Joe Rogan Experience #1964 - Rick Doblin

Joe Rogan podcast check it out The Joe. Rogan Experience Train by day Joe Rogan. podcast by night all. day hello Rick good to see you again my. friend how are you yeah I did great it. was so nice to be with you a couple. weeks ago yeah it was fun to have you at. the club you were there like one of the. first days yeah I think I saw the U. first event in the small room. yes yeah did you see Dave Chappelle I.

did yeah that was the first one yeah we. had Dave there he wanted to do that room. we opened it specifically for him that. was the first time we did a show there. very exciting yeah I really like to have. the opportunity to talk to him a little. bit afterwards and to listen to him it. was hilarious yeah he's a big fan of. what you guys are doing as as is. everybody you know I think what you guys. are doing at Maps is one of the most. important things for society and culture. and just Consciousness in general that's. that's happening today I'm very very.

happy that you're doing that thank you. yeah yeah I'm pretty extremely lucky. that 51 years ago when I was 18 in 1972. and I decided to focus my life on. psychedelics that now I'm 69 all these. years later and it still makes. sense well back then it must have been a. big risk because in the 1970s when you. focused your life on psychedelics that. was like right after that whole sweeping. schedule one psychedelics Act was passed. right yeah that was in 197 70 yeah.

things look Grim didn't look good yeah. well I was a um draft resistor I I. thought that I would um serve my country. by going to jail uh which is kind of a. funny way to say it but I had felt that. I'm I'm not a conscientious objector in. order to do that you have to be a. pacifist and so I'm not a pacifist I. think there are sometimes you need to. fight and defend. yourselves um so the only options for me. as I studied how to respond to to.

Vietnam was to I didn't want to pretend. I had bone. spurs or run away to Canada or anything. like that and I studied uh Tolstoy and. Gandhi and nonviolent resistance and. decided that um the thing that I would. do would be to not register for the. draft and I was paying taxes at had a. social security number I had a driver's. license I was in high school I figured. the government knows who I am and knows.

where I am and knows my age and so I. assumed that I would go to jail and that. that would be a way to drain the system. of energy and to register my protest. that way Martin Luther King actually. said a great thing he said the person. that thinks a law is unjust and violates. it and is willing to suffer the. consequences as an example to others. about the unjust nature of the law. actually has the highest respect for the. law he was trying to reframe Civil. Disobedience as patriotism M and it made.

sense to me and so when I talked to my. parents about it they were like well. okay you know we don't think you should. go to Vietnam either we don't think it's. um in America's best interest but you're. never going to be a doctor or lawyer my. dad was a doctor because you'll be a. felon and I'm like that's a price I'll. have to pay what am I going to do with. my life I can't have a normal job in a. way so then when I stumbled on. psychedelics I was like great I could be. an underground psychedelic therapist. that doesn't need a license whatever.

happened did you wind up getting in. trouble no it's astonishing I think a. lot of times we overestimate the. efficiency of the. government and so nothing happened at. all I mean I turned 18 later was the. lottery I did have a higher lottery. number but nothing ever happened and and. I just was shocked by that and later. what happened was that Jimmy Carter on. his first day in office he pardoned all. the draft resistors.

and that made me sort of move from my. identification as a counterculture drug. using criminal to somebody who wasn't. quite a criminal in that same way what. year was that 76 yeah 7 well as soon as. he got inaugurated 77 is when when he he. did that the first day in office and I. later read there was about 60,000 people. that never registered for the draft but. enough people were going. in that they were able to find enough uh. bodies and people to send a Vietnam yeah.

it's one of the rare um military. operations in history that's like. universally regarded as a terrible thing. yes I mean nobody today defends the. Vietnam War there's still some people. that think it was a good idea that we. got Saddam Hussein out of power despite. all the horrible collateral damage and. the million people that are innocent. that W up dying in Iraq because that. Invasion but nobody thinks Vietnam was. good right it was starting to be this uh.

Imperial overreach yeah and we've had a. fair amount of that based on a false. flag yeah yeah which is very scary it's. very scary that that was just you know. 1960s it just happened yeah well one of. the people also quite interested and. supportive of psychedelic therapy is. Daniel Ellsberg who was the person that. released the Pentagon papers but the. false flag began with the Gulf of tonen. incident and so we we um we're told our. ships were being attacked and he was um.

I've gotten to spend some time talking. to him and he said that he had just. started the National Security. Administration uh at that time was um. looking at some of these cables and. realized it didn't make sense but he. thought somebody above him knew more. than he did and he didn't feel like he. should say anything about it and then. all these years later when he released. the Pentagon papers and people think of. him as a hero because he was willing to. to go to jail for decades and decades.

potentially the rest of his life which. is what the government was trying to do. for him went all the way up to the. Supreme Court and he won the case or the. New York Times also won the case but um. he thinks of himself not just as a hero. but that he should have had more courage. early on and if he would have done. something early on maybe more people. would have realized that this wasn't the. way the government was saying it. was but I do think that there is. patriotism in um Civil.

Disobedience yeah certainly especially. when you feel it's morally wrong to. participate and whatever this thing that. you're being obligated to do yeah and. and I think it's really remarkable for. me now that because I was not a um. pacifist and I was not um a conscience. objector I I always felt that the. freedom that I had was defended by our. military and you know in World War II if. we had lost and I'm Jewish I probably. would have been killed along with others. so I always felt that the military was.

essential and it was protecting my. freedom and so now all these years later. to have so much work to be um done with. veterans and with in the veterans. administrations and with um you know. special operators and all sorts of. people with. PTSD um it feels right in a way that. that a draft resistor should form an. alliance with suffering um veterans yeah. I think that's one of the best aspects.

uh at least publicly of what you guys. are doing is that you are working with. all these soldiers and so you've got a. lot of support from people that. traditionally wouldn't be invested in. psychedelics which is really kind of. opened up it used to be that a lot of. people on the right thought of. psychedelics as a way to waste your life. and you're going to be a hippie and a. loser but because of the benefits that. it's been showing to people with PTSD. and people coming back from you know all.

these various foreign conflicts then you. you're getting now you're getting. support from veterans you're getting. support from the people on the right and. people that know veterans that have had. incredible experiences with psychedelics. where it's completely changed their life. and sort of reset their mind yeah just. several days ago I was in Nashville with. sha Ryan doing uh his podcast and and he. is a um former Navy SEAL and CIA. contractor and he was just talking about. how much he had benefited from his.

experience with Iain in Mexico and how. it's changed his views about things and. we've heard this a lot but but he still. said that if he were to be attacked if. America was to be attacked he would. defend it it doesn't turn people again. into pacifists necessarily in that same. way and there's something Noble and. honorable about willing to serve your. country and be willing to give your life. to protect others I think it's a problem. in some cases when the political. leadership makes terrible choices and.

you know you've enlisted to do that but. I I think the other part last week um I. was in Dallas and we had a an event that. uh Governor Rick Perry attended and uh. Marcus. Capone and um Jeff George who's the uh. chair of the board of directors of our. Maps public benefit Corp our and then. also Amy Emerson who's the CEO of that. and we we have um Governor Perry's. support because he's heard from so many. veterans he's also talked about Marcus.

Latrell who lived with him at the State. House when he was very emotionally. damaged from his time in the military. and then he saw Marcus um get a lot. better when he went down to Mexico and. got iban and so Governor Perry there's. people that I have never thought that I. would find common ground with and one of. the ones that I thought was the most um. far that that I I couldn't imagine. building a bridge I mean one of our. themes is be the bridge but it was with.

um Ted. nent and I thought you know how would I. you know build a bridge with Ted Nan. well uh Roco Moon his son connected us. and Roco is interested in being a. psychedelic. therapist and he's been doing a lot of. work educating his dad and we had a. really remarkable conversation um and. Ted actually said that um he could be. extremely effective for helping us.

because he's known as being so anti-drug. yeah and yet he can see even he can see. that in a therapeutic setting for. veterans that's what he cares about the. most but others that these things can be. helpful so this idea of building bridges. um there there was one point in time one. of the most important uh lessons I. learned was actually. um from a Supreme Court Justice where I. was sitting next to a Passover Sader and.

Passover this is Steven Brier and I had. um accepted a donation from Rebecca. Mercer now Rebecca Mercer um her father. and she they owned Cambridge analytica. they own breit part you know she's very. much a supporter of Republican. causes and she gave us a million dollars. and said that it was uh restricted to. use in veterans and I thought this is. really a good thing to do to take this. but I've gotten more criticism from.

taking that donation from Rebecca Mercer. than most anything I've done in the. entire 37 years of maps and so at this. Passover seder I was sit my wife and I. got there laid our friends were. somewhere else there was this old couple. sitting next to us and um I didn't know. who they were and I thought oh this will. be boring you know and and so I I talked. to this guy and I said well everybody. else was pretty much scientist and I. said are you um a scientist he said no. I'm a judge and then his wife started. talking about how she had written a book.

about uh grieving parents who who have. um illnesses that their kids have fatal. illnesses and and how to handle grief. and so we had this incredible. conversation about um MDMA therapy and. about how it can be helpful for grief. and all and then after hours Passover. saders take hours and hours I finally. realized that there was something more. going on and I I thought this guy is not. just a judge I think he's Steven Brer. the Supreme Court judge. and I I said are you Steven Brer he said.

yes and I said well I have a uh an. ethical question to ask you you know I. have taken this uh resources from. Rebecca Mercer and she's very much. supporting Trump and supporting Bannon. and and others and I said what what do. you think about that choice ethically. was that um a wise idea and he. said that the essence of democracy is. trying to find common ground with people. with whom you May disagree on everything.

else and he said in our hyperargininemia. very important to him because there's.

just it's just too easy to just dig in. your heels and embrace the conflict and. and push away any ideas that are. connected to the other side if you can. get someone who's a republican who's a. trump supporter to engage in. psychedelics understand the benefits of. psychedelics for whether it's for. soldiers or whether it's for grieving. parents or anyone if that can make it. into their life and perhaps they can. have an experience I think psychedelic. experience is one of the greatest ways.

that someone can relax any ideological. dogmatic ideas that they might have that. restrict them from taking in some of the. opinions of the left yeah would you um. feel comfortable sharing some of your. own experiences well sure well I've. never been a right-wing person I'm very. left-wing for the most part other than. um support for the Second Amendment and. some some other things and just a. general dis Trust of of government I I.

you know I was raised by hippies you. know I I lived in San Francisco during. the Vietnam War when I was a little kid. I mean we were you know my stepdad as. long were had long hair when I was a kid. so I was you know but then I also grew. up and I was a fighter so I was always. around these like hard-nosed like very. tough you know noons people and a lot. lot of them were very right-wing and you.

know I knew a lot of cops from martial. arts and you know people have these. ideas about what you know what drugs are. in that blanket term which I really. don't like the term drugs right and drug. users what drug users are and one of you. know one of the things that I'm kind of. proud of is that if anybody wants to say. that uh people who enjoy psychedelics or. people that uh enjoy marijuana are lazy. and they don't contribute or they don't. you know like like what about me right.

like what about me like I work hard and. I work a lot and I work out a lot and I. have a lot of friends that are very much. like me and they're very open-minded. people that are they embrace all. cultures and ideas and all kinds of. different things but they're also you. know these hard-nosed. determined very disciplined people that. you would sort of automatically maybe. callously lump in with people who are.

cruel or unkind or not embracing uh you. know other ideas and I just think that. these ideas that we have of people that. we it's so convenient to push people. into one category or another and it's. also very convenient to embrace one. category or and adopt their sort of. predetermined pattern of ideas yeah but. but would you be comfortable sharing. some of your your own psychedelic. experiences sure sure I mean um the DMT.

experiences are by far the most profound. and those are the ones that have really. made me every time I've done it it's. just completely made me rethink how I. interface with people what what life is. and what that experience what is that is. that a Well of Souls you're entering. into is it another dimension is it some. sort of parallel dimension of uh.

disembodied Consciousness that you seem. to be engaging with life forms with. things that know you that can see your. thoughts and see resistance and see. [ __ ] in you I mean it's um every. time I've done it it's sort of just like. in one way or another just removed one. layer of the onion you know one layer of. [ __ ] that keeps you from just. embracing the great mystery of this.

existence yeah whatever it is yeah I. think we're built on these layers and. layers of billions of dollars billions. of dollar billions of years yeah of. evolution and and sort of from the. single cellular organisms it's all in a. still and that our prefontal cortex our. brain has kind of helped us focus on. what we need as humans in our transition. from birth to death but that when you. sort of well we we talk about the. default mode Network which is sort of. the part of the brain that's identified.

as the sense of self and the classic. psychedelics weaken that part and then. more information floods so I think we. can get back through all of the. intercellular knowledge that is stored. in our bodies yeah and and connect with. this deeper. unitive sense it's amazing yeah it's. also they help so much to abandon. preconceived notions and and just sort. of we don't realize how much of the way. we sort of see ourselves and see the. world is is a kind of a.

convenient set of armor that we put on. to try to protect us from uncomfortable. thoughts and protect us from you know. just just mystery the the mystery of but. there is a lot of mystery in life it's. mostly mystery yeah you know and I think. psychedelics are the greatest mystery. and there's something about them that's. just the idea that it exists that you. can smoke a thing and then 15 seconds. later be transported into an impossible.

realm and that that exists and no one's. discussing it that you're every day on. the news they're talking about a a. million different things that seem so. trivial once you've had a DMT experience. yeah you're reminding me of my 5 Meo DMT. experience that I had and it felt like. um I went sort of back to the moment of. creation yeah and but that I realized. that so much of our life is patterns. like you're saying that that we have. these habits and we have these patterns.

and we take them as fixed but they're. not actually fixed we have put them into. motion and this 5mo by bringing me back. to this moment of. creation it it helped me realize that. the new can enter at any moment that. there's a way and so I've I've actually. felt that that experience has which I. had one time back in 1985 has been uh a. big part of our um success to get to the. place that we're at now uh psychedelic. research with with MDMA therapy because.

it helped me to realize that whenever I. felt blocked or stuck that I could try. to find something new to enter into the. picture that there's this Perpetual. ability to connect with creation to. connect with the new and and so much of. our life is on cruise control is on. these patterns it's easier to do it that. way it is and there's advantages to that. so we don't have to rethink things all. the time but it also Narrows our vision. yeah very much does it's just so easy to.

fall into patterns you know you fall. into the patterns of the group that you. hang out with you fall into patterns of. accents and you know dress and the way. people behave and think about things and. the concepts that they adopt and when. you have like a real breakthrough. psychedelic experience it just makes all. that seem so trivial my my DMT. experience my first 5 Meo experience I. I've done both multiple times but the. the first five Meo experience I thought. I [ __ ] up I thought it's over cuz I.

kind there was a moment when you're. entering into whatever that Great. White Field of geometry is you know. where where you go oh my God am I dying. like it it feels like there's no way I'm. coming back from this like like I've. gone so far and then that. fear W that fear subsided once the. experience just fully kicked in like the. fear was at the. like the doorway to the experience like.

oh no what have I done and. then you go into that what the weirdest. thing about 5 Meo too is the lack of. visuals it's just this great white. pattern this thing where you don't have. any memory you don't have any you're. you're barely a conscious entity and. you're experiencing what seems to be. like the source code of the UN. I mean it's just a gap it's like I felt.

like I was shot through a a rocket to. the center of everything and yet there. is an aspect of memory and there is an. aspect of us paying attention yeah there. there's still this observer in some ways. mhm yeah it's it's pretty compromised. but yeah there's something that you come. back with but it's also very difficult. to hold on to right it it is and that's. this process of integration that's. necessary but also for the 5 Meo it's so. brief yeah so that's where the Ian. experience can be 12 hours or more or.

the MDMA experiences we make them into 8. hour sessions I haven't done iaan oh. yeah I've I've heard really great things. from people that have uh addiction. problems like people that are addicted. to pills in particular have gone to. Mexico and one of them was my friend uh. Ed clay who who went down to Mexico. because of a pill problem he had and. then he wound up opening up a Iain. Center down there once he had been cured. of it there there is that phena where. people once they get healed they want to.

help others and in particular in the. military you're trained to leave nobody. behind and many people have said that. that they once they've gotten help now. they want to bring all their brothers to. to have help as well that there's. something about um this feeling that. that it can help not just them but but. many other people yeah and I think the. other part there's been about why. Governor Perry is so interested in a. sense is that there's been now um around. 800 Navy Seals and s that have gone down. to Mexico for Iain for both uh PTSD.

depression traumatic brain injury. addiction and he's heard just remarkable. stories but but now that you mentioned. um or that we're talking about I I just. would like to say um a bit of we have a. mutual friend Aubrey Marcus and I've. been um texting him this morning and and. it's um a bit sad his father died and so. um he's sitting shiva which is this. Jewish tradition where for a week after. someone dies um people come over to the. house and you you just mourn for a week.

so I'll be there tomorrow morning but. his father Michael Marcus actually. helped start I began research and so I'd. like to explain that just a tiny bit so. Michael had um studied uh a bit of. holotropic breath work with Stan gra so. Stannis gra is the world's leading LSD. researcher he's um almost 92 years old. um but he worked at Johns Hopkins he was. uh did LSD research in the Czech. Republic and when the Russians came in. in ' 68 to Crush their Rebellion he. escaped and came to the US um and but.

Michael got to know um Stan and did work. with him where once psychedelics were. criminalized Stan realized that you can. catalyze similar experiences through. hyperventilation without a drug and that. it I mean it is like a drug it changes. the chemistry in your brain um and so I. got to know Michael and um at one point. he was a stock Trader and he felt like. he was losing his Edge and this is.

probably you know 15 more years ago and. what he said was um he wondered maybe a. psychedelic experience could be helpful. for him and I suggested ibigan and he. went down to Mexico for an Iain. experience and it it helped him and then. he felt like he regained his confidence. and then he um bet that there was going. to be a massive uh stock crash he. shorted the market and then there was a. major crash um and then then he he. contacted me and he said this Iain.

really helped him and he would like to. know um how he might pay it back and I. said well we've got this project we're. trying to start for a long time it's the. first project where we're going to look. at a clinic in Mexico and test people do. before and after just how are they doing. it'd be a long-term followup because I. for no good reason at all other than the. drug war is illegal in the United States. but and it's not a drug of abuse it. helps treat drug of abuse but it is. legal in Mexico and in Canada and so.

just the day before I had gotten a. matching Grant offer of $10,000 for a. $20,000 study and uh I said Michael. would you be willing to match this and. um he said sure yeah I said great now. we're going to have this first I gain. study and then he said um what else do. you have and I was like well okay if you. want to know more I'd say the most. difficult thing for us to fund the most. um idealistic thing we're doing. this was at the time was we're trying to.

start research in Jordan you know we. have research in Israel we have research. in Canada we have researched but we've. no research in the Arab countries and I. thought if we could do something in. Jordan uh and I had incredible. Connections in in Jordan with the mayor. of Aman whose um son-in-law actually had. found uh LSD helpful for cluster. headaches and anyway I went to Michael I. said the the most idealistic thing the. most far-reaching is at this point would. be to do this study in a m and he said.

well how much does that cost and I said. well it's about um 85,000 something like. that. 90,000 and um he said all right I'll do. that too and so that started the first. project with. Iain and then we eventually did another. long-term followup in New Zealand and. now there are people now we're we're. there's a project in Spain to with a. group called iers and it's to take um. increasing amounts of Iain to help. people withdraw from Methadone there's. projects in Brazil with Iain um there's.

u a company atai uh that's one of the. for-profit Psychedelic companies that's. working with Deborah Mass from demx. they've merged and they're interested in. Iain so Ian is one of the classic. examples of disastrous drug policy it. turns out that there were um LSD dealers. in the 60s who got busted and they. happen to have Iain and so the. government made Iain illegal but these.

LSD dealers Howard lotof was also uh. experimenting with opiates and when they. tried ibigan they felt no desire for. opiates and they went through the. withdrawal without any pain it's just. remarkable what opiates um do for you. when you go through withdrawal it's. terrible but if you have ibigan you can. go through it in a couple days and you. have a lot of psychological experiences. about why you might want to run away. from your problems into opius isn't. there something that that happens with. ibigan where it like literally.

rewires yes now that's true with other. psychedelics as well it's called. neuroplasticity and so what that means. is that there is this um ability for our. neurons to have new synaptic connections. and that's what we mean is. neuroplasticity our brain is constantly. being rewire every time we have every. time we do anything we have memories and. the memories are encoded and some. sometimes they get encoded in um harmful.

ways like with trauma with PTSD they the. memories are so painful that they never. really get fully processed they never. really get put into long-term storage um. there's there's a lot of um changes in. your brain when you have. PTSD um but that this idea that you can. then rewire your brain once you. experience them and so there there's. researchers at Gul Dolan is at Johns. Hopkins she's done studies in mice with. MDMA and showed that um it releases.

oxytocin which is the hormone that we. have for love and connection nursing. mothers but it also promotes this new. neural growth so ibigan does that LSD. does that cybin does that and what G has. found which is really interesting is. that the longer you're in the. Psychedelic State the longer afterwards. this period of neuroplasticity lasts. where you can do more integration work. where you have this enhanced ability to.

reroute patterns in your brain and so I. be uh opens up this uh period of. neuroplasticity for several weeks after. because the experience can last for more. than a day or two is there any Headway. that's being made on bringing Iain to. the United States um cuz you think about. the Opia crisis that we have here that. seems like one of the very best sort of. remedies for that it is and and this is. where if you were to look back over the.

last um 50 years um I doubt that there's. more than five cases that the government. has about anybody abusing ibigan if if. at all well it's a 24-hour drug right. never done it but it knocks you down I I. would um highly recommend it yeah but I. would re I I I've had um I'd say one of. the most important experiences of my. whole life was was iig yeah yeah what. happened well um so there's a fellow.

named Leo Ze who is the um we called him. the secret Chief so he was the leader of. the underground psychedelic therapy. movement and he worked closely with. Sasha shulan and Sasha shulan was the. chemist that invented hundreds of. psychedelics he he he worked for Dao in. the 60s and he invented a um. biodegradable insecticide and they. rewarded him with his own lab to do. whatever he wanted and so Sasha tried to. do more psychedelics and they're like.

well maybe these are not going to lead. to products so so he realized he had to. leave and he set up a lab at home and he. taught but they would have this process. of um inventing new drugs new. psychedelic drugs looking for new. therapy drugs and they would then um. Sasha would take it into himself and. then if he thought it was okay he would. give it to his wife an they were now. both and they would do these together. and then if they then they had a group. of 12 people that would meet like once a. and they would try these new drugs Sasha.

by the way did go to the Bohemian Grove. where he was a musician there and so he. was able to go but he would test new. drugs with people at Bohemian Grove oh. my God so like presidents and bankers. different kinds of people like that yes. they would try these new things they'd. go for walks in the woods they because. you go to Bohemian Grove for a week or. two and so it's not like you're there. for a day or so but um so this small. group of 12 people decided that MDMA had. incredible potential this is in the. middle '70s and they gave this to Leo Ze.

and Leo said wow he was uh about to. retire he was a clinical psych PhD and. he was um getting up there in years and. he was about to retire he he trained a. lot of people with LSD and other things. and so he did not retire in order to. bring forth MDMA and so he really. pioneered the use of therapeutic use of. MDMA and this is now MDMA being a. therapy drug before it became ecstasy as. a party drug and that a lot happened in.

Dallas at the star club which is you. know a public place where you know. incredible stories of star of the star. Club there's going to be a documentary. by Michael Kane is working on a. documentary about the star Club but but. but um but that attracted Lloyd Benson. the senator from Texas he heard about. this and then he complained to the DEA. and then the DEA moved to criminalize we. we knew that this public use of um MDMA. was going to eventually result in DEA. Crackdown this is Nancy Reagan and. Ronald Reagan and all of that and so we.

had a jump start in a sense that the we. the DEA didn't know we were there they. they only knew the party drug they. didn't knew the therapy Parts but we. knew that the DEA was there and they. were coming after us so I started a. nonprofit before maps in ' 84 and and. that was to prepare and gather this. community together in order to um defend. MDMA once the DEA moved and so Leo Ze. came to me and he said you're starting. to be an advocate and I'd like to offer. you and I began. experience because we need to um own our.

own shadow own our own weaknesses own. own our own um things that we're we're. not comfortable with and and and also. you know have spiritual connections and. things like that and he said if I can. help you this might help in your. political work because then you'll see. that we're mixtures of good and bad. everybody is and that you won't demonize. the DEA and that you may be able to find. a way to you know build a bridge and so. he offered me this Iain experience and I.

said great I I would love to do this um. and so we had this whole long. day to set aside to do this and ibigan. in plant form takes a while to take in. effect so uh Leo said um I'd like to. give you a bunch of LSD at the same. time it was 350 micrograms of LSD which. is a pretty hefty dose um the first LSD. experience that we know of Albert. Hoffman uh April uh 19th uh. 1943 was um an amount that he thought.

would have no real effect because it. would be so small 250 micrograms which. is a a major existential challenge so. 350 micrograms is is pretty good as well. and so I actually um got administered to. ibigan a bunch of it in plant form and. then also the LSD at the same time and I. could tell the differences between the. drugs I could tell coming up on the LSD. and the moving towards this um kind of.

ego dissolution and opening up and. different my emotions and how am I going. to do this political work and and who am. I and you know am I qualified and all of. this um and I sort of had a lot of. experience with LSD hadd never done Iain. before and I was able to to open up. pretty well for the LSD but then this. sort of low guttural Rumble started from. the Iain the LSD Peaks around 3 hours or. so and and I could feel this I gain. building and building and building LST. is also very much in your head very.

ethereal more so than ssyb and mushrooms. which are more. embodied um and so this Iain started. coming up um this experience and I. started feeling like if I could just let. go if I could just fully have this U. experience and if I didn't have these. fears and anxieties then I would be a. better Advocate and that I needed to and. so much was at stake but then I felt I. couldn't let go cuz I was too scared and. then I would be um hating myself so I I.

felt that there was this um cycle of oh. I'm I'm not as good as I should be I I. wish I could let go I do have these. emotions of fear um and then I would. feel that and get nauseous and then I. would vomit and and then I would feel. relief for like a minute or so and then. the swirl would begin and each of them. is like 15 or 20 minute cycles and stuff. and then I would get to this peak and. then I would um vomit again and over and. over and over and for um for a Jewish.

person the the imagery that I had was. that I was being crucified on the cross. of self-. perfectionism that I didn't want to be. human in a way I wanted to be perfect I. wanted to be more than I was and that. this idea that I was um not perfect that. that um you know it. just was this connection between. self-criticism and self-hatred and I. could see that and and it just made me. sick and I wished I could do more but I.

couldn't get out of it and I had like a. 12-hour cycle of that over and over and. over I mean I you know I was like dry. heaving I had nothing left to throw up. anymore and I just so um saw this. connection between wanting to be perfect. not wanting to be human being super. self-critical leading to self-hatred and. shutting myself down and so at the end. of that day I was so. exhausted um I I called it um. Transcendence through EX exhaustion you. know I just gave up and I just beat.

myself up so much I just gave up and I. had the most Blissful night it was so. beautiful it was like no struggle. completely open everything and I. realized that what I needed to do was. keep the self-criticism because that is. the drive for Quality you need access to. the self-critical part of your mind yeah. but if it's connected to self-hatred you. don't listen as much because then you're. a bad person right so I I sort of. severed the connection between. self-criticism self-hatred I accepted. myself as a flawed human being that had.

a lot of room to grow and that I made. friends in a way I made an ally out of. the self-critical part of my brain and. it I think has helped me to uh learn and. grow because we're doing things that. have never done before we're doing. things I've never done before nobody's. never done before bringing this through. the FDA psychedelic Psychotherapy and. we've constantly making mistakes I like. to say that um I'm just a [ __ ] up who. just keeps on trying. you know and and so this and then but I.

told myself this story this was the most. beautiful night all night I was just. super alert didn't sleep at all and just. saw the stars but I I told myself a. story and and so much is governed by. stories as you know but the story was. that I was telling myself is that that I. had not earned this I I had had a. breakthrough I just exhausted myself so. I said when the sun comes up I'll be. back stuck in this nauseous space I. don't know why I told myself that story. but but did and the sun comes up and. then I was like stuck and nauseous again.

and I couldn't move for a day I actually. had to sit there in a or lie there. really in a field position friend was. supposed to come pick me up I can't move. do you think you brought that on. yourself in a way I do I I think the. stories we tell ourselves I mean I mean. that's sort of PTSD or depression the. story and that's what we're saying about. you get in these grooves and that that's. where this psychedelics can shape things. up shake things up and the. neuroplasticity is what really permits. you to see it in a different way so I. spent the whole next day just curled in. a puddle basically occasionally they'd.

bring me a banana datat or something. like that and then by the uh Third Day. finally I was able to stand up without. being nauseous and a friend came and. picked me up and ended up um driving me. away and and as we were driving i' I'd. only been there once this was at a house. I'd never been to before and we were. going back to where I familiar ground in. the same way and I had this sense in my. mind that um I knew what was around the. corner and I would say oh I think we're.

going to see this and a couple times we. did and so what I think happened is that. I was taking it in peripherally but I I. wasn't paying attention to it when I was. going there it wasn't like I was you. know telepathic in a way or anything. like that it was just that that all. these experiences had had sort of been. there but hadn't registered and I think. I cleared out a lot of space in my mind. from this constant. self-criticism so had a more openness in. the space and I could remember things uh.

it was the fourth day that I could. finally drive but I felt that ever since. then I've had. this increasing ability to um to be. self-critical without it being so. connected to self-hatred and so painful. and and I really feel that that Iain. experience although um I've not done it. since because it was pretty heavy um and. exhausted and painful and but but um and.

I've had other psychedelic experiences. since but but that I think was one of. the pivotal ones of my mind and so here. we have an open epidemic over 100,000. people died last year with overdoses. connected sometimes with fentanyl and. others and a tool that can be. tremendously helpful is something that. is not being studied at all in the. United States and we're forcing people. to go to other countries so Maps is um. developing what's called an invest. investigator brochure and what that. means is that any time a pharmaceutical.

company wants to develop a drug through. the FDA you have to summarize the. world's literature in the peer-review. journals and you look at it from a. safety and efficacy. perspective and so we prepare this. brochure for the FDA and it will bring. us to what is the latest science it'll. include the study that iers is doing in. um Spain with Iain for helping people. withdraw from Methadone or the studies.

in Mexico also for uh opiate addiction. um and and then we will propose a new. study and ibigan is is in some ways one. of the most dangerous of the. psychedelics in that there are a small. group of people that can have problems. with the heart and so some people have. died from taking Iain but if you do it. under medical supervision particularly. for people who are weaker physical. States because of drug addiction that. nobody needs to die and you can reverse. it if something does happen so we are.

probably going to propose um and and. we're we're working with um Joe. barsuglia and Martine paleno who have um. developed a a company to try to make MD. uh ibigan into a medicine and they they. ran a lot of the clinics also in Mexico. um so a medicine like a pharmaceutical. medicine that'll be available for. prescription yes that that's the well. there's two tracks again and and this is. that's one track but the other track is.

from a policy point of view so Maps you. know our nonprofit We have a policy and. advocacy team so if ever there was a. drug that we could make a strong case. that should be removed from schedule one. schedule one is a drug high potential. for abuse no accepted medical use it's. the worst drugs according to our. scheduling system um you know if we make. MDMA into a medicine what's going to. happen is that the we'll have what's. called icated scheduling and that means. is that our particular product in this.

particular capsule for PTSD would move. out of schedule one potentially schedule. three or schedule four but MDMA itself. would still stay in schedule. one um so getting MDMA out of schedule. one so that it's um hopefully you know. more accessible not just for medicine is. part of our goal as well drug policy. reform post- prohibition world but I. began. there's no reason for it to be in. schedule one or schedule two schedule.

two is drugs that have a high potential. for abuse but also have a medical use so. I think we need to have a um two-prong. strategy with Iain one is to try to work. through the FDA to make it into a. medicine but other is to try to make the. case that it never should have been. criminalized in the first place and it's. not a drug of abuse and at a time where. we have so many people dying from opiate. overdoses and so many other people. suffering even if they're not not dying. from this that this is something that um.

a logical rational country would make. this available and we should have. clinics right here in Austin and all. over the country um because we have a. massive problem and and yet it's this. remnant of the drug war which and again. I would say Nixon well John Erman who. was Nixon's domestic policy adviser uh. came out in the late 70s and he said. that the Nixon White House had two main. enemies those were the blacks for civil. rights and the hippies the anti-war and. the what Erman said is we realized that.

if we could criminalize the drugs that. they did yeah we could bust them up we. could arrest their leaders we could bust. up their meetings and then Erman said. did we know we are exaggerating the. risks of those drugs uh of course we did. so I I think we could make a good. scientific and rational case now that. iig never should have been criminalized. and it should be legally available but. by trained therapists in proper. circumstances so that the safety is is. fine um but I think what has happened.

and what we've seen with medical. marijuana leading to marijuana. legalization changing people's attitudes. we see that a lot of the Psychedelic re. research with MDMA and psilocybin has. led to Oregon uh decriminalizing drugs. and making the Oregon cybin initiative. with a sort of state legal program that. they're trying to implement with local. guides. Colorado um in November the last. election legalized the natural plant. medicines so I think with Iain we will.

see a similar kind of a thing that there. will be a lot of um hopefully research. over the next couple years and that will. change people's attitudes and then maybe. we can remove Iain from schedule one and. then the bigger question is the you're. saying like um you know nobody really. looks back and thinks Vietnam is was a. good idea I'm gonna pause you right here. because I have to pee so bad I'm really. sorry just hold on one second be right. back so yeah Vietnam yeah so um nobody.

looks back and thinks Vietnam was a good. idea you said but I think it's going to. be the same way for the drug war yeah. for sure and so I think we will think of. it as a massive tragic experiment that. has been uh exported all over the world. caused enormous violence and I think the. idea of ibigan um removing it's getting. it removed from schedule one could be. really important but I have a little p. joke if I could tell you okay people. will know that you just went out to pee. and come back but but that's what.

brought this to mind so I um actually. was I'm very lucky I had um prostate. cancer and I had it was caught early and. so I but I had prostate surgery and and. now I'm fine but it it affects your um. ability to control your bladder for a. while right all right so I had to wear. and still do these um sort of basic. Depend and pads and all kind you know. but there was time um shortly after the. operation this is very short I was at. Burning Man and we had to you know we. have a village at berning man we do. psychedelic harm reduction there so a.

group of us were in this um sort of. cuddle puddle in this you know I I was. not doing MDMA at the time but other. people were um and it was like 3: in the. morning and we've been there for hours. and we're just like 14 of us or. something just talking and and this one. woman goes out to pee and comes back and. you know other people do that and then. she this woman turned to me and said I. don't understand you you just had this. operation you're supposed to you know. feet more often and. um you know what's up with you is like. you're just sitting here the whole time.

I said I've been peeing the entire. time it doesn't matter so you know. Diapers at the burning man is like a new. fashion trend Jesus. Christ have other people adopted this. people were joking about it this would. be oh my God you started a. trend that seems like it would be. uncomfortable like it would be better to. just go pee somewhere it it it would be. but then you interrupt the conversation. FL and stuff but like I just did maybe I. should do podcast with a diaper on well.

it Wicks it away it's not even that. uncomfortable I I mean. anyway just I just had to do the P joke. I'm sorry yeah no worries so back to um. this idea that in the future we're going. to look at the drug war as being an. overall negative thing and a mistake for. sure I think the biggest thing is going. to be this blanket definition of drugs. you know that there's especially things. when you have things like sils Ian in.

schedule one where it can help people in. so many ways and we're denying that help. and I think one of the keys just like. Rocco was the key to get the Ted yeah I. think that someone's son having a bad. experience with opiates someone in a. great position of power someone who's a. politician or a governor or someone like. that who sees a big turnaround from. someone using or using psilocybin like. that's going to Aid us it it's when.

people see members of their family or. somebody that they care about that's. suffering that gets better that's when. change really happens yeah and I think. it it's sad that it takes that that you. can't sort of look at look at the world. and think you know those might not be me. or my friends but but something new. should change well it's just not having. an understanding of what it actually is. and it's because of that term drugs the. term drugs is almost always associated.

with someone being foolish wasting their. life doing something dumb and the word. hallucinogen too I mean it's a delusion. it's fake it's not real it's like pink. elephants when you're you know on. alcohol or something it's it's not real. and so I think it's very perjorative the. language that we use about it we try to. talk about these things as medicines. instead of drugs and I think that the. way in which we have drugs um have. become scapegoats so you know they.

become the shadow they be they become. the source of all the problems and the. fundamental mistake I would say of the. drug war has been to say that certain. things themselves are good or bad these. are bad drugs and they have to be. illegal these are okay drugs or these. are good drugs of course good drugs have. included tobacco and alcohol but but we. make the thing itself good or bad. and what we miss is that it's about the. relationship that we have with the thing.

and that it's not the the substance it's. the relationship and so by focusing on. the thing then we say oh we got to. reduce the supply we got to you know do. all this kind of um work to make it so. difficult or expensive for people to get. to and then we have to threaten them. that there's a a man named Carl Hart who. is on our yeah I know Dr cart yeah he's. on our he's fantastic he's on our board. of directors. and he's a. neuroscientist um uh and he is um you.

know in New York City and and he's a. drug policy reformer and and one time we. were talking and we were talking about. drugs and I said you know I I think that. the the more dangerous the drug the more. important it is that it be. legal and he he said he'd like to say. that and that he believed that also and. and what I mean by that is that the the. dangerous drugs. are ones which when people get into.

problems with them we need to offer them. help as soon as possible and then we. stigmatize them and drive them away the. more more dangerous drugs also get mixed. with other things so like fentanyl mixed. with um opiates and that's where you. have the overdoses so people don't get. pure drugs they don't get support they. don't get um help they're not treated as. humans they don't get really access to. treatment as much we just punish punish. punish so our goal is to make drug users. particularly these people feel worse off. so that they're an example so nobody.

will want to do it but that's not a. really good example people won't do that. so I think this idea of the more. dangerous the drug the more important it. is that it be legal I think makes a lot. of sense and we need to really offer. treatment on demand and peer support and. and when we think about drug policy too. you know people don't understand as much. lost opportunities you can see things. that have gone wrong but lost. opportunities are like invisible but.

when I think about MDMA having been. criminalized in. 1985 by the DEA on an emergency basis. for bogus re reasons about neurotoxicity. but they use that as a rationale then. the hearings that we had going on with. the DEA administrative law judge they. said that it should stay as a medicine. and um the DEA overruled them and we. sued them twice in the appeals courts. and one and on the third time DEA. lawyers figured out how to satisfy the. courts um to keep it illegal and that's.

why again in ' 86 I started maps to go. through the FDA but that when I think of. the number of suicides that have. happened in both veteran communities and. everywhere since. 1985 hundreds and hundreds of thousands. I think of of lives we should talk about. this while while we're being brought. because there's a common misconception. about MDMA that has been uh proven to be. false and it was that that it makes. holes in your brain well yes yeah um.

Oprah is a big uh person responsible for. that actually um so um there was uh it. started on MTV and went to Oprah this is. around 2001 So what had happened was. that there was a young woman who um who. her mother worked at a drug abuse. treatment center and she had problems. with cocaine she had problems with. marijuana she had problems with ecstasy. other things and so they arranged uh and. this was for this MTV show that that.

this woman would go and do a brain scan. a spec scan which is blood flow in the. brain and then they would reveal the. results to her live on. TV and um this was at this uh drug abuse. Treatment Center that that her her. mother worked at and they they revealed. the results and the results showed these. holes in the brain and it was a. graphically manipulated image so spec. scan and show blood flow through the. brain and there's certain areas that. light up when you have more blood flow.

than others and so they took an. arbitrary cut off any place that had. lower than a certain amount of blood. flow they showed as a. whole and it was just complete. propaganda it was to scare this young. woman to supposedly do it she'd done all. these other drugs and ecstasy anyway so. short time after that Oprah decides that. she's going to do a show and she. contacts me and us cuz we are now you. know Advocates and she she knew about. what we're doing and we're trying to. start MDMA research she she says she she. her team says that uh they want to do.

two shows on ecstasy it's such a big. thing they want to do one on the risks. and one on the benefits I'm like great. sounds great and they say well we're. going to do the one on the risks first. and they they brought this woman who had. all these holes in the brain supposedly. to be um on the show if you had all the. holes in the brain that they showed you. wouldn't be walking and talking he would. be it was just big holes in her brain so. nobody seemed to put it together here. this woman she seems fine but this is. her damaged brain and we told Oprah's.

team don't show this this is fake this. is not real and um and they did it. anyway and they had one woman who was um. a 24y old woman that was a raver but she. had um positive experiences about MDMA. so they said okay she would be the one. that would sort of um say something. positive about MDMA and and then Oprah. said to her um do you know what you. might be doing to your brain with all. these holes in the brain um we'd like to. offer you a brain scan and if your brain.

scan looked like. hers um would you I think it was Lyn. Smith was her name that that had the. holes in the brain um would you stop. using if your brain looked like that and. and she said well I'd be willing to do a. brain scan but the very next day she. contacted Maps she contacted us and said. that um should she do this brain scan. and I said you definitely should do it. but do it with different people don't. don't do it with the people that they're. but definitely do this brain scan and. and then you'll be on the show again and. you can show what the results are so she.

did the brain scan and um then she wrote. me back and she said well no holes and. uh they've canceled the next show. there's no show on the benefits and. they're not bringing me back and I'm. like they tricked you they did and then. years normal Hollywood producer show it. was just and yeah no show on the. benefits um but then years later over a. decade later when uh Oprah was just a. short time from closing her um her show.

but she had O magazine so she decided. she would do a story on U she would. assign a senior Editor to do a story on. on MDMA and the therapeutic use and it. was it was like Oprah doing atonement I. said would you be willing though to do. another show on your TV show and bring. this woman back who had all these holes. in the brain and let's see what she's. doing now and and she actually did show. some some signs of brain damage and that. she was working for the partnership for. a drug-free.

America and she was as the exhibit of oh. you know MDM is terrible you think they. scared her with the holes in the brain. to the point where she thought that. drugs were ruining her life and she. wanted to save other people I think I. think there was that yeah and I think. that she wanted to get back in the good. graces with her mother that that then. she gets supported and then she gets a. job and this whole thing and so um Oprah. said no no she's not willing to do. another show but this article would go. forward in O magazine and the article. was great and the woman um who was the.

reporter ended up um going for um an. underground MDMA experience which which. I helped arrange and it was very. successful and that's how the article. ends but it's great because it didn't. like make a big deal of oh this is. illegal underground it was just like. here's what happened to to the MDMA um. but it was in some ways propaganda in. the positive way it was like can a. single pill save your life right you. know before it's like this is going to.

like cause holes in your brain now one. pill is all you need a magic pill and. then you're going to be better for. everything ignores the whole point that. it's about the therapy and the context. and the relationship it seems like. unfortunately because of those kind of. television shows and because of up until. podcast and the internet you you had a a. limited sort of ability to fully Express. the pros and the cons and explain the.

Nuance of what these experiences are. about you're you're instead dealing with. this sensationalist perspective where. they're just trying to you know just. trying to highlight whatever the. most wildest aspects of the experience. Pro or con would be so they can get a. lot of people to pay attention to it. it's like it's becomes prostituted yeah. yeah and and I think that like long form. podcast where you can have the whole. story you can get the whole story out. unedited by people that are wanting to.

do it but I will say in terms of. educating people about psychedelics what. we're doing is um a lot of maps is about. public education and so we're hosting. the world's largest conference on. psychedelics ever and it's going to take. place June 19th to the 23rd how many DEA. agents do you think will be in the. audience well I think um some we also. have some police officers who are we. have one Saro Garian is a full-time. police officer in winthrip near uh.

Boston but he's also a psychotherapist. and he's been through our training. program oh wow in order to give MDMA. therapy to other police officers we we. just had incredible the first. psychedelic conference in Iceland and. Saro came and also did his police chief. game and we met with the Minister of. Justice in Iceland the conference was. phenomenal this the SE conference in in. Iceland and now the Minister of Justice. is interested in having Iceland fund a.

study to give MDMA to uh prisoners to. work with them to see about dealing with. their traumas to reduce recidivism also. with victims of crime to help them deal. with their pts and also with prison. guards and police so we have this um. opportunity in Iceland to potentially. make it a uh example of a Countrywide. approach our our new big vision and I. I'll get back to the Psychedelic science.

conference in just a second but our new. big vision is a world of net trauma by. 2070 so this idea of every year we're. adding to the burden of trauma that. people are experiencing and um and then. at last there are some people that get. better but that there's many people that. get stuck in PTSD and then there's. multigenerational PTSD there's uh what's. called epigenetics which is um you know. biological evolution takes place over. long periods of time but what turns the.

genes on and off is epigenetics above. the genes that can change from your own. experience and there's a woman Rachel. Yehuda at the Bronx VA that has done. studies with Holocaust Survivors and. their children and has identified an. epigenetic mechanism by which this is. passed on from um parent to child and it. could be either from the father or the. mother line it's it's in either of our. genetics so this idea that we are. increasing the burden of trauma by um. there's some estimates that by 2050 that.

if climate change continues as it does. that there will be about a billion. climate refugees from um droughts and. poor crops and you know lack of water. and and all of this so that it feels. like the humanity is going to be. burdened more by trauma we have. incredible problems with mental health. because of both the covid and and and. other things so that what we want to do. is reduce the burden of trauma every. year and get to Net Zero trauma and that.

that's and it will take. multi-generations and the end goal is. the mass mental health and a. spiritualized humanity and and that's. the hope for the for the future and we. will be talking about this at the. Psychedelic science conference so it's. going to be at the Denver Convention. Center we have the entire Denver. Convention Center we already have um yes. the part of to 23 yeah and it's uh we. got over 5,000 people coming we hope. they'll be about 10,000 and we'd also. like to say that we have um a special.

discount code for people who are. listening so it's psychedelic. science.org and if you just put in Rogan. 20 it's a 20% discount all right and so. we we think if people really want to get. involved in this field in any way to be. a therapist or to run clinics or to. manufacture drugs or start new companies. or just um how do you blend this with. meditation anything there's going to be. over 300 speakers we we have um.

incredible uh opportunities for people. to to learn and grow and get involved we. have this uh the Denver Convention. Center we have enormous number of. exhibits from you know probably 150 175. different exhibits and um you know. deepack choer will be there um you know. I mentioned doy Marcus he's coming with. Aaron Rogers the the football player. who's used iasa which is DMT and T Forum. um Michael pollen is going to be there.

Paul stamus is going to be there you. know pretty much the research Community. from around the world doing psychedelics. research and also drug policy reformers. and Denver was the first city that made. mushrooms the lowest enforcement. priority so we're going to have uh. experiential opportunities for people. that will be um federally legal I think. Denver was also the first city that. decriminalized marijuana they've yeah. they have done um it was a long time ago. when marijuana was not state legal yeah.

I think Ann Arbor might have been one of. the really yeah well just because of the. college there oh interesting yeah but. but Denver uh and Colorado is very. Progressive the mayor's going to help us. open the conference we've got the. support of the governor we're actually. doing a a project with the Denver Police. because mushrooms are the lowest. enforcement priority and we want to. educate police on what happens when you. encounter somebody with a difficult trip. you know you could make it worse for. them or you could sort of treat them in. a certain way so that you calm them down.

and you know they don't need to be tased. or you know however so so we're trying. to educate police on how to deescalate. people with difficult psychedelic. experiences so the the conference is. going to be um the theme we we've had. this is our fourth psychedelic science. conference that we call that where we. bring everybody together the first was. in 19 is. 2010 and there we had about 400 people. something like that but that was. enormous for us um and that was in San.

Jose the second one was in 2013 and we. had um at this point about a thousand. people and that was in Oakland and then. in 2017 we had another one and that was. um over 2,000 people and that now is. still the uh world's largest uh. conference we had like 2 200 and now. this one we think is going to be way. more so and the theme of it why we've. waited so many years between 2017 now is. that we are now at uh the doorway to a. new world and and what by mean what I.

mean by that is that we are at an. incredible moment in time where there. have been um probably two and a half or. more billion dollars have gone into. for-profit psychedelic companies they. haven't done so great in the stock. market and bunch of them have gone broke. what is the idea behind these companies. what are they trying to accomplish well. some of them were trying to develop new. drugs a lot of them were trying to set. up networks of clinics um we also have. ketamine which has now been esketamine.

an isomer of ketamine has been approved. for treatment of. depression um you know we ended up um in. uh November 29th 2016 we had it what's. called an end of phase 2 meeting with. the FDA about our research with MDM May. assisted therapy for PTSD so it took us. 30 years from the start of maps 1986 um. 2016 um where we presented our data to. the FDA and they said yes you can go. into phase three phase three is the. final stage of research where you need.

to do um uh safety and efficacy and if. you prove that to the satisfaction of. the FDA you get permission to Market so. some of the new for-profit companies. Compass Pathways as one and youa is a. nonprofit are trying to develop. psilocybin into a method uh a treatment. with therapy um compass for treatment. resistant depression youa for um major. depressive. disorder and so a bunch of these. companies are trying to develop new. drugs and and I think some of them are.

thinking well the classic psychedelics. like uh LSD MDMA siloc well MDMA we. wouldn't say classic but the classic. psychedelics like uh you know I Iain. Mescal and uh psilocybe and LSD DMT all. these are in the public domain and so. there's no patents on them so people. have tried to say well we'll patent the. manufacturing process or will do. something but there's also use patents. but the use of psychedelics for therapy.

in different conditions is also in the. public domain so a lot of these. companies are going to try to um develop. new. molecules that they can patent so that's. sort of a classic Pharma strategy but. sounds horrible well it I think the good. thing is that it'll be legal the bad. thing is it'll be owned by. pharmaceutical. companies well I think they're make it's. true uh it will eventually these new. drugs but but no one should own them. that doesn't make any sense that anybody. should get a patent on I understand that.

we're trying to undo 53 years of you. know what of criminalization but I I. just think that that's a bad strategy. and you're getting in bed with some. demons well there there is that tendency. and then you see what Pharma does to try. to protect the patents and and and on. the other it deserves to be legal well. the the classic ones that are off patent. do I I mean I am supportive of people. patenting original ideas sure and so if. somebody develops some new molecule and.

and you know for us it's going to cost. us hundreds of millions of dollars to. make MDMA into a medicine and so we've. done that the the so we've done that in. an incredible set of ways and I think. this is why um what I explained to you. just a couple weeks ago and and why you. were so gracious to invite me back now. is because I talked about this um. Crossroads that we're at yeah and so. Maps has raised about $145 million in um.

grants uh and most of it donations in. our history and we have um gotten. enormous value in people's donated time. expertise of all sorts and it's hard to. even put a dollar number on that but. it's been tremendous um and so we have. used that to do this MDMA research a. couple years ago um with the rise of all. these for-profit psychedelic companies. it became more difficult for us to raise. donations because people are like why. should I donate now you know you can I.

can just invest over here and you've got. a story now your story is that it looks. like you're moving into phase three. maybe you can get. investors um and so we didn't want to. sell um Equity at the time and so we we. do have as I said about 145 million in. Grants and donations and and a lot of. free donated time but we also have $43. million in what's called um a royalty. share so it is money from investors. they're Mission aligned investors Ryan.

Zur uh organized it as the lead one. called Vine Ventures and they have about. 3.8% of North American revenues once. from MDMA once we make it into a. medicine for about 8 to 10 years. afterwards and if we don't give them a. certain amount of money back then it. continues but they don't have ownership. and they don't control what we do and we. can end up you know prioritizing public. benefit um over profits so we we also. have around $20 million in a um in a.

loan that's um potentially convertible. into Equity if we don't repay the loan. and we've got a couple years there but. we have reached this spot where we have. the nonprofit Maps which has about uh 35. people is the 100% owner of the maps. public benefit Corp which is about 135. people something like that and so we. have this situation we we also tried to. do something new with Pharma so.

that and something new with capitalism. so that capitalism when you have. for-profit companies you're supposed to. maximize profits and if minority. shareholders don't like the fact that. the management isn't maximizing profits. they can try to throw them out and so. that that produces a prioritization of. profits over people profits over um. social benefit and so capitalism has. been modified in a way with the public.

benefit Corporation so that's a new. corporate structure maybe 20 years old. but but relatively new and there's. thousands you know not hundreds of. thousands not tens of thousands I don't. think but there's thousands of these. public benefit corporations and what you. do is you can maximize public benefit. over profit so that you cannot be sued. by minor majority by by minority. shareholders to try to force out the. executives because you're not maximizing. profits because your goal is public. benefit over profit so we want to create.

a new model for how Pharma drugs can be. distributed so we have this remarkable. moment where we have the nonprofit is. 100% owner of a for-profit but public. benefit pharmaceutical company but we. need to raise additional Capital we are. now at a place where we recently. announced that our second phase 3 study. was uh successful and was confirmatory. our first phase 3 study was incredibly.

successful um and to give you a sense of. how successful um and we published this. in nature. medicine the FDA looks at statistical. significance so there's efficacy and. safety so efficacy is determined by. basically statistical. significance and you have to have 0.05. which means one in 20 chance that it's. random that it's not from what you think. it was you know that your intervention. your experiment said yes it's.

statistically significant that means. it's one in 20 or lower chance that it's. you're finding is random and you have to. have two of those and the um and so if. you have one in 20 and then you multiply. them another one in 20 it's one in 400. chance that that these two independent. studies have produced results that are. random and then the FDA will approve it. our first study was one in 10,000 chance.

that it was random it was just. incredible now how do you do that how do. you get such great statistical. significance you get it because you have. um a a big difference between the two. groups and you also have not that much. variability so what it means is the. people that got. MDMA pretty much of them got major. benefits and the people that got the. therapy without MDMA so I should say the. people got therapy with MDMA did great.

pretty not very much variability it. doesn't work for everybody but we had. 88% responders we had 67% no longer had. a diagnosis of PTSD these are severe. PTSD patients that um at PTSD an average. of 14 years oneir over 20 years and then. we had. um just uh another 21% had uh. what's called clinically significant. response and uh they still have PTSD but.

over time they might get better if they. could have had a force session they. might get better so and we had a great. safety record we had nobody attemp we. had actually nobody in the MDMA Therapy. Group tried to kill themselves tried to. hurt themselves we enroll people that. have previously attempted suicide we did. have one woman tried to kill herself. twice during the study but she was in. the placebo group she got therapy. without MDMA we had another woman it was. so difficult for her to confront her. trauma that she checked herself into a. hospital to not self harm she also was.

in the placebo group so the results were. phenomenal and uh science the journal. science one of the most important uh. journals in in the world in science at. the end of every year they publish a. list of what they think are the top 10. scientific breakthroughs of the year and. they chose our study in nature medicine. as one of the world's top breakthroughs. of the year was it was phenomenal and we. had um special.

um appreciation for what science was. willing to do because you talked about. beforehand about uh holes in the brain. so 20 years before science had published. this article that they never should have. published um and this was by researchers. at John Hopkins that had been funded by. the national on drug abuse and what they. claimed is that MDMA could hurt dopamine. this was a study in primates and they. said oh my God MDMA can hurt dopamine. and it could cause Parkinson's and that.

this could be a real danger now this was. around 2002 2003 and they had um since. 1985 it had all been about MDM. supposedly hurting serotonin and causing. holes in the brains from serotonin and. we had done studies in primates before. with these same researchers where none. of the primates died from overdoses. there didn't seem to be any problems. with dopamine. um but the The Narrative of the the. anti-drug people in the National of drug.

abuse about serotonin neurotoxicity was. sort of diminishing uh people weren't. showing problems and so what they were. saying was well you're reducing your. cognitive reserves and so you don't show. problems now but when you get older. you're going to show problems so the. time bomb theory do they have evidence. of this no and not only did they not. have evidence but a lot of older people. took MDMA and they were fine so if they. had had this you know decline of aging. age related decline they it does drop. your dopamine levels right or serotonin.

levels it it in a short term yes yes yes. yes yes yes it it does but it doesn't do. this kind of damage to the brain in that. way they recover within a day or so and. there's mitigation techniques like with. 5htp we don't use those but people do. use those so why don't you use those. because we don't think it's necessary so. what we we we first proposed we in 1992. is when we got permission for the first. study with MDMA. and people had been using 5htp after. MDMA but there's there is a benefit to.

using 5htp it boosts your serotonin. levels quicker correct yes yes it it can. be helpful but what we do in a therapy. context so the FDA we said should we try. administering with 5htp or something. like that they said um they said don't. do that you know let's do everything. under observation and see what the. problems are and if you need if you see. problems then we should figure out how. to mitigate the problems so the key. thing that we do is to say to people. that when you take MDMA it's a two-day. experience it's not a one day experience.

and the second day is for rest and for. reflection and have no obligations no. appointments nothing that you need to do. just take the second day and and rest. and that's where people would take 5hdp. if they wanted to but we don't see this. uh dip in mood any more in the MDMA. group than in the group that gets. therapy without it so this people talk. about suicide Tuesdays or you know this. this the depression after you've used up. serotonin um but I think the rest part.

is part of the therapeutic process and. it so we have never felt the need to. recommend that people do 5hcp I don't. think it's a bad idea to do I mean if. people wanted to do it it can be helpful. but we just feel that the rest is just. as helpful and it's more therapeutic so. what what but they're not mutually. exclusive no we could do both yeah for. sure for sure but but we don't in the. research we we haven't found the need so. but what science had um yeah so so this.

idea of serotonergic neurotoxicity and. holes in your brain and Time Bomb. theories it just wasn't working anymore. it wasn't persuading people wasn't. persuading the FDA so naida funded this. study uh un McAn and George reri and it. was in. primates and um as it turned out a bunch. of the primates died of overdoses and um. and they published paper in science that. said that MDMA could cause Parkinson's. that could hurt. dopamine.

and the editor of uh the science is. published by the American Association. for the advancement of science the the. president of that was alen lashner he. used to be the head of naida and he. fanned the fears of MDMA and he he did. that in Congress and it was great. because then he got more money for naida. got him over a billion dollars a year so. he published a press release U about. this article and said that taking MDMA. was like playing Russian roulette with. your. brain right so it didn't seem right this.

article we we knew that we'd given MDMA. D primates for research and um nobody. died of overdoses none of them did so we. we wrote a letter to the editor and um. we questioned it they they didn't give. it the way people take it which is. orally as well and so we how they give. it they gave it subcutaneously so they. injected it subq and so we ended up um. forcing them in their minds to try to. replicate their results can I pause you. for a second how did these primates die.

of overdoses um they would just have. like heart attacks or or something like. that um is that common with humans no no. so so here's how this continues so okay. so they they also you get more. neurotoxicity in crowds for some reason. when animals or people are uh together. than when they're alone and when the. temperature is higher there's more. neurotoxicity so they tried giving um. more MDMA to uh primates with higher. temperatures more crowded in the cages.

and they couldn't replicate their. results and they but they kept defending. it in public and finally a year later. they said that um and this was super. embarrassing they they had to retract. the study because they were puzzled why. they couldn't replicate the results and. so they took some of the tissue from one. of the animals that had um overdosed and. died and they discovered that they had. mistakenly given meth methamphetamine. instead of. MDMA and that the bottles they said that. were labeled MDMA actually had.

methamphetamine in them and so these. they they they got these bottles from a. group called Research Triangle Institute. in North Carolina they provide all the. schedule one drugs for all the night of. funded researchers so the Hopkins people. blamed the people at the Research. Triangle Institute and said they switch. the labels on the bottles the the people. from Research Triangle Institute said. they never do that they always test it. they have quality control they think. that it got switched something or other. at the site at Johns Hopkins the.

National Institute of drug abuse didn't. want to find out what was going on or if. they did want to find out they never. made it public so it's never clear how. did this happen but they had to retract. this data and retract their papers and. it was um the high Watermark of um. neurotoxicity fears and at the same time. Peter Jennings was doing a documentary. called ecstasy rising and this was the. first documentary that really had a. bunch of people talking about the. benefits and he also talked about this.

um problem with the methamphetamine the. the other thing about methamphetamine. versus MDMA is that you know for people. that know about Aderall and other things. 10 15 milligrams is a hefty dose but. MDMA it's 125 milligrams is a full dose. and so they were giving the wrong drug. in MDMA. quantities and that's why they knocked. off a bunch of these prod. and that's why they they claimed that. they saw this dope murgic problems and. so ever since then and that's been 20.

years ago now do you think do you have. speculation that was sabotage somebody. sabotaged it somewhere I don't think it. was from research drawing do you think. it's accidental sabotage or do you think. it I don't I think that the researchers. um wouldn't have done that intentionally. but maybe somebody in the lab did it or. something but I do think that the. researchers were fundamentally. irresponsible to put the paper out. because they should have known um that.

there was Prior primate studies where. dopamine hadn't been damaged so the the. other thing is in the late um 18 19 uh. 80s early 1990s uh we were trying to. talk about yeah MDMA serotonergic. neurotoxicity and so I went to George. ricardi the same researcher that did the. primate study with the methamphetamine. instead and I said I want to buy you. some monkeys you've just done studies on. rats can you study this in in monkeys uh. in primates and he he said he did and.

again there was no evidence of um. overdoses or dopamine also this was. before brain scans came in and so the. most sophisticated way that was. available at the time to look at what's. going on in the brain was to do spinal. taps and to take spinal fluid and look. for metabolites of neurotransmitters in. the brain and I felt like I could not. um recommend uh try to get other people. to volunteer for it unless I did it. myself so I was I was the first one to.

get a spinal tap Jesus and it was really. hard but the the imagery that I did and. again this is kind of this idea about. storytelling so the story I was telling. myself as this big needle going into my. spine to try to draw out the spinal. fluid was that if a woman could give. birth to a child I could at least give. birth to my spinal fluid it was like way. less painful much shorter. but I could do it and so the imagery was. I'm giving my birth to my spinal fluid. to these researchers so that we can.

understand what's really going on with. MDMA and hopefully make it into a. medicine and it didn't hurt. terribly and there was spinal headaches. that you get afterwards so a couple days. afterwards I had headaches but I felt. like I could um enroll other people I. can encourage other people to do it so I. was going to new College in Sarasota. Florida um which by the way DeSantis is. is now trying to kill um and has fired. the president it's the most um it's the. Honors College of the State of Florida.

and um it is a why is he trying to kill. it um it's just uh what he's doing to. public education I mean this was the. symbol of the most what do you call the. most woke School in bunch of transgender. people a bunch of open-minded people um. it started as a private school in the. 60s merged with the state when they ran. out of money so he fired the president. he stacked the Board of Trustees and. he's Mak wants to turn turn it into a. conservative school he's doing it for. political purposes to try to show that. he's anti-woke and that he is um wanting.

to he what's going on in public. education in Florida is is really. frightening. um George sorus is actually interested. in trying to help out at new College um. because George sorus actually even. though he's the boogeyman he for a lot. of the rightwing he he funded the. central European University in uh. Hungary and as after communism and it. was killed also by Orban in Hungary so. you go after public education as a way.

to try to control uh intellectual. narratives but but anyway I was at new. College's school and we were. experimenting with MDMA and so I got. about 35 people or so to get spinal taps. not just from new college but from from. all over and um the spinal taps showed. that there was no problems with dopamine. it was there was a little bit less. serotonin metabolites but also lower. serotonin has been linked to risk-taking. behavior and so taking drugs is. risk-taking behavior particularly when.

they're heavily criminalized so it was. not evidence that it was serotonin. neurotoxicity from MDMA but it cleared. dopamine so the these researchers should. never have um ignored their prior data. they were just so willing to um demonize. uh MDMA to get more grant money so so. they were addicted to grant money yeah. that seems to be uh the case with a lot. of scientific studies isn't it yeah it's. it's a real problem when you're not just. you know you're not just trying to find.

out what the truth is you're trying to. find data that would reinforce whatever. idea that you went into it looking to. find in the first place and throw out. information that yeah is contrary to. that yeah I'll say the the best example. of that for me was that um I've done. long-term follow-up studies to the work. that Timothy ly did at Harvard um so the. Good Friday experiment was in 1962 The. Good Friday experiment yeah the Good. Friday experiment is incredible so this. was um aldus Huxley had had written the.

dors of perception and was talking about. masculine and spiritual experiences and. a lot of people who were doing work with. LSD with alcoholics and others in the. 50s would have these spiritual. experiences as part and um Bill W who. started Alcoholics Anonymous actually. had an LSD experience in the 50s and. what he actually his first place getting. sober was bellad. um so Bill W the founder of AA had a. psychedelic experience that got him. sober in the first place yeah and then.

later uh about a decade or more later he. experimented with LSD and he felt that. this um LSD could be tremendous for what. was his initial psychedelic experience. that led him to get sober well it it's. belladon what is belladon it's kind of. um when you think about what drugs did. the witches use in the Middle Ages it's. a disorienting. psychedelic I think poine. oh that stuff is crazy that's that. Devil's Dust [ __ ] yes exactly exactly.

and you that that's the stuff that's. supposed to turn people into essentially. into zombies that are like very easy to. suggest yeah way Davis has done studies. um about the voodoo Cults in Haiti yeah. and what drugs they use and they kind of. can tranquilize people they bear them. alive they think that they're they blow. dust in their nose yeah Scopolamine is. also the stuff they use to stop people. from getting motion sickness on boats. which is really crazy like drama mean. patches well that that illustrates the. exact point though that it's not the.

thing itself it's how it's used it's the. relationship you have with it it's the. dose it's the route of administration. it's how you do it so so he had SC poine. helped him get off of alcohol yeah you. have this terrifying experience things. come to the surface but it yeah and and. and it did help him and then when he did. LSD in the 50s and I met the one of the. women uh that gave him the LSD Sydney. con was the the man um and what he felt.

was that um we talk about in in AA about. hitting bottom you know that that. people's lives when they hit bottom then. they're finally ready to make a CH uh. change but that means that they've. destroyed their families they've. destroyed their jobs their health and so. what what Bill W felt is that you could. give LSD to people and they could. psychologically hit bottom yes while. they still had some intact. relationships that would then help. support them as they tried to move to so.

priety and he felt that this could have. a major role to play in AA but um why. didn't he ever incorporate it um it. became too controversial and and and so. he ended up uh working with cruder tools. working with cruder tools and but there. was a lot of work with LSD in in the 60s. for alcohol use disorder and it it. proved to be quite effective. when supported so that these substances. can be extremely helpful again used in a.

careful careful way so the Good Friday. experiment was an attempt to understand. do um can psychedelics produce a. mystical experience and the Walter Panky. was a doctor and a uh Minister and he. was getting a PhD at Harvard and he was. uh interested in in looking at the. spiritual potential of MDMA and he he I. mean of of of cybin and he worked with.

Timothy ly and they did this experiment. and they did it with a Reverend Howard. Thurman so Howard Thurman was an. African-American uh minister at Boston. University's Marsh chapel and Howard. Thurman is um someone who deserves a lot. more attention because he studied with. Gandhi he studied nonviolence with. Gandhi and then he became Martin Luther. King's mentor and Martin Luther King got. a PhD at Boston University and Howard. Thurman was his mentor so Howard Thurman.

really helped the American Civil Rights. Movement adopt the strategy of. non-violence that he got from from. Gandhi and that's what we see you know. in all of the uh stories about you know. people being beaten by police trying to. protest different things and they try to. react so nonviolent resistance was a key. the American Civil Rights movement and. Howard Thurman was very interested in. this connection between the mystical.

experience and political action so the. mystical experience you move beyond your. sense of I'm um you know this. biographical person you know I'm My. Tribe I'm my country I'm my religion. that there's something deeper that we're. part of humanity we're part of I mean if. you look at the quantum level right. we're all energy we're all connected in. these different ways so when you feel. that that and um Rita Marley has this. incredible uh album Bob Marley's wife. and it's called um when you who feels it.

knows it you know who feels it knows it. so you can say this and I can say this. and people could hear it but if you have. an experience that you feel it then you. know it and so Howard Thurman was very. interested in this idea of uh what are. the political implications of this. mystical. experience and so Walter Panky was. willing to um to work with him um and. Howard Thurman said I will let you come. to my church Marsh Chapel on Good Friday.

and you can do an experiment with 20. Divinity students from Andover Newton. Theological Seminary and you can um give. them all a pill and half will be. psilocybin half will be uh Placebo which. was nicotinic acid which gives you a. flush um and so this was done and it was. considered to be the. most eloquently designed experiment ever. done on whether psychedelics could.

produce a mystical experience and it. showed that um nine out of the 20 people. had a mystical experience eight out of. the nine had the. psilocybin and then they did some. longterm like six-month follow-ups and. they said it impacted their lives in. certain ways and then Walter Panky um. died in a terrible scuba diving accident. in 1971 one um and so a lot was ended wi. with him and then the the 1970 and the.

backlash against psychedelics so now. it's in the 80s and I'm um undergraduate. I dropped out of college for 10 years. from uh 1972 to 1982 and and you have to. do a thesis a senior thesis at new. college and I wanted to do psychedelic. research but psychedelic research was. wiped out at the time nothing to do you. couldn't get permission to give. psychedelics but I thought if I go back. to the Good Friday experiment that I. could do a long-term follow-up that is. just asking people what happened to them.

when they uh took the sil cybin and how. do they think about it now and I. wouldn't have to get permission from the. FDA or the DEA I would just have to get. permission from what's called an. Institutional review board which our. College had just about the safety of the. subjects but I'm just asking them. questions so that was the only way that. I could do psychedelic research and it. was incredible because in the mystical. literature the real test of the validity. of a mystical spiritual experience is. called the fruits test means what are.

the consequences in your life what are. the fruits of the experience does it. make you more peaceful more loving does. it make you more uh reduce your fear of. death does it give you more spiritual. sense of how we're connected so that's. the fruits test and so what I you know. because people can describe all sorts of. things but what impact does it have in. your life so I figured I can do a. long-term followup and that's the fruits. test and Walter Panky would have done it. if he hadn't um died and but nobody else.

was doing it so I ended up. um trying to figure out how to do it I. went to Andover Newton uh school and I. said um i' nobody knew who the subjects. were in the study so I went to the. school and I went to which is outside of. Boston and I said um I'd like to put a. note in the alumni newsletter would you. be willing to do that um and they said. no they refused they what I said this is. the most important experiment ever in. the history of mystical experiences and. psychedelics with your students and I. just want to ask them questions would.

you let me put something in the alumni. newsletter and they said no this is now. 19 uh 886 and so I was like God I was. blocked nobody Tim ly nobody had the. list so I went to their library and I. thought maybe I'll see some books or. something on this experiment nothing the. thesis that was done at Harvard nothing. they had zero. about this experiment it's like cultural. Amnesia but I'm wandering through the. library and I noticed that they've got. some books of the alumni and one of them.

had the list of all the students that. were in school in 1962 and their names. and their addresses I was like wow this. is Bonanza so I photocopied it all and. then there was like 350 of them and I. wrote a postcard to every single one of. them and that led me to three of them. wrote back saying that they were in the. study and over years and years it took. me uh but I identified 19 out of the 20. and I was able to go see them in person. and interview them and this really.

validated my theory of change so my my. my theory of change also which which. which you've shared a bit is that if you. have these spiritual connections these. spiritual experiences that will make you. think about the world in a different way. think about others in a different way. yeah and and so what people said is that. their mystical experiences really did. reduce their fear of death made them. feel more connected to other people from. different faiths made them more. ecumenical in a way deepened their faith. in their own religion it didn't turn. them away but they saw it in a more.

symbolic rather than L literal way um. but what I discovered so it it validated. the the results but what I discovered is. um a big mistake that that one of the. persons in the study had heard the. Howard Thurman by the way um the audio. of that service is up on our website if. you go Good Friday experiment you can. listen to Howard Thurman's uh Good. Friday experiment speech you know his. his sermons and stuff from 1962 one of.

them was you have to tell people there's. a man on the cross you must tell people. there's a man on the cross and one of. the students under the influence of. silicide and said yeah I got to tell. people there's a man on the cross I'm. going to do it right now and I'm going. to run out of this room and I'm going to. run down the road and I should tell the. president but the president is in DC so. I'll tell the president of the. university and he goes running down the. street and um Walter Panky and and a. Houston Smith go you know running after. him it's a busy street on Commonwealth F. in front of the Mars chapel and they.

finally catch him and um he doesn't want. to go inside he's outside he's tripping. he's like got this Mission and they give. him a shot of thorine to tranquilize him. to bring him back inside and they never. mentioned that at all wow completely not. mentioned it so I had this decision when. I'm going to write this follow-up study. you know I said I can't hide that so I I. did report that and what what was going. on I think was in the culture was this.

uh exaggeration of the risks and. suppression and minimization of the. benefits and I think what Timothy ly did. in response was the opposite yes he's. like okay I can exaggerate the benefits. one dose you're you're enlightened you. know more than everybody else and then. he would minimize the risks yeah that's. not good it's terrible you can't do that. you know I think um I I had um I I don't. know if you ever saw the podcast I had. Alex baronson on who wrote a book called. tell your children and it's all about.

the dangers of marijuana and I had him. on with Dr Mike Hart who is a a cannabis. doctor in Canada and you know one of the. things that he was talking about was. people for whatever reason when they. have a high dose of of marijuana there's. something that happens to some of them. where they they have like a. schizophrenic break and I have heard of. it I know people who have had this and. the pro marijuana people do not want to.

acknowledge this danger they want to. paint marijuana as a completely. innocuous substance that no one should. worry about and I think it's way too. powerful for that and I think too many. people are psychologically or. physiologically vulnerable we're not all. the same and if someone is particularly. vulnerable whether it's towards. schizophrenia or so whatever mental. illness it might be there's something. about these experiences that seem to.

send them over the edge and that's. something that we should be concerned. with we should talk about it we have to. because if if we become what we uh the. opposite of what we are worried about or. or or actually we don't become the. opposite we become like them we just do. the same so I think it's the same thing. it's like we become the polar op we just. we just justify things that are we find. more morally reprehensible we find. ethically terrible and we justify it. because we're doing it for the right. side we can't do it's completely wrong.

so what we have anything right you know. people talk to me a lot about where. might the backlash come from you know. for now we're we're very close we we. think now with two successful phase. three studies the second one was. confirmatory so it's you know millions. of chances that it was uh random and not. real you know it's incredible results um. so we think by um potentially June of. 2024 we should have um FDA we have a. good chance of having FDA approval I.

have a question for you are are there. people I've heard of people that are uh. for whatever reason resistant to DMT. experiences like it doesn't work with. them I I think there there are some and. it could be um biological we don't no it. could be that they're just so okay it. could be that they're so resisting The. Experience so St actually talked about. work with obsessive compulsives that he. did with LSD and he had some that he. could give over a thousand micrograms of.

LSD enormous amounts of LSD and they. could still play chess wow so there's a. way where you can control your mind so. much that that even psychedelic won't. won't happen wow yeah so so I I think I. wonder but but there are people like. Jamie has a thing about Edibles like. Jamie can kind of eat like a like a foot. long sub from. Subway of of I'm not kidding he can put. down extraordinary amounts of Edibles.

and he feels nothing 1350 is the highest. I've. gone do you know how crazy that is it's. amaz 1350 dude 200 will put you on the. moon I was at a concert watching a. concert having conversations well what. about when you smoke is it different no. sure smoking works just fine smoking. works but edible stuff it is a different. drug when it's passed through your. digestive system system and um that's. right I we' talked about an adium 11. hydroxy metabol right yeah yeah so I'll. just tell a funny story about my wife.

Lynn which was that her mother had uh. pain Maran her mother had pain and um. Lynn thought that um and I suggested. actually maybe small amounts of uh THC. or CBD might help her mom and so ly was. like okay I will um try it first before. I give it to my mom so she took a a I. brought home um uh edible some. chocolates and she took one square which. was 10 Mig of U cannabis she took it at. her mom's Assisted Living place about an.

hour about a mile away from where we. live and um and then she's ready to. drive home and so she's driving home to. and she thinks nothing much's going to. happen so the road starts tilting she. starts having a terrible time she barely. gets to our house and and then she's got. this Panic reaction because she is. thinking that um she might forget to. breathe she might she might die because. she's going to forget breathe oh boy and. um our daughter lla and our daughter. Ellie were were there with us and we. were like trying to cheer her up and. like you're not going to die and but.

we're also like massaging her feet and. laughing at her but it was a horrible. experience yeah so some people have. Edibles and and they just have horrible. experiences and and other people I just. get edibles and nothing happens yeah it. depends on so many factors right I think. there's biological factors there's your. current level of anxiety but to just. claim that it's innocuous I think is. just so foolish yeah I think if there is. a backlash where I you know the the. backlash in the' 60s was political you. know against psychedelics and hippies. and stuff the backlash that happened in.

the late 70s early 80s when it looked. like marijuana might be um legalized to. his parents against the you know right. well it's also all that Nancy Reagan. just say no [ __ ] that was that was when. we have to really for a person that's. alive today to understand that the. influence that media had on you when you. were a child it's almost impossible for. you to wrap your head around but I want. you to try the kids of today you kids. with your internet and your Google and.

being able to watch whatever you want to. watch on television at any given time. when I was a kid when you saw something. on television everybody talked about it. those just say no commercials this is. your brain on drugs any questions and. it's someone frying egg well it led to. like a lot of funny standup comedy bits. like Bill Hicks had a funny bit about it. but it also led to a lot of people. thinking literally you're going to fry. your brain with drugs yeah and it worked. it worked on us it worked on a lot of. [ __ ] people like the the influence.

that they had by being able to do those. kind of things and put them on. television back then it it's it's it. sets things back like everything takes. like a whole generation for people to. get over like if we go back to the early. days of can cannabis prohibition when. you watch the re for madness films and. you know and you find out about this. whole Harry anslinger William Randolph. Hurst connection and that it had a lot. to do with it actually had a lot of D.

Commodities like hemp versus nylon. there's so many aspects to it that you. would have never guessed but the point. is that that propaganda from the 1930s. turned something that had thousands of. years of human use demonized it created. a new name for it used a a Mexican slang. name for tobacco and they turned it into. this new drug and they labeled it saying. that it was Mexicans and black black men.

were raping white women on this drug and. then they have the guy smoking pot. jumping out of window and it's reer mtis. is hilarious it is I I have a poster of. for so long it does I have a poster from. RE Reaper m m think about that time. right so that's the 30s right and then. what you got to get into the 60s before. marijuana's popular again like literally. it has to burn through a generation of. propaganda their children have to learn. from their parents' mistakes and realize. that their parents are dumb asses and.

then they experiment with things and. they they have to learn from other. people that are doing it and then it. goes to a point where it's at now where. now because of the internet these. conversations are just everywhere. there's so many Maps videos the work. that you guys have done is so. extraordinary and so important guys like. Dr Carl Hart all these different people. Michael Polland and his. amazing book all these people that are. talking about these experiences now. there's just this flood of information. so you can't demonize it the same way.

but it's very important that the people. that are on this side don't [ __ ]. anybody it's so important and and all of. these people will be at psychedelic. science too and I think that the Trap. that we have to avoid falling into is. and where the backlash will come from. now if there is it's if we exaggerate. the results and minimize the risks yes. yeah we have to be very careful that we. don't do that it should be honest across. the board and I think if it is there. will be an understanding by most people.

that you should be able to make educated. informed decisions as to what to do with. your Consciousness because there might. be a significant benefit available if. you do that yes now how will you educate. your own kids I know they're little but. how will you educate your own kids about. drugs I tell them this I talk to my. children the same way I would talk to a. regular grown person I mean I treat them. with much more gentleness and kindness. and as much love as I have but I try to. talk to them about things I'm like there.

are drugs that are very very dangerous. they'll they can kill you and one of the. reasons why they can kill you is because. they're illegal and I explain the whole. thing I explain that if drugs were legal. then you would know what the dose is you. would know who's making it and it would. it would be taxed but these drugs are. made in these other countries where no. one's watching and so they're bringing. across drugs and to make these drugs. cheaper for them and make it more potent. they mix in Fentanyl and I was.

explaining Fentanyl and I was explaining. that feny is not just in cocaine but. it's also in fake ambient somebody might. give you a sleeping pill fake Xanax so. we talk about these things that's so. good ecstasy has gotten uh people have. gotten contaminated Ecstasy with. fentanyl and people have died from that. in the standup comedy community was a. group of guys who uh died um from fental. lace cocaine I believe that's that was. what it was proven to be was it Jamie. that sounds I think pretty sure it's. it's a it's a real problem it's a real.

problem so I I talk to them about it and. I explained that we have uh we have. stuck our heels in the sand we've dug. our heels in on something that is. objectively not just ineffective but. very detrimental to society as a whole. and that's having drugs be illegal. because if you have drugs illegal you're. not going to stop people from taking. drugs what you're going to do is funnel. all the cash to criminals exactly it's. what happened in prohibition the 1900s.

in America and it's what's happening. right now in Mexico well and after. prohibition ended of alcohol shortly. after that marijuana became Pro we had. the police apparatus they needed. something to prohibit and they said oh. we'll we'll go after you know Mexicans. and blacks in cannabis and and no. marijuana exactly it was literally right. after prohibition and ended then the. marijuana prohibition began it was very. very closely connected and such a. coordinated effort but back then if you.

had the newspaper if you were you know. William Randolph Hurst and you had the. newspaper you could write whatever the. [ __ ] you wanted like you could just make. up the news well we've got a lot of that. going on right now we do have a little. bit of that going on right now but at. least now you have enough people that. can point that out and say that's not. true but back then you had nothing yeah. but people may not be willing to um go. to multiple sources a lot of times. people only. right and it's also when you find out. that like someone that you respect like. a newspaper you respect is bullshitting. like which does happen you go God damn.

it why are you guys bullshitting you. can't [ __ ] I love you I trust you. you're the journalist you're the real. journalist we need them we need the New. York Times we need these people but they. have to be real journalists you can't be. an ideological soldier who like hide. certain information protect what you. think is right okay so that that gets me. to the uh prison experiment that was the. other thing that Timothy ly did so what. he said was that um yeah people talk. about their mystical experiences and.

then maybe they can say how that's. changed their lives but that's sort of. subjective but if we can give psilocybin. to prisoners and then help them have. these pro-social experiences work. through their traumas and then when. they're released then we can reduce. their recidivism they will now be ready. to make a new re-entry into society and. that that's an objective thing so the. next thing that Timothy L decided to do. was the conquered prison experiment and. this was tremendous experiment and they. they gave about 35 people psilocybin.

experiences um inside prison uh Timothy. lry and others the the researchers would. go into the prison and half the. researchers would also take psilocybin. whoa and with the prisoners in prison. and this was a way to try to help them. to to reduce the experiment or. experiment kind of idea and and the. conquered Prison Experiment was. considered to be one of the most. successful psychedelic experiences and. studies of the 60s that ever there was.

and. unfortunately all the records were lost. of who was in The Experiment so after I. did the Good Friday experiment followup. after 25 years and found 19 out of 20 I. went to Tim and others and like do you. have any idea who was in the conquered. Prison Experiment they had no records. whatsoever so I didn't think I could do. anything 199 1 I published a a paper in. the Journal of transpersonal Psychology. about the Good Friday experiment and. there was an uh editorial in the Boston.

Globe about it oped and I got a call. afterwards from a fellow Michael forcier. and he said that he worked for the. Department of Corrections and they had a. special room where they collect the. records of their famous and interesting. prisoners like they had Malcolm X and. his records and others um and they had. the records of all whole the people from. the conquered prison experiment and he. said would you like to do a follow-up. study I said I would love to do it and. um it took us a whole year to get. permission we had to go all the way up.

to the governor it was governor weld at. the time and the paper that came back. was hilarious that said uh that we got. permission cuz somebody had scribbled on. it no. psilocybin like we were not planning to. give s we were just going to look at our. prison records but they were like no. cocy for sure is that funny it was just. imagine if they had done soyan they. would have never written that they would. not have never it's only people that. haven't don't they must be curious well. I have had a lot of good conversations. with DEA people and police because what.

they're taught about drugs if they. believe it nobody would ever do these. drugs right and so why is why is. everyone doing if they're not awesome if. they're horrible so I try to explain to. them and I could oh I did it when I was. legal but but you try to do it in a way. where you don't encourage them to react. negative way um so so I did this. followup to the good to the conquered. Prison Experiment all right so while I'm. doing this experiment uh and tracking. people's Criminal Justice System records. in the decades this was like a 34e. followup um it started becoming clear to.

me that the experiment wasn't a success. that but it was and I was the one that. was like wanting to do the follow-up to. bring attention to it because I thought. it was a success now was it Here's a. thought um were these people still in. jail or they free some of them were in J. some some of them were in jail some of. them were free but what I discovered was. a trick that L had done to try to make. the results look good oh and and then it.

was like uh and the trick is simple is. that just think about this when you're. in jail um the the first day that you. get off jail you probably have nobody. goes back to jail you know but if you. look two years out right more people. will have had a chance to commit crimes. to go back to jail so the longer you're. out of jail the more likely you are to. go back so the group group of people. that had been uh in this. experiment had been um on average they'd. been out of jail 10 months when they.

looked at their recidivism some had been. longer some some had been shorter and. the the researchers Ralph mner and Tim. ly they had done a base rate study of. all the people that got released from. the conquered prison experiment in the. years before they did it and they. published their results so they compared. it it was a little bit historical but so. things don't always say the same exactly. in history but was the best that they. could do to compare it but what I. discovered is that they had published. the results of this base rate study in a. really obscure Journal a British.

criminology journal and um you know I. had to go down in the dusty libraries of. Harvard Law Library the widen library to. even find this journal and when I read. it what I learned is that they had taken. data from people that were out of prison. for 30 months and compared it to people. that were out of prison for 10. months hm complete scientific fraud and. and so then then I'm like [ __ ] how is it. that all the people that hate. psychedelics didn't discover this and.

everybody has thought including me that. this is a great experiment and. tremendously successful and now what do. I do um and I'd like I've got to report. what I find yeah so I ended up so what. what were the uh what were they. pretending they had done they were. pretending to have reduced recidivism. then they were also pretending that by a. significant amount by by a substantial. amount yeah um the the far and they were. just monkeying with the numbers yeah. well the farther away it was in time.

from the original experiment the better. the results were reported over and over. in time so what they'd also said is that. um some of the people that had gone back. to prison who'd gotten psilocybin didn't. go back to prison for new crimes they. gone back because they had violated. their probation for something C can I. Here's a thought on this what the like. the recidivism stuff is definitely fraud. but um. asking for someone to not go back to a.

life of crime after they've been. incarcerated is a tremendous ask yes and. I think that if you're measuring the. success of a psychedelic experience for. the normal person if a normal person. doesn't have a pattern in their life of. committing crime and being. incarcerated the the problem with. becoming sort of instit tionalized and. you you you become accustomed to certain. patterns of behavior to ask someone to. just stop doing that forever is a it's a.

huge life shift like even if they had a. positive net benefit of their. psychedelic experience asking them to. not commit crime if you know a guy who's. been in jail a couple of times and you. know he grows grows up in a terrible. neighborhood and there's crime all. around him his parents are committing. crime it's normal to just do crime and. if you have a psychedelic experience. getting you to stop doing any crime ever. again is a big ask it's a big ask yes.

recidivism rate is really high for a lot. of criminals right yeah and and lry and. um Ralph mner they realized that that. what they needed to do was to provide. support and after care after people got. out of prison and just as they realized. that they started creating support. groups that's where they got kicked out. of Harvard and so those support groups. fell apart and so what kind of an. experiment we would need to do today. would be to both see this was an.

overvaluation of the Psychedelic. experience by itself and it didn't. really understand the social support. that you need and all the cultural. determinant of people that go back to. prison and so the experiment that needs. to be done is helping people have these. psychelic experiences move through their. traumas kind of have these uh powerful. uh positive experiences of connection. but then the support that you need. afterwards just the same way in our. research you do the therapy with MDMA um.

and then you do integrative work without. the MDMA afterwards and that that that's. what makes it last yeah and so what. we're going to try to do in Iceland will. be with the Minister of Justice it will. be the proper kind of experiment and so. it would be both work inside prison and. then support afterwards and so I think. there is this tendency yeah to overvalue. the Psychedelic EXP experience and. separated it out from the therapy and. from the after care and from the. integration and I think that so I felt. like I had to report and debunk this.

experiment that was considered to be the. one of the best examples of the power of. psychedelic therapy I'm glad you did. it's very powerful and that's absolutely. the correct thing to do yeah it I feel. like having one psychedelic experience. for someone who's gone through a. lifetime of crime is currently. incarcerated or just got out of jail is. like someone having a terrible staff. infection and giving them a small amount. of antibiotics and and going oh it.

didn't work like you don't have the. right dose you don't have the right. duration and you don't have the right. care I think someone who's in that bad. like there's people that have pulled. themselves out of being incarcerated and. become exemplary human beings right. Bernard Hopkins one of my favorite. boxers of all time it's a great example. of that learn how to box in jail got out. and became like a just all-time great. and was super disciplined never drank. never smoked just ate clean but to get. someone out of that life and have them.

reincorporate into society it's a task I. think it's a task and I think it's a. task that could be accomplished with the. right tools and I think the right tools. are psychedelics along with counseling. if they could do I mean they do that. with drug counseling right where someone. has an addiction they'll put them in a. rehab they they have this rehab place. they stay at for three months like they. do that to people all the time why can't. they do that the other way like. rehabilitate them back into society not.

just well and not just that but when. people get out of the military yes right. you could do all the boot camp to get. into the military and then when you're. done you're just like okay you're done. especially guys that have seen violent. combat yeah I think that there should be. U well that that raises another issue. which is that we're now in about um. starting research in about eight. different VA. with different studies with MDMA. actually one thing I did last night um. which was tremendous and um you what I.

really like to do because I got here. early so I could um be here on time. today is that um I love to smoke pot and. go wandering around cities after. midnight whoa because well you you're a. risk taker Rick tolin well you kind of. get a feel for the city a little bit. different at night than during the day. yeah for sure okay so what I did is I um. went from the hotel I just wandered and. I wandered to the capital and I just. walked around the capital is a beautiful. building but nobody was there nobody was.

there at all you know occasionally I. would pass people who were homeless or. you know people talking about crack or. something to to get there but they were. talking about. crack no I heard somebody across the. street like yelling about crack and so. but but I get to this um the the Texas. uh you know the state house and I'm just. like it's it's gorgeous it's beautiful I. noticed that there was a lot of. scaffolding on it but I thought. here in the middle of the not not quite.

the middle of the night but but well. after midnight um in a place where so. much conservative policies are coming. out of it the Texas legislature is. currently considering a rider to. allocate 2.1. million to a study of MDMA at the. Houston VA with veterans with. PTSD and two years before they have. allocated similar am money amount of. money for a siloc cybin study in.

veterans with. PTSD at the Houston VA and Lynette ail. who's going to be the Principal. investigator has been she hasn't started. the cment study quite yet because she. got pregnant and had a child and now. she's getting back to it but it's going. to Baylor College of Medicine and the. Houston VA so I just had this feeling of. the legislator is under repair with all. of the scaffolding but in this place out. of which so much conservative policies. are coming so is support for. psychedelics and it just gave me such a.

warm feeling and again it's like not. demonizing everything's all bad so but. it but it was really a nice way to feel. the um the Grandeur of the building and. and to think that yeah we we need to do. a lot of renovation of our policies and. um and and this um work that's being. done yeah Governor Perry is is helping. with it um well that's great someone. people of his his generation in. particular get invested like people like. nent you know it's but it seems like. we're on the right end of this cycle.

because of the internet I don't think. you're ever going to experience this is. your brain on drugs moment again that's. not going to work anymore I don't think. so I think you're right so because of. the information that's available because. of the work that you guys have done. because of all the various videos and. podcasts and books and there's so much. work documentaries there's so much work. that's been got done that people kind of. understand There's real great benefits I. I think the uh Michael pollin's book how. to change your mind and then the Netflix. series the four series of that has. changed lots of people's minds well he's.

such a respected journalist you know. from doing the omnivores dilemma was. amazing and then to so to get him. invested in something like this is very. very uh powerful very influential yeah. yeah so again like what what you're. saying is so important you got. everything has to be completely honest. all of it yeah it and it doesn't work. for everybody we don't have to say it. works for everybody and we we shouldn't. get in the Trap do even mean it doesn't. work it just didn't work that way and. and also there can be risk because it's. always a benefit risk balance we don't.

have to pretend there's no risks so the. moment that we're at is just this. incredible moment so now we have two. successful phase three studies we have a. nonprofit that is 100% owner of a public. benefit Corp we do have um some money. from investors but our challenge now. over the next couple months is where do. we get the money and um to get us to two. different points the first point is from. here to FDA approval we think that's. going to be potentially if all goes well.

uh something like June 2024 but then. there's going to be about another year. and a half or or a bit more potentially. till we reach what's called. sustainability and so sustainability is. when income from the sale of. MDMA um equals what all of our costs are. and then we start a massing resources. for more research for more studies for. work that Maps is doing because Maps. would still be the so what we have this.

chance to um either keep Maps as the. sole owner of the public benefit Corp or. we may have to turn it into a publicly. traded company if we don't find the. philanthropy that we need and we need to. take investors and these investors want. us to turn this into yeah was that was a. wild conversation that we had the other. night at the bar yes and and one of the. things that you said struck me and I. thought about a lot is you said these. are sacred substances and when when you. get them mixed with Commerce you have to.

be really careful it's very dangerous. you're you're mixing something that. could potentially change the way the. whole world looks at life and you're. mixing them with something that doesn't. give a [ __ ] about anything other than. profit and that's just what the nature. of that thing is like that's the nature. of Corporations and capitalisms. capitalism they they constantly want to. make more money every quarter every year.

more money more money and they're trying. to figure out a way to benefit their. stockholders that's their primary. concern you unless you got some well it. would have to be private it would still. would still have to be some genius. benefactor who's U some Elon must type. character who comes along and decides to. fund it which could happen and would. save you from that but you just went. public My worry is that you're getting. involved in you're getting involved in. Commerce with psychedelics and that just.

doesn't. feel that doesn't feel like the way to. do it it feels like it feels like all. that stuff should be completely legal. and we should kind of wait until you. guys and the way your work kicks in and. and all the influence and the people. that vote get an understanding of what. the real landscape is yeah now um. there's a fellow that Jeff George is on. our um he's the chair of the board of. the maps public benefit Corp and he used.

to be the CEO of Sandos which is one of. the world's largest generics but also. Sandos was where Albert Hoffman invented. LSD and where they first Albert also. first synthesized psilocybin right so. Jeff has um got incredible. pharmaceutical experience and he's been. trying to help um educate me about um. that that we have a tremendous. opportunity in a way if we do need to. take investors and do need to become a. publicly traded company that we could be.

an example for the entire pharmaceutical. industry that we could be an example of. a public benefit psychedelic. pharmaceutical company with majority. control hopefully we could uh remain a. majority control owner of a nonprofit. and so I I appreciate your reaction to. this CU he said there may be several. different ways in which there could be. benefits from going public I got to pee. again I hate to say it but I want to. hear these benefits though so when I. come back we'll we'll go over these. benefits the diaper idea you no no no no.

diapers man I'm just drinking a lot of. water sorry sorry folks we're back okay. so um where were we we you the benefits. of taking your company Maps public yeah. so and I'd appreciate your reaction my. reaction my initial knee-jerk reaction. in the bar and even now is like uh. idealistic you know like I'm looking at. it like man don't mix don't mix love. with money man you know so I recognize. my own bias in it but I just get nervous.

when you're talking about a but then. there Pro probably is some upside and. one of the upsides is maybe that would. accelerate the path to. legalization well um I I my preference. is philanthropy and so I'd like to. appeal to anybody who's listening if. they want to donate uh substantial. amounts of money how much do you need. well we currently developing a budget in. the range of uh $75 million to FDA. approval and then after FDA.

approval there is going to be another. raise that we're going to need to make. to get to this sustainability point but. once we have FDA approval there's many. options that we will have that were not. so much open to us now so for example um. we've been approached by people uh big. company um in Korea that was interested. in buying the rights for Asia Ford so. we're trying to narrow them down to. Korea but we could uh with FDA approval.

it'll be pretty clear that other. countries will give reciprocity that we. can make it so we might be able to sell. rights to different countries so that we. can keep the nonprofit the 100% owner of. the public benefit Corp we would have. more options to do royalty shares. because then there are people that um. the mission related people that have. with through Ryan Sur that have given us. this $43 million um they're gambling. that we may get it approved and then the. royalties come only if we get it. approved post approval it we'll be able.

to get a much better deal our valuation. will be higher we could get loans. potentially on this income form uh that. that looks like what's the. downside of going public okay so um well. the downside for me is right right now. the potential downside is right now um. with map as the 100% own the benefit. Corp Net Zero trauma by. 2070 is the new vision and what that. means is we've talked about working with.

prisoners um but I want to work with. refugees I want to work with um people. in Rwanda that' have been traumatized by. genocide I want to go all over the world. and try to um globalize MDMA assisted. therapy in a way where we go where the. trauma is not necessarily where the. money is and that we put this global. perspective of Net Zero trauma by 2070. Mass mental health spiritualized. Humanity you know we're destroying the. environment we've got incredible. proliferation of uh nuclear weapons uh.

you know we humans survive is not a sure. thing and so I think if we're more. stable if we're not seeing the world. through all these filters of pain and. past traumas so I think one of the. upsides you could say of having the. public benefit Corp be wholly owned by. the nonprofit is that we can focus on. public benefit and that that's the thing. I think that when you start having um. publicly traded companies you could say. there there's no one it's not pure. public benefit or pure returns to.

investors but it's somewhere in along. the line we along this line some ethical. capitalism balance yeah and so I think. that with all the money from. philanthropist it will be towards public. benefit we're not going to be trying to. prioritize giving returns to the returns. to the donors are in a better world. right that's the return the the and. that's I'd say the advantage the the the. the risk depending on where the capital.

comes from and what kind of conditions. they put on it is that we now start now. maybe need to think about more returns. to investors and where does the where do. we go uh for the money rather than where. do we go to reduce the trauma so but I. think we can have a good example of um a. public benefit Corp hopefully at least. majority owned by the nonprofit that can. do a enormous amount of good in the. world but I just think that we could do. an enormous amount of good plus if it's.

funded by philanthropy so I think the. worst loss of public benefit for us. would be to run out of money and to. never make it into a medicine at all so. if we have to take money from investors. um I think we should do that and and so. we're exploring different options you. know is it um bi Tech investors is it. all the hippies are definitely going to. push back right they they will but um. and and I I I hope that some of these.

wealthy hippies decide to donate to make. it into a you know philanthropy so but I. do think that it's Our obligation to. make it into a medicine one way or. another and if we do take it from um. investors to do it in structured in such. a way where um it's it's still within a. public benefit structure and so we will. try try to develop uh metrics to. evaluate public benefit we will try to. ensure governance controls so that it. does stay more focused on public benefit.

but you know it would be a lot easier if. we could do this u in a way through. philanthropy and also we are the leading. there's hundreds of psychedelic. for-profit companies and a few. nonprofits but we're the only one that. has completed phase three so we have two. successful phase three studies I'd like. us to be a model for the entire field. and again what you're saying about um. telling the truth or. underestimating you know risks or. overestimate benefit I would like us to. be a model and that that was my dream.

from when I first started maps in 1986. because I um assumed erroneously that um. MDMA would immediately become generic if. it was made into a medicine because I. knew it was invented by MC in 1912 and. so the molecules in the public domain. and I also knew that the use of MDMA for. p PSD was um going on before I even knew. about MDMA you know I I worked with the. first person with PTSD I talked about it. in my TED Talk in 1984 is the first.

person that I actually saw suicidal with. MDMA no other options and she was able. to get better and and Marcel is her name. and now she's one of our lead therapists. and trains other therapists but um but I. thought it would be coming generic I I. did my PhD I got it in 2001 um focused. on um how to FDA regulation of. psychedelics in marijuana I took a class. at Harvard Law School uh around '96 from. the the leading pharmaceutical expert.

Peter Barton Hut he wrote The Textbook. Food and Drug law and uh he later became. on my dissertation committee he's with. cumington Burling he's in his 80s he. represents as pro bono but throughout my. entire education I still thought that. MDMA would immediately become generic it. wasn't until. 2014 that um I went to a u a party in a. way and ran into a patent lawyer so this. was U my my wife was head of what's. called foundation for Belmont education.

which is a local group that raises money. to supplement the money that goes into. public education and so she was pres and. she had to give a little talk and it's. mostly a lot of food and silent auction. and stuff so I'd worked all that day and. I thought okay great you know I'm just. going to get super high I'm going to get. the munchies I'm going to go eat all. this food I don't have to talk to. anybody my my wife can do the speech you. know and I'm done working so I'm like so. this moment where I was done working and. just going to munch on all this food is.

where I ran into a patent attorney who I. had known he was from locally and he had. previously gotten patents for bromo LSD. which is a non- psychedelic version of. LSD and bromo LSD what's the benefit of. it it for cluster headaches so people. that have cluster headaches had. discovered that LSD or psilocybin breaks. the cycle of cluster headaches cluster. headaches are suicide headaches they're. way worse than migraines and and there's. not many good treatments for it they had.

approached me around 2004 2005 saying we. don't want to be criminals anymore what. can we do and I started doing work with. them at Harvard and they did medical. records of all these people and they. they verified that that they had. terrible cluster headaches then they. didn't and in intervening was LSD or. psilocybin so so it's just one trip to. break a cycle or is it well they do it. three times uh every three days so you. know over nine days you you'll do um the. the siloc cybin or the LSD um I.

mentioned about this project in J Jordan. that um Michael Marcus uh help fund it. was because uh a young Jordanian came by. to uh mlan hospital at Harvard to learn. about the cluster headache study and it. turned out that um his cycle began and. they they weren't giving so C LSD at the. time they were just studying it and so. his cluster headaches started and they. referred him to me and so I thought okay. I'll I'll give him.

LSD um but I thought he's he's he's. never done um LSD before and I said we. have no idea why LSD works we have no. idea why soy works and I thought he's. kind scared of these drugs you have to. give it in a fairly you know it's not. micro doing all right so I thought maybe. give him MDMA too at the same time the. MDMA will calm him down and maybe. whatever LSD does it won't be blocked by. the MDMA I I didn't know but I thought. let's let's give it a try and it worked.

it worked and it was incredible so. anyway he goes back to Jordan and um. after a bunch of months he said you know. my life has changed I feel much better. it was terrible burden I've met this. girl and we' fallen in love we're going. to get married and I would like you to. come to the patolo ceremony turned out. her father was the mayor of Aman. and I'm like great now we can do. research in [ __ ] in Jordan we can finally. get into an Arab country to do Arab. Israeli stuff so that's what I talk. talked to Michael Marcus about and.

that's why he supported that project but. any case the Harvard people said oh. Timothy ly was here and this is like. we're not going to let you do. psychedelic research unless it's the. last. resort so Torsten passy uh John hurn we. the two that were doing this uh torson. was at Hanover University in Germany and. they said all right let's do br LSD we. don't know why it works but bromo LSD is. a non psyched version of um LSD and. we'll give it to a bunch of people and. it it won't work and then we'll come.

back to Harvard and we say we got to. start giving LSD or silim to people so I. say great idea great plan so I keep. waiting for the results and waiting for. the results and waiting for the results. and they're not telling me they're not. telling me they're I'm like what's is. going on here finally they told me that. um they thought I would be terribly. disappointed but bromo LSD worked. and not only did it work but it worked. better than LSD or pyin so they were. hiding it from you they were hiding from. me cuz they thought I would be really. disappointed and I'm like it's not.

psychedelic therapy I'm about the. patients if this helps the patient. because LSD you give in micrograms. psilocybin you give in milligrams but. bromo LSD because it's not psychedelic. you can give it in grams you can give so. whatever it does floods the brain so it. works better than LSD or Sol because. you're just we still don't know why. anyway so Harvard then gets a patent on. bromo LSD for cluster headaches with the. University of Hanover and uh a fellow. Carrie tble is now trying to move this.

through the uh FDA so the patent. attorney for Harvard was also part of. this you know local so he was there at. this party and so I I go to him again. keep in mind him superstone just. munching on all his food and I'm like oh. it's very interesting how's this going. with the patent for bromo LSD and and I. said too bad there's nothing like that. for. MDMA and he said well there is something. it's called Data exclusivity I'm like. data exclusivity what's that he said.

well it turns out in 1984 Ronald Reagan. signed a bill to provide incentives to. develop drugs that are off- patent and. what it means is that if you are the. first to produce the evidence to make a. drug into a medicine even if there's no. patents you have exclusive use of your. data for 5 years now it's different from. a patent in that another person another. company can develop their own data so it. doesn't block anybody like a patent. would block anybody then if you do.

studies in pediatric population so the. FDA has right now forbidden us to do. studies in people that are younger than. 18 we can only work with 18 or older. we've had a mother with a daughter who'd. been terribly raped and was mute and. wanted to be in the study and the FDA. said no but what they did say is that if. you suceed in adults if we do give you. permission to work in adults you must do. studies in adolescence and you get an. extra six months data exclusivity so. that's five and a half years then it.

blocks the FDA from reviewing a generic. applicant's file until the 5 and a half. years is over and it takes FDA an. average of two years to review a file so. there's this period of data. exclusivity that we would have a. monopoly potentially on the sale of MDM. a for. PTSD um Europe the European Med. medicines agency after Ronald Reagan. signed this in ' 84 they said yeah this. is a good idea we should provide. incentives for drugs that are off patent.

so it's 10 years data exclusivity in. Europe so everything changed I thought. how is it that I took the class from the. expert I read the textbook my whole. dissertation is on it and I never even. heard about this and the reason is. Pharma doesn't use it they only want. drugs that they have patented and we've. had a bunch of uh potential biotech. investors tell us that they don't really. want to invest because they don't like. the fact that data exclusivity isn't as. long as a patent all right so but what.

what that that changed everything for me. now that's why we created the maps. public benefit Corp because now it's not. going to go necessarily go generic we. can then have this period of time where. we can make an income and then what I. can tell and how much is left on that. time well it doesn't start until the FDA. says yes oh so June 2024 is when it. starts now I'll say that the DEA then. has to um reschedule and that will take. uh maximum of 90 days DEA by law must.

reschedule within 90 days after FDA has. said yes so there will be this 5 and a. half years and then it could be year and. a half two years or six month or who. knows how long it'll take the FDA to. actually review this um file but I think. that uh we have this period of time. where we have this opportunity for. income so that's the story to the donors. has been and the story to the investors. and is is and Don well donors is if you. help us make M MDMA into medicine we're. not going to be coming to you for money.

all the time because we will be able to. make money to use to more research MDMA. is not just good for PTSD it's. tremendous for coupl therapy it's. tremendous we think it would be. tremendous for eating disorders for. postpartum depression of course we have. to do all the research to see if this is. really the case has to be data driven. but we have this opportunity to become. self- sustaining and so that's the. situation that we were able to tell both. donors and then also investors that we. can return money during this period of.

data exclusivity do you feel confident. about this do you feel like this is an. inevitability that they will you. automatically get it yes you don't have. to apply for it you automatically get. data exclusivity no no that's not what I. mean I mean them deciding to like how. how much okay um no I don't think it's. inevitable but I do think it's extremely. likely and one of the things that okay. so um we've done this very patiently. step by step and so there's a big.

methodological problem from a scientific. perspective you have to do double blind. studies and that's required you need. randomized Placebo control double blind. studies that's the gold standard for. phase three studies. so um well Jamie you may get these. Edibles and nothing happens you know but. most people people that get MDMA or LSD. know they've got it or siloc iin so the. the double blind doesn't work too well. right in these kind of studies so the. FDA offers what they call special.

protocol assessment and that's a process. where you can opt in once you've been. approved to go to phase three and you. negotiate every aspect of the design. with the FDA and all the other material. and other scientific studies all the. other data that they want to see in the. review package. and the goal is to have these um special. protocol assessment negotiations to end. up with what's called an approval. letter an agreement yeah a formal uh.

agreement that they agree with this. special protocol assessment um often you. don't get that and big pharmer doesn't. use this a lot of times anyway because. it delays things by quite a long time. but they often don't need to do it. because they're not doing something. novel they're not doing something. controversial they're not doing. something that's a challenge with the. double blind so we decided to elect to. do this so we went through this special. protocol assessment and it took us eight. months and in the end we did get an. agreement letter and we brought they the.

FDA brought in the old wise man of the. FDA fellow named Bob Temple who was at. the FDA since 1972 their office of. science po policy and what we said to. them is um it was it was kind of funny. we we said to them that um there's a. quote from an early um president of. Harvard which says say never forget. there's always a Harvard Man on the. wrong side of every. issue all right so I opened the meeting. and I said this is the quote and the.

person on the wrong side is me because. my dissertation was I thought I solved. the double blind problem and it would be. therapy with lowd dose MDMA versus. therapy with full dose MDMA and people. would be confused about what they got. and our challenge would be to find the. dose of the Low Dose that was high. enough to cause confusion but not so. high that it caused so much benefits. that we'd never be able to see the. difference between the two groups so. over the course of um from 2000 to 2016.

when we did all these phase two studies. we tested inactive Placebo 25 milligram. 30 milligram 40 milligram 50 milligram. 75 100 125 and. 150 and what we discovered which was. again a little bit difficult for me to. discover is my dissertation was wrong I. was not right um I I was partially right. is's a better way to say it that it did. cause confusion between the lowd do and. the high do but it made people. uncomfortable so the low doses it's like.

turbulence when you take off of an. airplane at the very beginning there's. more turbulence and then when you get. above the clouds or so your cruise. control it's. smooth so early small doses of MDMA they. have an activating effect without as. much of the fear reduction so what we. showed is that that people who got these. um low doses they all still got better. but they didn't get as much benefit as. if we gave them an inactive Placebo if.

they got therapy with nothing they did. better than if they got therapy with low. dose and we discovered that the 75. milligram dose group was actually. surprisingly helpful and beneficial so. that it's a narrow range between when. you're in the turbulent Zone to when. you're getting benefits when you're. cruising so there's no iCal way to do. that so we went to the FDA at this final. meeting for this Pro special protocol. assessment and we said um I'm wrong uh. we'll do whatever you want you tell us.

what you want us to do but we can give. you blinding but you're going to make it. easier for us to tell a difference. between the two groups because the. people with the lowd do don't do as well. as the people that got nothing and the. real challenge is to show if we can do. this with therapy why bother at a drug. so we said to the FDA we suggest you. make it hard for us to find a difference. by letting us use uh inactive Placebo. and what they said is that often times. what Bob Temple helped them come to this.

conclusion is that often times the. double blind doesn't actually work. anyway like there's sexual side effects. from ssris there there's so you can. learn from side effect profiles that. people talk to you if you're giving it. you're doing an experiment and you're. collecting Adverse Events they they'll. tell you what the problems are and. you'll say oh this is probably this or. that so they said there's too main ways. to reduce experiment or bias the first. is um random assignment that means. everybody is similarly motivated they. come from the same kind of background.

they all fit the inclusion criteria and. then they're all willing to do whatever. and then have get your treatment have. get the control the other is a robust. system of independent Raiders to. evaluate the outcomes we don't want the. therapist to say how well people did. because they they will most likely over. 90% of the time they tell who got MDMA. who didn't there still is some confusion. not sometimes people are not responding. very much maybe like Jamie they have. something biological where MDMA doesn't. do that much or they're you know.

obsessive you know they're controlling. or something so but most of the time um. people are able to um tell the. difference um. and what the but the the question is. also that the side effect profile will. be better if it's no MDMA as well so. that when I said that we had one woman. tried to kill herself twice and she had. the placebo it's from the therapy if she. had gotten lowd do MDMA maybe it's this. lotos MDMA that made her uncomfortable. but now we know if you have severe PTSD.

and you go into therapy and you're. starting to uncover things that's a risk. because you know you're having to you've. got some balance it's difficult it's not. healthy but but when stuff comes to the. surface it can make you really Disturbed. yeah so so Bob Temple came and said we. will approve this idea of therapy with. inactive Placebo so we got an agreement. letter from the special protocol. assessment so we have a situation now to.

to just your question How likely is it. that it's going to be approved is that. the FDA is legally bound to approve our. drug if we get statistical significance. which we've got in Spades tremendous if. we have an excellent safety record which. we do and if we've gathered the data in. a proper way so that the FDA considers. it valid we've recently had a big. inspection by FDA and health Canada. we've had loads of people from the. public benefit Corp who did a phenomenal. job to try to respond to all the.

questions from the FDA and we we um we. got some findings but nothing serious so. we know that they're going to consider. the data to be valid so I do think that. the chances are they cannot say we don't. like your design because the the double. line didn't work because we have prior. agreement to use that design there's no. safety ISS that they can point to um so. of significance I mean there there's. cute effects from MDMA um most of it was. like sweating or muscle tension or these.

are transitory side effects from the MD. all more from the MDMA than Placebo so I. think the the other big factor that that. makes me um somewhat confident is that. we have bipartisan support it's not a. political issue of so much in America is. politicized is part of the culture wars. but we have managed somehow well. consciously intentionally and a lot of. it is working with veterans and others. is to take the psychedelics out of the. culture wars so I I don't think there's.

going to be political efforts uh uh to. um there's actually um I I won't mention. uh names or anything but but but there. is a uh member of Congress that has PTSD. that's a republican that wants to go. through if possible um a study in the. open a legal study than to publicize the. effects of of MDMA therapy for. PTSD so it's amazing so so I I think. that we're in good shape I think the how.

it gets regulated is going to be more of. an issue than if it gets approved you. know what what kind of controls are put. on it if that if it does get approved. and if MDMA does get rescheduled how. quickly do you think that would open up. the door for other similar substances. well the other similar substances the. next one in the line is cybin and. they're going to have to generate their. own data so we we just sort of have so. we we got um breakthrough therapy. designation um in um 2017 right after we.

completed the uh special protocol. assessment we got breakthrough therapy. and we were the first one for uh any. kind of psychedelics and then um a year. or two later uh the cocy and Compass got. breakthrough therapy for psilocybin for. treatment resistant depression and then. EA got breakthrough therapy for pilos. cbon for major depressive disorder so I. think that the sil cybin people are. going to be the next through the FDA. system they're just starting their phase. three studies so I think by 2026 maybe.

Sil cybin will be there so we're we're. opening the door politically but they. have to come through with their own data. right and then there will be other. people trying to work with 5 Meo to make. that into a medicine potentially for. depression or something Iain hopefully. we can get so I I think that we are the. leading example that's why I would like. to ideally do it through anthropy to a. but but I think that um we've got a real. hope that this will be approved well. listen you just shot out the bat signal. so we'll see uh who responds in terms of.

philanthropy or what hardcore. capitalists think that you could save. the world with this idea and make a. shitload of money yeah and and all those. that want to go to the Psychedelic. science conference Rogan 20 to get a. discount but I I'd like to read you. these potential benefits okay just to. see what you think about that okay okay. so the first potential benefit um is um. that it permits us to scale to reach our. full. potential now what that is assuming I'll.

say is that that there's more access to. Capital from going public than from uh. philanthropy now that's not necessarily. true now I'm writing this by the way my. notes are on Allen Institute so it's. Paul Allen who was the co-founder of. Microsoft and he started this Allen. Institute for brain science and he's. donated almost a billion dollars to that. wow so if we can you know Paul Allen. this was one of my frustrations years. ago Paul Allen donated $25 million to.

the seti project the search for. extraterrestrial intelligence and I'm. like where's the Intelligence on Earth. why don't you give us 25 million to find. if there's Intelligence on Earth let us. do psychedelic research but you're. wanting to see if you know well how. about both both exactly both are. interesting yeah yeah so okay so I think. that this idea of scale to reach full. potential do you know what this list. sounds like you have kids I I have three. kids yeah you know how when you uh your. kids say they want to do something and. you don't think it's a good idea we'll.

say well why don't you give me three. examples of why I should let you spend. the night at Cindy's. house and then they go because I think. it'll teach me. responsibility and even though sometimes. I stay up late with her this time I. definitely won't that's what sounds like. that's funny well before I get to the. rest of this just about kids so um I've. got Eden is uh 28 Lyla is 26 and Ellie. is 24 um but when they were their Bar.

Mitzvah Age and and this is where I'm. curious more how you're going to teach. your kids um is that I remember my bar. mitzvah as being a massive. disappointment why because you thought. it was going to you feel different when. you went through it I thought I would be. different I thought grown man yeah I did. I I'd skip adolescence I'd have. spiritual experience God would come I. would be I'm the oldest of four kids in. my family so I had no older siblings to. tell me it doesn't happen that way I. just thought oh okay great but in the.

bed in the morning after my bar mitah. I'm like God didn't come I'm still the. same still the same I like the party. well yeah it's a rights of Passage. ritual right yeah so when each of our. kids turned 13 my wife and I we went to. them and we said if you want marijuana. or MDMA we think you're old enough for. it and we'll do we'll do it together and. you can have it and all of them were. like freaked out like um no no we're not. ready do drugs with my parents no way it.

turned to be the best anti-drug strategy. we could have thought of that's. hilarious just give it to them and. they're like oh no now they they did. come around later I will say but so I'm. curious for your own kids are you going. to say don't do it when you're teenagers. but do it later or how do you think that. well we're going to have that. conversation um I think my my concern is. I don't want them doing things with. people they don't know the source of. those things that's very important um my.

concern is uh they understand that. there's a giant difference between. different types of substances and these. are the kind of conversations I think. everybody has to have with their kids. like there's a giant difference between. smoking pot with your friends and doing. coke it's a giant difference and it's. not just the cocaine it's the potential. for it being laced yeah it's very high. that's the most dangerous thing about. drugs today I mean really is the what we. said earlier is the illegality yeah.

that's the most dangerous thing so what. are the other fake reasons on this list. uh well well Dad okay well the other is. that there'll be um more support for. maps I mean if the benefit Corp does. well and Maps is the owner then we'll. sure they make money yeah now I think. that these two arguments for me at least. um are true whether you have access to. Capital it's all about access to Capital. and if we get it from philanthropy or we. get it from investors it's the same.

reason right okay the third one I think. is um somewhat of different it supports. the organizational maturation and. development so we may have uh investors. that have lots of Pharma experience or. something and then they may um help us. to um improve our operations or some. ways right now I think that you know. potentially that these external Capital. Partners. um you know we we can get expertise in.

other ways but but that's there's. something there to it and then the. discipline of the marketplace now but. that's the discipline of the marketplace. is about efficiency and maximizing. profits it's not necessarily about. maximizing public benefit but that's. something then the um the other part is. attract outside cap outside Talent so. this argument is this idea that um we. don't have um stock bonuses for anybody. you know without you know Equity.

Investments then we we can't use that as. incentives. for the staff so this idea is that if. you do go public and then people get. invested in uh vest or vested in St yeah. on the on the other hand um I think that. there are other ways to reward people. through royalty share doesn't have to be. Equity the same way that we could do. royalty share to investors we should be. able to do that to staff but this I. think is the the best argument of what.

might be a. um benefit of of going public um and. it's that we could build a new public. benefit driven Mission LE model for the. entire pharmaceutical industry because. most of the pharmaceutical industry is. for profit it's not run by nonprofits. most it is not public benefit but we. could become a model for. the um the the industry so I I think. there's a lot of Merit in in that idea. well I hope you figure out the right.

path I do not know what it will be but. uh I appreciate everything you guys do. yeah and and I think that once we talked. about it a couple weeks ago why you. invited me back is because um you wanted. to help us highlight this Crossroads. that we're at yeah it's fascinating cuz. cuz uh I'm look I'm not the person to. ask about business my again my reaction. to it was completely knee-jerk like. don't mix business and psychedelics. those things are sacred and I think they.

should just be legal I mean that should. be the primary concern that we're being. deprived of these experiences because of. ignorance and because of propaganda and. because of whatever [ __ ] weird. political reasons yeah now I have I have. another um I got to wrap this up oh okay. I've got another quick thing to get your. reaction to okay okay um this is uh so. Dan Gman is also on the board of the. maps public benefit Corp uhuh and he is. the um from the Boston Consulting Group. so he he's got uh he's a managing.

director senior partner and he does a. lot of biofirm stuff so I I'll just say. that there's various theories of pricing. so once we make it into medicine whether. we do it even in a public. benefit um with only philanthropy or if. it's investors we still are going to be. look at how do we price the drug and. there's it's it's interesting ways to do. this so the first is called price to. value and when you consider the value. it's cons and this is how insurance.

companies will often look at it it's. both to the individual the family and. the society so there are substantial. values in taking people who have uh. severe monitors severe PTSD they can't. work things like that so but you also. want it to be available for everyone. yeah okay then right very much and so. the the the key challenge that we have. is that when when you look at. pharmaceutical ads on TV they'll say oh. if you can't afford the drug you know. we'll give it to you you know we have a. patient assistance program you know and.

apply to us so our situation is. fundamentally different because the. treatment is therapy augmented by the. drug so if we give people MDMA it's not. going to do them any good whatsoever if. they can't afford the therapy right the. therapy will be1. $15,000 so in order for to really have a. an effective patient assistance program. we can't just give people the drug we. also have to give them 10 or 15,000. worth of therapy and the drug was going.

to cost a tiny tiny tiny fraction of. that um so that's a one argument for. making it equitably available the other. I think is the drug legalization we need. to make it available for people outside. of medicine outside of religion at a low. cost and well that way also it doesn't. encourage people to sell it illegally. yeah which is going to be a problem if. it becomes legal if it becomes legal and. you're the only ones manufacturing it. well I don't think it'll be a because. again the difference is that it's not a. take- home medicine so it's only.

administered under direct supervision of. a therapist you know we've heard about. ketamine sometimes is available but. don't you think that just opening up the. door to legality is going to make it. more prevalent it's put more in the. public Zeitgeist it will it will which. will potentially open up the door for. criminal activity right I think so yes I. I think that there'll be more Demand. right once we I really have to end I'm. so I'm really sorry I got to get out of. here I have a heart out today oh okay. could I just say one more minute I'll.

just list these things okay so one is. price to out of pocket which is really. good meaning that you just make it so. that people don't have to pay more. whatever the price is insurance. companies pay but you price to make sure. and that that is um the lower profits. the least then there's price to savings. that's to the payers so you try to make. it so the insurance companies then. there's price to Roi return on. investment so that's where you profit. Maxim in the financial weeds I really I. really do have to wrap this up but I. appreciate you very much thanks for.

coming on here man and thank you for all. that you do to legalize psychedelics. thank you Jo to tell everybody the. website and social media oh okay so the. social. media yeah great and then just again. Rogan 20 for psychedelics and our um. social psychedelics science.org is the. the uh for the the conference in June. yeah maps maps.org and Twitter is maps. and Rick doblin and Instagram is Maps.

news and Rick doblin thank you very much. thank you appreciate you brother bye bye. everybody. [Music]. [Applause]. [Music].