⚗️ alembic

Search

SearchSearch

466 - This Is An Incredible Moment

Sep 04, 2015, 67 min read

Program Notes

Guest speaker: Rick Doblin

[NOTE: All quotations are by Rick Doblin.]

“When we take a psychedelic drug and material emerges from our unconscious … it’s not a psychedelic experience, it’s a human experience that psychedelics have catalyzed.”

“One of the most successful exports of the United States is the drug war.”

“Mescaline is the most important psychedelic drug that is not being researched.”

Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS)
Why I am not going to Burning Man this yearby Daniel Pinchbeck
Podcast 432 featuring Rachel Hope
Confessions of an Ecstasy Advocate
(Video interview with Lorenzo)

Previous Episode

464 - Temple of Light

Next Episode

467 - Investigating Life – Part 1

Similar Episodes

Transcript

00:00:00 ►

Greetings from cyberdelic space.

00:00:19 ►

This is Lorenzo, and I’m your host here in the Psychedelic Salon.

00:00:23 ►

And my guess is that if you’re listening to

00:00:26 ►

this podcast, at least within a few days of when I post it, well then you’re not going to be

00:00:31 ►

attending Burning Man this year because, well, it’s already begun. All of the really cool people

00:00:37 ►

are already there, but of course those one percenters who believe themselves to be more

00:00:42 ►

important than you and me, well, they will arrive in their private planes on Friday when they’ll be escorted by their bodyguards to the posh theme camps that hundreds of immigrant workers have built for their solitude and pleasure.

00:00:55 ►

Can you tell that I’m no fan of the billionaire theme camps that have become the latest rage at the festival? I can remember back to the year 2002

00:01:05 ►

when we heard that there was a theme camp

00:01:08 ►

that had guards at the entrance,

00:01:10 ►

only allowing a few select people to enter their camp.

00:01:14 ►

Well, at the time, we were just horrified

00:01:16 ►

at this lack of understanding about what Burning Man was all about,

00:01:20 ►

and so we staged a raid on their camp and overran them.

00:01:24 ►

But that was then, and overran them.

00:01:27 ►

But that was then and this is now.

00:01:31 ►

And since I haven’t been back to the Burns since 2007,

00:01:38 ►

I don’t have any first-hand knowledge about how far the Burning Man organization has gone to accommodate these wealthy sightseers.

00:01:41 ►

But reports keep trickling in. I remember Bruce Dahmer telling me that last year he and Daniel Pinchbeck

00:01:46 ►

were invited by one of the billionaire camps to give a talk together.

00:01:51 ►

And Bruce told me that while he and Daniel were sitting on the stage

00:01:54 ►

and looking at this long row of million-dollar motorhomes

00:01:58 ►

all lined up in a wall to keep riff-raff like them out,

00:02:02 ►

at least until it was their turn to entertain the wealthy moguls there.

00:02:07 ►

And the two of them began to question the direction that the festival had taken.

00:02:12 ►

At the time, it seemed to them that the festival had begun to morph into an event

00:02:16 ►

attended by rich people who took no part in the everybody participates vibe

00:02:22 ►

and that hired poor people to do the heavy lifting for them,

00:02:25 ►

and also there were a significant number of drunken teenagers running around.

00:02:30 ►

Now, not only did Bruce and Daniel decide to not attend this year,

00:02:34 ►

as you probably know already, Daniel Pinchbeck sent out a long and detailed email account

00:02:40 ►

of why he would not be attending.

00:02:42 ►

It’s a long email, and I’ll link to it in the program notes,

00:02:45 ►

but here are a few key thoughts from this missive, and I quote,

00:02:50 ►

Wealthy camps will drop hundreds of thousands on a vehicle

00:02:54 ►

and then parade it around with a velvet rope vibe.

00:02:59 ►

Increasingly, the culture of Burning Man feels like an offshoot

00:03:02 ►

of the same mindless, self-interested, nihilistic worldview and neoliberal economics that are rapidly annihilating our shared life world.

00:03:12 ►

I remember a few years back, I stayed near a camp that had been built for the founder of Cirque du Soleil, Guy de Libre, and his friends.

00:03:21 ►

The camp was empty throughout the week. There were many beautiful gypsy caravan

00:03:25 ►

style tents set up, awaiting the weekend visitors from Europe and Ibiza. There were also a few

00:03:31 ►

Mexican workers who labored over the course of the week, building shade structures and decorating

00:03:36 ►

the art cars. Nobody had offered these workers a place to stay in one of the carefully shaded

00:03:42 ►

luxury tents, so they had pitched their small

00:03:45 ►

nylon tent directly in the hot sun. That image seems to sum up where Burning Man has drifted

00:03:50 ►

inexorably. End of quote. So, how’s that for a downer way of beginning a podcast?

00:03:59 ►

For what it’s worth, I’m well aware of my own failings when things change in a direction that I don’t agree with.

00:04:06 ►

For example, during my four years as an undergraduate student at the University of Notre Dame,

00:04:10 ►

well, during that time it was an all-boys school.

00:04:14 ►

But in the 1970s, they had to change their policy and admit women undergraduates as well,

00:04:19 ►

or else they would lose all of their government grant money.

00:04:23 ►

Obviously, money is more important to Notre Dame than is tradition.

00:04:27 ►

Being a traditionalist at heart myself, however, I quit cheering for old Notre Dame,

00:04:31 ►

and I quit donating to their alumni fund as well.

00:04:35 ►

Obviously, I’m just a cranky old man who holds a grudge for a long time.

00:04:40 ►

So, please take what I’m saying about Burning Man with that in mind.

00:04:44 ►

Just because I no longer have a desire to attend the event myself, it doesn’t mean that you should follow my lead.

00:04:50 ►

I was lucky to get there when it was still relatively small, and, well, it was a transformative experience for me.

00:04:58 ►

In fact, the 2002 burn was when I changed my name from Larry to Lorenzo.

00:05:03 ►

Bern was when I changed my name from Larry to Lorenzo.

00:05:09 ►

So I owe a lot to Burning Man, and I’m quite proud of the fact that the Planque Norte lectures,

00:05:14 ►

which my wife and I launched in 2003, are still taking place.

00:05:18 ►

Due, I should add, to the heroic work of quite a few people,

00:05:22 ►

including the new cornerstone person, Christopher Pezza.

00:05:27 ►

Not many people can appreciate all of the work that Pez puts into these lectures each year, and as a result of Pez and several dozen of his close friends, the Planque Norte lectures

00:05:33 ►

continue to provide a source of intellectual fun on the playa each year.

00:05:38 ►

And I hope that they keep going for as long as Burning Man continues.

00:05:42 ►

You see, while the festival has obviously had to change

00:05:45 ►

as it grew from the 20,000 or so when we first began the lecture series

00:05:49 ►

to over 70,000 people today,

00:05:52 ►

there are still little pockets of the original Burning Man vibe.

00:05:56 ►

So, for those fine souls who find their way to 9, 15, and E this year,

00:06:01 ►

and they stop by Camp Soft Landing,

00:06:04 ►

well, they are going to experience what I now guess we have to call the original,

00:06:09 ►

or the authentic, or maybe even the antique version of the wonderful Burning Man vibe

00:06:16 ►

that has changed so many lives.

00:06:18 ►

Just as Notre Dame has continued on with women but without me,

00:06:22 ►

I’m sure that the Burning Man Festival will do just fine without me physically on the playa.

00:06:28 ►

However, at this very moment,

00:06:30 ►

my heart lies in Camp Soft Landing,

00:06:33 ►

and I’m very much looking forward to

00:06:35 ►

being able to listen to the Planque Norte lectures

00:06:37 ►

that are being held this year.

00:06:39 ►

I know that our wonderful sound engineer,

00:06:41 ►

Tom Riddell, couldn’t make it this year,

00:06:43 ►

so I’m hoping that there still will be someone there to make recordings of the talks for us.

00:06:48 ►

I don’t have the complete list of this year’s speakers,

00:06:51 ►

but I do know that Annie Oak, John Gilmore, Maid Marian, and Alicia Danforth will be speaking again,

00:06:58 ►

as will Grover Northquist, if you can imagine that.

00:07:01 ►

Now, the talks won’t be given in one of the billionaire’s air-conditioned tents,

00:07:10 ►

Imagine that! Now, the talks won’t be given in one of the billionaire’s air-conditioned tents, but they will be given from the hearts of some people who are the real burners out on the playa right now.

00:07:26 ►

So, after that seriously bad introduction and downer talk about a great festival, let’s return to Burning Man one year and three days ago, when Rick Doblin, the founder and CEO of MAPS,

00:07:29 ►

gave a talk that is introduced by the one and only Pez.

00:07:32 ►

Hi, everyone.

00:07:35 ►

Welcome back to Palenque Norte.

00:07:39 ►

And I’m really happy to introduce our next speaker,

00:07:41 ►

a man who really needs no introduction,

00:07:46 ►

the president of the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies, Mr. Rick Doblin.

00:07:53 ►

Well, I’ve found that in the past when I’ve given talks that rather than waiting for the end for questions,

00:07:59 ►

which we’ll also do,

00:08:00 ►

but if any of you have questions during the talk

00:08:03 ►

and something’s on your mind,

00:08:05 ►

I’d like to encourage you to ask at that time. So just raise your hand and we’ll get microphones to you. And

00:08:12 ►

I’m not really worried that that might take me off my track or anything like that. I think it’s

00:08:16 ►

better when questions come up to give you a chance to ask them. John?

00:08:30 ►

My most important point is that we’re at this incredible moment in our culture that has taken us around 40, 45 years since the crackdown in the 60s and early 70s,

00:08:38 ►

and that now, if we’re all careful and approach this transition in a responsible way that we have a major opportunity

00:08:48 ►

to integrate psychedelics into our culture and also worldwide. Now, let me say a few things about what I mean about being careful.

00:09:10 ►

And I was a day late to coming into Burning Man,

00:09:13 ►

and so I ended up trying to fly here on Monday.

00:09:18 ►

And as you know, the rains and the airport was closed,

00:09:21 ►

and so I flew in on Tuesday.

00:09:23 ►

And as I was flying in, I was thinking a lot about Richard Rockefeller,

00:09:29 ►

who has been so transformative, so utterly important to what we’ve been able to do,

00:09:36 ►

particularly with the military and how he had a tragic accident in an airplane also.

00:09:42 ►

And so when I talk about being careful,

00:09:44 ►

what I mean is that all of us, we don’t really know how much longer we’re going to have. and an airplane also. And so when I talk about being careful,

00:09:46 ►

what I mean is that all of us,

00:09:49 ►

we don’t really know how much longer we’re going to have.

00:09:54 ►

And so we have to be very thoughtful about training the next generation

00:09:57 ►

and about passing on what we know

00:09:59 ►

so that what we’re trying to do

00:10:01 ►

is something that none of us can do on our own.

00:10:03 ►

It’s all about teamwork.

00:10:06 ►

And it’s like passing the baton from generation to generation. So I think we have to be careful

00:10:11 ►

not to sort of centralize in any particular individuals and think, how can we make this

00:10:18 ►

transition something that is embraced by the whole culture and embraced by the next generation.

00:10:27 ►

And one of the things that I feel is really driving the resistance to what we’re doing

00:10:33 ►

is the worry of parents about their children,

00:10:37 ►

that they will come to events like Burning Man,

00:10:40 ►

that they will go to electronic dance music festivals,

00:10:42 ►

that they will take psychedelics, and that they will have a tragic outcome,

00:10:47 ►

either from bad drugs or from pure MDMA or from LSD,

00:10:51 ►

where one way or another, physically or psychologically,

00:10:54 ►

they get in over their heads and they’re wounded for certain periods of time.

00:10:59 ►

And that’s a real outcome that’s possible.

00:11:03 ►

And so I think what we’re seeing here at this particular village with the tea house

00:11:08 ►

and what we’re trying to do at Faux Mirage across the way with the Zendo project

00:11:17 ►

is show that even in the face of a drug war that has at its core a harm maximization policy trying to

00:11:28 ►

frighten people away from doing drugs which as we know doesn’t really work and

00:11:32 ►

yet there’s also a criminalization of harm reduction methods so a lot of

00:11:39 ►

festival organizers are reluctant to get involved and to be open about the kind of services that, as a culture,

00:11:47 ►

we would actually need in a post-prohibition world or in the transition to a post-prohibition world.

00:11:55 ►

So I think the work that’s being done at the Tea House and the work that we’re trying to do at Zendo is paving the way for this transition. Because if we are able to medicalize

00:12:10 ►

psychedelics, which I believe that we will be able to do, then people’s attitudes are going to

00:12:16 ►

change. The drug education that’s offered to people is going to have to end up taking into

00:12:20 ►

account that these are substances. And more importantly, that the range of consciousness,

00:12:25 ►

the full range of consciousness that we are capable of as human beings,

00:12:29 ►

that that has to be something that’s honored and taken into account

00:12:35 ►

and somehow or other taught to children about all of our potentials.

00:12:41 ►

And among those catalysts are psychedelics and psychedelics produce

00:12:47 ►

human experiences that we can access in other ways so when we take a psychedelic drug and

00:12:55 ►

material emerges from our unconscious or any any kind of content it’s not a psychedelic experience.

00:13:05 ►

It’s a human experience that psychedelics have catalyzed.

00:13:08 ►

And these experiences can be catalyzed by many other techniques,

00:13:12 ►

by meditation, by fasting,

00:13:15 ►

by going through like the Indians with the Sundance,

00:13:20 ►

through pain or through sex or through nature.

00:13:23 ►

These are all various catalysts for basic human experiences.

00:13:28 ►

And right now, as a culture, we’re kind of halfway suppressing

00:13:34 ►

and halfway kind of acknowledging that there’s a lot of value here.

00:13:39 ►

So the work that I see that the Tea House is doing

00:13:42 ►

and that we’re trying to do with the Zendo,

00:13:43 ►

in a sense it’s defensive work to try to reduce the number of casualties that come from people

00:13:52 ►

experimenting, but it’s also to provide therapeutic supports to recognize that a lot of times

00:13:59 ►

circumstances turn into difficulties, and yet if you can work through them,

00:14:06 ►

people can end up learning more.

00:14:08 ►

Yeah.

00:14:09 ►

Do we need, could you say that,

00:14:11 ►

well, I’ll say, okay, so the question was,

00:14:14 ►

could I explain briefly what the work is at the tea house

00:14:16 ►

and what the work is at the Zendo?

00:14:20 ►

Any, would you want to,

00:14:23 ►

is she here?

00:14:24 ►

John, do you want to?

00:14:25 ►

Yeah.

00:14:27 ►

Okay.

00:14:29 ►

Hello?

00:14:31 ►

Hi.

00:14:32 ►

So, as Rick said, we’re the full circle tea house next door.

00:14:38 ►

We’re the sister project to the Zendo, which is on the other side of the city.

00:14:43 ►

to the Zendo, which is on the other side of the city.

00:14:52 ►

And we provide a quiet place for people to rest and rehydrate and be supported by members of our community.

00:14:56 ►

And we’ve been very busy today because it’s been hot,

00:15:00 ►

and people have come in to get out of the sun and fill up their water bottles.

00:15:06 ►

We have a public water supply.

00:15:07 ►

We give away water as well as tea.

00:15:10 ►

And it’s a community art project that allows people to be in service to each other

00:15:18 ►

and to support people who need direct care to be integrated into their own experiences

00:15:28 ►

and to have compassionate people sit with them if they wish

00:15:33 ►

to support them through an experience.

00:15:37 ►

But most important, it’s a place where people can rest and hydrate,

00:15:43 ►

and we have a quiet space where they can also sleep.

00:15:47 ►

And we have a shuttle service

00:15:50 ►

that allows us to take people to the Zendo

00:15:54 ►

if they need more one-on-one care.

00:15:58 ►

The Full Circle Tea House has been here for four years,

00:16:00 ►

and it’s served by a really beautiful community of volunteers,

00:16:04 ►

and we serve great tea

00:16:05 ►

so we invite you to come and drink

00:16:08 ►

tea with us

00:16:08 ►

Thank you

00:16:11 ►

applause

00:16:12 ►

applause

00:16:13 ►

and so the Zendo

00:16:17 ►

is

00:16:18 ►

for people that are struggling

00:16:21 ►

with psychedelic experiences

00:16:24 ►

that have turned difficult

00:16:25 ►

and would like support.

00:16:27 ►

And so we had 140 volunteers, of which we were able to, more than we needed, actually.

00:16:34 ►

And so we selected 100 volunteers.

00:16:37 ►

We have 24-hour care from now until Monday morning.

00:16:41 ►

And we have our own medical staff.

00:16:41 ►

Monday morning and we have our own

00:16:44 ►

medical staff, we have our own

00:16:45 ►

psychologists, psychiatrists

00:16:47 ►

and people with expertise

00:16:50 ►

of various sorts

00:16:51 ►

in the past and currently

00:16:54 ►

we also use it in a way as training

00:16:56 ►

for future psychedelic psychotherapists

00:16:58 ►

because

00:16:59 ►

people are coming in

00:17:02 ►

with all sorts of experiences

00:17:04 ►

and

00:17:04 ►

they need support.

00:17:07 ►

So we’re able to offer people.

00:17:10 ►

They could stay 12 hours, 2 hours, 24 hours.

00:17:14 ►

We have food and water.

00:17:16 ►

We have a terrific team of people.

00:17:19 ►

And unfortunately, I would say, because of the drug war,

00:17:30 ►

So unfortunately, I would say, because of the drug war, it’s a little bit difficult to do this kind of work in the United States.

00:17:49 ►

So we haven’t been quite as able to let everybody know through formal channels what we’re doing. festival in portugal at africa burn at envision in costa rica bicycle day in san francisco and other places so the the world’s example the best example of psychedelic harm reduction is at boom

00:17:55 ►

because drugs are decriminalized in portugal and so the conference the festival organizers there

00:18:01 ►

was 40 000 people this year the first week in August around the full moon.

00:18:05 ►

So they do thin-layer chromatography on site

00:18:08 ►

where they’re testing all the drugs that are being sold

00:18:10 ►

so everybody knows what they’re doing.

00:18:12 ►

And the festival organizers create an area that’s right on the main drag

00:18:18 ►

so everybody knows where it is.

00:18:19 ►

It’s right out in the open, and they pay for the whole staff to do that.

00:18:23 ►

And so we’ve been working with them since around 2004 and we’ve been doing some work here at burning man since 2003 and in 2006 it was

00:18:34 ►

our 20th anniversary of maps and there’s a fellow vanja palmers who is one of the leaders of the

00:18:41 ►

zen community in switzerland and what we’re seeing in this moment of opportunity that I talked before that we have,

00:18:48 ►

there’s also been a coming together of people who have been involved in religious traditions and psychedelics.

00:18:58 ►

So that there was, you could say, so much interest in psychedelics in the 60s,

00:19:01 ►

and many people were inspired.

00:19:04 ►

But then when the crackdown

00:19:05 ►

came and the research ended people have gone to look for non-drug alternatives and there’s been

00:19:10 ►

this little split that various people in different religious traditions have talked about how

00:19:14 ►

you know you get the message answer the phone then hang up and now we’re going to try to

00:19:19 ►

integrate with all these other ways which are are really important. But there’s this coming back together. So the Zendo was designed by a world-famous architect

00:19:29 ►

who designed Zendoes.

00:19:30 ►

It’s out of cardboard.

00:19:32 ►

And the original intention was a combination

00:19:35 ►

of Zen meditation, MDMA, and dance

00:19:39 ►

as a way to try to reach spiritual experiences.

00:19:45 ►

And so the mind and the body and the spirit.

00:19:48 ►

And then it was meant to be for one year,

00:19:51 ►

and instead of burning it up because the structure was so elegant,

00:19:53 ►

we’ve kept it throughout these years.

00:19:56 ►

And sadly, it was destroyed by the rain.

00:19:58 ►

The roof was destroyed by the rain, so now we have shade covers over it.

00:20:01 ►

But the purpose of it really is to say

00:20:05 ►

we can take care of each other

00:20:07 ►

and that we don’t need prohibition

00:20:09 ►

and we don’t need tranquilization.

00:20:11 ►

We need to recognize that when people stumble into experiences

00:20:17 ►

that are a little bit more than they can handle,

00:20:19 ►

that there’s support and that they can work through it

00:20:22 ►

and then come out and join the Burning Man,

00:20:24 ►

that they don’t need to leave.

00:20:25 ►

They don’t need…

00:20:26 ►

And so I think that’s what our intention is.

00:20:29 ►

And we’re working little by little.

00:20:32 ►

We were really inspired by Annie and John

00:20:34 ►

who created the tea house in their village.

00:20:37 ►

And then we recognized that if we could do it

00:20:40 ►

out of our village as a service,

00:20:42 ►

then it doesn’t place the Burning Man organization at risk

00:20:46 ►

because right now the laws do try to threaten festival organizers

00:20:53 ►

that if you provide an opportunity for people to do drugs,

00:20:57 ►

you can be prosecuted, your event can be shut down,

00:20:59 ►

your assets can be seized.

00:21:01 ►

So we’re trying to find a way to provide the services that

00:21:06 ►

need to be provided.

00:21:08 ►

Yes.

00:21:09 ►

I tried to ask you this question, but I want to try

00:21:12 ►

again.

00:21:14 ►

As I understand, mainly Zender

00:21:16 ►

works with bad trips,

00:21:18 ►

right? Difficulties.

00:21:20 ►

Okay. I found myself, I did

00:21:22 ►

shift yesterday, this night,

00:21:24 ►

and I did cosmic care in boom.

00:21:27 ►

I found myself in a paradoxic state.

00:21:30 ►

So I came, nobody was there.

00:21:33 ►

And some leaders of shift said, people will come.

00:21:38 ►

And I’ve been expecting people will come.

00:21:40 ►

So I found myself that I’m expecting people had bad trips.

00:21:45 ►

I felt good that I’m

00:21:48 ►

here.

00:21:49 ►

So I was thinking in a way that

00:21:51 ►

my wish would be,

00:21:53 ►

my deep desire would

00:21:55 ►

be to work with

00:21:57 ►

the people who will

00:21:59 ►

come for transformative experience,

00:22:02 ►

not just harm

00:22:03 ►

reduction.

00:22:06 ►

So what do you think?

00:22:07 ►

Can it be possible, at least somehow,

00:22:11 ►

to move the concentration of this project or to create another project

00:22:14 ►

for helping people with transformative experience?

00:22:17 ►

Well, that’s a terrific question.

00:22:19 ►

So the idea is that, you know,

00:22:22 ►

the Burning Man, you know,

00:22:23 ►

is an opportunity for all sorts of experiences with all sorts of energies.

00:22:27 ►

And so can we, at one point or another, create an opportunity for people who say,

00:22:35 ►

I want to have a transformative experience, and then they’ll come and they’ll be served by people who are able to do that.

00:22:42 ►

I think that that is something more for the future.

00:22:47 ►

I mean, right now, as many of you probably know, there are police at Burning Man.

00:22:51 ►

There is a lot of concern about following the laws.

00:22:57 ►

And so doing these kind of things in this open way is part of the social transformation

00:23:02 ►

that we’re working towards.

00:23:06 ►

And so I think that that’s more to the future. And I think the idea of harm reduction is something that politically

00:23:13 ►

we can implement right now in our own villages. But even the Burning Man organization isn’t

00:23:21 ►

quite comfortable and other festival organizers in the u.s are still not quite comfortable with doing that in a formal way even to help people with difficult experiences

00:23:30 ►

but isn’t it true that that when that’s in the future the future is about 2022

00:23:37 ►

because by then we will have permission from the federal government for therapists to use MDMA and maybe also

00:23:46 ►

psilocybin with their patients. And so with therapists come and work in the Zendo, people

00:23:53 ►

could come and deliberately have a transformative experience with them by 2022 or so with your support. Yeah. You know, we’re trying to push the boundaries as rapidly as we can, but also we are trying

00:24:14 ►

to work with the system as it is and to help them relax the restrictions in a gradual way.

00:24:22 ►

And I’ll get to this a little bit more afterwards,

00:24:25 ►

the work that we’re doing with the military,

00:24:27 ►

because I think that’s one of the most important ways

00:24:29 ►

that the culture is changing.

00:24:31 ►

You mentioned that you think the path forward

00:24:34 ►

to this sort of reduction in criminalization of psychedelics

00:24:39 ►

and other drugs is through the medicalization of it.

00:24:42 ►

Could you speak a little bit more about how you see that unfolding and maybe also speak about how Portugal came to their current situation?

00:24:50 ►

Okay. Well, the easier question is just to talk about Portugal. So Portugal recognized that

00:24:56 ►

going after people for drug use would take people who had drug problems and make them reluctant to seek help because then

00:25:08 ►

they could be penalized for what they were doing and we see that in the united states a lot of

00:25:13 ►

times and that’s part of the some of the tragedies that happen at festivals where people are taking

00:25:18 ►

mdma or other drugs they’re having a difficult time and they’re scared to ask for help because

00:25:22 ►

what they’re worried about is also getting arrested so there are some good samaritan laws but portugal recognized about 10 years ago

00:25:29 ►

that they would decriminalize all drugs heroin cocaine mdma all the drugs and because of that

00:25:36 ►

they’ve actually seen a reduction in drug problems so the portugal experiment has been an incredible success. And other countries are

00:25:46 ►

starting to look around at it. But I think we’ve got in the U.S., the U.S. has one of the most

00:25:52 ►

successful exports of the United States is the drug war. And that’s, you know, being challenged

00:26:00 ►

more and more around the world. But I think for us to try to change from the inside out

00:26:06 ►

will have international implications.

00:26:10 ►

But Portugal is one of the ones that went first.

00:26:12 ►

So now the question is about how does medicalization…

00:26:15 ►

So I’d say that…

00:26:17 ►

And this is kind of an important point,

00:26:19 ►

that we’re not trying to say that the medicalization

00:26:23 ►

is necessarily the most important work.

00:26:30 ►

Most people, I think, use psychedelics who do not have a diagnosable illness.

00:26:35 ►

So when we talk about medicalization, we’re talking about patients who have a very specific illness.

00:26:43 ►

And the FDA, we’ve recently talked to them about

00:26:46 ►

couples therapy because

00:26:49 ►

MDMA is fantastic for couples, for

00:26:51 ►

relationships. But having a challenging relationship

00:26:55 ►

is not a disease. So there’s

00:26:58 ►

no way we can really move couples therapy

00:27:01 ►

through the FDA. So

00:27:04 ►

I think when we talk about

00:27:06 ►

the way most people are using psychedelics,

00:27:11 ►

it’s for personal growth,

00:27:13 ►

and it’s for a hunger for,

00:27:15 ►

often for deeper spiritual experiences.

00:27:18 ►

And so I think the medicalization

00:27:21 ►

is very important in and of itself,

00:27:24 ►

because there is a lot of people who are suffering who do have diagnosable illnesses,

00:27:29 ►

and the current available techniques are not working for all of them.

00:27:34 ►

And we’ll hear from Rachel Hope right after I’m done talking about her experience

00:27:39 ►

suffering from PTSD, going through all sorts of other treatments,

00:27:42 ►

and then finding relief in the MDMA study.

00:27:46 ►

So I think for me, when I first came to this work when I was 18 in 1972 and realized that

00:27:55 ►

I wanted to devote my life to both getting psychedelic therapy because I needed it and

00:28:03 ►

becoming a psychedelic therapist and helping the culture

00:28:06 ►

integrate psychedelics. It was because of this

00:28:09 ►

vision that I had been

00:28:12 ►

grown up sort of traumatized by

00:28:15 ►

the Holocaust. I was born in 53.

00:28:18 ►

I have distant relatives killed.

00:28:20 ►

And just the horror of how people could dehumanize others.

00:28:24 ►

And then in my childhood was

00:28:26 ►

the arms race and the cuban missile crisis and the whole idea that the world was at risk from

00:28:32 ►

nuclear annihilation and how could we deal with that i studied russian in high school and my

00:28:40 ►

parents sent me to russia after my junior year of high school. And, you know, it sounds

00:28:45 ►

very corny, but I went for a walk on the beach with a Russian girl. And we had a great conversation.

00:28:53 ►

And she was my age. And I was like, why should I hate her? Why is she, you know, seen as

00:29:00 ►

the enemy? Why am I seen as her enemy? And I recognize that we have these political systems that sit on top of the billions of people of the world, and they have their conflicts,

00:29:09 ►

but basically we’re all the same. And if we can understand that, and then I had the

00:29:16 ►

whole question about Vietnam, and I was in the last year of the lottery, and so I ended

00:29:22 ►

up deciding to become a draft resistor.

00:29:28 ►

So I was kind of identified myself as a criminal,

00:29:30 ►

as a counterculture criminal and eventually a counterculture criminal drug user.

00:29:35 ►

And so what I felt at the time was

00:29:38 ►

that if we can experience our connection with each other

00:29:42 ►

and our connection with the planet

00:29:44 ►

and not just think it, because there’s a difference. Experience our connection with each other and our connection with the planet.

00:29:48 ►

And not just think it, because there’s a difference.

00:29:52 ►

Rita Marley has an album, Who Feels It, Knows It.

00:29:58 ►

And I think that’s really true, that it has to move deeper from an intellectual understanding into this really perceived reality of how we’re all connected.

00:30:04 ►

this really perceived reality of how we’re all connected.

00:30:07 ►

And then if people know that,

00:30:09 ►

that we’re connected to each other and connected to the environment,

00:30:11 ►

that it’ll be harder to dehumanize other people.

00:30:14 ►

It’ll be harder to be racist.

00:30:16 ►

It’ll be harder to be sexist

00:30:18 ►

or any number of different ways

00:30:20 ►

that we separate ourselves from others.

00:30:23 ►

And so if we could find techniques that would help

00:30:26 ►

people have these experiences of connection, that that would have a ripple effect into all the

00:30:32 ►

different social issues that we’re dealing with. And so it seemed to me that part of the reaction

00:30:37 ►

against psychedelics was because of this blossoming understanding that many people were having in the 60s with their psychedelic mystical experiences that we were all connected.

00:30:50 ►

And a lot of the people who were involved in struggling against the Vietnam War

00:30:54 ►

were struggling, were motivated by their LSD experiences.

00:30:59 ►

So it became clear to me that the political implications of the mystical experience is the main thing that drives me.

00:31:09 ►

Now, on the other hand, trying to talk about how we can move through the current system of prohibition,

00:31:17 ►

religious freedom requires religion.

00:31:21 ►

And so that’s, in a way, the bad part of that.

00:31:26 ►

It’s a group experience. It comes with certain traditions. And what I think we really need is individuals

00:31:32 ►

having the right to explore their own spirituality through whatever techniques that they use,

00:31:38 ►

including psychedelics. And of course, we can work together with groups, with religions,

00:31:42 ►

with various institutions. But the heart of what we’re trying to do is this personal individual spirituality.

00:31:51 ►

So I think the work of religious freedom, trying to implement that on an individual basis,

00:31:58 ►

is really the heart of where we’d like to go beyond medicalization.

00:32:02 ►

But that’s so close to legalization because it’s individual use.

00:32:07 ►

So right now in the United States, we have the Native American Church.

00:32:10 ►

500,000 people have the right to use peyote.

00:32:15 ►

But the federal government has decided that this is a religion that’s limited to people of a certain race.

00:32:23 ►

It’s the only religion that has a racial component,

00:32:26 ►

and you have to have 25% Indian blood

00:32:29 ►

from a federal perspective

00:32:31 ►

in order to be a member of the Native American church.

00:32:34 ►

Now, the Native American church people don’t think that way,

00:32:37 ►

and a lot of states don’t think that way,

00:32:39 ►

but that’s just an illustration

00:32:41 ►

of how working on religious freedom

00:32:43 ►

is going to be a challenge.

00:32:45 ►

And I think it’s important for us to work on all these different areas.

00:32:49 ►

And we’ve recently had, not all that recently actually, about eight years ago or so,

00:32:54 ►

the Supreme Court case about the Uñao de Vegetal, the Ayahuasca church,

00:32:59 ►

that was a unanimous vote of the U.S. Supreme Court saying that they could practice their religion.

00:33:05 ►

But there are not that many people

00:33:07 ►

who are members of the Uniao de Vegetal.

00:33:12 ►

And I was participating in a UDV ceremony,

00:33:17 ►

and they were wondering if I wanted to be a member

00:33:20 ►

in order to continue coming.

00:33:22 ►

And I had found some very valuable experiences

00:33:25 ►

from my ayahuasca experiences.

00:33:27 ►

But I was asking about their mythology,

00:33:30 ►

and they were like, this is really not mythology.

00:33:33 ►

This is really the way it was.

00:33:35 ►

So I’m saying, you can’t really believe this literally.

00:33:38 ►

So I felt like I couldn’t become a member of the UDV.

00:33:43 ►

King Solomon went to Brazil and told the people to unite the vine and the leaves,

00:33:50 ►

and then he went back to Jerusalem.

00:33:51 ►

And then the Santo Daime has won a Ninth Circuit case, but not all the way up.

00:34:00 ►

So I think that working through religious freedom is really important.

00:34:00 ►

but not all the way up.

00:34:04 ►

So I think that working through religious freedom is really important. But the medicalization in our culture,

00:34:07 ►

we are so inundated with drugs for this and drugs for that.

00:34:13 ►

And the best example I could say is let’s talk about medical marijuana.

00:34:17 ►

So the first medical marijuana initiatives in California and Arizona were in 1996.

00:34:24 ►

So now we’re 18 years later,

00:34:28 ►

and we have two marijuana states,

00:34:31 ►

Colorado and the state of Washington,

00:34:34 ►

that have legalization.

00:34:36 ►

We have 23 medical marijuana states,

00:34:40 ►

and some of the exit polling has found

00:34:43 ►

that one of the most important ways to predict

00:34:48 ►

whether somebody is in favor of the legalization of marijuana

00:34:53 ►

is whether they know a medical marijuana patient.

00:34:58 ►

So we’re inundated by information, misinformation, fear-based, distorted information, and we don’t

00:35:06 ►

know what to believe. And so if there’s somebody that we know that has directly benefited from

00:35:12 ►

marijuana, that makes us wonder, why is it supposedly so risky? Why is it that one puff,

00:35:18 ►

and then before you know it, you’re shooting heroin in an attic. So I think the example of medical marijuana,

00:35:26 ►

that in our particular culture,

00:35:28 ►

medicalization is a way to address the fears

00:35:31 ►

that people have about these drugs.

00:35:33 ►

It’s a way through science to take opinion leaders

00:35:39 ►

who will say, yes, this isn’t one dose of MDMA

00:35:43 ►

and permanent brain damage with major functional consequences.

00:35:47 ►

So I think that the model that we see is medicalization,

00:35:52 ►

and that’s why I tried to say that I don’t think that’s the end goal,

00:35:58 ►

but I think that that’s a very important route.

00:36:00 ►

While other people are working on religious freedom,

00:36:03 ►

and at the same time other people are

00:36:06 ►

directly challenging the drug war and saying that prohibition is really not the way so i think that

00:36:13 ►

as john was saying our current timelines for the medicalization of mdma were in the stage of what’s

00:36:22 ►

called phase two studies and these are our small pilot studies

00:36:26 ►

where we test out our methodology.

00:36:28 ►

We try to find out who the patients are.

00:36:33 ►

Like with Rachel, the first study we did

00:36:35 ►

was women survivors of childhood sexual abuse

00:36:38 ►

and adult rape and assault.

00:36:39 ►

And we had one or two veterans in there.

00:36:41 ►

Our current study in the U.S.

00:36:43 ►

is veterans, firefighters, and police

00:36:45 ►

officers. So what we’ve learned so far is that when it comes to MDMA-assisted psychotherapy,

00:36:52 ►

for people that are stuck with trauma, it doesn’t matter what the cause of the trauma was.

00:36:58 ►

The treatment works regardless of the cause. It works with war-related trauma and other kinds as well.

00:37:12 ►

We’re also trying to refine the doses that we’re using. So in some cases, we’re using 75 milligrams,

00:37:17 ►

100 milligrams, 125 milligrams, and we’re trying to figure out how to do double-blind studies.

00:37:21 ►

And so there’s a variety of things that we’re doing in the phase two. We’re going to be finishing phase two in about a year, and we will have about 90

00:37:26 ►

subjects that we will have treated at a cost of somewhere in the neighborhood of $4 million

00:37:30 ►

to do all of this work. And then we’re going to negotiate with FDA, and we’re going to have about

00:37:37 ►

probably another 400 people that we’re going to have to treat in two large-scale phase three studies and we’re anticipating by 2021

00:37:46 ►

we’ll have the data to present to fda and then a part of my dissertation was trying to imagine

00:37:55 ►

how medical psychedelics should be regulated and it’s fundamentally different and fundamentally

00:38:02 ►

easier than medical marijuana because marijuana as a medicine is a take-home drug where you use it every day on your own, not under medical supervision.

00:38:12 ►

And psychedelics, it’s psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy.

00:38:15 ►

We’re saying that the drug is only a part of the whole treatment, and you only get the drug under the supervision of therapists. So from the DEA’s drug diversion perspective, it’s super easy to control

00:38:29 ►

because it all takes place under supervision.

00:38:32 ►

So I think that from an FDA point of view and a DEA point of view,

00:38:36 ►

once we do present them the data, that medicalization will follow.

00:38:41 ►

And the way the laws are written is that if the FDA decides

00:38:45 ►

that we have sufficiently proven safety and efficacy so that this could become a medicine,

00:38:51 ►

the DEA must reschedule. It’s a question, is it Schedule 2, Schedule 3? Where does it actually go?

00:38:59 ►

So I think we have the regulatory pathway in front of us that will work.

00:39:05 ►

And at the same time, starting in 1992, there was meetings at the FDA where they had advisory committee meetings,

00:39:14 ►

and they decided that they would open the door to psychedelic research.

00:39:18 ►

And so since 1992, we’ve had an open door at the FDA and at regulatory agencies around the world to put science before politics and do this research.

00:39:27 ►

The medical marijuana research is different, and it’s blocked, not by the FDA.

00:39:33 ►

We have FDA approval for a marijuana PTSD study that some of you may have heard about

00:39:38 ►

at the University of Arizona in Phoenix,

00:39:40 ►

and the university recently just fired the doctor to try to stop the study.

00:39:47 ►

Well, Phoenix.

00:39:49 ►

Well, University of Arizona is in Tucson and Phoenix, and so she’s located in Phoenix.

00:39:54 ►

Yeah, that’s the headquarters is in Tucson, but she’s in Phoenix, and there are some facilities there.

00:40:01 ►

So the government monopolized the supply of marijuana, but we have

00:40:05 ►

our own independent sources of MDMA, of LSD. So I guess the basic answer to your question is that

00:40:11 ►

we are, in our pilot studies, we have demonstrated sufficient safety and also efficacy. And we work

00:40:21 ►

with chronic treatment-resistant PTSD, people who have failed on other treatments.

00:40:27 ►

And so I think it’s a realistic thing.

00:40:28 ►

And so I think the medical route is the way.

00:40:31 ►

And once we have the medicalization,

00:40:36 ►

then it may be that these drugs are only going to be prescribed

00:40:40 ►

in certain kind of clinics with people that are trained in certain ways.

00:40:43 ►

So you can imagine we’re actually working with the VA.

00:40:47 ►

One of the things that Richard and his cousin, Senator Jay Rockefeller, was able to do,

00:40:51 ►

which was so profound, was to persuade the Veterans Administration

00:40:55 ►

to let us move forward with some demonstration projects.

00:40:59 ►

And so the first demonstration project that we’re working on,

00:41:02 ►

the VA heard about you know MDMA as

00:41:05 ►

the hug drug the love drug and so they said that they have an approach for

00:41:10 ►

treating vets with PTSD that involves the couple they call cognitive

00:41:14 ►

behavioral conjoined therapy so people significant other who doesn’t

00:41:18 ►

necessarily have PTSD is involved in the treatment And so what we’re now trying to work on

00:41:25 ►

is a protocol that I believe the FDA will accept

00:41:29 ►

where both members of the couple receive MDMA.

00:41:34 ►

So the primary outcome variable

00:41:36 ►

is PTSD in the designated patient,

00:41:38 ►

but we’re also looking at qualities

00:41:42 ►

of the relationship, of communication,

00:41:43 ►

of how both of them are doing.

00:41:45 ►

So this is a situation where we’re expanding beyond the designated patient.

00:41:49 ►

A lot of the work that’s being done is with end of life.

00:41:52 ►

We’re starting a study in San Anselmo with MDMA with people who are suffering from life-threatening

00:41:59 ►

illness and are scared of dying.

00:42:01 ►

And so you could imagine that the whole family is affected as well.

00:42:05 ►

So we’re initially working with the patient. So I think medicalization and these psychedelic

00:42:09 ►

clinics starts with the patient, expands to the families, and then eventually can be sites

00:42:16 ►

of initiation where people who want spiritual experiences could come to these clinics or

00:42:22 ►

personal growth, not necessarily spiritual. And then, ideally, we would evolve to a point where people would be able to buy these substances

00:42:31 ►

outside of medical context and use them in contexts that they choose.

00:42:36 ►

So that’s the long-term plan.

00:42:37 ►

And as a model, 1974 was the first hospice,

00:42:50 ►

1974 was the first hospice, the first place for people who were dying to sort of be treated in a more humane,

00:42:55 ►

less medicalized and help them really to die with their families.

00:43:01 ►

And by 2004, 30 years later, there was 3,500 hospices.

00:43:04 ►

Most communities around America had a hospice. So I imagine that we’re talking

00:43:06 ►

about a 20, 30 year rollout. And that’s why I started talking about beginning about the next

00:43:11 ►

generations and really recognizing that to try to implement something into our society, it’s going

00:43:17 ►

to take decades and decades and decades. But when you take a look at, you know, thousands of years of history, that’s not really that

00:43:26 ►

long.

00:43:27 ►

So I think that having a long-term vision and having the patience to try to implement

00:43:32 ►

it and trying to be careful not to go too fast in certain ways where you catalyze the

00:43:37 ►

backlash, but that expand at a sort of a gradual rate.

00:43:43 ►

And so that’s why I think even though many of us know that we’ve

00:43:47 ►

benefited from these experiences that it’s helped loads of people with ptsd we have to work within

00:43:52 ►

the systems to prove it in the ways that the fda has developed and that will take probably another

00:43:59 ►

15 18 million dollars and another right now we’re thinking about seven years so so that’s the

00:44:05 ►

strategy and then the last thing and then i’ll start open for more questions is just the idea

00:44:09 ►

of a sustainable non-profit so what we’re doing is constantly asking people for money because

00:44:15 ►

the pharmaceutical industry is not interested because these drugs all the psychedelics are in

00:44:20 ►

the public domain and the government is not yet funding this research because they’re still a little bit too wedded to the drug war

00:44:26 ►

and they’re not comfortable yet funding studies

00:44:29 ►

into the benefits of illegal drugs.

00:44:31 ►

And the major foundations so far have not felt ready to do this.

00:44:36 ►

We had a meeting with the Wellcome Trust in England,

00:44:39 ►

founded by a pharmaceutical company.

00:44:41 ►

It’s the largest foundation in England.

00:44:44 ►

They have $20 billion.

00:44:46 ►

And we wanted to talk to them about an MDMA study.

00:44:49 ►

And we were introduced by David Nutt,

00:44:51 ►

who was the drug policy advisor to the British government.

00:44:55 ►

And so during this meeting, we’re talking about our work.

00:44:58 ►

And what they said was, this is a reputational risk.

00:45:03 ►

I said, this is a reputational risk. I said, this is a reputational opportunity,

00:45:06 ►

and that you should see this as something that’s neuroscience,

00:45:10 ►

that’s really, it’s studying love, it’s studying bonding,

00:45:13 ►

it’s studying healing, you should be involved.

00:45:15 ►

And in the end, they said no.

00:45:17 ►

So I think that it’s come down to individuals and family foundations

00:45:22 ►

as the place where we’re getting our support.

00:45:24 ►

But unlike a lot of other causes, we’re trying to have a drug at the end of it.

00:45:32 ►

So the FDA has this unusual policy to try to promote the medicalization of drugs that

00:45:39 ►

are off patent, and it’s called data exclusivity.

00:45:42 ►

So what it means is that if you’re the first to make a drug into a medicine,

00:45:46 ►

then you will get five years data exclusivity,

00:45:51 ►

which means nobody else can use your data to make it into a generic medicine.

00:45:55 ►

Somebody else could replicate the research and then get permission as well.

00:46:00 ►

You don’t have a monopoly on that.

00:46:01 ►

And somebody else could study MDMA for something else entirely.

00:46:01 ►

You don’t have a monopoly on that. And somebody else could study MDMA for something else entirely.

00:46:05 ►

But there’s a good chance that we would have this window of time, five or six years,

00:46:12 ►

where MAPS would be the only organization that could actually sell MDMA for medical use.

00:46:19 ►

And so if we, and this is the same is true for Hefter for their psilocybin work.

00:46:23 ►

And so without price gouging, because, again, what we’re talking about is psychotherapy.

00:46:29 ►

So most of the treatment is the cost of the psychotherapy.

00:46:32 ►

The drug cost isn’t very much.

00:46:34 ►

So it’s possible for us to medicalize MDMA and then, through the data exclusivity, earn enough money to fund additional research.

00:46:47 ►

Now, one of the most important things that people have said against marijuana legalization

00:46:52 ►

is that we don’t want big tobacco and big alcohol and American capitalism to market marijuana

00:46:58 ►

because before you know it, we’re going to be marketing to children

00:47:02 ►

and we’re going to be marketing to children and we’re going to have marketing to addicts and you know that this kind of American capitalism behind drugs that have a risk potential that

00:47:10 ►

that’s a concern. So what we’ve looked at at MAPS is trying to not just find a new model

00:47:17 ►

to open up the door to legalizing psychedelics but then how to market them. So what we’re exploring is starting a benefit corporation

00:47:27 ►

because keeping the marketing of MDMA inside the nonprofit,

00:47:31 ►

we could lose the nonprofit status because of the income from a regular business.

00:47:36 ►

So what we’re doing is exploring a benefit corporation

00:47:39 ►

where the goal is not to maximize the resources, maximize money.

00:47:45 ►

It’s to maximize social benefit.

00:47:47 ►

So this will be wholly owned by the nonprofit, but that’s the long-term vision of a sustainable

00:47:52 ►

nonprofit is medicalization and then through the sale of drugs as medicines, earn more

00:47:58 ►

to fund additional research.

00:48:01 ►

So that’s the big vision.

00:48:03 ►

Did you have a question? So I had a question

00:48:07 ►

about neurotoxicity with MDMA. I feel fairly safe consuming DMT or LSD or psilocybin. Those

00:48:15 ►

have been around for 50 to hundreds of years, and there’s much more data. There doesn’t seem

00:48:20 ►

to be that much data in MDMA. There’s a couple like rat studies showing neurotoxicity

00:48:25 ►

where they radiate serotonin

00:48:27 ►

and then they show the serotonin is attaching to receptors less

00:48:30 ►

after MDMA, admittedly higher doses.

00:48:34 ►

What are your recommendations for people after they take MDMA?

00:48:36 ►

What cocktails like SSRIs, 5-HTP, antioxidants and so on,

00:48:40 ►

what do you think about neurotoxicity?

00:48:42 ►

It’s hard to predict a lot of these things.

00:48:44 ►

Okay.

00:48:49 ►

Well, the first thing that you said, I think that there’s not that much information.

00:48:58 ►

Actually, that’s not the case. Because once MDMA was criminalized and people, police are running around throwing people in cages for long periods of time, what we see is that there’s a demonization

00:49:04 ►

of these drugs. So criminalization, prohibition that there’s a demonization of these drugs.

00:49:05 ►

So criminalization, prohibition is usually followed by demonization of these drugs.

00:49:09 ►

And what that meant is that in practice, the National Institute on Drug Abuse and other

00:49:13 ►

agencies all over the world started investing in MDMA research.

00:49:18 ►

And so right now, if you go on Medline and you put in MDMA or ecstasy, there’s over 4,600 papers on MDMA or ecstasy

00:49:27 ►

at a cost of somewhere in the neighborhood of $350 million.

00:49:31 ►

So we know an enormous amount about MDMA neurotoxicity

00:49:34 ►

and a lot of other aspects of how MDMA works.

00:49:38 ►

And so I don’t know if any of you have seen it, but recently, just last week,

00:49:44 ►

there was an article about autism.

00:49:46 ►

And it was in the New York Times.

00:49:47 ►

And what it was saying is that it looks like autism is being caused largely by a failure of the brain to prune connections,

00:50:00 ►

that we have massive connections when we’re young.

00:50:02 ►

that we have massive connections when we’re young.

00:50:06 ►

And what happens during people’s teenage years and early adulthood is that there’s a massive die-off of neural connections

00:50:10 ►

so that certain connections are strengthened, certain connections are weakened.

00:50:14 ►

So what’s happened with this MDMA neurotoxicity literature is the idea is,

00:50:18 ►

first off, that if there’s a change in the brain, it’s automatically bad.

00:50:23 ►

Change equals damage.

00:50:27 ►

change in the brain, it’s automatically bad. Change equals damage. Now, more importantly,

00:50:32 ►

there’s enough studies that have shown that at the doses we use it in therapy,

00:50:39 ►

there’s no noticeable neurotoxicity. But the key point is functional consequences.

00:50:44 ►

So it’s a mystery. Our brains are still pretty much a mystery, even though we have massive PET scans, massive brain scan stuff.

00:50:46 ►

So when you start talking about changes in the brains,

00:50:49 ►

what we’re really interested in is how are people affected?

00:50:53 ►

What are the functional consequences?

00:50:54 ►

And so what we’ve done is looked at neurocognitive tests

00:51:01 ►

before and after MDMA therapy and have found no change.

00:51:05 ►

So we in our studies and with the FDA, we do not give MDMA with SSRIs or anything

00:51:11 ►

else.

00:51:12 ►

But some studies in animals have shown that at high enough doses, MDMA will cause serotonin

00:51:18 ►

nerve terminal degeneration and that if you administer SSRIs up to six hours after the

00:51:24 ►

MDMA,

00:51:25 ►

that that’s reduced or eliminated.

00:51:27 ►

So many people are using SSRIs after MDMA.

00:51:30 ►

I’ve been using MDMA since 1982.

00:51:33 ►

I’ve used it over 100 times.

00:51:36 ►

And I’ve decided I just want to see what it’s like.

00:51:39 ►

And so I don’t use SSRIs.

00:51:41 ►

We don’t use them in our research.

00:51:42 ►

I think the most important thing is to think about MDMA as a two-day experience where you rest and reflect the next day. And I think a lot of people

00:51:51 ►

who are exhausted the next day, they go back to work, they do various things. I think rest

00:51:55 ►

and reflection, because what we’re talking about, again, on the one hand, you could say that the

00:52:02 ►

recreational use of drugs is about going out and having fun.

00:52:05 ►

It’s about what you have in the moment.

00:52:07 ►

But the therapeutic use is not so much what happens during the experience, but what do you bring back?

00:52:14 ►

How does it change you?

00:52:17 ►

And so I think when we use that as our lens, that that second day of rest is where you really reflect and integrate.

00:52:23 ►

So we start our MDMA sessions at

00:52:26 ►

10 in the morning. They go till six at night. We give usually 125 milligrams. After two hours,

00:52:32 ►

we give half the initial dose to prolong this plateau. We can give it between one and a half

00:52:39 ►

and two and a half hours. There’s some flexibility for the therapist and the patient. If you give it at one and a half

00:52:46 ►

hours, you might get a little bit deeper experience. But we continue the male-female

00:52:53 ►

co-therapist team. That’s the other key part of our model, is a male-female co-therapist team to

00:52:58 ►

sort of model successful collaboration between the two sexes and also reflect in a way mother and father and people can project.

00:53:07 ►

And so the people are required to spend the night in the treatment center,

00:53:10 ►

and then in the morning after they’re rested,

00:53:13 ►

then they have another multi-hour therapy session to integrate it,

00:53:16 ►

and then somebody else has to drive them home.

00:53:18 ►

And then we speak with them every day on the phone for a week,

00:53:23 ►

five to 15 minutes, just to check in. And then they come

00:53:26 ►

and have a non-drug psychotherapy session in person, usually about 90 minutes. And they do

00:53:32 ►

that every week for three to four weeks. And then they have their second MDMA experience.

00:53:36 ►

And then we repeat that again. And then they have their third MDMA experience. And then two months

00:53:40 ►

and one year after, we do follow-ups. With the first study that Rachel was in, because it took us so long to do the study

00:53:48 ►

and we thought about implementing the follow-up,

00:53:51 ►

afterwards we did it at an average of three and a half years later

00:53:54 ►

and found that the benefits on average sustained over time.

00:53:58 ►

So something has fundamentally changed in the way people relate to their trauma.

00:54:04 ►

And once you’ve changed that

00:54:06 ►

then it can stay permanent on the other hand some people relapsed so life keeps happening

00:54:12 ►

new traumas happen it’s not like we can ever you know treat somebody for anything and then say

00:54:19 ►

they’ll be better the rest of their life so we went to the fda and we said we want to be able

00:54:24 ►

to give MDMA

00:54:25 ►

refresher sessions in a way to people that have relapsed. And the FDA said yes. And just to say

00:54:30 ►

how good our cooperation is with the FDA, we also went to the FDA and said, we need to train a lot

00:54:36 ►

more therapists. And there’s not that many that have the underground credentials and the above

00:54:41 ►

ground credentials. And we want to work with people that have the above ground credentials,

00:54:45 ►

but we want to be able to give them MDMA as part of their training.

00:54:49 ►

And the FDA said, we can’t just let you do that,

00:54:52 ►

but if you can devise an experiment that looks like science

00:54:57 ►

and is learning something, then we can give you permission for that

00:55:03 ►

and we can let you limit who’s in that study

00:55:06 ►

to therapists in your training program so we’ve done that so we have a study on the psychological

00:55:12 ►

effects of mdma taken in a therapeutic setting by healthy volunteers and these healthy volunteers

00:55:19 ►

are our therapists in training and we’ve been able to take people from the va take people from all

00:55:23 ►

over the world to give them this experience but with with the relapse study, we found that if we can

00:55:28 ►

give people who have their PTSD symptoms, we had one person who was a vet who was in the study

00:55:34 ►

and who did really well. And then a car crashed into his house and people were killed right in

00:55:41 ►

front of him. And he kind of had a bit of a relapse so what we’ve been able to show is that

00:55:46 ►

if we can give people one mdma experience once they’ve sort of fallen back that that in most

00:55:54 ►

cases is enough to get people back to where they’re fully functioning so it’s eventually

00:56:00 ►

will be that you know different people some people we had one vet in our study who had only one, he’s a dropout, we can’t even count his data.

00:56:08 ►

He had only one experiment, one 75 milligram dose, Tony Macy is his name,

00:56:14 ►

and he decided under the influence of 75 milligrams of MDMA that he had been taking opiates for pain,

00:56:21 ►

that he really was not that much in pain, that he was using it as an escape, that he didn’t want to take opiates for pain, that he really was not that much in pain, that he was using it as an escape,

00:56:26 ►

that he didn’t want to take opiates anymore.

00:56:28 ►

And not only that, he didn’t want to take MDMA anymore.

00:56:31 ►

And he didn’t feel like he had his PTSD anymore.

00:56:34 ►

And he said, I’m going to drop out of the study.

00:56:36 ►

So we said to him, you know, you can drop out,

00:56:39 ►

but would you participate in the long-term follow-up?

00:56:42 ►

And so by one year, when we did the long-term follow-up,

00:56:45 ►

he still didn’t have PTSD.

00:56:47 ►

He wanted to get another MDMA session

00:56:49 ►

to work on other issues,

00:56:53 ►

but we’re only authorized to treat people with PTSD,

00:56:56 ►

and he didn’t qualify.

00:56:58 ►

So, yeah.

00:57:02 ►

Yeah.

00:57:03 ►

So the effects of MDMA and LSD on our culture are undeniable.

00:57:08 ►

The first and second renaissance, technology, creativity.

00:57:11 ►

But my question for you is what I’ve discovered, the beauty of,

00:57:14 ►

that has helped me twice as much as any of those experiences I’ve had with either of those things,

00:57:20 ►

that is the love of my life, second only to my daughter, that I can order and make myself,

00:57:25 ►

I want to ask you why, for the sake of God as maps,

00:57:28 ►

not using mescaline?

00:57:33 ►

It’s the greatest thing.

00:57:34 ►

No, that’s a great question.

00:57:37 ►

So I’ll say that when…

00:57:41 ►

Well, MDMA is actually chemically halfway

00:57:47 ►

between mescaline and methamphetamine.

00:57:52 ►

So it’s the stimulant properties of methamphetamine without being jittery, and it’s the psychedelic properties of mescaline that has a lot of heartwarming properties

00:57:57 ►

without the visualization and the kind of ego dissolution.

00:57:59 ►

So when I was 18 years old at college, somebody came by with half a pound of mescaline.

00:58:06 ►

So I bought it all.

00:58:10 ►

And so friends and I did a lot of mescaline.

00:58:14 ►

I would say mescaline is the most important psychedelic drug that is not being researched.

00:58:20 ►

Now, why is that?

00:58:22 ►

I mean, again, we have to focus on what we think is most likely to move through the system.

00:58:29 ►

So I think that the classic psychedelics, of which mescaline is one,

00:58:33 ►

represent a major challenge to psychiatrists and psychologists.

00:58:38 ►

So that because we need to be training psychologists and psychiatrists,

00:58:42 ►

because of the gentleness of MDMA,

00:58:45 ►

that’s what we thought is that MDMA would be the one to move forward.

00:58:48 ►

So if we had unlimited resources, which we don’t,

00:58:53 ►

mescaline would be among the most important drugs to do some research.

00:58:58 ►

It’s very grounded.

00:59:00 ►

And, of course, that’s the active ingredient in peyote,

00:59:03 ►

and that’s what people are using in the Native American church yeah yeah mescaline is a phenomenal drug but again for strategic reasons

00:59:12 ►

and for maximizing our limited resources and then the other part is the ptsd i mean again what we’ve

00:59:18 ►

felt is that in a culture that’s terrified of these drugs that’s terrified of their own self

00:59:23 ►

of our own inner selves.

00:59:28 ►

So a lot of the drug war is driven by people who are scared of themselves and scared of what’s inside them.

00:59:30 ►

But we need to pick patient populations that the mainstream identifies with.

00:59:36 ►

And so PTSD, people that have been victimized and sexual abuse and rape and war,

00:59:43 ►

there’s a lot of support for that.

00:59:46 ►

And so I think eventually what we’re trying to do is to legitimize

00:59:49 ►

and legalize psychedelic psychotherapy.

00:59:51 ►

And MDMA is a great drug, but it’s not the only drug.

00:59:55 ►

For many people, it’s not even necessarily the best drug.

00:59:58 ►

What we would like to do is have it to the point where your doctor has this tool chest

01:00:03 ►

of the entire range of psychedelics,

01:00:07 ►

and most likely psychedelic psychotherapy of the future

01:00:10 ►

could start with MDMA, it could move to mescaline,

01:00:14 ►

it could go to LSD, it could use ayahuasca,

01:00:17 ►

which is a whole other question.

01:00:18 ►

Can you take ayahuasca out of the religious tradition?

01:00:21 ►

But really our goal is to legitimize psychedelic psychotherapy

01:00:24 ►

with the full range of psychedelics

01:00:26 ►

and the sequencing can

01:00:28 ►

be decided by the therapist and the patient

01:00:30 ►

and I imagine that

01:00:32 ►

now one of the things about mescaline, just to

01:00:34 ►

say, is that most people don’t have experience

01:00:36 ►

with mescaline because it’s not that powerful.

01:00:38 ►

You need about 400, 500

01:00:40 ►

milligrams. So

01:00:42 ►

underground chemists are looking

01:00:44 ►

for drugs that they can make in smaller

01:00:46 ►

quantities that are more doses. So most people have not had any experience with mesclun. One of

01:00:51 ►

the funny things at Boom was that they were, everybody had, there’s this allure to mesclun.

01:00:56 ►

So there was all these mesclun that was being sold. Everybody had mesclun on this little

01:01:01 ►

blotter paper. And if you know anything about mescaline, it couldn’t

01:01:05 ►

possibly be. So of course it wasn’t. But I think that that’s another part of the reason is that

01:01:10 ►

people don’t have experience with mescaline. And so part of what we’re trying to do is to use drugs

01:01:15 ►

that are in the public consciousness and show that under certain circumstances, the benefits can

01:01:21 ►

vastly outweigh the risks. Now, I heard you guys. I just want to say that we’ve hired somebody on our staff,

01:01:26 ►

Ilse Jerome, a Ph.D.

01:01:27 ►

Her job has been to read all of the psychedelic literature on MDMA,

01:01:31 ►

all of these papers.

01:01:33 ►

And for the FDA, we’ve had to summarize all of this.

01:01:36 ►

So if you go to the MAPS website, maps.org,

01:01:39 ►

and you go on our research,

01:01:40 ►

and then you go to the MDMA page,

01:01:42 ►

it’s called the Investigator’s Brochure.

01:01:46 ►

So we’ve spent somewhere in the neighborhood

01:01:47 ►

of $200,000

01:01:49 ►

to review all of the existing literature.

01:01:52 ►

So in a sense, we have captured

01:01:54 ►

$350 million worth of

01:01:56 ►

studies through $200,000.

01:01:58 ►

And we have

01:01:59 ►

created this Investigator’s

01:02:02 ►

Brochure that you can go

01:02:04 ►

and you can learn

01:02:04 ►

all of what the current science is about MDMA.

01:02:09 ►

And we have a similar one for LSD, and we’re going to be doing one for other drugs as well.

01:02:17 ►

You’re listening to The Psychedelic Salon,

01:02:19 ►

where people are changing their lives one thought at a time.

01:02:24 ►

And I’ll be sure to link to maps.org in the program notes for today’s podcast.

01:02:29 ►

And if you’re visiting that site for the first time,

01:02:32 ►

I suggest that you first hover over the resources link in the main menu.

01:02:36 ►

And there you will find access to a significant amount of scientific literature

01:02:41 ►

that deals with psychedelic substances.

01:02:44 ►

And at the bottom of the resources list is a link for students Thank you. Well, if you’ve been around in the salon for a while, you’ll remember that I podcast Rachel’s Talk in podcast number 432 this past January.

01:03:09 ►

And also on that podcast is the inspiring 2014 Palenque Norte lecture by Katie Tomlinson, who is one of the foremost student leaders in our community out here on the West Coast.

01:03:27 ►

And as you know, you can get to the program notes for today’s podcast via psychedelicsalon.us,

01:03:36 ►

where you will also find a picture of the MAPS Zendo that Rick mentioned as having been hit hard by the Freak 2014 rainstorm on the playa.

01:03:41 ►

Just as an aside, when Rick mentioned Dr. David Nutt just now,

01:03:45 ►

I was reminded of a really excellent video by Russell Brand titled From Addiction to Recovery. And in it, Brand interviews Dr. Nutt. And this was the first

01:03:52 ►

time that I heard a professional of the caliber of Dr. Nutt say that approximately 10% of all humans

01:03:59 ►

have brains that are configured so as to essentially prevent them from using drugs in a recreational manner,

01:04:05 ►

which is the situation that Russell Brand finds himself in.

01:04:09 ►

And his video is something that I recommend everyone to see.

01:04:12 ►

Even the most anti-drug warriors should come away with a new understanding about the war that they’re involved in.

01:04:20 ►

And since the main focus of Rick’s talk today concerned the use of MDMA,

01:04:24 ►

or ecstasy as it was called on the street,

01:04:27 ►

I’ll also put a link in today’s program notes to the 30-minute interview that I gave

01:04:32 ►

concerning the entry onto the streets of Dallas, Texas of that many-faceted substance.

01:04:38 ►

And for what it’s worth, although I haven’t had a chance to listen to this yet,

01:04:42 ►

the man who interviewed me in that video, Tom Huckabee,

01:04:46 ►

recently did an interview just for the Salon with former High Times editor and elder extraordinaire Peter Gorman.

01:04:54 ►

And you’ll hear that next week here in the Salon.

01:04:57 ►

But for now, this is Lorenzo signing off from cyberdelic space.

01:05:01 ►

Be careful out there my friends!

Graph View

Backlinks