about the wide variety
00:46:15 ►
I think is really important because they have these synergistic effects.
00:46:19 ►
It’s not just the psilocybin.
00:46:21 ►
You know, there’s the other synergistic effects.
00:46:23 ►
So I guess for a scientific study, if you want control,
00:46:27 ►
that’s really the only way you get control
00:46:29 ►
because you don’t really know what other ingredients are tweaking you.
00:46:33 ►
But I still kind of go with the natural myself over the synthetic,
00:46:38 ►
even though there’s not supposed to be a difference.
00:46:44 ►
I just had the thought that you should use the synthetic because of the control thing,
00:46:49 ►
being able to control it, and because you have to.
00:46:52 ►
But that once the data gets out, I think it gets out into the mainstream,
00:46:58 ►
that people will be able to do their own thing with the natural.
00:47:00 ►
You know, they’ll go, oh, it works.
00:47:02 ►
Okay, well, hook me up with some measure.
00:47:02 ►
The natural, you know, they’ll go, oh, it works.
00:47:04 ►
Okay, well, hook me up with some mushrooms.
00:47:10 ►
I think if this was a huge issue,
00:47:14 ►
if this is something that you see coming up with the people who want to partake in the study and that it’s a big enough issue that it’s a concern,
00:47:17 ►
it seems totally reasonable to contract, if this is possible,
00:47:22 ►
someone to grow mushrooms and extract the natural psilocybin from them.
00:47:27 ►
That probably could be done cheaper than having Dave
00:47:32 ►
make up a batch. That goes to the sustainability
00:47:35 ►
theme of the talk. Going forward, I think it would be most people’s preference
00:47:40 ►
to start from a more natural place. It’s interesting, this nature
00:47:44 ►
versus clinical, technical. A lot of people preference to start from a more natural place. It’s interesting this nature versus, you know,
00:47:46 ►
clinical, technical. A lot of people, when they find out the study’s in a hospital,
00:47:50 ►
some people have declined to participate because they’re like, ah, I want to be in the forest. I
00:47:54 ►
want to be in the meadow. And, you know, I have fantasies of little yurts in a beautiful meadow
00:48:00 ►
where we’ll be able to do this someday. But time being, we’re kind of stuck where we are,
00:48:07 ►
just taking baby steps.
00:48:09 ►
Did you have a question?
00:48:11 ►
I missed the beginning of your discussion,
00:48:14 ►
but I do have a little story that’s interesting
00:48:18 ►
about synthetic versus natural.
00:48:21 ►
And hopefully it hasn’t been told before I came in,
00:48:24 ►
but some friends of ours who are scientists and entheophiles
00:48:28 ►
took some synthetic DMT and went down to the Amazon
00:48:33 ►
to meet with some elder shaman that they had been working with,
00:48:38 ►
some ayahuasqueros.
00:48:40 ►
And for those of you who don’t know,
00:48:45 ►
one part of the ayahuasca batch is usually the chacruna leaf,
00:48:50 ►
which contains DMT.
00:48:52 ►
And so our friends wanted to invite these medicine men from the Amazon
00:48:59 ►
to try the synthetic and smoke it with them.
00:49:03 ►
And these guys, of course, are big tobacco smoker shamans,
00:49:06 ►
so they’re used to the idea
00:49:08 ►
of taking in medicines that way.
00:49:12 ►
And so they agreed,
00:49:14 ►
and my friend told me
00:49:17 ►
that the shaman took a big hit
00:49:22 ►
of the synthetic DMT,
00:49:30 ►
and he closed his eyes and he didn’t say anything for ten minutes. And then the first thing he said, he looked at them and he said, we
00:49:35 ►
can get lots more leaf. Because they told him it was an extraction from the leaf, even
00:49:40 ►
though it was synthetic, because it’s like their way of trying to understand. They didn’t say it was an extraction, but they said it’s a very strong form of the leaf.
00:49:50 ►
It’s like, you know, and so the guy, he was like, we can get a lot more leaf.
00:49:55 ►
And he was wanting them to teach them how to make this, you know.
00:49:59 ►
So, you know, that’s just kind of a humorous story. But there’s also the similar story of Hofmann going down to the Amazon,
00:50:11 ►
or to, no, to Maria Sabina.
00:50:14 ►
And was that already mentioned?
00:50:15 ►
And she confirmed that these are the same spirits I work with.
00:50:20 ►
So, sorry if I was repetitive.
00:50:23 ►
How are we doing for time?
00:50:25 ►
I can keep going all day, all night
00:50:28 ►
since our next speaker isn’t here
00:50:30 ►
and you do have more time
00:50:32 ►
but we’ll just keep going until he gets here
00:50:33 ►
or until you get tired
00:50:35 ►
segueing then into another one of these topics
00:50:42 ►
one thing we debate back and forth
00:50:46 ►
is other indications.
00:50:49 ►
Quite frankly, it was easier to get
00:50:52 ►
a study with psychedelics approved
00:50:54 ►
with people who have advanced,
00:50:57 ►
I always hate to say terminal,
00:50:59 ►
but likely to be terminal at some point.
00:51:05 ►
And that idea has always kind of sat with me kind of funny.
00:51:09 ►
You don’t have long to live anyway.
00:51:11 ►
Might as well see what this does to you.
00:51:13 ►
I hope we move beyond that model as soon as we can.
00:51:16 ►
But we debate saying, all right, when we’ve proven the safety,
00:51:23 ►
and assuming we do,
00:51:29 ►
who else might benefit?
00:51:32 ►
There is a challenge working within the current structure that in order to get something prescribed as a prescription medication,
00:51:38 ►
it needs to be approved for every indication,
00:51:41 ►
which means it needs to be studied for every indication.
00:51:43 ►
As far as I’m aware, and again, correct me if I’m wrong,
00:51:46 ►
there’s no sort of blanket, this is safe, you can do what you want.
00:51:51 ►
So it may take some time to hop from indication to indication
00:51:56 ►
if a new model and some exceptions don’t open up.
00:52:01 ►
But if you were creating a study using psilocybin or even other psychedelics,
00:52:08 ►
what are the indications?
00:52:09 ►
And I’ll just throw out there that OCD and psilocybin, Dr. Marino’s trial,
00:52:16 ►
they’ve looked at that.
00:52:19 ►
MDMA and post-traumatic stress disorder.
00:52:24 ►
There are other studies in the work and several that are about to be approved if all goes
00:52:31 ►
as planned.
00:52:32 ►
But what are your thoughts about other indications that should be looked at using the sort of
00:52:39 ►
clinical trial model?
00:52:42 ►
In terms of working with that population,
00:52:49 ►
I don’t know if I’m qualified to say.
00:52:51 ►
It’s not something we’ve discussed,
00:52:55 ►
but I think more specific than finding a target population to study or to recruit from,
00:52:57 ►
for what indications are we prescribing
00:52:59 ►
or introducing the substance?
00:53:02 ►
What are we trying to heal or address or assuage or whatever?
00:53:08 ►
I’m thinking that in prison,
00:53:09 ►
you’d get a lot of people with post-traumatic stress disorder,
00:53:12 ►
pretty serious manifestations of mental illness,
00:53:15 ►
and things like that would be a good population to pull from.
00:53:20 ►
And you can measure recidivism, right?
00:53:25 ►
So it’s kind of long-term, but it’s not,
00:53:29 ►
you wouldn’t just look at whether they feel like they’re not criminals anymore,
00:53:34 ►
but whether they end up getting arrested again and just follow them.
00:53:39 ►
So it’s immeasurable.
00:53:42 ►
That’s measurable.
00:53:43 ►
Yeah.
00:53:42 ►
it’s immeasurable, that’s measurable.
00:53:43 ►
Yeah.
00:53:48 ►
I think a really good indication to study would be possibly for people with severe anger management
00:53:51 ►
who tend to have problems,
00:53:54 ►
especially talking as far as prisoners,
00:53:56 ►
people who are in there for violent crimes
00:53:57 ►
or have anger management issues
00:54:00 ►
just because it’s a psychological disease,
00:54:03 ►
but it’s like I was saying about you
00:54:06 ►
know his mother and colon cancer and like carrying anger around I think tends to affect you physically
00:54:10 ►
a lot as well so hi can you talk a little bit more about the actual the session what goes on
00:54:20 ►
is it more like a therapy session do you take patients to a specific place and have them face specific issues,
00:54:27 ►
or do you just let them bring up whatever comes up?
00:54:31 ►
Just to confirm, did you hear the explanation I gave at the beginning,
00:54:35 ►
and you’re asking for a little more detail about what we’re doing?
00:54:39 ►
Yeah, I came in a little bit late.
00:54:40 ►
I don’t know how.
00:54:41 ►
I came in at like 4.15, so I don’t know.
00:54:43 ►
I don’t want to repeat too much, but
00:54:45 ►
just to sort of recap,
00:54:48 ►
participants go through
00:54:50 ►
a pre-screening kind of at different
00:54:52 ►
levels. If you meet the basic
00:54:53 ►
inclusion-exclusion criteria,
00:54:56 ►
the MRI of the brain to show
00:54:57 ►
no brain metastases.
00:55:00 ►
And then there’s
00:55:01 ►
sort of pre-first
00:55:03 ►
session period where they meet with one or both of the doctors,
00:55:09 ►
have some psychological evaluation, and they do some intention-setting work.
00:55:16 ►
So they usually come in prepped with, you know, a little pre-work,
00:55:22 ►
and they’re encouraged to, you know, sometimes it’s appropriate to bring in photos of significant people in their lives.
00:55:29 ►
One woman brought in a beautiful tanka that we hung on the wall.
00:55:33 ►
Some people brought in original artwork, again, allowing for some leeway in terms of variability.
00:55:40 ►
We always dress the room.
00:55:43 ►
The one participant who was a burner came in the room and said,
00:55:47 ►
can we get this bed out of here and just put the mattress on the floor?
00:55:51 ►
And then we ran around all the empty rooms in the research center
00:55:57 ►
and grabbed all the extra pillows and created a little nest.
00:56:02 ►
So we do what we can to make the environment
00:56:07 ►
as conducive to a productive session as possible.
00:56:10 ►
And they’re admitted the night before the study.
00:56:16 ►
There’s blood and urine tests,
00:56:18 ►
and they get weighed to confirm the appropriate dosage and so on.
00:56:24 ►
Things you’d kind of expect.
00:56:26 ►
And we arrive in the morning, check in with them, talk, see what’s going on,
00:56:33 ►
and see if there have been any recent changes.
00:56:35 ►
Because with advanced stage cancer patients, one participant was in a pretty good place for the first session
00:56:46 ►
and then got very negative news about her blood results,
00:56:52 ►
showed that her cancer was advancing significantly,
00:56:59 ►
so they were in a very different place,
00:57:00 ►
and that, again, requiring the skills of the DJ,
00:57:03 ►
we kind of needed to tailor the session accordingly.
00:57:07 ►
There’s kind of a little opening grounding ritual before the substance is consumed.
00:57:16 ►
Usually there’s a little period of time of just kind of chatting and whatnot.
00:57:22 ►
When it seems like the appropriate time, fairly soon, they’re encouraged but
00:57:26 ►
not forced to put on the eye shades and headphones.
00:57:30 ►
Most people have been, I was surprised when I began this study, I said, are you kidding?
00:57:34 ►
People are going to be comfortable tripping in a hospital with three people staring at
00:57:39 ►
them?
00:57:40 ►
I mean, we’re in pretty close proximity.
00:57:41 ►
And I was amazed at how comfortable it becomes for everybody
00:57:46 ►
once the session is underway.
00:57:49 ►
And we do try to, to the extent possible, try to maintain an attentive body posture
00:57:54 ►
and a readiness to respond.
00:57:57 ►
You know, you don’t bring romance novels and, how you doing?
00:58:03 ►
The sessions last about six hours there’s some data collected about vital signs and
00:58:09 ►
blood pressure whatnot and uh again some people are chatty some people have epiphanies i was
00:58:17 ►
going to try to get through this talk without using that word but it happens uh sometimes it’s
00:58:21 ►
a cathartic experience and someone may burst out in tears and have a crying jag
00:58:27 ►
and be kind of nonverbal for an extended period of time.
00:58:31 ►
And you just try to use your best discretion about is it appropriate to sit on the bed
00:58:37 ►
and maybe put an arm around a shoulder, offer a hand to hold.
00:58:41 ►
Sometimes people will decide on a signal if you want your hand held. Sometimes
00:58:49 ►
it’s hard for people to ask, so you just try to respond the way you would want somebody
00:58:57 ►
to respond to you if you were in a similar situation. The music, we start with kind of reasonably appropriate come-on music,
00:59:05 ►
something, you know, maybe a little more on the Enya tip,
00:59:09 ►
if it’s appropriate for that person.
00:59:11 ►
Some people, that’s the last thing they’d ever want to hear.
00:59:14 ►
Some people love it.
00:59:15 ►
They could go the whole session with Enya.
00:59:18 ►
And then as the effect of the drug is really coming on,
00:59:22 ►
we tend to try to play something a little more driving.
00:59:27 ►
When they’re working, we’re playing working music, usually.
00:59:31 ►
We don’t go too dark.
00:59:32 ►
We don’t go too leading or emotional or sobby or anything like that.
00:59:38 ►
And we do have these check-ins where we can take cues from them,
00:59:43 ►
you know, a bit,
00:59:49 ►
maybe a brief chat, and then, all right, go back in.
00:59:50 ►
We’ll check in a while later.
00:59:55 ►
And they’re not just released on their own.
00:59:58 ►
Someone needs to be there to pick them up and take them home.
01:00:04 ►
And then there is a series of instruments or questionnaire surveys that they begin two weeks prior.
01:00:07 ►
They fill out little pain cards that measure the level of pain that they’re having and mood.
01:00:13 ►
So the monitoring and the data collection aspect begins a couple of weeks in advance.
01:00:19 ►
There’s some stuff you fill out on the day.
01:00:21 ►
There’s a pack you fill out the next day.
01:00:26 ►
Another one two weeks later.
01:00:29 ►
And when you’re done with your second session,
01:00:33 ►
there are six monthly questionnaires, and I phone everybody once a month.
01:00:36 ►
How’s it going?
01:00:37 ►
We need to check for any adverse events
01:00:40 ►
that have come up, just like any other drug.
01:00:43 ►
If they have bronchitis,
01:00:47 ►
we need to know if everybody who’s in this study develops bronchitis three weeks later. It’s not likely to happen.
01:00:53 ►
And also any other medications, any
01:00:55 ►
concomitant medications that they’re taking, we track those as well.
01:01:00 ►
Again, following the typical protocols of
01:01:03 ►
other studies
01:01:05 ►
for other drugs
01:01:07 ►
we’re running out of time
01:01:10 ►
our next speaker
01:01:11 ►
has actually arrived
01:01:12 ►
so I would like to thank you so much
01:01:15 ►
for coming all this way out
01:01:17 ►
into the boondocks to help us
01:01:19 ►
thank you very much
01:01:20 ►
thank you and everyone
01:01:22 ►
thank all of you for joining in
01:01:24 ►
here too
01:01:25 ►
you’re listening to the psychedelic salon where people are changing their lives one thought at a
01:01:33 ►
time i had planned on saying more about alicia here but if i’m going to get this program out
01:01:41 ►
today i’m going to have to cut my comments a little short because my
01:01:45 ►
energy level is getting close to zero. But I do want to mention that Alicia will be speaking at
01:01:51 ►
the World Psychedelic Forum in Switzerland in a couple of weeks. And I know that several of our
01:01:57 ►
fellow salonners will also be there. And if you’re one of the fortunate ones to make that conference,
01:02:03 ►
be sure to introduce yourself to Alicia and to some of the other guest lecturers we’ve had here in the salon who will be speaking there.
01:02:11 ►
And they include Alex and Allison Gray, John Hanna, Michael and Annie Mitoffer, Dale Pendell, Daniel Pinschbeck, Christian Rasch, and Preet Chopra, among several others.
01:02:22 ►
and Preet Chopra, among several others.
01:02:26 ►
And for those of us who can’t make it to this event,
01:02:30 ►
I’m hoping that some of our friends will record a talk or two and send it to us for use in the podcast.
01:02:33 ►
Now, if you give it a minute’s thought,
01:02:36 ►
every one of those psychedelic luminaries had to make the initial decision to follow this path.
01:02:42 ►
Just like you, they had to take that first step by making a conscious
01:02:46 ►
decision to dedicate their lives to the further evolution of our human consciousness. And my guess
01:02:52 ►
is that none of them had an easy time of it in the beginning, or even now for that matter. Because
01:02:58 ►
no matter what we happen to believe, the use of these sacred medicines has been made illegal by almost every paranoid, self-perpetuating government on the planet.
01:03:09 ►
Not only is this path exceedingly difficult,
01:03:12 ►
it sometimes also brings you to the attention of the authorities,
01:03:16 ►
whomever they may be,
01:03:18 ►
which reminds me to caution you about just jumping into the water
01:03:22 ►
and merrily following someone who you believe to be
01:03:25 ►
ethical simply because, as I’ve said many times before, one of the things these medicines do is
01:03:32 ►
to make a person more of what they already are. Unless, of course, you consciously use them to
01:03:38 ►
help yourself become the person you came here to be, rather than the person who has resulted from their earlier conditioning of family, religion, and culture.
01:03:48 ►
For example, if you go back and research some of the events that led to the dismissal of Dr. Leary and Richard Alpert from Harvard,
01:03:57 ►
you’ll find a somewhat dark cloud hanging over a person who is now considered an elder of the psychedelic community.
01:04:04 ►
In fact, I’ve even featured one of his early talks here in the salon. hanging over a person who is now considered an elder of the psychedelic community.
01:04:08 ►
In fact, I’ve even featured one of his early talks here in the salon.
01:04:14 ►
But in no small part, due to his actions, psychedelic research was ended at Harvard.
01:04:16 ►
Until recently, that is.
01:04:22 ►
If you’ve been keeping up with recent announcements from the world of psychedelic research lately,
01:04:28 ►
you probably have heard that, once again, there are several psychedelic research projects underway at that institution.
01:04:32 ►
But for me, and this is only my own opinion here,
01:04:35 ►
I wouldn’t come anywhere close to those studies because of their principal investigator, Dr. John Halperin.
01:04:40 ►
Now, I’ve never before said anything this negative about someone here in the salon,
01:04:44 ►
and so I expect you to think for yourself here and read the background information and then come to your own conclusions.
01:04:51 ►
The information I have can be found through links I’ve posted on my War on Drugs blog at my MatrixMasters.com website
01:04:59 ►
under the story titled, Psychedelic Researcher Turns DEA Informant.
01:05:05 ►
Now, this is an old story that has recently come back to life,
01:05:09 ►
because it appears that this time Dr. Halperin is actually going to be called to testify in open court,
01:05:16 ►
as contrasted with only the grand jury testimony he gave earlier.
01:05:21 ►
Several years ago, his information was used without his personal appearance in the
01:05:27 ►
public courts, but it resulted in the largest bust of an LSD lab in history. You might remember it
01:05:34 ►
because the lab was in an abandoned missile silo, and the result of the bust was to shut down the
01:05:40 ►
largest LSD manufacturing lab in the country, where they allegedly confiscated
01:05:45 ►
about 90 pounds of LSD, which sounds to me like enough LSD to supply the entire world
01:05:53 ►
for years.
01:05:55 ►
The biggest tragedy of that bust, outside of the fact that LSD virtually disappeared
01:06:00 ►
from the street, was that Dr. Halperin’s good friend was given two life sentences.
01:06:06 ►
In other words, the friend that Dr. Halperin flew around the world with and who, according to court records,
01:06:13 ►
gave John $319,000 for his services in helping to launder the money,
01:06:19 ►
well, this former friend of John’s will now spend the rest of his life in a cage
01:06:24 ►
while Dr. Halperin is free to conduct psychedelic research at Harvard.
01:06:29 ►
Until recently, the story ended there.
01:06:32 ►
And the people who fund Dr. Halperin’s research studies
01:06:35 ►
thought that the opportunity to once again establish this research path at Harvard
01:06:40 ►
was more important than having a DEA snitch in our midst.
01:06:45 ►
But according to information I recently received, the DEA has now captured the childhood friend
01:06:52 ►
of Dr. Halperin, who allegedly did the actual money laundering.
01:06:57 ►
Here is a small part of what the Marin Independent Journal had to say about this story on January
01:07:02 ►
8th of this year, which is 2008 for those of you who will be hearing this
01:07:08 ►
sometime in the distant future. And I quote,
01:07:11 ►
Halprin, records show, was paid $319,000
01:07:15 ►
by Picard from 1996 to 1999,
01:07:20 ►
the same years Wathney is charged with laundering money for
01:07:24 ►
Picard.
01:07:30 ►
Testimony at Picard’s drug trial suggested that Halperin was paid for the Wathney introduction.
01:07:38 ►
Wathney’s alleged role in the LSD ring was to take drug money, cycle it through Russia, and then send it back to Picard,
01:07:46 ►
partly in the form of a donation to his UCLA research program, according to testimony at Picard’s trial.
01:07:51 ►
After the silo bust, Halperin made a deal with the feds and ratted out his friends.
01:07:58 ►
Now, my point in bringing up this dirty laundry is that the research studies at Harvard will be seeking volunteers, and if their research is worth a hoot, part of what they’ll do will
01:08:04 ►
be to collect data about the participants’ personal involvement with these illegal substances.
01:08:10 ►
And while there are several researchers I would trust with that information about me,
01:08:15 ►
never in a thousand lifetimes would I give that kind of information to a DEA snitch,
01:08:20 ►
because once they get you, they own you for life. At least that’s the way I see it.
01:08:24 ►
Others, particularly the people providing funding to John Halperin, see it differently.
01:08:29 ►
And so it’s ultimately up to you to form your own opinions
01:08:32 ►
after you’ve read all the information that is currently available.
01:08:36 ►
Unfortunately, there has been no statement about this story from Dr. Halperin himself.
01:08:42 ►
In fact, I even have a video recording of him fleeing from a conference room
01:08:45 ►
rather than discuss his sordid history as a DEA informant.
01:08:51 ►
Well, I’m glad to have that over.
01:08:53 ►
I really didn’t want to have to drag this dirty laundry out in public,
01:08:57 ►
but this is a story I think you should be aware of,
01:09:00 ►
particularly if you are thinking about volunteering for a Harvard research study.
01:09:04 ►
But this is just my own opinion, and if Dr. Halperin would like to present his side of the story,
01:09:09 ►
I’d be more than happy to play it here in the salon.
01:09:13 ►
Well, I’m glad that little rant is over.
01:09:16 ►
Now let’s move on to something more positive.
01:09:18 ►
I’ve really been impressed by all of the activity on our psychedelicsalon.org blog lately.
01:09:27 ►
Already there are over a dozen comments on the last podcast, which was a radio interview that Dr. Leary, well, he essentially
01:09:33 ►
just endured it. Here’s a part of what Tree Wisdom had to say in response to a post by another
01:09:39 ►
salonner. You can’t thank me, Lama 2, as I’m one of those that Lorenzo mentioned, the ones that weren’t even alive at the time of the Leary interview.
01:09:48 ►
From my perspective, this interview was bizarrely surreal.
01:09:52 ►
I just couldn’t believe the attitude of the interviewer, and I use that term loosely.
01:09:57 ►
He had his own agenda and ill-informed message.
01:10:01 ►
It was like a bad science fiction movie, and so, from the perspective of one that was not
01:10:07 ►
around to experience the birth of an era firsthand, I found this to be most enlightening and interesting.
01:10:13 ►
I suppose I had unknowingly taken the developments we’ve made for granted, as I haven’t really known
01:10:19 ►
it any other way. Clearly, the effects of psychedelics had trickled down to me through other people’s
01:10:26 ►
works. Fantasia and the Beatles music, for example, before I was ever exposed to any entheogens,
01:10:32 ►
like a primer of sorts. I found this one to be very interesting. It’s helped to give me a more
01:10:38 ►
accurate perspective of where we came from. And here is the post by Lama Tu that Tree Wisdom was referring to. I’m
01:10:47 ►
going to ramble here because Leary brought back such memories. I don’t know
01:10:52 ►
what others think, but when I took a massive Owsley LSD dose in 1966, me and
01:10:58 ►
my friends were affected about the same as if Jesus, Buddha, and all the rest had
01:11:03 ►
been meeting us face to face in, say, our bathrooms
01:11:06 ►
and producing golden light teaching tablets or something. The moment had arisen. It was the end
01:11:13 ►
of time and more. What can you say, but the revelations were so profound, we were all transformed,
01:11:21 ►
and all the straight people, like our parents, sounded like these
01:11:25 ►
cheeseheads in this podcast.
01:11:27 ►
And it was so new that almost no one knew about it.
01:11:31 ►
You could only talk among yourselves because anyone else couldn’t possibly understand.
01:11:36 ►
And we knew it was the changing of everything in the world.
01:11:40 ►
We were so united and felt so fortunate in a very emotional way to have been given such
01:11:46 ►
a momentous gift. It felt like celebration and revolution in the second or first coming of the
01:11:52 ►
suchness, and all a secret. I took off to live in the hate in San Francisco in a commune in the
01:11:59 ►
whole nine yards. It was perfect, and I have to admit that 40 years later now that I feel no less a
01:12:06 ►
thrill at what these sacred medicines have revealed, and the same bliss that we are only at the beginning
01:12:12 ►
of even now. How lucky can a man be to be given such an enormous gift? Who can I thank here?
01:12:21 ►
Thanks for that comment, Lama Tu, and there are so many other comments both on
01:12:27 ►
our salon blog and on our forum over at thegrowreport.com that it’s not
01:12:33 ►
possible to mention them all and so I hope you have a chance someday to surf
01:12:38 ►
over to one or both of these websites and see what your fellow saloners are
01:12:43 ►
thinking these days and on a final fellow salonners are thinking these days.
01:12:50 ►
And on a final note about these posts, I am very pleased to see that some of our fellow salonners are taking issue with some of my own personal positions and comments.
01:12:55 ►
That’s the best sign I know of that you’re thinking for yourself.
01:12:58 ►
And if enough of us stick to that track, I’m sure we’re heading towards a better world.
01:13:04 ►
Before I go, I should let you know that it may be close to the end
01:13:08 ►
of next week before you hear from me again. Since this darn illness
01:13:12 ►
has been hanging on for so long now, I’ve decided to
01:13:16 ►
take matters into my own hands and get some help from another source.
01:13:20 ►
So tomorrow, I’ll again be leaving the jurisdiction
01:13:24 ►
of these no longer United States
01:13:26 ►
and seek the help of a friend who is also a traditional healer
01:13:30 ►
a healer with a tradition of several thousand years behind him I might add
01:13:34 ►
it’s not that I don’t appreciate western medicine
01:13:37 ►
and I certainly do appreciate all of the hints, tips and recommendations
01:13:43 ►
many of our fellow salonners have sent me
01:13:45 ►
in an attempt to help me recover. But for what now seems to be a chronic condition,
01:13:52 ►
I’m going to enlist the aid of a person with some real mojo. In short, I’m simply tired of not
01:13:59 ►
feeling very good, and so I’m going to take the bull by the tail and face the situation,
01:14:04 ►
So I’m going to take the bull by the tail and face the situation, so to speak.
01:14:07 ►
Well, I guess that’s it for today.
01:14:13 ►
And as always, I want to close by saying that this and all of the podcasts from the Psychedelic Salon are protected under the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial Share Alike 3.0 license.
01:14:19 ►
And if you have any questions about that, just click the Creative Commons link at the bottom of the Psychedelic Salon webpage at psychedelicsalon.org.
01:14:28 ►
And that’s also where you’ll find the program notes for these podcasts.
01:14:32 ►
Although the one for this podcast today might be a week or so late in getting up there.
01:14:39 ►
I’ll do my best before I leave town, though.
01:14:42 ►
And for now, this is Lorenzo signing off from Cyberdelic Space.
01:14:46 ►
Be well, my friends.