#149 | Sam Kelly | Human History on Drugs

Sam Kelly on his love of history, studying at Stanford, and telling true stories of famous people who used drugs. Sam Kelly was born and raised in Los Angeles. He has been obsessed with history since he was very young. Sam is on the autism spectrum. When he's interested in something, he really digs into it. He is incapable of browsing casually, instead he develops an almost physical compulsion to know everything there is to know on a subject. As a result, he spends hours every day looking stuff up, going on tangents, and uncovering every last stubborn detail. He studied history at Stanford University, but that's putting it mildly. He gobbled up history courses like Pac-Man eats ghosts. By the time he graduated, he had lived in three foreign countries (England, Italy, and Germany) to better immerse himself in world history, and had studied under the tutelage of some of Stanford's most esteemed history scholars. Determined to share his love of bizarre little-known historical facts, he started a TikTok. His account is @human_history_on_durgs, where his followers listen to him tell wild (but entirely true) stories about famous people in history who used drugs – aka the stuff you won't learn in school. He recently started cross-posting on YouTube, Instagram, and Facebook. To learn more about Sam: https://www.instagram.com/human_history_on_drugs Chapters 0:00 Welcome Sam Kelly 2:32 Studying history at Stanford 5:08 The limits of the school curriculum 7:39 Freud and cocaine 10:17 A family of readers 12:47 It really happened 15:19 Ryan's history classes in Toronto 17:54 Tuscan food 20:26 Has the internet made us lazy historians? 22:58 Medication and everyday life 25:32 Public figures and drug use 28:08 Alcohol's hidden toll 30:41 Drugs and exploitation 33:14 Teachers without a syllabus 35:46 Nietzsche writes his own prescriptions 38:23 Starting the book 40:54 Building a profile on TikTok 43:28 Why not a PhD 46:01 How the book is organised 48:37 Marcus Aurelius and opium 51:07 Chinese emperors chasing immortality 53:42 Collectors and alternative medicine 56:15 Pope Leo XIII and cocaine wine 58:49 How Coca-Cola began 1:01:19 From coca leaf to cocaine 1:03:53 Van Gogh and absinthe 1:06:24 Speculation about Elon Musk 1:08:56 A doctor's fatal experiment 1:11:33 Psychedelics and big ideas 1:14:07 How drugs function in society 1:16:44 Drugs as tools with safety catches 1:19:19 The Elvis chapter 1:21:54 Managers, doctors and Michael Jackson 1:24:25 A president under the influence 1:26:57 Living in the presidential bubble 1:29:28 A rich man's plane crash 1:32:03 Pain medication and reality 1:34:37 Drugs are not simply good or bad 1:37:11 You can't protect yourself from what you don't know 1:39:44 Reaching more readers 1:42:16 A gateway drug to learning The Ryan Pyle Podcast is ad-free by choice. If you enjoy these conversations, you can buy me a coffee: https://buymeacoffee.com/ryanpyle Ryan's TV series are streaming around the world. Follow the Podcast X: https://x.com/RyanPylePodcast Facebook: https://facebook.com/ryanpylepodcast Follow Ryan Pyle YouTube: https://youtube.com/@ryanjpyle Instagram: https://instagram.com/ryanpyle X: https://x.com/RyanPyle Facebook: https://facebook.com/ryanpyle https://www.ryanpyle.com