Podcasts about solidarity fridays

In today’s Solidarity Fridays episode, Joe and Kyle switch things up and take a break from news stories. Instead, they interview therapist, host of the Madness Radio podcast, author of Outside Mental Health: Voices and Visions of Madness, and previous psychiatric patient diagnosed with schizophrenia, Will Hall. Hall says a lot that will challenge your ideas about the power of psychedelics and the progress of psychedelic medicine. From the idea of either/or thinking creating a legal/illegal paradigm, to the basic limitations of science, to the the near religious worship of neuroscience, to William James' idea of "medical materialism" and reducing the complexities of the human mind to simple biology, he points out the various flaws in psychedelic medicine and how psychedelic crusaders have ignored placebo results and focused on the power of a drug or the numbers behind a study over the power of therapy, the benefits of community and the mystery of consciousness and its differentiation from science.  Notable Quotes “If you end war-on-drugs prohibition in a context of heavily corrupted science, pharmaceutical company corruption, people that don’t have access to basic healthcare, they don’t have the basic context to be able to make smart choices, and you combine that with the profit motive in neoliberalism, then you’re going to have to really be very careful about how you do it, or else you’re going to have some very negative consequences. And this is a problem with any legalization.” “We haven’t really had enough of a nuanced conversation about the war on drugs issue, because again, there has been such a strong-- I want to call it zealotry- this is an incredibly dedicated group of people who have been doing this for 30, 40, 50 years to get psychedelics into the hands of as many people as possible because they took LSD, they saw God, it saved their marriage, it completely revolutionized their trauma history- they’re true believers. And they’ve been pushing and pushing and pushing, but unfortunately, that doesn’t make for good public policy or good science if you’re just on a crusade. And I think that’s the big part of the problem that we’re facing right now.” “Consciousness is like gravity. Consciousness is actually intrinsic to reality. Everything has consciousness. The more complicated the part of reality is (like, the human brain is very complicated), the more rich and complex consciousness becomes, and you get this self-awareness kind of thing. But the idea that consciousness is somehow located in the physiology of the brain and therefore ‘we’re going to study the physiology of the brain to explain consciousness’ is completely a leap of logic that has driven neuroscience for the last 40, 50 years since the real takeoff, and it’s been driven by pharma profits.”  “You can create all kinds of things just through suggestion, just through expectation, just through placebo, and yet in the psychedelic science research, all that’s kind of put aside and they’re playing the same neuroscience game of thinking that we are pursuing and understanding of the biology of consciousness, which we’re not. And of course, it’s a gold rush.” “We’re trying to describe this incredibly rich mysterious thing- human consciousness. Nobody even knows how to define it. The people who have been studying it for decades can’t even settle on a definition. You settle on a definition of gravity. You can settle on a definition of chemical reactions, because that’s the nature of that kind of science, but this is a field of science- psychology, which is so mysterious and so complicated, they can’t even agree on what it is that they’re studying. And now we’ve gone from this model that’s basically a steam engine model- there’s chemicals that are going through and they’re connecting and they’re flowing in different places. And that’s sort of antiquated, so now we have a computer model, which is about circuitry, networks, connectivity, pathways, and it’s just another cartoonish metaphor for something that we fundamentally don’t understand.” “The fact that the marvel and the awe of what human consciousness is, what the human experience is, what the mystery is, that is so awakened for many people when we have a psychedelic experience- your mind is blown by how incredible, awesome, beautiful the mystery is, and then to take that and then go into graduate school and cut up mice and have this cartoonish, mechanistic version of what that consciousness is, seems to me like a real betrayal of what I think is the best of the psychedelic experience.  “Under capitalism, under for-profit healthcare system, under corporate-driven science, science has become a politicized and profit-driven racket. All of those researchers are playing a game of ‘How do we get press releases that get media hits and clicks that’s going to help our grant possibilities?” and it always comes with ‘Well, we have this promising new discovery- the default mode network is a promising new discovery. We need more research about this.’ And what we need to do is we need to really really rethink our entire orientation to science in a capitalist society.”  “I think that once MDMA becomes available and more widespread, we’re going to see the efficacy go down. It’s not going to help everybody. It’s going to be another thing that some people try and some people, it helps them, but it didn’t really quite do it and then they have to kind of go back and they do more and then they lose the magic of the MDMA and then we’re back on the treadmill. We went from antidepressants to MDMA, and then what’s the next drug? There’s no drug solution to these problems, folks. We have to change our society. ...Until we actually look at social changes, we’re not ever really going to solve these so-called mental health problems. But that’s not the kind of thing you want to talk about at a MAPS-sponsored conference, because it’s a buzzkill. It just bums everybody out. People want to have their careers, they want to have their focus, their advocacy, their crusade, their excitement, and their community of other people who are excited.” “I’m not sure that psychedelics should even be in the realm of medicine or science because of the way in which our society has so limited and made narrow those endeavors- the idea that medicine is separate from spirituality or that science is about reproducible results when the whole universe is based on uniqueness and novelty and the unexpected and synchronicity, I think that trying to squeeze them into those frameworks is not going to work.” Links Willhall.net Madness Radio Outsidementalhealth.com (info on his book, Outside Mental Health: Voices and Visions of Madness) The Freedom Center Mcgill.ca: The placebo effect and psychedelic drugs: tripping on nothing? Support the show Patreon Leave us a review on Facebook or iTunes Share us with your friends Join our Facebook group - Psychedelics Today group – Find the others and create community. Navigating Psychedelics    

In today’s Solidarity Fridays episode, Joe and Kyle sit down and discuss some very scientific (read: hard to understand) articles. First, they talk about one on Salvinorin A and its interactions with a different receptor than other psychedelics (kappa opioid receptors) and what that could mean, and a related article from Wired- a first-hand account of taking salvia as part of a brain-imaging study at Johns Hopkins University. The biggest takeaway from these can be summed up in researcher Manoj Doss's closing quote: "Not only does this tell me how little we understand psychedelics, it also tells me how little we understand how to study them.” They then review a recent double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled study on LSD, which showed results we expect to see, but the full details haven't been released yet. This leads to a discussion about intergenerational trauma and researchers finding that children of Holocaust survivors often display more trauma-related behavior than their parents, commonality between people of Irish and German decent (due to shared traumatic histories), the idea of "group soul," how the lymphatic system works within the brain to remove toxins and how this and the blood-brain barrier can be affected by a concussion, and the effects caesarian sections have both on an individual person as well as in higher concentrations of people per country. Do countries with more C-sections produce more traumatized people? Lastly, they talk about how psychedelics opening up people's brains and thought processes could possibly lead toward more conspiratorial thinking, which leads to discussion about QAnon, Alan Moore, a crazy story about 9/11 from Kyle, and the very idea of truth: what is your personal criteria for something being true? What do any of us really know? And one last reminder- October 28th is the premiere of the new 15-week online course offering called An Introduction to Philosophy and Psychedelics with Lenny Gibson, so if you're considering taking it, now is the time to sign up! Notable Quotes “Do we always need to seek ego death to have profound healing in psychedelic experiences? Could it be more gentle at times?” -Kyle “There seems to be this trend in the scientific world to say, ‘ok cool, our data suggests that this model of the world and how things are working is true, therefore this model is true’ and kind of sticking to your guns on that, and I think because we finally have our tools back where we can examine the psyche after decades of prohibition, that maybe let’s not rush- like, let’s keep them hypotheses, and perhaps we can be more fluid when new hypotheses come out about the world and the mind and the brain and these things. Perhaps that’ll help us not necessarily have to live in a certain paradigm for a super long time and we can be a little bit more paradigm-fluid maybe, or model-agnostic, and just kind of shift around as new data comes to light.” -Joe “What’s truth and how do you know what is true? ….How can you validate that that is true? And what do you know to be true in your world? It’s a hard thing to really understand. When I think about it, I think the only true thing that I know is this present moment.” -Kyle “It’s interesting. How do we know more? How does knowledge work? Epistemology, metaphysics-  these are massive questions, and as much as I appreciate science, I feel like science could benefit a lot from being philosophy-aware. Like, what are we really doing? What kind of metaphysics and epistemology underlies our go-forward here? Is there data to suggest that mind and brain aren’t the same thing? Yes, there is, including [from] top neurologists like Karl Pribram and others. Mind does not equal brain. And how do we transcend that and go forward? I know this is not what the establishment wants us to be saying, if we want to talk about conspiracies. Just look at scientism vs. philosophy and the humanist traditions- really, quite a battle that’s been going on for a long time, probably since the time of Newton or before.” -Joe  Links The Physicist and the Philosopher: Einstein, Bergson, and the Debate that Changed Our Understanding of Time, by Jimena Canales Wired.com: This Is My Brain on Salvia Nature.com: The Acute Effects of the Atypical Dissociative Hallucinogen Salvinorin A on Functional Connectivity in the Human Brain Psychedelics Today: Does Salvia Divinorum Have Therapeutic Potential? By Michelle Janikian Nature.com: Acute dose-dependent effects of lysergic acid diethylamide in a double-blind placebo-controlled study in healthy subjects Psychedelicreview.com: Ketanserin info Statista.com: Cesarean sections - Statistics & Facts Different Doorway: Adventures of a Caesarean Born, by Jane B. English The Concussion Repair Manual : A Practical Guide to Recovering from Traumatic Brain Injuries, by Dan Engle Nih.gov: Brain cleaning system uses lymphatic vessels Resonancescience.org (Resonance Science Foundation) Nytimes.com: Cleve Backster: He talked to plants. And they talked back. Support the show Patreon Leave us a review on Facebook or iTunes Share us with your friends Join our Facebook group - Psychedelics Today group – Find the others and create community. Navigating Psychedelics

In today’s Solidarity Fridays episode, Joe and Kyle sit down and discuss a recent segment on CNN highlighting Brian Muraresku's book, The Immortality Key: The Secret History of the Religion with No Name, about the role psychedelics have likely played in the origin of religion and western civilization. They talk about psychedelics throughout history, like the Eleusinian Mysteries, soma use in Hindu scriptures, therianthropy and the idea of psychedelics leading towards these human-animal hybrid visions, and even the idea that Moses was huffing acacia or some other type of mind-altering plant available in that area at the time. Does it matter to the movement if all of this is historically accurate? And why do we romanticize ancient psychedelic use so much? They then spend some time on a very important but unpleasant topic: accountability for misconduct in the psychedelic space. With no well-known Yelp-like website to review facilitators or retreat centers, and abuse (or at least unethical relationships) seeming to be very common in the therapeutic world, what's the best way to handle abuse and abusers? In the legal therapeutic world, there are at least licensing boards to contact or police to reach out to (since nothing illegal would be tied to the victim). Is the answer ex-communication? Restorative justice? Some sort of mediator? Filming everything for the protection of both sides? Whatever the ideas, the conversation needs to continue and louder voices need to be a part of it.  They review some other news stories, Kyle lets us know that he's been taking ketamine-assisted psychotherapy training at Polaris Insights center and Alex Grey just followed him on Twitter, and Joe introduces a possible new Solidarity Fridays segment, "Joe's Paranoid Update." And reminder- An Introduction to Philosophy and Psychedelics with Lenny Gibson begins October 28th. Sign up now!  Notable Quotes “I didn’t really grow up very religious, so I’m curious- the people that did and may not understand this indigenous kind of perspective of using plants to alter consciousness and have some sort of relationship with the universe- I wonder how that came off to them, seeing this on CNN.” -Kyle “What is it about that that is so intriguing to us at times? I know for myself, looking at a lot of Indigenous cultures or ancient traditions helped me kind of provide a framework for understanding some of these experiences that maybe western traditions kind of have but don’t really have. Maybe I found more comfort in these traditions, but to say they have all the answers because they were possibly doing some of this stuff, I think could get a little tricky at times. Like, why do we want to romanticize the past so much?” -Kyle “I think Dimitri Mugianis mentioned this to us: what kind of movement is it that would cover up rape to achieve its ends, and serious sexual misconduct? And victims have been told: ‘If you out this rape, this is bad for the movement, so please don’t do it.’ Are you fucking kidding me? No. Absolutely not. If someone raped you, [that’s] not ok.” -Joe “We’re not waiting on the FDA to get our ethics together. Ethics can happen right now.” -Joe Links Psychedelics Today: Veronika Gold – Methods of Ketamine Assisted Psychotherapy Forbes.com: Apple iOS 14: Brilliant New Security And Privacy Features You Can Use Now Cnn.com: Did hallucinogens play role in origin of religion? The Immortality Key: The Secret History of the Religion with No Name, by Brian C. Muraresku DMT & the Soul of Prophecy A New Science of Spiritual Revelation in the Hebrew Bible, by Rick Strassman Ancient-origins.net: The Dogon’s Extraordinary Knowledge of the Cosmos and the Cult of Nommo The Science of the Dogon: Decoding the African Mystery Tradition, by Laird Scranton Wayne State University: Poison Center warns of effects after Ann Arbor decriminalizes psychedelic substances Missoula: Rape and the Justice System in a College Town, by Jon Krakauer MAPS’ statement on Richard Yensen Horizons’ statement on Neal M. Goldsmith Now open: Bipolar and Magic Mushrooms Study Bipolar and Psychedelics: An Investigation into the Potential and Risks, by Michelle Janikian Support the show Patreon Leave us a review on Facebook or iTunes Share us with your friends Join our Facebook group - Psychedelics Today group – Find the others and create community. Navigating Psychedelics

In today’s Solidarity Fridays episode, Joe and Kyle sit down and discuss several items in the news, including Mark Zuckerberg donating $500,000 towards Oregon's Measure 110, national psychiatric associations coming out as in opposition to Oregon's measure 109 due to concerns over medical treatment being determined via a ballot iniative, voters in Mississippi being able to vote on medical cannabis and voters in Arizona, Montana, South Dakota and New Jersey being able to vote on legalization measures (with polling data showing 65% of New Jersey voters likely in favor), Denver's Kole Milner offially pleading guilty in his ongoing psilocybin investigation, a recent study looking into the effects of chronic THC exposure on the 5-HT2A receptors typically studied more with psychedelics and the question on if cannabis is psychedelic or not, the University of Toronto joining forces with Sansero Life Sciences to study the effects of microdosing and smaller doses of psilocybin, NYU Langone teaming up with MindMed to start a clinical training program focusing on psychedelics and psychedelic-assisted therapies (with the eventual goal of establishing a Center for Psychedelic Medicine at NYU Langone Health), and yet another psychedelic company going live on the stock market: Toronto-based Field Trip Health.  They also issue a correction/update on statements made last week about Oregon's Measures 109 and 110, and talk about why the placebo effect isn't studied more, and how drugs establishing themselves in your personal life story can influence their efficacy. And they discuss some of the positive, community-encouraging COVID-related changes they've seen in their local cities and wonder how many of them can stay when we eventually return to some sort of normalcy.  And they remind us that there is a new 15-week online course offering called An Introduction to Philosophy and Psychedelics with Lenny Gibson, which begins October 28th, as well as a new CEU and non-CEU Psychedelics in Psychiatry offering developed by "EntheoNurse" C.J. Spotswood. Imagination as Revelation, developed by Kyle and Johanna Hilla-Maria Sopanen, is also available, as well as Navigating Psychedelics and others.   Notable Quotes “As we see things decriminalized, it’s not necessarily the case that you’re safe. You can still go to prison, and it’s not a nice place. So, be careful. Please be careful. I’m lucky enough to be blessed with extreme paranoia. Consider what a healthy level of paranoia is for your situation and what you’re up to, and err on the side of caution. The special saying is, ‘Only break one law at a time.’” -Joe “What I’m really excited about is that in the next year or two, we’re going to have a lot more clinical data on this. Doctors will be a lot more comfortable with it, and this story will keep progressing in really interesting ways that I don’t really think we’re understanding how this is going to look in a couple years yet. Just how much 2020 has changed the movement, it’s going to be really intense over the next couple years.” -Joe “I think if one thing that comes out of this is, as you say, forced creativity- we’re forced to make some of these changes, and what works, what doesn’t work? If things feel like they’re working in a different way, how do you keep that? Just thinking about coming back to the integration aspect of experiences- if something feels like that is moving in a new direction, how do you continue to follow that without needing to just snap back to what has worked in the past? Food for thought. ...If things start to shift a little bit, could we continue that change, or do we keep feeding a system that feels broken or isn’t helpful in our own evolution?” -Kyle “22 veteran suicides a day- can we cut that in half through decriminalization initiatives? I don’t think the answer is yes. So like, what are the alternatives? Pharma. Pharma at scale doing what capital does. It might not be pretty but it might be able to save a lot of lives. And the decrim people looking at that as an evil, it’s like, what’s more evil: that happening, or all those people killing themselves because of what your tax dollars had them do? ...Your ideology might feel really pure but there might be a lot of subtext there that you’re missing.” -Joe Links Thegreenfund.com: Mark Zuckerberg Makes Donation to Legalize Psilocybin Marijuanamoment.net: Mark Zuckerberg Supports Drug Decriminalization With Half-Million Dollar Oregon Campaign Donation Yachatsnews.com: Oregon and national psychiatric associations come out in opposition to Measure 109 on Nov. 3 ballot Norml.org: New Jersey: Voter Support Solidly in Favor of Marijuana Legalization Ahead of Ballot Initiative Vote Westword.com: Denver Mushroom Dealer Pleads Guilty in Federal Court Psychedelicreview.com: THC and the 5-HT2A Receptor: What’s Going On? Journal of Cannabis Research: Cannabis as entheogen: survey and interview data on the spiritual use of cannabis Psychedelics Today: Psychedelic Cannabis: Using the Plant for Healing Trauma Thegrowthop.com: University of Toronto and Sansero Life Sciences join forces to study psychedelic medications New Advancements in Psychedelic Integration - Mapping the Mind 2020 panel (youtube video) Fiercehealthcare.com: NYU Langone, MindMed team up to launch training program for psychedelic therapies Forbes.com: Field Trip Health, Another Psychedelic Therapy Company, Goes Public Support the show Patreon Leave us a review on Facebook or iTunes Share us with your friends Join our Facebook group - Psychedelics Today group – Find the others and create community. Navigating Psychedelics  

In today’s Solidarity Fridays episode, Joe and Kyle sit down and dissect 3 recent items in the news. First, they discuss a 2-year study on 18 older long-term AIDS survivors (OLTAS) with a high degree of demoralization and trauma, in which participants underwent 3 hours of individual psychotherapy, one 8 hour psilocybin session, and 12-15 hours of group therapy. While the study predictably showed improvement in demoralization after a 3-month follow-up, the bigger takeaway is the effectiveness of group therapy and the ability to replace hours of individual therapy, (in this case) cutting therapist time almost in half. With many people struggling to connect with facilitators but finding connection in groups, could group therapy work better to help with healing while also cutting costs? This brings up the concept of AI therapy and what improvements we could see by adding technology to this fairly established clinical model, both in cost and effectiveness. They next talk about Decriminalize Nature Oregon groups urging voters to vote "no" on the upcoming Oregon Psilocybin Service Measure 109 due to them finding the measure to be highly restrictive and essentially putting these plant medicines behind a paywall, making it even more difficult for those with race and income-based trauma to gain access. They wonder why DN is so opposed to what they see as progress- why not come at the problem from all angles and embrace legality alongside other initiatives, especially in a time when we are likely to see huge spikes in pandemic-related PTSD? This leads to a discussion of David Bronner of Dr. Bronner pulling funding from DN at a national level (but still supporting local initiatives) and the in-fighting that's seeming to happen everywhere with this battle. And that leads to money and the very common feeling that large donations usually come with ulterior motives. And how do you make sure they don't? Does taking money from someone to further your cause automatically make you a sell out? Or is there only a conflict if you have the contingency of the donor needing some sort of return on investment that affects the end goal? Notable Quotes “Let’s just keep experimenting and understanding what we lose when we get a little bit more technical, and perhaps also what we might gain. What would happen if you had your clients wearing a wearable, so you could review how their week actually was in data terms vs. self-reporting? That would be an interesting adjunct. And what happens when you do a full system thing with apps and the wearable being tied to that, to say, 'Alright, hey, you should go meditate for a little bit, [and] right now, because you are spiking' or 'Go do this bio-feedback thing for 5-10 and re-regulate and then go back to your day'?” -Joe “I think a lot of people that are just starting off, that are looking for some sort of mental health treatment- they’re probably going to want this medical model. Going to a group setting scares the shit out of them. They might not want to go to ayahuasca ceremonies or these spiritually-oriented, self-development groups with people. They might want that one-on-one, individual session, maybe to start off with, until they can build up a little bit of expertise and understand their own inner psyche, where they say, ‘Huh, maybe I can explore different models and different uses of context now.’ But I think that is something that is important to try to explore too- what do the people want that are outside of these inner circles that are more seasoned psychonauts- people that are trying to push for some of these changes and trying to say, ‘Hey, this is the model that we want’? Well, does everyone want that? Is that going to work for everybody?” -Kyle “There’s no real reason to think that laws stay forever. Laws are flexible. Laws are a pain in the butt. Laws are also amazing sometimes. So consider flexibility when thinking about laws and that citizens can change things. Perhaps we don’t get it right [on the] first try, but let’s get it right iteratively. This is the direction of right, in my mind- what OPS [Oregon Psilocybin Society] is doing.” -Joe Links Thelancet.com: Psilocybin-assisted group therapy for demoralized older long-term AIDS survivor men: An open-label safety and feasibility pilot study Decriminalize Nature's facebook post/press release on Oregon Psilocybin Service Measure 109 Ballotpedia.org: More info on Measure 109 Drbronner.com: Clarifying Our Support of the Decriminalize Nature Movement and Challenges With Its National Leadership Support the show Patreon Leave us a review on Facebook or iTunes Share us with your friends Join our Facebook group - Psychedelics Today group – Find the others and create community. Navigating Psychedelics  

In today’s Solidarity Fridays episode, Joe and Kyle sit down and discuss recent items in the news. They first discuss an update to last week's Michigan story: that this week, the Ann Arbor city council unanimously voted to decriminalize entheogenic plants. While this is great progress, remember that these substances are still illegal- just decriminalized, and as the saying goes: don't be the low-hanging fruit. This brings up the concept of likening the ability to get these substances to earning (and keeping) a driver's license, and the idea of temporary autonomous zones.  Next, they talk about the formation of a global group called the Psychedelic Medicine Association (PMA), formed to bridge the gap between the medical establishment, patients, and the industry in general. While there are already organizations doing this to an extent (like the very website you're on right now), most doctors don't have the time needed to really dive in, and shorter sound bites or articles vetted by those in the know could be very beneficial towards their growth in this new (to them) field.  They also report on a new study pinpointing exactly how psychedelics bind to 5-Ht2a serotonin receptors, which sets the stage for new kinds of antidepressants and antianxiety drugs, could help with cluster headaches, could even help explain HPPD (hallucinogen persisting perception disorder), and leads to a discussion of natural vs. synthetic drugs and the ethics of thinking someone needs to go through the psychedelic experience in order to heal. Lastly, they discuss Compass Pathways going live on the stock market, starting at $17 a share and hitting $38 within a week, which leads to a discussion on how larger companies sue each other over valuable information but regularly take information from Indigenous people and people who've been working in the underground for years. In order to pay proper respect to plant medicine lineages, should we "take" MDMA, LSD, ketamine, and other synthetic substances as part of a western lineage and categorize them differently? Notable Quotes “That’s the vision that I would like to see. More expanded access, less legal presence. Less Empire interfering with the rebels.” -Joe “Is it the case that people need psychedelic experience? No. I would prefer that more people have psychedelic experience, but I don’t think it’s an ethical obligation for more people to have it, or that ‘oh, in order to deserve healing, you need to go through that potentially tortuous or difficult experience [idea]'. Or joyous experience- it doesn’t have to be bad. There’s a lot there, and just thinking that people have an obligation to have the experience is a little whack to me.” -Joe “The hard problem of consciousness is still there. What is mind? Where is mind? What is consciousness? Where is consciousness? Really big questions. We know mind appears real. We know consciousness appears real, but what is that? There’s a lot of questions left. Philosophy of mind and neuroscience are not really communicating too regularly. I saw headlines: ‘Oh look! LSD finally solved! We know how it works now!’ Like, yea, kind of, but not really, because we don’t even know what mind or consciousness is. ...Most people are willing to say ‘mind equals brain,’ and use interchangeably. I think that’s pretty common parlance, but I suggest people check it out. Dig in a little bit to philosophy of mind and limitations of neuroscience and mind. I’m not trying to say we shouldn’t do neuroscience- we absolutely should. But, making conclusive statements like, ‘Oh cool, since neuroscience said this, then God isn’t real' [is] kind of a goofy argument.” -Joe “What it does it look like from a capitalistic point of view? X company develops a patent and then X other company goes over and wants to use that- what usually happens? There’s usually a lawsuit that entails, right? But if X company goes to an indigenous and underground community and extracts information and then they go use that to profit, what really happens there? Not much. The bigger company that has all the money usually will just dominate.” -Kyle Links Marijuanamoment.net: City Council Unanimously Votes To Decriminalize Psychedelics In Ann Arbor, Michigan Wikipedia.org: Temporary Autonomous Zone info Healtheuropa.eu: Psychedelics Association to Bridge Medical Establishment and Industry Gap Plantmedicine.org (Dr. Lynn Marie Morski's podcast) Psychologytoday.com: This Is Your Brain’s 5-HT2A Receptors on LSD or Psilocybin Narrative Medicine: The Use of  History and Story in the Healing Process by, Lewis Mehl-Madrona Genengnews.com: Scientists Solve High-Resolution Structure of Psychedelic Drugs Bound to Serotonin Receptors Realmoney.thestreet.com: Compass Pathways Takes Investors on a Trip to Higher Prices Support the show Patreon Leave us a review on Facebook or iTunes Share us with your friends Join our Facebook group - Psychedelics Today group – Find the others and create community. Navigating Psychedelics  

In today’s Solidarity Fridays episode, Joe and Kyle discuss recent items in the news and dive into cannabis-assisted psychotherapy after Joe recently helped with his first session. They discuss Compass Pathways' projection that their upcoming stock price could be $14-$16 a share, giving them a possible valuation of as much as $544 million and the problem of having Peter Thiel as one of their leading investors, as it has recently come to surface that he met with white nationalists in 2016 and had good things to say about them. This, in addition to his concerning data-mining company, Palantir Technologies, soon going public puts a lot of the wrong attention and bad press on Compass Pathways. They talk about UC Berkeley launching a new center for psychedelic science and education with Michael Pollan as one of the co-founders, Decriminalize Nature Ann Arbor putting forth to the city council a resolution to decriminalize entheogenic substances on September 21st, and progress in Washington D.C. and Chicago's decriminalization efforts. They also talk about Dr. Bronner's new "Heal soul!" campaign, which includes new labeling about psychedelic-assisted therapy and a 10% donation of net October sales towards several familiar organizations including: MAPS, Heroic Hearts Project, The Indigenous Peyote Conservation Initiative (IPCI), and Veterans Exploring Treatment Solutions, Inc. (VETS). Lastly, they talk about cannabis-assisted psychotherapy sessions and how similar they are to both psychedelic and breathwork sessions, how Kyle uses cannabis and somatic work together, and how established worldviews and paradigms can shift through narratives and critical analysis from both sober and psychedelic-assisted thinking. And finally, the next round of Navigating Psychedelics (beginning September 17th) is now officially sold out, but dates for the next round will be announced soon if you missed your chance. Additionally, there is a new class offering which explores Jungian psychology called Imagination as Revelation, developed by Kyle and Johanna Hilla-Maria Sopanen, and a new class with Lenny Gibson coming in October about the history of western philosophy (info/sign up here).  Notable Quotes On cannabis use: “It’s always been very psychedelic to me. The way I work with it is somatically, being able to lie down, incorporate some of the breathing techniques, do movement, do yoga, do some bodywork, and to really work with whatever is coming up in my body that way, maybe play some music... I kind of started developing this naturally over 10+ years just from-- it was like listening to the plant saying ‘this is how I should be used’ in a sense. Like, ‘every time you go do something stupid with me, X might happen.’ So I started getting the message of: use this more consciously. This is a tool for inner exploration.” -Kyle “It’s this cultural baggage around cannabis. We think ‘oh you smoke it at a Grateful Dead show’ or ‘you watch Cartoon Network late at night while you’re smoking pot.’ You don’t think: ‘Let me close my eyes with intention and journey with it.’ That’s not part of our cultural vision of the plant and our relationship to it. Though, why not? There’s no reason not to. If we can cure or help manage or treat a lot of these things happening in our psyche with cannabis, what kind of miracle is that?” -Joe “Similar to Robert Anton Wilson’s kind of reality tunnels, you can flip on the Marxist lens, you can flip on the existentialist lens, or modern capitalist lenses just to allow you to get a better picture of what’s happening in front of you. You’re never going to see objective reality but you can get closer and closer and closer. And the more lenses you use, the better you’re going to get. Does a single telescope give you a great idea about a planet? No, but when you have 400, you’re going to have a lot better [idea]. What happens when you throw a satellite out there and you’re able to see from outside the atmosphere?” -Joe “I guess I come back to narrative a lot. If you’re telling somebody that they are sick and broken, what are they going to think about that, that they’re never going to be able to heal? Is there power in narrative? If you have a more hopeful narrative, can people heal? I’m just thinking about even in breathwork experiences, where I’ve visited narratives that are so embedded in me and then going through a breathwork session, being like ‘holy shit, maybe I don’t actually need to subscribe to that narrative anymore. Maybe that’s something I’ve been holding onto for so long, and maybe I do have the internal power to change.' But most people just say, ‘no, that’s what it is. That’s going to be your lifelong sentence.’ Maybe not. How do we encourage people that they can change?” -Kyle Links Investors.com: The First Psychedelic Drug IPO Could Be Worth More Than Half A Billion Dollars Buzzfeednews.com: Peter Thiel Met With The Racist Fringe As He Went All In On Drumpf Vox.com: Everything you need to know about Palantir, the secretive company coming for all your data News.berkeley.edu: UC Berkeley launches new center for psychedelic science and education Metrotimes.com: Ann Arbor to consider decriminalizing psychoactive mushrooms, plants Washingtonpost.com: D.C. residents to vote on decriminalization of ‘magic mushrooms’ on November ballot Psychedelicreview.com: Chicago Follows Oakland, Introduces Resolution to Decriminalize Psychedelic Plants Dr. Bronner: Support Psychedelic-Assisted Therapies to Heal the Soul! Dr. Bronner's new "Heal Soul" label Support the show Patreon Leave us a review on Facebook or iTunes Share us with your friends Join our Facebook group - Psychedelics Today group – Find the others and create community. Navigating Psychedelics  

In today's Solidarity Fridays episode, Joe and Kyle discuss several recent items in the news that further the advancement of psychedelics, including: Canadian company Havn Lifescience following Compass Pathways' lead and registering with the Canadian Securities Exchange under the symbol HAVN, Amsterdam-based psychedelic retreat company Synthesis announcing that leading Clinical Psychologist Dr. Rosalind Watts has joined their advisory board (which also includes Dr. Robin Carhart-Harris, who joined in November), European psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy company AWAKN Life Sciences Inc. announcing the launch of its Commercial Clinical Research Division with Professor David Nutt and (past Psychedelics Today guest) Dr. Ben Sessa at the helm, a recent study at the National Center for Biotechnology Information that further proved that psychedelics promote structural and functional neural plasticity, and a new app called "Trip" from Field Trip Psychedelics Inc., which was designed to help people through psychedelic trips, and brings up the very difficult balance of encouraging harm reduction and safety while also essentially promoting dangerous experiences.  They also discuss a recent article in ScienceAlert, which focused on the similarities between psychedelic trips and religious experiences through 288 people filling out a Mystical Experience Questionnaire, the Good Friday experiments’ roots of this questionnaire, and the important point that not all good data needs to be scientific and collected through clinical trials. They also talk about books by Louis Cozolino and Rick Strassman, Strassman's DMT-pineal gland hypothesis, whole-plant statistics vs. single-molecule statistics, the idea that LSD could promote life extension, the insensitivity and danger of playing music with historically bad roots during sessions (like playing anti-semitic composer Richard Wagner's works), and the possible similarities between COVID isolation and the concept of nuclear families.  And they remind us that spots for the next round of Navigating Psychedelics (beginning September 17th) are going quickly- the early class is sold out, but spots remain for group 2, so sign up now! Additionally, there is a new class offering called Imagination as Revelation, developed by Kyle and Johanna Hilla-Maria Sopanen, which explores Jungian psychology. Notable Quotes “These competitive forces are going to continue to drop prices, and I think that is optimistic for accessibility, long-term. But, you know, realistically, this comes back to the same question- are psychedelics exclusively in the domain of psychiatry, or do they belong elsewhere? Is peer to peer use ok? I think yes, but how do we, as a culture, kind of land on that? That’s the big question. I think a lot of psychiatrists probably agree that people should just be able to use mushrooms when they want to, or LSD when they want to. Others would be vehemently opposed, but there are people in that field that are on our side of liberation and cognitive liberty and whatnot. So it’s there. It’s coming, I think, and competition plays a part.” - Joe “If we’re in isolation, we’re probably going to see brain atrophy. If we’re in community, we’re going to see heightened neural activity. And perhaps the brain will come back alive with the heightened neural activity. I remember hearing somebody recently talk about a visit to the actor/singer Jamie Foxx’s house. You know, super rich, right? But he’s got at least 20 people in the house at all times, and perhaps that’s how some high performers do so well- is that they’re just always around folks. ...I’m wondering, are nuclear families toxic? Is the concept of a nuclear family one of the major factors at play here?” -Joe “You can have a mystical experience. DMT doesn’t necessarily need to be involved at all. Does that take away from the value for you? If so, why? Are you fetishizing DMT? There are a lot of other drugs out there that do amazing things. Your brain is an amazing thing. The human psyche is an amazing thing. Why not fetishize the highest thing, which is psyche and its relation to the universe?” -Joe Links Digitaljournal.com: Havn Life Sciences Announces Filing of Final Prospectus and Conditional Approval for Listing on CSE Synthesis press release: Synthesis Welcomes Leading Clinical Psychologist Dr. Rosalind Watts To The Advisory Board Yahoo Finance: AWAKN Life Sciences Launches Clinical Research Division with Prof. David Nutt & Dr. Ben Sessa Identifying Suitable Studies Across Europe & North America Psychedelics Today: Ben Sessa's appearance ncbi.nlm.nih.gov: Psychedelics Promote Structural and Functional Neural Plasticity Book recommendation: The Neuroscience of Human Relationships: Attachment And the Developing Social Brain, by Louis Cozolino GreenEntrepreneur: New App Helps Guide Your Psychedelic Trip Wavepaths.com ScienceAlert: Psychedelic 'Trips' Really Are Similar to Religious Experiences in Many Ways Trippingly.net: The Mystical Experience Questionnaire (MEQ30) Book recommendation: DMT and the Soul of Prophecy: A New Science of Spiritual Revelation in the Hebrew Bible, by Rick Strassman Youtube: David Nichols- DMT And The Pineal Gland: Facts vs Fantasy DailyMail: Meet the scandal-hit son Drumpf is hoping will cost Joe Biden the Presidency Support the show Patreon Leave us a review on Facebook or iTunes Share us with your friends Join our Facebook group - Psychedelics Today group – Find the others and create community. Navigating Psychedelics  

In today's Solidarity Fridays episode, Joe and Kyle discuss recent items in the news. They cover a new LSD microdose trial to study the effects of 5, 10, or 20 µg on acute pain, seeing how long participants could hold their hands in 37.4° F water. Led by researchers from Maastricht University with help from the Beckley Foundation, this is the first study of its kind since Eric Kast first studied the effects of LSD on acute pain in the 1960s, and could help lead to LSD being prescribed for acute pain over the more standard and very addictive and dangerous opioids. This leads towards the topic of pain in general and our relationship with it- can we figure out how to have pain not affect us the same way by not giving it the same attention we're used to giving it? They talk about Compass Pathways filing an application with the SEC for a NASDAQ listing, as well as already raising over $80 million towards funding clinical trials for psilocybin-based therapy for treatment-resistant depression, and the ways corporations being tradeable in such a public view is good for everyone: improved market sentiment and opinion towards psychedelic companies, increases in mergers and acquisitions, and a trickle-down monetary effect for other companies in the same sphere.  And they talk about Mind Medicine Australia applying to reschedule both psilocybin and MDMA from their Schedule 9 category (dealing with prohibited substances) to Schedule 8 (which deals with controlled medicines). If they're successful, they'll be the first country in the world to successfully de-schedule these substances. This leads to a discussion of drug policy work and the drug war, why it's ok for some parties to only focus on one part of the psychedelic renaissance, giving thanks to the people who fought for years to get us to where we are today, and recognizing privilege when trying to keep psychedelics within specific clinical containers to afford job security.  They also discuss Papadosio's new album, "Microdosio," and remind us that spots for September 17th's early Navigating Psychedelics class are sold out, but spots remain for group 2, so sign up now! Additionally, there is a new class offering called Imagination as Revelation, developed by Kyle and Johanna Hilla-Maria Sopanen. Notable Quotes “Why are we concerned about prescribing LSD in this way if somebody can get a huge bottle of benzos or opiates and easily die from those? You can’t really easily die from LSD. You might have a weird time and get in trouble, but you’re not going to die, and you’re not going to get addicted.” -Joe “It seems, as a culture, we kind of are more ok with the stupors and the depressants- alcohol and opioids and benzos and stuff like that. And some of these other substances that maybe help us perceive things a little bit differently, in another way, are stigmatized. I don’t know, maybe that’s just our relationship with consciousness- that there needs to be a 'right' way of seeing the world.” -Kyle “If it’s just going to stay within the clinical paradigm, what about the people that can’t get access to it, that are still going to be arrested for these substances? If we’re really thinking about people’s overall wellness and health and life, do we want potential clients- people that are already suffering- then in jail or having part of their rights taken away from them because maybe they were trying to heal? I think it is important for us in the professional world to also speak up about drug policy. And I know it’s scary because it does feel like professional suicide at times, because you want to keep it within that clinical scope so you can feel professional and remain professional, but I don’t know, I just think about people who are trying to heal.” -Kyle “What do we have in the world for young people to help them with meaning-making? Next to nothing. We’ve got like, angry memes, 4chan, horrifying bullying online, and that’s just a place-holder because there’s no meaning- there’s no context for where you fit into society that makes sense. For an entity as amazing as humans, that’s a big deal. Humans are amazing, and that’s probably something we agree on- a human being is a fascinating, interesting, infinitely powerful thing. Endlessly interesting. So to just say ‘ok, all you’ve got is video games and being an asshole on youtube,’ like, really? Is that what life is? What if you were able to give these people deep, ritualistic initiations into adulthood with 3-5 grams of mushrooms, given they were screened appropriately? What a send-off into adulthood.” -Joe Links Newatlas.com: LSD microdose trial for acute pain relief reports “remarkable” results Beckleyfoundation.org: Can LSD microdosing reduce pain perception? Liveforlivemusic: Papadosio Releases Eighth Studio Album, ‘Microdosio’ Theseedinvestor.com: Compass Pathways Files For NASDAQ Listing: Psychedelics Game-Changer Press release: Mind Medicine Australia Submits Australian-First Application for the Rescheduling of Psilocybin and MDMA Psychedelics Today Shop Support the show Patreon Leave us a review on Facebook or iTunes Share us with your friends Join our Facebook group - Psychedelics Today group – Find the others and create community. Navigating Psychedelics

In today's Solidarity Fridays episode, Joe and Kyle have, in Joe's words, "a wildly rambling show." They cover topics in the news, including MAPS' recent completion of their Capstone Campaign, a non-profit fundraising effort to fund the final research required to seek FDA approval of MDMA-assisted psychotherapy (through which they raised $30 million from several high-profile names), MindMed's new LSD-MDMA "candy flipping" phase 1 trial set to commence later this year, Representative Earl Blumenauer's (D-OR) fundraising efforts for legal psilocybin and Oregon's ballot initiative becoming a measure that people can vote on in November, and the Usona Institute resuming their previously COVID-halted psilocybin studies. They then talk about a lot of different things: how to achieve psychedelic states without plants or drugs, Grof's conclusions from 5000 sessions with clients, the dangers of Jim Jones-esque hero worship within communities, the seldom talked about global sacredness of tobacco, how big money coming into psychedelics both hurts and immensely helps the community, the Venus Project and the idea of restarting lives during the COVID life based on what really makes us happy, the impending doom of climate change and the changes we could all be making to help save ourselves, and the western tragedy of always working to become something and never just being. It's largely a conversation about lineage, and making sure to give thanks and respect to the people and history that led to where we are today- not just in the psychedelic sphere, but in all things. They also remind us that spots for September's Navigating Psychedelics class are going fast, and there's a new class available called Imagination as Revelation, developed by Kyle and Johanna Hilla-Maria Sopanen. Notable Quotes “My girlfriend, for some reason, had the Republican National Convention on TV last night, and Ivanka Trump was talking, and talked a lot about addiction and how big of a situation opioid addiction is, which is totally true, but like, with her saying that, to me, what that means is that there’s going to be an increase in funding to the DEA and the drug war, not an increase in funding for treatment. Because typically speaking, that party doesn’t necessarily want to fund treatment; they want to fund prevention, which they see as the drug war. They’ve not noticed yet that their drug war isn’t effective. I’d like to congratulate drugs for winning the war on drugs.” -Joe “Let’s just cut the shit with the drug war. It’s racist, it’s horrible, it’s killing a lot of people still, there’s tons of political prisoners, still, in jail for cannabis, which in many states is being sold and people are making a killing on. It’s just insane to me that people are going to jail for not hurting anybody.” -Joe “When we say the ‘psychedelic community,’ what is that? There’s so many different subsets and so many different people with different agendas. You have the folks who might classify themselves as being part of the psychedelic community that go to festivals and raves and they’re really submerged in that art scene, you have the psychedelic community of therapists and psychiatrists and people in the medical model wanting to do that thing, you have the Decrim Nature folks, you have the shamanic lineages. You have all these different little subcategories within a larger generalization of an interest, and everybody’s approaching it differently. People want to see different things happen. How can we come together? ...How do we try to appreciate all different use cases and really respect where people are coming from and that we don’t need to fit it within these ‘this is the only way, this is the only model, and my way is better’ [paradigms]?” -Kyle  “Whenever I think about the archetype of America and the west, I usually think of the hero. Can we stop playing the hero role and could we start to look back at other archetypes and really appreciate other archetypes? Like, why does everybody have to go out and slay the dragon?” -Kyle “Are you just getting really expansive and manic and you want that same yacht Usher has? Or do you want a garden and a small home and some sort of a community around you? Both have a certain kind of appeal, but what’s more sustainable? What helps you connect with your family more and the planet more? It’s probably the garden.” -Joe Links James "Kiwi" Oroc Fundraiser Psychedelic Research Fundraising Campaign Attracts $30 Million in Donations in 6 Months, Prepares MDMA-Assisted Psychotherapy for FDA Approval Landmark clinical trial exploring LSD-MDMA combo to begin late 2020 Congressman Raising Money To Legalize Psychedelic Mushroom Therapy Madison nonprofit furthers research on psychedelic drug and depression Elon Musk's Neuralink update: How to watch, start time, 'working' device demo Support the show Patreon Leave us a review on Facebook or iTunes Share us with your friends Join our Facebook group - Psychedelics Today group – Find the others and create community. Navigating Psychedelics

In today's Solidarity Fridays episode, Joe and Kyle sit down and discuss recent items in the news, including the passing of Tav Sparks; author, therapist, co-director of Grof Transpersonal Training, and creator of "Movie Yoga," and scientist Jordi Riba; one of the early pioneers of ayahuasca research and one of the first ever to bring it into the lab.  They discuss the ayahuasca episode of the new Netflix docuseries "Unwell," and 2 articles from Marijuana Moment: psychedelic activists in Oakland creating a guideline for plant medicine healing ceremonies and the new initiative to allow for legal use in controlled settings, and 4 state attorney generals and 50 current and former law enforcement officials sending a letter to Congress endorsing a federal marijuana legalization bill after a recent poll showed that 62% of likely voters support it. As Joe says, "It's about time... 20 years ago." And lastly, they discuss Bright Minds Biosciences' recent tweet claiming that the future is in what they're working on: modifying molecules in psilocybin to reduce trip times from 4-6 hours to 60-90 minutes. While this could be huge for people who can't safely partake in longer trips, and more specifically for sufferers of cluster headaches, they wonder about intention: is this for the betterment of mankind or just for profit and headlines? Isn't sitting with the trip part of the healing? Isn't integration afterward even more important? Is this a new tool/solution, or a band-aid? Is it all of the above?  This leads to Kyle sharing that a friend of his recently committed suicide, and the reminder that we all need to practice self-care- it's never been more important than it is now in our current disconnected, online, fearful, COVID lives- even the smallest effects of what's going on can take a big psychological toll. Remember to take care of yourselves, folks.  Notable Quotes “We just need more and more drugs, but we have to be able to see through this marketing junk so we know how to appropriately contextualize it, and not just fall prey to ‘Oh cool, this is the right drug. This is the best drug, it has the most research behind it.’ Subtext: this just had the most pharma dollars behind it.” -Joe “Do we really need these fast solutions? I think, on one hand, yes, because some people are definitely going to kill themselves tomorrow. At least 22+ veterans are going to kill themselves tomorrow, which is horrible- and today, and yesterday and every day until we have some sort of good intervention, or the numbers go [down]. It’s really tough. But also, no. Are we just slapping a band-aid on and saying, ‘cool, go get sick again’?” -Joe “When I think about these quick, band-aid-like substances, like, ‘Oh yes, you can just do your healing.’ Well, this is where the integration comes in. Do you have that support network? Are you living a life that feels like it’s in balance with how you want to live? Are you surrounded by good people? Are you surrounded by that community? Are you taking care of yourself?” -Kyle “Scary shit, but as a species, we’ll get through it. Individual tragedies don’t usually slow down the machine of human progress. And we’re going to see a continually exciting series of events, I think, for the next 70 years. So I don’t think, you and I, in our lifetime, Kyle, are going to get bored. We might be horrified at times, we might be amazed at times, but we’re going to see slow progress.” -Joe Links Tav Sparks' bio and obituary Jordi Riba's obituary 60 Minutes: Researchers experimenting with psychedelics to treat addiction, depression and anxiety The dark side of wellness: behind a Netflix series on a murky industry Daniel Moler's Mothervine Advocates Unveil Guide For Psychedelic Healing Ceremonies They Hope To Legalize In Oakland Top State Cops Tell Congress To Legalize Marijuana As New Poll Shows Strong Voter Support Bright Minds Biosciences's tweet brightmindsbio.com Support the show Patreon Leave us a review on Facebook or iTunes Share us with your friends Join our Facebook group - Psychedelics Today group – Find the others and create community. Navigating Psychedelics

In today's Solidarity Fridays episode, Joe and Kyle talk about recent items in the news and dive deep into Stan Grof's work, different types of therapy, and the way touch comes into play in the therapeutic world.  They first discuss Wisconsin-based non-profit medical research institution, The Usona Institute, and their recently published new method for synthesizing psilocybin, and how great this is for the community. There is a danger to locking away ideas, and new methods of synthesis could lead to monopolization of the market, but publishing their findings means this can be available to all.  They then talk about re-reading Grof and the concept of the body's inner radar bringing forth what the inner healer needs to work on, and the idea that hyperventilation could be the body trying to heal itself. This leads to discussion of Kyle's time at a Soteria-inspired house in Burlington and their method of simply sitting with people and being there through difficult times. They then discuss different types of therapy, from how traditional talk therapy seems to be more of an art form rather than a measurable methodology, to Grof's Fusion Therapy (which is a type of therapy involving touch that may be over the line by today's standards), to new sex therapies that are starting to make headway. The main threads through this discussion are touch: when can touch be used safely, the dangers of touch being perceived as sexual, and the importance of communication and boundary-setting before sessions, and distraction vs. work: when is a participant wanting to talk about things during a session part of the work and important to respect, and when is it simply a distraction and a way to avoid the work? Lastly, they remind us that seats are still on sale for the 2 new rounds of (now CE-approved) Navigating Psychedelics (beginning on September 17th), "Psychedelics and the Shadow: The Shadow Side of Psychedelia" is on sale, and there is a new class developed with Johanna Hilla-Maria Sopanen called "Imagination as Revelation," focusing on Jungian psychology and how it can be applied to understanding psychedelic experience. Notable quotes “A corporation finding a new synthesis and being able to patent that and then kind of locking it away and saying ‘It stays within our corporation and we’re the only ones that can produce this in this way’ doesn’t mean that other people can’t find other ways.” -Kyle “In holotropic breathwork, Stan [Grof] talks about how if someone doesn’t land by the end of the workshop and get somewhat settled and resolved, a traditional psychiatrist might say ‘ok yes, this is a psychotic break.' And what do we do? You do your normal interventions. So, optimal for the breathwork and psychedelic world would be to have a place where folks could go and be for days to months to settle and kind of reorganize. That’s the model of spiritual emergence, I think, that Stan talks about. You have to have really careful discussions and criteria for: psychotic break? Or possible spiritual emergence? Or, what’s the real difference?” -Joe  “I definitely saw some magic, by just being with people, not trying to really change their experience.” -Kyle “I think delaying is really undervalued. You want to do just the right thing at just the right time. Well, what if you do the wrong thing? Why not wait, so you don’t do the wrong thing?” -Joe Links Usona Institute Publishes Breakthrough Development in Scalable Psilocybin Synthesis Direct Phosphorylation of Psilocin Enables Optimized cGMP Kilogram-Scale Manufacture of Psilocybin (scientific breakdown) Psychedelics Today: "Spiritual Emergence or Psychosis" Webinar Support the show Patreon Leave us a review on Facebook or iTunes Share us with your friends Join our Facebook group - Psychedelics Today group – Find the others and create community. Navigating Psychedelics

In today's Solidarity Fridays episode, Joe and Kyle sit down and talk about recent items in the news, and dive deep into analyzing 2 articles that are very critical of MAPS' involvement with the police, military, and government.  They first discuss Canada-based nonprofit TheraPsil's recent win of four people with incurable cancer being granted the ability to use psilocybin for end-of-life therapy, and how this framework could be copied and used in the US through the Right-to-try act, signed into law in 2018.   They then discuss Dimitri Mugianis's recent article in Salon, which highlighted the long history of psychedelics being used in negative ways, from Vikings presumably using some sort of mushroom to get to a pillaging, "Berserker warrior" mindstate, to the 11th century Nizari Isma'ili State, which reportedly used hashish as a tool for motivation and control, to MKUltra and experiments on Whitey Bulger, to the most recent death of Elijah McLain from a large forced injection of ketamine. And they discuss David Nickles's article in Psymposia, which poses that since MAPS is working to provide treatment to police and soldiers with PTSD, they are essentially in bed with the enemy, and only promoting organizations that create more violence, division, trauma, and PTSD, while treating the perpetrators instead of the victims.  Both articles are critical of MAPS but neglect to see the importance of diplomacy and working to see eye to eye with people in disagreement for the greater good- that yes, these tools can be used against people, but can also be used by people, with immense benefits. Joe reads a comment sent in by listener Danny McCraken, pointing out that "as the saying goes, ‘only Siths deal in absolutes.’" This leads to more discussion: when and how should ketamine be used for submission? Why do healthy, trained cops need to even get to that point? How much of this is just governments trying to make the costs of war cheaper? Why don't more people see things from all sides? Lastly, they remind us that on September 17th, 2 new rounds of (now CE-approved) Navigating Psychedelics will be starting up, and there is a new class for sale developed with Johanna Hilla-Maria Sopanen called "Imagination as Revelation," which focuses on Jungian psychology and how it can be applied to understanding psychedelic experience.   Notable quotes “I remember when we chatted with Dr. Katherine MacLean way, way back when we first got it rolling. Something that she said- ‘it’s almost like a birthright for us to try to prepare for death. And do we have to wait to have some sort of end-of-life illness, or can we start trying to prepare a little bit earlier?’ Just really awesome to see that these 4 patients will be able to have an experience and maybe discover things about themselves during their last time here. So congrats TheraPsil for making that work for these folks.” -Kyle “From the anarchist perspective, this just helps governments, which are typically organizations that have monopolies on power (what anarchists are against, primarily). So any kind of government that’s using tools against people is bad, and these are tools that are being used against people. They’re also being used for people. It’s this weird dichotomy of: these things have such huge healing benefit for so many different types of people, and they can also be used to support things that are against people, like any tool. Like a knife or a gun- it can be used to save a life or take a life.” -Joe  “Is this what we want? Last episode, we talked a lot about decriminalization vs. legalization, and we didn’t really talk about how that contrasts with medicalization. Do we really want these powerful people in groups telling you when you can and cannot take these things? I think the answer is no. We don’t want that. We want autonomy. We want cognitive liberty. We want to not go to jail for this stuff. We want safe access.” -Joe “Essentially, the critique is that MAPS is supporting cops (PTSD) and soldiers (PTSD), and as a result, MAPS is supporting violent organizations that are causing more PTSD, and treating the perpetrators vs. treating the victims. I understand why they would write this article, but I think it’s not done in good taste. I think it’s not necessarily aware of the broader implications of these things coming to market and being prescribable and healing a lot of people. But it is helpful in that it says, ‘Look, cops are doing bad stuff. Military has done bad stuff. Should we be supporting it?’ ...How do we balance those two things? ...I think MAPS is almost at the finish line, so I’m going to cheerlead for MAPS to finish [and] cross the line with MDMA, even though they’re kind of pandering to the militarized people who have a monopoly on violence, both inside and outside of the country.” -Joe Links 4 Palliative Canadians approved for end of life psilocybin therapy BP will slash oil production by 40% and pour billions into green energy Salon: How psychedelic drugs are used as a tool of state violence Psymposia: We Need to Talk About MAPS Supporting The Police, The Military, and Violent White Supremacism Psychedelics Today- Imagination as Revelation: The Psychedelic Experience in the Light of Jungian Psychology   Support the show Patreon Leave us a review on Facebook or iTunes Share us with your friends Join our Facebook group - Psychedelics Today group – Find the others and create community. Navigating Psychedelics

In today's Solidarity Fridays episode, Joe and Kyle sit down to discuss recent topics in the news and analyze the ongoing debate of decriminalization vs. legalization.  They first discuss the story of LSD chemist William Leonard Pickard, who was released from prison on July 27th due mostly to his age, health status and risk for contracting Covid-19, and while it's great that he's out, how it changes nothing about the conspiracy surrounding his arrest ("Halperngate") and the very questionable DEA claims of LSD availability decreasing by 95% after his imprisonment.  They then talk about Denver mushroom grower Kole Milner, who is facing up to 20 years in prison and a $1 million fine, and all the complications surrounding state or city legality vs. federal legality, and how anyone in this space should be extremely careful about what personal information they share publicly, regardless of any perceived legal safety.  This leads to a long discussion about decriminalization vs. legalization: the need for more conversation, what the model might look like for the US, what we can learn from Portugal, how Covid-related economic issues might influence things, the "my drug is better than your drug" issue with advertising, the problem with D.A.R.E.'s "scare you straight" model and the need for truth instead of manipulation, and how advertising and corporate profit incentives may come into play- does legality mean that companies will try to convince more people to use these powerful medicines irresponsibly? Notable quotes “It’s a false dichotomy to just say ‘decriminalization vs. legalization.’ As we say, decriminalization doesn’t necessarily mean anything. It can mean something for a municipality or a county or a state but it doesn’t necessarily mean that’s the case for the feds. And as soon as you’re crossing state lines, that’s when they can be really into it. But realistically, the DEA seems to have plenty of power to do whatever they want.” -Joe “I remember a few years ago, I started making this comment: ‘Oh cool, so you want it to stay illegal so you can have your heady, farm-to-table LSD. Cute, but that’s not really how it works and there’s plenty of people getting hurt as a result of not having these controls in place.’ ...It just takes a couple high schoolers whipping up a shitty lab, or non-safety-oriented people just trying to make a quick buck to get a few people hurt. I want to be a libertarian, but I don’t necessarily trust people’s motives enough to fully be a libertarian. I feel like there needs to be incentive structures in place and regulation in place for a lot of things.” -Joe “I remember them threatening us: ‘If you do this, we will come and arrest you.’ Like, whoa... What if you had somebody that was like, “Hey, psilocybin mushrooms- these were originally used in ceremonial contexts, they had these kinds of safety mechanisms built in place, and this is what’s going on, here are the risks and dangers, this is why you would want to do it in a situation like this, people are using it to find spiritual growth…” And I don’t know, is that more enticing to people? Like, “Oh. I’m really curious!” But at least when they would practice, hopefully, they’d be like, “Oh yea, remember, they told us to do it in this context” instead of being like “This is an illegal thing, we’re going to get arrested so let’s hide and do it in secrecy and not tell anybody about it because the police chief is going to kick down my door and arrest me and tell me I’m a bad person.” -Kyle “Let’s just be fact-based. Like, ‘Ok, here are the laws, here’s where it comes from, here’s the history, here are the pluses and minuses, and here are the legal consequences at this point in time.’ I would just like the facts, you know? I don’t need to be manipulated. Because that’s all I felt it was- a manipulation of the truth and a manipulation of us. This is not science-based policy, and I think a lot of us now want science-based policy.” -Joe Links Breaking: LSD Chemist William Leonard Pickard to be Released From Prison Lucid News: LSD Chemist And Psychedelic Icon William Leonard Pickard To Be Released From Prison Erowid character vault on William Leonard Pickard Erowid's article on Halperngate LSD Use Up 56% Since 2015, According To Study by University of Cincinnati Man Accused of Selling Mushrooms Faces Up to Twenty Years Al Jazeera youtube stream: Are magic mushrooms going mainstream? Support the show Patreon Leave us a review on Facebook or iTunes Share us with your friends Join our Facebook group - Psychedelics Today group – Find the others and create community. Navigating Psychedelics

In today's Solidarity Fridays episode, Joe and Kyle sit down and discuss two news stories emerging from Portland, Oregon- first, paramilitary-like federal agents showing up in unmarked cars and arresting protestors, and second, the beating and pepper-spraying of one of those protestors, Christopher David.  They look at these events from multiple perspectives- what fears are driving the opinions of people who are against these protests? Why does there always seem to be money when it comes to military expenses, but never any money when it comes to the wellbeing of people? How many police officers fully stand behind what they're doing, and how many are simply following orders or deeming certain evils necessary solely to earn their federal pension?  They analyze systems and better ways forward, like considering a bottom-up approach vs. the standard top-down approach or Ken Wilbur's framework of transcending an old system while including all the lessons from it. They also discuss decriminalization vs. legalization and the importance of regulation, and the massive scale of concepts and systems, like how MKUltra needs to be included when discussing the history of psychology. They also discuss telehealth and ketamine-assisted psychotherapy and the complications surrounding it right now, from both therapists and clients not wanting to be in an office to the concerns of self-administration at home, to the benefits of self-exploration for those who do feel comfortable and safe engaging on their own. And lastly, they talk about their upcoming Navigating Psychedelics class, which is selling fast and will never be cheaper than it is now. Notable quotes “This is illegal, and people seem to forget that it’s illegal. Even if it’s decriminalized in a locality, doesn’t mean the feds can’t come in and shut you down. And that’s why they call me the party pooper.” -Joe “How many people get into higher systems and institutions with really good intentions [of] wanting to make change, and thinking... “I’m going to change it from the top down.” ...What would a ‘bottom-up’ approach be, and how could we give power back to communities to start to create their own change, instead of thinking that we need to change it from these hierarchical systems? I always come back to Bucky Fuller’s quote about just creating a different system- you don’t change a system by trying to change it, you make a new system that’s obsolete to that old way of being. ...I’m thinking also too, from the somatic lens in therapy- approaching it more cognitively, intellectually- this whole top-down brain approach vs. a body-oriented approach and working with the trauma, working with the body and thinking about, ok, what’s the body? It’s people, it’s communities. How do we start to work that way?” -Kyle “I just prefer to see government funds spent on stuff like the green new deal to save us from climate change. Or health care for all- those kinds of things. Why spend to put people in jail, when we could have, just like with cannabis, taxable revenue. I don’t want to let the perfect be the enemy of the good. Just because it’s not equitable, I don’t think that totally excludes the thing. I’d just like to see less people going to jail, less people being harmed by black market drugs, and more clean appropriate drugs available to the people who want them.” -Joe “How do we have the money to send these paramilitary agents in but you didn’t have the money to produce personal protection equipment for hospitals? What’s going on here?” -Kyle Links U.S. Homeland Security confirms three units sent paramilitary officers to Portland Navy veteran beaten and pepper-sprayed by federal agents at protest in Portland Support the show Patreon Leave us a review on Facebook or iTunes Share us with your friends Join our Facebook group - Psychedelics Today group – Find the others and create community. Navigating Psychedelics

In today’s Solidarity Fridays episode, Joe and Kyle sit down and talk about various topics in the news and dive deep into somatic psychology.  They first discuss Canadian mushroom life sciences company Cybin Corp's recent collaboration with drug delivery company IntelGenx to create an orally dissolvable film to administer psilocybin in controlled doses. This feels to them like the early days in the expansion of cannabis offerings, and how, for people with difficulty swallowing or pill-phobia, this may be the best option for psilocybin.  Next, they talk about a recent study of 65 U.S. Special Operations Forces veterans who took Ibogaine on day 1 and 5-MeO-DMT on day 3 (with surrounding processing and integration time) and the amazing results, including most participants rating their psychedelic experiences as one of the top five most personally meaningful and spiritually significant experiences of their lives. Joe brings up a seldom-asked question on whether non-combat veterans should be differentiated from combat veterans in these studies and therapies.  The last article they look at highlights a study where physicians used a new selective‐dose cannabis inhaler to administer microdoses of THC (either .5mg or 1mg) to patients with great results in decreasing pain without affecting cognitive performance. They talk about their experiences with low dose edibles and how they've seen great benefits from tiny amounts.  They then discuss many aspects of Kyle's area of expertise (and often not mentioned in-depth on this podcast), Somatic psychology. They talk about how breathwork and a session with a physical therapist led Kyle to this practice, the concept of character armoring, William Reich's idea of neurosis being represented throughout the entire organism, how the western mind focuses on the material body, trying to fix things, and technique, how the smallest muscle quivering during a breathwork session can show where work needs to be done, and the difficulty people have in discussing the body- how it's almost a secret language only learned through experience or their therapist's suggestive questions on whether they're feeling a certain emotion or even seeing a color. Notable quotes “Thinking about my early years exploring psychedelics, I was so focused on the mind- the experience was outside of me, the knowledge and the wisdom was in the numinous. And that’s where I was going to find all the answers. ...It wasn’t until I had my first breathwork experience, where it was such a somatic experience- where I was feeling the experience in my body vs. externalizing my experience outside of my body and viewing it more as this thing of novelty- of something I’ve never experienced before. Actually having that experience and feeling it within myself, [I realized] I have felt this before, and it’s inside of me.” -Kyle “[Bodywork] just reveals how much is not immediately available in the day-to-day consciousness. There’s so much happening- so much stored in our body that we just don’t even really have a handle on it. ...My favorite line (which, I’m starting to feel like I’m cheating) is: “Mind is, at the very least, diffused throughout the body.” -Joe “As a culture, we’re so body-oriented at times, right? We think about diet, exercise, yoga has turned more into more of an exercise than a lifestyle or practice. ...We’re so focused more on the physical, material body than the emotional body, and that’s something that’s really hard to tap into.” -Kyle “Try not to set out with some of these goals that ‘we need to change this.’ What does it feel like to just maybe feel some of these things?” -Kyle Links Psychedelics For Seniors: A New Sublingual Option Psychedelic Treatment for Trauma-Related Psychological and Cognitive Impairment Among US Special Operations Forces Veterans The pharmacokinetics, efficacy, and safety of a novel selective‐dose cannabis inhaler in patients with chronic pain: A randomized, double‐blinded, placebo‐controlled trial   Support the show Patreon Leave us a review on Facebook or iTunes Share us with your friends Join our Facebook group - Psychedelics Today group – Find the others and create community. Navigating Psychedelics

In today’s Solidarity Fridays episode, Joe and Kyle sit down and talk about various topics in the news. They first discuss Rise Wellness (a company focused on teaching people how to microdose psilocybin)'s recent merger with CannaGlobal and Sansero Life Sciences to become CannaGlobal Wellness, and why many smaller companies are merging, and why Canada may be a hot new destination point for these companies. Joe suggests a new idea of helping people microdose through the use of a transdermal patch.  They talk about psychology today and the idea of no theory being complete without including all perspectives (including psychedelic perspectives), the concept of re-phrasing “what’s wrong with you?” to “what has happened to you?”, a recent student’s theory that schizophrenia may actually be a protection mechanism, Amsterdam-based psilocybin-retreat company Synthesis’ recent $2.75 million funding towards developing an end-to-end professional wellness & therapy platform, and what that means to the community- are these companies focusing on the drug as the crux, or the full therapy picture? Lastly, they talk about the death of Elijah McClain from a 500-milligram injection of ketamine, using thoughts from past guest and regular administrator of ketamine to patients, Dr. Alex Belser. They talk about how ketamine can be necessary, but how it has unfortunately been used as a weapon for chemical restraint against people of color, which brings about larger questions on whether people should be allowed to hurt themselves or not- what role do physicians, therapists and police officers ultimately have in people’s freedom to do what they want with their bodies?  And just as a reminder, Psychedelics Today is currently offering a course developed by Kyle and Dr. Ido Cohen called Psychedelics and The Shadow: The Shadow Side of Psychedelia. And the next round of Navigating Psychedelics for Clinicians and Therapists will be starting in September, with a new self-paced option.  Notable Quotes On William James: “As soon as he found out about other states of consciousness other than the normal waking state, he’s saying that no theory for how the world works is complete unless we include all perspectives. So, like, what is the American constitution when you’re on nitrous or on LCD? What is appropriate political idealogy, given all of these things? Essentially, he’s saying that we’re going to keep developing new tools to understand the universe, and every time we have one of these new tools, it kind of expands the scope of what we need in our theories for how the world works. ...Psychedelic states, shamanic states- how do we include that into our worldview to have a complete scientific framework? I think it’s just a never-ending process, and a fun one.” -Joe “Even the people that I’ve worked with [who] are really really struggling, and I’ve seen medication work really well for them at times, I always come back to: ‘what has this person been through? Do they actually have this thing that science and probably psychiatry would label as a disease?’ ...Some of the trauma stuff that’s coming out, the neuroscience, some of the somatics- it’s all kind of merging. And with the help of psychedelics, I’m feeling more optimistic that maybe the field will go into more of a growth, healing-oriented route vs. this pathology [of] ‘sick.’” -Kyle “With these clinics that are popping up- are you exclusively focusing on the psychedelic experience, or are you trying to focus on the therapeutic relationship, the report, the container, the trust that’s developed over time, and really developing that relationship with the client? There’s tons of research that suggests that a therapeutic relationship is the one factor in getting better in therapy. So, as money is coming into this space and more of these clinics are popping up, are you creating a center around therapy, and really thinking about how to bring wellness and work with people in this space, or are just focusing it exclusively on the substance, thinking that’s the change?” -Kyle Links CannaGlobal, Sansero Life Sciences and Rise Wellness Merge Synthesis Raises US$2.75M to Develop End-to-End Professional Platform for Psychedelic Wellness & Therapy Alex Belser's thoughts on ketamine as a chemical restraint Is Ketamine the new police weapon against black lives? Psychedelics and The Shadow: The Shadow Side of Psychedelia Support the show Patreon Leave us a review on Facebook or iTunes Share us with your friends Join our Facebook group - Psychedelics Today group – Find the others and create community. Navigating Psychedelics

In today’s Solidarity Fridays episode, Joe and Kyle sit down and talk about various topics in the news. They first discuss the duality of how Covid-19 affects different people, and how much of a privilege it is to be able to reconnect with family in new ways and use this time to grow spiritually while so many are out of work and struggling to get by.  They discuss a recent tweet from @Shroomstreet concerning psychedelic stocks and the money being invested in this emerging market, and concerns that some of these unknown companies could be fake or following the “exit scam” model of holding onto investor money and then closing up shop. How many of these companies are in it for the right reasons, and what does this all mean on a grand scale? They talk about recent reports of psychedelic retreats in excess of $10,000 and the various aspects surrounding these prices, from the cost of education and the need for physicians and therapists to make a living while helping others, to the idea of “pay what you can” and taking a hit financially if it means helping the local community or those really in need without the finances to be able to participate in these retreats. Is pastoral counseling or group therapy the best way to help the most people?  And lastly, they talk about Oregon’s progress in getting legal psilocybin therapy on the ballot in November and the benefits of legality, most importantly towards the ability to report abusive sitters under a framework that would completely remove them from this field. Notable quotes “The Newtonian-Cartesian paradigm is just so focused on the how- on the mechanics of ‘how does a psychedelic work? Oh, ok, it can treat this. How does it treat this?’ vs. thinking about the idea of final cause and thinking about the why- why do these things exist? What is its purpose, and what is the potential implication here, on a bigger level, than just thinking about this how and thinking ‘this thing does this thing and that’s all we’re really worried about,’ not thinking about that overarching why- like, what is the purpose here?” -Kyle “I think everybody really should be able to access healing eventually. I think people shouldn’t be starving to death either, but people are still starving to death. I remember Kwasi (Adusei, in Solidarity Fridays week 10) at one point was like, ‘should we bring psychedelics to minority communities for healing?’ Well, why not bring regular mental health services first? Let’s start with clean water, as opposed to ‘let’s give them a road that they didn’t want.’ What’s the cheapest, lowest-hanging fruit that’s going to give the best reward?” -Joe “Education programs probably would be really helpful. And I think that’s how we fit in. It’s a philosophy thing that could be helpful for both recreationalists and people providing therapeutic experiences, and the experiencers themselves too. It helps to have some education before you go to see God.” -Joe “I think states should be experimenting with different ways of going forward. Yes, I want everything to be decriminalized- I want everything to be legal, really- personally. I don’t think therapeutic use should be the only use-case. But it’s certainly a lot better than what we’ve got now.” -Joe Links Shroomstreet's tweet: Why do you think Psychedelic stocks continue to bleed? Regulated psychedelic mushrooms are one step closer to being on the ballet in Oregon in November Support the show Patreon Leave us a review on Facebook or iTunes Share us with your friends Join our Facebook group - Psychedelics Today group – Find the others and create community. Navigating Psychedelics

In today’s Solidarity Fridays episode, Joe and Kyle sit down to talk about topics in the news including Mindmed’s phase one research into DMT, the intricacies of intravenous or infusion-pump administration, the potential clinical application of DMT, and whether or not mainstream science is ready to handle some transpersonal phenomena like entity encounters that sometimes occur during DMT experiences. They also discuss the projections for the psychedelic drug market and the intentions of the companies entering this space, and a recent tweet from the Drug Policy Alliance discussing how the war on drugs is a tool of racial oppression.  They dive deep into the war on drugs and racial oppression by discussing how sentencing for crack-cocaine is much harsher than cocaine (while basically the same drug), how NYC’s “stop-and-frisk” program was essentially put in place to put people in jail for cannabis possession, and how Breonna Taylor never would have died if police weren’t looking for drugs. They discuss the tragedy of Elijah McClain and what purpose a lot of police activity really serves, while looking at the “protect ourselves first” fraternity mentality that a lot of these power organizations have and how difficult it can be for a good person to become a whistleblower in those situations.  They also talk about revisiting philosophy through Lenny Gibson and how beneficial it has been to explore that world as more mature people and see connections to psychology, as well as learning the limitations of scientific explanations when dealing with deep, transpersonal experiences.Lastly, they mention their excitement in participating in the re-scheduled Philosophy of Psychedelics conference coming up next year in England. Notable quotes “I stopped doing research on near-death experiences at some point, where I was just like, ‘I’m sick of reading about [how] these are just physiological reflexes and responses within the brain, maybe the lack of oxygen, or all the different neurochemistry that’s going on within the brain at the time of dying…’ There’s something so interesting about that experience, that no matter how much mechanistic information I have, there’s still something there that eats at me… kind of like this lore… the lore of beauty and life kind of unfolding. It’s oriented towards growth and beauty, and I guess that’s what some of these experiences have really taught me- and it is that lore to grow, evolve, and move towards something. And I think when I try to put some sort of biological explanation to it, it almost halts that and says ‘that experience doesn’t really mean that much.’” -Kyle “Science has limited capacity to help people with meaning-making.” -Joe “Do we have enough spiritual literacy? Do we have an inclusive enough cosmology to handle all of these cases? ...Are psychologists willing to call in an exorcist of some kind? Or some sort of priest [who] can handle this kind of thing? …I tend to think shareholders might be a little creeped out if publicly traded companies are talking about spirits and entities. Are we ready for that?” -Joe “What does it mean that you have to put somebody in prison for 10 years for a non-violent offense, as a cop? Like, you pulled someone over, you found some drugs in their car, and now they go to prison. And their life is essentially ruined. And you made the decision to become a police officer and uphold laws. Like, can you sit with that and be ok with that, as an individual? Why do you think drugs are so bad that locking another person up in a cage for years and years and years is ok? …[They say], ’because they have meth or fentanyl, they are the most dangerous people out there!’ What about the rapists and murderers? What about drunk drivers that could kill 20 kids in one night? Why are you spending time on drug offenses when there are rapists out there? There are tons of untested rape kids at all these police departments across the country.”- Joe Links NeonMind Files Patent Application for Therapeutic Use of DMT Philosophy of Psychedelics conference MindMed investigating potential benefits of DMT in upcoming Phase 1 clinical trial collaboration Psychedelic Drugs Market Projected to Reach $6.85 Billion by 2027 Drug Policy Alliance's tweet about the drug war Aide says Nixon's war on drugs targeted blacks, hippies Jon Krakauer's "Missoula: Rape and the Justice System in a College Town" 2 Million People Want Justice For Elijah McClain And His Story Is Gut-Wrenching Support the show Patreon Leave us a review on Facebook or iTunes Share us with your friends Join our Facebook group - Psychedelics Today group – Find the others and create community. Navigating Psychedelics

In today's Solidarity Fridays episode, Joe and Kyle sit down and talk about topics in the news including what psychedelic companies owe to the community (both indigenous people and the underground psychedelic world), psilocybin-like drug alternatives for treating depression and the many reasons newer companies are trying to remove the psychedelic part of the medicine, and Dennis McKenna’s recent appointing to New Wave Holdings’ psychedelic research advisory board and what that says about the current climate of corporations moving into this space. They discuss the dangers of “sponsored content”-like corporate messages, the malleability of laws and power of lobbyists and interest groups, and how manipulation is faster and quieter than ever before, while many big decisions are being made by people crippled from decades of unseen cultural baggage. And why are companies trying to remove the psychedelic side of medicine? Is it solely for profit, or could it be because there are so many in need that streamlining the process or using these medicines differently than we’re used to in this space would be beneficial to the most people? Lastly, they talk about the importance of making the right connections and having the right arguments and really asking yourself what you’re trying to do when engaging with those who disagree with you- are you just trying to be right, or are you trying to make a change? Additionally, Joe shares an important harm reduction story and tip, and gives the news that Psychedelics Today recently surpassed 1 million downloads. Thank you for the support! Quotes “Is the only box you can fit in, like ‘I want a career, a home and a family’? And everything else doesn’t matter? Is that it? I think it’s more complicated than that. We’re not just atomic units, like nuclear families. We’re far more interconnected than that, and it’s kind of irresponsible to ignore that.” -Joe “Big businesses end up creating these systems that we all seem to rely on over time and to some extent, I think we appreciate the convenience. If that crumbled, what would our life look like? Could we tolerate living more locally, doing things on a much smaller scale? ...What would that look like in a world where the government didn’t give huge bailouts to these big companies? Our world would drastically change, and could we shift?” -Kyle “Maybe a thing to just keep in the back of our minds when we’re hearing all this stuff about new pharma companies is that pharma is not guaranteed money for these people. Pharma is still a gamble. Unless they really nail it, they could go bankrupt in a couple years, or just have earnings way lower than they hoped for. So it’s big money, it’s big bets, and they’re betting on big returns, so they kind of have to go out on a limb and stay stuff like this. But the fact that Forbes put that out- that psilocybin could be toxic- seems irresponsible to me… To me, this kind of looks like sponsored content. Or it’s just like, ‘how do we get these corporations to talk to us and be comfortable, so we have to promise fluff.’ Or, is this organized propaganda?” -Joe “Some of the people in this space are just getting so nasty that a lot of people are just saying, ‘nah, I’m out, later. I’ll go watch Seinfeld reruns for the next couple years while this shit plays out.’ Are you moving allies away, or are you bringing allies closer to you? Think about that. You want more allies. What’s the best tool? Sweetness. Anger, bitterness, spite- those are things that make people want to go away from you. How effective do you want to be, why do you want to be effective, and what tools are you willing to employ to be effective?” -Joe  Links What Do Psychedelic Medicine Companies Owe to the Community? 2nd Gen Psychedelic Drugs For Depression Can Be Safer For Older Adults New Wave Holdings Corp Appoints Dr. Dennis McKenna to Psychedelic Research Advisory Board Support the show Patreon Leave us a review on Facebook or iTunes Share us with your friends Join our Facebook group - Psychedelics Today group – Find the others and create community. Navigating Psychedelics  

In today's Solidarity Fridays episode, Joe and Kyle sit down and discuss topics in the media including the usefulness of brain activity scans and the idea that “brain does not equal mind,” how language can shift the social narrative to or away from stigma when describing substance use, and psilocybin testing in mice and when we might see psilocybin start being prescribed. They spend a lot of time on the questions everyone is asking right now- what changes can we make that will help the most people and give the oppressed what they need? What tangible changes do the oppressed actually want? What should the role of police look like, either compared to or in conjunction with social work or therapy? They look at these questions with hope, but through a realistic lens- disasters, illness and even global warming always affects the poor and oppressed more than those in power. And historically, people have always shown a natural tendency to want to hold others down. What is the real purpose behind what those in power do (for example, outlawing encrypted texting or arresting someone for doing drugs)? Are they trying to encourage only specific conversations they’re comfortable with?  Quotes So what really can we do, and what specifically can those with white privilege do? The answer there is to find where your voice is most effective, and to have those tough conversations. “Find those inarguable points. Don’t let the media steer your narrative. Major media outlets want you to talk about certain things. Don’t do that. Find out what you think is most important and most helpful to discuss with the people you’re around. Where do you have the most influence?” -Joe  “How can we... shift the narrative there to help people heal instead of… putting them in this lifelong box of ‘you’ll never heal from this because you have this disorder and this disease’? I’m always on the side of healing [rather] than trying to completely pathologize experiences.” -Kyle “It sounds nice to say that we want to eliminate violence, we want to eliminate racism, we want to eliminate rape- all these really bad things. But how long have those things been with us? At least 14,000 years, I think. What’s it going to really take to totally reprogram the human genome- the human mind- to transition to this ideal? Is it possible? I don’t know... I want to see these police held accountable, I want to see… criminals in the government go to jail. But it’s kind of the nature of these institutions. They have this monopoly on violence that was granted to them a long time ago, and there’s no real recourse. They’ve got way bigger budgets than any of us as individuals or gangs have, much more training, much better gear… I don’t totally see a great path out.” -Joe Links Studies of Brain Activity Aren't as Useful as Scientists Thought Language Matters in the Recovery Movement Interview: Adam Halberstadt, UC San Diego Protests Drive DC Psychedelics Decriminalization Signatures As Activists Launch Major Mailer Campaign Support the show Patreon Leave us a review on Facebook or iTunes Share us with your friends Join our Facebook group - Psychedelics Today group – Find the others and create community. Navigating Psychedelics