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The Tim Ferriss Show
#511: Hamilton Morris on Iboga, 5-MeO-DMT, The Power of Ritual, New Frontiers in Psychedelics, Excellent Problems to Solve, and More
#511: Hamilton Morris on Iboga, 5-MeO-DMT, The Power of Ritual, New Frontiers in Psychedelics, Excellent Problems to Solve, and More

#511: Hamilton Morris on Iboga, 5-MeO-DMT, The Power of Ritual, New Frontiers in Psychedelics, Excellent Problems to Solve, and More

The Tim Ferriss ShowGo to Podcast Page

Hamilton Morris, Tim Ferriss
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45 Clips
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Apr 29, 2021
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0:00
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5:29
Hello boys and girls ladies and germs, this is Tim Ferriss and welcome to another episode of the Tim Ferriss show. And I'm going to keep the intro short I guess today is Hamilton Morris on Twitter at Hamilton Morris, that's with two r's. 1s Hamilton is a chemist filmmaker and science journalist, a graduate of the new School, Hamilton conducts, chemistry, research at the University of the Sciences in Philadelphia, he's the writer and director of one of my favorite documentary series that you can find anywhere. Hamilton's pharmacopoeia, pharmacopoeia
6:00
Tomato tomato. Take your pick, lots of vowels at the end in which he explores the chemistry and traditions surrounding psychoactive, drugs. His research has allowed him to study psychoactive plants, fungi and chemicals, as well as the culture or cultures that surround them in more than 30 countries, using an interdisciplinary approach that combines anthropology and chemistry is recent republishing of a book on bufo. Alvarius has at the time of this writing raised more than $150,000 for Parkinson's Disease research, you can find him as I mentioned on Twitter at Hamilton Morris,
6:29
Instagram at Hamilton Morris, Facebook, Hamilton Morris. And on patreon at patreon, PA Treo n.com forward slash Hamilton Morris and the reissued pamphlet on what some of you may refer to as 5, m, EO, D Mt, at least derived from the Sonoran Desert toad can be found at www.sec.gov toad of the Sonoran Desert.com. Hamilton, welcome back to the show. Thank you so much for having me.
7:00
And I'm looking at a summary of our first conversation and we covered a lot. We will have no shortage of new material, but for people who didn't listen to episode one, I'll just provide a few points that we explored quite deeply. Alexander AKA Sasha. Shulgin spoke a lot about who's on him
7:20
as well. What is the news? I tell you about his
7:23
His new book that's coming
7:24
out. No.
7:26
Oh yeah. I don't even know if this has been publicly announced but sorry to cut you off, right? As you are is summarized he's coming off State, like you to finish what you were saying? No no, you shouldn't okay, I guess just very briefly for anyone. That doesn't know who Alexander shulgin is he was This brilliant medicinal chemist who was responsible for the discovery of an estimated 200 novel, psychedelic compounds, and he wrote These two amazing book, speak. All and he
7:53
All that came out in the 90s and he died maybe five or six years ago and they recently found some tape recordings of a class that he gave in 1987 and their publishing it as a three-volume set. And I was sent a review copy of the first volume and it is so cool. It is one of the most amazing good because this man is no matter how you define it, the greatest expert that has ever lived on the gigantic.
8:23
Subject of drugs, he understood the anthropology, the chemistry, the botany, the mycology, the law, the history, he understood every dimension of it and was truly a genius. And at this time in 1987 it was I think a very important moment in the history of drug policy and the history of that, sort of research
8:46
1987 being when this
8:48
class was recorded. Yes. And it was I think a moment when he was becoming
8:53
Being radicalized when he was realizing that, there could be no more playing nice. The way he had in the past because he'd had this very close relationship with law enforcement throughout his career, and then things were getting worse in part. Not to go back
9:11
to episode 1, but in part because he done a lot of work for
9:14
established.
9:16
Pharma companies. Yes yeah, he'd work for Dow Chemical. He done pharmaceutical research. She worked with law enforcement and he had deep ties to the counterculture. He done a little bit of everything, he was friends with everyone, but during the Reagan Administration, it was becoming increasingly clear. That things were getting worse and worse, with every passing year. There was an idea that okay psychedelics have to be illegal because they cause hallucinations
9:45
And that's unacceptable in our society. But MDMA is different, MDMA doesn't cause hallucinations, and it can be used therapeutically and Physicians were recognizing that in the 1980s and then it was placed in schedule 1. So that was the
9:59
first
10:01
moment I think where he started to think
10:04
This can't go on the way. It's been going on because they will destroy every new medicine that I create. And then on top of that, they had just passed the federal analog act as well. So this was a law that exists to this day where they said if you're making something that we will arbitrarily Define as an analog of a schedule, 1 controlled substance, we can prosecute as if it is, that controlled substance. So if
10:34
Are making DMT plus an arbitrary number of carbon atoms. We can just say that that is DMT and charge you accordingly. So those two things combined, the destruction of any potential use of MDMA and the passage of the federal analog act had made him enraged. This is also the period that led to his writing and publication of P call. So this class that he's teaching is razor sharp and extremely
11:04
Occasionally, I think it's gonna be wonderful in. These books are published this summer. Will the audio also be made available? I haven't asked him yet, I certainly hope.
11:11
So, please ask them if they would like a cross promotional opportunity to put some of the audio on this podcast. I would be very interested to help them and so that shares a bit about Sasha shulgin who also I think it was Dave Nichols, Dave Nichols are nickel Nichols. Yeah. Dave Nichols who is
11:34
Is featured prominently in one of the episodes of season 3 of your television show who had a lot of correspondence with Sasha and said that. He was more, he considered him more of an alchemist than a scientist because he was almost like an ethnobotanist, not trying to preserve a first-person, objectivity mean, he consumed and tested many of the if not all of the compounds that he produced at least four tasting parties and things like
12:02
that, yes and was proud of it.
12:04
It you made no secret of the fact that he consumed the compounds that he synthesized. And I think that there's an idea, it's a very widespread idea that if you have personal experience with a psychoactive drug, this bias is you in such a way that the research that you do is not trustworthy, but this is something that we don't evenly, apply to other disciplines. No one would ever say that an ethnomusicologist is biased because they've listened to music or because they enjoy music.
12:34
Themselves or that a sports commentator is biased. If they have a past as an athlete, instead, we would say that this is something that makes them an expert who is qualified to discuss the subject. So, he was very open about the fact that he tried an enormous number of substances, but was not dependent on any of them. He did it in order to better characterize them so that he could speak authoritatively to his students to law enforcement.
13:04
Iseman, tanned to inform his own research, really brilliant guy. And this book is a very exciting tax. It actually gave me chills. As I was reading it because it's so good. Can you tell people where they should
13:16
look for this?
13:17
Yes, I mean you I think you can pre-order it on Amazon. Alexander shulgin is family, has a press called, transform press, it's called the nature of drugs.
13:26
That's a great title, it's great title, and for people who don't know, Pete call T, call those are
13:34
- Ethel amines, I have known and loved and tryptamines, I have known and loved respectively. I mean, these are encyclopedic, compilations of
13:46
Not just trip reports or descriptions of experiences, but also details related to
13:51
synthesis.
13:53
Yes, and back to the experience. I mean, that's been a big part of this psychedelic Renaissance is talking about how the new wave of researchers. Are these sort of objective dispassionate people who've never used them themselves? But not only is that not true. Most of fact, all of them have used psychedelics but they sometimes publicly say that they haven't which I think is not a good way to go about this, you know,
14:23
It is a big difference. I think between long-term and short-term strategies, when it comes to being part of a marginalized subculture, the short-term strategy is to be dishonest and to hide and to lie about who you are and what you care about. Because if the dominant culture tells you that it is wrong, that it's immoral, that it's illegal. That's what you do you hide. And that way you can protect yourself but that only protects you
14:53
What if you have children, who feel the same way they're not protected. What about your grandchildren if you want to actually create a cultural change, you have to be open about who you are and what you care about. And so one of the most disturbing things that I get sometimes in response to my show, as a is, when people say, oh, you should never talk about this chemistry, don't you realize, if you talk about this chemistry, then they'll make it illegal. You can't talk about that. Synthetic route. We've got to keep it secret. You can't show yourself.
15:23
assuming a drug then that acknowledges, the fact that people actually use these things, and we've got to keep it an objective clinical domain and sure if the point is to distort reality in order to sell something,
15:36
Fine. But that's not what it really is and that's not going to help people, long-term death, I
15:43
could not agree more. This is also part of the reason why slightly different example bought in the process of fundraising for say the Psychedelic and Consciousness Research Center at Johns Hopkins or for phase 3, studies for mdma-assisted Psychotherapy. When I was talking to potential donors,
16:02
it was a prerequisite in my mind that they'd be willing to use their names and not
16:08
donate as Anonymous and thereby reinforcing stigma that I think is largely unearned. So I wanted people to
16:19
not just take a public stance but to be proud of their involvement. And to show there were some, I know these are slightly different examples but reputational upside potential. Not just reputational downside potential. And also coming back to your ethnomusicology example, we don't even apply the same standard to researchers of other drugs or compounds, right? So if you're studying,
16:44
Opiates are, you're studying, morphine and you
16:46
happen to have been administered morphine in the course of being a patient in the hospital. Right. I don't think it is assumed that that somehow jeopardizes, your scientific Integrity for studying those things. Later, of
16:59
course not. No. There's a tremendous amount of inconsistency and hypocrisy in the way. These things are discussed and I think a lot of it boils down to puritanical objections to Euphoria and joy. You know, I don't think anyone would care about scientific
17:14
Self experimentation with topical capsaicin or something like that. Why? Because it's not going to cause any sort of euphoria and might even cause pain. And pain is dignified. Pain is good. Pane shows that you're working hard. You're self-sacrificing. That's all right. If you're having a good time that's a different story. Yeah.
17:33
Contemplating where to go next I still have three pages from our last conversation. I don't think we'll make it through just to give a quick disjointed.
17:44
Recap of the few things, I underlined from our previous conversation, bullet. He realized in high school after taking Salvia that psychedelics, are misunderstood and likely had more potential in people, realized jump forward for those who would like to learn more about psychedelics,
18:01
Neuro psychedelia by a Nicholas Lang. Let's
18:05
set credit, right? He's got a new book as well.
18:08
So many updates. Is it out
18:10
already? It's out. Yeah, what's it called? It's a meta primatology book. That's about. Not about primatology, but about primatologists. It's like the primatology of primatologists, it's really good. We
18:23
will put a link in the show notes to that new book as well. So Tim dot block, forward slash podcast, we won't, we will have that.
18:30
We talked about your experience with your cameraman and a hotel. In China with the synthetic cannabinoid, you are one 144 which led to a quote fractal of uncertainty and quote that was very unsettling. We have covered a number of Stories of the unsettling experience as one can have or the put a different way. The dangers of
18:56
Use of some psychedelics or more accurately use of psychedelics and uncontrolled or improperly supervised settings which includes documented fatalities. So I don't want to give anyone the impression here that these compounds are without risks because there's so many other factors that also come into play, not just the compound itself and I have to give a disclaimer here, so excuse me, Hamilton while I do so. But nothing we're going to talk about in this episode is intended to constitute.
19:26
Advice. We are not doctors, Neo Shaman's? And this is all for informational purposes, only so Caveat, Emptor be safe out there. Don't break any laws but jumping to the next Point. Real quick low doses, I want you to fact check me if I'm getting any of these Recaps wrong but low doses of drugs, including Zay cocktails, like, Ayahuasca can be more beneficial than the overwhelming. What do I do with this experience at high doses?
19:56
The you have had low dose experiences that helped you to see. I think in this case, quote, the nicotine gum was inside of me and quote. So there's there's a long story about the nicotine in our first conversation and we also talked a bit about ibogaine a bit about to CD and then topics that we might cover next time, which is now, this time, including Oliver Sacks and Claudia on that on hole. So now here we are in the present moment. We didn't discuss we've already talked about Sasha, Logan a bit.
20:26
Oliver Sacks or Claudio.
20:30
How do those figure into your life, as influences, or how would you explain either of them either of those figures?
20:38
Those are just to go back to what we were saying earlier about people who are in the closet about their drug use, you know, of course, when Oliver Sacks wrote, The Man Who mistook his wife for a hat and describe, the medical student, who is having the olfactory hallucinations after using PCP. He's talking about himself, but he didn't want to acknowledge that. He
21:00
Is PCP because he didn't want to acknowledge that he'd used drugs at all. You know, he was addicted to amphetamine for a period as well, possibly methamphetamine. I don't know. There's a biography written by Lawrence wechsler. That came out recently that I know Laurens watch later but I haven't had the opportunity to read it. It might go into that. But yeah he didn't want people to know as did you know many people Carl Sagan would be another example, you know, he wrote a portion of Lester grinspoon, 's marijuana reconsidered.
21:30
And talked about his revelatory experiences with cannabis but didn't want his name attached to it, right? So you have all these prominent Brilliant Minds that have benefited from the use of these things but they're afraid to publicly acknowledge that fact and that is I think damaging.
21:48
But Oliver Sacks in general, you know, he's wonderful. He's a amazing writer, I think he's one of the greatest science writers that has ever lived. Uncle tungsten the man who mistook his wife for a hat. These are really beautifully, written books, his book on hallucinations is also very good, so
22:05
you can hear that airplane, overhead. Folks, this is audio Veritas a few here, palm fronds in the background. Also, part of our experience in the world of covid. I would imagine you have had to pause
22:17
For audio, a fair amount in your life. So much
22:19
pausing. The joke that I remember someone told me one point is they said why does thunder come after lightning? Because even God has to wait for sound. Ha ha ha,
22:31
ha.
22:33
All right. So Claudia
22:35
yeah. Did you ever interview him or talk to him?
22:37
No, yeah, sadly.
22:39
Yeah. Me neither, you know, he wrote some enormous number of books and I've only read the healing journey. I really enjoyed that book me too.
22:47
Me too. I mean, I can't imagine being a psychologist and working with the patient or months or years and seeing such gradual change, may be no change at all. Must be very discouraging for someone that really wants to effect some kind of positive change and somebody that they're working with. And then when you look at this sorts of accounts that are described in the healing Journey, it's like a psychological fantasy of having this, you know, these
23:17
Immediate Revelations that effect profound and Lasting change in the people to use these substances. And of course, there are similar, you know, for people that are interested in books that describe psychologists administering psychedelics and their patients having very positive experiences. There's another book written by William Richards called sacred knowledge. Excellent book. It's a really, really good book.
23:47
Look, it's kind of half clinical primer on best practices with psychedelics, but then it also has a number of biographical sections on Bill Richards life, which is just fascinating and I've been moved to Tears by. Have you seen the video of him? Administering DPT to the dying cancer?
24:09
Patient. No, I have not.
24:11
This was it was on 60 Minutes in the 70s and I mean, it's one of the most moving pieces.
24:17
Pieces of Television I've ever seen. I'll say DPT. Yeah, DPT, although I don't believe they specify it in the report. I uploaded it to my YouTube channel recently for anyone that's looking for it and watching people who are at the end of their life, make peace with their own mortality in the presence of their family and the effect that has on their family. Is it causes so many emotions. One of which is it's almost infuriating to think that this wouldn't be available to everyone.
24:47
That
24:47
might want it. When you see how beneficial it is.
24:51
And I remember when I first heard about end-of-life psychedelic Psychotherapy when I was in my early 20s, I kind of thought what's the point of that? If the people are at the end of their life, wouldn't that be the lowest priority psychologically wouldn't? You want to help people that have their entire life ahead of them? That way you can affect the greatest change but I had no idea that the way somebody ends their life can have a tremendous impact on their family. And if they are at peace with their own mortality,
25:21
The end of their life that can relieve a lot of the trauma of losing a loved
25:26
one. I have not seen that video and I'll look for it on your YouTube channel. Bill Richards, for those who want a little bit more context on him is a beautiful human being. I felt very privileged to be able to spend time with him. I don't know if he's still associated with Johns Hopkins, but he was for very long period time. He along with Mary Cusimano, who I want to give a nod. Because she's
25:51
Stan, an exceptional human, and also very experienced supposed to therapist. Therapist. May not be the right term, slow Tater. I don't know what term they actually use within Johns Hopkins but she and Bill have they have one of the kind of larger sample sets that is in the hundreds of sessions that they have administered. Legally mostly involving, I would say psilocybin at this point probably in the kind of 30 milligram range, something like that but Bill
26:21
Is not just an excellent from my perspective, clinician. But he also thinks very deeply about the philosophical theological underpinnings and or implications of administering, these compounds. So for all those reasons and more, I definitely recommend that people check out his book. Have you met him before
26:40
I've spoken with him? I've never met him in person though and he's so good. It almost worries me a little bit because when people talk about the potential of psychedelics,
26:51
I think one thing they don't realize is that the people that are working on this right now are the best people in the world. Bill Richards is one in a million and by definition one, in a million, people are hard to come by. You're not going to have someone as compassionate. And skilled is Bill Richards, working in every psychedelic Psychotherapy startup. And so, when we look at how promising the results are from some of this clinical research that's coming out of Johns Hopkins, think it's important to remember,
27:21
That these are some of the most talented and passionate people to ever enter the field and it might not be the case at all these results. Generalized to a larger population, though. Of course, I hope they
27:31
will.
27:32
It's a really important point. I mean, these are people who have been able to withstand, in many cases, Decades of, not just resistance, but abuse by various establishments. So they're not fair weather entrance to this space. They've really endured a lot and that includes many people at Hopkins, including Roland, Griffiths, and many other research institutions. And I suppose this is as good a place as any to say that since you
28:02
I last spoke on the podcast which is a few years ago, a lot has happened in an extraordinary amount of acceleration has occurred in the research space, as well as in the for-profit sector related to psychedelics. Is there anything in particular that worries you?
28:21
Maybe we could talk about the promise but then there are maybe the concerns one of which I'm just inferring. From what you said would be the assumption that we can scale results and scale in therapists based on say the the results obtained through someone like Bill Richards. Although there has been a high level of replicability within the MDMA phase 3 trials because they had similar concerns or similar questions at least related to Michael and Annie MIT Hoffer who are very
28:51
Very scold therapists in the mdma-assisted Psychotherapy space and do any particular concerns come to mind for you?
28:59
Well, yeah, I mean back to this shulgin book, these are really funny moment where he says that every drug has no side effects for the first five years. So if you're going to use a drug, you have to use it in the first five years, when it comes out before, people realize that it has any problems associated with it. And
29:18
Every new drug does have a hype phase ketamine is in its height phase right now. Then after the hype phase, you enter a more sobering confrontation with its limitations right now. You have a lot of people with treatment-resistant depression, taking ketamine and they're experiencing miraculous results, five years from now, some of those people might start to suffer urogenital toxicity of one kind or another. That could make people laugh.
29:48
So optimistic about using this as a treatment casually, right? It's known to cause damage to the urinary bladder under some circumstances and we're going to see in a few years. What happens with more widespread use of it. So and cannabis is also somewhat in its hype phase. Where, if we're talking about cannabis as an intoxicant relative to alcohol, which sets the bar very low in my opinion. Yeah, it's great. It's not going to cause
30:18
Cause liver damage, it's not associated with overdose. It doesn't cause the same sort of physical addiction in the vast majority of instances, though. Of course some people do develop problematic relationship so that but I predict in a few years we're going to start to scrutinize a little bit whether or not it's a good idea to be as stoned as many people are all the time. I mean again I think it's almost certainly it is.
30:48
Certainly better than being drunk all the time. But, you know, there's the Cannabis hyperemesis disorder, which is something that wasn't discovered until relatively recently. And it seems that that's a product of new patterns of cannabis consumption.
31:04
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32:54
Are there any other compounds that you think are undervalued or overhyped at the moment for therapeutic purposes? So let's just say and then this, this good segue to your experience. Actually which I'd love to hear about iboga or ibogaine for opiate use disorder or opiate addiction. What is your evaluation of
33:17
that? I think there's a lot of promise there. I think there's a lot of promise for pretty much all summer.
33:24
students abuse disorders and I predict many sorts of compulsions and addictions in general, which is something I didn't fully come to appreciate until I went to Central West Africa and participated in these iboga rituals which gave me a far greater appreciation of both the ritual elements and kind of the larger Spirit of iboga Beyond its
33:54
ISM of the alpha 3 beta for nicotine, acetylcholine
33:58
receptor. I think that's the first time. I've personally, ever heard you use spirit.
34:03
I know I as I said it, I did I go there and I just have two words because I say the s word.
34:12
Could you tell us more about your experience? That I thought that episode of season 3? And do you say, pharmacopoeia are forever. Pharmacopoeia, I ask this every time.
34:20
Pharmacopoeia is correct by say pharmacopoeia, pharmacopoeia. It's always the battle of
34:24
You say yeah, there's endless ones of these where you look like an asshole and sacred Tom and or do you say Kratom like an American and say it wrong. Both ways are
34:36
leaving us leaving aside psilocybin and our friends, across the pond. What was your experience? Like, could you speak to some of the experience, whether sort of phenomenologically in the drug experience or plant experience people prefer, or considering the ritual elements?
34:54
It's what were some of the bits and pieces, that you felt were particularly impactful. Because in that particular episode, in contrast to some episodes like the xenon gas episode. There's relatively little footage of you, yes,
35:08
in the actual ceremony. Yes. And that was very important to me. I want it to be entirely absent from it and I have almost complete creative control of my show within the bounds of the law. But one thing that was very
35:21
problematic, that means just within the bounds of
35:24
I just refers to showcasing chemical
35:26
synthesis. I mean even then I do pretty much everything that I want to do but you know I can't I don't know depict myself committing a crime. I don't know that I would want to either, but the one thing that was really there's a lot of pushback was showing myself and I didn't want to be a part of that episode. There have been a number of Boga documentaries made or a white outside or it goes to Central West, Africa, and participate in Beauty rituals.
35:54
And I felt that this was one time. I didn't want to do that. I wanted to show the tradition and more importantly I wanted to show that tradition is changing. I think a lot of people have this idea of traditions as being the static unchanging force. And in some cases, actually, there are many aspects of the bwiti religion that appear unchanged since Anthropologist documented them in the 60s but one big cultural shift that is occurred.
36:24
Is there are now opioids in Cameroon and Gabon that were not there? Previously. There is no tradition of using opioids in that region. There is no heroin trade their historically, pharmaceutical opioids have been far too expensive to be street drugs. It just wasn't a market and the naturally occurring, opioids, don't exist there. So you have a new pharmacological class of drugs, introduced to a new culture that didn't grow up watching
36:54
watching Trainspotting and Requiem for a Dream and Christian a fan permanent midnight and daytime television. Specials about addiction were inundated with this stuff. Imagine if you'd never even heard that an opioid is addictive before how much more difficult it could be to develop a responsible pattern of use. And so Tramadol is being pressed and ultra high potency tablets specifically for the West African Market.
37:24
And they're extremely inexpensive and the addiction is become pretty widespread. So what I found so interesting is that what is the clinical application of Tramadol? What's the indication? Tramadol is sort of like codeine. It is a low potency opioid analgesic that is unregulated in many countries. It is in Canada. It's not a prescription drug in Canada until a few years ago in the United States. It wasn't a prescription drug. It wasn't controlled. So
37:54
So because it's considered have a low abuse potential, it paradoxically ends up being one of the more used compounds because it's more available. This is like what, you know, this is why it's really hard to talk about abuse. Potential is some sort of intrinsic factor of a drugs chemistry or pharmacology, because it's so much dependent on these social regulatory factors as well. So Tramadol is relatively unregulated because it's considered relatively non abusable. But
38:24
Actually gets used all over the place for that reason. And it's a mild kind of codeine like a fact, but if you take a lot of it, it becomes less mild and like all opioids. If you use a chronically, can induce dependence and in some instances problematic addiction. So the idea that
38:43
ibogaine is an anti. Addictive drug is not an African tradition. That is something that was discovered in the United States by a new york-based heroin addict named Howard. Lotsof, do you know the story? I don't. Yeah, he was a guy who in the 60s was using heroin. He was friends with the chemist. The chemist said there's this psychedelic called ibogaine, you might think it's fun and that's all was just a psychedelic and he tried it. He tripped. You had a fine time with the
39:13
Began and then when he came down, he realized that he hadn't used heroin and he wasn't experiencing withdrawals and his concept of heroin had changed. Suddenly he didn't consider heroin desirable, he saw it as symbolic of death and repulsive and had no desire to ever use it again and didn't and dedicated the rest of his life to being a sort of Crusader for the
39:43
Auntie addictive effects of ibogaine which he had discovered and they were later validated in laboratory experiments with rodents. So it is pretty well confirmed at this point in humans and rodents in a number of different models. That ibogaine is, in fact, an auntie addictive drug. I don't know,
40:00
the names of many researchers involved with I began. I Boga or any
40:06
Similar compounds, was that endeavor mashes laboratory that those studies were done with rodents or was that somewhere else?
40:12
Deborah. Mash may have been one of the early researchers on it. It's been replicated in the number of different labs. This is one thing that's pretty well, characterized at this point and of course, they're also synthetic. Derivatives of ibogaine, like, 18. MC that have slightly different pharmacology. Zat also exert the same anti addictive effect, that's hypothesized to be derived from antagonism of this.
40:36
One subtype of the nikitina kettle. Choline receptor the alpha 3 beta for nicotine acetylcholine receptor. So this is not part of the tradition in Gabon because a there's no tradition of using opioids and because it's a religious Sacrament it's part of a religion called bwiti so
40:55
Now, that opioids are present in that region. They are modifying their Traditions, to accommodate the treatment of local addicts. And that's what I wanted to document in my
41:07
piece. I thought the documenting
41:10
of a local
41:13
being shepherded through the process by these bwiti Elders was really well done. I thought that was a very strong
41:19
episode. Yeah. And I think it is important that they understand that.
41:25
You have this amazing medicine available to them because it always also struck me as ironic that everywhere else in the world. People are exclusively using and talking about ibogaine as an anti addictive drug but the one place where there's actually a tradition of using it where there's now a problem with Tramadol.
41:42
They're just now beginning to recognize that they can use their own medicine to treat people in their community and it was really cool to see that happening and to see how well it
41:51
worked providing. That is sort of historical, and cultural backdrop, what elements of the experience stood out for you personally? Since I can't ask anyone else about the experience that was depicted in that episode. It is for those who may have some experiences with psychedelics in the let's
42:11
Call it perhaps in the western kind of psychotherapeutic or pseudo psychotherapeutic model where you lay down? You listen to spa music. Basically, with eyeshades on this ritual, i setting could not be more different,
42:27
it's the opposite of sensory deprivation. It's the most stimulating thing. I have ever been a part of its continuous dancing. Continuous music, continuous drumming no sleep, no food.
42:41
Food, no water. No break maximum exertion and they divided the ceremonial space into different regions dedicated to different purposes. So, for people that are there for medicinal purposes, they occupy a sort of recessed Zone where they lay side by side and everyone dances around them and they take such high doses of iboga that it has an almost anesthetic
43:11
Fact, they'll even prick people to make sure that they're still responsive to the sensation. And if they are unresponsive, that's the indication that they've had enough iboga. It's time to stop and allow them to recover a little bit but there's continuous consumption and everyone must consume babies children adults the elderly. Everybody takes iboga.
43:38
But there is a different dose for each person depending on who they are, what they're doing in the ceremony and what sort of treatment they're trying to receive. And then it's really very amazing. They have people that wear military outfits and they are an army, A Spiritual Army who guard the iboga ceremony from bad spirits and they have iboga guns in a Bogan knives that they use to prevent anyone from
44:07
Entering that might interfere with the healing of the participants. There's a lot of incredibly beautiful symbolism in these rituals, including burying people alive. And I'd read about this and I had always wondered if this is still something that's practiced but they will.
44:24
Dig a grave and you will lay in the grave on iboga with your face up looking at the stars and just your head protruding from the ground and you spend the night in the ground to contemplate your own mortality. Now, I can't see that being integrated into our Western Medical practice, but I can imagine how profound that could be.
44:52
Even without a
44:53
psychedelic, do they observe any cardiac complications in their tradition? I ask because my understanding is that there have been documented cardiac issues associated with perhaps not, I BOGO maybe it's I began Administration and places like Mexico. Do they appear to run into any health
45:14
complications? I asked about that and they told me that they were aware of people that had died using it.
45:22
And so it seems that they are aware, there's no pretense that. This is a medicine that can't hurt anyone under any circumstances, they're aware that it is very powerful and has to be dosed very carefully because I began binds to something called the herg channels. And these are potassium ion channels that regulate heart rhythms a lot of topical anesthetics bind to her channels and ibogaine actually has a mild topical anesthetic effect.
45:52
so,
45:53
If you take high doses of it, it can cause fatal arrhythmias. They didn't say that specifically they didn't talk about, you know, observing QT interval, prolongation, or something like that, but they knew that it had to be used. Very cautiously and you had to observe each person as they used
46:11
it. There's certainly a lot more to say about how the bwiti use iboga. There, many different directions. We go. This is as good a place as any to
46:23
Ask you to describe or actually just answer. The question is I Boga itself this plant from which they derive, this Sacrament at risk or threatened in any way and this is a question of sustainability as the global demand for this continues to accelerate.
46:44
Yes. Yeah. You know, I've been thinking about this a lot recently and I was thinking that
46:51
It's funny that these drug laws were.
46:55
Ostensibly drafted to protect us from drugs but may have actually had the only benefit of protecting drugs from us. And now that more and more people are recognizing the benefit of these substances, there is going to be a tremendous burden on the natural reserves of things like iboga Ayahuasca. Bufo alvarius Venom, not to
47:25
Shin the even more unusual, things that are out there and for anyone that does recognize the benefits of these things. It's very important to
47:35
Take sustainability seriously because medicinal plants and especially medicinal animals are widely documented to be destroyed. When they are integrated into a popular Medical Practice, it doesn't even need to exert a therapeutic effect. Rhinoceros horn Pangolin scale, these are things that have no pharmacological effect whatsoever, although Pangolin scales were reputed to contain Tramadol at one point but they absolutely
48:05
We do not, but that's all it takes. Is someone to say something like that and before, you know, it pangolins are severely threatened or even worse human intervention. With some of these animals can cause the transmission of viruses cause pandemics, I mean, there's a lot of reasons to be very careful about the way that you interact with animals in medical practices, unless it's absolutely necessary to do so. And I feel conflicted,
48:35
Acted about iboga because on one hand, I want so much to sing its praises and, and talk about the tremendous benefit that I think it had for me, even using it just this one time. But I know that when people hear that and understand that the natural response is going to be Whi want to try that myself and in iboga, tree has to be about five years old before. You can even begin to harvest the Ruth's there's
49:05
About sustainable harvesting where you only cut off, half the roots and leave the rest of the trouble. I've, I certainly never observe that and go on every time I saw anyone harvesting Roots, they would kill the entire tree. There's talk about different types of sort of hydroponic growth or Harry root culture, that can be done to increase the yield. It could also be grown on a larger scale. I did see some people that had small iboga farms in
49:35
Both Cameroon and Gabon, it's possible. But there has to be a strong incentive and the consumer has to be willing to pay the price to know that what they are consuming has been responsibly
49:48
sourced. So you know that I recently wrote and published a blog post on considering a more ethical menu, the piece was targeted at psychedelic users or people who use compounds that often overlap with psychedelic use or
50:05
Situation like combo. Yeah. And discussing some of the telescoping
50:12
Potential, ramifications of these things, becoming 10 times more popular, a hundred times more popular thousand times more popular, which is not outside the realm of imagination or possibilities. All actually very easily. Could be the case. And there are a lot of points that I tried to describe or make in this piece and people can find it at MDOT blog Force us conservation. It's kicked up quite a lot of discussion and also blowback because some of my recommendations hit a lot of people directly in the wallet.
50:42
Who are providers of various things if we grab one example, let's just take bufo alvarius and 5 mu, DM t, as an example. How contained is the ecological impact of synthesizing versus procuring it from these these toads. I mean this is a fairly a suppose easy example in this is maybe a good example to start with because others become
51:09
Maybe a bit more complex to talk about in the sense that, if we're talking about MDMA people can point to deforestation in Cambodia, or they can look at The Dumping of various chemicals used in producing MDMA and Holland, and so on, and in other locations. But how should people think of synthetics and environmental impact? Is there a way to minimize the impact and the case of say, 5 m EO DMT?
51:33
Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah, a lot of the examples that you just gave are interesting because they're
51:38
Completely true. Yes, there's deforestation in Cambodia to extract safrole from these trees, but that doesn't need to be a source of safrole. That's a product of the black market. That's just because it can be done that way. You can make safrole, any number of other ways you can make MDMA from black pepper, you can make it from catechol, you can make it from a just endless different petroleum products, whatever. There's it's a relatively simple molecule, there's hundreds of ways that it conceivably could be made.
52:08
Made that don't involve the destruction of old growth trees in Cambodia. The only situation where that is in this asset e is where MDMA is a schedule 1 controlled substance, and the manufacture and distribution of it is controlled by the black market and it's completely unregulated. It's sort of like when people say, well, how could you possibly do cocaine? You're supporting the cartels and
52:33
I understand the point but the issue isn't doing cocaine. The issue is the prohibition of cocaine. That makes it a black market commodity that has to be sold by cartels. It could just as easily be a regulated market like anything else, like aspirin. So I think that there's a lot of misplaced moralism in some of these areas and synthesis does not have to involve destruction of the environment at all. Five Amino DMT, especially because
53:02
You know, you can make five me or DMT from melatonin and melatonin, I think is produced by Crow be Ali. At least, you know, a lot of amino acids are produced microbially or there's you know such an enormous industry for the production of amino acids like tryptophan and that, they've figured out ways to produce those on an enormous scale with minimal ecological repercussions. So, you can take a hundred grams of melatonin and convert that to about a hundred grams of five amiodarone.
53:32
Mt, which is the equivalent of milking thousands and thousands and thousands of toads. And so the question is, why not do that? Well, one reason is that there's a sort of vitalist.
53:47
Animist interest in the fact that it comes from a toad. Which I understand, I actually think that's really interesting myself. I don't want to Discount that entirely and so then the issue is, how can we make synthetic materials have the same value as something? That is derived from nature, how could you feel that same connection to a synthetic material? Because we think of a synthetic material is something that is soulless something that is bad. Oh it comes from some laboratory in China. That means it's bad. It's
54:17
It doesn't have the sacred goodness of something is derived from this toad that lives in Sonora and estimates underground for nine months, just like the period of human gestation and there's so much beautiful symbolism there. That of course, is a transformative good experience. How could you find that same beautiful symbolism in a synthetic compound? Well, what if you knew that the compound was synthesized by someone who cared, who did it lovingly, who is very dedicated to Purity. I mean, you hear stories of Nicks and
54:47
clutching the flask of LSD as he synthesizes it and trying to project love into the molecule itself. You know, you can do this to a synthetic compound if you want and you can confer the same sorts of positive associations. You know, you can have animist essentialist attachments to anything if you want to choose. And that's what I think is. So funny, when people say how dare you say, there's no difference between synthetic and natural. That's actually not what I'm saying. I do believe that.
55:17
Is a difference. But I think we have control over that difference. I think that difference is a product of the value system that we have and we could just as easily shift it if we wanted
55:27
to, furthermore, I would say and this is also what I wrote in that piece. At one point is even if we assume that some of these animal or plant derived options are 20% Superior and whatever sense to a synthetic, I would find it hypocritical to
55:47
Inflict ecological damage or encourage, increasing levels of ecological damage in the name of pursuing one's own healing. If other tools may be adequate and for that reason, also, if we're just looking at this from a historical and cultural perspective, I think lots of people and I'm not to malign this, but they want to kind of put a stamp,
56:14
For every plant or animal experience into their psychedelic passport. And I understand the drive, I'm a novelty Seeker, I get it, but it's hard to find. I don't think I would say impossible to find any single indigenous culture that has used the entire Pantheon of psychedelics. It's just not something that we see demonstrated by these Traditions that are venerated by the very same people who then reject a synthetic. Let me ask a question before.
56:44
I lose the thread for those people who might synthesize cuz I watch footage whether it's in your show or I do reading. And I hear about the dumping of solvents and other things after illicit, manufacturer of different compounds, what would your advice be to someone who is synthesizing anything in terms of minimizing, how to dispose of their waste or otherwise to minimize damage there. Any considerations and I'm asking this is a non chemist. I've never seen
57:14
Sighs anything right? It completely depends on what chemicals you're using because there are many things that are relatively innocuous, you know, you could be using. Alcohol is a solvent, and then you could just evaporate it into the air. And it's just alcohol, doesn't matter or sodium, borohydride, might form various borate salts that are innocuous, and then you can do whatever you want with them. I'll put them in your garden if you want. And other times, you might be working with Mercury salts that are deadly poisons. And in that
57:44
Case it is your responsibility not to introduce them into the environment where they could hurt someone or enter the groundwater. And again, this is why having a regulated system is ideal because you don't have to depend on the good intentions of every single person that's making these sort of things you can leave it up to people that are professionally invested in doing the right thing that said for every story that you hear about clandestine chemists,
58:14
Something solvents and waste material into the environment. There are actually a good number of people who are aware of that, stereotype who go far out of their way, not to be like that Casey Hardison is a sort of controversial LSD, chemist, who many people now, have some problems with. But one of the things that he was most proud of was that in his entire LSD lab, all of the waste could be put in one trash. Can that he was extremely aware of, you know?
58:43
I'm doing something that society says is wrong, so I'm going to go above and beyond to do it as well as I possibly can. So that no one can accuse me of having damage the environment in the process of creating this chemical. And I've known a number of other chemists who have the same attitude who actually not only do they do the right thing. They almost take neurotic pride in never doing any harm to the environment with their synthesis. And there's a whole sub class of chemistry called Green chemistry, that is dedicated to
59:14
Finding the most environmentally friendly way of producing a given chemical or given
59:19
reaction. If someone lets just say ends up with their garbage can of waste. I don't know if this is something we can talk about, but hypothetically, how would they dispose of that in a responsible way? And I know it depends on the chemicals involved but let's just say some of them are toxic while minimally identifying themselves as someone who is engaged in illegal Behavior. Does that make sense? I think of
59:41
course of course it's a really good question and a
59:43
Again, I hate to keep saying this again, and again, but it comes down to one of the problems. When something is illegal is you could be somebody, the genuinely wants to do the right thing. I've got a little bit of mercury waste. I don't want to just pour this down the drain. I want to do the right thing and give it to a hazardous, waste, disposal company, but I'm afraid that in doing. So, I will incriminate myself and end up in prison. And so
1:00:14
Want to risk it. This is another attitude that you find. And in those cases, I don't know how to advise people. I would say that before you get involved in anything like that.
1:00:26
Make sure that you have a plan for absolutely everything. I'm not suggesting that people in discriminately start.
1:00:34
Synthesizing, these compounds, that's not what I'm saying. I'm saying that synthesis is an alternative to harvesting them from the natural world for chemists that are trained and want to do. So, I do have a sort of utopian Vision, where more people are involved in chemistry, because I actually think that one of the best ways to reduce problematic relationships, with drugs, is to have people make their own drugs and grow their own plans. And I think the same is also True Food, by the way.
1:01:04
And if more people grew their own food and prepare their own food, they'd have much much healthier diets. No one would be eating gummy worms. There would be a lot less obesity and it's because we are detached from the process of manufacturing. A lot of the things that sustain our life and if people grew their own mushrooms, I think that
1:01:28
They would have a much better experience with those mushrooms, because they would know everything that went into producing them. I think the same is true of cannabis. I think the same is true of mescaline containing cacti. And I think, although this is where it enters a slightly idealistic and unrealistic territory. I think that it's also true of synthetic drugs as well. If you spend a year figuring out how to make MDMA and how to dispose of the waste, effectively, there's no way that you would abuse it by the time you were down. You'd have so much respect for what you
1:01:57
Created and the work that went into creating it, you'd have to take it
1:02:01
seriously. So to recap, just for the benefit of this podcast with the assumption that most people are not going to read the piece that I wrote even though I'll plug it again, it's nothing for sale there. Well actually it's not sure there's one link to your pamphlet on related to five Meo and synthesis but all proceeds from that go to supporting research related to Parkinson's disease. Yes. So people
1:02:27
You can read this at terminal. Block Ford / conservation, but
1:02:33
A few options in terms of lessening damage. And I say this, I should say because we're talking a lot about synthetics as someone who's very fond extremely fond of whole plant, derived or fungi derived psychedelics, whether they be slawsa, be mushrooms or Ayahuasca, which is a combination of the ministery abscess, copy Vine. And most commonly the Chuck Bruno or psychotria viridis shrub leaves. Their of, I've derived, incredible therapeutic.
1:03:01
Value from these things. And I've had to accept the uncomfortable truth. That a lot of the sourcing that is currently going on. In the Psychedelic, world is just unsustainable. It is not scalable and totally unsustainable. I'll offer a few alternatives for people who may be interested in peyote, I would say. Please do not use peyote Reserve that for indigenous. Use consider like you mentioned other mescaline containing cacti, San Pedro regenerates, much more quickly.
1:03:31
Combo. I would say just don't do it. Most civilizations have survived and thrived and develop deep spiritual practices without using toads of any type psychedelic animals. So I would argue that you do not need to either or you shouldn't until you have exhausted, all other options, the Sonoran Desert toad who fall various. We talked about synthesis options that have I mean the yield is pretty
1:03:56
incredible. Oh yes. I mean this is the other thing is if you believe in this medicine
1:04:02
And you want people to have access to it, this is the way to actually make it available. There's no comparison to toads in terms of how much can be produced this way. This is how it to actually get it out there. And there hasn't been a lot of research published on how toad populations have been altered by their recent popularity. But I think it's very telling, you know, if somebody is selling a product and they say, it's great, you have to really scrutinize the claim.
1:04:32
But if someone has everything to gain and they're telling you that they're doing something bad, not to do it, you have to listen very carefully so people that were making their living harvesting toad Venom, we're telling me this is not sustainable, the populations are dwindling and they had every reason to lie about that they could have just as easily said, don't worry about it. There's so many they're probably just hibernating but they did not say that they said that there needs to be an alternative available to people.
1:05:02
and,
1:05:04
I actually see it as a, you know, a source of inspiration. If you care about these things, then you can show your admiration by studying them and trying to recreate them synthetically to better understand them. You know, I think that there's a tribute to Nature and all-natural product chemistry, where you're recognizing this amazing feat of enzymatic. Synthesis it was conducted by a plant or an animal and you're saying, all right, that's a great challenge. I'm gonna see if I can do it as well. I'm going to see if I can do it, and if there's more
1:05:33
In the Venom. Although I don't actually think that there is all that much. That is contributing. Why not try that out as well. You can synthesize bufotenin. You can synthesize serotonin. Oh, sulfate. If you want, you can synthesize any of these compounds and try them in different combinations and let that be a challenge and a way of showing your admiration to the
1:05:53
toad. Let's stay on, 5 m, EO DMT for a little bit longer. Well, specifically, the toad arrived
1:06:01
Quote, unquote toad, as it's often referred to and I want to preface the question. I'm gonna ask the, it's going to upset people by saying I am in love with many of the Traditions related to Sacred plants in Central and South America. I've spent a lot of time in both places, I've read library's full of books, and have tremendous respect for these indigenous cultures. And traditions that said, let me ask the question.
1:06:31
How much evidence is there to support that? There is a long history of indigenous. Use of the Sonoran Desert
1:06:38
toad as far as I can tell, there's absolutely no history whatsoever. Yeah and it's a complicated point that I tried to make in my piece and I think I ended up confusing a lot of people because the history is that there was an anthropologist named Jeanette run Quest who had
1:07:01
Found a Cherokee midden pile. That contained a lot of toads and had concluded. I think maybe even partially on the basis of some work. Alexander shulgin had done and her correspondence was shulgin, that it was may be possible that they were using it as a psychoactive drug, which was a compelling hypothesis and it's worthy of consideration, but subsequent investigations have shown that those toads could not have been bufo alvarius, which is the only species that produces five, Amino DMT and that there is
1:07:31
Really almost no way that it was any psychoactive Toad and that there's very strong evidence that they were using the Toads is food. So you have no evidence of a psychedelic tote in that region and a history of using toads as food by those same people. It seems pretty clear that you can't point to that and say, this is evidence of ancient smoking. A bufo alvarius Venom, it simply isn't, but to make things more complicated, this misconception.
1:07:59
Served as the inspiration for an independent researcher named Ken Nelson in the 80s. So he read this article which got a little bit of popular press in magazines like Omni which were very
1:08:11
Very influential in the 1980s and he decided to investigate it himself thinking that he was rediscovering an ancient practice, but he wasn't rediscovering it. He was actually discovering it for the first time, which is just a really, actually very confusing turn of events. But that is what happened. He is according to known history. The first human being to smoke the Venom of bufo, alvarius. I mean, just the
1:08:39
trial and error.
1:08:41
And balls and also intelligence that are encapsulated by can. I mean it's really mind-boggling how much he was able to do and document.
1:08:57
Oh yeah, I mean, I think it's inspiring because it shows, you know, during the same period in the 1980s when things were looking really, really bad for psychedelic research, how one person could make such an interesting and
1:09:11
How culturally very important Discovery just on the basis of their own curiosity? I'll
1:09:16
also add one more thing and please Hamilton call me out of, I'm wandering astray and getting things wrong. But I think another element or aspect of this, that might be confusing to people is I think what you're saying, if I'm hearing you correctly, is that there is no compelling evidence to suggest.
1:09:38
Indigenous or historical use up until a handful of decades ago, of the Sonoran Desert toad as a source of five of them, you know,
1:09:46
DMT. That is correct.
1:09:48
Yes, what you are not saying is that there's no historical evidence of indigenous, use of five Meo DMT containing
1:09:59
plants. That is correct. Yes, that is a, that is
1:10:01
done. Yeah, that is the case. But if we're looking at toad specifically, and, and I'm
1:10:08
Kind of beating this dead horse folks, because I have seen how popular toad has become in psychedelic circles, and it's very, very worrisome to me just in terms of scalability, so that's why we're spending so much time on this. I should also say, just as a caveat that I have quite apart from the ecological impact, seeing some very experienced Psychonauts, get knocked sideways and untethered by a
1:10:37
A5 M, EO DMT experiences not to say that, that is always going to be the case, but at least anecdotally among the circles that I know, well, it has been a long, arming, how many examples there are? People getting D stabilized by their experiences. I don't know if if, if you have any thoughts on that.
1:10:58
Oh, yes. I mean, I think one of the unfortunate things about five Mio DMT is its name. So people think 5, mm, you know, DMT that must be a version.
1:11:07
And of DMT, it must be similar to DMT but it's more distant from DMT then silicon and psilocybin, you know? It's a
1:11:17
Pharmacologically and chemically and experientially crucially different compound. It's so different. That I don't even think the word, psychedelic, really fully captures what it is and what it does. It's operating on a level that is different from any other psychedelic and I'm not just talking about its potency, there's something else going on, it's not doesn't cause visual hallucinations for most people. It dissociates you entirely from your environment, you become
1:11:47
Largely unresponsive at high doses. Almost as if you've taken an anesthetic and it can bruise very violent, physical reactions for people as well. It's really like a near-death experience more than what people think of when they think of a psychedelic
1:12:03
experience for all of those reasons and more folks, please consider other options or a synthetic route with respect to toad in the new season. Not to go from like horror to horror you
1:12:17
Lord xenon gas. Yes. So I think this is a useful place to talk about not necessarily risks of compounds, but risks, that can exist external to the compound or even the dose of a compound itself. So, we were texting about this a few days ago. But can you provide a little bit of background on? Why you have a gas in the most
1:12:47
In season and what some of its effects are. And then
1:12:53
Talk about what you observed in this Clinic that scared the living shit out of me. Yes. Yeah,
1:13:01
so for those that aren't aware of xenon, it is an element. It's on the periodic table of elements, in a column called the noble gases. It's on the rightmost side, and at the top, you have helium, which everyone is familiar with and neon. Which again, everyone is familiar with an argon, which may be a few less people are familiar with than Krypton and then xenon's, you know is the heaviest Noble.
1:13:23
I said, is not radioactive than you have radon, which is unstable. And if you've heard of xenon, you probably only know about it. In the context of lighting, it's used in car, headlights and projector lights and things like that. It's very very rare in our atmosphere its point zero, zero, zero, zero, zero eight, seven percent of Earth's atmosphere. So there's a little tiny bit in every breath that you take, but in order to concentrate enough of it too,
1:13:53
Fill a tank. You need to distill millions of liters of air, you have to compress it and cool it down to a liquid and then fractionally distill off the nitrogen and the oxygen. And finally, after you've removed all the other gases, you're left with a small Xenon fraction it which is why it's so expensive. A single breath of xenon cost somewhere in the range of
1:14:17
$60. And that's unfortunate because for anesthesiologist that have examined Xenon, clinically it concluded that it has a number of attributes that make it essentially, the perfect anesthetic. It is not metabolized in any way it can be recycled indefinitely, it's extremely potent. More potent than nitrous oxide when it's given to a patient. They recover, very, very rapidly. After the xenon, gas is removed.
1:14:46
Within seconds and the anesthesia also begins within seconds and it has no known toxicity. So it is arguably the perfect anesthetic and maybe even the perfect drug. It's incredibly incredibly euphoric. But in this actually goes back to these again, I was saying earlier about how there's so many different factors that determine addiction when people were talking about addiction potential, there could be the greatest drug in the world but it doesn't matter if a single dose of it cost.
1:15:16
Since of dollars or it's impossible to obtain. And I think Xenon is an example of that. It is a drug that is extremely enjoyable, but it is just something that nobody has access to. I never thought I would have the opportunity to use it and it wasn't until I was visiting a chemist friend. In New Zealand. I was in 2014, I was on my way back to the United States. I was about to get on the plane and he said it before you go. I need to show you. I have this tank of xenon and I couldn't believe it that it seems so
1:15:46
Absurdly extravagant. It seemed almost on par with, you know, using gold or diamonds as a psychoactive drug. And I had that opportunity to inhale one balloon full of xenon and I, it was a cherished memory of this, you know, one absurd extravagant encounter with xenon gas, which is a source of Fascination for anyone that cares about the periodic table.
1:16:09
Yeah, that when you say balloon,
1:16:13
it was a balloon of
1:16:14
sorts.
1:16:17
May or may not have been a condom. Ha ha ha. You see you talking about this perfect drug? I think you're talking about, it has a perfect drug from the standpoint of euphoria. I want you to correct me if I'm wrong. The first time, the Xenon ever came on my radar outside of hearing about it in passing. Maybe in high school on the periodic table was as a possible performance enhancing drug at the Sochi Olympics for
1:16:46
Endurance. I think it was for biathlon or any number of other sports, but that it was being used for endurance enhancing properties as a performance-enhancing drug. I don't know if there's any real plausible mechanism to explain that, but what are the medical uses of xenon outside of inducing euphoria?
1:17:12
First as an anesthetic but it's not used for that in the United States. At this time, it was used experimentally for a brief period by an anesthesiologist named Mervyn Maze and a few others have investigated it. But it has not been approved by the FDA for that purpose and all uses experimental. There is a pharmaceutical company called nobilis. It's trying to develop and release a Xenon inhaler for PTSD. They actually sent me a prototype of it which is the first time I've heard of a psychoactive drug inhale.
1:17:41
Allure for treatment of a psychological disorder. Very interesting idea. I don't know if it will ever come to Market, but it was really cool to see somebody looking into that in terms of performance enhancing. I think that it's basically working as a sort of oxygen deprivation type intervention, where in addition to the anesthetic Euphoria into facts that conceivably could allow an athlete to get a little extra.
1:18:11
Workout in. I mean, this is I think among Elite Olympic type athletes. It would be far too expensive to use under any sort of normal training and that was about it. You know, I had this one experience, I wrote it up as a fun novelty that I never get to do again. And then somebody wrote to me and they said, you know, I was just in the sauna at the gym and some guy said that he's owns a Xenon Clinic, what's the deal with that? And I thought well I don't know what the deal is with that.
1:18:41
I've never heard of a Xenon clinic and I said, you know, can you get me this guy's phone number and could I talk to him and he said, oh, you know, I'll do what I can. He sends me, his phone number, we start talking in the English language. There's almost nothing about this. This is all happening in Russia. Czech Republic, India as well apparently. But if you look online at least before I released my episode, there was almost nothing about Xenon as a psychoactive drug. But these clinics are opening up for they give people
1:19:11
Anon as a therapy for a variety of different ailments. And so, I went and spent some time at one of these clinics and it was a fascinating and somewhat frightening experience.
1:19:23
It was one of the most.
1:19:26
Surreal, I would say, maybe that's the word. It's real 20 or 30 minutes of television I've ever seen. I won't ruin the surprise but they're xenon gas. There's operatic singing. There are breatharians. In other words, people who claim to survive on Prana alone without eating food, which ends up being particularly relevant when we get to the
1:19:55
Our story that I hope you'll share.
1:19:58
It's and also to the bizarreness of hearing how deep your voice
1:20:05
becomes. Oh yeah on Zenon. Yes. Yes, it's really funny. It's also funny. I there's a number of videos on YouTube of people inhaling Xenon exclusively for the purpose of altering, the sound of their voice. I think this is another example of this sort of puritanical attitude that people have. So all these if you inhale xenon gas to change,
1:20:28
The sound of your voice for YouTube video that's totally fine. I upload a video of myself. Inhaling xenon gas. My voice is changed. But like everyone else I get high. The only difference is in the other videos, they want to change their voice. The highness is incidental, in my video, I want to get high in the voice changes incidental, but in my case, the video is demonetized,
1:20:53
you back, an alien
1:20:54
hedonist that's, I think that is sort of
1:20:58
Emblematic of the way, these things are carried out in our culture. To people can inhale the exact same gas, but if you're doing it with the intention of feeling Euphoria, that's unacceptable, but if you're doing it to playfully, alter the sound of your voice, then, sure. That's fine. We can advertise with
1:21:16
that since I've been dragging this out with foreshadowing. What was the horror
1:21:21
story? Okay, okay, the horror story. Yes. So in order to do the work that I do, I've had to cultivate a very
1:21:28
Non-judgmental attitude and I often get messages from people saying you know, how could you possibly let this person say this or how could you have talked to this for that sort of person but I think the best strategy if you're trying to learn from someone else is just to listen and to not judge them. And I've never been the sort of person that wants to catch people looking their worst. I always want to give people the opportunity to be shown the way they want to be seen and I certainly did not go to this Clinic with the intention of making
1:21:58
E1, look bad. The novelty of xenon being used as a therapy was more than enough for me. And if people had had a perfectly good time and everyone had benefited that would have been the
1:22:09
episode. There was footage of people having positive experiences.
1:22:13
Yes, my experience was extremely positive but over the time that I was there, it became clear that there were some risks associated with, as you know, in therapy, they were giving it to children that I don't think isn't
1:22:28
Currently bad. But it does raise the bar in terms of medical supervision, a lot of the research that has been done in the uses. You known as an anesthetic has actually been done on neonates so it's not as if there's something inherently bad about giving this to children, or in that case, infants. But you want to make sure that there's someone with training, at least as an anesthetist, who is available should anything go wrong? Then there was the issue with
1:22:58
people potentially developing a problematic relationship, some sort of dependence. And again, you would never hear Xenon discussed as an addictive drug, because most people don't have a tank of xenon. It could never hope to become addicted to Xenon. But I think for some of these people who were working with it continuously, they may have developed a slightly problematic relationship with it and I even heard a rumor that is unconformity. So maybe I shouldn't say it. But I heard a rumor that there was another Xenon Clinic operator in the
1:23:28
Republic, who died as well. So this is an occupational hazard. The same thing is true of nitrous oxide. It's a problem in dentistry that dentists and dental hygienists develop addiction to nitrous oxide because they have tanks of it available and it's very easy after a stressful day to sit down in the dentist, chair and unwind for a few hours. I spoke with one dentist who
1:23:54
You know, had pretty much lost everything because he enjoyed, he told me that he wasn't addicted to nitrous oxide, and he wasn't addicted to Prince, but he was addicted to the combination of listening to Prince on nitrous
1:24:11
oxide. Dangerous, dangerous cocktail. So are your professional
1:24:17
future? Yes, that's something to avoid. So, the other thing of course, is that, when you're administering an
1:24:24
Aesthetic. Somebody is by definition unconscious, and if they vomit while they are unconscious, it can very easily be fatal if they inhale any of their vomit to have people laying on their backs. You haven't fasted, which is standard before in this Clinic, you mean, fasting was not, it was not standard. Yes, but insured before the administration of it, a general anesthetic, someone should always fast, because if you vomit, while you're unconscious, it can be fatal. So, they were not asking anybody to fast this.
1:24:54
Ironically breatharian. Someone who claims to never consume food? Started to vomit while they were unconscious while wearing this mask, which is quadruple strapped to the face in order to prevent any leakage of the precious xenon gas and it was absolutely terrifying. And that was a moment where I realized, you know, I don't want to make anyone look bad. That's not what I got into this to do, but I also don't want to hide
1:25:24
Did bad things that I observed because you can very easily hurt people that way as well. And it was a kind of difficult moment of realizing that there was something potentially dangerous going on and I had to acknowledge it. The final thing that was not captured on film, it was not part of the episode because again, the Xenon is so precious, it has to be recycled when it's recycled is passed through a closed loop that contains calcium hydroxide which scrubs CO2
1:25:52
I wanted to film a time-lapse of this color change indicator in these calcium, hydroxide beads changing, just to show the passage of time. So, I asked a producer that I was working with to just inhale into the calcium hydroxide repeatedly. So, I could film this color, change reaction and he's doing that. I'm filming the time-lapse. I go into another room to film something else.
1:26:14
When I come back, someone was working at the clinic said, why don't we just give him some Xenon as well? You know he's here he's sitting and I said you know it's very expensive. You don't have to do that is there? No I insist. I insist that we give him some Xenon and I said, okay well it's very generous of you and the producer wanted to try the Xenon and so he hooked him up to the Xenon and I left again. And then when I came back, 20 minutes later Not only was this producer unconscious under the influence of xenon, the proprietor of the clinic was
1:26:44
Xenon himself and was also unconscious and wasn't watching him. He couldn't wait to use it himself and that's when I thought okay there's something that's terrifying or something terrifying going on here and that same person tragically died shortly after we finished filming the episode. So you know I don't want to claim that Xenon is dangerous. I don't even know that. I think that those clinics should be shut down but I think that it's very clear that
1:27:14
Additional caution is
1:27:15
required.
1:27:17
you have a very
1:27:20
interdisciplinary.
1:27:22
Bent and interdisciplinary approach. You have a journalistic. I if scientific training, you are a practicing chemist, you are doing research and you have become this, this figurehead and magnet for all sorts of Correspondence. So I think you have a very good 30,000 foot view of a lot of intersecting areas of interest and activity within the
1:27:52
Called the Psychedelic realm, does anything come to mind? If I ask, what would you like to see more or less of in the Psychedelic
1:28:01
space?
1:28:03
Yes, one thing that comes to mind that I don't have a good answer for, but something that I have come to appreciate more and more. As I've gotten, older is what, you know. When I first started researching the subject, I was a pure reductionist and I had very little appreciation for the ritual associated with a lot of these things. And the more I experienced these rituals, the more I came to respect them.
1:28:33
And the iboga ceremony was the moment where I realized that the ritual could be as powerful as the substance itself and the integration of that ritual could dramatically magnify the therapeutic properties of the drug. The reason that I felt that way is because this is an endurance ritual. It's five days of fasting, five days of almost, continuous dance, and drumming, and
1:29:03
With the iboga you start to appreciate things that are very difficult to articulate. I had a rattle in my hand and I was tired at times. I didn't want to Rattle anymore and I would think there's 20 people around me that are rattling. Do I really have to Rattle continuously all night long? Is haven't? We rattled enough and then and then it hit me. Yes, I did have to rattle
1:29:33
Is my rattle motivated. Everyone else's rattle in the same way that their rattle motivated my Rattle and every single person's movement played off of everyone else's movement, and it was my responsibility, no matter how tired I was to put every ounce of energy that I had into this ceremony.
1:29:51
Because I was a part of it and because we were all connected. Now that sounds like a pretty kind of new age idea, but it felt entirely logical. It felt completely rationalist to me. I am a part of this. Everything that I do influences, everyone else, if I let my motivation slip for a moment it could have an effect on someone else. It could have a butterfly Downstream effect that diminishes the entire ceremony. And I can't allow that to happen. I have to give this every ounce of energy.
1:30:21
Enthusiasm, that I have.
1:30:24
And that was part of it. The other part of it, I would actually like, in bizarrely enough to breatharianism, which is, I've watched some documentaries on breatharianism and I, you know, after this experience, I started reading about it and learning about it and it's very, very easy to make fun of breatharians. I, of course, would have made fun of them because, of course, you need food to survive, of course, you need water to survive. Obviously, this is one of the most obvious things in the world, but then I started thinking, well, wait,
1:30:53
Second, is it really fair to just call these people idiots? Why might somebody do this? Why a might? Somebody even think about the idea of breatharianism and what I came to realize is that it's a tremendously empowering idea to think that there are reserves of energy within you that you can tap into. And if you have enough will enough power within you, you can subsist off your own life force indefinitely. And while there was no breatharianism in the iboga, ceremony, I think
1:31:23
That Spirit of reserves of energy within you was a tremendous part. There is no need to get tired because there's more inside you. There's no need to eat. You can keep going. There's no need to drink water. You're not going to die of dehydration right there, and then you'll be okay. You don't even need to pee. You don't, you can just keep going. It's all within you. And that was a really empowering idea and it doesn't matter if you are addicted to drugs or not. It doesn't matter if you're religious or not. The idea that there are tremendous
1:31:53
Reserves of energy within you is something that can benefit everyone. And I don't know how that could be applied in our current Medical Practice. Hmm.
1:32:03
Yeah, the translation of ritual, although I suppose it's, we already have ritual in our medical practices. They are just, they just differ vary widely from the indigenous rituals, right? We've got there, certain protocols and outfits and hierarchies, I'm not saying they're unnecessary.
1:32:23
Airy, but they form in some ways, their own
1:32:27
Codified set of
1:32:29
rituals and they've started to introduce them. You know? Bill Richards does talk about the things that are done in Johns Hopkins and, you know, they serve the psilocybin capsule, which of course, is synthetic psilocybin in a copal burner, that sort of like a chalice and they have a rose at the end of the session that people examine and, which has become a sort of psychedelic tradition in twentieth-century Psychotherapy in and of itself where
1:32:56
People can see the rose at the end and in the pedals, they can recognize their own mortality. So there are rituals that are being integrated, how widespread these will become is another question, but I think that's actually as big a question as the chemistry in the pharmacology of these substances is, how can we develop the best rituals to ensure that people are getting the best and the most out of
1:33:22
them set in setting, right? I mean, I want to pursue the same
1:33:26
Question a little bit further, but before I do, let me ask given the multiplication of fly-by-night, rent, a shamans in South America, and the fraud and disaster and sexual abuse. And other things that can befall a tourist in South America are there. Also fly-by-night operators,
1:33:46
Who are dealing and I Boga,
1:33:48
oh, I'm sure. And by the way, I am not saying this to make any sort of claim like you have to have a traditional wheaty iboga ceremony. That's not what I'm saying at all. I'm really just trying to appreciate the power of some of these traditions and I actually think that they can paradoxically be disempowering as well. If you think that you need someone else to give you this experience that you have no intuitive understanding of your own psychology that you need someone else to explain.
1:34:16
Life to you. That's a problem as well. There's a balance and I actually think that it probably helped me a little bit that I don't speak French. And so I was able to absorb some of the symbolism. I was able to absorb some of the rituals but I didn't fully understand any of it and I learned what I could. I had a translator, I ask questions but it would be a huge mistake to say that I fully understood their rituals. I just think that
1:34:47
There's a lot to be done in the way that we administer these substances and the cultures that have spent a few Generations figuring it out. Some of them seem to have done a really remarkable job, but that's not to say that people should invalidate their own intuition and they should. Obviously be very, very
1:35:04
careful. There are some really outstanding scientists who are not first and foremost, psychedelic researchers who are going to be coming into this field.
1:35:16
I think we'll do a really nice job of looking at context and some of these inputs although they might not put transplanting of ritual on their initial list. They might be looking at olfactory cues and things like that but Adam ghazali at UCSF is going to be stepping into this world. I'm really excited to see what he does. I'm sure there are others. Let's talk about the ritual, a little bit further. So I may get a little far from Shore with the initial question which was what would you like to see more or less of
1:35:46
We can just bookmark. That I think it's important to also note, which you already described in part with this changing of, we Tea Ceremony to address this new problem of say, Tramadol addiction or addiction that they're experiencing in their society, or surrounding societies that these traditions and rituals are not static. In the sense that
1:36:14
One, shouldn't feel that in order to have the one and only authentic ayahuasca ceremony, they need to go find a certain person from a certain tribe because the real thing has been frozen in the Ember. Amber Amber has been frozen the Amber in a certain Village in South America. That is to say that people are have been mixing and matching all along. So if you look at the traditional Ayahuasca and by traditional, I mean Prix,
1:36:43
Spanish Inquisition kind of pre mestizo, tradition Ayahuasca, ceremonies very often, it was only the Ayahuasca, do only the shaman, all they wouldn't call themselves. That who would drink for purposes of diagnosis or divination or whatever. The purpose might be prophecy. And that, if you look at even in the remotest parts of the upper Amazon, for instance, some of these ceremonies, you're going to find elements of other languages.
1:37:13
Say, certain types of quechua that don't occur natively in those regions, you're going to find things. Like I'll go, they Florida Florida, water, which we both had experiences with, which was originally manufactured in the United States and is a very strong cologne. I don't know how its it made its way into the remotest parts of the Amazon, maybe you do I suspect it might have something to do with the rubber industry. That's
1:37:42
a great question. I'd love.
1:37:43
To know the
1:37:43
answer, but you find it all over the place, I'll go the kananga, kananga water also, at least one of the most common versions of it initially manufactured in the United States. And so these kind of syncretic hybrids are found everywhere, which is to say, I think we should give ourselves license to continue to experiment with these new
1:38:03
combinations. Oh absolutely, yes. I mean Christianity is permeated every great psychedelic tradition internationally, it's part of the booty.
1:38:13
Addition, you bow down to Christ. It's part of Maza Tech, Salvia and mushroom. Ceremonies part of the Native, American Church, in the United States, part of which whole Traditions as well. It's certainly present in a lot of South American Shamanism. So, I don't think I can think of a single psychedelic tradition that doesn't strongly include Christianity and Christian symbolism. So, that right there is evidence that these Traditions are
1:38:43
Irving. They evolved reflect the environment to reflect the best practices of the people who are engaging with these plants. And I think that we have a lot of room for growth and Improvement.
1:39:00
Is there anything else that worries you right now with respect to the explosion of attention and popularity and capital? The influx of new participants
1:39:13
In the Psychedelic space. What are you most optimistic about? And what do you most concerned by? I'm very
1:39:19
concerned by the hype phase that we talked about that. There's a lot of people that are interested in the money and that's okay. I don't think there's anything wrong with money and I don't think there's anything wrong from wanting to sell or profit from psychedelics but it's definitely a problem if that interferes with people's appreciation of them, if they start behaving and corrupt or unethical,
1:39:43
Uncle ways and journalists right now. Love to write positive stories about psychedelics because the pendulum of novelty has swung in the direction of describing, psychedelics is something new and good, and it's fashionable to talk about how prohibition is a mistake and these psychedelics are valuable medicines. And look at all these people at Johns Hopkins University, they just did this or that. So, that's the big new thing. Well, what happens when that gets a little bit old and what happens when? I don't know, someone has a bad experience.
1:40:13
It's maybe a celebrity has a bad experience, and they decide that mushrooms caused their psychosis and then what, and we start writing stories about that. Maybe we went too far, maybe someone has some kind of problem. I mean, historically. That is the way these things go. They become very popular than Art. Linkletter is daughter. Jumped out a window or someone decides that Timothy Leary is crazy and he's emblematic of the problems with psychedelics and that becomes the story. So I just
1:40:43
Hope that everyone will be responsible in their use and will recognize that it is up to them to ensure that the mistakes of the past aren't
1:40:52
repeated what books. There's a long list. I've seen your library, you have a lot of books related to psychedelics if you could assign.
1:41:04
Required reading for anyone involved with psychedelics, whether using administering pursuing them in the form of a business. I know that's very, very broad. But are there any books that stand out to you?
1:41:21
Oh, of well, Piquant e-collar. The two that I would say, read those first. And thankfully there long enough that I think if people actually took my advice and read them by the time, they got to the end, they wouldn't need advice on further book.
1:41:34
Means. But
1:41:37
Those are the big ones, you know with iboga and bwiti religion. There's a very rare book that you can find PDFs of online by uchicago. Anthropologist whose last name is Fernandez, I'm trying to remember his first name, it's called we T. This is the name of the book published in the 60s, or early 70s. That's a great tax. That's pretty much all that's out there in English. Most of the booty literature is in French. Unfortunately, when it comes to sillas in psilocybin,
1:42:06
Mushrooms. Obviously there's Terence McKenna and Paul stamets that have contributed really interesting books on the subject depending on whether you're interested in cultivation or mushrooms in general for mescaline, containing cacti, Douglas Sharon wrote a beautiful book called The Wizard Of The Four Winds that goes into Peruvian Cactus. Shamanism that I recommend that I could recommend a lot of books. They might be a little bit on the technical side for the average reader. I mean there's a
1:42:36
there's a lot. It really depends on what you want to learn about in some of these areas there's less literature, there aren't many books that I would recommend on five Amino DMT and bufo alvarius. With, In This Very self-serving, I'm aware with the exception of this book that I am republishing right now, it's the original book, it's maybe 10 pages long, something like that, 15 pages long, it's very short, but I think that it tells you everything that you need to know about bufo. Alvarius written by the man who discovered that the Venom could be smoked Ken Nelson. And then I expanded
1:43:06
A little bit to include some historical background. The whole thing is 30 pages long. It's a booklet very, very short but I think it it's good. And I think that the other books that are not scientific texts like there's a, you Texas monograph called evolution in the genus bufo, but that's chemical analysis. I mean, it's great. If you're a scientist who's interested in bufo alvarius, but in terms of a larger appreciation of 5, m, EO, D, MT mean, you have other books, but they tend to be a little
1:43:36
A bit more in the New Age
1:43:37
vain. There's a lot of garbage out there.
1:43:39
Yeah. On all
1:43:41
of these things that were discussing, what is the URL again for the pamphlet? Yes, that is
1:43:46
www.sec.gov Toad of this Sonoran Desert.com, which I just got in psychedelic
1:43:53
toes. Well, Hamilton, we've covered a lot of ground and we could go for another five hours but maybe we'll save a little and reserved for our
1:44:06
Stroud. I don't think there will be even after I exhausted myself, I think we would still have lots of
1:44:11
material. It's about to get really interesting. I think there's gonna be a lot to talk about in the
1:44:15
coming years. Oh, I think so too. I think there's going to be an absolute Cyclone of activity and also conflict intellectual property being one of a kind of the flagpoles that I'm going to watch very closely.
1:44:36
Oh, and Innovation, I mean, lot of Novel psychedelics, being pursued by many for-profit companies, bigger and bigger players coming into the space, lots of research centers being established at various universities. And I'm thrilled that this appears to be a field that is more and more viable as a career path for researchers and
1:45:03
scientists. Yes, me too.
1:45:05
So anything else you'd like,
1:45:06
To say to my audience, requests of my audience, Haiku that you'd like to read anything at all? No, it's great talking to you you too, man. It's good to see you and special. Thanks to the Red. Baron, who did many flybys in our audio verret? A conversation here in downtown Austin and for everybody listening, we will put show notes at teamed up log 4, / podcast with links to everything.
1:45:36
We've discussed. And until next time,
1:45:41
Be safe, be open-minded and try the Hippocratic Oath when it comes to psychedelics First Do no harm or if the very least do as little harm as possible and thanks for listening. Hey guys this is Tim again just a few more things before you take off. Number one, this is five bullet Friday. Do you want to get a short email from me and would you enjoy getting a short email for me? Every Friday is that provides a little more soul of fun for the weekend and Fievel.
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Friday's a very short email, where I share the coolest things I've found or that I've been pondering over the week, that could include favorite new albums that have discovered it could include gizmos and gadgets and all sorts of weird shit that I've somehow dug up in the the world of the esoteric. As I do it could include favorite articles that I've read and that I've shared with my close friends, for instance, and it's very short, it's just a little tiny bite of goodness before you head off.
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For the weekend. So if you want to receive that, check it out. Just go to four hour workweek.com. That's 4-Hour, workweek.com all spelled out and just drop in your email and you will get the very next one. And if you sign up, I hope you enjoyed this episode is brought to you by element. Spelled LMN t. What on earth is element. It is a delicious sugar free, electrolyte drink, mix. I've stocked up on boxes and boxes of this was one of the first things that I bought when I saw covid. Come down the pike.
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