Michael Pollan

We are supported by welcome welcome welcome to arm chair expert was confusing. I tried that was a good twist pop out. Thank you I'm a I'm dash effort. I'm jumping on a little bit.

I'm me. I'm needed. You know Sometimes now and I feel guilty about this sometimes now we're doing like press and stuff and they introduce you as I mean, yeah, because they don't know they just heard you say it and how they think it's real It is real, but it's it's not real in the way that they should be introducing a lot of it I love it. I agree.

You know the wealth is real is how Michael Paul is a real is real is real It's like a truth Michael Paul is an author in a journalist who's currently the night professor of science and environmental journalism at the UC Berkeley Graduate school journalism here at the wildly popular book the onboard dilemma in defensive food cooked and how to change your mind He has a new book called this is your mind on plants where he explores the powerful human attraction to psycho active plants and challenges They think about all drugs from psychedelics to tea and coffee. This was really is so thrilling and my component is like the leading current expert on So what's I been basically? Yes, so it was a big deal to get talking. Yeah, we've been just hoping to pray and we've been inviting inviting And finally happen in our list or him you will to please enjoy Michael pollen Hello, hey there, Dacto are you I'm so good.

I'm really really really excited to meet you I'm a bar in my heart we talk to a lot of people, but you're my laundry list of handful folks I'm really intrigued by I feel flatted you're here. Oh, I'm happy to be here And we had a guest on that we spoke a lot about you. I'm some mean. Oh, yes Yeah, she's my we fell so in love with her.

She's pretty magnetic. Isn't she she is incredibly magnetic and watching salt fat acid heat When she would cry when she would try things we were both like oh, we want to feel that we have Told me how to cook when I was writing my book cooked and I hope I taught her a few things about writing she gave you a ton of credit That's nice. Maybe wasn't entirely deserved Yeah, how long have you been at Berkeley first? I'm a product of the UC system.

Oh, yeah I moved out here from the east coast and started teaching at Brooklyn 2003 so quite a long time ago And I've been teaching in the graduate school journalism and was it a career opportunity or is it a place You felt like you would be at home. There's definitely there's a perceived stereotype about the mindset up there I'm certainly drawn to it. I wondered if it felt like a place you would be at home. Yeah, it was an experiment We were living in rural Connecticut.

We had one child He was about 10 at the time and it was a really small and similar world town of 1400 people a school where he was one of six boys in this class Oh, and so when the opportunity to teach there came up We thought of you really kind of mind expanding episode for him and I was working on food I was doing the reporting for on the worst dilemma So I was very interested in the food scene in Northern California what I could learn from it and my wife was a landscape painter She was up into this idea of dealing with a new landscape So we went out just thinking we would come for two years as an experiment But here we still are we got stuck as many people doing California California's a virus that is definitely hard to rid the volume when you say that you wanted to bring your son from this Idealic pastoral setting to a metropolitan area to expand it. Just I immediately imagine all the parents of children in New York City I was saying we've got to get our kids I wonder just the human condition to think like fuck I gotta switch this up Well, we had this particularly rigid kid I mean he was you couldn't move a rug in the house without him throwing a fit everything always had to be the same He wore black clothes every day. He only ate white food. I mean he was just in a box.

Yeah, so we felt he needed to be shaken up a little bit And it worked. I mean he fell in love with California instantly and started eating real food That was a really improvement. Yeah, and within two days He was like I never want to go back and he said I realized that I'm an urban kid So anyway, we're definitely and he's now an L.A. In fact.

Oh, yes, what does he do now? He's turning to be an architect He's an architect or school and he's working for an architect named Mark Lee in LA. Are you an L.A? Yes, does he want to say what else?

I don't know. It's his first visit for a nice house And soon there will be a zone over here. Yeah, he did find a place in San Monica where he's living Yeah, which is pretty close to his office. So but thank you for the offer.

Yeah. Yeah, does he idolize Howard work? No, thank God I did for a while. Yeah, everybody did for a while He's much more interested in social justice and coming up with design solutions that aren't just about heroism and building and so we'll see how he comes out He's got another architecture.

Okay. Is he gonna use the LA for that? No, he's gonna hard He's gonna hard to design and he's nearly done and he can be in San Monica just for the summer internship It's a job working for his actually one of his professors, but you know everything is global now I mean he can have a L.A. Professor while he's in Cambridge and vice versa So yeah, were you continuing to teach during the pandemic?

I did at the beginning I taught a class at Berkeley on one form narrative and about halfway through his one the pandemic hit and so I did teach by zoom The following semester I decided it was a good time to take a leave of absence. Yeah, and work on my book So I finished this newest book during that semester But I'm going back to teaching the fall when hopefully we'll be in person and we wanted to wear masks But we'll see you know, we should line up a college year because we just got an invitation where we going Well, Stanford has been offered to us, but Cornell the great church. Oh, oh For Saunders as we can sit in so if we could commit for you We could have a real summer of this or winter. Yeah, well summer We're not in session over the summer, but in the fall.

Sure. I teach at Harvard in the fall Berkeley Springs Did you have a fantasy of your life because I just for me if you're gonna go into the professorial racket Workling hard. We got to be in the fantasy a little bit Yeah, they're both amazing institutions. I mean one the greatest public in the world and the other arguably the greatest private university But Stanford has plenty of that too and maybe you know Oppenheimer was a big presidency at Berkeley I guess I guess I'll put my time I was not in senior way he's before nine as well, but I read the biography on him.

That was great again He was made for Berkeley you wouldn't associate the guy who know you about the man and brother But he was a very Berkeley type of individual. He was yeah, I like and of course we've been amazing physics department Berkeley you get a parking spot if you have a Nobel Prize and it's a really great Berkes Great number of physics parking spots for I imagine if you're the dean of that school if that title even exists that you walk by all these empty no Bells like we got we got a game. We got like nine parking spots reserved No one's in I know. Yeah, what do we do we gonna build him a garage?

Yeah, we've been building one in Nobel Prize somebody created a parking spot for him in the Berkeley Just like the one's on campus now as I sit here and talk to you and I'm sure monocass having a similar cognitive dissonance Are you Monica because we haven't been on so I'm on a good path and hey Monica nice to meet she's the brain to the operation He's a mouth. Yeah, no, I'm just I'm I can't just this gentleman in front of us look like a drug user when you conjure up Stereotypically I would say no like how we were raised you were not the person in the commercial that was strong out Yeah, Harvard professors You know, I'm trying to change the image. Yeah, so you have a new book This is your mind on plants which I can only assume is it take on his your mind on drugs that famous egg and frying pan commercial exactly We're scared to hell at me. Yeah, I think that title partly to remind people that it is plants Most drug can be traced to plants a couple to animals You have five meodmt which is a toe toxin but in general its plants that intoxicated us and I've always been curious about Why are they doing that and what's in it for them?

Yeah Why do we like to change consciousness and explore this into some extent in my last book? I change your mind which is very much more focused on psychedelics and psychedelic therapy But got me interested in this broader question of consciousness changing how routine it is for our species of course We don't think of something like caffeine as changing our consciousness But just get off it and you'll realize how much it does change your consciousness I've carved out a good 20 minute section for you and I to go into that because I think I did something similar You had a similar conclusion. I believe caffeine is a really interesting drug. I'm unlike six trillion milligrams of currently But and then all I'm guessing when they continue to notice right so you're a plant guy very much a plant guy Yeah, and then run through some some synthesizing processes But yes, I guess I'd be curious for I think a lot of people be curious like what is your baseline interest prior to going into it with this A bit of an academic flirt to it like just a dozen general did you like drinking growing up Did you experience drugs when you remember were you departing from when you take this on?

Yeah, so my interest in drugs or plant medicines or in the agents or we have a lot of names from any name has a different set of values and assumptions Stems from a long standing interest in plants all my writing began as a gardener And I just got very absorbed as a pretty young guy in our relationship to these incredible beings that we depend on to nourish us To entertain us to kill us and that symbiotic relationship between people and plants which goes back to time I spent the garden I was a passionate gardener first when I was like eight years old I had a little garden outside my parents tracked out on my island every time I could grow six or seven strawberries I put him in a Dixie cup and sell him to my mother So it was a profit making venture I started gardening much more seriously in my late 20s or 30s and was very taken with exploring this relationship And I grew pop to at that point before it was legal and were you an experimenter by nature Yeah, someone told you this is dangerous You said I'll be the judge of that or I don't think I was such a big risk take her like I was too afraid to take psychedelics in my teens or 20s I waited till I was nearly 60 before I tried to say it like okay, so that was new that was very new Well, just to give you a time frame in 1968 I was 13 by then we were hearing a lot of propaganda about psychedelics They scrambled your chromosomes they caused you to jump out of windows thinking you could fly They caused you to stare at the sun to you and blind I read all those stories in like time magazine And I believe them all and I remember writing a short story when I was in 10th grade about a kid my age It took LSD and promptly like slitters wrists with a broken bottle. Not a very good story So that's kind of where I thought of it. I was interested in pot But not in a big way. It was never my drug of choice And there was a period in my 20s early 30s when I was living in Hatton where cocaine was part of my life Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I was always though One of these highly controlled people who could stop it online.

Oh wow much to the consternation about people around me Yeah, I just would be great time for me to tell you I'm a recovering addict. I know that. Oh, you know this okay So I've experimented with everything I couldn't wait to experiment. I saw that F.

Ryan eggpan I was like I challenged it. I was of the age where I could smell like old people rubbing it and I'm a suspicion of it And I go you were smarter than I was But yeah, so I thought that was pertinent information as we go on the spectrum Because I've done them all I love them all I do not regret any of them and I'm saddened that I am of the type that can't Casually enjoy them and to do a line of cocaine would be like watching two people have sex and not getting invited to join You're almost there, but you're just not there. Yeah So I was very respectful for the power of these drugs and could see how you could get into trouble with them But I also think they're all interesting tools their tools that nature makes available to us nature and human ingenuity and They're definitely not for everybody It's very hard to generalize about drugs as you know because people can really get into trouble But I've also had this intellectual curiosity in them Which is like taking drugs why would this practice not be kind of eliminated from evolution? If it is so risky if people are poisoned addicted more likely to have accidents as we know less likely to defend themselves against the rats drugs Discombobulate us yet we are drugtakers I mean it is virtually a human universal Remember reading in indoiles wonderful book in natural mind that all cultures except the innuit had some plant they used to get high Or change consciousness it goes deep this desire to change consciousness now drugs are not the only way to do it breathing exercises Can do it you'll get exercises Holy tripping breath work or can change consciousness putting ourselves in an incredible natural environment taking risk Sex we have a lot of tools for changing consciousness But it seems to be a very deep human and possibly all men will desire because we know animal some animals like to change consciousness as well I'm gonna add another piece of puzzle for you because you are interviewing me So I was an anthropology major at UCLA and my greatest interest was what everyone took so here that you mentioned in Doug man And on archaeological dig I was only looking for man or not And they could use it to super-fly fish if they put it in the water and they don't know right about that Yeah, so in the automobile that amazing blue I'm sorry green hallucinogenic other's nose and there's many hours a day in the state So yes, I just want to jump on your train and say like to pretend that this hasn't been an integral part of our entire time on This planet would just be false Yeah, and I think the drug war has kind of shortened our perspective and made us think if it's strictly as public health problem And not see it for what it is Which is this universal human desire and the set of tools that actually has served our species well at various times I mean opiates We now think of this evil and ticket but of course without them surgery would be virtually unbearable and the passage out of this life would be harder than it is So I think that we need a little more negative capability when we're talking about drugs or ability to pull some conflicting ideas in our head one is that these are both blessings and curses Depending on how we use them and of course the drug war has encouraged us to take a very simplistic view What is a pretty complicated phenomenon?

Well, it funnels nicely into every other debate We have basically which is like you're creating a speed limit Well some people are quite skilled at driving 105 some shouldn't go over 30 We got to figure out what the thing is for everyone or food I can eat Oreos once a month Right people got to eat them every day Yeah, so policy or just even any philosophy we're gonna do is going to be difficult because there's such a variety among us But I think we're reaching this very interesting moment because there are many signs of the drug war is ending the California state Senate pass To bill that would decriminalize psychedelics for a market If it gets through the house and get signed psychedelics will be decriminalized in the state Oregon has legalized So a cyber therapy starting two years They've also decriminalized possession of all drugs small and small amounts So if the key decisions about drugs are no longer going to be made by the government We're gonna have to make them ourselves Each of us is gonna have to figure out what is a healthy relationship with these substances And that goes for nicotine and caffeine and heroin and psychedelics And I think it's gonna be a really important cultural conversation over the next couple decades Basically figuring out what are the terms of peace? We know what the drug war looks like Once the war ends what does the peace look like and I think that's the moment we're coming to yeah In the issue point like it's really important to call them plants as they are like it definitely frames it differently It's a different paradigm Similarly, I like the point at this point that alcohol is a fucking drug as much as any other substance can be called a drug Alcohol is one and it could be argued with pretty good metrics that's among the most dangerous drug being used The two most dangerous drugs. I think there's a general agreement on this even among drug warriors are the two that are legal alcohol and nicotine That kills the largest number of people does the most damage socially and they're legal now I don't think they should be banned But I think we can learn from the examples and do we learn a lot from the example of prohibition It's very hard to prohibit the use of drug when people are gonna want to do it So what are we doing instead? Well, we try to create a kind of cultural social container around alcohol that it's used socially That people don't drink before six o'clock or whatever it is We have all these rules to govern our use of it And now some people break through those rules and become alcoholics But for a great number of people those rules help them manage their relationship alcohol and they have a healthy relationship with alcohol Nick teams a really interesting example because we've kind of Decocialized it in the last couple decades right it used to be something you could do anywhere Now you can only do it in designated places we put smokers in those cages in the airports Yeah, the status zoo exhibit of all time It really doesn't so sad so pathetic So we're trying to figure out the proper box for smoking and then there's vaping in other ways that may have a harm reduction benefit So TBB yeah And we're gonna have to do the same thing with psychedelics like what's the box we build around that because I don't think that they should simply be Legalized I think that they're too powerful in experience that they need to be approached with some Deliberateness some intent with an elder I mean I think actually we can learn a lot about how to manage that relationship from indigenous people That have been using psychedelics for a long time in this new book This is your mind on plants in a mess of a lot of time looking at the Native American church This is basically the religious and and healing use of peyote which active ingredient is messling That has been so important in Native Americans in this country since the 1880s I mean there is not a more traumatized people they've just been through hell and of course alcoholism has been a huge problem since the trauma that probably as a result of it and they have found that Payo to use in a ceremonial context a lot of ritual is a great healing agent.

So how do they use it? Well, they never use alone There's always an elder involved somebody to kind of lead who knows the territory It's always done with a sense of intention We're gonna heal this person or heal this this trauma or this problem And it's only done when necessary So it's a kind of moral conservative model of drug use I think that makes a lot of sense for psychedelics I think they do have a role to be used alone some of them, but others I'm not sure that's what we have to figure out And we're like, oh, we have this medical container right that is now going through the system It's gonna be approved by the FDA and so as psychiatrists will be able to administer it with a set of regulations I eat rituals, but there's gonna have to be other containers as well because I think they offer something to people who aren't clinically mentally ill Oh, yeah, you probably referenced it in how to change your mind But there's a pretty good amount of data in the long-term effects of having used mushroom psilocybin on creativity a lot of different things And mental health generally I mean they've done these large surveys and people who have used psilocybin generally have less suicidality and better mental health outcomes And those are correlational studies, but they're telling that it isn't the opposite So how do we make them available to people who are not ill in a safe way? I think that's gonna be a very interesting question What's happening in Oregon may point the way? I mean they're trying to design a regime basically the voters of Oregon incredibly in 2020 voted to order the Department of Health The State Department of Health to devise a regulatory regime for psilocybin therapy Not just for people who are ill for anyone who wants it They're the license the guys and they're gonna license the growers and mushrooms And so they're now in this two-year process of Designing who should get it who should be excluded, how should it work, how much can you charge And they're gonna come out with a proposal I mean the government could blow the whole thing the federal government could blow it up And they might, but if they leave it alone the way they left alone cannabis legalization We're gonna have this very interesting experiment taking place I was gonna say they're gonna go get the data for us I mean it's hard as we look at Spain and how they might deal with hair and addiction Seems pretty effective there, but you wonder when you map it on here Well, this is exactly what we need whether your long-term goal is for it I want to tell you a quick personal story about Monica And this is really you literally you're the reason so my wife read how to change your mind I was already pro psilocybin of course It's not just probably it was like push, it was a push Some of our early fights Monica and I six years ago It's like you cannot leave this planet without doing much of them So against it you write your book my wife became obsessed with it She decides she wants to do it and then we peer pressure Monica into it But largely because you said it was okay, there's like some There's some science a reputable person And perhaps like you also needed a motivation that wasn't just perhaps indulgence You know like you needed Yeah, that's true Yeah, so once those things to your point of social construct it surrounds it Like you move that ball to a point and then Monica did it and I was there so Everyone was on shrooms and I had done it a million times So I knew vaguely what to give everyone and you're right She had a moment where the beginning was rough for me You know what I did not know what to expect Well first also to be fair I think expectation is a huge element So we went there with the intention to mic rhodos And then it was like oh the colors are just gonna get kind of shinier or something And then we of course did whatever he's stupid person doing drugs does Or we took someone like we don't feel it Let's take some more Go down Yeah, we did that and then even after that we were like we should just really do it now And so then Dax gave us He portioned out for I want the record to reflect that I was anti small dosing All right, my grandma does not know what you're after So they were gonna microdosing once that went sideways as of course I did everyone was bored I was like now do you guys just want to be the real experience?

Okay, so quickly of all the expectations Uh-huh my brain cannot caught up to that Like oh actually this is gonna be much different than I then sparkly colors So then we're sitting there and everything's really normal and all of a sudden My hands turned to great I keep I was just ready to turn into grandma hands And then I was like oh my god What's happened and Dax was in the other room at this my big mistake My responsibilities to show them Yeah, and so we're all here none of us have done it and we're like Oh and some people are like loving it and others are little more skeptical And I was very panicked that everything around me was changing And I didn't feel safe at all and then he came out and kind of shepherded us for the rest of the Tramp, did you pass through that Monica? I did But it was a real decision I was already having real panic attack and I felt like I couldn't breathe in the Dax was like you could you know one has ever stopped breathing on mushrooms Okay, that's some that's very helpful information Yes, it was very helpful And then he was like let's go on a walk So we went on a walk and he was like Look at that and I remember just having like are you Are you also on drugs? Because how do you how can you read my mind? I'm looking at houses and like a movie set that's not a real house right And she was like oh my god is that a movie set?

And then she's like oh you know that's a movie set I'm like look at houses a thousand times. I'm like no look at all the cars They're sleeping. So you love that. Yeah, but I would keep slipping back a little bit I was like no, but I don't like it I'm scared and then Dax said look you have the ability to choose whether this is enjoyable or not Yeah, that's a very powerful idea Huge it's powerful across the board.

That was the main takeaway for me after the fact It's like oh you you have the ability to see things the way you want to Yeah, so yeah, it was able to come up it The suggestability of the psychedelic state is remarkable And can be channels in either positive or negative directions And I talked to a lot of people who administered mushrooms either in the shamanic context with medical context They use that fact and I remember they would say because I was really terrified of having a bad trip Run away from it go toward it. You'll pass through it. If you think you're going crazy or melting or exploding let it happen The ability to surrender to the experience is the key to not getting anxious and I learned that from these guides at Johns Hopkins actually who were very good at giving what they call flight instructions before you take off and that was all the flight Instructions came down to that word surrender Relax your mind and flow downstream as John Lennon But and when I learned to do that is when the fear went away But and I think that the anxiety attacks are really your effort to hold on to your ego as it's softening and then melting and exploding Whatever's happening to it and our ego is very defensive structure And it doesn't want to fall apart But if you let it go often wonderful things arise in this place I only brought that up because I think I'm sure you had this experience probably over the last three years many times But I just want you to see a really mean that had a certain relationship with something that was immovable Literally move that she's told me many times how grateful she had to spend for that experience on planet Earth Then I just wanted to do her I mean I appreciate that and I've heard that story many times before I don't know why I was the right messenger for these mushrooms They somehow enlisted me in their cause But I think it had to do with the fact that I too was afraid that I too had this reluctance that I wasn't a natural risk taker or drug taker so that I think the reader who was kept go could identify with me And that when I did do it and crossed over and didn't die and nothing horrible happened to me I think it gave people a sense of well, maybe I could do this too It's the exact way a works but in reverse I want you to tell us because I think this is really fascinating is a question I've had and never thought to investigate but you dive into what the actual evolutionary gain is for a plant to even have Enzymes or molecules in them that would induce these feelings Yeah, so plants produce these compounds. They're usually alkaloids which are nitrogen containing compounds as a defense plants can't run away So they have to get really good at defending themselves while staying put and chemistry is the best way to do it And they invent all these interesting chemicals they do it for two reasons They have attracting chemicals too, beautiful sense that draw bees to them or other pollinators But then they have this whole suite of chemistry to defend themselves Sometimes to keep other plants from growing your body Sometimes to damage anyone who eats a leaf or a nasty taste The otherwise all taste really bitter that probably in and of itself is helpful to the plants But at a certain point I think plants figured out that a straight out poison is not the best way to take care of your pest So if you're worried about the Colorado potato beetle in your potato plant and you create an absolutely lethal pesticide Where the Colorado potato beetle takes one bite of a leaf and heals over and dies That might seem like a good strategy but what happens in nature is That poison selects for the members of the beetle population that just by genetic chance Are not affected by the poison and suddenly those individuals will proliferate and your poison will no longer work So it's an all-or-nothing strategy and eventually it leads to the failure of your pesticide Much better strategy to just merely kind of fuck with the minds of your pests Confuse them make them forget where they saw you Cannabis makes people forget and that may serve the cannabis plants Now this is not scientific exactly it's more anecdotal But I had a cat named Frank and I planted a cat named plant for Frank And Frank had a real cat named issue a problem Every night when I went down to the garden which was a fence rectangle to harvest something for dinner This is when we lived in rural Connecticut Frank would follow me into the garden and then he just look up at me He didn't remember where the cat named was every day You know I had to actually like there it is Frank and Frank would like he didn't get all completely wrecked And then we'd sleep it off and the next day he needed to be reminded again And this made me realize what a smart strategy that is for the plant and how much better it is than killing Frank would be And so I'll be localized work by messing with the minds of the pests and sometimes getting them to act in a very reckless manner sleeping where they shouldn't sleep dancing where they shouldn't dance and then some bird comes along and grabs the pest Who has forgotten to hide and take any precautions?

So I think over time they've come up with these neuro toxins that it certain doses are very appealing to us And another dose is protect the plant now the same chemical though can work as and this goes back to the idea that these are both Blessings and curses parakells is the great renaissance doctors said the poisonous in the dose It depends how much you take at small amounts really interesting things happen at high amounts You die and so as an example that I talk about in the book Bees what is caffeine caffeine is a pesticide and it's designed to keep other plants from growing around the coffee or tea plants And also it's very bitter so it discourages bugs from eating the leaves But the scientists recently found that there's a small group of plants including the citrus family That manufacturers caffeine in its nectar now the nectar is designed to attract insects not repel them So it turns out that bees when given small doses love caffeine They will return to caffeinated flowers more avidly than any other flowers and they'll keep coming back And that the plant actually uses caffeine to train its pollinators to remember them and return Incredible manipulation and what the caffeine does for the bees is improve their memory and makes them work harder and more efficiently Which is exactly what it does for us. Yeah, also This is your mind on plants. I don't think there's well like men. I thought this was ingenious I never put it together, but like coca leaves which are chewed by the indigenous population of energy But it's also an appetite suppressant right so it convinced the bug It's not in the movers neck.

It's a really good point. I neglected mention that but one of the things most alkaloids reliably do is ruin your appetite I mean isn't genius. I feel like this thought process could be applied to our antibiotics We create super bugs through our exactly resistance resistance is exactly the phenomenon I'm describing here whereas you come at it with a heavy poison and you use it very widely as we do in the meat production We give it to all these animals We eat eventually the microbes figure out the key to destroy the defense. We gotta get them drunk and horny or no I want to reduce drunken dancing and not affecting cellular wall exactly sense what we need to do So it's this dance.

It's this neurochemical dance between people and plants and it's been going on for thousands of years But there's still the question What good does it do us and pain relief is an obvious case right the opiates have helped us and most of medicine for thousands of years When they couldn't cure anything or very much was about pain relief and opium was the most powerful and important drug in the form of Capilla, but I've spent a lot of time thinking what are the other one? What are psychedelics good for why should our species like that kind of consciousness change or cocaine or Eastimulans and some make us better workers caffeine certainly makes us better workers the proof of that is that your employer will give you time off and Free drugs in something called the coffee break Why would they do that if it didn't improve productivity and efficiency and it does and that's been proven? So that's one case so they make us better workers and then in the case of the psychedelics Well, this is true about the drugs as well. I think of drugs as something that has the potential to contribute the cultural evolution In the same way that radiation and other forces like that lead to mutations and some of those mutations not many of them But every now and then a mutation comes along that changes things for that species gives it some new advantage and advances its evolution Something similar happens in cultural evolution where you have a disruptive force like a drug think of it as a mutagen Right a mutation creating force that in certain brains leads to new ideas Solutions metaphors visions that actually contribute to cultural evolution the average person's insight on psychedelics probably is not gonna change the world It's usually loves the most important thing or it's often quite but also profound but in certain minds The exposure to a psychedelic has led to breakthroughs and there's a whole record of scientists who figured things out on psychedelics writers Who benefited from drugs?

You hit us with a couple of the scientists the best example I know is Kerry Mullis he is the inventor of PCR polymerase chain reaction the technology that allows us to multiple I DNA it's all of us have been benefiting from the covetester based on PCR But also all of modern biology and genetics is based on this machine that he invented and he tells the story of how on LSD He could as he said sit on the chromosome and look at what was happening and imagine it and realize how the DNA To our native let DNA and how we might create something a chain reaction that would multiply that and this was on an LSD trip He had driving through Mendocino Wow, he was driving that's not advisable Well, we're not here to judge we're just here Yeah, so he just died a few years ago That's one example another example that I talked about in how to change your mind is Stuart Brand Who invented the well and had a lot to do with the reconceptualization of the computer from being this tool of corporate conformity You know the punch card. You remember those old images. I'd be here. I'd be on to this tool of personal liberation I mean before Apple and Steve Jobs he had totally you know mentioned the personal computer He tells the story about having an acid trip.

He's on the roof of his house in north beach also This guy was line a hand glider and he thought and he's looking out south and he sees the curvature of the earth What appears to be the curvature of the earth and he realizes hey, why haven't we seen a picture of earth from space? There had been no such picture even though we were sending people to the moon so he came down and realized this could change everything We could see a picture of the earth from space that would change our whole perspective So we started this campaign he had buttons printed up on why haven't they shown us a picture of the earth from space? It's kind of like the scheme going on and he got picked up by media and found its way to NASA and the cause in effect I can't verify but the following year on Apollo 8 they got far enough out where they can take a picture of the earth from space And we saw that blue marble that became of course the logo of the whole earth catalog which to a brand started And that image did change everything that image helped you rise to the modern environmental movement. Yeah, and so that was another LSD inspired Newtation yeah as you're explaining it and then coinciding with having just read this book the molecule more really really good All about doing better.

Anyway, they really explain how the brain models and in that modeling is where ideas are and where theories are right? And so yeah, there's a capacity to model in this state We're currently out and then there's a totally different ability of the brain to model in that state Well, yeah the brain works with predictions and predictions are very useful We just imagine how things are gonna be and usually they are like that based on past performance But those predictions can get us in a hole too if we're telling ourselves disruptive stories about ourselves Yeah, those predictions do those beliefs that I'm unworthy of love or that I can't get through the day without a drink or a cigarette Whatever it is and what psychedelics appear to do is relax those beliefs those predictions And that's what appears to allow us to break bad habits bad habits are often bad narratives bad stories And it's the ego that tells those stories and getting a little rest from your ego which psychedelics help you do can allow new narratives to form And you keep using the term ego which I agree with but I do think it's got a connotation that the ego is bad right But you could also just swap out that word for identity like so often what this is really going on I'm the type of person that this happens to if I'm in this situation this and that is ego That's just like who you think you are. Yeah, and you go as that voice though That's telling those stories and right look egos are very useful. They get books written podcast made I mean, you know, we wouldn't do very well without an ego But sometimes he goes become overbearing over weaning and they become impediments and so I think we need to put our egos in their places And that's kind of what happens in therapy by the way I mean you get perspective on your ego your habits of thought and hopefully some relief from an ego that is punishing Overly critical, but look it's another example of why we need to keep two conflicting ideas in our head He goes to important to our success I mean they're very involved with dopamine right when he goes getting what it wants and you get a dopamine hit and that he goes all about survival and reproduction and success and He goes to have achieved enormous benefits for the individual and often for the society But they also are at the root of a lot of mental difficulty Yeah to be able to step metaphorically outside of it sometimes to not be caught in it is so powerful and yes And to see it for what it is essentially alienate yourself from it and that's what happened to me on my most powerful So I've experienced that I described how to change your mind I experienced the complete detonation of my ego myself what I thought of as myself Just exploded in a cloud of blue post it notes and then settled on the ground It's code of pain and I was like oh shit.

That's me, but it was like that's fine. I'm still here He goes gone, but I'm still here. Who's this I? I don't know But I had awareness without self and that was incredibly Liberating it just felt really right and I felt complete activity about it because I would imagine you can't even think of yourself Who is Michael without words like parent husband professors?

Author yeah, yeah, like all these things that are largely mental constructs or quite are and there's a more essential self that exists in the absence of all that Take away memory take away your plans and I was still there But with the walls down with ego no longer there there was no inside outside There was no me not me there was no subject object I just merged with what was around me and that was a powerful and wonderful Awesome, you know, really awesome experience and I merged with the piece of music as it happened I was doing a guided drip and my guide put on this unaccompanied cellus week by Bach this beautiful very sad piece of music And there was no difference between me and it I was in and it was the most profound experience of music I've ever had and that ability to emerge with something larger than yourself That's the benefit of losing your ego. I think the ego is what is the wall and construct wall. Yeah. Yeah.

Oh my gosh I love listening to talk now the book this your mind and plants really explores three things We've talked a lot about messa land or psychedelics and then we touched on caffeine I guess I was shocked to see that that would be one of them and then I learned of course that you had grown it at one point in the 90s In your garden you grew poppies. Yeah, for cure tea Well this first chapter about growing opium and the trouble I got into doing it is really a parable of the drug war Right the late 90s was the height of the drug war and I at the time was writing columns for the New York Times magazine and Harper's magazine about What was happening in my garden because I was using my garden as a laboratory to explore our relationships in nature And I've written a series of essays and this editor came along this friend of mine His name is Paul Tuff and he had gotten this underground press book called opium for the masses playing on Karl Marx's line about religion It was opium. It was the opiate of masses and it was like yeah, you can grow your own opium and now remember this is pre opioid crisis Okay, it's not a different moment historically so I started growing it and the author of this book really brilliant young writer named Jim Hawshire Gave you instructions where to find a seeds totally legal to grow and how to turn it into a mile in our copy tea I said oh this would be cool column. I'll see if I can grow opium and I got seeds and I started corresponding with him Because I thought I was gonna write about it asking him where cultural advice did he have any seeds We can swap and then something I hear that he's been arrested by the Seattle police They have stormed his apartment.

They brought like 20 So as members SWAT team threw him up against the wall and arrested him on the charge of manufacturing narcotics and the evidence They had was a box of dried poppy heads. He got him from a flourish shop You can get them in any flourish shop and a copy of his book which proved his intent to turn those innocent poppy heads into a drug Oh, wow now my email is on his computer at this point and I realize that oh shit Your coke and spirit are now coke and spirit are because the rule with poppy is are if you don't know that they are a schedule Substance it's okay to grow them as soon as you know that that is a narcot. This seems very enforceable Yeah, I know but it is because they can prove what's in your head by the fact that I had copy of this guys book Yeah, and now that I've told your listeners You'll see this charge. Yeah, so anyway It became this summer of paranoia and fear as I tried to figure out while my copies are growing if indeed I had broken along as at any risk and I started doing this investigation and talking to the DA and local sheriff's departments and it turned out the government had this Quite down going on they were very afraid that this would be a fad and people were going to start growing a lot of people It's really easy to grow all over America also It's right at the height of the micro brewing movement people are looking to be under base I'm not getting sure you thought this would be a thing DIY DIY drugs and so they threw the book and I heard eventually he got off and judge thought these charges were ridiculous And they were going around in nurseries and garden centers and telling them not to carry poppy seeds anymore And there were a couple other busts and I got more and more frightened and ultimately I harvested my poppy I had a couple nightmares that summer of being arrested and we were living in a broken out of the time Anyway, I finished the article.

It's a long piece It's a parable of the drug war. I talk about the penalties because if you get busted And this is still true not only can they throw you in jail and the charges for manufacturing narcotica five to 20 years They can also see your property because the property is being used in the commission of crime the asset forfeiture laws kick in So I could have completely wrecked our life and I had four-year-old kid and I was a freelance writer at the time So I had it into harpers who had commissioned it a harpers magazine I said look we need to lawyer this so they hired a criminal defense lawyer to come up to read it And this guy drives up to my house in Cornwall with his young associate sits down in the living room And tells us that you can't publish this article. It's a confession to a violation of schedule one laws You're manufacturing narcotics. You've admitted to it right in this article.

And I'm like, oh shit This payday it was like a year's work and I was a freelancer I needed this check anyway when the publisher of harpers heard this his name is Rick MacArthur And he's a fierce defender the first amendment and when he heard this his first reaction was because I decided not to publish He said we need a new lawyer So he hires a different kind of lawyer set of criminal defense a first amendment lawyer a very prominent one in New York who reads the article It says you must publish this article for the good of the republic The first amendment was created for it to defend comments on government policies. Yeah So I don't know what to do. Oh my gosh I then asked Victor the lawyer of a governor is there anyway I can protect myself and he says wait there are two sections that are actually are gonna be most antagonistic to the government One is the recipe like how you turn poppy heads in seed heads into a drug and the other is the trip report where I describe what it feels like He said if you take that out you're much less likely to antagonize the garner So I sell censors. I feel really bad about it, but I censored myself and then the other thing that made me confident of Depo sight then was that Rick MacArthur gave me the most incredible contractor writers ever received from a publisher Guaranteed not only to defend me as long as it took but to pay me a salary while I was going through that process to pay my wife A salary if I had to go to jail and replace my home should it be seized by the government Oh, I love him.

He really is and he really put his money where his mouth is so with those assurances I published it But I always felt bad about the missing sections and I always wanted to publish them So I recently found them and restored them to the piece and the other thing though that made me want to publish it now after all these years Is that I subsequently learned that that summer of 1996 when I was having that fear and loathing around growing a poppy in my garden Purdue Pharma was introducing oxycontin and beginning the real opiate crisis which wasn't about growing copies and now You know if 500,000 people died since then and the government was looking the wrong way They were looking at a bunch of gardeners goofing around with poppy tea while this legal effort to hook Americans on opiates was getting underway Well, they were looking and some of them at the FDA got paid it seems from the most recent investigations I haven't seen that. That's everything that crime of the century on HBO. It's incredible. It's incredible.

It's too hard documentary about it It's wild. It's why it was a very cynical this company understood how dangerous these drugs were pretended They were less addictive less dangerous than other opiates And this is the biggest public health crisis of the drug war and it was caused by legal drugs not illegal drugs Yeah, and I think that's one of the reasons the drug war is running out of gas is that we focused on the wrong thing Yeah, and even more insidious Because I have a libertarian to me that's always coming out to argue which is like hey It's something really surprised. It's incredibly addictive. It's on you But if that company also changes the institutions that evaluate whether it's dangerous if they have fake data that they funded and then they have really recognized Experts that go on a campaign to doctors and say you're a terrible doctor because these people are suffering and you're under medicating treating fan now we don't have a fair fight libertarianism doesn't work when the information is correct.

Yeah I totally agree like that changed my position on it But when you had this opium tea now my memory of how it works I see you scarred the bud of it at least a little bit of a milk Yeah, if you want to make opium itself you slit the green head when it's after the flowers that have dropped off and it's kind of ripen You can do it with a fingernail or a blade and it will bleed a latex a white milk and you let that dry and you scrape it off And you need to do a lot of it though, and then you can roll it into balls and that's opium It's that simple, but it even easier ways to take those heads let them dry put them in a spice mill or a coffee grinder and then make tea So can water or even more powerful if you're looking for that cut up the heads fresher dried and put them in vodka And that's all of them which was a patent medicine for a lot of the 19th century It was in all the cure holes right it was in all the cure holes I mean one of the ironies that I talked about in this piece is back during prohibition in the 20s and 30s when you could get arrested for making apple Jack on you know from your apple trees the prohibitionists would kick back with these opiate infused women's tonics They were called yeah people find a way to alter themselves. You really can't say no Now how would you compare? I assume you've at some point had some medical procedure where you've been prescribed by get in or oxy cotton or co down How does the tea in your experience like if you had to give one a tan? Not a tan how the tea is like a two or three.

It's very mild It's used in the arb world during funerals as just to kind of everyone gets a cup of poppy tea and it kind of lifts the sadness It's pleasant. It's not overwhelming. I think the loudening would be stronger. It's nothing compared to prescription Opiates I mean the close you are to the plant and this goes for cocoa to the safer the drug is to take it's more We were fine drugs.

It's though when we turn it into weight powders That's when you're far enough from the plant that you're entering kind of a dangerous zone in terms of intensity But most of the plant alcohol is taken in that form coca leaves or poppy tea are fairly mild They're definitely consciousness changers, but not in a way that you have this giant dopamine release right yeah I don't know anything of sugar tea like we should have with the fruit and you have all the fiber It's one thing yeah, there's something protective in the plant version and that it is one not so intense to you're getting it With all this other stuff. I mean it's fiber in the case of sugar the opiate has other things in it It's not just one alkaloid. It's a sweet about always and some may protect you and some may not but it's good Much of people think that eating mushrooms is different than refined so I've been used in in research Right there other alkaloids. Okay.

Really quick. I'm 40 had you for so much time I'm so pretty about the caffeine I just want to say as opposed to your traditional method which is you would imbibe something to research it in this case You abstain from caffeine. Yeah, which is much harder than anything I've been buying Yeah, except maybe you five me own empty so interestingly enough the leading researcher in so Simon I'm ending rolling riff at throughout the last but was before he got interested in so Simon leading researcher on caffeine I started interviewing him about caffeine and one of the things he told me early on is like you can't understand your relationship To a drug that you're depending on until you get off it you will not see it clearly till then so it was kind of a dare like Can you get off caffeine and I spent three months off caffeine? Which was one of the harder things I've done especially to a writer I mean I lost that ability to focus and I felt like I had weeks where I felt like I had attention deficit disorder That things would come in from the periphery and I just couldn't do that kind of spotlight that you need to get anything written I really get much of anything done.

Yeah, and that was challenging and I also just didn't feel myself for three months and I realized oh myself is And I had no idea that that was baseline consciousness which it is for the majority of us 90% of us You caffeine daily whether that's coffee tea or soda. I like their caffeine delivery system And of course soda they deliberately add caffeine it adds nothing except this kick and this addictive potential So that was an interesting experience But I really did it to understand my relationship to caffeine but to see what it would be like when I got back on Yes, I look forward to for three months and that first hit of caffeine after not having had it for three months was pretty Psychedelic I mean it's almost worth getting off it to have that experience Stay tuned for more on our share expert if you dare Okay, so I doubt you're gonna get interviewed by two people that have the identical scenario You just mapped out I got off of it for three months. I do him right here. I'm like, well I can't right that's the window The same thing I'm like just things are catching my attention and I'm realizing I've been looking at something for a while I mean like really trippy stuff Ultimately going after all that wore off just like I don't enjoy being alive as much without caffeine It's really that simple.

It is clearly now it is additive to my life and that's that like I know that now in my first It was mild. I had a diet coke it in and out and man. I felt it get my body I couldn't believe how strong I felt it. Yeah, I remember this first cup vividly and this powerful surge of euphoria It was Saturday morning and the world was just beautiful full of potential I enjoyed it so much and then it kind of transmuted into this other feeling There was a garbage truck across the street from the cafe where I was sitting outside and it was like shaking the garbage can't say Anyways, and it really got under my skin and I said, I gotta get home.

I gotta get something done I got this Hold it to get to work. I walk home with my wife. She goes off to her studio And I sit down at my computer and I unsubscribe from a hundred lizards that have been irritated And then I went into my closet and I rearranged my sweater shell I was compulsive but it was wonderful. I had all this energy all this focus and my first thought was how do I preserve this power This is a really good rug.

It doesn't really have any downsides and look what it can do for you for a few months I did it by saying I would only do caffeine on Saturdays And that worked for a while and I really look forward to Saturdays and I say certain tasks for Saturdays And then I was like, oh, I got a big deadline on a Friday. I wonder if I could just let it slip a little bit To the addicts mind welcome to our mind the mind spends its whole day coming up with a story you can sign off on exactly It was amazing and even that day when it started wearing off I was like I was doing a little gardening and I pulled some plants out that were not doing well And I actually go to the garden center and I just get the cards that heading down the down the road And I choose a garden center to go to that has coffee outside flowerland and they have really good espresso drinks. Oh my god. Here I am pulled down the road to this place because I got another hit waking up I'll be showing you too.

It's important to say though that we stigmatize addiction or dependence and one of the questions I asked Roland Griffith is what's wrong with a caffeine addiction and he said if it's not wrecking your life If you can afford it if you have a good supply a reliable supply and you're not morally offended by it There's nothing wrong with it. I've had so many people who read this chapter say you know, you'll be very proud of me I gave up caffeine. No, no, I'm not proud of you So anyway, it was very interesting and it raises all these questions about what is it drug? How should we feel about them?

Are they tools or are they temptations or what and caffeine which many people don't even think of as a drug is and it's an interesting model of drug use So that's why I included a book with two other drugs that were not so legal. Yeah, can we end on a philosophical question I asked myself all the time. I wonder often for we in particular this world we live in is filled with so much stimuli It's just we are definitely not designed to have this amount of frenetic pace and stimuli Is it conceivable that something like marijuana for people can actually repair their brain at night It can put it into a zone that is not so affected by stimuli that the brain can wrestle We think of having to augment ourselves to keep up with this But I don't think we ever think that maybe some of these drugs are exactly what people need to deal with this was our reality We live in well I think caffeine is that I mean caffeine allowed us to deal with the industrial revolution I mean people were drunk all the time before caffeine and caffeine was the perfect drug to allow you to do double entry bookkeeping and manage machines And your pain history would be completely different caffeine allowed us to become catalysts workers of capitalists And so there may be another drug that will adapt us to the world we're in now I mean a way caffeine is very well suited still to this world and in that it allows us to focus and block out a lot Which guns we need to block out a lot of sensory inputs were overwhelmed by information and caffeine can narrow our focus But one of the really interesting questions though along those lines is are the plant drugs we have all the plant drugs that there are Or are there new ones waiting to be discovered or invented? There's a whole or barium at Harvard of psychoactive plants collected by Richard Evans Schulte's the great ethnobotanist who taught there for many years in the 40s, 50s and 60s And they've never been studied for the alkaloids they may contain things like snuffs from the Amazon and plant drugs from Most New South America and the rainforest has an incredible abundance of these substance So we sort of think it's still a cyber and a DMT and I watched on these things But there may be others out there and at the same time you have chemists tweaking the drugs we have and seeing if you can't improve on Or eliminate bad side effects and I was talking to scientists just the other day last week who said that he had a technology Where he could genetically alter yeast to produce psilocybin and that he could then tweak that molecule and come up with new psychedelics So gosh, we may find substances as well suited to the world we're entering as caffeine has been to the industrialized capitalist world Well, see it's gonna be exciting to watch it is and of course immediately you're like as you pointed out Which is so fascinating the government stepping away So it's upon us to culturally determine what's a red flag if you wake up and you drink that's probably an issue I think there's got to be some consensus in the sucks for people probably favor methamphetamine But we must agree on some addictive scale like let me put this way in 15 years of hard drug abuse I've never in my life come off of a mushroom trip and said we need more mushrooms It's never happened.

I've never seen anyone do it I don't know what to say and want to do it no So I can say objectively that is not in addictive substance and that's been proven few of rats and opiate or cocaine and a lever to administer to their bloodstream Keep pressing it until they're addicted or dead if you do that with LSD they'll try once They'll never go near again And no, we know that these are not drugs of abuse in that sense They're not addicted. We also know that the classic psychedelics are not toxic to your body And you can't say that about too many drugs I mean, Tylenol is toxic to your liver and fairly small doses. Yeah, there's no lethal dose known for psilocybin LST or DMT That's quite remarkable. Yeah, you can kill yourself on water.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah Plus MDMA so I think that a lot of the fears around psychedelics are founded on misinformation and disinformation Not to say they're not without risk people can have horrifying experiences people who are not taking it in the right setting with the right Expectations can hurt themselves and I have heard horror stories real horror stories And so I know one should approach it in a careless or light manner It's a consequential act to take a big dose of a psychedelic agree with you and at the same time No if I get to pick what my daughters are gonna drink a 12 pack for their first experiment or shrooms I'm on the stream string, but I would offer the same advice. I think to kids but not a giant ego dissolving dose Yeah, and somebody there, I think you have to take it with intention with the guide of some kind and with the sense of Reference for what you're about to embark on. I mean, yeah, this isn't just the real so this is exploration of your mind Which is a scary place to go yeah, it's exciting. Although I think it's a really interesting life experience that's available to us And how incredible their mushroom can afford it.

It's so cool The other thing I always like to add when talking about drugs I don't think people recognize that the pharmacy's in your head. Yeah, change it as well There's nothing in the chemical. I mean the imagery the places you go the fears you experience the ecstasy You experience none of that is in the chemical. It's activating something in you all the material that comes up is coming from you And it's important to understand it and people who use drugs reparationally kids especially don't get that and they think oh It's just some weird dress.

Oh god. It was just the drugs. It's not the drugs Yeah, it's probably inhibited the uptake of something you already have in your brain. Yeah I mean look we know that the conscious mind is like 1% of what's going on there It's the tip of the iceberg and we don't delve down into that and one of the things It's like a dog's do is bring a lot of subconscious material into this observable space That's a big move and you have to be prepared for it and not everything you're gonna see is gonna be tier liking But it's you last question you personally is it something you think you should do once a year once every two years We haven't reminded people that we're talking about things.

They're still illegal. Oh, okay So everyone needs to be highly aware of that fact if psychedelics were legalized I imagine two uses of it one is every year on my birthday I would want to have an experience as a really good way to take stock of where I am in life where I'm going I think it was just a really good way to you know I don't say celebrate because it isn't necessarily gonna feel celebratory But it would be worth doing and the other thing I would do is once a year have an MDMA experience with my wife I think it's potentially the best couples there be out there in that you're very present you're very open you're very Undoffensive and you can talk about everything Without getting hotter to the collar. I know people use an MDMA that way and they find it incredibly productive Yeah, that's my dream Michael Pollan. I just adore you this lived up Not unlike a mushroom experience It's a little too many expectations.

I had expectations and they were met and then beyond yeah We'd have you back yeah tons of luck on this is your mind on plants I think people should read it everyone who read how to change your mind which we're plenty of people it's more that good stuff You'll certainly write again and I hope we get to do this again. I'd be happy to do the act's not a great pleasure to me All right be well take care Now my favorite part of the show the fact check with my son Monica Batman You're getting ready to go on a big old trip. Yeah, and it's a little stressed about I'm not ready to leave a morning by any stretch Yeah, and it's occurring to me that this is gonna go almost directly into the next interview and then we have a party tonight It's right. Yeah, it's gonna get tight.

Yeah, I know I feel that way because I'm also going camping right and I You feel not very very because I don't know about camping. You know I went camping a lot of Cali But her mom Think like how do I keep food cold? Okay, maybe get a little snow, but how do I get the beauty? I can't get that on Amazon when you shift my address then I had it then I had you myself to have even comp So maybe it's not a comment.

I might be moot. Yeah, you get a Coleman stuff. Yeah, they take one. Are we happy?

I have very but then I got nervous No explosions. No you don't explode. I know because I've had them my whole life all around that those little Coleman containers The dancers that you think they do not explode. They've been engineered to not explode Okay, if you threw on in a fire pit Then it was and then you shot it with a rifle from a couple of yards and crack a hole into below But the circumstances by which that thing will blow up will not happen to you in real life Or you'll be long dead before it gives away.

All right. Also. You're gonna be the Charlie. Why are you you can not cook shit?

No, we have dinner dinners are like set. Yeah, all right, but we have to bring our own breakfast and lunch. Yeah But what would you bring for this so much? You know particularly particularly Good like right now.

You know we just had a guest on an elegant lady incredibly elegant and the whole time I felt like a kid yeah, oh I thought that would go on if to and we talk about a little bit in the interview But yeah, there's some women that come in and you feel like a child. I do interesting I Was actually I'm you know I'm quitting vaping tomorrow when we started trip. Thank God. I don't think you really need a quick I do need to quit and I've been really pounding it because I'm going quitting.

You know how I do sure Yeah, I don't miss you on your trip because I will be able to talk to you you don't have service and that's Quickly unreal. We're gonna have internet. We're gonna do fact checks. We can talk all the time.

No, that's gonna happen I won't have service out of the wilderness. I don't know how to go. You know That's kind of a long time. Yeah, but I mean you're not gonna be the looness for a long time this three days You're a girl out in the world trying to make it on your own There's all these women coming out here with her elegance and I wish you would come with me and make my lunch in my back She'd love to she's in a like you but you were like breakfast We're gonna do all me.

Oh, yeah, so I bought oatmeal cups right then I started thinking about hot water I wish I don't look I guess I'll put it in a pot and put it over a fire. Oh, well That's somebody else will have to build the fire. There's also electricity there You'd have to go up to like the toilet's are but you could plug in your cure egg for a minute if you wanted to put hot water in your Bob's right now That's good to know yeah, because I had brought so my ex I brought my generator when we did the same thing same place 10 camping Oh, I'm gonna have to get a generator in the next 24 hours. No, you're gonna two professional campers Yeah, at least Ryan and Charlie and Katelyn Yeah, so just show us your freedom snack on 16 bottles of wine, which is great.

I'm fucking a pillow man I got overwhelmed because I might listen. I was like oh my god This is getting out of hand, and then I just got excited because then I got my shopping mode Oh, right. You love that. I love a shopping mode.

So then I bought cool sleeping bag I'm not sleeping pack. He's really really cute mugs. Oh, you don't know. He's a camping mug already He's a camping bag.

Okay. Are they like a tan with a speckle? It doesn't have a set but it is that a name. I'm sure it's by fish.

I love fish I think it's a shame you don't I mean you're doing well for yourself But I also kind of wish you review products for living because you just love I'm not about products and using them and talking about them. Yeah, it would have been fun career You went Eric air to you like some review. We could do have a side hustle. You should let me we'll do something for the website You know review things.

Yeah, and I'm coming by the line. I haven't purchased it yet I mean you need to go big three days you bring at least six bottles eight bottles for just you know Two bottles a day no Long camping you do. Yes, you will drink two. We'll go to the do and you'll drink two bottles in a day by myself.

No no Do you know the day is a lot? No, you're starting at noon Well, I guess it's true. It's true like you're you're lying yourself. You don't think you drink two bottles over the course of 12 hours It's hard to know because you're sharing people so really I mean maybe that's true But that would mean we would be going through like you bring six glasses of wine in 12 hours more than that I'd be so I'd be so talk.

No, that's only a glass of wine every two hours. Yeah, I don't know that exactly It's gonna be fine. I understand this rest level. Yeah, I'm sorry.

I'm trying to get everyone rise via clay on under one trailer And it's not work and I guess I don't understand that stress. Oh, I know I guess This kind of a thing thing though because Michael pollen yeah, keeping it's a time to do shrooms. No, sure sure That's like I won't I don't think but it would be a time are people bringing them. I don't know.

Oh, we're also a party tonight It will happen so we can say yeah, it's a surprise party for Ryan for the birthday We gotta do it right now. Can we do it? Yeah, you're my call. Yeah Happy birthday to you To you happy birthday Dear Happy birthday to you.

Oh, it's not every day a baby boy turns 46 Are you having a fun birthday? What are you guys doing? Oh, my god, wow what a day Love making a nice coffee. It's not me up.

Oh my god Go home and shower and go out to dinner with a bunch of people and an Italian restaurant I love her day. Yeah What are you being celebrated as you should be your beautiful baby boy strong and pine number one person of all time winner winner of race of 270 Bless you. Well, I love you happy birthday. I love you so much Have a blast by Ruthie Okay, that was nice.

Happy birthday. That's my name. Oh 46. You probably already told people about J2C But I guess you should tell them again.

Okay, you're in a very very exclusive club It's so exclusive J2C club. Yeah, so he's July 2nd cancer and I'm January 2nd, Capcorn J2C and we figured that out in junior high and No, just the way for us. We've got other people. I guess yeah, but I didn't feel that way But now I recognize that it was a little exclusive, but we we love that J2C Have some things I've got.

Yeah, just us. Yeah, so if you're J2C out in the audience can grasp It's a good thing to be if you're a a 24 you're an a to for V You're in my club and that's probably been extra exclusive. It sounds a little bit like a lab specimen though a to for V I like it J2C's like what do you just say J2C? Michael pollen Michael pollen what a big get what a get and what a chill persona Yeah, I guess we interview literary figures I go into those a little more trepidation a little more insecure like oh there's so literate and elevated and work up Laughter's with a podcast or you know, I start feeling less than so they're fun and playful and stuff I like it.

Yeah, it's a relief. Yeah, he's a professor on there all these big Yeah, big boy. He's a big boy. What if he's J2C?

I would scream at the top of my lungs like old child. He is f six these kind of sound like Scientology distinctions to see a six a yeah like levels a two four Two by four Forever China, okay, anyway, he's not J2C. They still very cool. Oh my god.

Oh my gosh. It's so exciting Right now, okay, what is holotropic breath work? Hb oh my god There's so many abbreviations in this yeah, very helpful factor Culture bread work has become increasingly popular among those secrets before a unique process of self healing to attain a state of wholeness The unconventional new age practice was developed by psychiatrist Stanislav and Christine Groff in the 70s to achieve altered states of consciousness without using drugs as a potential therapeutic Tool involves controlling and quickening reading patterns with women's emotional physical states It's a practice that is derived from spiritual framework, but it's also trademark activity interesting. That's right that yeah If you could get high any substance Oh, that's great.

Yeah, you know, I would have to be cool. Yeah Yeah, yeah, oh there we interweil exam technique No, it's not Alex entertainment. There is a technique an acting technique That's all about breathing and breathing in certain patterns and like you're supposed to be able to breathe in a certain pattern I'll make you cry reading this or I'm telling you know because all these different Is that theory that there's all these very specific reading patterns associated with the monthly reverse engineering? Yep, that's cool.

I like that. Can you cry for me right now? No, I wasn't trained in it It was kind of new at the time. I profess her was getting trained in it Oh, and then she was telling us something she's giving us updates, but she was still learning herself Which I appreciate forever is you know, right?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, but that's fine Why did you give a coffee? What made you? I'm someone that likes to challenge myself with these things and I was drinking too much coffee What's I do? What's there no?

I just not like oh, I drink so much of this I should probably see if I can not do it and then I did yeah, and I was so calm You know when you leave yoga how you're like in a very altered state I remember leaving yoga one time in standing in this very long line. It was moving so slow. I didn't care at all I was like oh yeah, I'll be here or I'll be somewhere else standing on planet Earth who cares and I was just so content I felt wow I did this every day. I probably have no oh and you think that's because of the no coffee Well, I'm saying it's when I quit coffee.

I kind of went into that state really yeah Like really calm, but kind of unplugged like didn't wasn't dialed in that much You know I think a big chunk of my personality is intertwined with caffeine for sure That's interesting because you know I never had coffee well. No I've had coffee plenty times and it doesn't sit well Yeah, and my brain yeah, so I go through like before matcha. I went through life without caffeine without caffeine I know and then you start drinking matcha. I didn't feel like you're sorry.

Well, I don't think the timing really cool Yeah, famous Why oh my god? It is yeah, thank miss I'm gonna start me trying to explain to you that your famous and you deny it and then me saying you famous I don't think that's how it started. Oh, yeah, I'm here. Yeah, yeah Well, it's right on here, but I don't think it was about me.

It was yeah It's always you want to have a part day me explain you your attractive and people are trying to do it They want it that's why they got your number and then it strikes when you're famous Okay, all right. There we go my poem. Where's it decriminalized? Psychedelics Denver is was the first city to decriminalize the society that was in 2019 then the city's open and Santa Cruz California followed suit Washington DC bullets did after that as did summer bill and Cambridge, Massachusetts I've been a matter from No, they just went to school there.

They went to Cambridge, which went high school Oh my god, I don't forget if we ever interview one of those two I'm gonna elect to not do research I'm just gonna ask you about them. Oh, you don't have to do any Yeah, well, okay, and then in 2020 voter pass organ balance 190 to organ the first day to both decriminalize So I'm also legalize it for their p2Qs. Mm-hmm. It's uh, it's domino's now.

Oh my god dinking dang horrible dinking Did you see the Olympic athlete the runner who might get disqualified because they come pot in her system? Yeah, that fuck out of here It's horrible. Oh my god, and she's like let me Oh, this is awful as if we could give you any advantage whatsoever Exactly the American sprinter Shikari Richardson who was set for a star-turn at the Tokyo Olympics this month couldn't miss the games After testing positive for marijuana Richardson 21 one the women's 100 year race of the US track and feels trials on Oregon last month but her positive test automatically invalidate her result in that marquee event the United States anti-dope agency announced The positive test result on Friday morning and set Richardson had accepted a suspension of one month starting on June 28 That could clear her in time to run in the four by a hundred year relay that takes place later in the games If she's named to the US team in an interview with NBC and Friday Richardson blame the positive test on her use of marijuana as a way I hope the unexpected death of her biological mother while she was an organ for the Olympic trials She said she learned about the death from a reporter during an interview and called it triggering and quote definitely nerve shocking It's semi-to-a-state emotional panic. She said Richardson apologize for fans are family responses I know I control my emotions or do my emotions during that time.

I mean, what is your? I know I hate this what are we doing exactly some of you yell at me This is how I look at the world you're finally you're with me Which is like these rules that people take for granted you don't ever does not you have to ask yourself what the point of things are Oh, right. What on earth is the point of this also? She found her mother was different a reporter Yes, that's insane.

I know they need to fucking give that yellow path. Exactly agree. I know it's horrible Yeah, we're caring about that but then like Bill Cosby is released none none of it is making any sense I read the bill cos we think you know why he was released? Yeah, he was like mistrial because the prosecutor said he was not gonna prosecute Because he said that then Cosby participated in a deposition Uh-huh.

Because he had been assured he wasn't gonna be tried So then basically they took part of that deposition and then used it against him in this criminal case which they wouldn't exist if he hadn't been promised They weren't gonna prosecute right so sadly the tenants of justice. Yeah, it has to do it was a misright I didn't have anything to do process like that. By the way, I didn't know he had been in prison for three years to do Yeah, I knew he was been in prison. I knew he was like convicted But I guess I didn't realize Bill Cosby's been sitting in prison for years.

What are you doing there? What do people do in there? I don't know where you're going to go to the general. Oh my god I read that he's like already has book plans and show plans and like all of this stuff I don't think it's gonna work.

I hope not. I hate to be a pessimist. I don't think it's gonna work. You don't go in prison without your general point.

Okay I learned in three years. There's no doubt that any more is. No, no, no, we can do that. Okay.

For a lot of reasons. Well, that's because he's black He's the way I'm talking is not doing that. I know that. This is just this We can do that.

Okay, but don't make you can but you don't have to do it. Wait, look at it. I'm gonna do one more Oh my god fine. I don't look away.

You don't know. You're gonna prosecute me. And now I'm being prosecuted I was a bad person nation of him and his bad sentence. Oh my god.

Okay He did this for so long so many women got away with it for most of the life Yeah, don't you think like what's almost more repulsive than the act? I mean It's not but it's like as bad in some ways is that he can't just be like yeah I did it. I fucked up. I need to live out the rest of my life here You put out so much destruction into the universe and you can't just accept that you did that and just stay in prison Well, I understand initially why he would keep up the lie Which is just to keep himself free.

I see the incentive there like that He would maintain his innocence so he wouldn't die in prison like that I get that but yeah, once you're convicted In the worse is happening. You're gonna die in prison. Yeah, why not absolve yourself of that and in on it and apologize But apparently he thought he would still get out what he did Right, but I guess what that's what I'm saying like yeah, you could potentially still get out But you know you did that yeah, yeah, so I guess I'm hurt me Like why wouldn't you just be like yeah, I deserve this like at some point. Don't you think like I deserve this?

Well, I would yeah, but I also wouldn't rate 50 people so I don't know Yeah, what I assume is that he told himself something nobody is moving through like an I'm a monster I know I don't think a human brain can do that So I'm imagining he had some elaborate justification for why what he did make a monster Yeah, I think he did during that time Yeah, but that's kind of what I'm saying like if I accept the notion that most people don't think their monster and that they justify their actions at some point I imagine that everyone to have some human seed left that would say like wow like after that amount of time Why really really a lot of people's lives and I deserve to pay for that? This sounds like I'm defending him. I'm not I'm just trying to understand what potential thoughts he might have There's also I guess some conceivable thing where he thinks he's trying to shield his family from the deep shame of that So as long as he can protest his innocence he's sparing them. He's not innocent.

Well, no, we know it over 50 women Like yeah, I'm trying to imagine what he tells himself. No, I know but I'm just saying it's horse-talking. Yeah, yeah It's it's I'm sure he does have a narrative anyway Um, that's it. That's it from my call.

Yeah, that was a fine review Yeah, it really was but it didn't move the needle for you with MDM. I'm personally not interested in taking synthetic drugs Right yeah Roger even with his stamp of approval. Yeah, I'm not saying other people shouldn't I? I for my own body.

I'm a little afraid because of that Well, I'm a little bit even with this room because I was a little bit like what's it gonna do I mean these are all chemicals are all you know releasing all this stuff in your brain and my brain sometimes fires in a different way Yeah, and I have to keep that in mind It could also be um It actually could be restorative to your brain because I do say what happens with the people they're treating with so I've been for PTSD and stuff is that once your brain has trauma gets locked into this pattern This like circuitry forms and then sometimes the only way to break out of that Formed circuitry is to like explode your brain and have it create all these new synapses in the wrong story Well, so could be like if whatever area of your brain was conflicting it could actually open up like new neural pathways that would remind them It could I don't know that I necessarily think that's the same thing as yeah, you're at a seizure. Yeah Very fizzable. It is just it is just a little electrical storm in your brain. Yeah, but yeah, I just get scared kind of putting sure anything in into my chemistry That's like could effect it's an athletic or could counter act the medicine.

I'm on. I don't know You should ask your doctor what he thinks about it. I could but I don't think I'll feel comfortable. Oh, yeah, I just curious what your doctor would say I think he would have an obligation to tell me I shouldn't Not if he was my following he's not a doctor a doctor An obligation to tell her patients they shouldn't make drugs even if it is Well, no a doctor's an obligation to tell you the truth about the interaction So if that doctor knows that MVM has no would have no impact whatsoever I'm gonna put he would he should have to tell you that but he might not there might not be like a hundred percent That's okay.

It's like oh, no. No. We never said it But if in fact it's been studied because oh, no, you know, actually The truth is all they're obligated to tell you if he said to me it's probably fine I don't see why those two interact there hasn't been any studies on it And then I did it and then something bad happened he would get sued like he they have to protect themselves You know, if you more if he said no, there was a study And we know definitively it doesn't interact with this medicine and it doesn't interact with the area of your brain that is I'm just saying if it's probably completely unknown I'm just saying I feel like you have the perfect career for you because I don't think you are a person who who likes to like play it safe Oh, no, yeah, right. Yeah, so doctors do that is built in they are also protecting themselves from all practice Well, but really quickly when there are studies that confirm or deny something they can't play it safe by ignoring the reality So like not pregnant when I'll ask you I go off my end to press it well No, we've actually studied it now and although something gets into the baby We find that the raising cortisol like there's there's a it's an illegal drug So he cannot tell me anything other than you should not do that no He could tell you if there was a so paper published if a doctor told a patient to it's okay to do an illegal drug That's not what he'd be doing he would just be saying whether or not your medicine interacts if you're had been a study And it was known he's not telling you doing the MA But he is obligated to tell you if you ask does it interact with this and he knows of the study that drew to didn't he would have to say that He's not telling you to do it.

He's just telling you there was a study and there's no interaction between the medicine and math Yeah, yeah, I just don't I don't see a doctor who would do it and I just think that I just I think you would Well, I could do this that documentary I watched was a group of English doctors who had bound together to try to decriminalize him Make an England because their point was we work in the ER nobody comes in here from the MA every single night We get 100 people from alcohol. I was very dangerous. It is more dangerous than the MA But statistically it is you'd be better off allowing this so there was a movement of doctors there that were trying to get it Lilies to mitigate how dangerous alcohol is yeah, yeah, I guess of course I'm sitting on the other side of having done it 300 times in smoke rack and done everything in life physically I'm just fine more physically fit than some way. Here's I didn't do that So I have course a perspective on it, which is like not at all that so they said kill you.

I'm fine It's a lot people. God's oh big time. I'm not I'm in no way saying drugs are not dangerous I'm just saying I've had a very specific life experience and a lot of the fear-mongering I heard I've explored it on my own way didn't turn out to be that thing I wrote about or been warned about yeah, I hope you have a great road trip. I hope you have a blast of killing I'm gonna miss you, but we are gonna fall okay.

We will do that check on the roads We can check in on the well. We'll do fuel. Okay, we'll check in on your trip. We'll see We'll find a loan on the camera.

Yeah, one on my camera. Yeah, can't say your cancer. I give you exploded in your hot truck exactly Goodbye