The Jorogan Experience. This is now really big science and Pharma is moving in very quickly. What they're trying to do is create non-psychedelic psychedelics. Figure out what sorts of chemistry changes that doesn't give you hallucinations and create new antidepressants. That's what they want to do with psilocybin. Because doing two journeys on a drug and then you're done, that's not good business.
And what I love about what Michael Paul is saying is that he's the one that's really hitting the drum on this one. He's saying, these things work. The clinical data are showing that. 65% plus success rate for what would otherwise be intractable, untreatable suicidal depression. Incredible. And now the universities are behind it. But they're behind it because laboratories are getting funded to do it.
Laboratories are getting funded to do it because there are grants. Why are there now grants from the federal government? Well, philanthropists came in early and provided money. And now the people are starting to see that there are big, big potential outcomes at the level of pharma. Now the classic psychedelics community isn't going to like that. They're like, no, this is plant medicine. It's got a hundred thousand year history or more. Indigenous people, etc. Academia and pharma don't care about that. Now I'm not.
I'm one of these people. I'm not saying they're bad and they're good. I'm saying that it's humans again. So why are universities suddenly okay with the idea of discussions about psychedelics in front of their top tier donors, the people that literally supply the blood to the university? Well because top tier donors are now really interested in psychedelics. So what drives every aspect of it from the student who's pipetting in the lab to the highest tier of administration and university all the way up to directors of NIH? It's all interconnected at the level of incentives.
Right, but the top tier donors are clearly influenced by the zeitgeist and the way people have approached and thought about psychedelics has radically changed over the last ten years. Michael Paulin is one of the reasons for that. And you and Omnivore's dilemma. He had established himself as a legitimate journalist who would comb through and parse through all the data to give you a comprehensive understanding of what exactly is going on. And he went out and did them, or at least some of them, as a kind of late, the typical person and didn't come out with wearing a robe or sit in the lotus position. And he can discuss them like a journalist.
Right. And then having podcasts discuss it, then you're getting these positive drug stories out to, and I don't even like calling them drugs, positive compound stories about psychedelics that are going out to millions and millions and millions of people, and you're hearing about these people, particularly soldiers who are coming back of PTSD who are having tremendous results, people with overwhelming depression, people with all sorts of problems with drug addiction and so many different ailments that are being helped in this way.
Yeah, absolutely. And look, you deserve tremendous credit here. I know you're not one to, you know, say you're going to take praise from your guests. And I'm going to just say that you've been talking about this for a long time, about the tremendous value of these things, not just for gaining new perspective, because I think in the 60s and 70s, it was, remember, it was tune in and drop out, right? Now we're talking about the use of psychedelic medicine to be able to lean into life in a healthy way.
Yeah. That's the major difference. And you've really pioneered the discussion around that Michael Paul and there are others too, I realize, but you know, at a time when it was considered really wacky and out there, now it's becoming, it's headed towards mainstream medicine. And I think it's fundamentally important. I mean, I think Robin Cardard Harris's laboratory at UCSF has a paper out just today on the use of DMT for treatment of psychiatric illness.
His laboratory has been looking at high dose psilocybin, two sessions, guided sessions, treatment of anorexia, ADHD and depression with very high success. Nolan Williams lab at my university, at Stanford. He's a triple board certified. My chirochist neurologist running the studies with veteran solutions, the group down in Mexico of tier one operators and other people who come back who are just messed up. They're light there. They're heading towards suicidal depression or they're just not feeling quite right.
And using Abigail DMT in tandem and getting tremendously positive results. So he's doing the neuroimaging on them. So times are really changing and you and Michael and others really deserve a token of gratitude. I've completely revamped my stance on psychedelics. I'm still yet to do a high dose psilocybin journey. I haven't done that yet.
What was your original stance on psychedelics? I don't want to lose my job. And I'll be honest. So I was kind of a wild youth barely finished high school and I did recreationally. I took LSD and psilocybin in high school, hung around on the wild bunch and we were just parting with it. I didn't know what I was doing. So my view of it was it was associated with a time in my life where I was pretty wayward. Then I never touched it.
I drank a little bit, smoked a little bit weed here and there but never really liked weed very much. I think and then when I did this three sessions with MDMA that completely transformed my understanding of how these drugs work. I also realize and you might you probably already know this but I was very curious about MDMA and the reputation that puts holes in the brain, kills serotonin neurons. The study on MDMA that showed neurotoxicity was retracted from science.
They actually inadvertently injected methamphetamine into those monkeys. But you never hear about that. How do you inadvertently inject methamphetamine? But you don't hear about that. I thought it was aspirin. You don't hear about that retraction. You hear that. So they now have data in humans asking what are the safety profiles on MDMA for people that take it every once in a while to people who have taken hundreds of doses of MDMA.
And there's one population of people that you can do this on that makes it a really good experiment. Those people can't do any other drugs because then it becomes confounded by are they doing method, they doing coke or the concilocybin, what else, it's not a good experiment. You want single variable manipulation. There's only one group that you can do that on and that's who they did it on and that's Mormons. So the church of Latter-day Saints has one drug that's not on the band substance list and that's MDMA.
Wow. And I'm not saying all Mormons drink coffee. It makes it even better experiment. And so I'm not saying that Mormons are all taking MDMA but there is a substantial number of LDS, Latter-day Saints, I think they call themselves Mormons, as most people know them, who have taken tons of MDMA and they've done brain imaging and psychiatric profiles on them. Those data say that done as long as it's not contaminated with something else, which is a serious issue, the neurotoxicity is nil-tonon.