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Carl Hart: Heroin, Cocaine, MDMA, Alcohol & the Role of Drugs in Society | Lex Fridman Podcast #233


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The following is a conversation with Carl Hart, Department Chair and Professor of Psychology
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at Columbia University. He's the author of several books on the topic of drugs,
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including his most recent, called Drug Use for Grown Ups, that challenges us to, quote,
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use empirical evidence to guide public policy even if it makes us uncomfortable.
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His research on drugs, including hard drugs like heroin and cocaine, challenges much of what we
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think we know about drugs and their role in society. His main thesis is that drug addiction
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has less to do with the drugs themselves and more to do with cooccurring psychiatric disorders,
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such as depression and schizophrenia, and socioeconomic factors, such as unemployment,
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underemployment, and resource deprivation within the community. In addition, he believes that we
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should legalize all drugs, so that if people choose to use them, they could do so responsibly
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and openly and get help if needed in a controlled, safe environment. His ideas are controversial,
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but are fundamentally grounded in empirical data and rigorous scientific studies. I don't know if
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his conclusions are right, but they are at least worth thinking about. So I ask that you consider
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these ideas with an open mind, and as always, make sure you exercise your critical thinking skills
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in making decisions about substances you put in your body. You are a free thinking being. The main
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character, if you will, the hero in a story that's being written by you. So at the end of the day,
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you are responsible for the choices you make. So choose wisely. This is the Lex Friedman podcast.
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To support it, please check out our sponsors in the description. And now here's my conversation
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with Carl Hart. I think it is bold and powerful to admit to using in your private life the drugs
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that you study in your research, including heroin and cocaine. So let me ask, what is the experience
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of taking heroin like? What happens to the body? What happens to the mind when you take it?
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Well, you know, I take MDMA, cannabis, and all the rest of these drugs, too. I've tried those
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drugs. The experience in the body and the mind, I don't really know what people want to know in
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that regard. It's like saying, what is the experience of having an orgasm in the body and the mind?
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Or some other sort of event that you really enjoy. So I don't really know what people...
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Is that what poetry is for, for describing these kinds of experiences? I mean, I guess,
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given MDMA, given psilocybin, in the full context of that, maybe it's more useful to say,
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what are the differences in experiences that your mind goes through, like chemically, biologically?
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So it's like keeping it strictly to the sort of the biology of it versus the full environmental
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human experience. Yeah. See, this is a mistake that people make all the time. They try to
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act as if biology is the only determinant of drug effects. And that's just not how it works.
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You need the environment. You need the cage, as they say. If you don't have the cage,
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you don't get the full extent of the effects. And so you can take MDMA and have an awful time.
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You can have a time in which you get paranoid and so forth. And then you can take that drug under
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the right conditions and it just be like one of the best moments you've ever had. It certainly
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enhance a number of my relationships. But I've also had some times with MDMA that haven't been so
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lovely. When the people who you are hanging out with, you don't know them, you're distrustful,
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and all of those kind of things. So it's important to put context in it. Now, we can talk about drugs
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at a biochemical level, at a biological level, and we kind of do that in this country with
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disfascination with neuroscience. And that's an inappropriate kind of fascination in the way
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we talk about it. So we can talk about opioids. And then we can talk about endogenous opioid system
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in the brain. We can talk about dopamine and other sort of monoamine transmitters and what
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opioids are doing to them. And we can do the same thing with MDMA. And we won't be any closer to
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understanding the sort of experience that is induced by these drugs. Certainly the experience
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that we all seek. You know what I'm saying? So getting a positive experience or getting a negative
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experience is strongly defined by the environment. Strongly dependent upon it. But the environment
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is a very, it's a short word that can describe a lot of things. So would you say the environment
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is important? Are the people where you are currently in your life? Or is it also dependent
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on the full trajectory of your psychology, of your life experiences, of your parents, of the
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people you came up with, of the trauma you've experienced, of the hopes and dreams that were
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crushed or not, or the opposite, or the success levels, or all those things? Like what are the
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interesting sort of landscape of experiences that contribute to how you actually feel when
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you take a drug? Right on. So all of those things are important. But you know, like if someone had
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trauma in childhood and they did the work and they dealt with it, that's not so important in this
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case. But if they didn't deal with it and that trauma is being triggered in that event, in that
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moment, then it's important. But let's just take somebody like me. I'm 54 years old. I'll be 55
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this month actually. And you know, I've done a lot of work in terms of figuring out who I am. And
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I'm comfortable with myself. And I know how to set limits for whatever it is I'm doing. And so
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I know I need to work out. I know I need to eat well. I know I need to sleep well. I know I need
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to be in an environment with people within my trust. And then if all of those things are met,
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oh, it's likely to be a good time. You know what I'm saying? But if I haven't slept, if I haven't
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worked out, if I don't feel good, it won't be a good time. But I try and be responsible and take
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care of my eating habits, sleeping habits, make sure my responsibilities are taken care of. And
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so when I'm in that moment, I just enjoy that moment. I'm there. I'm not thinking about a bill
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that I didn't pay. I'm not thinking about, oh, I forgot to do this for my kid. I'm not thinking
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about that because all of those things are taken care of. If they're not taken care of,
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it will impact the experience. And it may negatively impact the experience.
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Well, that is the counterintuitive, even controversial finding from your recent book.
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So we should kind of, I know it seems obvious to you, but I think a lot of people here in this
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will think it's quite non obvious. So in your new book, Drug Use for Grown Ups, you write
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for the findings section. I discovered that the predominant effects produced by the drugs
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discussed in this book are positive. It didn't matter whether the drug in question was cannabis,
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cocaine, heroin, methamphetamine, or psilocybin. Overwhelmingly, consumers express feeling more
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altruistic, empathetic, euphoric, focused, grateful, and tranquil. They also experienced enhanced
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social interactions, a great sense of purpose and meaning, and increased sexual intimacy and
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performance. This constellation of findings challenged my original beliefs about drugs and
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their effects. I had been indoctrinated to be biased toward the negative effects of drug use,
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but over the past two plus decades, I had gained a deeper, more nuanced understanding.
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These words are very counterintuitive to a lot of people. I think like you also mentioned in the
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book and elsewhere, you know, people have come around to maybe psilocybin being once such drug,
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maybe cannabis being once such drug, but you also mentioned other drugs like cocaine, heroin,
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methamphetamine. Can you just linger on this point? How do we get the positive effects of
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those drugs and why in the media and the general conception we have of these drugs is that they
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were going to make a bad life worse or ruin a good life? Well, so your first question was,
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how do we harness the positive effects? How do we increase the likelihood of getting the positive
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effects? Again, like I said, we want to make sure that people are responsible and they've handled
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their responsibilities, make sure they eat well, sleep well, exercise, all of those sorts of things
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play an important role. And also, if they know exactly what they're getting, and then they're
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not paranoid about, oh, it's something contaminated in some adulterin, it's in my drug.
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So you want to make sure you know exactly what you have. Once you satisfy those kind of things,
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you understand the dose and potency, you understand all of those things to decrease
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any sort of anxiety you might have about the substance itself, it increases the likelihood
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that you'll have a better time. So anxiety is the big one. You need to remove the anxiety.
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Anxiety is critical. It's huge. Many of the negative effects that we see with drugs have
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to do with anxiety. And not necessarily anxiety because the drug induced it, it's the anxiety
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that the situation induced a lot of times. And then you ask, well, why does this sound counter
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intuitive? Why does the media report differently? Well, because there's money in reporting the
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negative effects almost exclusively. Think about writing a newspaper article. It's really easy to
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get the population all ginned up about something like an opioid crisis, overdoses. And you don't
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even have to tell people how to keep people safe if you're talking about overdose. You don't even
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have to say why people are dying from overdoses. Like overdoses in our country happen largely
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because people get contaminated drug because people are combining sedatives and they don't know that
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this enhances the respiratory depressing effects of drugs. They don't know. But when you read these
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newspaper articles, they don't say this. They don't say how to keep people safe. All they do
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is frighten the population. There's money in that. And then we think about people who write
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TV shows, the people who write movies. Most of the stuff written about drugs is just bullshit.
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I think about, I love going to watch comedians. And the comedians, when they talk about drugs,
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again, most of the things that they say about drugs is bullshit. I mean, you can say the
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stupidest things about drugs and be believed. You can write a movie and you don't even have
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to develop your characters if you throw drugs into the mix. You say, oh, he's a drug dealer.
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You don't have to say anything about that person's background or about that person
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being developed as a character because the population think they know. And the writer
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is lazy and does not do any sort of development. Just think about any...
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Let's think about the Sopranos, for example. They have a new program coming out. So let's
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think about them for a second. The Sopranos is a show in which the lead character, Tony,
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kills people for a living. That's what he does, right? This character actually made
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sympathetic for him when he is besmirching and denigrating his nephew, Christopher,
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for using a drug. And we feel sympathy for Tony, the character who just killed somebody,
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who is a horrible person, but being a drug user is a worse person. That's what the show wants
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us to believe. Tony's a racist murderer, all of these things, but we feel sympathy for him,
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but we don't feel sympathy for anyone who uses drugs. That's some crazy shit. I mean,
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an American public buys into it. That's wild to me and that we all bought into this crap.
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And that's what we do in damnit everything that's in film, on television, and it's like,
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what's wrong with you people? So why aren't there not more stories of grownups using drugs,
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the full spectrum of drugs that we're talking about? Why isn't there... So we talked offline
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about Joe Rogan. He's somebody who started smoking weed later in life, which is an interesting story.
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Like when he's already very successful, and he has a very interesting way of describing his
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experience with weed, that it was like enhancing his productivity. Actually, I think he says it
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increases anxiety a little bit in a way that was productive, like paranoia and not anxiety.
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And so that's an interesting story of an adult talking about the use of weed for productivity
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purposes. But you don't get those stories very often. Why? I think fear. People are afraid that
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they will be belittled, dismissed, all of these things as a drug addict or some negative thing.
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But cannabis is lightweight. Come on. You can admit cannabis these days. And the fact that
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I don't know when Joe started, but if he did start later in life, that's cool. I mean,
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you are mature, developed. You have developed some responsibility skills, all of these kind
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of things. This is a good thing. You don't want people to engage in any kind of behaviors when
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they're young and immature that might put them in harm's way. And so we want people to be developed
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at least. I mean, whether it's being in a relationship with a partner, or whether it's
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driving an automobile, all of these things that can be potentially harmful, but extremely beneficial
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if you are responsible enough to handle them, you want people to be mature. So that's a good thing.
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So how are you supposed to, like somebody like me, somebody like Joe, how are you supposed to
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understand what the dangers are, what the negative effects are? So you said automobile
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relationships. I think I have a reasonably, it's crappy, but reasonable understanding of
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all the troubles I can get with in relationships and what things to avoid. Same thing with driving
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a car. I have no idea. I'm in the dark in terms of what are the things to be careful about,
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what to avoid with drug use when we're talking about the heavy drugs.
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Have you ever drank alcohol? Yes. I'm Russian. I know, I drink a lot. But I understand that
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because culture, I came up, I was taught a lot of like, this is what you don't do,
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and this is what you do. This is when you drink a lot. I mean, you see the effects,
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you see the, there's a lot of negative examples. There's positive examples of social
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stimulant. There's examples of great artists using alcohol to sort of, I don't know,
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to help be the catalyst for that magic moment for, you know, all of that. I don't, I have some
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examples now, especially in America, the same with weed. More and more, you're starting to get a lot
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of stories of psychedelics of different kinds. There's psilocybin where you have mushrooms or
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even MDMA used sort of positively. There's kind of like negative stories in the past about acid,
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about LSD being used, ultimately for productive ends, but it destroyed the person. That's kind
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of how the story goes. It was like a trade off. You take, it's like, what is it? Robert Johnson
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sold his soul to the devil to learn guitar? Like it's a trade off. You could take the drug,
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you're going to create some good stuff, but you have to pay for it. Those are the stories.
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That's some bullshit we tell children. Come on. That's exactly right. You're exactly right. These
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fairy tales, these cautionary tales that we tell people, we have to grow up. That's what the book
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is about, drug use for grownups. You know, we tell people, Pinocchio, if you lie, your nose grow,
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who believes that? Who believes that there are fairy tales, but that's exactly what these stories
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are. They're in the same vein as those kind of stories, as Pinocchio. You know, like you said,
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when you were learning about alcohol, you were told what to do, what not to do, so forth. The
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same can be true with MDMA, with cocaine, with heroin. The same is true, because there are
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some times when you, there are some potential dangers that you should avoid. And I wrote about
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some of them. Certainly in my work, just throughout all of my writings, I talk about those kind of
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things, and other people talk about these things. The problem is, is that we're getting our education
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from bullshit sources, from people who believe in this kind of Pinocchio thing, and it just does
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not fit with the evidence and the evidence we all publish in the scientific literature. All these
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things that I'm saying, it's there in the literature. I mean, a place like Columbia, we give these
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drugs thousands of doses every year. Do you think we would be doing this, and we do this
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with research grants that's funded by the public's taxpayer dollars? Do you think we would be allowed
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to do this if these drugs were so dangerous? It's just nonsense. I mean, and the drugs we're
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talking about, they are all approved for medical use somewhere in the world. And the studies you
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conduct, they're basically asking what kinds of questions. So you take the full range of drugs
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you're talking about, from marijuana, to psilocybin, to MDMA, to cocaine, and heroin. What is the
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study looking at? Like, what the actual experience with the positive and negative effects of the
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experience on the drug are in control conditions? Yeah. So we did these kind of experiments with
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alcohol, nicotine, all these drugs in order to have an empirical database to tell people
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exactly what these drugs do and what they don't do. The conditions under which the drugs will
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produce positive effects, the conditions under which the drugs were more likely to produce
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negative effects, all of this information is important for a society to know. And we do know.
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And that's why we're collecting the data. We're collecting the data to help us with treatment
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if someone is having problems with these data. Hopefully, we'll understand more about
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how to help them deal with their problems based on some of the research that we're doing.
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So what kind of negative effects are we looking out for? Like, what are the properties of drugs
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we should be careful about? Is it addictive properties? How addictive it is? How destructive
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or painful, whatever, the withdrawal processes? What kind of things are we looking out for?
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Yeah, those are certain kind of questions we certainly have asked because like something
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like right cocaine versus alcohol or heroin when it comes to withdrawal of physical dependence,
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like cocaine has a very limited sort of withdrawal symptoms. I mean, it's hard to see
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same as true with methamphetamine. But with heroin, you certainly can see a withdrawal
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syndrome that's unpleasant. But with alcohol, that withdrawal can actually kill you. So heroin
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is unpleasant and not lovely. But with alcohol withdrawal, that's the one that's the most dangerous.
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I mean, all of these kind of questions we want to know answers to. And so when we think about
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heroin or some other drugs, and you say like what kind of negative effects, negative effects,
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we don't talk about much in the society. The main thing that really concerns me about like
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heroin use really, is constipation. So if people are using heroin on a regular basis,
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and then they have a sort of slowing of their gut modality, they're likely to increase constipation.
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And that's not good. I mean, for your general health, but we never talk about that in this
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society. And that's probably the most important thing, aside from the fact that people get
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contaminated with street drugs and that sort of stuff and increase the likelihood of maybe dying
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from some contaminant or people who are inexperienced and they're mixing heroin with other sedatives,
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that's not good. But the constipation is a huge one. And then other sort of drugs, negative
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effects, like the amphetamines, all of the amphetamines, they disrupt sleep, food intake,
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all of these things are so critical for sustaining human life. But we never talk about that,
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because it's not as sexy as this nonsense that people write about, like addiction.
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Addiction has almost nothing to do with the drugs themselves. And I make that comment because
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the vast majority of users for any drug never become addicted. And so if the vast majority
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of users don't become addicted, then you have to move beyond the drug when you're talking about
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the phenomenon of interest. In this case, addiction. And so when we think about addiction,
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it has much more to do with our psychosocial environment than the drug itself. But that's
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not sexy. So addiction is even the property of the environment, not a property, a result of the
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environment. It certainly can be. There are people who are suffering from cooccurring mental illness
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like depression, anxiety. I mean, that's within the person, of course. And that increases the
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likelihood for addiction. So that's not so much the environment. But there are people who, for
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example, they have chronic unrealistic expectations heaped on them. And those people are more likely
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to have some problems with drug. There are people who are just immature, not developed,
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haven't developed responsibility skills. They are likely to have some problems if they engage in
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some of these behaviors. There are people who lost their jobs, COVID, factories went away,
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a wide range of things. And those people used to have standing in their community. Now they have
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none. Those people might be susceptible to having a drug related problem if they indulge.
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Which all of these kind of issues are far more important than the drug itself.
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And so they could seek escape in a particular drug. I mean, there is a biochemical thing to each
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of these drugs. And some pull you in harder than others when you need to escape, right? When you're
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not doing well in life. What evidence you have for that? I don't. Because there is none. There is
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absolutely none. I mean, people say stuff like that. And that's the problem. That's precisely
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the problem. See, I'm operating from limited personal evidence. Well, this is a problem though,
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00:24:16.000
but we have a scientific database. We don't need personal evidence for this. In my book,
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I try to go through some of the science so people could understand. It's like,
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00:24:27.920
when you have a math problem, you don't want people saying, well, you know, I feel like this.
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00:24:32.640
Fuck what you feel. What does the data say? So one of the problems with the data. So one data is
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the, there's the studies that you're doing. This is excellent research work, but there's some of
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00:24:44.000
the drugs that are illegal. Yes. And some are legal. So you have just, it's unfortunate that
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some of the drugs are illegal or whatever you believe, but there's not enough of a data set of
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public and the open use that's like you have in the wild data set. It'd be nice to do, you know,
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00:25:02.880
thousands of people and see from all the different kinds of environments and all that kind of stuff
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00:25:07.280
to get an understanding. I think we have a substantial, a substantial database, but people
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00:25:13.840
just ignore it. Got it. That said, let me ask you the question of legalization. So should,
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in your view, all drugs be legalized? The drugs that people seek certainly should
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00:25:28.480
be legally regulated and available to adults. So when I say the drugs people seek like cannabis,
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00:25:35.280
MDMA, cocaine, heroin, those drugs certainly should be available. And some of the psychedelics
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00:25:43.840
that people seek. Now, the thing about it is that some people think that, oh, it will be a
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free fall. These drugs are available to everyone. That's not true. I mean, it will be, there will
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be age requirements and maybe other requirements, but they should be available. And we should also
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00:26:03.040
do like what we do with alcohol. We can put enough alcohol in a bottle to kill you, but we don't.
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So we regulate it such that the amount that's in the bottle enhances the safety and minimizes the
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potential harms. We can do the same thing with these other drugs. And we can also say, okay,
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we won't be selling intravenous preparations of any of these drugs. The drugs that the routes
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00:26:30.480
of administration will be oral. And I don't know, let's say intranasal. Again, routes of
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administration, the dose that you have in each unit all can minimize harm based on how you do
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00:26:48.640
these things. And we can do that. We have the technology we have to know how.
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00:26:53.840
You're actually making me think about alcohol a little bit. So if I were, say, the drugs become
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00:26:58.240
legalized in the way you're describing. And me, Lex, wanted to, as an adult, explore some of these
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00:27:05.280
drugs. What are some procedures, do you think, for sort of safe positive exploration of those
link |
00:27:13.840
drugs? The reason I say I'm thinking about alcohol, because I don't think besides not putting enough
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00:27:20.080
alcohol in a bottle to kill you, I don't think anyone ever gave me specific instructions. I think
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00:27:26.000
it's kind of word of mouth and examples of people doing the wrong thing. You kind of get it through
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00:27:31.760
osmosis that way. Is that basically what we would do, this kind of free exploration of use?
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00:27:38.160
No, we have to change our education about these things. I mean, let's just take a drug like
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00:27:43.600
cocaine. Cocaine is a stimulant. And you want to make sure people understand that they shouldn't
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be taking cocaine here at bedtime. And you know, they need to get a certain amount of hours of
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00:27:54.000
sleep. And they need to get up in the morning. Cocaine probably isn't a drug for you at night,
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00:27:59.920
certainly not. Certainly not amphetamines at night, for most people. And also, if you want to make
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00:28:05.840
sure that you, they need to understand that cocaine can also disrupt your food intake,
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00:28:11.680
not as much as the amphetamines, but all of these kind of things people need to know so they can
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have proper nutrition and they can time their drug use around these other important functions
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00:28:25.360
that's the same human life. So we have to make sure that we educate people. We can't just throw
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00:28:33.280
people in a while. That's stupid. I gotta tell you, I mean, for me, even giving your book and
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00:28:39.120
for people listening to this, it's still tough to hear that the thing we should be concerned about
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00:28:45.120
with cocaine is the same as with caffeine. Don't take it before bed. And the thing we should be
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00:28:52.800
concerned with heroin is constipation. Yeah. Okay. But the questions I keep wanting to ask you,
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00:29:04.640
I should be asking the same things of alcohol. But when you're not doing well psychologically,
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00:29:10.560
in the ways you described, when the environment is not right, there's some aspect in which saying
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00:29:18.640
that drugs can be used responsibly and effectively and mostly positive,
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00:29:25.040
can give those folks a pass to use it instead of working on themselves and fixing their
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00:29:31.120
environment first. What do you want me to say to that? I mean, they have access to alcohol,
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00:29:37.120
they have access to it. Yeah. You know, we live in this country called the United States where
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00:29:43.120
our Declaration of Independence says that we are free to live like we want to live so long as we
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00:29:49.040
don't disrupt other people from doing the same. But it's remarkable to me how we try to control
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00:29:56.400
the behaviors of other people. That's just remarkable. Yeah. And that's partially what your
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00:30:02.960
book is about. I mean, it's not just about drugs, it's about freedom. That's the bigger issue that
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00:30:08.000
we can't get to. It's like this issue of freedom. And freedom comes with a tremendous amount of
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00:30:14.560
responsibility. I am responsible for my neighbors, my brothers. I mean, I can't impede their freedoms.
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00:30:22.800
Like some people think that their freedom supersedes everybody else's freedoms. No. And that's what
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00:30:28.080
I'm trying to remind people in this book. I am responsible to you as a citizen. And we're in
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00:30:38.000
this together. And I tried to make that point in the book and people have conveniently ignored
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00:30:45.440
things like that. Do you think the war on drugs has done more positive or negative for the world?
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00:30:52.160
It depends on which world you live in. The war on drugs has been hugely beneficial
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00:30:58.720
to law enforcement, to the media, to people who make bullshit TV shows, the Sopranos,
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00:31:07.440
the wire, all of those shows, they benefit from this kind of nonsense. Who else have benefited?
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00:31:17.040
People who provide treatment, many of them benefit from the war on drugs. The folks who do
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00:31:23.600
urine testing for drugs, they've all benefited them making mad money. People who run prisons,
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00:31:31.120
the phone companies, who charge the prisoners, the people who run the hotels that are around
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00:31:37.760
the prisons, where people's family have to come and stay, the restaurants, they are making out
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00:31:43.840
like bandits. But many of us are getting screwed. As a society, in general, we're getting screwed.
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00:31:51.360
But there are people who are just benefiting handsomely. That's why it continues. Politicians
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00:31:57.040
benefit. I mean, whether you're Democrat or Republican, you have the same stance on drugs
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00:32:02.080
anyway, so they all benefit from this. So many questions I want to ask you because you're challenging
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00:32:08.160
a lot of beliefs that people have about drugs, about society in general. So it's difficult for me
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00:32:14.240
to ask the right questions here. But if you could, if you were with a sort of a snap of a finger,
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00:32:23.680
change the world, what from a policy perspective would you, and from just a, I don't know,
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00:32:32.240
human to human perspective, what would you like to see in the United States of America?
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00:32:36.240
In terms of that fix, is some of the problems we're discussing here?
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00:32:39.680
First of all, we wouldn't be arresting anybody for drugs anymore. That would go away.
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00:32:45.680
The folks who are in prison for drugs, that would go away. Their records would be expunged.
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00:32:50.800
That would just go away. And then we work on a system to make sure that responsible adults can
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00:32:59.520
legally obtain these substances. And we will have a corresponding educational system to
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00:33:05.680
teach people how to do this. That's where I would start initially.
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00:33:12.240
Yeah, the arresting for drug use or anything drug related is absurd, especially in the context
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00:33:19.520
of how destructive alcohol is, and tobacco. Alcohol can be destructive to some people,
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00:33:24.880
but alcohol also is a hugely beneficial drug, to be honest, which I couldn't have gotten through
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00:33:30.240
many of the sort of receptions and functions I had to go through as the chair of the department
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00:33:36.880
without alcohol. Yeah, you have a line I really liked. The vast amount of predictably favorable
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00:33:43.040
drug effects intrigued me, so much so that I expanded my own drug use to take advantage
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00:33:48.400
of the wide array of beneficial alcohol specific drugs can offer. The part that entertained me
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00:33:53.600
was this. To put this in personal terms, my position as department chairman from 2016 to 2019
link |
00:34:00.480
was far more detrimental to my health than my drug use ever was. I mean, there is a standard
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00:34:06.320
we're treating drugs, certain kinds of drugs that's completely different than the standard
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00:34:10.480
we're treating everything else in our lives. Yeah, I mean, it's almost difficult to snap out of it
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00:34:16.960
as I'm listening to you and reading your work. It's difficult because it's like,
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00:34:27.040
why is everybody living this idea that certain drugs are so horribly destructive and others are
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00:34:34.400
not? And we just kind of fix that idea. And then there's this narrative. I hate to be so cynical
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00:34:42.160
to think that there is just like a system that just propagates narratives. I always kind of think
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00:34:47.280
that truth wins out. Truth is the best narrative. I believe that too. Obviously, that's why I'm out
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00:34:53.920
here and putting, subjecting myself to this sort of criticism and so forth. But because I believe
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00:34:59.280
that truth ultimately wins out, but I might be wrong. But I have to live my life like it's true.
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00:35:07.760
Otherwise, then I have no hope. Then why be here? Well, kind of if you can steal man or at least
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00:35:13.200
show respect to a criticism, I'm sure received quite a bit of criticism for your work. I've
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00:35:21.200
heard quite a bit of BS criticism, sort of ignorant stuff that don't actually pay attention to your
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00:35:27.200
work. But is there some serious, like, is there some pushback that makes you think twice?
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00:35:33.440
People say, like, I'm presenting a too rosy picture of drugs. I don't want to do that.
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00:35:41.360
I don't want people to think that I'm not aware of the potential negative effects of any activity,
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00:35:48.560
including drug use. And so I do acknowledge that there are potential harms associated with drugs.
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00:35:56.800
I acknowledge that in the book. But the fact remains, the beneficial effects far outweigh
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00:36:02.560
the potential harmful effects. And we have technology information to help people to minimize
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00:36:09.760
the likelihood of those negative effects. But this sort of approach that we have where we say
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00:36:15.920
we're only exclusively presenting the harmful effects, and that should make people keep people
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00:36:22.160
safe. I just have a problem with that. But I certainly, I take the point that people say
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00:36:30.400
some people say there are negative effects. Absolutely. I absolutely agree.
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00:36:34.960
What do you, if I can just talk about specific drugs, what's the difference between opioids
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00:36:41.520
and benzos, for example? Specifically, I mean, these are drugs that you often read about being
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00:36:50.800
misused at scale. I mean, the misuse is the problem, right? No matter what the drug is.
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00:36:57.200
Yes. And that's actually what you're pushing for is education. And it should be, it should be
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00:37:01.760
legal and should be good. So people should know what's the difference in proper use,
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00:37:08.480
positive use and misuse. I mean, one public figure who has been going through this is Jordan
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00:37:14.560
Peterson. He's been public about his struggle of getting off benzos, the withdrawal he's going
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00:37:19.680
through. I mean, what are your thoughts about the misuse of benzos or opioids and so on,
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00:37:27.120
the epidemic that people talk about? Yeah. I don't know Jordan's specific case,
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00:37:33.120
but certainly with benzodiazepines in general, we talked about withdrawal earlier. When I said
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00:37:38.080
that with alcohol, withdrawal, you can die. So benzos and alcohol, they're closely related.
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00:37:43.360
So benzo withdrawal too can kill you, just like alcohol. So when we think about the effects that
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00:37:49.680
benzodiazepines produce, think about the effects that alcohol produce. They're comparable or similar.
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00:37:55.600
And so I know that it's a difficult one to wean yourself off if you develop the dependence, but
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00:38:04.560
we have protocols for that. And I hope he's okay.
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00:38:08.560
Since she said we have protocols for that, but for my understanding was that
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00:38:13.520
the protocols aren't standardized. It feels like a lot of doctors aren't as helpful as they could
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00:38:19.360
be in this process. It's a bit of a mess. Certainly with withdrawal, they're more standardized than
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00:38:26.480
anything. So if someone is going through alcohol withdrawal, there is a standard protocol that
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00:38:32.400
most physicians in this business, they follow. The same is true with benzo withdrawal. But the
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00:38:39.680
thing where it gets murky is when they're treating addiction itself. So when you're thinking about
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00:38:46.080
the substance use disorder in the DSM, not just withdrawal, but the entire addiction,
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00:38:51.280
that's where you have this sort of divergence or diversity in terms of approaches. And many of
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00:39:01.120
those approaches are rubbish. Can you just elaborate technically what the term addiction
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00:39:07.760
means that you're referring to? When I use the term addiction, I'm referring to the
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00:39:13.360
diagnostic statistical manual of the American Psychiatric Association, number five now,
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00:39:19.920
the DSM five. That's never been wrong, right? I'm just kidding. That point is well taken.
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00:39:28.000
And your point is that their definition of substance use disorder, that's addiction,
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00:39:35.200
that's what I'm talking about. But that definition continues to evolve. And so you're right. They
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00:39:41.760
still are working it out. We're getting new information from scientific studies and so
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00:39:47.440
forth. And so it's supposed to be incorporated into the DSM. But there are some problems with
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00:39:53.200
the DSM, like for example, they also have this sort of once an addict, always an addict thing.
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00:40:00.400
And there's no evidence to support that. But it's evolving. And it's the definition
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00:40:07.520
that people in science and medicine use. And so we all know we're talking about the same language
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00:40:13.680
when we call someone a substance use disorder patient or someone who meets criteria for addiction.
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00:40:19.600
We all are speaking the same language. We're not saying that simply because this person
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00:40:24.720
use heroin, they are an addict. That's not what we're saying. You have to meet these criteria
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00:40:29.840
where you have disruptions in your psychosocial functioning. That's one. And two, you, the person
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00:40:38.160
are distressed by this, these, these disruptions. So people have to meet those two basic criteria
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00:40:46.480
before we say they are addicted. So once an addict, always an addict, this idea. So I've,
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00:40:56.320
I mean, some of it is always mapped to the person, right? But just the people I've interacted with
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00:41:01.680
who have struggled with alcohol addiction, I don't know what the proper term is. It seems
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00:41:06.800
like with alcohol anonymous, the process of putting that addiction behind you is a very,
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00:41:15.520
very long process. It's surprisingly long to me. That almost seems like a whole life.
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00:41:20.560
Like it's not always an addict, but it takes decades. It seems like, what is that? What,
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00:41:28.560
can you maybe just, from your understanding as a scientist, from your understanding as a human
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00:41:33.200
who studies human nature, why does it take so long to treat, to, to, to, to deal with that
link |
00:41:40.720
addiction? Well, you cited alcohol anonymous, right? And so I don't think of alcohol anonymous as
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00:41:49.840
like a treatment that I would send any relative to, you know, like for a drug related problem.
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00:41:57.280
You know, I think alcohol anonymous AA is really good for social interactions,
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00:42:04.160
making sure people have a social group and they have peers. I mean, that's a good thing. We all
link |
00:42:11.360
need that social interaction. But I don't think they know much about drugs. That's not, that's,
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00:42:16.960
it's like saying, well, you know, my uncle broke his knee and he, he has this support group and
link |
00:42:24.480
they said this. And then we follow that. That doesn't make any sense. But in our society,
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00:42:32.240
judges even sentence people to go to AA. Are you kidding me? But, but that's the kind of thing that
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00:42:42.880
has been allowed to happen in this society because we think of drugs as this moral failing or drug,
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00:42:51.040
drug addiction as this moral failing. And any idiot can provide treatment and no disrespect
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00:42:57.920
to AA because I think what they do is a lot more than what some people do because at least they
link |
00:43:04.000
have this social, these social interactions, you have a social group. That's better than what
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00:43:11.040
a lot of these other idiots out here do. Well, in that social support group, unrelated to the drug,
link |
00:43:18.240
it helps cure some of the environment issues you might be in. That's the whole point. So we kind
link |
00:43:23.360
of coupled the drug to the environment. But the reality is, as, as you argue, most of the problems
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00:43:29.120
come from the environment. Certainly with people who are experiencing drug related problem with
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00:43:33.840
most of the people, not all, but most. There are differences like that psychedelics and like
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00:43:41.680
psilocybin has versus alcohol. I personally think, you know, I've enjoyed both experiences in
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00:43:49.280
different ways. Is it possible or is this, are we getting into the realm of poetry to describe
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00:43:56.000
the benefits, like how it alters the, how the different drugs alter the mind
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00:44:02.880
and the places it can take you that produce a positive experience?
link |
00:44:06.720
Yeah. No, it's very real, you know, like some drugs take people in places that other drugs
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00:44:14.400
can. And that's, that's very real. I have friends, some of them you know, they,
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00:44:23.360
they, for example, say that they've never had an experience like the one they had with Ayahuasca.
link |
00:44:29.680
And they've done a number of sort of things. But they did the Ayahuasca in a setting with
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00:44:36.320
a shaman and this group. And they felt like they actually began to heal or solve some problems that
link |
00:44:47.680
they were trying to solve for some years. And that's, that's great. That's great for them.
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00:44:53.840
And nothing else does it for them like that. And that's absolutely fantastic.
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00:44:58.720
All I argue is that if that kind of thing happens for you with Ayahuasca, with psilocybin,
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00:45:09.520
with some other psychedelic, why isn't it possible that heroin does that for someone,
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00:45:16.880
or cocaine does that for someone else, or MDMA does it for someone? That's it.
link |
00:45:23.200
That's interesting to imagine like a shaman for heroin, like why not? And or cocaine,
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00:45:29.680
you said creating an environment for yourself for use of these different substances. And that
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00:45:34.240
environment has a, has a very strong impact on the actual experience that you have. But I mean,
link |
00:45:42.640
so cocaine is an upper and then. Yeah, the way we defend drugs like uppers and downers,
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00:45:50.880
that's a, that's a really kind of inappropriate way, but it's a quick way. So we certainly say
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00:45:58.720
cocaine is an upper or stimulant, but you know, it depends on the activity of the person before
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00:46:05.520
they take the drug. Say like if you're like really active before taking a drug like cocaine,
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00:46:10.640
it might actually calm you. So it all depends on the activity of the person before they take
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00:46:16.160
the drug. I remember, I don't know if you know Matthew Johnson is. Of course. He did all these
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00:46:22.080
studies on, or I remember just reading a paper. I didn't get a chance to talk with him much about
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00:46:26.960
it, but it was about condom use and cocaine. And then, you know, what, like the doses and whether
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00:46:33.600
people are more or less likely, like the unsafe thing there is the using or not using or not using,
link |
00:46:41.200
I guess condoms during sexual intercourse. I don't know. I just, I love that these drugs that have
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00:46:49.360
connotation probably because of Hollywood negative connotations are actually being
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00:46:53.680
studied by science and then the actual impact they have and what are the negative effects.
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00:46:58.080
Again, in those studies, often the positive effects are difficult to quantify. I think
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00:47:05.120
maybe I guess you can from self report and so on. The positive effects are not difficult to
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00:47:09.680
quantify. You ask people about their euphoria. You can see how well people are getting along.
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00:47:18.080
Like in our studies that we have people sometimes in groups and you see how well they get along
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00:47:25.600
on the various drug conditions or placebo conditions. It's really, it's not that difficult.
link |
00:47:32.240
And then you can see these amazing studies with like Rick Doblin, like looking at MDMA and
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00:47:38.240
combined with therapy, like how you can overcome certain PTSD things or depression and so on.
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00:47:46.960
Yeah, it's really interesting. It's, it's really interesting. I gotta ask you because you mentioned
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00:47:52.000
the wire. Do you think the wire, you think movies like Transpotting, do you think they're ultimately
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00:47:57.280
destroyed? Because, okay, yes, they celebrate murder, right? The Godfather a little bit.
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00:48:03.360
Yeah. But another one, I mean, it's like these racist ass motherfuckers. And they also are killing
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00:48:12.080
people. But yet they say, we don't do drugs. What kind of shit is that? I mean, people who are doing
link |
00:48:17.360
drugs, psilocybin or whatever. The thing is, we're trying to be better people and trying to make
link |
00:48:25.600
our society better. And you're killing people and you are denigrating people for using drugs.
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00:48:32.160
Are you fucking kidding me? And we let them get away with that as a society.
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00:48:35.840
Do you see those movies? I apologize if I'm not sufficiently informed. Do you see them as
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00:48:40.160
denigrating drugs? Of course. I mean, Godfather. Yes, that's right. That's a good example.
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00:48:46.240
The Godfather, the Sopranos is all about that. I mean, Christopher is using heroin in the Sopranos
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00:48:53.040
and they have an intervention in one season and they are denigrating him. Are you kidding me?
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00:49:03.440
You just cut somebody's head off. Yeah. But to be fair, they were denigrating, I think, all drugs.
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00:49:10.320
And then they're drinking alcohol in the butterbeam. Yeah, yeah.
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00:49:15.440
First of all, they're killing people. Yeah. They don't have any space,
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00:49:19.360
none, to denigrate somebody who's just trying to alter their consciousness. Are you kidding me?
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00:49:27.520
And not bothering anyone else. But there's a lot of other mob movies that Scarface celebrates
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00:49:33.600
the murder and the drugs equally. So I mean, it doesn't, it celebrates all of the,
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00:49:41.760
just not just drugs or so on. It's all those movies. I loved all those movies. I'm from Miami.
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I loved Scarface. I even liked the Sopranos that I started looking at that shit with a critical
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eye and see what it's doing. But Scarface is dependent upon the American viewer having a
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certain view of people who deal in drugs. And that view is that these people are animals,
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00:50:09.680
basically. And in the end, the animal kills himself with too much cocaine and he was high.
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00:50:16.720
That's what they show. And so it's like, what the fuck? So it's leveraging as playing into
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not the better angels of our nature. The question. Don't take away these great movies for me.
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But it's true. You have to think about them critically in the content. Wait, wait, wait,
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wait, wait, wait. I like these movies. It's not a matter of taking away. It's a matter of making
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the writers be more honest to the reality. That's it. That's true. That's really true.
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And the writers, the people, the culture, all of it. I mean, they write these things. I just
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think about some hip hop artists. They say, like, this is real. This is my experience and so for
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it. And that's how these movie writers, they write this bullshit and then say, well, this is real.
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So anyway, I get so upset talking about it because I know the harm it's doing.
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And I know those kind of movies are the reason that we have this war on drugs.
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00:51:18.800
And all of these people are going to jail because of those kind of movies.
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00:51:24.560
In the epilogue of your book, you quote James Baldwin, you cannot know what you will discover
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00:51:30.160
on the journey, what you will do with, what you find or what you find will do to you.
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So let me ask, how has drug use or the study of drugs changed you as a human being?
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It just helped me think about other people's experience, right? So how we're all connected,
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00:51:49.360
like going to Northern Ireland. I don't know if you know much about the situation with the
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troubles and what those people went through. And so I see people there, Northern Ireland,
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00:52:00.560
by the way, is all white. And you see those people there suffering for the same reasons that people
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in Appalachian are suffering for, neglected by politicians who told them lies about drugs
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00:52:14.560
and not dealing with the real problems like West Virginia, for example, their waters polluted,
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00:52:20.320
the factories have gone away, people are desperate, and they're blaming drugs. Are you kidding me?
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So the politicians don't have to bring back the jobs. So we don't have to really make sure they
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have clean drinking water, things of that nature. And so those people are connected to the people
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00:52:39.760
in Northern Ireland. They're connected to the people in Brownsville. They're connected to the
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people in other places in the United States for the same reason. They're connected to the people
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00:52:50.240
in São Paulo, Brazil. Same thing, people are catching hell for the same reason in the Philippines
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00:52:59.520
for the same reason. And that's why I feel so strongly about this thing, because I know
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there are people getting paid and their paycheck is predicated on subjugating and the suffering
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00:53:13.920
of those other people. So when we hear about the destructive effects of drugs, it's essentially
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00:53:24.320
a scapegoat for the failures of leaders and politicians to help alleviate the suffering
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00:53:30.800
of people in those communities. Absolutely. It's so easy to say, I'm going to rid your community
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00:53:36.080
of drugs. I'm going to put more cops on the street. If you want a problem, not to be solved,
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00:53:44.880
just give it to the military or the cops. You had a tough childhood growing up in Miami, like you
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said. What memories, memory stands out in particular that was formative and helping make you the man
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00:53:58.560
you are. That's so hard to say. My grandmother was really important. So maybe just her trying to
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make sure that I think critically. I guess that's the biggest one. So you moved in with
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00:54:16.400
her, your parents split? Six, seven, yeah. What have you learned about life from her?
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00:54:22.960
Be self sufficient, be critical, and keep your eyes open and watch out for the okey
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00:54:29.680
dope. That's what this whole drug thing is about. It's the okey dope. It really boils down to
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00:54:39.040
just simple thing. We're all similar in that we're all just trying to live our life,
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00:54:44.720
trying to take care of our kids. We want the best for our kids, all of us. But yet, somehow,
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we've been made to believe that we're different in that way, but fundamentally, we're all the same.
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00:54:58.560
So when people are seeking to feel pleasure, to feel better, why don't we celebrate that?
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Instead, we denigrate people for that. I mean, if I feel better, I'm more likely to treat you well.
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00:55:15.040
I got to say still, though, you're going against the grain and you're at Columbia.
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00:55:25.760
It takes a lot of guts to speak out about these ideas so boldly. I don't know how to ask this
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question. Where do you find the guts? Because it's also perhaps inspirational to others
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00:55:40.800
in different disciplines that are taking on the conventional wisdom of the day and challenging
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00:55:46.640
it. What does it take to do that? What advice would you give to others like you a little bit
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00:55:52.720
afraid to do so? Once you know, you cannot not know, as they say. And so I have to look in the
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00:55:58.800
mirror. And then looking in the mirror, I have to face myself. Have I lived honestly? And if I
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can't face myself, then what am I doing here? That's how I see it. One of the things that
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people don't really talk about with drugs and people who die from some drug related death.
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00:56:25.680
I've been thinking about this a whole lot over the past couple of years. It's like,
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some of these drugs can take you to a place where you feel so optimistic and positive about
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00:56:38.000
humans, our fellow humans. And you want to do your best to contribute because you know
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00:56:45.840
the possibilities of what we can be as a society. And then you come up with resistance and like
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you say, there's a lot of resistance and people just have a hard time. And so if you know humans
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00:57:02.720
can be better and they refuse to be better, why be here as someone who knows that we can do this
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00:57:11.840
better? I certainly don't want to do it the way we're doing it. So you kind of see drugs as
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00:57:18.160
mechanisms for potentially elevating the human spirit, sort of making people feel better. So
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you want to communicate that message. So it's that plus the fact that drugs that use the scapegoat
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to not alleviate the suffering of certain communities. So those two things.
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One of the main points of the book too was to try and get people to understand
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00:57:43.920
possibilities that we could have if we embraced certain drug use. If we allowed adults to do
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00:57:55.520
this sort of thing, relationships can be better. Why range of beneficial effects people would be
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00:58:05.440
or can learn to be more magnanimous. All of these pro social things that we say we value.
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00:58:15.520
In your previous book, High Price, you talk about rap and DJing, Chapter 5.
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00:58:21.760
There's a nice picture of you DJing from 1983. So let me ask, who in your view, this is the
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00:58:28.800
toughest question of this interview, is the greatest hip hop artist of all time? Maybe give
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00:58:33.360
some candidates. Oh, wow. Who is the greatest hip hop artist? I don't know if I'm qualified to make
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00:58:39.440
that back because I have to go back to like Gil Scott Herron. Like people think of him as one of
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00:58:50.000
the fathers of hip hop. That's my all time favorite. People like Chuck D from Public Enemy,
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00:58:58.720
some of the things that they were doing, I was really digging. But even though I was digging
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00:59:04.160
like Public Enemy, but even they got it wrong on drugs. Even Gil Scott Herron got it wrong on
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00:59:10.880
drugs. But they were doing so much other good stuff. It helped me to develop as a person.
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00:59:19.600
And so I think like my son is a hip hop artist now. I think those folks who are in the game now,
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00:59:31.760
they might be, they are a lot more qualified to talk about who's the greatest hip hop artist.
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I'm not qualified. The evolution, I mean, have you tracked the evolution from sort of the 90s
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00:59:42.800
with Wu Tang and Tupac and Biggie and then to what we have today. So there's just been a crazy
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amount of progress that's like almost difficult to track. Yeah. I mean, I really love what they're
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doing. I like what they accept the part where they get over 40 and they become fucking cops on TV.
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01:00:01.440
I mean, other than that, I dig what's that about. Yeah, I don't understand that, you know, but that's
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01:00:07.280
what they do. Again, this sort of glorification of cops, that's dangerous for a society. And
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01:00:17.280
those cats who do that kind of thing, you know, I have a problem with that.
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01:00:20.960
Is it all sort of to push back a little bit because I come from the Soviet Union where there's a huge
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01:00:25.680
amount of corruption. And when I see what's going on with cops in this country, there's a lot of
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01:00:31.200
proper criticism you can apply, but like relative to other places. Well, in so many ways, this
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01:00:38.480
country is incredible. Is your criticism towards cops or towards what cops are asked to do?
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01:00:46.320
Yeah, towards what cops are asked to do. Cops provide the shield for politician
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01:00:52.640
and those in power. Absolutely, because I was in the military. I spent four years in the military
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01:00:59.040
and I did what I was told to do. And I was ignorant and thought I was doing the right thing.
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01:01:06.240
And I did what I was told to do. And so just like these guys are doing what they're told to do.
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01:01:11.840
But no, my real beef is with the power structure, the folks who are telling them what to do.
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01:01:17.920
And also those folks who go play cops on television, that imagery, that sort of
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01:01:26.080
glorifying cops, that's a problem in a democracy.
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01:01:32.080
Yeah, all sides of the glorification of the drug war is a problem.
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01:01:39.040
If I can just linger on a little longer in terms of the effects of drugs on the positive
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01:01:45.200
like mind expanding components of it, what have mind altering drugs teach you about the human
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01:01:54.400
mind? Not even like a biochemical, but just like the human mind is amazing, right? The places it
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01:02:03.520
can go. Are there some insights you've learned from studying drugs about the mind?
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01:02:11.120
Yeah, can I start from a neurochemical perspective first and then we'll go larger?
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01:02:16.560
Just from a neurochemical perspective, I mean, everything I know about the brain,
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01:02:22.240
I learned through drugs because of my interest in drugs. So I learned a lot about dopamine
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01:02:27.520
neurons and certain regions of the brain about neuropinephrine neurons and a wide range of other
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01:02:33.840
sort of neural transmission happened because of drugs. And so that's a really valuable tool,
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01:02:40.080
lessons for me. But then when we think that we move out a bit and we think more globally,
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01:02:46.160
what have I learned in terms of the mind from drugs? I have really learned how to be more
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01:02:57.040
forgiving of people and myself and more tolerant of people and certainly learned a lot more about
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01:03:09.920
empathy as a result of drug use. And like I said earlier, I'm learning what we can be as a species
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01:03:22.960
and it's quite incredible, but because of drugs. Yeah, there's a certain property of drugs in
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01:03:29.040
different ways. They take you out of your body like they help you evaluate yourself from like
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01:03:34.800
a third person perspective. It's almost like you have a consciousness in here and you get to step
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01:03:39.200
outside of it a little bit. I mean, that's kind of what meditation does to all of these processes.
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01:03:44.240
That's sort of how of a good workout does to it. It makes you evaluate yourself and then somehow
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01:03:50.480
that allows you to be forgiving to yourself and forgiving to others sort of empathize.
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01:03:57.520
It trains that part of your brain. So stepping outside of yourself, not taking yourself too
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01:04:01.920
seriously that process. And different drugs do that in different ways. Obviously, I don't know
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01:04:06.880
from personal experience on some of them, but I'm now curious. It's unfortunate that the
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01:04:17.120
Hollywood and different stories we have demonize certain drugs and sort of basically,
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01:04:23.600
I don't know, make it difficult for people like me to explore those ideas, but then
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01:04:27.520
I'm really thankful for people like you who are pushing the science forward and are unafraid to
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01:04:31.600
talk about this kind of stuff. Because I'm really fascinated with consciousness. On the engineering
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01:04:37.440
side, I really want to build robots that have elements of intelligence and motion, even consciousness.
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01:04:44.880
And for that, we need to understand it in ourselves. And drugs is all the different kinds of drugs,
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01:04:50.960
if you safely seems like an incredible tool to understand ourselves. And if we're limiting
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01:04:56.160
ourselves from certain drugs, because of certain political games that being played,
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01:05:00.240
it's sad. And people know this. A lot of middle to upper class people know this.
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01:05:08.160
The illicit drug trade business is a multi billion dollar industry, multi billion
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01:05:13.680
dollar industry that could not be supported by people who are poor. And that has to be supported
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01:05:21.920
by a lot of customers. And a lot of people around the world know this. They're in the closet. And
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01:05:29.120
in the book, I call for them to get out of the closet. So we can start being more honest,
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01:05:35.280
and we can take the pressure off of those people who are not as privileged.
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01:05:40.720
Like I said, you're brave, you're bold. I got to ask you for some advice. What advice would you
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01:05:46.480
give to a young person today? High school, maybe undergrad and college, thinking about their career,
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01:05:54.320
thinking about how to live a life they can be proud of.
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01:05:56.960
Yeah, whatever career they choose, just make sure that they dedicate themselves to and be
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01:06:03.920
the best at what they do first. That's what you have to do first. Like people see me
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01:06:10.960
advocating for this position. 30 years of science is in these opinion, this view.
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01:06:18.800
And trust me, I would be dismissed if I didn't know my shit, if I was not.
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01:06:23.920
Yeah, you did the work, you proved yourself, you're legit, and by the people in the eyes
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01:06:30.000
of the people who know. Absolutely. So that's the main thing that I would encourage people to do,
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01:06:34.960
really know your craft. If you know your craft, and then maybe you will be a service to
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01:06:44.160
your fellow citizens. There are so many people out here faking the phone, and they don't know
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01:06:49.120
their craft, and they're not a service to the people that they claim to serve. And that's a
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01:06:55.120
problem. And when you have a fairer number of people like that in positions of power,
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01:07:01.920
your society is going to crumble. What about the scientific path? You recommend people get a PhD?
link |
01:07:09.760
Not necessarily. You know, like my own children, I don't recommend that. So
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01:07:14.640
science can, certainly my science can be a very petty sort of space to be in.
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01:07:23.520
But it was the only sort of path that I had, and so I had to do it. But I would really encourage
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01:07:34.160
people to just do something that they enjoy, and something that makes them happy. Because
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01:07:40.960
the greater number of happy people in our society, the better off we all are.
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01:07:48.880
All right. Since you mentioned happiness, gotta ask you about the pursuit of happiness and the
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01:07:54.720
ridiculous question about meaning. Do you think this life has meaning? What do you think is the
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01:07:59.760
meaning of life? I'm sorry. I certainly hope it has meaning. I mean, I'm certainly trying to live
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01:08:06.800
mine like it has meaning. You know, I really love my life now. I just got back from Geneva.
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01:08:14.560
I spent the summer abroad in Europe and trying to be in a more civilized place where you can
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01:08:22.000
enjoy yourself as a responsible adult. And then it allowed me to decompress and then come back here.
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01:08:29.760
The thing about coming back here is that you have to be ready to fight. And I don't want to fight
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01:08:34.480
anymore. I just want to be able to help a society and people. And so I'll have to keep a place in
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01:08:42.480
Europe to go and decompress and then come back to be able to tolerate this situation. So life for
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01:08:50.000
me has a lot of meaning. I'm enjoying life. This is the greatest, the best part of my life ever,
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01:08:58.720
right now, at this moment. So it's the joy, but you also enjoy the fight a little bit?
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01:09:03.440
No, I don't really, I'm tired of that. You know, it's like, why? You're trying to,
link |
01:09:11.440
I'm trying to help people to see how they can be happy. And then people are fighting me on that.
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01:09:19.200
I don't want to be happy. I want to be ignorant. Leave me alone. That's what people are saying.
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01:09:23.920
Well, so what is the source of joy for you when you decompress?
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01:09:26.640
MDMA is a source, you know, and a place where you don't have to worry about loss. That's like
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01:09:35.360
Europe. You can feel really free. Yeah. Heroin can even be a nice space if I'm in my own head.
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01:09:44.160
But with others, MDMA is great. So good friends, good food.
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01:09:51.600
The usual. Family, love. Yeah, that's right. Carl, you're an incredible human being. You
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01:09:59.600
really make me think. Everyone listens to this. I mean, I'm really glad you exist. I know you
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01:10:07.600
say you don't like the fight, but I'm really glad you're fighting the fight because it's going to
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01:10:10.800
help a lot of people. It's going to help, at the very least, help a lot of people think and
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01:10:16.960
challenge the conventions of the day and maybe challenge them to find joy. I really appreciate
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01:10:23.040
you spending your valuable time with me. This was an awesome conversation. Thank you so much
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01:10:26.560
for talking to me. Thank you for having me, man. Thanks for listening to this conversation with
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01:10:31.440
Carl Hart. To support this podcast, please check out our sponsors in the description. And now,
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01:10:37.280
let me leave you with some words from Frank Zappa. A drug is not bad. A drug is a chemical compound.
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01:10:44.000
The problem comes in when people who take drugs treat them like a license to behave like an asshole.
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01:10:49.920
Thank you for listening and hope to see you next time.