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#322 - Priests on Psychedelic Drugs: The Governments Search for a New God | Dr. Matthew Johnson
03:02:09
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- [00:00]
Matt Johnson
Foreign.
- [00:07]
Danny
Yeah, I want to get to a lot of that stuff. The stories of like taking the. I know there's a huge DARPA grant to take the stuff out of the, out of the psychedelics for soldiers and stuff like this and.
- [00:16]
Matt Johnson
Yeah, Brian Roth's.
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Travis
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [00:18]
Danny
And I want to talk also about the cocaine stuff, but this morning I read that article by Michael Pollen in the New Yorker.
- [00:25]
Matt Johnson
Right, yeah.
- [00:26]
Danny
About the, the spiritual professionals study at Johns Hopkins.
- [00:31]
Matt Johnson
The clergy study. Religious professionals, yeah. Can you. So I'm an author on it.
- [00:35]
Danny
Can you lay out this whole story for us and like how, how it started, who was behind it and then what ended up happening with the whole thing?
- [00:42]
Matt Johnson
Yeah, so the idea is. So we had a history of doing this work that was first published in 2006, 2008, a series of studies looking at, in spiritually interested people, what are the basic effects? So this isn't treating disorders, but what are the effects from just people interested in taking these things spiritually. And this is sort of a follow up to that work. It's also a follow up basically to the old Good Friday study from. Was it 1962, that was conducted at Harvard by Wally Pankey. There was a student of Tim Leary who was his PhD advisor and they were called the Good Friday Study because they were in the basement of the Marsh Chapel in the Boston area and there was a very charismatic speaker, preacher delivering the Good Friday service. And they were the people who were on psilocybin or an active placebo, niacin. They were in the basement listening to the service. And yeah, they found that the people who received psilocybin largely had what we call mystical experiences. They were very spiritual, had the sense of unity and these other aspects of the mystical experience. And some follow up work that Rick Doblin, the head of MAPS, did 25 years later, he did a lot of digging to find most of these people who were in that study. And these were seminary students, I should say. So that's a key there. Those were religious leaders in training. And these people largely said yes, they still valued that experience. Many of them said that it had informed their life in the priesthood or what have you. And so this study had threads from all of that work, our work with spiritually interested non clergy threads, to the Good Friday study that found those subjectively positive effects from those folks. And, and so it was set up like that, you know, like, you know, getting people from different religious faiths. It ended up being, what was it, 21 Christians and five rabbis and one Muslim. Iman and one Buddhist. I think that's what it, yeah, it turned out to be in terms of so mostly Christian. So.
- [03:01]
Danny
So who, who was behind the initial idea and to, to get this study done and get it funded and start like who. Who was behind the start of it?
- [03:11]
Matt Johnson
So the initial idea was really a convergence of a number of people who had interest. Bill Richards at Hopkins, Tony Bassis at nyu, Roland Griffiths, myself. I thought it was a very interesting study. So really I think all of the investigators had an interest in it and there were funders that were interested in the effects. Now a lot of stuff ended up happening over the course of the conduct of the study that sort of became controversial and I wasn't aware of all of it. I was aware of some of it during the course of the study, but that's kind of what the, some of the, some of what Michael Pollan wrote about. That's what it was all about. Things like funders working on the studies. I knew that I advised against it but I wasn't the so called PI, the principal investigator.
- [04:04]
Danny
So funders, people that were funding the study were coming in and participating in some of the.
- [04:09]
Matt Johnson
Yeah, not as patients but as a therapeutic like role, a so called session guide and in doing interviews with people at the, at the end of the study, doing qualitative analysis for interviews. And so what I didn't know is that some of this wasn't even reported to the review board. That you know, there was someone on there who a, who was functioning as a study team member who wasn't listed on the IRV protocol, a funder and the funding relationship hadn't been revealed to the irb. And this was in the context of that individual who I don't think did anything wrong. It's not their job to scope out these roles as a non academic and you know, not a faculty at, at, at the, at the medical schools. But NYU did the right thing and asked their review whoa, can they participate in helping to run the study and they said no. Well, she ended up doing that at Hopkins and apparently as we know now, it wasn't. Not only was that relationship not reported, but they weren't included, even listed as someone working on the study.
- [05:28]
Danny
Oh wow.
- [05:29]
Matt Johnson
And then there were other things there was in Travis. I know you've talked to him about this. I forget the degree that you focus on this in your interview, but Travis has written about and others the relationship. The. Some of the funders subsequently funded some of the participants in the study to start organizations to focus on psychedelics in religion to sort of kindle interest in this area of psychedelics and in their various, you know, faiths. And so, and then there was a retreat that some of the scientists had a role in. But I did, I was completely unaware of after the study to get the participants together to presumably look at paths forward about the implications going forward. So there were some, I mean, so some of the concern was related to it ended up appearing looking more like a mission with the goal in mind to introduce psychedelics to kindle this interest in religious practice sort of more explicitly rather than having just, you know, this scientific question. And so I think there's good science there and that's why I remained an author on the paper. And that's, you know, I don't like being in these situations where I mean, if it reaches a certain level where I think, well, we can't trust the science, I wouldn't want to be an author.
- [07:08]
Danny
Sure.
- [07:08]
Matt Johnson
On the paper. And other situations like that came up with, for example the cancer study where I caught wind and then investigated, for example, a participant who in an interview with the principal investigator they describe their experience. But then on the questionnaire ranking how meaningful this was in your life, they gave a certain rating. And then a discussion with the principal investigator. Oh, well, it sounded like your description was more impressive than that. Are you sure you don't want to change your rating?
- [07:40]
Danny
Oh, interesting.
- [07:41]
Matt Johnson
And they change. And I, I prompted, you know, hey, like concerned about that because have we ever done the opposite we ever said, right, your rating looks more impressive than what I heard. Like probably not. And so that was in that say that was the one case I was aware of and was told, well, it would be reassess obsessed with the participant which I never got confirmation of. But again, if it had reached a certain threshold, you know, I would have, you know, made a formal, you know, issue out of it, but didn't rise to that level. And the reason I that some of this is disappointing is this is something you don't need to fluff up, you know, in the right context. I mean I'm convinced from not just data but from the now hundreds of participants that I've talked to, you know, a good number of which I've been in the room with them in this so called guide role.
- [08:38]
Danny
But what was the drug administered?
- [08:40]
Matt Johnson
That was psilocybin and all, everything I've mentioned so far. And so, you know, why risk, you know, muddying the waters with this type of thing?
- [08:52]
Danny
Hey guys, if you're not already subscribed, please hammer the subscribe Button below and hit the like button on the video.
- [08:57]
Matt Johnson
Back to the show when there's a. To me it looks like there's a real effect there. In other words, that yes, many people have what they claim to be very meaningful experiences that they hold in a spiritual light and that they report, you know, positive long term effects on their life and well being. But I'm also concerned that in some of the studies have we really looked at the negative. So there was sort of an explicit rejection of things like assessing the credibility of the blind, which is to say simply asking the person afterwards do you think you got the drug or the placebo in the sense that you're going to get an answer that could be used as ammunition because most people do correctly identify it, but we want more data than not. And you could do things statistically to, at least imperfectly to. Once you have the data, you could look at in regressions for example, how much that might have accounted for some of the positive results. But then other things like simply asking people at their long term follow ups, have you used psychedelics again? And sometimes, and certainly not normative, but sometimes someone's introduced to a psychedelic in one of these studies and they get really into it. I've even seen cases where they become a neo shaman and are doing these things more on a regular basis. Again with the concern that oh, this could be used as ammunition against this research. But I just think one that's not right. But even strategically, look, if these things are approved by the fda, we want to know what the outcomes are going to be. Something could be on the market and it could get. Plenty of drugs are pulled from the market after they're approved. So it's not just like once one of these things like psilocybin or MDMA were approved then oh, we've achieved the result. The world's going to be a better place. You're going to get some of these effects like you're gonna, you know, you are gonna kindle some interest in. My impression is that it's not, you know, that it's a small minority, but you're gonna introduce psychedelics to people who are using in whatever you want to call it, unsupervised, whatever. Yeah, someone school score some mushrooms, they go hiking with it, this type of thing, you know, and, and then there's questions about that. Not all, most of that is not going to be harmful as we know, you know, most people that use psychedelics aren't harmed by it, but some are. But we just have to understand the full Landscape the good, the bad, the ugly. And we shouldn't be afraid to kind of. We shouldn't be operating under a context in which we are. Just had this mission in mind to kind of mainstream psychedelics no matter what.
- [11:48]
Steve
Right.
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Matt Johnson
Because one, it's not. It's not right. And two, just even if that was your goal to mainstream, like, it's going to back fire. Like the best policy is transparency and, you know, learning as much you can, including about the dark side. There's plenty of dark side with these compounds which, you know.
- [12:07]
Danny
What, what is the dark side?
- [12:09]
Matt Johnson
Well, I mean, more at the superficial level. Yeah, the bad trip is a very real thing. I've been in the room with plenty of people, like having a real existential, you know, cri. You know, I'm sure I'm not, you know, telling you anything you don't know, but like your soul's being shredded, you've gone permanently insane. You're never going to come out. And in a safe environment, when you've prepared the person as much as possible and you're at, you know, when need be, holding their hand through the experience and keeping them safe, yeah, the effects subside and you can keep them safe. But you know, out in the wild, sometimes that leads to dangerous effects. I mean, pretty rare, but sometimes people freak out and, you know, they run across the street, get hit by a car. And even though there's. It was definitely overplayed in the 60s with some of the propaganda, but there have been cases where people have been so far out there, it really appears that they thought they could fly, you know, and we don't know how common that is, but it has happened. And anyone with enough experience or who's been around enough people with psychedelics, they should know that at least sometimes some crazy stuff like that can happen. That's how powerful these drugs are. And I always kind of think people should take Bill Hicks rule. I don't know if you remember it like, if you think you can fly in psychedelics, just test that on the ground, not on the fifth floor. But there are some interesting cases in the popular press where that looks pretty. You never, of course, know what's going exactly through someone's mind, but someone take one of the colleges in Boston. I remember a story might have been in Rolling Stone years and years ago, but some kid that just goes to the big university library with this, you know, I don't know how many floors it was, but this big kind of atrium where you could. And just sort of took a swan dive, right? Seemingly Jesus. And there was a case at Hopkins where someone. And I saw the video. I wasn't in the room, but I saw the video where someone tried to jump through the painting on the wall. And my kind of take from that. And it looked like from the video that this person. Again, you don't know what's in their head, but it looked pretty credible that it seemed like this person was expecting to go through the painting into another dimension. I don't know. And they were fine, had a little bump in their head. It was reported, but even that. I've conveyed that before on. I think it was on the Huberman podcast and got some pushback from. Oh, that's going to scare people. That's. It's the truth. If you treat a few hundred people with this, every once in a while, you're going to get something like that.
- [14:54]
Steve
Sure.
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Matt Johnson
And. And thankfully, that wasn't. And who knows, maybe they wouldn't had it been a window. But it is, you know, cautionary tale. It's like, oh, that's a good reason not to do this on the 8th floor with an. A wide open window. You know, that's kind of a bad idea. And I've even heard.
- [15:11]
Danny
Yeah, it's like, if it's your first time surfing, you shouldn't go surf Pipeline the first time.
- [15:16]
Matt Johnson
Right.
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Danny
It's just like. It's not like with anything.
- [15:18]
Matt Johnson
Right, right. And there's. I've heard stories in, like, say, Oregon, and I went to college in eastern Oregon. My first thought with the Oregon psilocybin program was, oh, that's some of the natural beauty out there. That must be incredible. And then the second thought is like, oh, there's some mountains there, and I hope folks are right.
- [15:36]
Steve
Right.
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Matt Johnson
But a story of someone just being kind of too close to the. I don't. It wasn't that they, you know, thought they could fly or anything, but the story heard was that they kind of almost fell off the edge because they were just intoxicated, which happens all the time with any intoxicating drug.
- [15:51]
Steve
Right.
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Matt Johnson
You just got to be careful if you're impaired on something.
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Travis
Yeah.
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Danny
So when it comes to that John Hopkins study, what was the ultimate question of. Of truck. What was the connection that you hope to find between all of these different people of different faiths?
- [16:08]
Matt Johnson
So the real. And there's really a number. It wasn't one singular question, but generally the primary questions related to were, are they going to have experiences like, have been seen in these other. Either the healthy, normal, spiritually interested populations or in the people seeking treatment for depression or addiction, cancer, distress, Are you going to have the same type of spiritual experiences, including mystical experience? Are those experiences going to be similar even in these religious professionals? And then again, like those other populations, are there going to be long term positive attributions? And for this population that takes on an additional flavor of oh, you know, what kind of impact did that have on your work as a priest, rabbi, et cetera. And so to me that. Now those are very interesting questions. I always thought that it seemed very likely it would, it would be. One thing we had to keep in mind is that, you know, you can't randomly plug people off the street. So some, a religious professional willing to be in an experimental study of a psychedelic, they have to be somewhat open minded to that with a focus on explicitly even in the advertisement referring to sacred experiences. And so this is not a random sample. So a religious professional willing to do this. It'd probably be different if it was a random sample, which is not ethically possible. Again, you can't force someone to do this, but it'd be funny if you.
- [17:45]
Danny
Could force them to do it.
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Matt Johnson
Yeah, it would be an interesting experiment. My guess would be you'd get much lower rates of people. And anecdotally there are some stories from the 60s where there were skeptical religious professors who tried it and some of which said no, this is a false. Like what. And there's people, I mean Buddhist and Christians and stories of this.
- [18:03]
Danny
I wonder if there's any Catholic priests who've been locked up that we can do it tested on like prisoners against their will.
- [18:10]
Matt Johnson
You know, I wouldn't want to, you know, I wouldn't want to dose anyone without their, it wouldn't hurt them.
- [18:16]
Danny
You know, they be, they'd be safe, they'd be in a safe environment. But it'd be, it'd be, would be really interesting to see. Like, I'm not saying like whatever your ethics and morals are, to do it to somebody against their will, you know, knowing they're not going to be harmed.
- [18:28]
Matt Johnson
And there were some studies done like that at the, I mean column studies, whatever, but the CIA did plenty of.
- [18:34]
Danny
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [18:35]
Matt Johnson
And, and you tend to get people thinking they're going crazy, having extremely dysphoric, in other words, people hating it experiences not highly valuing it.
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Danny
Wasn't Ted Kaczynski one of those at Harvard? Or was. Did he know about that? Did he know about it?
- [18:51]
Matt Johnson
I don't know.
- [18:52]
Danny
I don't remember what he was given.
- [18:53]
Matt Johnson
I don't Know that story in depth. But I believe you're right. That one. And I don't think this was Leary, but someone el another project. But that he. Yeah. Was.
- [19:03]
Danny
Do you find out who drugged Ted Kaczynski and what drugs he was given?
- [19:07]
Matt Johnson
But there were certainly plenty that the CIA was doing, both through money funded into universities, but also just. I mean, in one classic example, I think it was called Project Midnight Climax. Oh, yeah, yeah. Sex worker. And then the. The client, you know, with. He was dosed. And then they're watching behind a mirror. Yeah. Like, just imagine these freaks watching.
- [19:32]
Danny
You know, the Johns, they gave the john's drugs, and then they would put them in a room behind a glass mirror and see how they would. Well, you know, what kind of secrets they would tell them. Right. Ted Kaczynski expressed concerns about the use of drugs like LSD in psychological experiments. Specifically, it was noted that Kaczynski was the subject of a psychological experiment involving LSD at Harvard under supervision of Henry Murray.
- [19:54]
Matt Johnson
Right. I knew it wasn't yet.
- [19:55]
Danny
Okay.
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Matt Johnson
It wasn't leery.
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Danny
Interesting. Imagine a society. The subject subjects people to conditions that make them terribly unhappy and even gives them the drugs to take away their unhappiness. What?
- [20:10]
Matt Johnson
Huh. And so there's. I mean, I'm. I'm really interested in the Charles Manson case. And.
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Travis
Yeah.
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Matt Johnson
Psychedelics played a. What appeared to me a big role there. And. And you're probably familiar with the book Chaos. Yeah. And seems highly suggestive that there was a whole lot of connections with the CIA there, whether they were allowing him or whether he was a direct agent. I'm guessing probably not, but that he was. They were kind of letting him do his thing and sort of. Kind of using him as a naturalist experiment to see how a charismatic figure could use this.
- [20:49]
Travis
Yeah.
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Danny
Well, it's interesting that Haight Ashbury Clinic, they were doing research on LSD and amphetamines both simultaneously.
- [20:59]
Matt Johnson
I know amphetamines really did that whole scene. It. It shifted from LSD to. It to amphetamines, methamphetamine. And that just kind of. Just kind of ruined the whole scene.
- [21:09]
Travis
Yeah.
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Danny
And. And Jolly west was a huge part of that, and he's a fascinating figure. I don't know how much you've looked into Jolly West.
- [21:16]
Matt Johnson
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I have.
- [21:19]
Danny
But, yeah, he's. He's been. Had his hands in so much during the Cold War, you know, especially, like, if you want to talk about, like, Jack Ruby, when he went to prison, was visited by Jolly west and then went Insane like that went insane automatic. And then there's a crazy. In Errol Morris's documentary on the Chaos book, he has a clip of Jolly west walking out of his prison cell after and basically talking to the press. We've determined that he is unfit for whatever for like undergoing a trial or anything like that. Like he was. He said basically he was clinically insane.
- [21:53]
Matt Johnson
And it makes. I'm always mindful that what that stuff that the FOIA released, MK Ultra information which was released in it was the mid-70s, might have been 75, but it was really outlined in the classic Leon Shlane's Acid Dreams book which was the first kind of like public dumping of that information and making the details known. What I'm always mindful of is that there was a lot that disappeared. Oh yeah, files. And even amongst what was released a lot of blacked out. And you're like okay, the stuff we learned about Hypothesize is the lightweight stuff.
- [22:28]
Danny
Yes, exactly. I mean they burned.
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Matt Johnson
There was nothing.
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Travis
Yeah.
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Matt Johnson
That was beyond like 1960s and 50s like CIA. I mean every. I mean they were at. There was basically at war with Kennedy completely trying to like.
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Travis
Yeah.
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Matt Johnson
Subvert his policy in Vietnam and Laos and just. And. And then the stuff with Cuba where.
- [22:53]
Travis
Yeah.
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Matt Johnson
Where his brother was like. Basically the CIA was funding the mafia to. And the Justice Department under his brother. They were basically at war, you know with like they were trying to stop these attacks by the Cuban exile Mafia funded folks attacking Cuba and then yeah. The Bay of Pigs and just whether it's with psychedelics or with Kennedy's policy and just. It's humbling what the. You know a lot of that's in the realm of like people just think like that's not possible. Like that's so beyond the pale, it's so unspeakable that it's just hard to believe that you don't want to believe it. I think in just, you know, like did the CIA have a hand in killing Kennedy? I think and I don't think we're ever going to have the smoking gun. I think there's a lot of very interesting suggestive evidence pointing in that direction. But you know, I think that is for a lot of people it's just. It's hard to come to that point to think like my God, they're a part of the government may have like actually killed our President. Like that just.
- [24:15]
Travis
Yeah.
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Matt Johnson
I think that there's something very, very deep and psychological where it's hard to come to grips with that even when there's some evidence pointing to it.
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Travis
Yeah.
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Matt Johnson
And it. Once you kind of like for certain things like the MK Ultra program included, you start to have a very, a more open mind.
- [24:38]
Danny
No. Can you imagine being teleported back to 1959 and being a chemist contracted by the CIA with a blank check and being allowed to do whatever the you want or even being told to do things that you might think are not moral or maybe against your ideals. But you know, this is for national security. You can, we're going to do this crazy and there, there's no consequences for any of it and you have unlimited money.
- [25:07]
Matt Johnson
And I could speak as a professional scientist for decades that just the funding alone, like, you know, everyone's desperate for funding to do the work and then, I mean back then, I mean this. Human subjects protections just were in their infancy anyway. But nonetheless the idea that like you could just. It was a wild west, you could do whatever. Oh, you're interested in like brainwashing people? Yeah, like. Oh, you get to try that. And if you don't have a moral compass and, and, and if you add to that, hey, this is actually for the country as part of this fight against global communism, like the, the fate of humanity is literally at stake here. So you add that as the backdrop and you get this really strong ends justifies the means mentality that could, I'm sure, nudge people. I'm sure if you. Well my strong guess is if you ask someone like Charlie west if you resurrected him and you know, they'd say yeah, well, yeah, this is dirty stuff. But like welcome to the dirty world where it's like did you want the Soviets taking over the planet?
- [26:19]
Steve
Right.
- [26:19]
Danny
And the, and the CIA knows how to contract people or, or recruit people who are on that sociopath, empathic spectrum.
- [26:28]
Matt Johnson
And I think they look for those people.
- [26:30]
Danny
Of course they do.
- [26:30]
Matt Johnson
Yeah. Right.
- [26:31]
Danny
That's why they do all those extensive interview, that huge, extensive interview process with those people.
- [26:35]
Matt Johnson
And with certain people, I think they pick wacky people that they could just easily discredit afterwards. If they're already into whatever, any number of things, then they could totally.
- [26:47]
Danny
Right about that. Yeah, I think you're on a. Yeah, we could, that that's a thread that we could go down a deep rabbit hole. But I don't want to get lost in the weeds. There's a, there was even in. I think it was the early 90s. I don't know if you've heard about this, like the, the most sinister aspect of the, this experimentation that we've been known to do is on the stuff that we did on kids with. There was a program, Steve, we've talked about this before, but there was a program they had where there was a hospital for mentally disabled children and we were injecting them with plutonium.
- [27:20]
Matt Johnson
I'm not familiar with this.
- [27:21]
Danny
And they were trying to understand like the effects on these nuclear materials on human beings. And I think Clinton is the one who shut it down. But this really happened, Steve. I don't know if you can find the name of it or when it was shut down, but we pulled this up many times before and it was only recently shut, like during Clinton's presidency. I think it was shut down.
- [27:40]
Matt Johnson
Yeah. It's the reason, see as you're describing it that's shocking to me because of course we know about Tuskegee and.
- [27:46]
Travis
Yeah.
- [27:48]
Danny
Okay.
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Travis
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [27:50]
Danny
And between 46 and 56. No, that's too early Massachusetts were subject. Children at a school in Massachusetts were subjected to radioactive nutrition experiments sponsored by the Atomic Energy Commission and conducted by researchers from Harvard University and mit. The children were fed Quaker Oats breakfast cereal containing radioactive traces and absorption of plant material and calcium. Parents were not informed that radioactive elements were involved in these tests. Additionally, in a separate experiment, 73 children at the Fernald State School were spoon fed oatmeal that contained radioactive isotopes over, over several years. The children were blah, blah, blah. The parents were never talked about. But there was a, there was a, it was, there was one that was recently shut down.
- [28:40]
Matt Johnson
Couldn't get the follow up of this because like for example, Tuskegee, the plan was to just follow these guys for the next 50 years for the rest of their life. And so maybe it was the following up of these people that Clinton finally. I'm just, I'm just hearing about this. That's just speculation.
- [28:54]
Danny
It could have been the one that, that I read about was a shut down in like the late 80s or early 90s, I think.
- [29:00]
Matt Johnson
Wow. But again, it, it, it gives you humility about.
- [29:04]
Travis
Yeah.
- [29:05]
Matt Johnson
Like there are some dark forces in the world.
- [29:07]
Travis
Yeah.
- [29:08]
Matt Johnson
And when you get into things like psychedelics like, you've got to keep that in mind.
- [29:12]
Danny
Well, we're talking about like MK Ultra, this, the, the declassified stuff that's been confirmed, which is likely just 1% of what was really going on because it's a. They're obviously going to get rid of all of the evidence of the serious sinister stuff that they were working on. And it always makes me wonder, what are they doing now? What kind of stuff is DARPA Doing now, you know, they're publicly funding $40 million to. What's the guy's name again that's doing the psychedelic. Brian Roth. So they're giving him. What is it, like $40 million to take the second. That's. That's public above board. What are they.
- [29:46]
Matt Johnson
What are they doing here? Legit, right? Very respectfully. Nice guy.
- [29:50]
Travis
Yeah.
- [29:50]
Matt Johnson
Good scientist. Yeah.
- [29:52]
Danny
Yeah. I wonder what they're doing that's still black and not. Not revealed to the public. It's. I can only fathom.
- [29:59]
Matt Johnson
Well, you look at other areas like for example, the ufo, you think there's this whole history of like, oh, we shut down all the, you know, blue book and you know, it's done. And then you find out later, oh no. Well, we had this other program then that was revealed like, like the more Maurice Arrow, you know. And so regardless, not to take us down that rabbit Hol just as a demonstration that often there's this. Oh, we've shut it down. No you haven't. And I remember a guy that. What was his name? Jim Ketchum, who had an interesting book released about 20 years ago and he had been a leader at the Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland. The U.S. chemical Warfare Department or agency. I forget the exact name. But they were basically testing a lot of it under the guise of like, we need to test things to know what we're dealing with in defense of the Soviets doing it to us. So you see, I mean, it's the same kind of thing with the COVID Covid. What do you call it? Gain of function. So same, same rationale. It's like we need to do. And there is a rationale there. You know, we need to do the thing that we think the enemy is going to do to us, even in the context of knowing what. How to defend against it. But then of course you can also play offense. I mean it was the same thing with like the start Reagan Star wars program. Oh, nukes in space to knock out the other nukes. But, oh, you could also use those nukes in a first try, you know, so this, you know, these types of like the logic, you know, plays out. So he was doing this chemical. And they were doing stuff as far as I've seen, like ethical work, you know, giving soldiers LSD and all kinds of interesting things. This wasn't as far as I know, part of the CIA, but this is under the Department of the army. And again that I know of, nothing nefarious. But he gave a. He was giving a tour and giving some talks when that Book came out. I forget the name of the book about 15, 20 years ago. But I remember in the conversation him saying that.
- [32:08]
Danny
Leave that up to you. I want to go back to that.
- [32:09]
Matt Johnson
Eventually, he wouldn't be surprised if the. What was it the Russians and the Chechnyan rebels back in. Was it the late 90s? I might have the dates wrong. That he thought that when they had a bunch of kids hostage in a big school or something, but they finally ended it and they came in and there was a siege. And he was a member speculating that there were some of these exotic drugs that they used as part of that. And of course, like the Russians are kind of known for intoxicology. Like, you know, like, you know, all these like exotic, you know, like people have been done in with kind of. Yeah. Poisons and. But. But that, that some of this stuff might have been used. Like, for example, the US army tested on its own soldiers a BZ cloud. So BZ is short for a super long, like, I don't know, like a word that has like 25 characters. I can't remember the full name, but it's. BZ is a super potent, kind of on the level of lsd, but super potent analog of the, of the class of drugs like scopolamine.
- [33:23]
Danny
Oh, wow.
- [33:24]
Matt Johnson
And atropine. So the anticholinergics, which Sasha Shulgin, I remember saying, he's the psychedelic chemist that developed hundreds of psychedelic compounds. But he said, you know, those anticholinergics were the true hallucinogens. You know, the, the classic psychedelics like LSD and psilocybin aren't really hallucinogens because people rarely truly hallucinate, but on the anticholinergics they do. So the US army was testing and like it had an aerosolized bomb. So you drop this on the battlefield, this is the idea. And you're. Instead of having to. And there's a rationale here, you know, like rubber bullets, like instead of killing me, just make them into delirious.
- [34:06]
Danny
Like everybody trip their balls off.
- [34:08]
Matt Johnson
Right. And especially with that drug class where it's not like people are having mystical insights, they're just like zombies, like out of it. Like scopolamine. In Colombia, that people call it the zombie drug because there's this take. American tourists drop it in their drink. And actually met one of these guys at Danish, he had his laptop stolen. They apparently spiked his drink. And they approached him outside of the bar, whatever, and they said, oh, is your hotel here? Yeah, it's right. You Know, go get your laptop. Okay. And he goes, he got his laptop and just like, handed it off to these guys. He was just in the zombie, like, state. So that's the side. You know, he was a good friend of a good friend of mine. And it was a very credible story and consistent with what we know about the drug class. So, anyway, another type of wild thing. But, but. But the reason I brought that up is because Kitchen, you know, believes some of this. You know, a lot of this work continued, at least in other countries. Who knows about the United States.
- [35:08]
Steve
Right.
- [35:08]
Matt Johnson
Probably, you know, this experimental warfare stuff with these drugs, you know, probably hasn't stopped.
- [35:16]
Danny
No, no. Especially with a government like ours who has unlimited amounts of money that they're spending on warfare stuff and technology for warfare. Like, that's. That's the biggest bucket. Bucket of money that m. I mean, there's $21 million missing from the freaking Pentagon, from the DOD, like, they're going to spend their money on. We've been spending money on drugs since the beginning, since after the World War II, figuring out how to win wars and how to maintain dominance in the world.
- [35:44]
Matt Johnson
Yeah.
- [35:44]
Danny
So the idea that we're not doing that now is naive and, you know, just, you know, going back to that DARPA stuff, I wonder, you know, where that could possibly go or where it's going. And if we're. We'll probably. We'll never find out. But the idea of. The idea which I think Travis alluded of creating, not just psychedelics that can treat things like PTSD or get people back in the state where they can actually get back out in the battlefield, but making more badass soldiers with psychedelics is a crazy idea. Like making people that can have better edge detection or kill more people or make them more productive in combat. That's a crazy idea to me.
- [36:35]
Matt Johnson
Yeah. Well, and we already know that we use drugs all the time for these things, like amphetamine.
- [36:40]
Steve
Right.
- [36:41]
Matt Johnson
Drugs like amphetamine itself. The amphetamine is used the go pills, like, and it. It makes sense. And they can kind of hand them out, like, you know, and. And I'm not disagreeing with it, but, like, you know, that's what the. That's what they need the pilots to go up on a sortie and like, they need to be on. And it's. They haven't slept in 20 hours. And it's like, yeah, like, these are. Perform. It works.
- [37:04]
Danny
There's a drug that Joe Rogan used to talk about on his podcast that I think he said that he used to Take. That was a drug that fighter pilots ate.
- [37:13]
Matt Johnson
God, what was it? Modafinil?
- [37:15]
Danny
No, it wasn't that. It was something, I forget what it was, but it was a stimulant. It was a stimulant pill that he would take that. He said that fighter pilots took it. And he's talked about it. He used to talk about it years ago. I haven't heard him talk about it.
- [37:29]
Matt Johnson
I'd be interested.
- [37:30]
Danny
Yeah, I'd have to, I'd have to find out what that was. Steve, maybe you can, maybe you can do some searching. Oh, by the way, here is Steve found what I was talking about with Clinton. It was in 1996. The US federal government agreed to pay 4.8 million as compensation for injecting 12 people with radioactive materials in a recent Cold War experiment. So the, so it was a settlement to make amends for the unethical experiments conducted by the government doctors and scientists.
- [37:52]
Matt Johnson
So there's two sides of this story.
- [37:53]
Danny
There's that and yes, those experiments for between 44 and 74. And then I, I got more information.
- [38:00]
Matt Johnson
Here specifically on what you were talking.
- [38:02]
Danny
About, which includes these experiments directing plutonium and other radioactive elements directly into patients. Some of these were kids that didn't know about it.
- [38:12]
Steve
Right?
- [38:13]
Danny
Yeah, a five year old. Jesus.
- [38:14]
Matt Johnson
Pregnant women. God. I mean, levels of depravity that I guess it's hard to wrap your head around. Like, but history tells us time and time again, like, like there's kind of no bottom to the pit of hell. Like, I mean, you know, well, the human animal is capable of anything.
- [38:38]
Danny
Yes, the way I think, the way they think about it though, which is the way every country has to think about this kind of stuff is what's worse, Are we willing to do this terrible thing to save something way worse from happening?
- [38:51]
Matt Johnson
Right, right. Which I get. I'm not saying I agree. And a lot of this is going to depend on. I'm glad we have an intelligence, you know, the intelligence age. You know, a country needs to, I mean the original mission was like collect intelligence to inform the President and before it kind of devolved into their own agenda that the president sometimes doesn't even know about. But you know, it's going to come down to these. And, and yeah, we need secrecy. You can't have everything being public. But the government obviously way overdoes secrecy and confidentiality and they have every incentive to do that. So it comes down to the nuances of like ultimately it took human beings to do this and, and just like the, I mean the torture stuff in Abu Ghraib and enhanced interrogation. I think we're still coming out of this amnesia where it's like we didn't want to admit at the. It's hard for the American, the average American, like we were involved with straight up torture stuff that we had executed people for, like waterboarding.
- [39:59]
Steve
Right.
- [39:59]
Danny
And we tortured also innocent people.
- [40:01]
Matt Johnson
Yeah. Because with anything there's going to be false positives. And it's one of any number of reasons why you shouldn't torture people. Even if you were 100% accurate, you shouldn't do it. It, it's like not, not right, it's not, it, it's not, it doesn't work. But also like, yeah, you're going to have some poor, poor dudes that are just caught up and yeah, I mean, worse than death.
- [40:28]
Steve
Right?
- [40:28]
Matt Johnson
I mean people being tortured. But yeah, we're capable of all of this.
- [40:35]
Danny
We've always associated chocolate with weight gain, but did you know it's actually shown to be helpful with weight loss? Studies show that cocoa flavanols, the active compounds in high quality co support fat metabolism, improve insulin sensitivity and even help reduce abdominal fat. But you'd have to eat so much chocolate to get those benefits that the sugar and calories would cancel them out or worse, lead to weight gain. Not to mention the heavy metals like lead and cadmium found in many cocoa products. This is why I drink morning being by verso. It's a rich chocolate blend with all the benefits of cocoa and none of the junk. Every batch is third party tested for heavy metals, so you know you're getting pure high flavanol cocoa you can actually feel good about. Instead of caffeine, it uses theobromine, a natural compound in cocoa that delivers all day energy without overstimulating your nervous system. Plus its ingredients are shown to support muscle growth and performance, improve metabolism and provide micronutrients from superfoods and electrolytes to rehydrate and fuel your body. So yes, chocolate can help you reduce fat, just not in candy bar form. Since I've started taking morning being, I've turned my morning ritual into something that supports my energy, my metabolism and my goals. So if you're looking to improve your health with something that's actually backed by research, click the link below or head on over to ver. So slash Danny and use my code Danny to get 15% off your first order. Again, that's V E R. So slash Danny and use the code D A N N y to get 15% off your first order. Provigil is the name of that drug.
- [42:04]
Matt Johnson
Oh, that's. It is Modafinil. Oh, that's a trade name for modafinil.
- [42:07]
Danny
Oh, really?
- [42:08]
Matt Johnson
Which is an insect stimulant. So it's in the general. It's chemically not the same as the amphetamine structure, but it's in the broader class of dopaminergic stimulants like cocaine and amphetamine and methamphetamine.
- [42:27]
Danny
He said he used it for its incredible effectiveness, for focus and mental clarity, but he eventually stopped because he didn't like the idea of depending on it.
- [42:36]
Matt Johnson
Okay. So it's, it's sort of. And I think it was Michael Bauman at NIDA intramural that put it this way. One time, you know, sort of amphetamine in the amphetamine class in general, sort of like, you know, pounding your cocaine and, you know, or I'm sorry, your, your dopamine, you know, and really pushing it strong. Modafinil is like you're massaging your dopamine system. So it's a, it's a, it's a pretty mild stimulant of, of the. With dopaminergic effects like cocaine amphetamine, but much milder. And it's approved for. What's it approved for? So, like, certain things like shift work and jet lag. So it's, it's. It's. The term. There is like. It's a wakefulness enhancer.
- [43:29]
Danny
Do you know, I could score some of it.
- [43:32]
Matt Johnson
It's. So it's very common for people to order. I'm not making any recommendations, but it, it is very common. Making a menu over here, Schedule four. So it's not. So it's illegal to have without. You can get a prescription, number one. But a lot of people get it without prescription. They order from these Indian pharmacies, really. So it's way easier to get. Again, I'm not telling anyone. There's definitely a legal risk to that, but lots of people and just. You shouldn't do illegal things. But a lot of people do that, order it because it's relatively low on the schedule. There's not as many controls. And they're just, how are you going to stop it?
- [44:08]
Danny
How similar is it to Adderall?
- [44:10]
Matt Johnson
It's similar. It's milder.
- [44:12]
Danny
Okay.
- [44:13]
Matt Johnson
A lot of people prefer Modafinil or Provigil to Adderall and, you know, similar drugs like Ritalin, which is methylphenol date, but they prefer it because they don't they say it gives you that kind of focus and that wakefulness of being on. In the flow, on task, without the, the jitters. It. So it's, it's not as forceful.
- [44:38]
Danny
Okay.
- [44:39]
Matt Johnson
But it's. With some of the same effects, in fact, with some of the. There's some data that was collected in the military suggesting that it's even better than amphetamine at reversing the cognitive detriments that you get from keeping people awake. So from insomnia, because you get a lot of cognitive detriments, very measurable. And stimulants in general, caffeine, the amphetamine compounds, Modafinil will to some degree reverse that or attenuate that, make it not as bad or get it back to normal state or something at least closer to normal state. But Modafinil, as I recall, looked even better than amphetamine.
- [45:22]
Danny
So it's, it's mechanic, mechanism of action is totally separate, totally different from Adderall.
- [45:27]
Matt Johnson
It has an overlap. It's a, it's a. So it has that similar effect on increasing extracellular dopamine, which is the same general effect that in different ways. Cocaine and amphetamine. Cocaine more so blocks the reuptake and fettering is more, more so a release or so all of these drugs, they. The important thing is they all ultimately kind of increase dopaminergic function, which means.
- [45:51]
Danny
That you're gonna pay for it.
- [45:52]
Matt Johnson
Transmission. Yes. And I always like to. To quote Terrence McKenna, I quote him on several things. It's like amphetamine, it's like it just leaves your, your axles flopping.
- [46:04]
Travis
Yeah.
- [46:04]
Matt Johnson
You know, sort of like there's a. They're very hard on the body and especially people chronically use stimulants. It just, they are rough on people and so it can deplete your dopamine reserves, basically.
- [46:21]
Steve
Right.
- [46:21]
Matt Johnson
And so an answer to that is, well, taking it the next day. And then of course, you know where that, like.
- [46:27]
Danny
Yeah, the thing I hate about Adderall, I've taken Adderall before. Very rarely do I take it. If I really need to get something done and I haven't slept, I'll take one like a little bit, like a quarter of one. But I hate the fact that it sucks every drop of creativity out of me.
- [46:44]
Matt Johnson
Really.
- [46:44]
Danny
I can't be creative. I can't carry a conversation. I just turn into a robot, like a mechanical robot that can complete tasks. That's it.
- [46:53]
Matt Johnson
Right. So it's like a trade off. Now some people will say these drugs can enhance Their creativity and other. But I've heard plenty of people say what you're saying. So if you have something to do that everything is defined. And yet, as I think of it, there's some experimental evidence for this. Like, you know, if you have your task before you and you know what you need, especially if it's a more mundane task, like, yeah, that's where this is really effective.
- [47:19]
Danny
But I took one when I had to clean out my garage a few months ago and it was perfect.
- [47:24]
Matt Johnson
Well, which is a classic stimulant thing, like people cleaning. And the way I think about it, and this goes beyond the research, but. But people tend to go into both in conversation and with tasks like cleaning more on stimulants, more likely to go into and complete subroutines. In other words, you clean in the sink, you know, whatever. And normally you do kind of a decent job, 90%. But there's that grime that's kind of like you could. Oh, you could get a toothpick and start getting that extra thing and you could. Well, I can't really get under. Oh, I'm going to go get a screwdriver and take the faucet off so that I can clean that thing underneath, go into those subroutines, complete the task and then go back to the main task of cleaning the thing.
- [48:18]
Danny
Oh, wow.
- [48:19]
Matt Johnson
It's in conversation too. So people will go into a sub paragraph and talk about something without forgetting. And so this is where very different than cannabis, where you're more likely to, you know, you go into those subroutines, but then you just don't find your way back. You're like. Then you go off and do another subroutine, another. Amphetamines are sort of like, no, you know, wow. Because they interest, they give that energy and that. And really it's more so of a motivation. Dopamine is, is very much about motivation. I mean, it's very much tied to reward. But sometimes I think the evidence suggests it's really about defining what is rewarding. So making things interesting. And nicotine is very interesting like that too.
- [49:01]
Travis
Yeah.
- [49:02]
Matt Johnson
Because the amphetamine type in cocaine has this too. But they kind of have this primary reinforcing effect that they just make you feel good. It's euphoric. But then there's also what's called conditioned reinforcing effect. Like the things that are associated with it become. The things you do under it become more rewarding. But then there's also this. Sorry, this might be too technical, but non associative non contingent reinforcement. In other words, these drugs, and this is where nicotine has its strongest rewarding effects, is making everything else in the environment not just through a Pavlov's dog bell and whistle through association, but through a direct effect in making everything else in the environment rewarding. Which is why nicotine is just this powerful psychoactive in terms of its addiction potential in terms of people really enjoy using it. But you ask someone, and I remember when I was young, what's the feel about tobacco? It's like people try different things and they understand. They use cannabis and it's like, yeah, they're intoxicated, they feel the effect. Tobacco is this very subtle thing. People aren't really high. People don't usually use that language. It's a psychoactive effect. But you kind of think about it. What do people talk about with smoking? It's great after a meal or before a meal and the classic a cigarette after sex and. And then like with work, you know, making things like writing paper, the great writers, you know, smoking away, skipping lunch and just smoking. And so it has this sort of. It's in research with rats suggests this, that even like say putting a rat on nicotine will make just this random like house light, like a red light coming on, like more rewarding. They'll press a bar to get that red light to come on more so after nicotine. Not because the light signals the delivery of nicotine, just because just seeing a red light is cooler when you're on nicotine. So which kind of explains why this drug is so addictive. But it doesn't make you high because it kind of makes just subtly every. The world becomes more rewarding. You know, people are kind of opens aperture a little bit.
- [51:21]
Travis
Yes.
- [51:22]
Matt Johnson
And everything else becomes a little tuned in and it's working through that acetylcholine system which has a, A big role in focus.
- [51:30]
Travis
Yeah, yeah.
- [51:32]
Danny
The nicotine stuff is interesting because I've heard that, I've heard multiple things that, you know, a. It's not necessarily bad for you other than the fact it's vaso restrictive. It's very addictive. But are there any, are you aware of any other negative effects or downsides of, of using it other than. Other than obviously the smoking?
- [51:53]
Matt Johnson
Yeah, yeah. So the, the. The. There's downsides to everything. And people might disagree with me on this because there's no it. You're kind of weighing like all kinds of evidence here, you know. But to me, nicotine outside of smoking or even vaping, which is still probably going to be much safer than smoking. But nonetheless, you know, you're inhaling something, there's going to be downsides. But, like, say, in, like, you know, nicotine pouches, any concern, including cardiovascular concern, is in the same general category as caffeine. So some people shouldn't use caffeine, especially a lot of caffeine. Like, if you're at severe risk of heart disease or if you have anxiety, the first thing your doctor should ask you before prescribing Xanax should be like, let's talk about how much coffee and soda you drink and insomnia again before you get a script of Ambien or what have you. First question would be like, let's talk about your caffeine use, because you can. Maybe you just need to cut out your caffeine. So, yeah, yeah, the.
- [52:56]
Steve
The.
- [52:58]
Matt Johnson
Nicotine is sort of in that same category where there's downside, you know, proud. But the cardiovascular effects are relatively. They're there, but more in the caffeine range. I mean, a good amount of the cardiovascular downside from tobacco smoking comes from the carbon monoxide that you get right from smoking, which is nothing to do with the nicotine. And something that you don't get with. With vaping, either. You don't get the. You know.
- [53:27]
Danny
Yeah, it's the delivery mechanism. Right. Especially with those pouches, the nicotine pouches. Those things will eat your gums away, from what I understand, pretty bad. There's a lot of people who've had serious issues with their gums, like having too many. Having a pouch in their lip all day long.
- [53:40]
Matt Johnson
Yeah. And some of that is going to be. We're gonna have. It's such a new thing that we're gonna have to wait to see. I mean, to what degrees related to the classic, you know, like cocaine burning out the inside of the nose. Another alkaloid, which I think someone has to do a lot of cocaine to get that. You know, like. Like, what was it Stevie Nicks, I think, was reported to have that Fleetwood. You know, like, they were doing a lot of coke. Yeah, you have to have a lot of money to do that much coke. That's one of the things about coke. Like, most people don't have the money to go that far.
- [54:10]
Steve
Right, right.
- [54:12]
Matt Johnson
The way a rock star does. Y. Um, but yeah, like, we'll. We'll see. I. And I would say, though, in general, like, there's a risk to everything, but, like, if someone's trying to quit smoking, like, I mean, these pouches are basically the same thing as FDA approved, like nicotine gum, nicotine patch, nicotine lozenge.
- [54:35]
Travis
Yeah.
- [54:35]
Matt Johnson
It's basically, I would say it's a probably better technology than the nicotine gum and nicotine lozenges. And because it can get, because of the pouch, it can give you a little more of a quick transdermal administration orders of magnitude less risk than smoking cigarettes.
- [54:57]
Travis
Yes.
- [54:57]
Matt Johnson
And you know, vaping is still going to be, again, we're not going to know the final answer for a few decades, you know, but there's a lot of reason to think that vaping is substantially less risky. Not without risk, but compared to smoking, basically, if someone's smoking cigarettes, any of these things are better options.
- [55:14]
Travis
Yeah.
- [55:15]
Matt Johnson
And, and you know, nicotine pouches would be the least risky of all, of all of them. Vaping or smoking. So I kind of think about this. When you see some of the regulations in California or whatnot about oh my God, can't have any flavors. And it's like, honestly, you could have a discussion about should we be subsidizing that. I mean the classic thing is, and I'm not saying we should, but I'm saying that would be a reasonable Argum argument to the degree that it's helping people quit smoking. The classic concern though is like this balance of, yeah, we don't want kids to use it, we don't want it to be attractive for kids. But we also got to keep in mind those same properties are things that can make it more attractive to a, you know, 63 year old smoker that's been trying to quit. Maybe they like that, whatever menthol flavor.
- [55:58]
Danny
That cherry flavor and can't buy menthol cigarettes in California. That's what I heard.
- [56:05]
Matt Johnson
I, that's probably true. I think that's true.
- [56:07]
Danny
That's so crazy.
- [56:08]
Matt Johnson
Yeah. And so you gotta like.
- [56:12]
Danny
Yeah, that's. I, I heard a, I heard a clip of, I think it was Cat Williams talking about it. That's, that's, that's racist. Because black people love menthols. Black people love Newports. Now you're denying them.
- [56:23]
Matt Johnson
There's big differences there. Yeah, yeah. I mean they're very popular.
- [56:27]
Danny
It's ridiculous. Like, what are we, babies? We. Jimmy's not allowed to have a Newport because it's too flavorful or you're not allowed to have a, a coffee flavored Zen because you know that's going to be too dangerous. Meanwhile you have people literally doing heroin on the streets unregulated themselves.
- [56:41]
Matt Johnson
Right, but, right.
- [56:43]
Danny
It's like, it's. California is so over regulation.
- [56:46]
Matt Johnson
We went, just me and him. Virtue signaling.
- [56:49]
Danny
Me and him went to San Francisco and we were visiting somebody to do a podcast a couple years ago, and I wasn't. You couldn't buy nicotine pouches that weren't flavored. They were all just unflavored nicotine pouches.
- [57:02]
Matt Johnson
Yeah.
- [57:02]
Danny
And I didn't bring my own, unfortunately. So I was, like, stuck with these unflavored nicotine couches. Yet we were walking down the street, and the guy we were there to meet was like, where's your car? Where's your car parked? Whatever. Like, make sure you lock your car. Because every car gets broken into here, and there's. There's no. No repercussions for the people that break into cars. And we were walking down the street right in front of his apartment, and there was literally a purse emptied out on the ground, like, in front of a car. And the laws there are. They allow people to do that. They can't get arrested for breaking into somebody's car.
- [57:33]
Matt Johnson
Same thing with the nibble. I. I seem to hear that they're. They'd reversed it or were going to, but, like, with shoplifting.
- [57:39]
Travis
Oh, yeah.
- [57:39]
Matt Johnson
Like, they're basically. I mean, now, what I've heard from folks in the Bay Area is that their rule is don't lock your car because you can get your window broken out. Like one. Don't keep valuables in there, but keep.
- [57:50]
Danny
It online that way.
- [57:51]
Matt Johnson
Like, yeah, I'd rather the person open the door, check for change, and there's nothing here. And you're good. You don't have a broken window.
- [57:59]
Travis
Yes. Yeah, you're right about that.
- [58:00]
Danny
Maybe that. Maybe that's. Maybe I got the story wrong. Maybe he told us to just leave it unlocked and make sure nothing was left in there.
- [58:05]
Matt Johnson
Well, I'm sure there's all kinds of strategies when you're dealing with that type of environment where people just. I mean, it's so pervasive my understanding that just, you know, and you get this with drug policy in general. And I realize not all of that is related to drugs, but it's a general principle that there are unintended consequences everywhere, and you have to be really, really careful about things that, like, this looks good on the surface. You know, okay, let's play it out. Let's get as much evidence as we can. Like, for example, you know, having really high taxes on other nicotine products and eliminating completely all other attractive qualities. Like, you know, you can't get, you know, coffee flavor. It's like, okay, yeah, you're trying to make them less attractive to kids. But also we have to weigh that against. Yeah. This. The smoker who might have done that as a substitute.
- [58:57]
Travis
Yeah.
- [58:57]
Matt Johnson
And therefore is, you know, maybe not now going to die from lung cancer or heart disease. So there's, you know, if you go all out on any one side or the other, just with sort of virtue signaling as the goal, there's going to be harms there.
- [59:12]
Travis
Yeah.
- [59:12]
Matt Johnson
I mean, sort of like class, you know, like Covid. It's like. Yeah. Lockdown. Like if you really only look at the, you know, transmission itself. There's an argument there. But then, as people were warning and they got thrown under the bus, it's like, if we keep kids out of school, there's going to be, you know, developmental delays.
- [59:31]
Travis
Yes.
- [59:31]
Matt Johnson
If we shut down all these businesses, suicide's going to go up and their suicide, alcoholism is going to go up.
- [59:38]
Danny
Drug overdoses were hit an all time high, I think, during the pandemic.
- [59:43]
Matt Johnson
And substance use across the board.
- [59:45]
Travis
Yeah.
- [59:45]
Matt Johnson
Went up and anxiety disorders and depression. And, and so. And now some of those people. And like the new NIH director, Jay Bhattacharya, he got completely demonized for being one of those kind of voices as part of this Great Barrington declaration that said, hey, hold on. Maybe we should consider more of this Swedish model of shutting down. Society itself is going to have consequences. Maybe we should encourage people that are particularly at risk to isolate and take precautions. But those people, and just the argument that they're more concerned about the economy. And this is hard, you know, when the economy goes down.
- [60:25]
Travis
Yeah.
- [60:25]
Matt Johnson
People kill themselves.
- [60:26]
Travis
Yes.
- [60:26]
Matt Johnson
More so men. Male suicides go up when. And female, too. But it's, it's, it's strongly a male effect. You can't provide for your family. It's the most demoralizing. One of the most demoralizing things in the world.
- [60:42]
Danny
That's one of the things you don't really. That's one of the things that I didn't really understand until we watched it play out. Because at first I was like, oh, wow. Like the way. The way the media painted it, as if, like, oh, everyone's so worried about the economy, not people's lives, but like, play it out. How does that actually end up people's lives? Exactly. Yeah. Which is what we learned during that whole process.
- [61:04]
Matt Johnson
So with drugs, the same principle, there's, you know, the immediate thing that. Protect the kids. Yeah, we want to protect the kids, but there's usually a balance to be had there, and we just want those Decisions to be as much informed by science as possible. And. And I would say even beyond science of, you know, informed by human rights, like, there's some things you just shouldn't do.
- [61:29]
Steve
Right.
- [61:29]
Matt Johnson
Like ban people from attending church. Like, it's kind of in our First Amendment.
- [61:34]
Steve
Right.
- [61:35]
Matt Johnson
You know.
- [61:35]
Steve
Right.
- [61:37]
Matt Johnson
You know, despite the data, you know, which is kind of how I feel about psychedelics and religious use. I think it's very clear these drugs, many, you know, they're a number of religious groups, including some that have religious protection or constitutional protection, the Native American Church, and now the udv, the Santo Daime for using psychedelics. But, you know, there's genuine spiritual and religious use of these compounds by people that aren't part of those, you know, communities. And the Constitution doesn't say anything about drugs. In fact, there was this whole evolution of when we first started to tinker with drugs. I mean, we had to have to have a constitutional amendment to really fully ban alcohol. But then when the whole cannabis prohibition came up, it was first justified under the Marijuana Tax Act. The reason it was a tax act, it was like the justification under, I believe, the ninth Amendment that the federal government can't do things that are reserved certain rights unless they've been outlined in the Constitution that reserved for the states or the people. So the Constitution doesn't say we can regulate drugs, but the justification was all this is involving interstate commerce. So we can put a tax on it that no one's allowed to actually functionally get the tax act to get the actual stamp that you need to engage in that interstate commerce. But now it's sort of like the President going to war without Congress. Now. It just, at some point, it just became so such a precedent that no one even, like, worries about these things. Of course you could. The federal government can, you know, ban drugs.
- [63:18]
Travis
Yeah.
- [63:19]
Matt Johnson
But, you know, but the Constitution doesn't say anything about drugs. It says a whole lot about religion. It's. It's amongst the very first rights that are outlined and.
- [63:31]
Steve
Right.
- [63:32]
Matt Johnson
Yeah. In that First Amendment, as long as.
- [63:34]
Danny
Well as the separation of church and state.
- [63:37]
Matt Johnson
Yeah. And so, yeah, I think about these things with. With the psychedelics in particular, because, yeah, people have by all measures legitimate, you know, religious and spiritual beliefs surrounding their use of them. And that's not to say that most psychedelic use is just for fun. That's true, too. They're also recreational drugs. But what, you know, there's a spectrum there.
- [64:07]
Travis
Yeah.
- [64:08]
Danny
Do you. So, so during that study, did you find that the psychedelic experience that these religious folks were Having. Were amplifying the beliefs they already had.
- [64:20]
Matt Johnson
Yes, there was. Yeah, there was some of that.
- [64:22]
Travis
Yeah.
- [64:22]
Matt Johnson
Yeah. And so. So. And then were they people re. Kind of saying it. They. They saw the lessons of their faith in a deeper way, as well as folks saying that they were more open to other. You know, less judgmental of other religions, this type of thing.
- [64:41]
Travis
Yeah.
- [64:42]
Danny
Now, Travis, when he was on here, he was talking about this idea of perennialism, this common core of all religions.
- [64:48]
Matt Johnson
So, yeah, so that's where the study has been. Even years before it was published, there were already folks sort of touting the study as like, oh, this is a. Probably not using that word because no one knows what it means. Like a test of perennialism. We're showing that there's a common truth to all religions. So perennialism is this kind of tradition dating back to William James, who was very interested, essentially father of American psychology, who's interested in both mystical experiences. But this idea that the world's major religions have. And it can be viewed in two ways. One is that they actually stem from core human truths and sort of by analogy, the classic, you know, the blind men all describing different parts of the elephant, the elephant being God. But they don't. Oh, no, God is a. Whatever. A trunk. And one. No, it's a big kind of grabbing the foot, you know, along those lines. But. But, you know, some people, there's different flavors. That one is more of a metaphysical flavor, saying that. That they're pointing to a metaphysical. All pointing to the same metaphysical truth. Another saying that the nature of mystical subjective experience, like mystical experience, is a common element that's seeded that. That mystical experience is sort of more innate to the human, and that has seeded all of the different religions. Now, these are ultimately probably impossible questions to really address empirically. It's probably more philosophical. It's sort of maybe like the stoned AP theory. It's hard to get evidence for. I mean, all of evolutionary psychology is like that. And evolutionary. Or a good chunk of evolutionary biology and psychology. But this study can't test perennialism. I mean, so 22 Christians, five rabbis, one Muslim, one Buddhist. Even if it did include 100 of each of those groups, I mean, then you actually have the ability. Or even 30 in each of the. You'd have more of the ability to compare. So we didn't even have the numbers to compare the experiences of people. But even if you had 100 in each group and they had very similar experiences, that's very different than saying. I mean, that's very different than Concluding that therefore the origins of Buddhism and Christianity, Judaism, etc. All have this experience at the core. I mean, after all, it was psilocybin that prompted these experiences. And that's a whole philosophical rabbit hole about, you know, is this a legitimate religious experience or spiritual experience or is this sort of mimicking a spiritual experience. But it's again, to me it's ultimately philosophical. It's like the hard problem of consciousness. It doesn't appear to be something you could really provide any evidence over to say whether all these religions are pointing to the same core truth, simply because the experience with psilocybin is similar across these different religions. I mean, there have been studies, I mean, the whole, a lot of the excitement or interest in perennialism and. Which has been called the perennial philosophy. Aldous Huxley wrote or had an interesting anthology called the Perennial Philosophy, which kind of really explored these ideas in the 1950s. And you know, the, the interest mainly lies outside of drug effects. You know, just the fact that spiritual experiences across these different traditions do share some similarity. So in some sense you don't need drugs to show that.
- [68:28]
Travis
Yeah.
- [68:28]
Matt Johnson
In fact, it's more compelling if the experiences don't come from drugs.
- [68:31]
Steve
Sure.
- [68:32]
Matt Johnson
You know, because that's sort of like. Well, of course they were similar because they all had the same dose of the same drug. So, you know, that's not to say that I'm coming down strong for or against perennialism. I think it's very interesting, interesting philosophically, but as a scientist, like this study can't, certainly can't address it.
- [68:51]
Steve
Right.
- [68:52]
Matt Johnson
And then there's also questions about, oh, is it a good thing that psychedelics could incorporate it into religion? And you could certainly see a downside to that. You can argue for upsides.
- [69:04]
Travis
Yeah.
- [69:05]
Danny
It seems like there's a, a movement to incorporate psychedelics into religion to sort of like revive these religions.
- [69:15]
Matt Johnson
Right.
- [69:15]
Danny
These, these monotheist religions like Judaism or Christianity or whatever it is.
- [69:22]
Matt Johnson
Yeah. And you know, there would probably be both good and bad that comes from that. I mean, I, I think about as an example with the Roman Catholic Church, with the, with the, the child of sexual abuse, what, you know, epidemic, whatever you want to call it, would that have been better or worse had some powerful mind altering drug drugs been thrown into the mix? There's a decent argument for worse. Right.
- [69:50]
Travis
Yeah.
- [69:51]
Matt Johnson
You know, so, you know, and I've known people of, including former and current members of these various, you know, the UDV or the Santo Daime. I mean, there's plenty of critiques of those. Religions, including folks saying they're very. I'm not saying this. I'm just saying some people say this, that, you know. Misogynistic.
- [70:10]
Travis
Yeah.
- [70:11]
Matt Johnson
You know, people are people.
- [70:13]
Travis
Yes.
- [70:13]
Matt Johnson
And that's also some of my critique against some of the psychedelic enthusiasts. Like the extreme version of psychedelic enthusiasm. Like, I've never met an enlightened person. I'm not saying theoretically they don't exist, but I see the same spectrum of humanity amongst people that have used lots of psychedelics and people who have never. This. Now can they nudge people? Yeah, I've seen plenty in terms of actually just being a better person. I think given someone's existing tendencies, it definitely. It seems like someone can. With that kind of plasticity infused into the system by the experience, one could be nudged in that better direction. I think that seems clear. But overall, I mean, I think like Terence McKenna again, he. I mean, he was very good about, like, laying out, I think, the reality of.
- [71:07]
Danny
And the contradictions and all that.
- [71:08]
Matt Johnson
Yeah. And he would say, like, look, he's like. With these like, gurus, like, keep one hand over your wallet, one hand over your asshole. Like, I mean, it's the classic, you know, power corrupts. Like, and he's like, psychedelics don't. I'm paraphrasing here, but one of his lectures, like, psychedelics don't make you a better person. He said, I just went through a bitter divorce. Acts ask my ex wife what a wonderful person I am. Like, I keep this stuff in mind when it comes to some, you know, the sort of saving the human species type talk.
- [71:41]
Travis
Yes.
- [71:42]
Danny
Yeah, there's definitely. No matter how many of these ego dissolving experiences you have, some of the people that have done most psychedelics still have huge egos. You can tell.
- [71:51]
Matt Johnson
And. And it would appear that, at least to me, that in many cases not all, it's worse. Not. They have big egos, not just despite having used psychedelics, but they have big egos because of the psychedelics.
- [72:04]
Danny
Wow.
- [72:05]
Matt Johnson
Well, the whole ego inflation effect, that. And sometimes you see this. Like, I've seen. I have the answers. And most of these normal folks don't know.
- [72:16]
Danny
It's the Messiah complex.
- [72:18]
Matt Johnson
It's interesting. Ram Dass in his book Be Here now had something like this. Like the difference between an enlightened person. I'm paraphrasing, it's been many years since I read it, but enlightened person and a crazy person. Is that. And this is what Ram Dass said, The enlightened person. Yes. Or the crazy. They both realize that they're Jesus, but the enlightened person realizes that everyone else is Jesus too. The crazy person thinks only they are Jesus.
- [72:47]
Danny
Oh, my God. That's hilarious.
- [72:48]
Matt Johnson
Interesting way to look at it, right?
- [72:50]
Danny
That is a really interesting.
- [72:51]
Matt Johnson
The humility is hard with some of these experiences and a lot of people do a good job with it, I think. You know, I've met a lot of, like, really good people that have been deep into psychedelics, like solid, solid, good human beings. And I've also met some wild egomaniacs that are just.
- [73:10]
Danny
Yeah, yeah, it probably makes you more. I think Hamilton was explaining this to me. He was saying, number one, it's a placebo, and number two, it makes you more of who you already are.
- [73:19]
Matt Johnson
That. That makes sense to me because of that general plasticity, which is I think, the main thing, which is why it can be used to brainwash Charles Manson's, you know, cult followers. And it was probably successful and to some degree, with the CIA's, you know, brainwashing experiments and with the right in intent and with the right, you know, preparation and guidance, it could be incredibly helpful for helping someone change the way they view themselves with depression and with addiction. Right. Etc.
- [73:50]
Danny
Now, what about you talk about plasticity. Like, what specifically can psychedelics do as far as plasticity or rewiring your brain or any. Are there any sort of measurable results?
- [74:04]
Matt Johnson
Yes, unfortunately, most of those, or nearly all of those are going to be in rodents. So because you can cut up brains and.
- [74:15]
Steve
Right.
- [74:15]
Matt Johnson
We don't want to do that. The IRBs don't let us do that, thankfully.
- [74:19]
Danny
I wonder if you could do like an IQ test on somebody, somebody before and after, like a ton of psychedelics.
- [74:24]
Matt Johnson
So it had. That's been looked at. We don't see a general increase in intelligence, although who's to say that, you know, there's. It could be that it wasn't done in the right way or maybe there's some very narrow, like more particular aspect of intelligence that could be enhanced. But. But it seems to be more of a personality than in an intelligence thing.
- [74:47]
Steve
Interesting.
- [74:48]
Matt Johnson
But the neuroplasticity, first of all, that's a general term. It can mean different things in the brain. So what's been shown in rodents is what's called dendritic branching. So these, the neuron with the branches, like a tree that come off, so growing new branches, synaptogenesis, which is the connections between the different neurons, often with the branches so forming new connections. And then probably the least amount of evidence, but some evidence for neurogenesis, which is the creation of new neurons. And so there's evidence, at least some evidence for all of those from multiple labs, at least the synaptogenesis and dendritic branching. But I also remind people that drugs, like, plenty of drugs like cocaine have shown neuroplastic effects. Oh, really? Yeah, yeah. So.
- [75:41]
Danny
So the same branch building stuff too.
- [75:43]
Matt Johnson
Yeah. Now research needs to figure out the potential differences. So it may be that this doesn't. And this is where part of my background comes in handy because from one lens I'd say I'm a comparative behavioral pharmacologist. So I always think, okay, it's the same thing with the thought of the default mode network. The decoupling of the default mode network being the embodiment of the ego. And that the decoupling of that under psychedelics is a key mechanism for psychedelics. Well, alcohol does that, ketamine does that, cocaine does that, THC does that. So that's not. You would have to explain. Maybe that's more of a signature of just not feeling like yourself, like feeling intoxicated.
- [76:24]
Steve
Right.
- [76:24]
Matt Johnson
So you gotta watch out for some of these stories and you gotta like, ask like, what do other drugs do? Is this truly unique? Now it may be. There's a guy that, Alex Kwan, I think I saw a presentation where he looks like he's figuring out some downstream effects that might, might distinguish psychedelics from some of these other substances in terms of the network activity that that neuroplasticity results in. But it's very much an active. We're gonna have to figure out a lot more to know for sure whether the neuroplasticity seen in animals is part of what's happening in humans. Well, one, is it happening in humans? Probably is. But two, how important is that for the therapeutic effects? My guess is that it. It is, but it is just a guess. I mean, there's also the experience that people learn from and has this impact on them. And so there's a lot to unpack there. And it's a very. Yeah, so a lot of. There's a lot of threads about how psychedelics work. You know, they make the brain communicate with itself very dramatically, acutely. In other words, when you, when you're tripping, there's a massive change in brain network dynamics, which are communication patterns across the brain. A key question, I have a study that's. We haven't analyzed the data, but it's looking at people long term who have quit smoking with psilocybin. The million dollar question with that Stuff is, in terms of the therapeutics, is is there a change in brain network dynamics long term? There may or may not be because of course, the brain. And it's very important to know what the brain is doing when you're on the psychedelic. But therapeutically the most important thing is what's it doing six months later when you're still less depressed or you're still not drinking or whatever the therapeutic target of that study was. So there's that, the neuroplasticity, the brain network function, and then there's stuff at the psychological level. And I don't think it's one or the other psychology or biology, unless you're a dualist. Presumably these are just different levels of analysis. It's not one or the other, they're just two sides of the same coin. And my presumption is that every psychological change or psychological phenomenon has a biological correlate.
- [78:47]
Travis
Yes.
- [78:47]
Matt Johnson
And we're probably just at the limits. I mean, you remember what you had for breakfast this morning or whatever. We don't have the technology now to go in and read exactly what those brain patterns are that pulls up that constitute that memory. But one day we might. But presumably there is that biological side. So with that caveat aside, at the psychological level, I think that's where we have most traction in really understanding how psychedelics are working. It seems when it works, it's like good psychotherapy. It's not like, oh, I just took this pill. Whether it's antidepressants or whatever, you take the pill every day and it has, oh, now I'm feeling better. People have a story to tell you. Yeah, like a life experience. Like psychotherapy or probably more commonly like a life experience. Oh, let me tell you about, you know, the first time I visited another country and knew what it was like to be the only person of my race within a crowd of 10,000 people. Let me tell you, the first time was like, like to fall in love or what it was like to have my kid and how that changed everything. Like it seems like it's an experience.
- [79:51]
Danny
Yes, it's a very reflective experience. Especially like when you were talking about the bad trips earlier. Because sometimes the bad trips can be the most. You get the. Out of those, you kind of like learn the most about yourself or figure out problems or find ways of looking at problems from a different perspective than you're used to. You get off the. You get off of the normal vibration of waking consciousness, you know, and the.
- [80:13]
Matt Johnson
Research is consistent with that. So in different ways. So scales of Mental flexibility afterwards are increased and then more kind of molar. Temporal perspective is personality. So openness to experience. Multiple labs, including work that I've done, have shown that openness to experience as it's one of the big five personality traits that that increases. Not all the studies have found that which is to be expected. I mean, personality is a tough thing to push around, but that's. It strikes me as credible that, you know, so openness to experience refers to thinking of a tolerance for different points of view and even holding seemingly mutually exclusive points of view at the same time. Yeah, an appreciation for aesthetics. That's openness to experience. So that kind of this, the perspective taking. I mean, so people just. Countless stories of people having psychedelic experiences and they look at themselves in a different way. And sometimes it's this aha effect. Like we're just like we're fish. Like looking at the water, it's like, this is our life. For someone who's depressed or addicted. And like, they zoom out and they're like, holy cow, like, what in the world? And with cancer, it's like, oh my God, I like, this is dominating my life. I'm not dead yet. I'm deciding to react like this and let this thing. My quality of life is zero because I'm choosing to view it this way. And so much of the suffering isn't the direct effect. It's how I'm choosing my life. I'm not going on vacations, I'm not getting out in the sun with my grandkids, this type of thing. And so even though people had told themselves that stuff before, just like with depression and addiction, you could tell yourself cognitively a million times, but people have this. When it works, people can have this deep sense of this very visceral change in perspective taking. They're like, my God, I've been doing this for like cigarette smoking for decades. And I've been telling myself, like, I don't want to do this. Like, this isn't who I am. I go to the gym, I do blah, blah, blah, right. Try to eat healthy. I'm trying to set an example for my kids. Like, what the hell am I doing? And it really can hit them, like, hard. Like, this is like, doesn't feel it.
- [82:20]
Steve
Right?
- [82:20]
Matt Johnson
And somehow just when you're doing it every day, it's just habituation. And same thing with like depression, like thinking about yourself as this failure. And it's like, you just get so used to this and it's just the normal thing. But somehow psychedelics zoom people out. Where they could see it for what it is. And they're like, yeah, what in the world?
- [82:40]
Steve
Right?
- [82:40]
Matt Johnson
And it's so. Because I think it can touch on ground truth. Like, you know, it's. And that's why it lasts the next day. Yeah, they're not tripping anymore. But like it was so compelling and it seemed so self validating, which is part of the mystical experience, the self validating aspect of the experience that the next day they're like, yeah, that wasn't just some drug effect. Maybe it opened a window for me or whatever. But like the way I looked at it then that was the right way to look at it. Or people with PTSD who just like I remember one Marine giving a talk about his treatment with, with MDMA and just saying like he just viewed himself as a monster because he accidentally blew a little kid up and just like shattered him. And like, like how he finally like stepped outside of that. Like he saw himself as something different and he like was able to sleep for the first time in like years. Wow. You know, like, and you know, it's very, you know, like I think the real action is that stuff we just, just. We're nowhere close to understanding at the brain level. Like you know, in terms of like how that manifests, like how these dark pits that we fall into, like with PTSD and anxiety and depression and addiction, like how that's so distributed mentally and presumably like throughout the brain.
- [84:06]
Steve
Right.
- [84:07]
Danny
Physiologically, how it affects your body.
- [84:08]
Travis
Body.
- [84:09]
Matt Johnson
Yeah, yeah. It's such a top. Because the brain is tied to everything and just like they're. The way they're existing in the world is just there's the tentacles are everywhere. And how they can, when they go to the root of these things, like it can have these manifestations like that are broad.
- [84:26]
Danny
Now for someone, for example, like that soldier who accidentally blew up a kid and was viewing himself as a monster and couldn't sleep at night. Well, but how do you determine which type of psychedelic to use for somebody like that? Whether it be MDMA or psilocybin or even I don't know if DMT is ever used. Like how do you determine?
- [84:45]
Matt Johnson
We don't really know. And not a single study yet has looked at that. Now that guy was in the study that was MDMA for ptsd, one of the map studies. And you know, my. The idea is that MDMA was viewed as sort of, of maybe for ptsd, as maybe the right place to start because it's a gentler. You don't have the reality shattering effects the full bad trip of just not even knowing one as a person anymore, they go permanently insane. That's the flavor of the bad trip on psilocybin or lsd. Flavor of a bad trip with MDMA is more of emotional going to those emotional dark places. And, and so I think that was the rationale. But I've recently finished a survey study where we asked people, have you used psychedelics, any number of them, mdma, psilocybin, ketamine, blah blah. Have you used it intentionally for therapeutic reasons? Not in a clinical trial, but just whatever, whether it's underground therapy or you just took it with a buddy or whatever, and whether you took it to treat PTSD or depression or anxiety. And we actually found similar rates, like if you chalk it up to like how many say they it helped and how many said eh, didn't make it worse, didn't make it better, how many said it made them worse. That distribution looked remarkably similar no matter what the psychedelic was and no matter what the disorder was.
- [86:14]
Danny
Interesting.
- [86:15]
Matt Johnson
So, you know, it's an open question, but that would suggest, it's almost like you could play the old mad libs game, like give me me a random adjective, give me a random noun, give me. It's like pick a random, like MDMA for cocaine addiction. Like, yeah, probably could make it work. I mean we needed to test all this. But that would be consistent with these very general mechanisms though. It's not like, you know, the drugs that are treat these, these, the typical drugs used to treat this disorder. These disorders which are treating surface level symptoms, they're treating like these core psychological issues that are really all in common. Like all of these disorders have one aspect of people being stuck in some suboptimal pattern. And I kind of view it all as an addiction because therapeutically most of my work has been within addiction. But even you can view depression and PTSD as a form of addiction. Like you're addicted to this suboptimal pattern of thought. So the pattern isn't like grabbing the cigarette, grabbing the drink, grabbing the coke. The pattern is thinking about myself that way. When I'm, you know, when I get some ambiguous data from the world, someone doesn't look happy. Oh, it's about me rather than, you know, this is negative attribution. It's like there's an addiction, there's a stuckness that's self reinforcing too. Once you're in there, it's hard to get out, just like with a drug. And I think the same thing with ptsd. There's this kind of stuckness. Robin Carhart Harris calls it a canalization. And so he very much focuses on the brain and the way the brain activity gets entrenched in certain patterns and that psychedelics can unwind all of it. Right. Like shake up the snow globe.
- [88:00]
Danny
Wow.
- [88:00]
Matt Johnson
Or the way Mendel Kaelin, a Dutch researcher, did work in London with Robin, but said like you're sledding or skiing down a slope and if it's a well worn track like you, you fall into the grooves of the previous sleds or skis.
- [88:18]
Travis
Yeah.
- [88:19]
Matt Johnson
But like psychedelic experience is like a big blizzard that just blasts the mountain with fresh powder. So now you're like, oh yeah, I kept following those tracks like into the trees there and hit those moguls that like screwed me up.
- [88:30]
Steve
Like, right.
- [88:31]
Matt Johnson
I was like, oh, I could just kind of turn more easily and take that fresh powder into this area. You still have to make the decision yourself, but you're a little bit less stuck, a little more ability to.
- [88:42]
Steve
Right.
- [88:43]
Matt Johnson
Get some traction and what.
- [88:45]
Danny
So it's interesting to me that like one of the key this is obviously these therapeutic effects that we're discussing now are, are effects that you get from psychedelics that last a while where you're like forced to like be reflective. Now how do you contrast that with things like DMT where it only last?
- [89:05]
Matt Johnson
It's like it's not 5 methoxy DM.
- [89:08]
Steve
Yeah.
- [89:08]
Danny
Or I've never had 5 methoxy DMT. But like DMT is so much different than those because it's like, it's not, you're not even in your body, you're just, you're gone. You, your soul ejects. And then when you come back, often people don't remember a lot of the things that happened.
- [89:23]
Matt Johnson
Yeah. So it's an open question.
- [89:25]
Travis
Yeah.
- [89:26]
Matt Johnson
But it does appear that there are plenty of therapeutic reports from DMT experiences. So I think there's, it's such a complex thing, psychedelic treatments in terms of like, what's the mechanism? I think there's a lot of mechanisms. Part of it is that kind of deep reflection during the experience where that's where something like even LSD can be better perhaps than psilocybin. You just have more time.
- [89:55]
Steve
Right.
- [89:55]
Matt Johnson
Like hours and hours and hours. Like to be in the thing.
- [90:00]
Travis
Yeah.
- [90:00]
Matt Johnson
Because sometimes in a psilocybin session, you know, like it's like three in the afternoon and the person says, you know, like being in the room with the person as a guide, like, oh, I think the effect's starting to wear off. I'm getting a little. Oh, I'm. I just kind of like it was rough at the beginning and now I'm just starting to get into it. And the, and you say, oh, don't worry, you know, there's plenty of time, just sink into it, just relax. But you're thinking like, oh no, they're totally right, man, it's like, I hope the magic keeps happening because like, yeah, this drug's wearing off, you got another half hour maybe. But with LSD it'd be like, oh man. Right, like, yeah, keep your seatbelt on, you know, you got another five hours. But so yeah, on the other side, DMT to the degree that there's, that conscious and get. All of this is speculation. It's not, there's been, there hasn't been studies comparing DMT to LSD to psilocybin that's controlling for all the other variables, but educated speculation. So yeah, dmt, it's like deep immersion. Just if there's. The conscious thought is like, how do I get through the next micro second without being shredded to bits? Like, just breathe, you know, just. There's not the time to contemplate. Oh, that thing I said to my wife or girlfriend last week. Was I too insensitive about that? Like what? You know, like maybe I should call my mom more often, you know that like, yeah, but that stuff can happen in the aftermath of dmt, so we don't know how much the therapeutic impact, like a lot of that comes after psilocybin too.
- [91:34]
Danny
What do you mean the aftermath?
- [91:35]
Matt Johnson
Well, just the, it was called afterglow. Even the old LSD papers back in the 50s, but like the next day where someone feels like, yeah, the drug effect is gone, but like someone's still like they're psychologically reeling. They can be euphoric. It's not necessarily euphoric, but it can be. But they're just still and there's some sense like if it is the plasticity that's unfolding that's part of the therapeutic equation, that where it meet a lot of the magic is happening. And that might be why the so called integration seems to be important. Like just the idea of like talking with the therapist and we could probably do a lot more with that because that's all it's ever been done is talking. Like, what if you have homework during that time?
- [92:16]
Danny
Oh yeah.
- [92:16]
Matt Johnson
And I think like what if the experience was one of empathy and how. Okay, all right, now what if for the next month you volunteer at the nursing home or Whatever, you know, it's like, let's do like some homework during that time to actually concretize like those lessons. But people, there is this sense of often there is an afterglow, sometimes it's fleeting, sometimes it lasts for several weeks. But the aftermath is more visceral and certainly people are contemplating the experience, you know, about what it means and what so. So I think that happens with any of these, that can often happen with any of these drugs. So how much is that actual thought process during the experience, the trip and how much of it is that contemplation afterwards? We don't know. My sense is there's value in both. And if DMT has therapeutic impact, which I believe it does, it's probably weighted towards your integration after it. It.
- [93:14]
Steve
Right.
- [93:14]
Matt Johnson
But some of the lessons, like, okay, you don't have the time necessarily to have the deep contemplation about your relationship with your brother, but at this just like mystical experience, unitive level, just this idea of having your self identity absolutely shredded and at least having some experience of just beyond words, of existing beyond the story you've told yourself for a lifetime.
- [93:43]
Travis
Yeah.
- [93:43]
Matt Johnson
Like that can be there with dmt.
- [93:45]
Travis
Yeah.
- [93:46]
Matt Johnson
And so just in the aftermath of that, taking that as fuel for looking at things with a fresh lens, right. And just the sense of the awe of like, oh, reality can be like. I thought reality was this. Like, reality is like I don't even know the edges. Like, right. Like what, what in the world was that? Like, like I. Some sense. Again, there's a lot of speculation here. I, to some degree, I think part of the valiant psychedelics is that sort of existential shock just sort of like panning out to be like, dude, like your problems are here and like, like you're alive and like just all reality is just this big miracle and you're a part of it. I'm feeling a lot of myself this stuff personally to like it's like you can't explain like, like sometimes with these experiences even with dmt or like come out like this is weird. Like just this kind of like facing this idea of like we don't even know why this is existing, this is weird and how cool. Like God, thank God, thank whatever.
- [94:52]
Travis
Yeah.
- [94:53]
Matt Johnson
Like, and I don't want to mess it up. Like, you know, like, you know, sometimes people are just so thankful for the miracle of existence. So dmt, DMT can do that? Yes, of just like. Yeah.
- [95:10]
Danny
There's also the other things that happened in DMT that seem to be consistent across people's Experiences. Right. Like people see the Jaguars.
- [95:21]
Matt Johnson
Yeah.
- [95:21]
Danny
Jaguars or elves or code. Some people say they see specific code.
- [95:28]
Matt Johnson
Yeah.
- [95:29]
Danny
And that, that I think there's a history of that with very, a number of drugs of people seeing specific codes. What do you mean? What do you make of that?
- [95:37]
Matt Johnson
So I think there's some potential for, for a reality there. But I'm also highly skeptical. I'm sure that a bunch of it. The question is how much that a bunch of it is placebo effect. Like if you hear, you know, McKenna's machine elves, that kind of nudges the dial up that if you're expecting machine elves, like. Yeah, you may be more likely to see machine elves.
- [95:58]
Travis
Yes.
- [95:59]
Matt Johnson
Or you know, self dribbling basketballs or whatever. Or Jaguars. So as a scientist, I always want to test this on a double blind conditions and like test different drugs and because I've seen things. I remember one great participant that was in a couple of studies. He was like in a dextromethorphan study, like what Travis was talking about the robo tripping. Oh, it's a ketamine relative. So it's nothing to, you know, dismiss. I mean it's a real hardcore drug experience. High dose dextromethorphan. And he was saying, man, I've done like yopo down in Colombia and I've taken, you know, ayahuasca and all these places and I've taken like San Pedro and peyote. It's like. And like, dude, dude. Like I've had my most far out psychedelic experience on a couch at a hospital in Baltimore on cough syrup. But I remember some people in that study saying they thought like we actually kept them on their toes, said, oh, it could be one of these. I think it was 14 drugs including like mescaline. It could be an amphetamine, blah, blah, blah.
- [97:04]
Travis
Yeah.
- [97:05]
Matt Johnson
And I think Travis talked about some, about this. I remember some people saying, oh, I think I had Aztec imagery. So I think it was mescaline. So you see examples under double blind research. That kind of makes you be a bit skeptical of this stuff. But also I think about the entity thing, which does seem as distinct. Like I bet the flavoring of entities, like whether it's an elf or an alien or a basketball, that probably, I'm guessing is shaped by what you've heard and what society you're in. If your society talks a lot about, about gnomes and whatever, if you're in Ireland or if you're in the modern world or aliens, like, whatever. But it does strike me we did some survey work on it that just entities themselves, no matter what flavor, are just so common with DMT that perhaps that's. And we have no idea how this would be working, but somehow the DMT is tapping into some basic mental, like, brain structures or brain functions of the self and the other. Like the assignment, like theory of mind is a term for it in cognitive psychology. Like the. Our modeling of the other. Like, I'm assuming there's a part of my brain that's like doing this kind of like modeling of like, you know, what you're thinking, how you're responding. And they call this theory of mind. So my speculation is that DMT probably does something very powerful in terms of tweaking with this machinery we have for sensing the other and for defining the self and object. You know, the, the self and other, or maybe they are entities and we're open, like Rick Strassman has speculated. Like, I'm open. You know, I want evidence. But like, I'm. I'm open. Like, maybe there's other dimensions and there's other. I don't see any evidence for that. But I'm just saying there's a lot of thought out there on this.
- [99:02]
Danny
Have you ever heard of Joe Rogan's fart theory?
- [99:06]
Matt Johnson
Maybe if you describe it not off the top of my head.
- [99:08]
Danny
He used to talk about this theory he had called the fart theory, where basically, like, if we didn't have smell or a nose and someone farted, you would have no clue. You would just be sitting there basking in someone's fart.
- [99:19]
Matt Johnson
Yes.
- [99:20]
Steve
Right.
- [99:20]
Matt Johnson
And most of reality is like that. We don't have senses for most of reality.
- [99:23]
Steve
Right.
- [99:24]
Danny
That's. Yeah, that's the theory. Like, if we didn't have, like, how many other things are out there that we don't have?
- [99:29]
Matt Johnson
Have.
- [99:29]
Danny
We have an evolved senses or organs to detect.
- [99:32]
Matt Johnson
Right. And if it's not functional, we wouldn't have evolved it.
- [99:35]
Steve
Right.
- [99:35]
Matt Johnson
I think about this with the psy phenomenon, which I'm very interested. So the very, you know, whether it's telepathy and whatnot. I'm intrigued by the research.
- [99:42]
Travis
Yeah.
- [99:43]
Matt Johnson
And even informally conducted a little bit of this myself. Not as a formal study at university, but just myself having read some of Rert Sheldrake's stuff and replicated like his telepathy. Like, can you guess who's calling you on the phone in these controlled trials? And so I think my guess is that there's something there. But my hypothesis with any of that. Okay. If it is Real, we got to keep our skeptical hats on. But like, you're saying, like the fart theory. We don't know what we don't know. We probably are aware of way less than 1% of reality. If some of these extraordinary phenomena exist, if they're real, these are just ultimately, I would say they're natural, they're not supernatural, because there's some level of nature we're just not aware of.
- [100:33]
Steve
Right.
- [100:33]
Matt Johnson
I mean, I think everything, everything we know about science should point to that humility. I mean, even with, like, color, like, we see this insignificant fraction of the em, the spectrum of em. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And, you know, like, sound doesn't really exist. It's just our interpretation of vibrations through the air.
- [100:55]
Danny
We can't see infrared or near infrared light. So that's interesting thing, right? And then there's like, earthworms. Earthworms only have a very narrow amount of sensory input. So, like, you could, like touch an earthworm, pick it up, it would never even know you're there.
- [101:08]
Matt Johnson
I didn't know that.
- [101:10]
Steve
Wow.
- [101:10]
Travis
Yeah.
- [101:10]
Matt Johnson
And then you get into, like, I think so like, Daniel Hoffman, or is this. I think it's Hoffman, but he's been on some podcasts, including Lex Friedman.
- [101:20]
Danny
Daniel.
- [101:21]
Matt Johnson
I think his last name is Hoffman. His first name, I'm not 100% sure. On the Daniel D. Douglas or anyway, but his. I believe he's a psychologist, but very much is informed by physics, and he's really very much focused on this idea that time space itself is just this illusion. Donald, I had the D. Right, yeah, sorry, sorry, Dr. Hoffman. Donald Hoffman. But yeah, he is a fascinating. He has a fascinating account that he says the evidence suggests that there's every reason to think that just time and space themselves are just kind of the GUI or the operating system that's the desktop, and what's underneath, we have no idea. It's like ultimately the machine code, the countless billions of on off switches that creates this, whatever the menu, that we think we're operating on the Mac or Windows, but that we're as disconnected from whatever reality really is as far as possible, even to the degree that time and space are just these kind of functional illusions.
- [102:31]
Steve
Right.
- [102:31]
Matt Johnson
So I don't know whether that's true or not, but I think we need to have this humility with all this, like, you know, and, you know, the physicists, I mean, they, you know, talk about the potential existence, I mean, string, the theorists talk about all these other dimensions that might exist that we're unaware of, and who knows? But we should have some humility that reality might be so complex that we just.
- [102:56]
Steve
Right.
- [102:57]
Matt Johnson
Yeah. And I, I think that is one of the downsides in science like that I've tried, probably not, definitely not totally successfully, but to try to stay open. I feel like the more you learn, the more you become a learned person, the more you kind of dismiss things. And like, unless something's been shown to myself sat to my satisfaction, it definitely doesn't exist.
- [103:20]
Steve
Right.
- [103:21]
Matt Johnson
That's definitely. Whereas I think the right balance is like, okay, I'm not going to confirm something or I'm not going to, but I'm also not going to summarily dismiss it. So I, I, I think we should kind of think more of a, kind of a Bayesian framework instead of saying.
- [103:37]
Danny
Well, unless, have lots of strong opinions, loosely held.
- [103:41]
Matt Johnson
Yeah. Be open and then kind of think more. Okay. Like, how likely let you know, maybe you're 95% likely to think that, you know, or maybe you're 60% likely to think that the UAP phenomenon is extraterrestrial. You know, there's another percent that maybe these are advanced military, you know, things, you know, you don't have to be black or white. You could be open and just say, we don't know. And I'm interested in more evidence, but not kind of be in this framework like that until something's been completely proven. I'm, I'm saying it's complete, you know, malarkey.
- [104:16]
Travis
Yes.
- [104:16]
Matt Johnson
Because psychedelics were that way. I mean, the whole idea, I mean, when I started working psychedelics, it's like that, it sounded absurd to most scientists, most psychiatrists, psychologists, like, that experiences with psychedelics would help people overcome these mental health disorders. Yeah, it sounds absurd because people say, oh no, I've seen people in the ER coming tripping on too much acid and like, that's, it's not good for you. Like, what do you mean? You know, like.
- [104:44]
Steve
Right.
- [104:46]
Travis
Yeah, yeah.
- [104:47]
Danny
Going to like the, I, the idea of that, like Rupert Sheldrake and the morphic resonance stuff and the idea that there's more out there that we can't perceive, you know, that exists. I mean, there's definitely, there's definitely evidence of this stuff. Right. Like the telepathy stuff, the, the Stargate remote viewing stuff. Like there is, there is scientific evidence that this stuff is real to a certain degree. Right. It's been measured and there's been tons of money that's been dumped on it with the United States to actually do this stuff and use it for spying or, or all Kinds of things.
- [105:27]
Matt Johnson
So, like, I think there's a phenomenon there.
- [105:29]
Danny
There is, Yeah.
- [105:30]
Matt Johnson
I think there's very likely, I would put it at 90, whatever, five plus percent that there's a real. And yeah. Because I've, I've delved into the evidence and I didn't, I didn't take any of this seriously until one day, year probably like 20 years ago, where a buddy of mine just dropped one of these telepathy papers on my desk. Coming down the hall. I was like, johnson, take a look at this. And I thought that's got to be. I would have learned about it. And.
- [105:54]
Travis
Yeah.
- [105:55]
Matt Johnson
In graduate school.
- [105:56]
Travis
Yeah.
- [105:56]
Matt Johnson
And just like, just a very, very. Yeah. Suboptimal way of thinking.
- [106:03]
Danny
I think that humans used to be way more. I think, I think it's possible that we way back millions of years ago were telepathic, like straight up telepathic.
- [106:13]
Matt Johnson
And language has actually gotten in the way.
- [106:15]
Danny
Language. Yeah, language. And, and developing technology, like the written word, like being able to offload our memory.
- [106:21]
Matt Johnson
Right.
- [106:21]
Danny
Like, we probably had amazing memory. We could probably memorize everything. So we would have had to. To survive. Right.
- [106:26]
Matt Johnson
We've already seen in our own lifetimes. Look at our dependence on cell phones. Yeah. I was. Yeah. Huh.
- [106:32]
Travis
Yep.
- [106:32]
Danny
That you can't remember.
- [106:33]
Matt Johnson
I used to know all the phone numbers.
- [106:34]
Travis
Yeah.
- [106:35]
Matt Johnson
Like now.
- [106:36]
Danny
Yeah. I think technology is just making our senses atrophy.
- [106:41]
Matt Johnson
I think that makes sense. And that reminds me of something I've thought about with these kind of extraordinary phenomena that may exist that natural selection is going to work on. Whatever works.
- [106:54]
Travis
Yeah.
- [106:55]
Matt Johnson
So if there is. Is whether it's something we're aware of or whether it's something more subtle, like whatever is behind the telepathy, if it's real, whether it's some quantum entanglement, I don't know. I don't think anyone knows. But if it can be leveraged by natural selection, as long as there's variation and there's selective advantage. And so in other words, if this critter of whatever type, if it nudged him just a tiny, tiny bit to be more likely to find that food or find the mate, had they not tapped somehow, had that thing that detected the quantum entanglement. That's a random example, to be clear. I do not know. Or whether it's some other dimensions that we exist in that we're not aware of, like the physicists speculate on. We're going to. We're going to use. Use it. We're going to use whatever natural selection is going to find a way through this seemingly infinite push towards variation.
- [108:01]
Travis
Yeah.
- [108:02]
Matt Johnson
And it's going to be co opted so there may be that like you know, if it helped us survive and you know, I mean my dog does things that just. Right.
- [108:15]
Danny
Yeah.
- [108:15]
Matt Johnson
Dogs I can't explain. Right. Like just seems to know. It seems to know when we're about to, to arrive at a destination. She know. And, and even when we make stops in the way where we stop at a stop sign with sl. So it's not about slowing down but like when we get to the final. Like somehow again, I, it's not a controlled experiment. I could be fooling myself, but I'm intrigued by it. Like it seems like there's some, some sense.
- [108:43]
Steve
Yeah.
- [108:44]
Matt Johnson
And like knowing when I'm going to come home.
- [108:46]
Steve
Right.
- [108:47]
Danny
Like going back to that fart theory. Like there's, you've. Everyone's heard the story of you walk into a house where there was a murder and like the energy's off or like the, just the general idea of bad energy in certain places that, that could be something that could, that could be part of this.
- [109:05]
Matt Johnson
I think we should be open to it.
- [109:06]
Danny
Something that we could. Can't sense or like, like you'd alluded to your dog or, or, or a cat. Like cat. Cats always have weird senses and they can, they can smell energy on people. And like sometimes dogs like people. Sometimes dogs don't like people for whatever reason. What do we, you know, what is that? What sort of an invisible layer or what sort of energy is there that could be palpable if you had the senses that they had that were just completely. We're completely. And are invisible to us.
- [109:35]
Matt Johnson
You know, and if you take Rupert Sheldrake's research seriously, and this isn't the morphic resonance stuff, it's like the telepathy. He published like a bunch of variations on this stuff and, and found that again, unless you just dismiss it all like what he reported and unless he made it all up. Like it seems that there's a trait some people are good at, like bowling. Some people are really good at it, some aren't even. And no matter how much you practice, some people are just never going to be that great at bowling or you name the sport.
- [110:07]
Travis
Yeah.
- [110:07]
Matt Johnson
But some people really have. That's both practicable. But also there's an innate talent. And so in the same thing you mentioned the Stargate, like, you know stuff like the people that were involved with those programs, they talk, they all talk about this. Like some people, they find these superstars that seem to be really good at whatever this is. And that we're good at remote viewing, for example. And that it's not something everyone. Like maybe everyone can do it, but they're not necessarily to the same degree and not necessarily something that's going to be functional for everyone. But some people, like, like my wife seems to be one of those people that just kind of knows things. She kind of has these things in her. I think it. If there's something there, it seems like it runs in her family. Like the. They're mountain people and there's like just these weird things that have happened that just these stories that just make you wonder.
- [111:01]
Travis
Yeah.
- [111:01]
Matt Johnson
And she has a sense for people like, watch out for that dude. Like. And that turned out to be right. That I was, Was just.
- [111:07]
Danny
That's interesting.
- [111:08]
Matt Johnson
Oblivious too.
- [111:08]
Danny
That's really interesting because there, there actually there has been people who have studied and done brain scans of people who have been able to witness like, paranormal phenomena or people. I think they took groups of people who witness paranormal stuff, whether it be ghosts or spirits or even UFOs, and they did some sort of study of them and they found out that their basil ganglia was den. Really dense with neurons or the Caineman. I think that's similar.
- [111:35]
Matt Johnson
Yeah, I don't remember the particular areas. Yeah, I, I, at least, yeah, I was aware of this. The, the headline level of these findings.
- [111:43]
Danny
And I, I don't remember what the significance of the basil ganglia or the caudate patamen was, but there was. You know, that would be. That would be interesting to, to understand. Like, you know, is there any implication to that part of the brain or is there any way you can affect that part of the brain or that that part of the brain is affected by psychedelics at all? I wonder, like, is there, is there a way that if in a thousand years from now, if we're like on the trajectory human beings are on right now, if the.
- [112:15]
Matt Johnson
If it.
- [112:16]
Danny
It is true that we had some sort of more sensory abilities in the past that we've lost now. If you extrapolate that into the future and we lose more of them because of technology. And technology is just like, you know, we're comp. Technology is compensating for all this stuff now, so we're not having it. Like, I wonder if there's a way to turn the clock back maybe with psychedelics or. That's not the right. Not the right way of putting it or like, to, to maintain some of that stuff with psychedelics.
- [112:48]
Matt Johnson
Well, it reminds me of a Title of one of McKenna's books, the Archaic Revival. I mean, he very much viewed them in that sense that it's sort of like an ability to kind of, you know, kindle something that we've lost. Yeah, perhaps. And it's. Yeah, it makes sense. I mean it's sort of like, you.
- [113:10]
Danny
Know, it's a different way of looking at it because like, like, obviously the traditional way of studying psychedelics is you have to get funding to treat things like that are. Are serious issues like depression, PTSD and.
- [113:22]
Matt Johnson
Yeah.
- [113:23]
Danny
And things like this. But can we. We. At what point will we be able to study psychedelics and do serious research on it for enhancing the human experience or. Or upgrading human consciousness?
- [113:37]
Matt Johnson
So that's what I'm most interested in. And we've done, you know, some of that, even the older work with. And you would say, you know, with the religious professionals that could be described in that. In that fashion. But I'm kind of more interested in, I think along the lines that we're talking here in. And like, for example, if these are learning enhancers, how. How radical can we push that? Like I've heard some interesting stories about people changing their, like in a. In a different culture where they speak of a foreign language and that like psychedelics help them really like adapt to that. Like in a single evening on la. I don't know, could be. Could be baloney, but. But I know enough to take that seriously. Like, like, could you learn a language more rapidly with psychedelics? Could you. And I mean this again, if you take any of this sort of, call it whatever you will, the psy phenomenon seriously, can psychedelics, I mean psychedelics have a history. Those Basically researchers went two separate ways after the 60s out of mutual self preservation. Right. This guy in Britain, David Luke, is very much has been focused on the connection between psychedelics and. And psi phenomena. Okay. So I mean that, you know, these far. And I think Franz Volenweider, the Swiss researcher, has done some. I think he was doing. I don't know, I don't think he's published anything but believe he was doing something with. With whether people could have a shared experience when they're in different rooms. So basically something along these lines, kinds of telepathy.
- [115:16]
Danny
Oh really? On psychedelics?
- [115:17]
Matt Johnson
Yeah, I believe that.
- [115:19]
Danny
Have you ever.
- [115:20]
Matt Johnson
It was the case and I don't know that it was ever completed or maybe it's ongoing or.
- [115:24]
Danny
Have you ever heard any anecdotal stories?
- [115:27]
Matt Johnson
Oh yeah, like countless stories of people.
- [115:31]
Danny
Like doing DMT together or something?
- [115:33]
Matt Johnson
Oh yeah, yeah. Yeah. And people even being in different locations and knowing something weird happened. And there was some survey work that suggested that these types of abnormal experiences are really high with dextromethorphan, the robotripping. Oh, okay, okay, okay. Which is really interesting because again, it's a ketamine relative. And the wild stories, for example, John Lilly with the alien communication. I mean people get weird. I knew a guy actually at university. Not at any place I worked, I don't. I'm going to keep them squarely anonymous. But university professor who I believe started taking dextromethorphan pretty frequently before depression, just on his own. And he, really smart guy, really interesting guy. But he started as he described it, like living in multiple timelines at the same time. Like the dissociatives, you get some wild stuff. So I don't know, I don't know how much you know about like Lily with his dolphin research. And he started believing like there was a solid state fundamental. Yeah. And he, you get really smart people on really high dose frequent dissociatives and you get some wild stuff like. So who knows how much of it is like, you know, is somebody, is their brain just able to go deep, deep, deep into delusion and create post hoc stories or, or is there something fundamental about how dissociatives can kind of tap you into some, who knows, speculative, like, you know, other dimension or something that might underlie these abnormal paranormal phenomena? I don't know. We always had to keep both in mind. Maybe just like the highly intelligent crazy people are always like very interesting because they're able to go further into like the wild.
- [117:31]
Steve
Right?
- [117:32]
Travis
Yeah.
- [117:32]
Danny
I always wonder what, what came first, the drugs or that, that personality type? Because the people I know that have done the most psychedelics, they are, they are, they seem to be the most interesting, intelligent.
- [117:45]
Matt Johnson
Right. People to begin with.
- [117:47]
Danny
So was it that were they, was that their first.
- [117:48]
Matt Johnson
Yeah.
- [117:49]
Danny
Were the psychedelics part of that?
- [117:50]
Matt Johnson
I'm guessing it's just, it's some of both. Like a lot that's usually the cop out, out at an intro psychology textbooks. And it turns out it turns out to be both, you know, like, you know, it's both. Yeah.
- [118:00]
Danny
They start out the uninteresting answer.
- [118:02]
Matt Johnson
Yeah. They start out with a little nudge to be more in that that's part of why they chose to use psychedelics because they're a little more on the edge, a little more interested in the stuff out there, a little higher risk taking. And then they go even further once they start getting some Acid in their system. Like talking to the aliens.
- [118:19]
Danny
Yeah. What were you saying about John Lilly with the. The solid stuff state?
- [118:22]
Matt Johnson
Yeah. He thought he was in communication with like he had this bizarre language. I won't be able to recreate all of it, but like this highly complex alien civilization that was sending signals.
- [118:35]
Danny
He was like going crazy on ketamine towards the end.
- [118:38]
Matt Johnson
Yeah. And almost drowned a couple of times. His wife pulled him out of a pool. Apparently once he just felt face down and dissociatives like Matthew Perry, like died on. In a hot tub on ketamine. Like you got to watch out with like a lot of drugs. Like. But dissociatives, people can drown in like a few inches of water because you're just anesthetized if you take too much and you don't have that basic instinct of, you know, getting jostled up when you need to take a breath of air. Yeah, yeah. Lily's experience reminds me a lot of. I don't know if you know the author, Philip K. Dick.
- [119:15]
Danny
Oh. Oh, yeah.
- [119:16]
Matt Johnson
So maybe my favorite book ever is Velas.
- [119:20]
Travis
Okay.
- [119:21]
Matt Johnson
So it's like that was. And this was a true story. It was fictionalized, but it was about his life experience of thinking that he was contacted by this super godlike alien. It's never clear and it's from one dimension. It's clearly he described. It's a psychotic brain break from one lens. But from his experience it was like he was. He had this religious sort of alien intelligence download of information that just changed the course of his life. And. And he actually read. That was a book about the story. It's called Velis, the most psychedelic book I've ever read. But he, he also wrote something that I haven't read. It's. I think it's called the Exogenesis of Philip K. Dick. Where there. I think it's thousands of pages. But it's about the actual download. It's the direct information. It's the. It's the. Yeah. What he felt like he downloaded from the alien God, slash whatever intelligence.
- [120:31]
Danny
He was doing tons of coke, wasn't he?
- [120:33]
Matt Johnson
I think he was doing everything. And he ended up being very anti drug. I mean a Scanner Darkly had a very ant. Like a lot of his work ended up having. Having very much sort of like this is sort of 70s, post 60s. Like watch out with for the drugs. Kids like, you can go overboard.
- [120:50]
Danny
Why are some of the best artists, musicians and writers. Why were. What is the connection between them and tons of like alcohol and coke?
- [121:03]
Matt Johnson
Yeah.
- [121:05]
Danny
Like There's a. There's an obvious pattern here.
- [121:07]
Matt Johnson
The disinhibition from alcohol. Alcohol, like the loosening of the bound and then the, you know, the. The stimulation from the cocaine to kind of counteract the downside of alcohol, you know, like the sedation.
- [121:19]
Steve
Right.
- [121:20]
Matt Johnson
So I mean. And I mean, cocaine and alcohol together, they actually, they. Alcohol changes the metabolism of. Of cocaine. So you actually get.
- [121:30]
Danny
It changes the metabolism, yeah.
- [121:32]
Matt Johnson
So you get another psychedelic. I'm sorry, not psychedelic, but another stimulant, cocaine derivative from the metabolism when you're also consuming alcohol. Alcohol. And so you actually get a synergistic effect.
- [121:44]
Danny
Wow.
- [121:45]
Matt Johnson
Yeah, sort of like with cannabis, for people that take it orally, one of the metabolites that you don't get when you smoke, when you take it orally, is one of the metabolites when it's broke down in the liver is also a cannabinoid that has very potent psychoactive effects. So kind of a similar thing. But alcohol, so they go to hand in hand cocaine and. And. And alcohol, and I don't know that.
- [122:10]
Danny
And you have, like, famous artists, like musicians specifically, that once they go sober, their art just starts to suck.
- [122:17]
Matt Johnson
Yeah, yeah. I mean, I think there's some examples to the contrary, but yeah, I think that's a real.
- [122:25]
Danny
There's definitely. Yeah, I think there's some examples.
- [122:26]
Matt Johnson
You want to think there's still hope. Like, it's like. Yeah, the person's burning themselves out, of course, rock stars, et cetera. Like, I finally had to give the stuff up and like. But you have to look back and you're like, would the. I don't know, these, like, bands that were just like, would they be who they were without wild drug use and. Probably not. And it's not always just the psychic, you know what, you know, cannabis and the psycho. Sometimes. Oh, yeah, it's like crazy. Coke and alcohol. You know, like Metallica, they were really, really, really heavy drinkers in the early days. And like, to what, Eddie Van Halen, like, all of those classic, like, all of those first several albums, like coke and alcohol. Like, he was drunk all the time, apparently. And just like, how could he do it? And is it just that it's amazing that he did it and wasn't held back by those, or did they actually enhance sense?
- [123:26]
Steve
Right.
- [123:27]
Matt Johnson
I don't, like, you have to be open to. I want people to do these. They're very dangerous doing a bunch of coke and alcohol.
- [123:34]
Travis
Yeah.
- [123:34]
Danny
But it just seems like there's an enhancement. It seems like there's Some sort of. It seems like it strengthens some sort of a connection to something, to some sort of. Like it unlocks some sort of creative thing that may not be inside you, that they could be tapped. I don't know. Maybe they're tapping into it. I don't know what it is. I'm sure you're familiar with that. That book, the. The War of Art by Steven Pressfield, where he talks about the muse.
- [123:59]
Matt Johnson
Yeah.
- [123:59]
Danny
It's all this idea that, like, you know, if you can meditate and focus on. On writing or. He was a writer, so he would, like, write for X amount of hours and all of a sudden, like, this weird sort of consciousness would start to flow through him. And he called it the muse. Where just like, everything would start to click. Like the creative. Like all the creative juices are just flowing and instantly. And you know, it. Maybe there's a shortcut to that. Maybe you just do a ton of blow and, you know, get blasted on vodka. You could just immediately tap right into that.
- [124:29]
Matt Johnson
So maybe part of it just thinking behaviorally. When people talk about the muse, it's like, well, you got to be in front of the typewriter or the computer or whatever, have pen and paper in hand. It's just like, you gotta make yourself available for the muse. So that may be where the coke comes in handy. Just like. Right. And the alcohol to take the edge off the coke or vice versa. Like, they sort of complement each other. Other. But that. Providing that fuel to be just like, okay, now I'm going to sit down and.
- [124:57]
Travis
Yeah.
- [124:58]
Matt Johnson
Throw some cigarettes in there that, like. And just. You're just spending more time at the typewriter. Yeah. Like, whether it's Hunter S. Thompson or any of these, like, there's all these.
- [125:08]
Danny
Cases of Stephen King books on.
- [125:12]
Matt Johnson
Was that alcohol or coke?
- [125:14]
Danny
Alcohol and coke, I think.
- [125:15]
Matt Johnson
Okay. Yeah. Another. Yeah.
- [125:16]
Danny
I think when he wrote Cujo, he was just doing mountains of cool coke.
- [125:19]
Matt Johnson
Wow. And bands. I mean, like the MC5 talked about plenty of. They just come to mind. I remember reading an article years ago about them saying coke was a huge part of their creative process, which is, you know, and some people say with stimulants, they're more tunnel vision. It reduces their creativity. But they can focus. But then others say, like, no, man, that was, you know, made me incredibly creative.
- [125:43]
Steve
Right.
- [125:44]
Matt Johnson
Maybe that. And this is all speculative. Like. Like. But maybe that's where the alcohol comes in to.
- [125:48]
Travis
Yes.
- [125:49]
Danny
You know, create that synergy.
- [125:51]
Matt Johnson
Yeah. And we know very little about, like, drugs themselves individually. So there's almost no Drug. I mean there's some drug interaction research, but certainly nothing along the lines of creativity for anything any, you know, so we don't know that scientifically. I'd love to point to. Oh well, the 1979 study by so and so, like just doesn't exist.
- [126:13]
Danny
I was reading this story the other day, this article where they interviewed somebody from the Rolling Stones and he was talking about how back in the day when they would perform their live shows, they're like, like go to festivals and perform all day. Like do you know, multiple 40 minute sets that they would just have a giant pile of cocaine behind the. The subs, like the subwoofers and stuff like that. You know, they have massive stacks of speakers and subwoofers and like just right behind. They wouldn't have to go backstage. They would just walk behind the speakers. Speakers. And they would get cocaine manufactured from Merc.
- [126:47]
Matt Johnson
Yeah. So it's 100 pharmaceutical grade.
- [126:50]
Danny
So they were. And the way they were explaining it in the article. And maybe you could confirm or deny if this is possible. But they were saying that you would not get the come down from coke because from this Merc cocaine, they're saying like typically when you do cocaine just like you do any stimulant that like hammers your dopamine receptors, there's going to be a price to pay. At the end of it, there's like a comedown effect where you start to go through hell. And he was saying that that didn't happen with this mercury.
- [127:15]
Matt Johnson
So I'm skeptical because, you know, I mean, just like pure caffeine, like you get to come down from caffeine, you know, and you're gonna get a come down from stimulants. But I'm also open to the idea of just speculating here maybe to the degree that some of the adulterants. And there's a lot of adulterants in most cocaine.
- [127:34]
Danny
What's an adulterant?
- [127:35]
Matt Johnson
Oh, just other stuff they throw in there.
- [127:37]
Danny
Okay. Like to cut it.
- [127:38]
Matt Johnson
Yeah.
- [127:39]
Danny
Okay.
- [127:39]
Matt Johnson
And sometimes horribly, you know, just. You know what? It could be anything, I mean, which is kind of scary, whether it be a nerd or something that has some effects itself, you know, that's thrown in there. But to the degree that some of those adulterants, those other things they throw in to thin it out could have negative side effects, maybe some of those are accounting for. So that could be some truth. You'll probably get some degree of a comedown of even pure cocaine.
- [128:06]
Steve
Right.
- [128:07]
Matt Johnson
But maybe it is less so to, you know, Depending on what the, you know, street coke is cut with.
- [128:12]
Steve
Right.
- [128:12]
Matt Johnson
But it kind of makes sense. I mean, just. I mean, not too long ago, I remember watching all of these. I'd seen them before, but I hadn't really focused on. But these. There's these videos you can see on YouTube. It was in the Rolling Stones. It was called Rock and Roll Circus. So this live studio performance where they had this whole audience there and the Beatles were in the audience and other bands and I don't know why I bring up just a random like, performance, but it's like, you know, in the day and like Brian Jones was still alive, so still relatively early days for the Stones and just, just like Mick Jagger, I mean, he. Just the energy that he put in. I mean, it wouldn't surprise me at all. He was totally coked up because he was so, just like, like so alive and so just on the edge. Just such a good performer. And I don't want to send the message, you got to be on coke. Coke is very dangerous. But I also wanted. It's like, yeah, like, you know, drugs are very powerful tools, people, good and bad. And it like, it just. Yeah, just. It just kind of mind blowing because you hear this, you know, like, oh, yeah, Mick Jagger and whatever is 80 years old now. And like there was a reason they became who they were. It's like this remarkable just, you know, the passion and just his performance. He takes his shirt off and he's just like so connecting with it. And it just strikes me that he's like connecting so strongly with the audience and just is like he's firing on all cylinders. Yeah, but that, that seems like a total coke thing.
- [129:55]
Danny
Yeah, you know, like 100, 100. Those guys. I mean, that. I mean, it was just. I think it was just a normal part of life during probably the 70s and 80s and rock and roll and, you know, just rock and roll and drugs were synonymous with each other. And, you know, I don't think it was. I mean, I. I don't know because I didn't live through it, but I imagine there wasn't the amount of stigma that there's around it today. Yeah, but like, you know, there's always an argument to be had is that's like, if coke was a. Was legal or if heroin was legal, would that be better for society? Would there be less deaths? Would there be less people dying from this stuff being cut with things like fentanyl and. And all this other stuff? And you know, also on top of that, you have education. People understand what it is. They understand what the downside is. They understand what the upside is.
- [130:48]
Matt Johnson
Yeah, regulated doses. So you know. Exactly. You're not accidentally, oops, there's a bunch of fentanyl in there you didn't know about.
- [130:53]
Steve
Right.
- [130:54]
Matt Johnson
Now you're dead.
- [130:54]
Steve
Right, right.
- [130:56]
Danny
So. So like, what are your thoughts as far as like all drugs being legal or. I know there's certain countries where you can do like supervised injections of certain drugs.
- [131:06]
Matt Johnson
Right.
- [131:08]
Danny
Is there any, is there any sort of art, like real argument, argument that that would be beneficial?
- [131:14]
Matt Johnson
Yeah, there's certainly an argument.
- [131:15]
Danny
And is there like, is there, do you think there should be a limit on like the type of drugs that could be. That should be legal?
- [131:25]
Matt Johnson
It's sort of by analogy, it's sort of like if you believe in the second Amendment, you probably don't think.
- [131:30]
Steve
Right.
- [131:30]
Matt Johnson
People should be able to construct nukes in their basement. It's okay. So where is the right, like what's.
- [131:35]
Danny
Yeah, totally.
- [131:36]
Matt Johnson
You know, like there has to be some line. Um, you're going to get good and bad no matter what. And so if you, if you, if you legalize and regulate it and I tend to like to think more in terms of regulation than in legal legalization because. Or legal or illegal because, you know, alcohol for kids is illegal and it's illegal for anyone driving. And many prescription drugs of abuse, they're illegal unless you have a prescription. And even in my studies with psychedelics, they're schedule one, but they're not illegal for us to use in these studies. So. And even, you know, caffeine in, in the form of coffee or tea, there's no regulation at all. But even an over the counter vibrant or no dose, like, you know, you can't just put whatever you want in there. That's regulated. You can't go over 200 milligrams. So it's like there's a lot of nuance that we don't normally appreciate and I do think we need more regulation of, of like we should move more towards regulation across the different. Rather than just throwing it in the black markets and pretending it doesn't exist. So there are strong data for various levels of harm reduction, like supervised injection sites. And you know, especially if you have a known supply, I mean things like opioids, you can reverse almost all opioid overdoses with naloxone, Narcan. And so it's like, yeah, if you just have a nurse or you know, medical professional there, like it's not going to happen. So there's definitely an argument there. At the same time, if you. I wouldn't want highly addictive drugs easily gotten, you know, at the 7:11. But even if there were steps to jump through, it's like, you know, like, you know, liquor. Well, liquor store. There's really no. You have to be of age. But. But cannabis stores in legal states, you're definitely going to get an increase in people that. Oh, I'm curious to try that. And you're going to get some harms you're going to probably see. And it would probably be one of those things where eventually, if it was to normalize, you'd probably end up with less harm by having everything transparent and regulated.
- [133:54]
Steve
Right.
- [133:54]
Matt Johnson
But you'll probably go through a period where it's going to get really bad because like, yeah, a lot of people are just going to decide to try opioids or cocaine or methamphetamine and they're going to really like it.
- [134:06]
Steve
Right.
- [134:06]
Matt Johnson
And they're going to do too much and it's going to destroy their lives. And there's going to be other. Like, with all of these drugs, most people who try them don't go on to become addicted, but 10 to 30% do, depending on the drug.
- [134:19]
Steve
Right.
- [134:19]
Matt Johnson
And we can't dismiss that. So. So I'm definitely for moving away from treating drug use and possession as felonies and misdemeanors. Like that just seems to me there's just mountains of evidence that suggests the harms outweigh the benefits.
- [134:34]
Danny
And then there's the elephant in the room of cartels and people like smuggling drugs across the border and all the violence and killing that happens and human trafficking and everything. Black market.
- [134:45]
Matt Johnson
Yeah, right. And you can't call the cops or sue someone. Yeah, you solve it with murder. I mean, same thing. We did it with alcohol. We tweaked with our constitution twice in that experiment we created Al Capone and the rest. I think it's been a bad experiment, drug prohibition. That's not to say that there shouldn't be levels of control that match the drug. I mean, the control you have over a much more dangerous drug is not going to be what you should have over cannabis. Even where cannabis is legalized, it's like it's kind of absurd that some states put someone on like this, this list, yet they register you, you know, like whatever. It's like, well, I could go over there and just buy a couple of fists of jack enough to kill me, right. To show my id. But like, you're not recording that I did it like it's just kind of crazy. Yeah.
- [135:38]
Danny
You can literally go right across the street and buy enough alcohol to kill yourself for sure. But easily. Yeah, that is not possible by smoking weed if you're in a room. Unless you get in your car and fucking drive off a car cliff or get a car accident.
- [135:50]
Matt Johnson
Right, right. But.
- [135:51]
Danny
But the, this, the. The substance itself did not kill you.
- [135:56]
Matt Johnson
Right, right. And even with accidents, so it's like, people, do not drive. Please do not drive intoxicated on any of this.
- [136:02]
Travis
Yeah.
- [136:03]
Matt Johnson
But we know through very good behavioral pharmacology research that the intoxication from alcohol is far worse. So your chances of. Of. Of an accident are increased at a 0.08 alcohol level of about 14 times. Times it doubles with cannabis, which is not good, but it's. It's nowhere near as bad as, you know, 14 times.
- [136:24]
Steve
Right.
- [136:25]
Matt Johnson
You know, so. And the nature of the intoxication is different. We get trouble with, like, alcohol and same thing. The second biggest drug and fatal accidents is benzodiazepines like Xanax, which is the same basic mechanism of alcohol. It's working on the GABA system in the brain, which is the major kind of growth. Gross motor. It's gross motor impairment. It just slows everything down. Cannabis, where people have troubles with things like divided attention, it's like kind of going into the zone on cannabis, which for certain things, if you're like playing chess or something or like writing, like, maybe could be great, but if you're driving, you know, you can be in this zone, but it's. People fail it.
- [137:07]
Travis
Yeah, yeah.
- [137:08]
Matt Johnson
Divided attention tasks is what they're called. So if a ball comes out of nowhere and a little kid, you know, like, whatever.
- [137:13]
Steve
Right, right.
- [137:14]
Matt Johnson
It's that where cannabis people are screwed up, which is not as bad as the gross GABA impairment, but nonetheless, it's. It's very clear, you know, which is why people can get, I think, on the ground sometimes people by these comparisons can get over. Like, I think it's pretty common in cannabis, using communities to like, yeah, it's driving fine. It's like, if you know what you're doing, don't be a novice. But, you know, it's still increasing your chance. It's not. Just because it's not nearly as bad as alcohol doesn't mean it's good.
- [137:45]
Steve
Right.
- [137:45]
Matt Johnson
It's like, yeah, if you ever kill someone in an accident, man, you're living with that the rest rest of your life.
- [137:50]
Steve
Right.
- [137:50]
Matt Johnson
You know, like.
- [137:51]
Steve
Right.
- [137:51]
Matt Johnson
So. And I think a lot of people who would Never drive drunk or certainly wouldn't. Maybe they did once or twice and then they regret it. But, like, a lot of people who would never routinely drive drunk and think it's okay would. Yeah. Drive stoned. And it's like, it's. It's not good. And I think even, like, a lot of cannabis users will realize as they get older, like, yeah, probably not a good. Yeah, yeah, like, not so good.
- [138:13]
Danny
Yeah, no, I've met. I have, I have. I have. I've met people and I know people who have been smoking weed their whole life or abusing psychedelics their whole life where when they get older, you notice they're like their. Their world seems a little bit more slippery than mine. Like, they. They seems like they're. They're a little bit more disconnected from the world. You know what I mean? Where it's like, maybe it's. And I've never heard anyone explained to me. I've never heard of any situations where someone has used a psychedelic and like, not come back or, like, stayed perma tripping. Have you ever heard of anything like this?
- [138:51]
Matt Johnson
So, yeah, I think that's pointing to something real, but it's not that they're permanently tripping. So those are cases of. Where people. Where the psychedelics help to instigate a psychotic break.
- [139:05]
Danny
Oh, okay.
- [139:07]
Matt Johnson
So I think all the evidence points to the notion that the people that. That happens in are people who have either active psychotic disorders and schizophrenia is one type of psychotic disorder. It's the major class of psychotic disorders, or they have an identifiable predisposition. So, like, people. Because the first break typically happens in adolescence or young adulthood when the people play with drugs for the first break, like adolescence and young adulthood. And so you get cases like Sid Barrett, the first singer of Pink Floyd, seems pretty clear. I don't think his family ever admitted it because these are, you know, difficult things. But he showed all the. He seemed like he was schizophrenic and he did a lot of acid.
- [139:52]
Steve
Oh, really?
- [139:53]
Matt Johnson
And it seems. But he. He seemed like he. It seems this is all. I'm not. Whatever this is. Just from the record. And yeah, you know, I'm not. I wasn't. I wasn't. Alive. I was born in 74. Wasn't alive, but like that he showed those signs. And he was the type of person that the acid pushed him over the edge. And so I think in. That's the kernel of truth. And there's other cases of less famous people, you know, where that happened. I mean, I put it this way. If you're, if you're kind of dangling, if you're tethered to reality with a dangling thread, the last thing you need is a strong psychedelic, which at least, the whole point is, at least temporarily, is to obliterate that thread and disconnect into the consensus world, to explore the mind, to explore ideas, to whatever, explore consciousness. But yeah, so we've never seen a person so far. There could always be a first. But in the hundreds of trials of psychedelics in Both the older era, 50s and 60s, and in the modern era for the last 20 years or so, of someone who's been screened out where we do look, and there's pretty easy ways with the psychiatric screening to identify people with that predisposition through structured psychiatric interviews by clinicians. There hasn't been a case so far of people being, you know, becoming psychotic because of, of being in one of these psychedelic trials. It's not to say it's impossible. Maybe if we, we approved them and we're treating thousands and thousands of people, it could happen every once in a while. We don't know.
- [141:36]
Steve
Right.
- [141:37]
Danny
What.
- [141:38]
Matt Johnson
Certainly not common.
- [141:39]
Danny
What is going on with Elon, these videos of him? Is he just like in a K hole or something?
- [141:46]
Matt Johnson
I haven't seen. So someone said the other day, and I've been out of town, another trip before I was here. And someone mentioned the stuff with Elon, which I. Apparently there's talk about ladder issues and I haven't caught up on the recent Elon news. Normally I'm a. Pretty, pretty up on the Elon stuff, but I know, of course, for a while now people have been saying he does a lot of K. I don't know, you know.
- [142:05]
Danny
Yeah, he apparent. Well, there's been people that are saying he's like on ketamine and other psychedelics. And then there's like these videos of him, one of the inauguration, another one like last week where he's in, in the Oval Office with Trump and he's just sitting there and he's like, there's like his eyes are rolling back in his head and he's like moving his head around like this. And you know, the, the public speculation is that he's just freaking blasted on ketamine.
- [142:33]
Matt Johnson
Could be. I don't know. I don't, I don't, I don't want to defame Mr. Musk. Lots of great research you could fund Mr. Musk psychedelics. But joke asides, I have no idea. I, I do think people need to keep in mind that I don't know, especially for public figures. Like, there can be a lot of reading into.
- [142:55]
Travis
Yeah.
- [142:56]
Matt Johnson
Like, you know, like, he's also not your average person.
- [142:59]
Travis
Yeah.
- [143:00]
Matt Johnson
So, yeah. You know, there may be some awkwardness there.
- [143:04]
Danny
I mean, those are already so much different than us because they're, you know, their life is under a microscope, so. So you can't go anywhere without people chasing you down, taking photos of you. Imagine. And when you introduce psychedelics into that, I wonder what the. That. I mean, Kanye. Jesus Christ.
- [143:18]
Matt Johnson
Oh, my God. Yeah, that.
- [143:21]
Steve
You know.
- [143:22]
Matt Johnson
So would you have interviewed Kanye? I know he kind of went on a podcast circuit. That's one of these interesting questions. Okay.
- [143:31]
Danny
Yeah, I would interview. Yeah.
- [143:32]
Matt Johnson
And. And what about now?
- [143:34]
Travis
Yeah.
- [143:34]
Matt Johnson
Okay. Okay. So you really are like, all conversations.
- [143:38]
Danny
Yeah, I'm not. I mean, I'm not, like. I'm not, like, actively pursuing it, but yeah, of course, if the opportunity arose, I would love to talk to him.
- [143:44]
Matt Johnson
That's interesting.
- [143:45]
Travis
Yeah.
- [143:45]
Danny
No, I mean, he's. He's. There's something going on with him where I think. I think he's just trying to push the boundaries as far as he possibly can with, like, this performative art. I don't think a lot of the things he's saying, he's saying. I don't even think he understands what he's saying, nor is he genuine.
- [144:01]
Matt Johnson
He's a performance artist with his life.
- [144:03]
Danny
He's trying just to push the boundaries of. Of the human mind and.
- [144:08]
Matt Johnson
Yeah. You know, but it's interesting. Like, the Lex Friedman interview with him, it seemed like he was, like, bending over backwards to get him to, like, whatever, provide some content you don't really mean, you know, like.
- [144:21]
Travis
Yeah.
- [144:23]
Matt Johnson
I think even when Alex Jones interview. Same thing. And so then he. You get like, Alex Jones begging him.
- [144:29]
Travis
Yeah.
- [144:30]
Matt Johnson
No. To not say the crazy thing.
- [144:33]
Travis
Yeah. Yeah.
- [144:34]
Danny
There's no. There's no amount of reason you could present to him that way would persuade him to think about it differently, which is, you know, it feels like it's just an art project for him. To me.
- [144:46]
Matt Johnson
Yeah.
- [144:47]
Danny
You know, I think I was. His interview. Gavin McGinnis did an interview with him, and he. He stated in the beginning of the interview, he's like, I'm going to try to persuade him to. To drop the idea of anti Semitism. He's like. And his whole thing was like, it's just a rush rut. He's like, you want to blame the Jews because it's raining on your birthday? That's just a pattern that you can get in.
- [145:11]
Matt Johnson
Yeah.
- [145:12]
Danny
To make excuses for everything in Your life, you know, it's like. And Gavin's like, this is like the people, the black folks in the inner city blaming whitey for all their problems. Now you're gonna blame the Jews for all your problems. And, you know, statistically, our Jewish people, they're more. High iq, low testosterone. They're better at systems. They're better at. At. At operating systems, you know, managing money, building big businesses. Okay? So just because that. They're better at you. Just because they're better at doing these specific things. And maybe a little bit of. Maybe some of that has something to do with the fact that they went through a holocaust. They were almost extinct. So maybe they're more motivated to succeed and propagate their race. You know, that can't. You can't just blame them for. For all of your problems because of that. You know, that. That's just a. He and Gavin did a great. Better job of explaining this than I can. Than I am.
- [146:12]
Matt Johnson
But jealousy is a real thing.
- [146:13]
Danny
It's a rut. It's a rut you can get in, and that's a pattern that you can get stuck in for, with. With everything in your life. But. Yeah, anyways, that was. That was an interesting time. That was an interesting time when Kanye was going through all that.
- [146:27]
Matt Johnson
That stuff probably. No. No drugs needed.
- [146:31]
Danny
No, he was on a lot of drugs, bro.
- [146:32]
Matt Johnson
Oh, he was? Okay.
- [146:34]
Travis
Yeah.
- [146:34]
Matt Johnson
Okay.
- [146:35]
Danny
Yeah, he was doing. I mean, first of all, he was put on a lot of antidepressants, I think.
- [146:41]
Matt Johnson
Okay. Yeah, medications.
- [146:42]
Danny
Yeah, lots of medications. And then he was really hooked on nitrous.
- [146:47]
Matt Johnson
Oh, wow. Okay.
- [146:49]
Danny
Yeah, he was doing lots of nitrous oxide.
- [146:52]
Matt Johnson
Ooh, that's rough. I mean, that can have some of the. That's has some effect like ketamine and dextromethoraxine. Really? Yeah, that nmda antagonism in the brain, but also just side effects, man. The neuropathy, that's something people don't want to get hooked on. Hippie crack, you start getting nerve damage.
- [147:12]
Danny
Oh, really?
- [147:13]
Matt Johnson
Yeah. Something to do with, like, I think, absorption of. Yeah, B12 vitamin.
- [147:18]
Danny
Yeah, okay.
- [147:19]
Matt Johnson
That you get nerve damage, and it's a real thing.
- [147:23]
Danny
There was another. There was another gas that Hamilton was explaining to me. It wasn't nitrous.
- [147:27]
Matt Johnson
Is it xenon?
- [147:28]
Danny
Xenon, yeah.
- [147:29]
Matt Johnson
I saw that. I think that was one of the.
- [147:32]
Danny
You saying Jordan Peterson did xenon? I think.
- [147:35]
Matt Johnson
Really?
- [147:35]
Danny
I think he said that when he went to. I could be wrong.
- [147:38]
Matt Johnson
So that was not the first, but one of the first Hamilton episodes. I'd seen clips online and stuff from Vice, but in terms of his show, that was the first one. And I remember thinking. Thinking, he's in a roll. He's take. About to take, like, you know, essentially an anesthetic, and he's on a rolling chair on a concrete floor in some garage. You're an expert on drugs. Lay out a mattress. Just get on the. It's just like. He's just like, rolling to. And then he breaks out a condom. He's. I couldn't find a balloon, so he's got a condom. I mean, filling the tank up with a condom. It's. It's like I would just think from having run all these countless, like, you know, drug administration studies. So, like, I was thinking, like, you know, like, just safety. It's like, my God. Yeah, you're on a rolling chair on a concrete floor. Dude, that guy is wild.
- [148:32]
Danny
Yeah, man. He's a renegade. Some of his early Vice docs are crazy. Like, going. Going in the middle of the Amazon and getting that toad venom put on him. Yeah, he went to. Where did he go? He went to Haiti. Haiti. And he met with the. The zombie cult. There's a zombie religion in Haiti?
- [148:50]
Matt Johnson
Okay, do they use, like, scopolamine?
- [148:53]
Danny
They get the drugs from the puffer fish that paralyzes you. And they had this powder, this zombie powder, where. I mean, Hamilton went out there and there was this guy. I forget that what they use for the name of the guy who's the head of the. The zombie cult, but he was basically like, I have this powder. He's like, if you just touch it, you will be zombified. And if you. If you. If you put too much of it on you, it can kill you.
- [149:14]
Matt Johnson
You.
- [149:14]
Danny
And then Hamilton's like, okay, let's try it. And then he, like, puts a little bit of it on his arm. He's like, I'm not feeling anything. Then he does a little bit more. He's like, the zombie powder is not working. Then the guy got mad and he, like, stormed off and, like, kicked him off because it seemed to be more of, like, a psychological thing.
- [149:31]
Matt Johnson
Oh, wow, that's fascinating.
- [149:34]
Danny
Yeah, it's like when you grow up, the idea of it is, is that when you. When you are Grow raised and indoctrinate. Indoctrinated into this belief system that zombies are real and this kind of stuff works, then these drugs will start to have an effect that bolsters your.
- [149:53]
Matt Johnson
That.
- [149:53]
Danny
That works with your belief system. So your belief system and the drugs reinforce each Other. And they're so intertwined, you don't even know what the difference is between the two.
- [150:03]
Matt Johnson
To some degree. It's like the faith healing effect where I think people legitimately, they get up on the stage with the televangelist and they. He touches your head and you just, like, you pass out.
- [150:12]
Travis
Yes.
- [150:12]
Matt Johnson
And I don't think people are snake handling it. People aren't faking that. That's a real. If you want to believe. If you really believe something. And, you know, so I could imagine with this, you know, zombie drug that there's some effect there that.
- [150:27]
Travis
Yeah.
- [150:28]
Matt Johnson
Or. Or like the same phenomenon as the old, like 1980s, the karate masters to doing all the crazy stuff that would just like barely touch you and you'd go down. And all this dude, students that they're. I think most of the students aren't faking that. I think they're just bought into this.
- [150:41]
Danny
I think exorcisms are the same thing.
- [150:44]
Matt Johnson
Interesting.
- [150:44]
Danny
Yeah, There's. There's tons of videos online that we. We were watching a couple. Couple weeks ago of these exorcists doing stuff, and then they're like, I command you from. From Jesus Christ. They put the cross on their head. These people start, like, twisting. They like, convulsing, and their eyes are rolling into the back of their heads, talking like a demon.
- [151:02]
Matt Johnson
I wonder if the phenomenon of exorcism has changed at all Pre and post 1973. The Exorcist, which I watched again recently, that. What a wild film. But, like, I wonder if that helped to flavor, like, if it's a cultural phenomenon.
- [151:17]
Steve
Right.
- [151:18]
Matt Johnson
Like you're saying. Yeah, like, that might have helped to change the flavor of, like people say with aliens, like, once kind of the prototype.
- [151:25]
Danny
That's interesting.
- [151:26]
Matt Johnson
1950S UFO. Like, then everyone's expecting experience.
- [151:29]
Travis
Yeah.
- [151:30]
Danny
I wonder if there's any videos or recordings of exorcisms before that movie came out.
- [151:34]
Matt Johnson
Yeah, because the whole, like. Yeah. The talking like that.
- [151:39]
Travis
Yeah, yeah.
- [151:41]
Matt Johnson
The head spitting.
- [151:42]
Danny
I had an exorcist on the podcast once.
- [151:44]
Matt Johnson
Really?
- [151:45]
Danny
Yeah. And I was out. We were. We got into a big argument about drugs because he thought that drugs basically were the devil. He's like, if you use drugs, you're going to hell. Like any kind of drug. Drug. And then, you know, I was kind of asking him, like, well, what if it's. You're prescribed cannabis by a doctor? And then he was like, oh, well, in that case, it's, you know, it's different. You know, what you're doing here. Stop trying to Play these games with me. He's like, only if you're on the street and you're using these drugs in a, in a bad way to get high, then you're gonna go to hell.
- [152:18]
Matt Johnson
So if in your living room with a couple of buddies, right? You know, yeah, just kind of having a deep conversation. Where is that at?
- [152:25]
Steve
Right, right.
- [152:26]
Matt Johnson
You're not on the street.
- [152:27]
Danny
You know, it's just, it's just a complete ignorance of the drug.
- [152:30]
Steve
Right.
- [152:31]
Danny
Obviously the guy's never experienced it. He's just, you know, came up with his understanding of the Bible and, and he's monetized being an exorcist because he charges money for it. He charges like 250 bucks, I think, for an exorcism. He does him on Skype.
- [152:45]
Matt Johnson
Oh, okay. That serious grift.
- [152:47]
Danny
Like, oh, next fucking level.
- [152:49]
Matt Johnson
That's like exercising by Skype is pretty.
- [152:52]
Danny
Yes, it's.
- [152:53]
Matt Johnson
Was that a long time ago or is he just like old school? Like he's got Yahoo, not Gmail. He's like, I'm. No, I'm doing Skype.
- [152:59]
Danny
He still does Skype. He still does Skype. He charges, I think, a premium for the in persons, but he does, I think he says he's done. How many exorcisms did he say he's done? I'm pretty sure it was 10,000. Over 10,000 exorcisms in his lifetime.
- [153:13]
Matt Johnson
So that's fascinating as a personality, because he's obviously like, even within religious folks, folks like, exorcism is pretty open. He's pretty wild. He's pretty out there. But then, yeah, you know, he's like, you do any drug and you're like going to hell. He would be one of the automatic.
- [153:27]
Danny
That I would like to hold down and get him high, you know, because I was explaining to him, I was explaining like, like one of the biggest revelations I have when I get high are things that are like, for example, one of the most common, common things that happen that ideas that I have when I get high is that like, I need to spend more time with my kids. Everything else is, you know what I mean? Like, how is that the devil?
- [153:53]
Matt Johnson
Yeah, yeah. You know, yeah.
- [153:56]
Danny
It's looking at, like we talked about already. It's, it's, it's looking at the, everything from a different perspective and finding that ground floor base reality of what's most important to you.
- [154:08]
Matt Johnson
And you get that with. It's clear. Yeah. With psychedelics and also with cannabis, people will, you know, we'll talk about a perspective change where it's kind of just more obvious what their priorities are. That zoom out effect, things like that. Like realizing, I don't know, contemplating the times, like, oh, like I, I shouldn't have talked to so and so like that I should have like done. I should have been more patient in this, you know, like, you know, probably less likely people are like, I should have been more of an alpha and just like punch that guy out for that. Right? It's like the opposite.
- [154:47]
Steve
Right.
- [154:50]
Danny
One, one thing I wanted to talk to you about earlier, but we kind of like got off track. But I wanted to, I wanted to learn more about your actual studies that you did in regards to cocaine. And was that before the psychedelic stuff or did that lead up to, to it?
- [155:05]
Matt Johnson
That was concurrent.
- [155:06]
Danny
That was concurrent with the psychedelics.
- [155:08]
Matt Johnson
Yeah. So I always like, did the psychedelic sort of like the psychedelic research on the side because like there was hardly any funding for it. So I kind of kept my day job, so to speak, by getting these, these grants to do research with cocaine, which I also found very interesting.
- [155:25]
Danny
And how do you get a grant to do research?
- [155:28]
Matt Johnson
You apply to the National Institute on Drug Abuse. And so what I was, I did some research when I was a postdoc after I got my PhD on like the interactions between cocaine and nicotine and caffeine. But the more interesting stuff was the stuff that I, I conducted as principal investigator, got my own grant. I had a line of research where I took behavioral economic models. So a lot of my work has been using like economic concepts and studying human decision making.
- [155:56]
Steve
Right.
- [155:56]
Matt Johnson
To understand drug use like, and addiction. And so I developed these. I took this model from behavioral economics called delay discounting. So offering people choice between smaller sooner versus larger later amounts of money. And people who are addicted to whether it's cocaine or cigarettes or anything tend to be more immediate, focused. They tend to take the smaller sooner at the expense of the larger later, later. And so I applied that to cocaine and sexual risk. I did this with methamphetamine and alcohol too. Drugs that are associated with risky sex, like, which can lead HIV and all kinds of whatever unintended consequences, unintended pregnancy.
- [156:38]
Steve
Right.
- [156:39]
Matt Johnson
But asking people hypothetical decisions about if you were in this, this content, you met this person at a get what, whatever somewhere. And first they, they pick out amongst these all these like 60 photos what person they'd have casual sex with as long as they're getting along, you know, and so it's kind of fun for people. It's like, oh yeah, you know, whatever gender is something There for everyone. You could pick one gender, two genders, all of the above. You know, whatever. Whatever you're into. And. And then from that we do these tasks of, like, asking them, okay, so let's say they're dancing down. Would you use a condom or not? Just like your likelihood on a scale, and they make the rating. And typically, even like high risk people, like cocaine addicted people would say, you know, there's some exceptions, but they'd say, no, I'm very likely to use a condom. But then you say, okay, now you gotta wait five minutes. You're having unprotected sex now or waiting five minutes. And then different delays. Like, sometimes it's an hour. It could go up to, like, next day, you got to get together tomorrow. But you could see that as you had to wait to use sex with a condom, you would see that would drastically change their function. They would shift towards unprotected sex. And then we got people loaded on cocaine, so we administered cocaine to them. And it didn't touch those money decisions. So whether they'd want the $50 now or $100 in a month. But for these sexual decisions that had a strong effect, they'd be like, no, I'm down now. Now, like, they're on cocaine. And so which to me, it opened up a lens of like, this is where it's not just this association of cocaine with. It's like, if you talk to people like they're, you know, heavy cocaine users, and they'll just do, like, wild stuff. Like, I remember stories of, like, one guy in a treatment study I was running was, we'd have them talk about context in which they would use cocaine. He's like, okay, a lot of times I hang out with my. My female cousin. This is a guy. And that, like, we'd get, you know, we'd get, you know, we'd get high and let's just say we'd move from the kitchen into the bedroom and she wouldn't be my cousin anymore, if you hear me, like, things like this. Like, there's all kinds of things that people. And there's a good number of folks that would, you know, they identify as straight. But once coke's in the system, it's like, wow, yeah, that story doesn't hold up.
- [159:09]
Danny
And they stay. Start divulging this stuff when they're on cocaine.
- [159:14]
Matt Johnson
Well, those stories come from people, not when they're on cocaine, but they seem like, very credible because they're not like, I see nothing. These aren't things to brag about. Like, yeah, just people I've been able to talk to in the context of these studies. Because I always, like, whether it's cocaine or psychedelics, like, I've really valued sitting down and really talking to people. Like, and a lot of scientists that do the type of thing I do, there can be a judgment and like, well, these are cocaine users. These are, you know, like, like, it's like, no, like, tell me how, like, how do you score coke in Baltimore? What do you. Oh, you call it like, Ready Rock? What's that? Oh, it's like, it's a Baltimore thing, you know, like, okay, do you sell, like, five dollar amounts? Like, you know, how do you do it? Like, what would you say? You know, just want to, you know, oh, the different types of heroin on east side, west side, Baltimore. Like, I want to know, like, all these things that people, you know, like, you know, and understand, like, what people are, what's motivating them and like, how, like, just the sociology of the drug use environment and what's motivating people. And so I've really valued that aspect. So I'll usually take the time to, you know, kind of really get to know people and try to understand these things. And some of it is in the context, like the guy with his cousin. That was in the context of. Yeah, we're. As part of the study, we're having them talk about the environments that they normally use in. But. But yeah, so cocaine and sex, though, go like. And same with methamphetamine. They go hand in hand. You ask any.
- [160:42]
Danny
Oh, with methamphetamine, same thing.
- [160:44]
Matt Johnson
Meth and sex. So any psychomotor stimulant and sex, they are like, strong. How do you explain. People get randy. So, and I showed for the first time, even though, you know, anecdotally, like, anyone could have told you this. It's been around cocaine a lot. But. But we showed under double blind conditions that just cocaine increases sexual arousal to a substantial degree. So people get horny when they're on cocaine or methamphetamine, sometimes more so with cocaine. Sometimes, not always. It interferes with the ability to perform.
- [161:20]
Steve
Right.
- [161:20]
Danny
So for the male Viagra.
- [161:22]
Matt Johnson
Right.
- [161:22]
Danny
Have you heard the story of Dan Bilzerian? I don't know if you heard the story. This is the dude named Dan Bilzerian. He was like a, like a playboy type guy who's always running, riding around on yachts with like.
- [161:31]
Matt Johnson
Yeah, tons of women. Yeah.
- [161:33]
Danny
And he had a heart attack in his 20s. And he explains he was in Vegas doing coke for like three days straight. And he said that, like, he went to go have sex with this chick and he couldn't get it up. So he ate like four Viagras and he started to have a heart attack and need to go to the er and he had like. He ended up having like two heart attacks or something.
- [161:49]
Matt Johnson
Wow.
- [161:49]
Travis
Yeah.
- [161:50]
Matt Johnson
Not a good combination, especially in your 20s. And a lot of people have used it. Same thing can happen with MDMA, but like. So Viagra, I think about 25 years ago, Lisa was in some headlines. People call it sex to see, like the combo of like mdma, Ecstasy.
- [162:05]
Danny
So does that have the same effect?
- [162:06]
Matt Johnson
Viagra? Well, yeah. Like what? Just counteract? Yeah. MDMA can cause impotence.
- [162:11]
Danny
Oh, really?
- [162:12]
Matt Johnson
So it's like one might feel more romantic and cuddling up and everything, but if they want to seal the deal. Right. So same with coke. Not always, but it just. Yeah, it's like heavy alcohol. Like the will might be there, but things may not function. Totally.
- [162:29]
Steve
Sure.
- [162:30]
Matt Johnson
But nonetheless, it's not a black or white thing because there's plenty of. That's one of the issues. That's how I got the grant funding to look at these drugs, both meth and coke. So hypothetically, a lot of hiv because of. With heroin, it's more of injecting with coke and meth. It's more of like, no, I just got loaded and did some crazy stuff. And a lot of. It's like men on the. You know, there's a thing. It was called. It was an Oprah decades ago. Brothers on the down low. Like, probably because of stigma. I was like, amongst African American men that didn't want to admit that they occasionally or more than occasionally had male partners, that then they didn't tell their. They kept it from the female. So there was a transmission of hiv.
- [163:13]
Danny
Oh, wow.
- [163:13]
Matt Johnson
Because they were having anal sex with males. But then which is higher.
- [163:18]
Danny
More chance of getting HIV than that Way much.
- [163:21]
Travis
Yeah.
- [163:21]
Matt Johnson
Dramatically. Which is like. And sometimes I think we. We don't do the public a service because it, you know, we're too prudish. It's like.
- [163:28]
Travis
No.
- [163:28]
Matt Johnson
Like, yeah, unprotected anal sex is like.
- [163:30]
Steve
Right.
- [163:30]
Matt Johnson
That was always the issue. Like, that's a very.
- [163:33]
Danny
Cocaine. You're more likely to get AIDS because you're going to take the, you know, roll the dice and by. Not if you don't have a condom.
- [163:39]
Matt Johnson
So the answer is have a condom on you.
- [163:41]
Steve
Right.
- [163:41]
Danny
Like, especially gay cokeheads out there keep condoms on.
- [163:45]
Travis
On you.
- [163:46]
Matt Johnson
It's not because this is Pride Month.
- [163:49]
Danny
We're doing them a service.
- [163:51]
Matt Johnson
Yeah, because you know, you don't know where things like people I worked with, you know, it's like, yes, you meet someone at the laundromat. One thing, you know, like, whatever, like just, you know, having. I was actually wanted to do some research on, didn't get the funding for it, but just trying to encourage people to carry kind of like high risk populations. Men have sex with men who have historically history of sex that they regret, you know, with novel partners unprotected, but just to like reinforce them. Like if you, if we text you like a few random times a week and you happen to have a condom in your wallet, we'll give you 10 bucks, like just to get them in the habit of just like, just carry a condom on you.
- [164:34]
Steve
Right, right.
- [164:36]
Matt Johnson
Which would really help because you know, you could be moralistic and puritan and say, oh no, you shouldn't. But like. Okay, okay, right. Like whatever at least. Because what my research showed me was that not always, but most of the time when these supposedly high risk populations, when they had the choice, they would say they'd use a condom if they had it there.
- [164:58]
Steve
Right.
- [164:59]
Matt Johnson
But when they're rolling like, and when it's not just the coke, but also just the, you know, breaking the action, you know, biology's happening and it's like someone's got to stop and say, hold on, do you have a. Oh, no.
- [165:12]
Danny
Right. What's the phrase, A bird in the hand is worth two in the book or something? Like, what is it two in the hands worth? No.
- [165:17]
Matt Johnson
Yeah, bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.
- [165:18]
Danny
Yeah, right, exactly. I'm not going to risk this opportunity right now.
- [165:22]
Matt Johnson
Oh yeah, Maybe she or he will, whatever second guess. And just once things are going, you don't want to put the brakes on and like, and you add coke to that and it's like even gas on fire. Yeah. So.
- [165:37]
Danny
So hypothetically, not that me or anyone I know would ever do such a thing, but in a, in a purely scientific laboratory setting, if somebody was on cocaine and their pee pee didn't work, what drug would they use?
- [165:52]
Matt Johnson
Well, they would use Viagra or the.
- [165:55]
Danny
Other or Cialis, but those are not safe combinations.
- [166:00]
Matt Johnson
Well, first of all, cocaine's not safe.
- [166:03]
Steve
Right.
- [166:04]
Danny
Well, if you.
- [166:05]
Matt Johnson
So this is all a relative conversation and there will always be. Well, there's some exceptions, but everything's virtually a combination of two things is almost always riskier than taking one thing. So two drugs.
- [166:18]
Danny
Exactly.
- [166:19]
Matt Johnson
Is usually you're compounding the risk. So yes, there's risk but most toxic drug effects are dose and frequency dependent. Meaning. Yeah. The guy taking four Viagras is like one thinks, well couldn't he had tried one, you know.
- [166:40]
Steve
Right.
- [166:41]
Matt Johnson
Maybe he wouldn't had a heart heart attack. He still could have. Still a risk. But, but with the.
- [166:46]
Danny
I don't understand though. So the Viagra. Viagra is just like a. It's like a vasodilator.
- [166:51]
Travis
Right.
- [166:52]
Danny
So like how would that. Cause how would that hypothetically mixed with cocaine cause a heart attack? Do you know?
- [166:58]
Matt Johnson
I don't know. Cocaine can be a vasoconstricted.
- [167:02]
Steve
Right.
- [167:04]
Matt Johnson
I'm not even sure a cardiologist wouldn't. Cardiologist probably would know something about how Viagra calls a cardiac event. But no one probably knows specifically about the combination together. I mean we know cocaine, I mean simply at the level of increasing blood pressure and pulse. You do that with anything. Which is why even to a mild degree psilocybin can be a ratio risk for a heart a cardiac event in people at severe heart disease risk.
- [167:35]
Danny
Oh really?
- [167:36]
Matt Johnson
Because it has a modest effect on blood. But these are the same people that they could have a cardiac event going up a couple flights of stairs or it's actually pretty common. Like people having sex. Guy shows up to the ER like having sex with his wife or whoever.
- [167:51]
Danny
Totally.
- [167:52]
Matt Johnson
Like anything that raises your heart up, heart rate up and your blood pressure for people who at severe risk can push them over the edge. So even psilocybin can be a risk and variatory which we. You weed people out and research easy to check their blood pressure.
- [168:07]
Steve
Right.
- [168:07]
Matt Johnson
But yeah, yeah.
- [168:11]
Danny
Wild.
- [168:13]
Matt Johnson
Yeah. That's a.
- [168:14]
Danny
It must be hard being a drug researcher in America. This is. I want. I bet you this is probably one of the most difficult countries to get that kind of done and for funded.
- [168:26]
Matt Johnson
I don't know. I mean we're just, we're bigger on research. I know there's been a cutback in the current administration, but we've traditionally been kept conducted more research than other countries like.
- [168:38]
Danny
Oh, have we really?
- [168:39]
Matt Johnson
But yeah, yeah. I mean the NIH in the US is a big. So for example, in terms of drug abuse research, nida, which is part of the NIH National Institute on Drug Abuse is the biggest funder of research globally.
- [168:51]
Danny
Oh, wow.
- [168:52]
Matt Johnson
So yeah, yeah. And you know, America's always this like interesting mix because like yeah, you have all kinds of opinions and we start at the war on drugs. But we've also like we twisted everyone's arm and the rest of the World into it. And then we start, like, legalizing cannabis state by state. And the rest of the world's like, hold on, dude, we've been doing this for 100 years because he told us we had to block us from all the trade agreements and everything. And now. So. But you also get. I mean, I. I think, you know, America is the best place to be. I mean, whether it's business, science, I. Just the level of creativity, and I'm biased. I'm an American. But just, you know, the. The. The openness and just that kind of spirit of going into the unknown is kind of. Of. It's a human trait. But I tend to think culturally it's something that America has an extra dose of. And so in terms of science, I mean, yeah, like, we've been killing it, like, for a long time, relatively speaking. I mean, certain areas of, you know, science have definitely gotten stagnant and. But relatively speaking, I mean, we've, you know, where do you think we've been a powerhouse?
- [170:13]
Danny
What is your, like, ultimate view of, like, where all of this psychedelic research could take us? Do you have some sort of, like, ideal goal in your mind to where. Where it could take humanity or, like, what are. Like, what kind of problem? Like, what is, like, the ultimate problem you think we could solve with it?
- [170:36]
Matt Johnson
This is a big one, and I don't know whether it's ever solvable, but if psychedelics could be leveraged to help solve the hard problem of consciousness, explaining why? Phenomenal consciousness, the awareness itself, like, there's no scientific explanation for why that exists. Why is this not just one big system that's behaving? You know, it's doing its thing like billiard balls. And that includes me. Like, there could be a robot me. You know, we essentially are like. We're biological. We're mechanisms. We could. We seem to be able to explain all the parts. None of that explains why there's an inside experience. So it may be unsolvable by science, but we should be open. But if there's any class of drugs that might play a role in that, the psychedelics seem a good bet. Understanding how. And, you know, as far as I'm concerned, there's all. It's all speculation in terms of why, you know, as some of the theory suggests, maybe there's some level of complexity in the brain computationally that all of a sudden then creates consciousness. I'm skeptical of that because that seems kind of magic. And other more panpsychist theories are about, you know, perhaps it's baked into the Nature of reality itself.
- [171:56]
Steve
Right.
- [171:56]
Matt Johnson
Like some of the basic forces in physics. I don't know. But perhaps something, you know, if it's anything we can get a foothold in mechanistically, maybe these experience, these very alter altered conscious experiences with psychedelics can be used to help us figure that out. But you know, maybe not and then I don't ultimately I see psychedelics going down. I think we're going to look back and see basically pharmacology, drugs in general is like so crude. Like we dump things into our blood system, we eat them, inject them.
- [172:31]
Travis
Yeah.
- [172:32]
Matt Johnson
And there's a like countless off target effects. Like eventually I think it's going to be replaced by brain technology where we're going in, we're stimulating these specific neurons in these specific ways. And even before it may be much more directed pharmacology, these compounds don't just flood our system but they go. No, they go to. Somehow we're able to make them have effects just in this brain region just on this subtype of neurons and have this particular affect this receptor and have this particular post receptor signaling effect. I just think it's going to get more and more specific and that in combination with brain technologies because ultimately just affecting the brain, whether it's through putting in a chemical that has effect on brain receptors or if it's something like these days like tms or using magnets which is just. That's going to look very crude one day as we, I mean you have like what we mentioned Elon Neuralink technologies like that are obviously going to go, I mean they're going to advance and yeah, probably. So I, I kind of see drugs in that mix, you know, like as merging with or being one type of, or being a more specific form of technology that is able to, you know, change conscious experience in desirable or undesirable ways through this biological manipulation. And everything we're doing now is just very crude.
- [174:06]
Travis
Yeah.
- [174:07]
Matt Johnson
With drugs or with whatever you have.
- [174:09]
Travis
Yeah.
- [174:10]
Danny
Cancer treatments and things like this.
- [174:13]
Matt Johnson
Yeah. The history of cancer treatment. So I sat through a talk a few years ago of like it was amazing. They were describing all of these drugs that were thrown out years ago and now we're like oh, now that we genotype people and realize like for this 13% of people this is a miracle drug. And like now we know like it's toxic in these other people and these people it saves their life. And, and so I mean we might be able to go in and say like with your genotype and with your general history you need Exactly. Like, you know, this number of milligrams of this drug and this amount of this other drug to like more tailor maybe in combination with some of these other technologies like brain stimulation.
- [174:53]
Steve
Right.
- [174:54]
Matt Johnson
But you know, I think it's going to be kind of a race between that and AI and which might make all of this a moot point. And like genetic engineering, like, I think when we think about where we're going in terms of our minds and bodies, like it's pretty clear like very, very, very soon, like we're just going to be editing our genes and we're going to be engineering the course of our evolution.
- [175:22]
Steve
Right.
- [175:23]
Matt Johnson
Like, if that doesn't have, if we put mandates in prohibiting it, like we can't go through the next couple hundred years, maybe the next hundred, maybe the next 20 years. Like that's going to happen. You outlaw some crazy dude. There's already been some of this in China where the guy wasn't supposed to do it and supposedly put him in jail. We're going to be doing that. And there's every reason to believe. One of the most fascinating talks I've ever seen is this guy that focuses on intelligence and genetics and said that the same number of genes that code for height, code for intelligence, I think it was something like 5,000. And there's every reason to believe that through, you know, artificial insemination and selecting the right fertilized egg that we are going to be able to move this out five standard deviations. And everything we know through artificial selection with, you know, everything from horses to dogs to like, there's every reason to believe that we can move IQ up 5 standard deviations through selective breeding. And he was saying if you think that there's moral qualms in the people you know about, he's like, and he was ethnically Chinese. He happened to be. He said, let me tell you, there's no Chinese family in China. You know, we're talking culture, not race, clearly, Right. There's no family in China that would turn this down. The opportunity. So I think about stuff like that. How do drugs affect that? Like if we're already moving to this environment where there's going to be this. We don't even know what that means to have an IQ that's five standard deviations above normal.
- [176:58]
Steve
Right.
- [176:58]
Matt Johnson
Like, and what that will result in. I mean, it's literally Khan from Star Trek Thoracic. That was his story. It was a genetically modified super intelligent human and they ended up trying to take over the world. And you know, so like, how do drugs interact with all of these other things like AI and editing the. The human genome for intelligence and whatever. Maybe for alter. Maybe you want your kids to have. Yeah, I don't want my kid going through life without mystical experiences. We're gonna. We're gonna edit the genome to have more openness and mystical experience, oneness with God, whatever.
- [177:37]
Danny
Wow.
- [177:38]
Matt Johnson
And the gene, you know, like, you know, I don't know, like, because there's certainly. There seems to be genetics to like, religious susceptibility and interest and, you know, like many human traits. And so why not code that? And so then how's that going to interact with. With psychedelic drugs?
- [177:58]
Steve
Right.
- [178:00]
Danny
Wow.
- [178:00]
Matt Johnson
Are psychedelic drugs going to be a moot point with all these other changes?
- [178:05]
Steve
Right.
- [178:06]
Travis
Yeah.
- [178:07]
Danny
Matt Johnson, thank you for doing this. This man.
- [178:10]
Matt Johnson
Thank you, Danny.
- [178:11]
Danny
Super fun. Three hours flew by. Like nothing.
- [178:14]
Matt Johnson
Wow.
- [178:15]
Danny
Tell people where they can learn more about what you're doing or get in touch with you. Any of that stuff.
- [178:19]
Matt Johnson
Probably best way on X is drug underscore researcher.
- [178:25]
Danny
Nice. I love it.
- [178:27]
Matt Johnson
Is it far enough? Long? I say, like formerly Twitter. I could just say X. Yeah, Yeah.
- [178:31]
Danny
X, everyone. X is sweet, bro. I'll link it all below. Thanks again, bro.
- [178:35]
Matt Johnson
This was incred. Thanks for the opportunity. I've enjoyed it.
- [178:37]
Danny
All right, good night, folks.