Pod Insights The Joe Rogan Experience #2357 - Sarko Gergerian About this episode Sarko Gergerian is a law enforcement professional, mental health counselor, and advocate for psychedelic self-care. He is a founding member of Community and Law Enforcement Assisted Recovery (CLEAR), a recovery oriented community policing methodology. He shares ideas of his own and doesn't claim to represent the beliefs of his employer, organizations, and/or city.
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Transcript 21,386 words · 4 speakers
Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
0:12 Joe Rogan? What's up, Sarko? How are you?
0:13 Speaker 01 Hey, how are you, Joe?
0:15 Joe Rogan? Good to see you.
0:16 Speaker 01 Oh, it's great to see you. It's great to be here, man.
0:18 Joe Rogan? How did you meet Paul? So Paul Stamets introduced me to you. So how'd you meet Paul?
0:23 Speaker 01 Yeah, so I was aware of Paul for quite some time. And this past Psychedelic Science, I was shadowing people and working to help the people that went to the conference feel safe, just because of the nature of the environment that we're in now.
0:43 Joe Rogan? In what way?
0:44 Speaker 01 You know, like, so Psychedelic Science had a lot of Jewish practitioners. They had invited Palestinian practitioners in. There was Arab practitioners there. So there was a lot of education around sensitive topics happening, you know, and I was invited in just to be available to help people feel secure.
1:06 Joe Rogan? What were they worried about?
1:08 Speaker 01 Any protests building up.
1:12 Joe Rogan? Just because there was Jewish people and Palestinian people?
1:15 Speaker 01 Well, you know, the nature of the environment, right? There's like wars going on across the world.
1:19 Joe Rogan? Right, but this is a psychedelic conference.
1:20 Speaker 01 This is a psychedelic conference. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
1:23 Joe Rogan? And they're worried about protests breaking out at psychedelic conferences?
1:26 Speaker 01 Possible protests, possible people getting overwhelmed with emotion, you know, because in Psychedelic Science 2023, there was a situation where when Rick Doblin was on stage, a group came in and disrupted his presentation, and they were allowed on stage to speak.
1:44 Joe Rogan? Oh, boy.
1:44 Speaker 01 Right? But that's a type of disruption, right? And it should be handled carefully. And Rick handled it like a master.
1:50 Joe Rogan? What did he do?
1:52 Speaker 01 He made space for them.
1:54 Joe Rogan? Oh, wow. Was that really the way to do it?
1:56 Speaker 01 Well, it depends. It depends. It depends. There's a time and a place, right? And I think Psychedelic Science 2025 did it a wonderful job, hearing all the groups that wanted to be there and allowing them to have space to speak from their hearts and minds.
2:11 Joe Rogan? Why don't you tell everybody what your background is?
2:13 Speaker 01 Sure, sure. So I am currently a law enforcement professional at the rank of lieutenant.
2:20 Speaker 01 Out of Massachusetts. I've been in law.
2:23 Joe Rogan? Can tell by the accent.
2:25 Speaker 01 My accent's gonna kick in and on and off, on and off through this whole discussion.
2:29 Joe Rogan? Couple beers in, you really go.
2:31 Speaker 01 Yeah, yeah, absolutely, absolutely. So that's been about fifteen years. I'm also a therapist, a trained psychedelic assisted therapist. And I believe, a lot of people believe I'm the first law enforcement professional who got a religious exemption at their place of work to access entheogens.
2:52 Joe Rogan? So how did your journey from being a law enforcement professional to someone who's involved in psychedelics, how'd that take place?
3:00 Speaker 01 Okay, yeah, yeah. I think I'm gonna have to go a little bit further back.
3:04 Joe Rogan? Sure.
3:04 Speaker 01 For that, sure. So I went to a little high school in Boston, Massachusetts, Newman Prep. And when I graduated there, I was luckily accepted into Northeastern University. So I go into Northeastern University in my twenties. And they ask you, what do you wanna major in? Right? And who knows what they wanna major in at that age? I was like, let's study psychology, right? Get to know myself, figure things out. Such a behavioral program. What I mean by that is rats pressing lovers, observable stuff. I wasn't getting what I was looking for. So I take a philosophy class, I take a religion class. Eventually, I take so many of those classes, I graduate with an undergraduate degree in
3:49 Speaker 01 religion and philosophy and a huge minor in psychology. Right? So I'm a seeker. At that time as well, Northeastern is a co-op school. So you go to school for six months, you work for six months. I was able to convince my co-op advisor to let me be a security guard in the nightclub industry in Boston for my co-op for school. Okay? So five-year program, I'm studying religion and I'm working as a security guard in the nineties in the nightclub scene in Boston. I have a front row seat when ecstasy hits the scene. Right?
4:31 Speaker 01 I start working when it's high test stimulants and alcohol. And I'm there continuing to work when the scene gets introduced to ecstasy, MDMA.
4:43 Speaker 01 I not only get to see how it affects people, but it affect the whole culture. The people at the clubs are no longer looking at each other like, who are you and what do you want? They're saying hi and smiling. They're high-fiving each other when they meet up. They're hugging each other. I had that in my head in my twenties. Okay? So I become a cop in my thirties. I meet this police chief. He notices that I think a little differently. I see things a little differently. My background's a little different than your typical officer. He starts taking me to the International Association of Chiefs of Police Conference every year. This is a really important point.
5:25 Speaker 01 The IACP, it's a really serious, huge international conference with upper-level, chief executive-level officers there. I go one year when Rick Doblin's there, in Florida. He's presenting on Phase II clinical trials, the results for MDMA-assisted psychotherapy, its efficacy against treatment-resistant severe PTSD. I can't believe it. Actually, I've shared this story before. At the moment that he was gonna present, to the left was Rick Doblin and to the right was Donald Trump. I'm not making this up.
6:07 Joe Rogan? Wow.
6:08 Speaker 01 Right, so I go left, I sit in the front row, and the room that they gave him, this huge room, has ten people in it, because everybody's, everybody went right. Sixty-seven percent of people with treatment-resistant severe PTSD had their PTSD pushed into sustained remission. Sustained remission.
6:30 Joe Rogan? From how many experiences?
6:33 Speaker 01 I think the way it was set up was like two or three. You know, there's a model to the framework. Preparation, experience, space, experience, space, experience, and then integration.
6:43 Joe Rogan? And this is all done through MAPS, so it's all done in a clinical environment?
6:47 Speaker 01 Yes.
6:48 Joe Rogan? Very controlled?
6:49 Speaker 01 Very controlled. Multidisciplinary Association of Psychedelic Studies.
6:54 Speaker 01 Rick's presenting there. I'm in the front row, I'm shaking. I jump on stage, I beeline it to him, I introduce myself. And I say, "I have to help." He says, "Why don't you tell me some stuff about who you are first, you know what I mean?" Like, this is a guy in front of me shaking his, I'm shaking his hand and saying, "I have to help with this." And he finds out I'm a therapist, too. Cop and therapist. And he says, "The best way to help is to become a psychedelic assisted therapist." What? What's that? You'd never heard of anything? Never heard of any of that. What year was this again?
7:28 Speaker 01 Man, it must be five years ago. More, maybe more than that at this point. Just working from memory. It was Orlando, Florida. IACP conference. Yeah. You, you said something really important, Joe. Psychedelic assisted therapist. What? What? Medicalizing a Schedule I substance. What? You know? Right. How is this even possible?
7:56 Speaker 01 But the story gets even more interesting. He gives me his card and he says, "Contact me." Alright? What the heck is going on here? At this point, I'm already telling my current, my retired chief what's going on, I'm meeting these people. And MAPS gets me into one of the first MDMA assisted therapist trainings. A cohort of people that were gonna, that they trained on how to do this methodology with people. So you gotta know what's going on, right? It's a, it's a, I mean, when someone's on MDMA, they're, you know, they're different. And you gotta hold that. You gotta hold that. But not only did they do that, MAPS contacts me and says,
8:39 Speaker 01 "We might be able to get you into a federally sanctioned research protocol."
8:46 Speaker 01 As a healthy normal, because I'm an example of a healthy normal, right?
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11:36 Speaker 01 Or you're going to be able to experience MDMA. Because they think that it's important for the therapists to know what MDMA does. So, I mean, really? I go back to my police chief and I say, "Chief, I'm not only going to be able to be trained as an MDMA assisted therapist to help people with PTSD because it matters to me, right? What are cops doing to themselves? They're blowing their heads off." Right. Right? The suicide rate in cops is two to three times higher than the rate in civilians. More cops are dying by suicide by the barrel of their own guns than attack on the street. Right?
12:20 Speaker 01 The way the media is portraying everything, that's not getting out there. Right. Right? So MDMA can help with that. I'd say we're in an epidemic of suicide in first responders. If that's the numbers, no? Yeah, for sure. Right? Yeah. And we've seen, Joe, you've seen this, you've had guests on that talk about this. You've seen what the government allows when we're in an epidemic.
12:50 Joe Rogan? Yeah, radical measures.
12:51 Speaker 01 Radical measures? Not when it comes to compounds on Schedule One. Why?
12:58 Joe Rogan? Well, because it's federally scheduled one. It's supposed to have no medical use whatsoever. And the most dangerous and addictive of compounds.
13:07 Speaker 01 That's right. May I?
13:10 Joe Rogan? Yeah.
13:10 Speaker 01 Say something about that? It's a lie.
13:14 Joe Rogan? Well, it's certainly a lie.
13:16 Speaker 01 Certainly a lie.
13:19 Speaker 01 And I need everybody to hear that.
13:23 Speaker 01 Because men and women are dying and suffering needlessly at the level of an epidemic.
13:31 Speaker 01 And we're upholding a lie.
13:33 Joe Rogan? I think the problem is politically, it's very difficult to say what you're saying if you're anyone who is running for office or anyone who's currently seeking reelection. Right? Because it carries with this taboo, this narrative that has existed since the 1970s, that these are drugs that are ruining people's lives and it's gonna waste... You're just gonna waste away, it's gonna... You're just escaping reality, they're for weak people, they're for losers and addicts.
14:05 Speaker 01 You couldn't have summed up the problem better. Nicely done.
14:10 Joe Rogan? It's a public narrative that's out there, that unfortunately, it's gonna take a long time to turn that battleship around.
14:18 Speaker 01 So, I think what you're helping with is that. I am asking for the politicians who can't speak up to help make safety for those of us who either can or want to.
14:37 Speaker 01 I'm asking for their help. Because I'm active law enforcement, and I gotta tell you, Joe, we're muzzled. We're muzzled. Not only are our mouths shut, but our hearts are put in a cage.
14:53 Joe Rogan? Like how so? What do you mean?
14:54 Speaker 01 We can... Law enforcement aspiring to build a career in the system can't talk about this stuff. They not only can't talk about this stuff, they can't do this stuff.
15:07 Speaker 01 So, so, but what they can do is keep their mouth shut until they get to the point where they put a barrel of their gun in their mouth, or they can go buy a giant bottle of whiskey and drink themselves into depression, divorce, divorce, divorce, subclinical depression, anxiety, disordered eating, disordered sexual practices, because you know chronically activated autonomic nervous system, what does that cause? Fight, flight, freeze, fawn, hypersexuality, I dropped the last F. Right? What does that destroy?
15:49 Joe Rogan? It destroys everything.
15:52 Speaker 01 It destroys everything. It destroys the human behind the badge, right?
15:57 Joe Rogan? Well, the issue is that police officers experience trauma on a daily basis that most people can't even comprehend, and it's not discussed. All that's ever discussed with police officers is when a cop does something bad.
16:14 Speaker 01 That's right. Let me paint a picture based on what you just brought in. There's research out there that says the amount of critical incident exposure in an average law enforcement career is 200.
16:26 Joe Rogan? So 200 murders, suicide, car accidents?
16:30 Speaker 01 Baby head crushed.
16:32 Joe Rogan? Oof.
16:33 Speaker 01 Yeah, 200. Most civilians have five. Critical incidents send people's lives sideways. So, the first responder's nervous system is a carrier of trauma at a level unimaginable by most people, which is what you just brought into this conversation. And then, so you've got the gasoline, right? And you've got the match. They fly off the handle and everyone acts surprised. How could that happen? How did that officer end up doing that? Because it's a known risk of the job. You know when we die? Five to 10 years after retirement. That's a dirty little secret.
17:17 Speaker 01 So you strive to get to retirement. You carry the dark underbelly of society, and then you die five years after you get out.
17:28 Speaker 01 There's no time to wait.
17:32 Joe Rogan? Yeah, it's it's an unspoken trauma. It's an unspoken issue that, you know, was really exacerbated during this whole defund the police shit that was going on a few years back. It was then you've got the demoralization, you know, and the fact that these people, not only they're not appreciated, but then they've been all turned into villains.
17:54 Speaker 01 That's right. That's right.
17:56 Joe Rogan? It makes it worse.
17:56 Speaker 01 Yeah. I work with some really caring young people, men and women, and the whole defund the police movement was so hurtful. It was so hurtful.
18:11 Speaker 01 It hurt me watching them have to come to work and see them take the 911 calls for service and show up and do their best following the rules to make sure that that family or that person is okay and then come back and feel unappreciated and not understood.
18:27 Speaker 01 Not understood.
18:28 Joe Rogan? Yeah.
18:28 Speaker 01 You know?
18:29 Joe Rogan? Yeah, they were used as political pawns. And, you know, openly, openly by politicians who are still in office. It's it was pretty disgusting.
18:40 Speaker 01 Yeah.
18:40 Joe Rogan? And just short sighted and a complete lack of awareness of the difficulty of the job. Because if you're around cops, if you know cops, like, it is an insane job. It's an insane job that you're you're asking people, just regular people, to go out and do on a daily basis.
18:58 Speaker 01 That's right. That's right. You don't know what's gonna happen. You don't know who you're interacting with. You don't know if it's gonna turn into a life or death situation.
19:09 Speaker 01 I see people try to paint the job as a normal job, and it isn't. And someone's gotta do it. Right? Someone's gotta do it. Because it's inherently a part of human nature at times for confusion to come through, for misunderstanding that leads to violence to happen. Someone has to show up and handle that. It's not a normal job.
19:38 Joe Rogan? Yeah.
19:40 Joe Rogan? So, from your first introduction to this idea of psychedelic therapy, how long before you actually experience it? And how long before you actually help other people experience it?
19:55 Speaker 01 Okay, so...
19:57 Joe Rogan? Take us through... So, you find out about this, you bring it to the department.
20:02 Speaker 01 Yeah.
20:03 Joe Rogan? What was that like?
20:04 Speaker 01 Yeah, yeah. So, it was very interesting. I mean, these were all ideas that weren't even on my radar until I met Rick at the Chiefs of Police Conference. They get on my radar and they fire me up because this is what I want to do, right? Because of my history, I'm compelled to step in between warring parties and get them to stop. Okay? We can touch upon that if it fits into the conversation. And then MAPS is able to get me into this research protocol and I'm able to get permission from my chief to experience MDMA. I have a mystical experience. I have a mystical experience on film. The segment when I'm... You can't make this up.
20:46 Speaker 01 When I take the blue pill, you know, Morpheus analogy there.
20:50 Joe Rogan? You don't want to take the blue pill. You want to take the red one.
20:53 Speaker 01 Was it the red one?
20:54 Joe Rogan? Yeah, the red one's the one that lets you see reality.
20:56 Speaker 01 Okay, so I'm flipping the colors. It's okay.
20:58 Joe Rogan? The blue one puts you right back in the matrix.
21:01 Speaker 01 Back into standard reality, right?
21:02 Joe Rogan? And then, yeah.
21:03 Speaker 01 But I experience MDMA on film. It makes it into Michael Pollan's How to Change Your Mind docu-series.
21:11 Joe Rogan? Oh, yeah, that's right.
21:12 Speaker 01 The MDMA episode, right? And I have a mystical experience. So, now I go back and I'm like, "Chief, you know, what the hell, right? Our men and women need access to this. If they need it, they should have access to it." They still don't have access. This is where I'm going. This is where I'm going with this. You heard about what happened with the FDA. The panel that was supposed to decide the final step before medicalization was allowed said no to Rick.
21:40 Joe Rogan? Yeah.
21:41 Speaker 01 Right? Yeah.
21:43 Joe Rogan? What'd they say? They wanted more tests.
21:45 Speaker 01 Yes. And I love that you did that because I tend to have to correct people. It wasn't a no. They said, "We're going to delay you and we want another Phase III clinical trial."
21:55 Joe Rogan? Right.
21:56 Speaker 01 Right? But some of the things that came up, I want to talk about real quick, is they couldn't make sense of how good the data was.
22:05 Speaker 01 What? You're gonna use that as a reason to not go forward?
22:09 Joe Rogan? Is that really what they said?
22:10 Speaker 01 I, I, I believe that was part of the problem.
22:13 Joe Rogan? Huh.
22:13 Speaker 01 Yeah, I mean, we can look this up. Um, but I believe that was part of the problem. They also couldn't make sense of how do you make the prescription a drug paired with therapy? They couldn't make sense of the therapy part, because it would be the first prescription of a drug paired with therapy, that was the goal.
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23:13 Joe Rogan? Don't think wireless can be so transparent, so Visible? Well, now you know. Switch today at visible.com/rogan. Terms apply. See visible.com for plan features and network management details. Well, isn't there also an issue with doing double-blind placebo-controlled studies? Because it's very clear whether or not you've taken the drug.
23:33 Speaker 01 That's right, that's right. So, here's what I want to ask you about that, and I want to ask the science about that. Is that a problem with the power and magic of MDMA, or is that a problem with where science is?
23:46 Joe Rogan? Well, it's a perception problem, right? Because obviously MDMA has profound impacts on soldiers of PTSD. The studies have already been very clear, and MAPS has done an amazing job in explaining all that. But, the problem is a perception issue.
24:02 Speaker 01 Okay.
24:03 Joe Rogan? And that this drug is also used by people who go to raves and wind up dying of heat exhaustion. You know, and people die because they, they hear they die of an overdose, which really, they die of fentanyl poisoning, because they're getting illegally sourced MDMA, which is probably not even really MDMA. A lot of times it's amphetamines, and it's cut with fentanyl, and there's a lot of other shit in it, and they wind up dying of an overdose.
24:26 Speaker 01 That's right. Look, you bring up, um, you bring up something called the, the challenge of accessing safe supply.
24:33 Joe Rogan? Yeah.
24:33 Speaker 01 Right? We need to, uh, people need to track their drugs, um, because, because the illicit supply is, isn't standardized, um, it isn't safe.
24:45 Joe Rogan? Well, the real barrier is the fact that it's illegal.
24:48 Speaker 01 That's right.
24:49 Joe Rogan? The problem is, there is a demand. And so, when you have a demand, and then you make it illegal for people to access, then what happens is, outlaws step in. And you get criminal organizations who sell it, and they don't give a fuck about you.
25:03 Speaker 01 There it is.
25:04 Joe Rogan? And they're used to killing people.
25:05 Speaker 01 There it is.
25:06 Joe Rogan? They don't mind poisoning you, and they don't mind if they're selling you something that's totally not what you're trying to get.
25:11 Speaker 01 That's right. That's right. And you know where I learned about this?
25:14 Joe Rogan? What?
25:14 Speaker 01 I think you'll get a kick out of this.
25:16 Joe Rogan? Yeah.
25:16 Speaker 01 Uh, my promotional books, Studying to Become a Sergeant.
25:19 Joe Rogan? Really?
25:20 Speaker 01 Yeah. They actually have an entire section on what prohibition of alcohol costs.
25:25 Joe Rogan? Ha, ha, ha, ha. And yet, nobody applies that to other substances.
25:30 Speaker 01 That's exactly where I was going.
25:31 Joe Rogan? It's kinda funny.
25:31 Speaker 01 It's ki- uh, he- right.
25:32 Joe Rogan? It's kinda funny.
25:33 Speaker 01 Tragically funny.
25:34 Joe Rogan? Tragically funny.
25:35 Speaker 01 Right? And, and, and here's the muzzle part. Why aren't officers allowed to talk about this? Why aren't working officers allowed to talk about the problems with the war on drugs? And how it's being waged? Why? In America? Really?
25:53 Joe Rogan? When you say you aren't allowed to, what, how, i- is it because it will hinder your career?
25:58 Speaker 01 I think so.
26:00 Joe Rogan? Yeah.
26:00 Speaker 01 I think it's fear. I think it's programming. You mentioned the programming from the Nixon time till now, right?
26:06 Joe Rogan? Yeah.
26:07 Speaker 01 This is prohibited stuff, we can't talk about it.
26:11 Joe Rogan? Right.
26:11 Speaker 01 Not only can't we talk about it, but we can't think about it. Because thinking leads to behaviors, and if those behaviors are risky, out goes your career.
26:20 Joe Rogan? Yes. Well, I think we're in a very unique time now, where the doors open. And, um, credit to Rick Perry, uh, former Republican governor of Texas, who championed the Iber-Gaine initiative here. And it's now become a thing. They're gonna start doing that, which is amazing.
26:38 Speaker 01 I agree.
26:38 Joe Rogan? And so beneficial for soldiers in particular, people with extreme PTSD, um, and people that are suffering from severe drug addictions, and they don't understand why, and they're just, they're just fucked. A lot of soldiers and a lot of, you know, really traditionally right-wing people are getting involved in psychedelics. They're going to psychedelic retreats. A lot of other soldiers that have had positive experiences and have gotten help are reaching out to their brothers and sisters, bringing them into these experiences.
27:11 Speaker 01 That's right.
27:11 Joe Rogan? So, instead of this narrative that psychedelics are for hippies and losers with no discipline, now you've got some of the most disciplined human beings on earth who are seeking these things out for help.
27:25 Speaker 01 That's right.
27:26 Joe Rogan? And realizing that there is strength in seeking help. It's not a weakness to take these things. And these things are not drugs in the sense of something that allows you to escape reality. They allow you to see reality through a completely different lens and that can heal you. And this is not something that has been a narrative before. This narrative is very recent. This narrative particularly among right-wing people, among conservative people, among disciplined people, hard-working, disciplined people. Now they're realizing, like, this is a tool that's been denied us because of a corrupt government. A corrupt government that was seeking to silence the civil rights movement and the anti-war movement in the 1970s, in the 1960s. This was what this was all about. And we are still dealing
28:10 Joe Rogan? with this shit 60 years later, which is really crazy.
28:14 Speaker 01 It is crazy.
28:14 Joe Rogan? It's fucking crazy. It's so crazy because we know the facts now. We know what started it. We know who was involved. We know the conversations that they had, why they did it in the first place. And yet, the public narrative is still the same. The public narrative is still drug-takers or undisciplined losers who are trying to escape reality and "I don't want my kids doing drugs" and that same shit that you hear over and over and over again.
28:41 Speaker 01 That's right. That's right. It's crazy and extremely tragic.
28:46 Joe Rogan? Yeah.
28:46 Speaker 01 And let me take that narrative thread that you just brought in and let's go all the way back to the times when the Spanish were colonizing this country. It was actually part of the program to destroy the medicine and women, medicine men and medicine women, wisdom keepers, which directly connects, I believe, to the war on drugs.
29:11 Joe Rogan? It's gone on forever, right? I mean, that's the hallucinian mysteries, the Romans silenced that.
29:16 Speaker 01 That's right.
29:17 Joe Rogan? You go to Siberian shaman, the Romans, I mean, they were silenced by the powers that be in those days.
29:24 Speaker 01 That's right.
29:25 Joe Rogan? It's just always been the case where people that take things that allow them to understand the methods of control that are being inflicted upon them and how to escape that. And then they get a bunch of other people that follow them and they don't want to listen to propaganda anymore. And then people go, hey, this is a real problem. What's the cause of this? Oh, it's these fucking dudes go to Elysus and they figure out life. We gotta stop that.
29:49 Speaker 01 That's right.
29:50 Joe Rogan? Yeah, we gotta put a fucking kibosh on that. And then they spread all throughout the world to try to do it.
29:53 Speaker 01 There it is.
29:54 Joe Rogan? And they went into hiding.
29:55 Speaker 01 Let's bring that threat all the way to the present, and I want to see if I can succeed at making this point. And it has now hijacked law enforcement. It has hijacked law enforcement and it moves law enforcement away from protecting and serving life, liberty, pursuit of happiness in the First Amendment, religious expression, into industry interest profits. Without us, us, even knowing it, I'm not pointing a finger at any one law enforcement professional, I'm challenging people to wake up to what's going on. Because when we kick in doors and arrest black and brown people for having a relationship
30:39 Speaker 01 with a plant like cannabis and charge them and put them in a cage and lock them up and they weren't doing anything violent, we have to ask, who is this hurting? And I'm here to tell you, it's hurting them and us.
30:53 Joe Rogan? For sure. For sure. Because anyone who's a law enforcement officer that's arresting someone for weed, they know that they're not doing anything good.
31:00 Speaker 01 Moral injury.
31:01 Joe Rogan? Yeah, it's a moral injury on the person that's actually being forced to enforce those laws.
31:08 Speaker 01 That's right. That's right.
31:09 Joe Rogan? Yeah, because you can't feel good about yourself. You're arresting some guy who's got an ounce of weed, who's sitting at home with his wife, chilling. That's crazy. And that went on for decades in this country, decades.
31:19 Speaker 01 Well, it's still happening. Only four, somewhere around forty states have recreationalized or medicalized, so we still have work to do. And if you look at the Drug Policy Alliance, a few years back, my, we could look this up. We're still arresting in the hundreds of thousands of people, nonviolent marijuana.
31:35 Joe Rogan? They're trying to go backwards in Texas.
31:37 Speaker 01 Yeah.
31:37 Joe Rogan? The lieutenant governor is trying to go backwards. And he's against the legalization, and so they're trying to ban all THC products and...
31:46 Speaker 01 It's completely inappropriate.
31:48 Joe Rogan? It's not just inappropriate, it's funded, okay, right? It's funded by the alcohol lobby, and they know that they're losing people from drinking alcohol.
31:56 Speaker 01 That's right. The numbers are already showing it.
31:58 Joe Rogan? Yeah.
31:58 Speaker 01 They're building up to a collapse. People are gonna get off the alcohol. They're not gonna be able to rely on the profits to be the same. I agree with you. And then, you know what else? Cannabis is such a threat, because it's a medicine that can help with such a broad array of symptoms and challenges. What a threat to pharma.
32:19 Joe Rogan? Yeah, it's definitely that.
32:20 Speaker 01 It's one plant, it's one plant.
32:22 Joe Rogan? I know. And it's not just a threat to pharma. I mean, I'm sure you were, you're aware of the original reason why it was outlawed.
32:30 Speaker 01 Hit me.
32:31 Joe Rogan? Okay.
32:31 Speaker 01 Remind me.
32:32 Joe Rogan? William Randolph Hearst. So William Randolph Hearst, so if you go back to the 1930s, when alcohol prohibition ended, you have a bunch of enforcement officers that aren't doing anything anymore. Then you have William Randolph Hearst, and then there's a machine, an invention, called the Decorticator. And the Decorticator allowed them to effectively process hemp fiber. Hemp was always a very difficult plant to process, and when Eli Whitney, was it Eli Whitney created the cotton gin? Is that what it was?
33:06 Joe Rogan? I think that sounds right. Um, when they created the cotton gin, now cotton took over for hemp clothing. So cannabis hemp, you know, the term cannabis, that was what canvas was. So all paintings, uh, the first draft, the Declaration of Independence was made on hemp paper. It's a superior textile. It's a superior paper. It's a commodity. You can take an acre of land that you're using to grow trees on that you process into paper and it'll take you years and years to regrow the trees in order to have the same amount of paper in that area. With hemp, it's instantaneous almost.
33:51 Joe Rogan? It grows very quickly and within a few months, you have these plants again, you harvest the stalks, you run it through the decoricator. So in nineteen whatever it was, nineteen thirty something, cover of Popular Science magazine, hemp, the new billion dollar crop because of this invention. So this invention was gonna, cause hemp makes superior clothes. I have a hemp jujitsu gi that I got from this company called Datsura. It's fucking indestructible. My cotton gis, they rip apart all the time. They're good for a year or two and then they tear and you gotta buy a new one or you just show up at class with a fucked up gi, which a lot of people do. Hemp gis are way better. They're just far superior. Hemp paper, you grab it and you pull it, you tear it, you're like, this is crazy.
34:36 Joe Rogan? It's so much stronger than regular paper. It's a superior product. So William Randolph Hearst, who didn't just own Hearst Publications, he didn't just own this news empire, he also owned paper mills. So he also owned forests that he was growing trees in. He recognized this threat from this new industry. And so to combat that threat, he starts putting out propaganda pieces and then they coined the term marijuana. So marijuana was originally a term, a slang term for a wild Mexican tobacco. It had nothing to do with cannabis. Cannabis, which had been used for thousands of years and hemp, which had been used for thousands of years.
35:18 Joe Rogan? So then they start printing these stories that blacks and Mexicans were taking this new drug and raping white women. And then you have the Reefer Madness films and all these propaganda films that show young people taking a smoke of marijuana and losing their mind. So people act quickly and they pass laws, not even knowing that they're outlawing hemp, thinking that they're stopping this new drug because most people are unaware of it. Clearly, this is a time before the internet. Very difficult to access information and understand exactly what's going on. Right. So they hoodwinked the entire world. So Harry Anslinger, William Randolph Hearst, they all conspired to stop a commodity. And that's what hemp was.
36:02 Joe Rogan? It was, it had nothing to do with the psychoactive form of THC. It had everything to do with hemp as a commodity that was threatening to the Major threat. To the businesses. Yeah. Only just, and to this day, you can make hempcrete. It's a superior building material. It's flame resistant, it's lighter, it's stronger, it lasts longer. You can build houses with it, you can make clothes with it. Hemp oil is hemp seeds, they, not only are they good for you, they contain all the amino acids. It's a superior protein source. It's like hemp protein powder is fantastic for you. It's like really good stuff in so many different ways.
36:46 Joe Rogan? And they put the kibosh on that in the 1930s. And that, 90 fucking years later, is still this, this anchor around our necks that we're carrying. It's still in place. Yeah, one asshole. That's right. One asshole in the 1930s who, who didn't want to compete with hemp and had this incredible power because he owned the newspapers. Yep. He started this all. That's right. That's right, I'm tracking. You ever seen that arti, pull up that article, hemp, the new billion dollar crop? Because it's wild to watch. Yep. Because this machine, this decorticator, before that, it was really, it was brutal backbreaking work to take the hemp fiber and break it down because it's such a durable plant.
37:28 Joe Rogan? Like if you ever pick up a hemp stalk, a hemp stalk that would, this is a mammoth tusk, but this is heavy. But if you had a hemp stalk that was this size, it would be incredibly light, like balsa wood, but hard, like oak.
37:45 Joe Rogan? It's like an alien plant.
37:47 Speaker 01 Yeah, it sounds amazing.
37:48 Joe Rogan? Everything else. So here it is. The new billion dollar crop. American farmers are promised a new cash crop with the annual value of several hundred million dollars. All because of a machine that has been invented which can solve a problem more than 6,000 years old. It is hemp, a crop that will compete with other American products. Instead, it will displace imports of raw materials and manufactured products. Produced by underpaid, what does that mean, coolie and peasant labor. And will provide thousands of jobs for American workers throughout the land. So that was the machine underneath it. That's the decorticator and that's this new machine that they invented. And this is what it's all about.
38:31 Joe Rogan? It has nothing to do with marijuana was a real problem. We were losing people. No, people have been smoking marijuana and taking marijuana in edible form and you know, the sadhus have been taking hashish. People have been using it for thousands and thousands of years without problems.
38:47 Speaker 01 That's right.
38:47 Joe Rogan? Can you abuse it? Of course, you can abuse cheeseburgers too.
38:50 Speaker 01 I was just gonna say that.
38:51 Joe Rogan? Yeah, I don't think you should shut down Burger King. You should be able to get a fucking cheeseburger if you want. And there's a lot of things that people can abuse. You can abuse every single thing. You can abuse cake. You can abuse everything. Human beings tend to abuse things. That doesn't mean that they shouldn't be allowed to use it. It's like a hammer. You could build a house with a hammer or you can hit yourself in the dick if you're fucking crazy. It doesn't mean we should outlaw hammers, right? There is a use for these things and it requires discipline. And it requires an understanding of what the thing is. Well, when you turn that thing into a Schedule I substance, when everybody knows that's not true. Especially when you have a Schedule I substance that is illegal when there's things like alcohol that are totally legal, that I support. You should be able to drink. I don't, I own a bar. I don't care.
39:36 Joe Rogan? I don't drink anymore, but I feel like you should be able to drink. I drank most of my life. Drink if you want to.
39:42 Speaker 01 I say the same thing about alcohol.
39:43 Joe Rogan? But it's not good for you.
39:44 Speaker 01 Right. Right. It's a depressant that's a carcinogen again.
39:48 Joe Rogan? It's also fun.
39:48 Speaker 01 Right, it's also fun.
39:49 Joe Rogan? Get you tipsy.
39:50 Speaker 01 And I drink.
39:51 Joe Rogan? Tipsy's fun.
39:51 Speaker 01 Yeah.
39:52 Joe Rogan? But, but the point is. We need freedom and you need the freedom to be able to explore these things and find out what's right for you and wrong for you and you need the freedom to be able to run studies and get accurate information in terms of dosages and side effects and what sort of genetic issues that certain people might have that made them that make them more inclined to be addicted to alcohol or addicted to cannabis or whatever their issue is, whether it's psychological or biological, we need to have information.
40:22 Speaker 01 That's right.
40:23 Joe Rogan? And to put a blockade on this in the form of prohibition is stupid and the fact that we're doing it in 2025 with all the information that we have available today, we have an abundance of information.
40:34 Speaker 01 That's right, that's right. Well, look, I think it was, as you, as you said, there was intentionality behind what was done.
40:40 Joe Rogan? Yeah.
40:41 Speaker 01 And when you don't have 50 years of creating an evidence base, you have a weaker argument for decriminalization.
40:50 Joe Rogan? Right, right.
40:51 Speaker 01 And that was intentional.
40:52 Joe Rogan? Yes, for sure.
40:53 Speaker 01 That was intentional.
40:54 Joe Rogan? For sure.
40:55 Speaker 01 Right, Joe, I mean, you brought this up, right? Highly addictive, known, known medical use, that's a lie. We can go through the list of Schedule I and we can point out which one it's a lie about, which one is actually anti-addictive. You take psilocybin and you have an experience with psilocybin magic mushrooms, you don't want to drink.
41:12 Joe Rogan? Right.
41:13 Speaker 01 We don't know why, we haven't been able to study that, right? Ibogaine, you want to reprieve from your opioid use disorder? Ibogaine will give it to you, three, four, four months.
41:23 Joe Rogan? Yeah.
41:24 Speaker 01 What's that about?
41:25 Joe Rogan? Yeah, it's also, one experience has an 80% success rate. 80% of the people don't go back to opiates.
41:32 Speaker 01 Right.
41:33 Joe Rogan? With two experiences, it's in the high 90s.
41:34 Speaker 01 I, so look, look, those numbers are staggering, science can't make sense of it.
41:40 Joe Rogan? Right.
41:41 Speaker 01 We're in an epidemic, well, we gotta slow down, watch out for the risks, we need to study these things more. I can respect that, but there's harm in not allowing access to. We gotta talk about that.
41:53 Joe Rogan? You also have to make sense of it in a time where things are prescribed and you get them from a doctor that we absolutely know are addictive and highly damaging and kill people.
42:05 Speaker 01 That's right.
42:06 Joe Rogan? So make sense of it to me, if you're, there's something, cannabis is the easy one, right? Because it doesn't kill anybody, literally doesn't kill anybody. The LD50 rate for cannabis is fucking bananas.
42:17 Speaker 01 That's right.
42:18 Joe Rogan? You'd have to, it's not even physically possible to consume enough to kill you.
42:22 Speaker 01 Same thing with psilocybin.
42:23 Joe Rogan? Yes, exactly.
42:25 Speaker 01 There's this research study.
42:26 Joe Rogan? You'd have to eat a mushroom the size of this fucking table. You wouldn't physically be able to consume it.
42:33 Speaker 01 If that even does.
42:34 Joe Rogan? Right, if that even kill, and that's LD50, that would be 50% of the population would die of an overdose from that.
42:39 Speaker 01 That's right.
42:39 Joe Rogan? And you wouldn't be able to consume it. Physically, you wouldn't be able to fit it into your body enough to kill you.
42:44 Speaker 01 Yeah, yeah. And then on top of that, Joe, we have the federal government giving permission to certain groups of people to access plants, cacti, fungi, animal secretions with permission and not others under a religious context.
43:02 Joe Rogan? Right.
43:03 Speaker 01 So, is it dangerous? Is it not?
43:07 Joe Rogan? Right.
43:08 Speaker 01 Is it a sacred sacrament? Is it not?
43:10 Joe Rogan? Right.
43:11 Speaker 01 Is it a medicine?
43:12 Joe Rogan? Brazilian churches that are taking ayahuasca.
43:14 Speaker 01 Right, right. And again, we're talking, we talk, I don't want to talk poorly about alcohol. I drink alcohol. I'm not talking poorly about, these people should go get their rights. Right?
43:25 Joe Rogan? Yeah.
43:25 Speaker 01 More power to them. But you can't have it both ways. Not them. I'm talking to the government.
43:32 Joe Rogan? Right, you have to make logical sense as to why you're imposing these laws and then imprisoning people and taking away their freedom for not listening to you.
43:41 Speaker 01 That's right.
43:41 Joe Rogan? Because you don't make any sense. And here's another part of the problem. A vast majority of the people that are pushing for these laws and want these people to be locked up have not had these experiences themselves. And that's a part of the problem.
43:56 Speaker 01 That's a big part of the problem.
43:57 Joe Rogan? They don't know what they're talking about. They don't know what these experiences are.
44:01 Speaker 01 That's right.
44:02 Joe Rogan? Like, these drugs are gonna ruin your mind. Are you fucking sure? Cause I don't think they are. I don't think you're correct. I think they open your mind up to new possibilities and expand your consciousness in a way that I don't think is available without them.
44:15 Speaker 01 I agree. It isn't available without them, and that was intentionally blocked out. So, you know, we're hearing the stories about the really brilliant tech people, right? You dig deep enough, they've had some experiences with these things.
44:30 Joe Rogan? Yeah, a large number of them.
44:32 Speaker 01 Right.
44:32 Joe Rogan? And still do a large number of them.
44:34 Speaker 01 Right, yeah. So, these things that are so dangerous. Or are we blocking up certain, blocking out certain groups from having access? And this is one of my primary things that I try to talk about. I want the audience that's in law enforcement. To go, why? Why is this the case? Why do I feel uncomfortable not talking about this? Why do I feel uncomfortable saying that this sergeant who might be hurting needs access? Say it. Bring it up, talk.
45:01 Joe Rogan? Right.
45:02 Speaker 01 Go into your power.
45:03 Joe Rogan? But people are scared of losing their career, right?
45:06 Speaker 01 Imagine?
45:07 Joe Rogan? Yeah.
45:07 Speaker 01 For talking about something.
45:09 Joe Rogan? And losing their career because most people are ignorant of it.
45:12 Speaker 01 That's right.
45:13 Joe Rogan? Yeah.
45:14 Speaker 01 That's right.
45:14 Joe Rogan? And the only way that that's gonna change is you and I and other people to continue to have these public conversations where more people hear it. And there's, I guarantee you, there's people listening to this right now that have never heard this before, never considered this before, and are like, "Am I wrong? Do I have these deep-held beliefs that are completely ignorant? And why, why do I have these beliefs? What, what started them? Why, why, why do I have this in my mind as this is what this stuff is?"
45:42 Speaker 01 Exactly.
45:42 Joe Rogan? And there's a lot of people out there that are stone-cold sober disciplined people think that's the only way, this is the way.
45:49 Speaker 01 That's right, that's right. And you know what? Maybe, ma- huh, this is the way. That's your way.
45:54 Joe Rogan? Yeah.
45:55 Speaker 01 We're human beings. We're called to create an artistic expression of a unique life. To me, that's what the divine is commanding. That's what the divine gets to experience. The more of us who get to live and be our authentic selves internally and expressing them outwardly, the more the divine gets to experience unique difference.
46:20 Joe Rogan? Well, the more possibilities there are for creativity, the more possibilities there are for people to rethink their lives, to go, get on a better path. There's a lot that people are missing just because you've been hoodwinked and you've been led into this false narrative.
46:37 Speaker 01 That's right.
46:37 Joe Rogan? That all, it's also that there's a problem with the term drugs. Cause just, I hear drug, I hear, "Eh, drugged." I hear someone is all fucked up and doesn't know what's going on. How are you putting all these things under the same blanket, including nicotine and caffeine and things that people use on a daily basis? These are all drugs.
46:57 Speaker 01 That's right.
46:58 Joe Rogan? And then you have cannabis in there and you also have methamphetamine in that category? How do you have cannabis and methamphetamine in the same thing? How do you have psilocybin and heroin in the same group of things? That's cra- these, this is crazy.
47:11 Speaker 01 That's right.
47:12 Joe Rogan? How do you have industrial opiates?
47:14 Speaker 01 Yeah.
47:14 Joe Rogan? They're all in that same category?
47:16 Speaker 01 We've been stripped of our power to define what medicine is.
47:21 Joe Rogan? Yes.
47:22 Speaker 01 Right?
47:23 Joe Rogan? Yeah.
47:23 Speaker 01 Have you heard people say, "Community is medicine." "Joy is medicine."
47:28 Joe Rogan? Oh, yeah, for sure. It is. Yeah.
47:30 Speaker 01 Well, ask a hardcore Western science model, "Is that medicine?" And they'd go, "Well, you gotta show us the evidence."
47:37 Joe Rogan? Yeah.
47:38 Speaker 01 Right?
47:39 Joe Rogan? Well, there is evidence that loneliness is worse than cigarette smoking.
47:43 Speaker 01 That's right.
47:44 Joe Rogan? In terms of how long you live.
47:46 Speaker 01 That's right.
47:46 Joe Rogan? Yeah.
47:47 Speaker 01 Well, we can show that, right? But is community medicine? I say it is.
47:51 Joe Rogan? Yeah.
47:52 Speaker 01 But this, the point I'm trying to make is, how did we lose the power to define what medicine is for ourselves?
47:58 Joe Rogan? Yeah.
47:59 Speaker 01 Right? Joy is medicine. Community is medicine. And there's the right-
48:04 Joe Rogan? Maybe the term "medicine" is the wrong term. Maybe it is good for you.
48:07 Speaker 01 Sure. But, but, but, why define medicine in such a rigid way? Also, why only allow one methodology to create an evidence base for that medicine? Let me give you an example.
48:21 Joe Rogan? Okay.
48:21 Speaker 01 And this is Paul Stamets. I listened to him talk at Psychedelic Science 2025, where he said, "We should see the world through two eyes." Western science and indigenous wisdom. Right?
48:33 Joe Rogan? Yeah.
48:34 Speaker 01 And they don't have to be attacking one another.
48:36 Joe Rogan? Right.
48:36 Speaker 01 Right? The time of extractionary, capitalistic relationships with this living planet might have to be coming to an end. And what's gonna replace it? Reciprocity? Stewardship? Care? Community?
48:55 Joe Rogan? Yeah.
48:55 Speaker 01 Right? These two eyes, they need to be in the same being. They need to work together.
49:00 Joe Rogan? It really makes you wonder, what would the world look like had they not placed that sweeping psychedelic act of 1970? And then imposed those standards on most of the rest of the world as well? What would the world look like? It would be radically different.
49:15 Speaker 01 I believe that it would be radically different.
49:17 Joe Rogan? Right, it was, well, this is what they were scared of. The difference between the 1950s and the 1960s culturally is clear. It's evident in everything. It's evident in the music, it's evident in the artwork, the films, it's evident in the cars, the design of the automobiles, like, everything changed. And it changed because the culture was accepting psychedelics. It was a big part of it. It was LSD and psilocybin and marijuana and all these different things these people were experimenting with. And then out of that, you get Jimi Hendrix. You know, you get this wild new form of expression that was radically different than music that appeared before that.
49:57 Speaker 01 That's right.
49:58 Joe Rogan? And they were scared of that.
49:59 Speaker 01 That's right. And you know, I just made a comment about my belief system to you. Who gets to experience and be with that or in that and of that? That's the divine. That's Jimi Hendrix outside of the box.
50:12 Joe Rogan? Yeah.
50:12 Speaker 01 Right?
50:12 Joe Rogan? Yeah.
50:13 Speaker 01 That level of artistic expression, I think that's our purpose.
50:17 Joe Rogan? Yeah.
50:17 Speaker 01 Right? And you're right. We took that away. We pushed it into the underground. And then, we hijacked our law enforcement to show up as enforcers.
50:26 Joe Rogan? Yeah.
50:26 Speaker 01 Kick in doors and take people to cages.
50:28 Joe Rogan? Yeah.
50:29 Speaker 01 Right?
50:29 Joe Rogan? Members of our own community.
50:31 Speaker 01 That's right. And who did we hurt? Our community and our law enforcement.
50:34 Joe Rogan? Yeah.
50:35 Speaker 01 So this is what I want to be clear on here. I want law enforcement to ask, why? Why? Why are we in this current moment? Why are we still arresting people for wanting a relationship with plants, cacti, fungi, animal secretions? Why? Are we protecting and serving our community members or industry interests? When you start asking these questions, think shake.
50:58 Joe Rogan? Yeah.
50:58 Speaker 01 For me, they did. They made me into an activist. Not only an advocate, but an activist. So I got behind Massachusetts ballot question four, in a very public way.
51:08 Joe Rogan? What is that?
51:09 Speaker 01 That was to decriminalize the psychedelics and create healing centers in Massachusetts. Forty-three, forty-four percent of adults voted yes, but it wasn't enough. Wasn't enough. Listen to what I just found out before I came to your show today. The psychiatric society of Massachusetts just endorsed or got behind three psilocybin bills. They didn't get behind the ballot question, which failed. But they're now getting behind decriminalizing psilocybin measures that are at the State House.
51:43 Joe Rogan? That's great.
51:44 Speaker 01 It's great.
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53:55 Joe Rogan? Try it for free today at ziprecruiter.com/rogan. That's ziprecruiter.com/rogan. Meet your match on ZipRecruiter. Yeah, progress is being made. I mean, it happens at a snail's pace and it happens through backbreaking labor from people like you and Paul Stamets and Rick Doblin and so many more who are doing the Lord's work, literally. But this is, it's just a frustrating thing for a lot of people that know the truth behind this, that how many people it can help and then how many people who are being damaged by these unfair, unjust, immoral and illogical laws.
54:33 Speaker 01 There they are. That's right. That's right. Yeah. And if we bend it, if we bend it, if you take on one end, the enforcers, right, which I believe are called to be peace officers and guardians, and the other end, the civilians, which are being split up into groups and pitted against one another and you bend them, everybody's getting hurt and trauma load is exponentially growing.
54:55 Joe Rogan? Yeah.
54:56 Speaker 01 Exponentially growing. And what does the media like to put out there? Not media like this, but standard media. The algorithm is based on hate, fear, division, isolation.
55:09 Joe Rogan? Well, the algorithm is based on your interaction and unfortunately, people tend to lean towards those things.
55:15 Speaker 01 Yeah.
55:16 Joe Rogan? That's the problem. The algorithm is not evil. The problem is human beings can be easily manipulated by their own ideas and these ideas that they have and these, this inclination to pay more attention to things that outrage you.
55:32 Speaker 01 And fear.
55:33 Joe Rogan? And fear, yeah.
55:34 Speaker 01 Right.
55:35 Joe Rogan? Things that cause rage and fear and distrust that unfortunately, things that you hate is that those are the things you pay attention to the most.
55:43 Speaker 01 That's right. That's right. I mean, we're biologically created to worry about things that we fear.
55:48 Joe Rogan? Right.
55:49 Speaker 01 Right? And logically, I'll give you an example from my community. I think about this all the time. There's about 20, 25,000 people in my community. Every day they wake up, they go to work, they interact with one another and go to bed. 20, 25,000 people with one or two issues that the cops have to go to. That's amazing. People are wildly nice.
56:11 Joe Rogan? Yeah, for the most part, right?
56:12 Speaker 01 Yeah. And in control and okay.
56:15 Joe Rogan? Yeah, but the problem is cops deal with the very small percentage of people that aren't.
56:20 Speaker 01 There it is.
56:21 Joe Rogan? Yeah.
56:21 Speaker 01 There's this research article called the clinician's delusion. I call it the enforcer's delusion, where your perspective gets completely warped based on the people that you continually interact with. So when you're continually showing up and helping people in their worst moment, you think everybody's their worst moment all the time.
56:40 Joe Rogan? Of course.
56:40 Speaker 01 Right?
56:41 Joe Rogan? Right.
56:42 Speaker 01 That's a, that, that's a box, that's a dark box, a lonely, terrible box to be in.
56:48 Joe Rogan? And to require officers to be able to escape that and have objectivity is crazy. Like, how, how? But, but through what mechanism of the human mind allows you to ignore all the evidence that you see on a daily basis?
57:05 Speaker 01 Your evidence.
57:06 Joe Rogan? Right.
57:06 Speaker 01 Right, right.
57:06 Joe Rogan? Personal experience.
57:07 Speaker 01 That critical incident, amplified data set.
57:12 Joe Rogan? Right.
57:12 Speaker 01 Your, that, that activated nervous system. It actually makes you rely on your biases more. Instead of being able to check your biases, it, it, it actually listens to your biases more. So, so an officer now is taught, try to slow down if you can. Why? So you can breathe. Why? So you can check your bias before you act.
57:37 Joe Rogan? Hmm.
57:38 Speaker 01 Right?
57:38 Joe Rogan? Yeah.
57:39 Speaker 01 Because you're amped up.
57:40 Joe Rogan? Right.
57:41 Speaker 01 The quicker you act, the safer you'll be.
57:43 Joe Rogan? Right.
57:44 Speaker 01 And that's through that automatic process near the brain stem.
57:47 Joe Rogan? Right.
57:47 Speaker 01 Not here.
57:50 Speaker 01 Yeah.
57:50 Joe Rogan? Yeah.
57:52 Joe Rogan? Yeah, it's, it's a dark predicament. You know, because there's a lot of people that are gonna fall victim before anything gets changed.
58:00 Speaker 01 I agree. I agree. And, and you know, Joe, when, um, back to that FDA committee that, um, delayed everything with MDMA, um, I ended up really, really sad for like three months because of what you just said. A lot of people who will benefit from MDMA are not gonna be able to access, not access, not for a month or two, for years, for years. At a cost. That could hurt a person like Rick Doblin and MAPS and Lycos and the philanthropists that helped him get to this point. That's how expensive it is.
58:39 Joe Rogan? Yeah, and then the cost of human life.
58:42 Speaker 01 And the cost of human life.
58:43 Joe Rogan? Which is compounded every year.
58:45 Speaker 01 That's right.
58:45 Joe Rogan? And all the people they interact with, the butterfly effect of that.
58:50 Speaker 01 That's right.
58:50 Joe Rogan? Yeah.
58:51 Speaker 01 That's right. And let's take that thread back to what you said. Could you imagine the world we could live in if these things were available to people so that they could heal, so that they could dream, so that they can become their own versions of Jimi Hendrix?
59:05 Joe Rogan? Yeah.
59:06 Speaker 01 You know?
59:06 Joe Rogan? I know. It's really crazy when you think about it, that one president and one administration changed the course of civilization because they wanted control and they wanted to stop the anti-war movement and the civil rights movement. And that's the fact. That's really what happened.
59:22 Speaker 01 And I like that statement, "course of civilization."
59:24 Joe Rogan? Yeah.
59:25 Speaker 01 Because they succeeded at taking it on a road show into other countries.
59:30 Joe Rogan? Yeah.
59:31 Speaker 01 Through international treaties.
59:32 Joe Rogan? Yes.
59:33 Speaker 01 You know, this brings something up. I was blessed with being able to go and speak on a panel at the United Nations, and it was put together by an organization called LEAP, Law Enforcement Action Partnership. I want to give a shout out to Diane Goldstein, amazing executive director of a wonderful organization of law enforcement that are trying to change these issues. And we spoke about access for psychedelics for law enforcement. And I was able to call out Schedule I at the United Nations, at the CND Commission on Narcotic Drugs, and say, "We need to do away with the Schedule." And here's the two things that I found out I wanted to get to this point. The World Health Organization has now recognized that Schedule I is a fraud.
1:00:17 Speaker 01 It's fake, it's unscientific, they're going to try to create their own. Right? And two, I got to see how they spend all day on a treaty focusing on one word across like forty countries, whether they agree on that one word or not.
1:00:34 Joe Rogan? And what was the word?
1:00:35 Speaker 01 Make up a word. Are they going to allow harm reduction into the treaty?
1:00:42 Speaker 01 All day. Twelve hours later, they're asking this country if it's okay and that country if it's okay. I went, "Oh, my God, you said snail's pace. I think you said snail's pace."
1:00:52 Joe Rogan? Yeah.
1:00:53 Speaker 01 This is even slower than a snail's pace.
1:00:57 Speaker 01 It's painful.
1:00:59 Joe Rogan? Yeah.
1:00:59 Speaker 01 Change, having it happen is painful.
1:01:07 Speaker 01 It's incredible.
1:01:09 Joe Rogan? Yeah, it's. Well, it's what happens when people, once, once people have laws and they enforce those laws. And someone comes along and says those laws are unjust. It's very difficult to get back rights that you've already lost. Very difficult. Once they're lost, like, and this is like what's really obvious about the nineteen seventies Schedule One Act. It's because it's like, we're, we're dealing with the same issue all these years later. But it's not the nineteen seventies, right? So we have all the access to the data now. Instantaneously, you could pull it up on ChatGPT.
1:01:45 Speaker 01 Yeah.
1:01:45 Joe Rogan? You know, like right now, instantaneously. So there's no excuse for it. But yet it's still difficult to get these laws changed. Insanely difficult, it takes so much time.
1:01:58 Speaker 01 Well, so the system that we have takes the power. And then it doesn't want to give it back. This is what I'm hearing.
1:02:05 Joe Rogan? Yeah.
1:02:05 Speaker 01 And then you've got to fight to give it back. But you did indicate something which I agree with. Things are speeding up.
1:02:12 Joe Rogan? Yeah.
1:02:12 Speaker 01 Because of technology. I mean, technology is involved in this show and us being able to talk to each other. Right? This is a miracle in and of itself. People being able to share ideas at a lightning pace, influencing one another.
1:02:25 Joe Rogan? Yeah.
1:02:25 Speaker 01 If that's a miracle in and of itself. But I want to bring up a point, maybe we can explore this together. People are taking back their power and recognizing that the founding documents of this country are designed to protect the life, liberty, pursuit of happiness and religious expression of the individual human being. It's the most radical thing ever.
1:02:50 Joe Rogan? Yeah, it is.
1:02:52 Speaker 01 It's, it, it, it, it's, it's a sacred establishment that we're working under. But people don't realize that the individual, when they truly sincerely believe what they're doing in this country, they can do it as long as it doesn't harm another human being. It's that simple.
1:03:10 Joe Rogan? Yeah, that's what it should be. Yeah.
1:03:13 Speaker 01 Let's talk about that. How do we get to the point where people realize that that's the way it should be?
1:03:21 Speaker 01 We wake the enforcers up?
1:03:25 Speaker 01 We get the politicians to help create safe space for the exploration of these topics? We meet up in conversation and break bread in safety?
1:03:39 Joe Rogan? Well, I think the big thing is public perception. Public perception moves all those other things because then people will contact politicians and respond by not voting for them or voting people out that do have, like this lieutenant governor, he's politically in deep water because so many people have reacted so negatively to this draconian attempt to ban all THC products where people are like, why?
1:04:06 Speaker 01 Yeah.
1:04:06 Joe Rogan? Like, what are you doing? And what are you being paid by? Like, what lobbies are enforcing this idea? Like, where is this coming from?
1:04:15 Speaker 01 Right, right. So, it's gonna weaken his position.
1:04:18 Joe Rogan? Yeah.
1:04:19 Speaker 01 Yeah.
1:04:20 Joe Rogan? Well, it's gonna weaken his career and rightly so. Rightly so, it should. He's on the wrong side of history.
1:04:24 Speaker 01 There it is. There it is.
1:04:26 Joe Rogan? Yeah. And the public perception has changed. It's changed pretty radically. And I credit the internet with that because over the last 20 years, you've seen this massive shift in this idea that psychedelics are dangerous, you could lose your mind to, hey, that's how my uncle quit smoking. You know, hey, that's how my aunt got off of opiates. Hey, that's, you know, and everyone knows somebody that's had positive experiences, that was, you know, deeply depressed and now is a different person and they're so much happier and healthier because of it. And so, it's the narrative publicly has shifted.
1:04:59 Speaker 01 Has shifted.
1:05:00 Joe Rogan? And a lot of it is because of conversations and a lot of it is because of podcasts, a lot of it is access to information, there's plenty of online documentaries about it now.
1:05:09 Speaker 01 That's right.
1:05:10 Joe Rogan? Yeah.
1:05:11 Speaker 01 That's right. And you know, Joe, I want to give credit to the courageous people who are the carriers of this knowledge and wisdom by experimenting, learning, realizing, right? This is the hero's journey, right? Going into the darkness, like metaphorically and literally into the underground and coming back with the bounty, the realization, right? The gold and sharing it.
1:05:34 Joe Rogan? Yeah, and having the courage to share it.
1:05:35 Speaker 01 That's a courageous act.
1:05:36 Joe Rogan? Well, especially if you're in a business like yourself, like law enforcement, you know, where it's like, that's a forbidden topic.
1:05:43 Speaker 01 That's right. That's right. That's right. And you know, I was able to access MDMA. And I had a numinous experience. I felt like I was surrounded by love. I was gifted a gratitude that was big enough to hold everything that went into who I am in the present moment. Let me explain that real quick. If I accept myself wholly, wholly, completely, I have to accept my light and dark aspect as well. I have to accept my traumas as well. I have to expect my lineage's history as well, in its entirety. I'm not saying something radical. There's been books written about this by smarter people than I. MDMA helped me access that, right? I've experienced ketamine.
1:06:28 Speaker 01 Ketamine, I say, was like a luscious massage of my soul. I felt like the energy of my being was traveling in and out of my body, and I had three energetic streams traveling with me. My martial arts instructor periodically, my wife, and God. On ketamine, it was unbelievable.
1:06:51 Joe Rogan? What do you mean, streams? Like, in what way?
1:06:53 Speaker 01 Energetic streams. So on ketamine, I felt like there was a bit of a disembodiment that occurred, right? And we can label what that disembodiment is. It's a disassociative anesthetic. People say it feels like their spirit, soul, or identity disconnected from their body. I had that happen. But the energy wasn't just one. I had remembrances of these three. I felt like I needed to give gratitude to God. I felt like the presence of my wife was with me, and my martial arts instructor as well, Doreen Cagliandro. And her energetic, their energetic streams were going in and out of my body, and I could
1:07:36 Speaker 01 remember such joyous thoughts associated to them. It was like a massage to my spirit, you know? And the thoughts associated with that massage, and that peace, and that sense of safety, was there. Ketamine lifts suicidality in minutes.
1:07:56 Speaker 01 It just became a medicine approved for depression. Why? That's weird. Why did that just happen?
1:08:04 Speaker 01 I don't know.
1:08:04 Joe Rogan? Well, it's been going on for quite a bit, right? I mean, I know people in Los Angeles were doing it a decade ago.
1:08:09 Speaker 01 Well, here's the thing. Let's, let's broaden that. How long were the people partying with it? Right?
1:08:15 Joe Rogan? I don't know. I did, I knew of a guy who had a problem with it. He was a MMA fighter. He got addicted to ketamine. And I remember a friend of mine went to visit him in a rehab center and he was all fucked up. But that was the narrative, that he was doing ketamine. I was like, oh, he's doing a tranquilizer? Like, this is, uh, nineteen nineties?
1:08:34 Speaker 01 Okay.
1:08:34 Joe Rogan? Late nineties?
1:08:35 Speaker 01 Okay. Well, you can get addicted.
1:08:38 Joe Rogan? Ketamine is addictive?
1:08:39 Speaker 01 You can get addicted to ketamine. Not like, like an opiate.
1:08:44 Joe Rogan? Is it a psychological addiction or is it a physical addiction?
1:08:47 Speaker 01 There, there might be a combination. I don't wanna purport to speak about it scientifically too much, but I've heard there can be a compulsion.
1:08:54 Joe Rogan? Yeah.
1:08:55 Speaker 01 And it can kinda, it can hurt your bladder if you go overboard.
1:08:59 Joe Rogan? I know a lot of people in the Austin area use it recreationally. We actually had a girl go into a K-hole at my club.
1:09:05 Speaker 01 Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.
1:09:06 Joe Rogan? She was in the middle of the comedy club, just
1:09:08 Speaker 01 Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, that's full disembodiment, right? You're in another place.
1:09:12 Joe Rogan? Yeah.
1:09:12 Speaker 01 And your somatic self has to be kept safe.
1:09:15 Joe Rogan? Well, they're doing a nasal spray, so they're like doing it throughout the day.
1:09:18 Speaker 01 That's the prescription. I forget from what company for depression. Yeah.
1:09:25 Joe Rogan? So you could kinda double pump and
1:09:28 Speaker 01 For sure.
1:09:28 Joe Rogan? Go a little overboard. Yeah.
1:09:30 Speaker 01 Yeah.
1:09:30 Joe Rogan? Do it all day long if you want.
1:09:32 Speaker 01 If you wanted to.
1:09:32 Joe Rogan? Yeah, that's, that's a problem with, well, that's a problem with everything, right? You know, it's a problem with any, I mean, if you really need Adderall, you have like chronic fatigue and Adderall's the only thing that lifts you out of that. What's to stop you from taking two pills?
1:09:46 Speaker 01 I'm glad you did that. That's right. Or even, even coffee, right?
1:09:49 Joe Rogan? Yeah.
1:09:49 Speaker 01 Double espresso can become a quad.
1:09:51 Joe Rogan? Yeah.
1:09:52 Speaker 01 Then you're drinking six.
1:09:53 Joe Rogan? Oh, I know a lot of people are addicted. I mean, I'm kind of addicted to caffeine.
1:09:57 Speaker 01 Yeah.
1:09:57 Joe Rogan? I quit it when I was on my vacation. I was on vacation for ten days and I didn't have any coffee, any caffeine at all for five, six days. And I was like, ooh, I sleep so much better, I feel so much better. But I feel like when it comes to conversations, it's like I lean on it. I lean on caffeine.
1:10:12 Speaker 01 Yeah.
1:10:12 Joe Rogan? Lean on it to get me going.
1:10:14 Speaker 01 I'm a happier person on caffeine. I really enjoy that substance.
1:10:17 Joe Rogan? I like it. I just wanted to know that I could stop taking it and there wouldn't be any problem. It was no problem at all.
1:10:22 Speaker 01 Yeah.
1:10:23 Joe Rogan? I stopped taking nicotine pouches and I stopped taking caffeine for, I stopped the nicotine pouches for ten whole days and I was like, I'm fine. And I've stopped the caffeine for five or six days, then I said, ah, I feel like having a cup of coffee. And I, I limited myself to one cup a day.
1:10:37 Speaker 01 Yeah, I, I get, uh, I have a hard time coming off of caffeine.
1:10:42 Joe Rogan? You get headaches?
1:10:42 Speaker 01 But I've done it. Yeah, I get headaches. It affects my mood a little bit. I like, I like it. I like the caffeine.
1:10:48 Joe Rogan? Yeah, I don't think it's overall detrimental. I don't think it affects your judgment. I don't think it makes you do anything squirrely.
1:10:55 Speaker 01 Yeah.
1:10:55 Joe Rogan? It just gives you a little, it peps you up a little bit.
1:10:58 Speaker 01 I mean, most of the world is having it in the morning.
1:11:00 Joe Rogan? Yeah.
1:11:00 Speaker 01 Right. And then most of the world is having a drink at night.
1:11:02 Joe Rogan? Yeah. But you know, this is also the argument for coca leaves. Because coca leaves apparently is a superior stimulant. It's just they chew it. And they chew coca leaves and this is something that, you know, farmers and hardworking people in South America have been doing forever.
1:11:19 Speaker 01 That's right.
1:11:20 Joe Rogan? And unfortunately, somebody figured out how to synthesize it and turn it into cocaine and then it became illegal.
1:11:25 Speaker 01 Illegal.
1:11:25 Joe Rogan? Yeah, now you can't get, cause if you get just coca leaves and just chew on coca leaves in America, I mean, maybe that's superior to coffee.
1:11:32 Speaker 01 And we don't know, cause we can't try.
1:11:35 Joe Rogan? Exactly.
1:11:35 Speaker 01 And that, that is the block of experimentation.
1:11:39 Joe Rogan? Yeah.
1:11:39 Speaker 01 That's unjust.
1:11:40 Joe Rogan? Yeah.
1:11:41 Speaker 01 Right? Um, you know what's interesting about cocaine is
1:11:47 Speaker 01 it's medically appropriate. I think they use it for eye surgery.
1:11:53 Joe Rogan? Yeah, there's medical uses for it.
1:11:54 Speaker 01 So I, I, I can't off the top of my head remember if it's on schedule one. I don't think it is.
1:12:00 Joe Rogan? Cocaine's not on schedule one, really?
1:12:01 Speaker 01 I mean, we could look it up because
1:12:02 Joe Rogan? That's interesting.
1:12:03 Speaker 01 Well, here's the thing, if it can be used for eye surgery.
1:12:05 Joe Rogan? Right.
1:12:06 Speaker 01 Right? So it would be interesting to see.
1:12:09 Joe Rogan? Yeah, so is it like a numbing agent? Is that what it is?
1:12:12 Speaker 01 They've just, I've heard that they've realized before it was, um, it became a big issue, that it's safe for eyeball, yeah.
1:12:20 Joe Rogan? Hmm.
1:12:20 Speaker 01 Numbing, numbing agent.
1:12:21 Joe Rogan? Well, I know there's medical cocaine. I do know that. I just don't know what the applications are.
1:12:26 Speaker 01 Mm-hmm.
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1:13:54 Joe Rogan? And if your identity is stolen, LifeLock will step in to fix it, guaranteed or your money back. Dedicated, US-based, identity restoration specialists will work with you until your identity is restored, backed by the million-dollar protection package with up to $3 million in coverage for eligible losses and expenses. Visit lifelock.com and save up to 30% your first year with the promo code JRE. That's promo code JRE. Or go to lifelock.com/JRE for 30% off. Terms apply. You know, the number one manufacturer of it? Coca-Cola. Coca-Cola, yeah.
1:14:37 Joe Rogan? They still use the coca leaf for flavor for Coca-Cola.
1:14:42 Speaker 01 Like they shut down the cocaine molecule somehow?
1:14:45 Joe Rogan? They extract it.
1:14:46 Speaker 01 Right.
1:14:46 Joe Rogan? And they use it to produce medical-grade cocaine.
1:14:50 Speaker 01 Interesting.
1:14:51 Joe Rogan? Yeah.
1:14:51 Speaker 01 And then, and then some thing of that still gets into cocaine.
1:14:56 Joe Rogan? The flavor is what's in Coke. I guess it's the flavonoids. That's what's in Coca-Cola. And it used to be cocaine was in Coca-Cola.
1:15:04 Speaker 01 Yeah.
1:15:04 Joe Rogan? I would like to go back and try some of that. I like to go, like, what was that like? Like, how much cocaine was in there?
1:15:10 Speaker 01 You think they have original recipe Coke bottles at the factory?
1:15:13 Joe Rogan? With cocaine?
1:15:14 Speaker 01 At Coca.
1:15:15 Joe Rogan? I mean, what year was that?
1:15:16 Speaker 01 At Coke headquarters.
1:15:17 Joe Rogan? What year did they, let's find out what year they took cocaine out of Coca-Cola.
1:15:23 Joe Rogan? Because I remember the whole story for, I don't remember exactly the details of like how cocaine was in Coca-Cola for the first place. But cocaine used to be prescribed, 1929.
1:15:37 Joe Rogan? So 1903, fresh coca leaves were removed from the formula. After 1904, instead of using fresh coca leaves, Coca-Cola started using spent leaves, the leftovers of the cocaine extraction process with trace levels of cocaine. And since then, by 1929, they viewed cocaine-free. So in 1903, they started removing cocaine.
1:15:59 Speaker 01 But they're, but they're still using cocaine-free coca leaf extract.
1:16:07 Joe Rogan? Yes, yes. And they're the only company, I believe, that's allowed to do that. I think they're grandfathered in. And how did, who invented Coca-Cola with cocaine? Find that out. Like, what's the story? What is the story of cocaine in Coca-Cola?
1:16:26 Joe Rogan? Okay. Pemberton called for five ounces of coca leaf per gallon of syrup, a significant dose. In 1891, Kandler claimed his formula altered extensively from Pemberton's. Originally contained only a tenth of this amount, so it used to be really juicy. Coca-Cola once contained an estimated nine milligrams of cocaine per glass. For comparison, a typical dose or line of cocaine is fifty to seventy-five milligrams. So it was like a mild pick-me-up. Nine milligrams. After nineteen oh four, instead of using fresh leaves, Coca-Cola started using spent leaves. Today, that extract is prepared at a Stepan Company plant in Maywood, New Jersey.
1:17:07 Joe Rogan? The only manufacturing plant authorized by the federal government to import and process coca leaves, which it obtains from Peru and Bolivia. Stepan Company extracts cocaine from the leaves, which it sells to Mallinckrodt, the only company in the United States licensed to purify cocaine for medical use.
1:17:27 Speaker 01 For medical use, there it is.
1:17:28 Joe Rogan? Wild.
1:17:30 Speaker 03 They call it here and there. And the ad says it's, excuse me, intellectual beverage.
1:17:34 Joe Rogan? Ah, intellectual beverage.
1:17:36 Speaker 03 Valuable brain tonic.
1:17:37 Joe Rogan? A valuable brain tonic. A cure for all nervous afflections.
1:17:43 Joe Rogan? Affections. Sick, headache, neurological, whatever that is, hysteria, melancholy, et cetera. The peculiar flavor of Coca-Cola delights every palate. It is dispensed from the soda fountains in the same manner as any of the fruit syrups. Wow.
1:18:03 Speaker 01 What an advertisement.
1:18:04 Joe Rogan? Wow. I'd like to go back and try that. I'd like to go back to nineteen hundred and get a glass and see what's up.
1:18:12 Speaker 01 You hear the pop and the bubbly pour it over ice right out of the fountain?
1:18:17 Joe Rogan? Yeah, what was that up?
1:18:17 Speaker 01 Oh, that's a beautiful advertisement, wow.
1:18:19 Joe Rogan? Long after the syrup ceased to contain any significant amounts of cocaine, in North Carolina, dope remained a common colloquialism for Coca-Cola. And dope wagons were trucks that transported it. Wow.
1:18:32 Speaker 03 Must've been good.
1:18:33 Joe Rogan? It must've been real good. Must've been real good. Like, just a little bit of a juice. The Cola Nut. Cola Nut's for caffeine. Cola Nut acts as a flavoring in the original source of caffeine in Coca-Cola. It contains two to three point five percent caffeine and has a bitter flavor. In nineteen eleven, the US government sued the United States versus forty barrels and twenty kegs of Coca-Cola. Coca-Cola hoping to force the Coca-Cola company to remove caffeine from its formula. Interesting. That's interesting. Court found that the syrup, when diluted as directed, will result in a beverage containing 1.21 grains, 78.4 milligrams of caffeine per eight fluid ounces.
1:19:15 Joe Rogan? The case was decided in favor of Coca-Cola Company at the District Court, but subsequently in 1912, the U.S. Pure Food and Drug Act was amended, adding caffeine to the list of habit-forming and deleterious substances, which must be listed on a product's label. In 1913, the case was appealed by the Sixth Circuit in Cincinnati, where the ruling was affirmed, but then appealed again in 1916 to the Supreme Court, where the government effectively won as a new trial was ordered. The company then voluntarily reduced the amount of caffeine in its product and offered, rather, to pay the government's legal costs to settle and avoid further litigation.
1:19:58 Speaker 01 Wow, that was all over caffeine.
1:20:02 Joe Rogan? 78 milligrams.
1:20:03 Speaker 03 Per eight, and now it's 46 per 12.
1:20:05 Joe Rogan? Yeah, but like, what is a Red Bull?
1:20:08 Speaker 01 I was gonna say, what's in a Monster?
1:20:12 Joe Rogan? So let's find out how much caffeine is in a Monster. One of the things that Monster, I don't know if Monster does it, but some of these companies do it. It's kinda tricky. By the way, I like Monster. I drink them all the time when I do the UFC. The problem is, it'll say like, "two servings." Who's splitting a Monster with their friends?
1:20:31 Joe Rogan? You have some...
1:20:32 Speaker 03 Eighty-six.
1:20:33 Joe Rogan? Eighty-six.
1:20:34 Speaker 03 Per serving.
1:20:34 Joe Rogan? Yeah. And how many servings are in a can of Monster?
1:20:37 Speaker 03 Uh, well, this just says...
1:20:40 Joe Rogan? Per serving?
1:20:42 Joe Rogan? Does it say it in a can? Like, when you get a big ol' can?
1:20:47 Joe Rogan? Cause they have big cans.
1:20:48 Speaker 01 Yeah.
1:20:50 Joe Rogan? I had a friend who was a Mormon, and he wasn't allowed to drink coffee, and that motherfucker would pound energy drinks all day. I was like, "Hey dude, what are you doing, man?"
1:20:59 Speaker 01 It's a gray area in the room.
1:21:00 Joe Rogan? 140! A Monster is, oh my god, 140 for zero sugar. A regular Monster has 160. 160. Mountain Dew Rise has 180.
1:21:16 Joe Rogan? Beyond Raw Lit.
1:21:20 Joe Rogan? That is 250.
1:21:22 Speaker 03 Bang with 300.
1:21:23 Joe Rogan? Five hour energy shots as 200? Holy shit, man. Those little tiny energy shots? Those five hour energy drinks has 200 milligrams of caffeine? Wow. Bang has 300? Holy shit, man.
1:21:38 Speaker 01 And Coca-Cola led the battle. When was that? 1911? Or something? What were those dates? About caffeine?
1:21:45 Joe Rogan? Yeah.
1:21:45 Speaker 01 Amount being in it.
1:21:46 Joe Rogan? Interesting. Well, it's like people have always tried to control other people. For whatever reason, especially when the government has the power to do it. For whatever reason, human beings really enjoy controlling other people.
1:21:58 Speaker 01 Yeah.
1:21:59 Joe Rogan? They really do. And once they have power, they really enjoy exercising that power.
1:22:03 Speaker 01 And keeping it and controlling it and not giving it back. And you gotta, you gotta, hmm. You gotta resist.
1:22:09 Joe Rogan? Yeah. You do. You gotta resist. But the problem is like, legalizing these things would cause a pro- a big problem. It'd be a big problem. If you just legalize them, there's a lot of people that who would never try any illegal drug, who would try a legal drug. You know, if you made heroin, cocaine, you know, fill in the blank. All, all the different substances, psychedelic and otherwise, if you made them all legal. You're gonna have a bunch of people that are gonna have problems with these things that wouldn't have problems with them normally. So there, there would be a period of time where it would cause damage.
1:22:49 Joe Rogan? And that would be really problematic for politicians, lawmakers, anybody who enforced these ideas. You know, there'd be, blood is on your hands. It's like, but the, this infantilization of human beings. Like turning them into babies that need be, need to be controlled by the state. That's the problem. And we're in this problem and the only way to get out of that problem is to tear the fucking Band-Aid off. And
1:23:13 Speaker 01 I completely agree with you.
1:23:15 Joe Rogan? And I don't wanna do cocaine. I've never done cocaine my whole life. I saw, when I was a kid in high school, I saw a bunch of people that had cocaine problems and I was like, I don't wanna have anything to do with that.
1:23:24 Speaker 01 Right, right. But listen, you made that decision for yourself.
1:23:27 Joe Rogan? Yeah.
1:23:28 Speaker 01 Right? And, um, and look, we know, we, we were just touching upon examples of people having a relationship with the cocoa plant without it causing an issue.
1:23:35 Joe Rogan? Yeah. I don't think it's that addictive when you're just chewing the leaves.
1:23:39 Speaker 01 Right.
1:23:39 Joe Rogan? I think those people do it without much problems. There's also mate de coco, which is a tea that they make from the leaves.
1:23:45 Speaker 01 Well, look, we're starting to talk about, um, We're using the word legalization and saying there will be a problem with legalization for a time being. Why don't we talk about decriminalization and regulation?
1:24:00 Joe Rogan? But the problem is, even with decriminalization, what's the supply? Where are people getting it from?
1:24:05 Speaker 01 Right.
1:24:05 Joe Rogan? If you can't sell it legally, then how do I know it's pure?
1:24:08 Speaker 01 That's right.
1:24:09 Joe Rogan? That's the real issue. The real issue with cocaine is probably not cocaine itself. The real issue is getting cocaine that's stepped on and cut, and cut a lot of times with fentanyl. I mean, we all know people that have died from fentanyl overdoses. I know a bunch of people that have.
1:24:26 Speaker 01 Yep, I've done follow-up on police calls to people who said to me directly, "I was trying to get coke, I got fentanyl and almost died." That's a tragedy. But Joe, you're jumping to this next idea that we should probably explore, which is called "safe supply."
1:24:43 Joe Rogan? Yeah.
1:24:44 Speaker 01 And who should control safe supply? But let me remind our audience, and let me bring this back into the conversation. Our police promotional books, we're not talking radical here. Our police promotion books talk about the problem with prohibition and criminalization, unleashing gangsters and dangerous supply on our civilians.
1:25:07 Joe Rogan? And that's where the cartels come into play.
1:25:09 Speaker 01 Exactly.
1:25:10 Joe Rogan? Look, when we were kids, the cartels weren't an issue.
1:25:12 Speaker 01 That's right.
1:25:13 Joe Rogan? Do you ever remember any talk of the...
1:25:15 Speaker 01 I don't.
1:25:16 Joe Rogan? How old are you?
1:25:17 Speaker 01 I'm 48. I grew up in Chelsea, Mass.
1:25:19 Joe Rogan? I'm almost 58. I grew up in Newton. I didn't ever hear about cartels.
1:25:23 Speaker 01 That's right.
1:25:24 Joe Rogan? You never heard about Mexican cartels? You never heard about the problem? Now, it's like all over the news. It's a big thing. Why is it a big thing? Because they control the drug supply into the United States because drugs are illegal. So, only outlaws sell drugs.
1:25:37 Speaker 01 And what happens with value when you make something illegal?
1:25:40 Joe Rogan? Yeah. Shoots through the roof.
1:25:42 Speaker 01 That's right. And the most violent come in and replace the less violent.
1:25:48 Joe Rogan? Exactly.
1:25:49 Speaker 01 You know?
1:25:50 Joe Rogan? Just like during prohibition when the mob took over.
1:25:51 Speaker 01 That's right.
1:25:52 Joe Rogan? That's how they gained power. That's how they got money.
1:25:54 Speaker 01 That's right.
1:25:55 Joe Rogan? They were selling alcohol.
1:25:56 Speaker 01 And so what's safe supply? Or a safe use room? I would purport to say that a bar is a safe use room.
1:26:01 Joe Rogan? Yeah.
1:26:02 Speaker 01 Where you can get safe supply.
1:26:03 Joe Rogan? Right. Yeah, you know you're getting actual, real alcohol.
1:26:06 Speaker 01 That's it. And how about we incorporate treating adults like adults?
1:26:11 Joe Rogan? Yeah.
1:26:12 Speaker 01 Powerful education. And decide who's gonna control safe supply, cuz right now, the most dangerous people on earth control it.
1:26:21 Joe Rogan? Yes, and I think education, what you just said is a huge part of it. And to let people understand, like, hey, everyone knows there's giant problems with alcohol use. There's alcoholism, there's liver failure, there's a host of different diseases that come from being an alcoholic. And then there's also operating motor vehicles, when you're drunk, and drunk driving kills a ton of people every year. And also, a bunch of violent acts that get perpetrated by people that are drunk. There's a lot of things wrong with alcohol, but yet we allow alcohol. You know, and alcohol is one of the worst drugs. It's one of the worst drugs for you physically.
1:27:00 Speaker 01 Yeah.
1:27:00 Joe Rogan? It's one of the only drugs that if you become addicted to it, you can't quit cold turkey, or you'll fucking die.
1:27:05 Speaker 01 That's right, right then and there, exactly. So, working with this logic, Joe, right? Cuz people sometimes make me out to be out of my mind when I say this stuff.
1:27:13 Joe Rogan? Of course.
1:27:14 Speaker 01 If the most dangerous, toxic, and carcinogenic is available, and the least dangerous, helpful, non-addictive is not available, let's fix that.
1:27:25 Joe Rogan? Yeah.
1:27:26 Speaker 01 Why do I sound wild when I say that?
1:27:28 Joe Rogan? Yeah, well, I think the mushroom one is the easiest one, because of the fact that it genuinely can't kill people. Cocaine is a lot harder sell, cuz also, like, I don't necessarily think it's good for you. But I know people that have done pure cocaine that really enjoyed the experience and didn't get addicted to it. So, I don't, I don't, I can't speak on that. I just, I just think that things that are physically addictive that have been known to ruin your life are things you should probably avoid.
1:27:58 Speaker 01 And we can teach upon that.
1:27:59 Joe Rogan? Yeah.
1:27:59 Speaker 01 And we can educate upon that. I mean, look at the, the wonderful job we've done at, kinda putting the reins on nicotine, through advertisement and education.
1:28:09 Joe Rogan? Well, cigarette smoking in particular.
1:28:11 Speaker 01 Right.
1:28:12 Joe Rogan? Because the problem isn't really the nicotine, which we've found to be...
1:28:15 Speaker 01 That's right.
1:28:16 Joe Rogan? Yeah, it's like nicotine actually has health benefits to it, which sounds crazy to people. It's a neuroprotectant, it, it actually stopped people from getting COVID. So, there's a lot of weird stuff with the compound nicotine.
1:28:29 Speaker 01 Yeah.
1:28:29 Joe Rogan? But then there's the delivery method, and it's not even just like... It's hard to know what's true or what's not true, but I'm sure you saw that Russell Crowe movie, The Insider.
1:28:40 Speaker 01 I haven't.
1:28:41 Joe Rogan? It's a great movie, but it's about these companies that added chemicals to cigarettes to make them far more addictive. And he was a whistleblower. He was a chemist that was working at this company. Russell Crowe was playing this doctor, who was a real guy, whose life was threatened because he exposed that these companies had put a bunch of different chemicals into cigarettes to make them highly addictive, much more addictive than just plain, regular tobacco smoking.
1:29:10 Speaker 01 Well, I was told that those scientists were absorbed into the food industry.
1:29:18 Joe Rogan? Well, that's the problem, is that the companies that were getting sued, after it was determined that cigarette smoking does cause cancer, cigarettes are addictive, once they lost a bunch of money, they went out and bought all the processed food companies. And now they made those more addictive. And so now, like, you know, they even openly flaunted, "I bet you can't eat one chip."
1:29:40 Speaker 01 That's right. That's right.
1:29:42 Joe Rogan? Bet you can't eat just one.
1:29:43 Speaker 01 Give it a try, open a bag of Doritos.
1:29:45 Joe Rogan? Yeah, I mean, that's the thing, and again, I think you should be able to eat Doritos. I like them, they're delicious.
1:29:50 Speaker 01 Same here.
1:29:50 Joe Rogan? Nothing wrong with them. But they are addictive. And why are they addictive? Because they're chemically designed to be addictive.
1:29:57 Speaker 01 That's right.
1:29:57 Joe Rogan? Because these food manufacturing companies want you to buy more of them. Simple. It's like, how do we get people to eat more chips? Make the chips impossible to put down, or very difficult to put down.
1:30:07 Speaker 01 And if you want to increase their value through the roof, prohibit access after they've tasted them, and let the cartels produce them in another country, and try to get them across the border to sell to our people.
1:30:18 Joe Rogan? You're gonna get fentanyl potato chips.
1:30:20 Speaker 01 That's right.
1:30:21 Joe Rogan? Which is so crazy. Imagine if they outlawed all processed foods and you had to get fucking contraband Twinkies.
1:30:30 Speaker 01 Right.
1:30:30 Joe Rogan? Good lord.
1:30:31 Speaker 01 Right.
1:30:31 Joe Rogan? Like, yeah, I think you should be able to buy ringdings. They should be legal. But I wouldn't recommend eating them every day, they're fucking terrible for you.
1:30:39 Speaker 01 Exactly.
1:30:39 Joe Rogan? But they taste delicious.
1:30:40 Speaker 01 Exactly.
1:30:41 Joe Rogan? And if you want one every now and again...
1:30:42 Speaker 01 And that's the environment that we're in.
1:30:44 Joe Rogan? Yes.
1:30:44 Speaker 01 With some things and not others.
1:30:47 Joe Rogan? Right.
1:30:47 Speaker 01 Right?
1:30:48 Joe Rogan? And that's the problem. It's illogical. It's illogical and there's also this fear aspect to it because if you go against it, you know, you're gonna get put into a very bad position where there's people with enormous power and influence that wanna silence you. And this is why guys like Rick Doblin are so courageous, like, cuz he spent like his entire life trying to do this the right way and doing it above board, by the books, and, and show through the use with police officers and military people and
1:31:22 Speaker 01 That's right.
1:31:22 Joe Rogan? people experiencing PTSD that, look, this has extreme beneficial aspects to it that you shouldn't ignore and they're good for society. And we should probably expand the use of them in an appropriate way.
1:31:34 Speaker 01 That's right. I think that his work is leading to one of the first big kinks in the armor of the system. And you speak to the value of the way that he did it. You know what I mean?
1:31:47 Joe Rogan? Yeah.
1:31:47 Speaker 01 Um, what are the rules? Tell me, we'll operate within them. What kinda data do I have to create? Well, let me make that data. How do I access the compound? How are you gonna let me?
1:31:58 Joe Rogan? Right.
1:31:58 Speaker 01 Right? And if we don't know how, we need the rules.
1:32:01 Joe Rogan? Right.
1:32:01 Speaker 01 And sometimes the rules weren't there. And Rick and MAPS had to push, right? And in our system, how do we battle? What's the appropriate way to unleash violence? It's with lawyers.
1:32:11 Joe Rogan? Yeah.
1:32:12 Speaker 01 Right? It's frowned upon to physically
1:32:14 Joe Rogan? Yeah.
1:32:14 Speaker 01 physically be violent. So, he had to fight. He had to fight with the government. And what really makes me nuts, Joe, is, you know, the amount of back and forth. Again, I heard that they did with the FDA, with the regulators. They knew what they were doing, the design of the process. Everything was being talked about, right? And they get a, "Let's wait."
1:32:38 Joe Rogan? It's interesting, the results were too good.
1:32:41 Speaker 01 You know, I mean, just from the ones I hold in my heart.
1:32:45 Joe Rogan? Yeah, so what do you, what kind of pressure do you think they're under to not allow these things? Like, because that's the question, like, what is it? Is it public social pressure? Because if they do pass this, then they'll be scrutinized and people that are ignorant and that have bought into the narrative will then look at them as like, you're a part of the problem, you're contributing to the deterioration of society by allowing this use of MDMA to push forward and by minimizing the risks of it, by talking about the benefits of it, you're essentially allowing people to think that it's a lot safer than it really is.
1:33:22 Speaker 01 Look, I think that's, I think that's a, that's a component, right? We're talking about public perception and that changing and then that pressuring and things changing as well.
1:33:32 Joe Rogan? Yeah.
1:33:33 Speaker 01 I think this is a paradigm changing and shifting thing that the entire system, including pharma and all these people that are on these boards, these decision makers, power brokers, right, are trying to make sense of. And I'll explain. We have an identified disorder or challenge. We have a medicine that masks that symptom. This is gonna allow people to truly heal. When you truly heal, you don't have to keep taking a medicine. You might have to come back to it periodically, sure. Let's call that a flare up, yeah, let's call it a touch up. But when you're not taking your pill every day, every other day,
1:34:17 Speaker 01 that's gonna be a big hit to people's power and money.
1:34:21 Joe Rogan? Right, especially when you deal with things like, there's a giant business in keeping people, I don't wanna say happy, but not depressed, right? Like, there's a giant industry in people that are on SSRIs and antidepressant and anti-anxiety medication, when it's been proven that exercise is far more effective than SSRIs are. Far more medically proven, statistically proven, that SSRIs are not as effective as regular exercise.
1:34:53 Speaker 01 Well, let me throw something in there. Is that a medicine?
1:34:57 Joe Rogan? Right. Yeah, well, exercise is definitely a medicine.
1:34:59 Speaker 01 Right, so there's an organization, I think it's called Exercise as Medic- Medicine.
1:35:04 Joe Rogan? Mm-hmm.
1:35:04 Speaker 01 But you mainstream medical doctor gonna be able to prescribe exercise to somebody? They can't.
1:35:11 Joe Rogan? They should be able to.
1:35:12 Speaker 01 They should be able to.
1:35:13 Joe Rogan? Yeah, they really should. But the problem is, there's no profit in that.
1:35:16 Speaker 01 Right.
1:35:16 Joe Rogan? Unless you own the gym.
1:35:17 Speaker 01 Oh, do it on your, you do it on your own.
1:35:19 Joe Rogan? Right.
1:35:20 Speaker 01 Join the gym yourself, and you know, half the people aren't gonna go because they're scared. They don't wanna look goofy.
1:35:26 Joe Rogan? Right.
1:35:26 Speaker 01 The, the, the other quarter who do go, might not apprope- approach it correctly.
1:35:31 Joe Rogan? Right.
1:35:32 Speaker 01 And they'll blow out a tendon, they'll hurt themselves.
1:35:33 Joe Rogan? Yeah, you need trainers.
1:35:35 Speaker 01 Right?
1:35:36 Joe Rogan? Yeah.
1:35:36 Speaker 01 It's a really interesting thing here, so, so, back to, back to your question. This is gonna be a paradigm shifting thing. I believe that psychedelic assisted talk therapy is gonna allow talk therapy to live up to its promise as a talking cure. I believe the psychedelics are gonna be able to cure or push into remission a lot of these unshakable challenges, and that's gonna be a big hit to the SSRIs. That's gonna be a big hit to certain medicines. You know what else I think it's gonna do? I think it's gonna move people from agnosticism or atheism
1:36:15 Speaker 01 towards religion and spirituality, and it's also gonna be a boon for, for religion.
1:36:22 Joe Rogan? Which is wild to think about, right?
1:36:24 Speaker 01 It's wild.
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1:38:05 Joe Rogan? And if that's not enough, this Pod cools each side of the bed independently from 55 to 110 degrees Fahrenheit. Use code ROGEN at eightsleep.com/rogen for up to $200 off the Pod 6. Wow. Wild. Have you ever heard of John Marco Allegro's book, The Sacred Mushroom and the Cross? No. It's a book that he wrote after he was one of the people that was... He was contracted to decipher the Dead Sea Scrolls. It was like a 14-year job where they were deciphering the Dead Sea Scrolls. And he was the only one on the committee that was agnostic. He was an ordained minister, but through his studying of theology,
1:38:49 Joe Rogan? he started becoming agnostic because he recognized that there's just too many religions and too many parallels. And like, what's the real religion and root of this all? Or origin, rather, and root of this all. So he wrote this book after 14 years where he... I'm gonna sort of paraphrase, but he thought that the entire Christian religion was based on the consumption of psychedelic mushrooms and fertility rituals. And that this was what it was all about. And I believe the book... Because I've said this before, but I need to know it's true. Was the book bought up by the Catholic Church? I think it was bought up by the Catholic Church and they stopped production of it. And then he released a new book called The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Christian Myth.
1:39:34 Joe Rogan? And that one was available. But then, since then, they've republished... Both of them? Yeah, both of them. But the big one was The Sacred Mushroom and the Cross, because that was the one that was kind of... Very difficult to get, and I have a couple of copies of it, but they're original copies that I had to buy online.
1:39:49 Speaker 01 Okay.
1:39:50 Joe Rogan? And it's a fascinating book. It's a fascinating book because he translates, or he, um, he, he breaks down the word Christ to an ancient Sumerian word, which was a mushroom covered in God's semen. And this is what he's saying, is that they thought that when it rained, that this was God, his semen on the earth, which has caused all life to, to, to rise from. We all need li- we all need water, and then plants, of course, need water. And then after rainfall, they would find these mushrooms, because mushrooms grow incredibly quickly. And they would consume these mushrooms and have these religious experiences.
1:40:35 Joe Rogan? And this was a hugely controversial book, of course, and to, to really be able to know if he's right or wrong, you would have to have a deep understanding of ancient languages and, and the Bible and, and so many different things.
1:40:49 Speaker 01 Well, you know what that brings up in me, Joe, is the sacredness of sexuality. One, I don't know why that, what you just said triggered that in me. And the other is what about every Sunday magically transmuting bread and wine into flesh and blood of God, right? This isn't a radical concept. This is, this is accepted, this is like a billion follower strong, right?
1:41:15 Joe Rogan? Right.
1:41:16 Speaker 01 Type of Christianity that is through sacred ritual transforming food into the body and blood of God.
1:41:25 Joe Rogan? Right.
1:41:25 Speaker 01 Right? Just because we can understand that this is wood and a table and we've labeled it and boxed it and analyzed it, doesn't mean that the mystery of it all has been stripped away. And I don't think we need to allow that process to happen.
1:41:44 Speaker 01 Right? This is a magical, mysterious experience. When we're staring at one another, just because we identify as human beings, do we really know what's happening? Or is that ego inflation and science trying to dumb down a mystery and a magic?
1:42:04 Joe Rogan? Well, it's all a mystery, right? We've become accustomed to the mystery, so it seems normal. But, you know, if you didn't exist on Earth, and Earth was a drug that you could take, where you could experience life on Earth, you'd be like, "This is crazy."
1:42:16 Speaker 01 It absolutely is wild.
1:42:17 Joe Rogan? Being a human being, interacting with people, looking at things through your eyes.
1:42:22 Speaker 01 That's right.
1:42:22 Joe Rogan? Hearing things through your ears, touching and feeling, smelling, and using all your senses, and navigating through this bizarre experience of life. Very weird.
1:42:32 Speaker 01 And what about that image of the auroboros, right? The snake or dragon eating itself?
1:42:37 Joe Rogan? Mm-hmm.
1:42:37 Speaker 01 I mean, let's talk about sacred sexuality and the fact that every living thing is in a system that's eating and birthing itself continuously in all directions.
1:42:47 Joe Rogan? Yeah.
1:42:47 Speaker 01 How do you wrap your mind around that?
1:42:49 Joe Rogan? Right.
1:42:50 Speaker 01 You know, I got a big sense of that when I went into Old Growth Rainforest in Costa Rica for the first time. And I touched like the handle of a bridge, and it felt like it was moving. Because like every drop of everything is alive, and everything is either competing, going along with and helping, supporting, or eating one another in that space. And it's like, what is happening in here? It's like, everything is alive.
1:43:14 Joe Rogan? Yeah.
1:43:14 Speaker 01 You know? And I had that type of an experience on psychedelics. In the religious context, psilocybin, I felt like I dropped into the collective conscience, and I got to see the partitioned section that was my psychic space, where all my complexes and traumas were pulsing energetically into one another, and how that energy was spilling over on my family and community. That was the access that was given to me through psilocybin.
1:43:45 Speaker 01 You know, and those energetic forces are pushing me around right now as we speak.
1:43:49 Joe Rogan? Well, which makes you think like if you were an ancient person and you had this experience, of course you would think you're communing with God.
1:43:56 Speaker 01 Yeah.
1:43:56 Joe Rogan? Yeah.
1:43:57 Speaker 01 I agree. And look, I, hmm, we're all ancient persons right now in this moment in time. And I believe that.
1:44:03 Joe Rogan? Yeah. Well, we are ancient and, you know, if you go 5,000 years from now, how they're gonna look at us. Like, these dorks. That's the shit that was illegal.
1:44:12 Speaker 01 That they were fighting and arguing about.
1:44:14 Joe Rogan? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
1:44:14 Speaker 01 Yeah, yeah.
1:44:15 Joe Rogan? Yeah.
1:44:15 Speaker 01 I can't wait till war is old technology that we all laugh about.
1:44:19 Joe Rogan? Yeah. God, isn't that a crazy thing that if you asked a person, is it possible in your lifetime for war to not exist? Most people would be like, there's no way, which is insane.
1:44:29 Speaker 01 It's so insane.
1:44:30 Joe Rogan? Because in small groups, it's clearly easy. Like, if it was just you, me, and Jamie, and we were the only people on Earth, it would be super easy to not go to war with each other.
1:44:38 Speaker 01 That's right.
1:44:39 Joe Rogan? We would just communicate.
1:44:40 Speaker 01 Mm-hmm.
1:44:40 Joe Rogan? But then you're dealing with different languages and control of resources, and then you have people that are leaders that have control over giant groups of people and then use propaganda.
1:44:50 Speaker 01 Manipulation.
1:44:51 Joe Rogan? Yeah, and manipulate them into thinking that the only way is we have to go over there and kill these people.
1:44:56 Speaker 01 Exactly.
1:44:56 Joe Rogan? That's the only way to fight for your freedom.
1:44:58 Speaker 01 Yep. Yep. And, uh, Joe, you know, when, um, uh, we, there's research out there that shows that for a period of time, our species ended up having something like 5,000 of us on Earth. It's, it's out there, right? Have you seen that research?
1:45:14 Joe Rogan? There's a few, few moments in history.
1:45:15 Speaker 01 Right?
1:45:16 Joe Rogan? The Toba volcano.
1:45:17 Speaker 01 And.
1:45:18 Joe Rogan? Yeah.
1:45:18 Speaker 01 How, how did, how did we survive that? Did we eat each other or hurt each other? We probably helped each other.
1:45:25 Joe Rogan? Yeah.
1:45:25 Speaker 01 Right?
1:45:26 Joe Rogan? Well, there was probably so few people, they had to, yeah.
1:45:29 Speaker 01 That's right.
1:45:30 Joe Rogan? Well, this, this is the, also the point of Allegro's work, that fertility rituals were important because people didn't really survive much, you know, it was very difficult. Child, just labor, just childbirth killed a lot of women, killed a lot of babies. Infections killed a lot of people. You break your leg, you're dead. There's a lot of things that caused people to die, so it was very important. To have as many children as possible because most of them weren't gonna live.
1:45:54 Speaker 01 That's right, that's right. And you bring up a point, the woman might not have made it through
1:45:58 Joe Rogan? Yeah.
1:45:59 Speaker 01 the process itself.
1:46:00 Joe Rogan? Yeah.
1:46:00 Speaker 01 And what an important process.
1:46:02 Joe Rogan? Yeah.
1:46:03 Speaker 01 For the overall species well-being.
1:46:05 Joe Rogan? Yeah, the most critical of all processes. And that's been reduced to a thing now that's like trivialized.
1:46:12 Speaker 01 Trivialized or even still taboo.
1:46:15 Joe Rogan? Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's kinda crazy. I mean, there's people out there that love people that don't wanna have children. I'm like, okay, well, I wouldn't wanna bring a child in this world. Like, yeah, why would you with all the books and medicine and shit like?
1:46:27 Speaker 01 Nicely said.
1:46:27 Joe Rogan? Yeah, like, people had, people, people gave birth when they didn't know what a door was. They hadn't figured out floors yet, you know, it's like, we're constantly in this process of evolving and changing and growing, but it just gets stifled by so many different aspects of civilization. So many different aspects of control and propaganda and manipulation and, and fear.
1:46:49 Speaker 01 And fear.
1:46:49 Joe Rogan? The fear of others.
1:46:50 Speaker 01 And fear. I mean, look at what's happening with our life expectancy, like you said, and, and, and, uh, good medicine keeping people alive.
1:46:59 Joe Rogan? Yeah.
1:47:00 Speaker 01 And, um, we're living to be eighty, ninety years old.
1:47:04 Joe Rogan? And hopefully, if you live to be eighty or ninety years old, you'd be wiser. Hopefully.
1:47:07 Speaker 01 Right.
1:47:08 Joe Rogan? Hopefully.
1:47:09 Speaker 01 Right.
1:47:09 Joe Rogan? Hopefully, you'll get more of an understanding of like what you've done wrong and like, why have you, why have I lived my life in this foolish way? Like, what can I do to correct that? What can I do to make a more positive impact on people around me and live my life in a more harmonious way? But, you know, some people, they're eighty years old, they just watch Fox News and yell at the TV.
1:47:28 Speaker 01 You know, they, they, right, the image that went through my head is somebody turning the TV off.
1:47:33 Joe Rogan? Yeah.
1:47:33 Speaker 01 Maybe picking up a book.
1:47:35 Joe Rogan? Yeah.
1:47:35 Speaker 01 And then, you know, there's a choice point here, Joe, where you can, you, hmm, sometimes it's hard because there's things in the psyche that are manipulating what you're focusing on.
1:47:45 Joe Rogan? Yeah.
1:47:46 Speaker 01 Traumas plus external factors. But if you start focusing on gratitude, if you start focusing on the beauty, if you start focusing on the benefits of science, the benefits of operating in communion with other human beings.
1:47:59 Joe Rogan? Yeah.
1:48:00 Speaker 01 That thing that we said. I mean, how many people in Manhattan? Right, every day waking up, they go to work, they go home. Yeah, there's a handful of problems, but that's not how it's presented.
1:48:11 Joe Rogan? Yeah.
1:48:12 Speaker 01 It's miraculous if you think about it.
1:48:14 Joe Rogan? It is, right, the amount of negative interactions that people have are incredibly small.
1:48:19 Speaker 01 Yeah.
1:48:20 Joe Rogan? When you think about the sheer number of humans.
1:48:21 Speaker 01 That's right.
1:48:22 Joe Rogan? Yeah.
1:48:23 Speaker 01 That's right.
1:48:23 Joe Rogan? Yet, we concentrate on the fear.
1:48:26 Speaker 01 Exactly.
1:48:26 Joe Rogan? We concentrate on the dangers.
1:48:28 Speaker 01 And the media zooms in on
1:48:29 Joe Rogan? Of course.
1:48:30 Speaker 01 Someone who doesn't have a house.
1:48:32 Joe Rogan? Yeah.
1:48:32 Speaker 01 Someone who has an addiction problem.
1:48:34 Joe Rogan? Uh huh, someone who's violent.
1:48:36 Speaker 01 Someone who's violent.
1:48:36 Joe Rogan? Someone who's a criminal.
1:48:37 Speaker 01 That's right.
1:48:38 Joe Rogan? Someone stealing, yeah, that's all you hear.
1:48:41 Speaker 01 That's right.
1:48:41 Joe Rogan? Yeah.
1:48:42 Speaker 01 Yeah, I heard a statistic that the military knows about two percent of people are sociopathic or psychopathic. They don't have that same conscience that we automatically assume a human has.
1:48:55 Joe Rogan? Right, they don't have any empathy.
1:48:56 Speaker 01 Right?
1:48:57 Joe Rogan? Yeah.
1:48:59 Speaker 01 And it seems to me that we're so fear-based that we built the outer ecology that people have access to around concerns related to that. We build the mainstream culture, the laws that we operate under out of concern for the two percent rather than celebration of the ninety-eight percent.
1:49:22 Joe Rogan? Yeah.
1:49:23 Speaker 01 That do care.
1:49:24 Joe Rogan? Yeah.
1:49:25 Speaker 01 That do feel empathy, that do.
1:49:27 Joe Rogan? And that is the problem with the algorithm. That's the problem with social media and that's the problem with this addiction to devices that you are constantly being inundated with the negative.
1:49:38 Speaker 01 Yeah.
1:49:38 Joe Rogan? You're constantly interacting with the worst aspects of life on earth and not appreciating all the good that's around you all the time.
1:49:45 Speaker 01 That's right, yeah, and the algorithm, Joe, like you brought up so eloquently, it takes you down the path that you click towards.
1:49:56 Joe Rogan? Mm hmm.
1:49:56 Speaker 01 You know, and I recall intentionally starting to click things outside of my comfort zone and follow thinkers and presenters not within my bubble. And that's what it starts filling with.
1:50:10 Joe Rogan? Yeah.
1:50:10 Speaker 01 As well.
1:50:11 Joe Rogan? Oh yeah, you certainly can do that if you curate a good feed. You know, and you can ignore the negative and there's a lot of great stuff. One of the great things about social media is just the access to new and fascinating information. You're constantly. If you do follow the right people and do go down the right roads, you'll be constantly inundated with fascinating information.
1:50:34 Speaker 01 That's right.
1:50:34 Joe Rogan? New discoveries, the James Webb Telescope, and the new things that people are learning about quantum physics, and all these different fascinating things that can enrich your mind.
1:50:44 Speaker 01 Right.
1:50:44 Joe Rogan? And expand your understanding of the world that we live in. Instead of dwelling on all the negative aspects of human civilization.
1:50:54 Speaker 01 Right, right, and that kind of speaks to the fact that we are lucky to be able to have access to social media in that way.
1:51:01 Joe Rogan? Yeah.
1:51:01 Speaker 01 There's nations that don't allow that type of access.
1:51:04 Joe Rogan? Right.
1:51:05 Speaker 01 By design.
1:51:05 Joe Rogan? Yeah.
1:51:06 Speaker 01 Right, so the power, the power of our method is liberty and freedom.
1:51:10 Joe Rogan? Yes.
1:51:11 Speaker 01 Right, not criminalization and prohibition.
1:51:14 Joe Rogan? Right.
1:51:14 Speaker 01 You see the jump I'm trying to make there?
1:51:16 Joe Rogan? And the jump also is what you were talking about before with education. And I think we need an education too with people in social media use. People need to be kind of coached and understand how to use it, how to use it correctly.
1:51:29 Speaker 01 Right.
1:51:30 Joe Rogan? And, you know, I've been trying to express to as many people as I can, especially people in the public eye, don't read comments. You gotta stop doing that. Just don't read things about you. Don't read negative things about you. It's bad for you.
1:51:43 Speaker 01 Yeah.
1:51:44 Joe Rogan? It's bad for you, and also you're dealing with the percentage of people that are commenting negative things. Those people almost entirely live lives that you would not envy.
1:51:55 Speaker 01 Nicely said.
1:51:56 Joe Rogan? They're almost all a mess.
1:51:57 Speaker 01 That's right.
1:51:58 Joe Rogan? And so you're interacting with the, I don't wanna say the worst aspects of society, but the most troubled human beings. The people that are thinking in the most ridiculous way. They're constantly focusing on negative aspects of either human beings or of society in general. And they're feeding off of it. And that's their focus all day long. And they spend most of their time arguing with people online.
1:52:24 Speaker 01 Yeah.
1:52:25 Joe Rogan? Like, do you wanna be involved in that? Like, that is, when we live in what is primarily a beautiful world.
1:52:31 Speaker 01 Nicely said, yeah, and I think you're pointing at something that's important to keep in mind, is be careful about what you let in.
1:52:38 Joe Rogan? Yes.
1:52:39 Speaker 01 Right?
1:52:39 Joe Rogan? Yeah.
1:52:40 Speaker 01 I think that's like, that's a universal principle, but it's eloquently shared in Buddhism, where they say, guard your Dharma gates. Right? Your eyes, your ears, you know, your mind. Right? Your senses. What are you taking in?
1:52:54 Joe Rogan? Yes.
1:52:54 Speaker 01 Um, cause you know, there's other philosophies that say thoughts are things. Be careful what you think.
1:53:00 Joe Rogan? Hmm.
1:53:01 Speaker 01 You know?
1:53:01 Joe Rogan? Yeah.
1:53:02 Speaker 01 And I've, I've come to notice, um, let's call it the CBT triangle, cognitive behavioral therapy or theory triangle, right? Thoughts lead to emotions, lead to actions.
1:53:14 Joe Rogan? Hmm.
1:53:14 Speaker 01 Right? Because of psychedelic work, I've able to see how a thought actually is a portal that allows a certain energetic flow into you and that affects you and that can manifest in reality out of you.
1:53:29 Joe Rogan? As a therapist, how have you incorporated this in everyday life?
1:53:35 Speaker 01 Okay.
1:53:35 Joe Rogan? With your patients?
1:53:36 Speaker 01 Two things come to mind when you ask that question. It's made me more empathetic, cause I've had direct access, direct experience of some of these theories you read about or have a teacher as the expert tell you about. I've had direct access to. The second is I'm able to share with people when they come to me being pulled towards experiencing these things, ideas around harm reduction, where to go, right? There's legal states, there's less legal states. I can talk to them about the substances, right? I'm not prescribing, but if you come to talk to me, I can listen.
1:54:17 Joe Rogan? Yeah.
1:54:18 Speaker 01 See what I'm saying?
1:54:19 Joe Rogan? Yeah.
1:54:19 Speaker 01 And I know from direct experience, some things.
1:54:24 Joe Rogan? Right.
1:54:25 Speaker 01 Right? I'm also able to fight off fear and I can go into these territories with people. Therapy, uh, therapists need to know that themselves. Um, you don't wanna step outside of what you're, the lanes that you're comfortable being in, right? If you're not comfortable being in a certain lane, you gotta go get training, training and experience to be an ethical practitioner before you talk about something, right? And I've gotten that experience. It's never ending. I'm not done. I'm just in my process of awakening.
1:54:54 Joe Rogan? Right.
1:54:54 Speaker 01 And I can share from that reference point. You know, as a therapist, that was your question.
1:54:59 Joe Rogan? Right.
1:55:00 Speaker 01 Right, that's how I think I can help people. I'm more empathetic. You come in and wanna talk to me about a particular substance, I have a little bit of a lived experience, knowledge base I can share with you. And legally, I'm allowed to talk harm reduction.
1:55:15 Joe Rogan? Yeah.
1:55:15 Speaker 01 Right, I can't prescribe. I'm not gonna tell you to do something illegal.
1:55:19 Joe Rogan? Right.
1:55:19 Speaker 01 But if you wanna talk to me about it, I know a thing or two.
1:55:23 Joe Rogan? Hmm.
1:55:23 Speaker 01 Not everything. Just a thing or two.
1:55:25 Joe Rogan? I think one of the best arguments against decriminalization is what happened with Portland.
1:55:32 Speaker 01 Okay.
1:55:32 Joe Rogan? So, you know, they went down this path. It was Portland, right? It wasn't Seattle. They went down this path of pure legalization.
1:55:40 Speaker 01 Oregon, everything.
1:55:42 Joe Rogan? Yeah.
1:55:42 Speaker 01 Decriminalized everything.
1:55:43 Joe Rogan? And it went sideways.
1:55:46 Speaker 01 Hmm.
1:55:46 Joe Rogan? And I think it was probably because the culture that had already been firmly established in that place condoned open-air drug markets, people that were addicted to fentanyl and opiates out on the street, and methamphetamines out on the street, using them constantly, no education, and then they just sort of opened the doors for everything, and then people went there specifically because they could do these things.
1:56:15 Speaker 01 And be that on the streets.
1:56:17 Joe Rogan? And also be subsidized.
1:56:19 Speaker 01 Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So, let me bring some, uh, some things up about that. Um, so, you know, I believe in decriminalization. But there's a right and a not-so-right way to do something, right? And I'm gonna use examples of laws we already have on the book. This might not be a popular statement, but it's my truth. If you say you're gonna decriminalize, you can look at the way we handle alcohol. We don't allow public drunkenness. We don't have to allow it. A lot of places say you can't walk around and be inebriated and open-bottle drink. Even the most liberal places, right? A cop can come up, they can protective custody you into a cage, or they can help you get home, right?
1:57:02 Speaker 01 Why don't those rules apply? If you're in public, we can say, we're not gonna want you to use openly in public.
1:57:13 Joe Rogan? Right.
1:57:14 Speaker 01 You know?
1:57:14 Joe Rogan? But when you've already got people openly camping out on the streets and littering everywhere and like what they've already allowed, unfortunately, they need to clean that up first before they can say, we're gonna decriminalize everything. Because you've already allowed people to do something that, you know, publicly is frowned upon. To just like be shitting on the street and to, you know, open drug use everywhere.
1:57:41 Speaker 01 Right.
1:57:41 Joe Rogan? Have people camped out, homeless people like covering up sidewalks where you can't get around. And there's needles everywhere and it's like garbage everywhere.
1:57:49 Speaker 01 Well, we can agree that we don't want that. And in many places, like there's local ordinances against that. There's state level laws against that. And we can go all the way up.
1:57:59 Joe Rogan? Right, but they're not doing anything about that.
1:58:02 Speaker 01 Well, that's the thing we can analyze.
1:58:03 Joe Rogan? Yeah.
1:58:04 Speaker 01 Um, why, why wasn't the funding in place to ensure that public areas with public access followed some rules? Why? What happened? You know? I think that can be figured out.
1:58:18 Joe Rogan? Yeah.
1:58:19 Speaker 01 Right? So, we, we realized that if we say, full-scale decriminalization, anything goes, doesn't work. I would've told you right from the beginning, well, that's kind of freaky. Why are we going that far? Why don't we have any funding to help people and tell them, no, you can't take a shit over there?
1:58:36 Joe Rogan? Right.
1:58:37 Speaker 01 You have to take a shit over here. We can all agree, we don't want human feces over here.
1:58:42 Joe Rogan? Right.
1:58:43 Speaker 01 Right? That, that, that's not a shot against that person. We gotta figure out what's going on, why are they pooping over there and not in the porta potty over here? Or how about have a location where those people can go that isn't a prison?
1:58:54 Joe Rogan? Right.
1:58:55 Speaker 01 Where we have wraparound services. Where we have maybe access to what they need. Maybe access to what they're addicted to. Right, now we're starting to talk about safe supply with care and medical intervention.
1:59:09 Joe Rogan? Yeah, there's no one's ever done that successfully, though, right? Like, has any state ever incorporated some sort of successful program where they gave people safe supply and then counseling and got like a percentage of them off drugs and healthy?
1:59:25 Speaker 01 So I've heard that Canada's exploring the medical access of medical-grade heroin for certain people. And we know that certain countries, for years at this point, have safe injection facilities where people can come to use their drugs, under care and consideration, and then leave. We know these things work, but they've gotta be curated properly.
1:59:50 Joe Rogan? Yeah, well, you also can't impose it on all the rest of society by allowing people to just camp out everywhere on the streets.
1:59:56 Speaker 01 Well, that's the example that, right? Like, we can have rules, local ordinances that say, "This isn't a campground."
2:00:03 Joe Rogan? Yeah.
2:00:04 Speaker 01 Right?
2:00:04 Joe Rogan? Right.
2:00:05 Speaker 01 And what do you need for this not to be a campground? Let's talk. Come talk in this building over here.
2:00:10 Joe Rogan? Right.
2:00:11 Speaker 01 Right? We can even figure out what kind, I mean, what's that gonna cost? We can figure that out. And why isn't it being funded? Right? And why aren't the police properly funded to act in a guardianship way in those situations? Right?
2:00:31 Joe Rogan? Yeah.
2:00:32 Speaker 01 Because, look, look, our efforts go in the direction that our funding goes, because people build their lives around that. And if funding is 90% on enforcement, then that's what you're gonna get. Right?
2:00:45 Joe Rogan? Right.
2:00:45 Speaker 01 And we talked about the problems and how hurtful defund was. How about properly funding law enforcement to work in a guardianship paradigm for these situations that aren't necessarily criminal, they might be public health? Now you're keeping the cops involved.
2:01:03 Joe Rogan? Right.
2:01:04 Speaker 01 Right? You're not saying we're gonna defund you, we don't need you. We do need you. You play a vital role in our society.
2:01:11 Joe Rogan? But that would require like a fundamental shift to progressive ideology. They'd have to like change the way they view cops.
2:01:18 Speaker 01 Maybe that'll have to be incorporated in drips and drabs and carefully into training. Right?
2:01:24 Joe Rogan? Yeah.
2:01:25 Speaker 01 But I got an example for you.
2:01:26 Joe Rogan? Okay.
2:01:26 Speaker 01 I got an example for you. I think it's really important. It's from where I come. Right? In Winthrop, Massachusetts, Winthrop, Massachusetts, ten years ago, when I was a patrol officer and I kept coming in seeing public health issues in the police logs and police incidents, public health issue, mental health challenge. A person not having access to their psychiatrist, running out of their medicine, overdose save, overdose loss tragically, over and over and over again. I went talked to the police chief. I said, his name's Terrence Delahanti. I said, "Chief, on patrol when I'm in, will you let me make a pile of work? Let's call it cases to investigate, cuz I think I have a detective fetish. I've never been a detective, but I wanted to investigate things too."
2:02:10 Speaker 01 He's like, "Then what are you gonna do with that pile?" I was like, "I'm gonna follow up. In police uniform, patrol car, I'm gonna go knock on a door and have a conversation with somebody. See what they really need to prevent that 911 call for service." He's on record saying he thought I was gonna bang my head up against the wall. He's like, "There's no one's gonna talk to this kid in full uniform." But he was so excited, I had to let him try. Two, three weeks later, I come back. I said, "Chief, I got a problem. People are inviting me into their house, telling me to sit down, calling somebody down who's telling me that they were looking for cocaine, got fentanyl. We have a good problem. I gotta connect these people to their appropriate help." You know what he said to me? He said, "Connect them to the public health department.
2:02:51 Speaker 01 There's a woman in there, her name's Meredith Hurley, and she's brought in people with lived and living experience with challenges related to intoxicating substances, who are open about it, to help with the overdose crisis." Bang.
2:03:08 Speaker 01 Public safety connected with public health. We created what I call the public, uh, the police to public health pipeline. Right?
2:03:19 Speaker 01 Picture this, a cop showing up to your house because they know what's going on in your house. Called 911 and you told us without us even coercing you and saying, Joe, what's going on? What do you need? What do you need to be well? We don't want you to die. Talk to us. We're not going to use it against you. I'm actually not going to run you because I'm playing this distinct role. I'm not going to run you. I don't want to know if there's any outstanding warrants. I'm not here, I'm not here to snoop around to find something that I'm going to be able to charge you with. I'm here to see what you need to not die and not have my detective show up and put you in a cage. That started in Winthrop.
2:04:03 Speaker 01 Over 10 years ago, it's called CLEAR, Community and Law Enforcement Assisted Recovery.
2:04:08 Joe Rogan? Hmm, well, that's hopeful. You just got to expand something like that.
2:04:14 Speaker 01 I think we have room to expand it across the whole country. We are repositories, police departments, are repositories of information on human suffering. You know what we're doing with that? If it's not traditional enforcement-based policing to make cases for court, nothing. That's not right.
2:04:37 Joe Rogan? So it's the way it's approached. It's the way these problems are approached and that they need new solutions. Solutions that are preventative and that enforce the sense of community and help law enforcement officers ingratiate themselves to these people and be a part of the community instead of just being a person who comes to lock them up.
2:05:01 Speaker 01 There it is. You know what that is? That's community policing. We call it recovery-oriented community policing, right? Now let me plug something else in that I think is a sophisticated, important point that people got to keep in mind. This isn't...
2:05:23 Speaker 01 An attack on traditional enforcement type of policing.
2:05:29 Speaker 01 If you are sensitive to human nature, you know there's going to be violations of the type that need somebody to show up and take a person out of their house in cuffs, put them in a jail cell and take them to court. Unfortunately, the dark side is a part of human nature. And that type of policing, done right, is important and it keeps us well. But when it's the only type of policing, we're missing something. We're missing something important and special. And our people are expecting our officers to show up and put a hand out, a hand, a helping hand, and say, "We know what's going on and we want you to be well. We don't want you to die. We don't want you to be in a cage.
2:06:14 Speaker 01 A human being in a cage."
2:06:17 Speaker 01 I think it is fundamentally law enforcement's role to do that.
2:06:23 Speaker 01 This and that.
2:06:26 Joe Rogan? Yeah, well said. That might be a good way to end this.
2:06:31 Joe Rogan? Tell people how they can get ahold of you, social media, like where you are.
2:06:35 Speaker 01 Sure, I appreciate that. Well, they can look up my name, Sarko Gergerian. I'm out of Winthrop, Massachusetts.
2:06:41 Joe Rogan? Spell the last name because they're not going to be able to get that right.
2:06:43 Speaker 01 Sure, it's G E R G E R I A N. I'm out of Winthrop, Massachusetts. I'm a lieutenant with the Winthrop Police Department.
2:06:53 Speaker 01 Joe, let me plug this in. I am here speaking of my own beliefs, sharing about the positives about my community, my department, the safety I found there, but these are my ideas. I'm not purporting to talk on behalf of Winthrop Police, Winthrop, Mass. I just need people to know that. But they can find me online. They can, they can get ahold of me at my work email. I liberally share my personal email and if they send me an email, I'll respond.
2:07:24 Joe Rogan? How do they get your email?
2:07:25 Speaker 01 You know, it's just my last name at gmail dot com. G E R G E R I A N at gmail dot com.
2:07:34 Joe Rogan? Okay, good luck with the amount of emails you're gonna get after this.
2:07:37 Speaker 01 All right, let's do it. Give me some time to get back to you.
2:07:41 Joe Rogan? All right, well, thanks, brother. I appreciate you. I appreciate you, your perspective, the fact that you're willing to express it the way you do and that you're willing to come on here and stick your neck out like this. Means a lot.
2:07:53 Speaker 01 Joe, let me say something back to you, man. This was a really special, special moment for me. I'm not only a colleague of yours, man, I'm a fan. And a number of close, personal friends, one in particular, Billy Reinstein, who I love to death, said, "Tell Joe that he has helped me so tremendously. His show has helped me stay well, be well, be happy." And I wanted to get that message out.
2:08:22 Joe Rogan? That's awesome. Shout out to Billy. All right, all right. Thank you very much. Appreciate it. All right, bye, everybody.
Previous #2356 - Mike Vecchione Next #2358 - Chadd Wright Page updated November 1, 2026 · transcript and summary are machine-generated
