Joe Rogan Experience #1121 - Michael Pollan

1. 0:00 – 15:00

   That quickly? Two? One?…

   1. JRJoe Rogan0:02

      That quickly? Two? One? Boom, and we're live. Mr. Pollan, how are you?

   2. MPMichael Pollan0:08

      Hey, good.

   3. JRJoe Rogan0:09

      Poor sucker.

   4. MPMichael Pollan0:09

      Good to be here.

   5. JRJoe Rogan0:10

      Put the fist away. There you go.

   6. MPMichael Pollan0:11

      Okay.

   7. JRJoe Rogan0:12

      What's happening, man? How are you?

   8. MPMichael Pollan0:13

      Uh, good. Good to be in LA.

   9. JRJoe Rogan0:14

      Uh, good to have you here.

   10. MPMichael Pollan0:16

       Thanks.

   11. JRJoe Rogan0:16

       I've been a fan of your work for a long time, man, and I got really excited when I found out that you were writing a book on psychedelics. And, uh, um, I'm just, uh, I think it's a, an amazing subject, and I'm, I'm glad someone who's respected like yourself-

   12. MPMichael Pollan0:30

       (laughs)

   13. JRJoe Rogan0:30

       ... is getting it. It's a q- crackpot subject, right? It's one of those subjects where like, "Oh, no, Michael Pollan found drugs."

   14. MPMichael Pollan0:35

       (laughs)

   15. JRJoe Rogan0:35

       Like, "What's he doing?" (laughs) "He's having a crisis."

   16. MPMichael Pollan0:38

       You know-

   17. JRJoe Rogan0:39

       "He's out there doing mushrooms."

   18. MPMichael Pollan0:40

       ... it was a bit re- it is a bit of a departure, I think, that there are people who were expecting another book on food or agriculture.

   19. JRJoe Rogan0:45

       Yeah.

   20. MPMichael Pollan0:45

       And, uh, were a little surprised. Um, but so far, people have been following me, you know, uh, who cared about food and ag, and they're, there's more overlap than I ever would've guessed.

   21. JRJoe Rogan0:54

       I think you caught the perfect wave. I think your book is coming out right when John Hopkins Research Center-

   22. MPMichael Pollan1:00

       Yeah.

   23. JRJoe Rogan1:00

       ... is starting to put out these, uh, studies on it. People are starting to recognize that MDMA has amazing results for post-traumatic stress disorder from veterans, and marijuana is becoming legal in more and more states. It's like you're catching this wave.

   24. MPMichael Pollan1:13

       Yeah, and I didn't know that. I, you know, you never know where the culture's gonna be 'cause you start a book years before. And-

   25. JRJoe Rogan1:18

       How long, uh, did you start it?

   26. MPMichael Pollan1:20

       Well, I started the research in, uh, 2014. I wrote a piece for The New Yorker called The Trip Treatment, uh, which is online, um, and it was, um, my first foray into this work. I went down to Hopkins and spent a lot of time at NYU, and at the time, they were doing this really interesting trial where they were giving psilocybin to people with cancer diagnoses, many of whom were terminal. And that seemed like such a weird idea to me that I, I was curious to explore it, and I spent a lot of time talking to patients, many of whom were dying, uh, about how this single psyl- high-dose psilocybin experience, a guided psilocybin experience, and we should talk a little bit about how the guided changes things for, you know, it's not ... The, the image people have is popping some mushrooms in your mouth and maybe going to a concert or going to the beach, but this is a very d- controlled internal experience. Uh, completely reset these people's attitude toward death, and, and-

   27. JRJoe Rogan2:13

       Yeah.

   28. MPMichael Pollan2:13

       ... allowed them to die with equanimity, and, um, uh, and when these results were published, um, just last year, they found that, um, that th- in 80% of the people who had the session, uh, they had statistically significant reductions in standard measures of depression and anxiety. It was one of the most effective psychiatric interventions that these psychiatrists had ever seen, uh, which is amazing, a single experience, and that a molecule could change the contents of your head to the, to the extent that you would rethink your mortality. Uh, and so as I began talking to these people and hearing their stories, w- many of which were just remarkable, I realized, you know, this is not just an article. There's a book here, and there's so much, uh, you know ... There are two kinds of articles you write as a journalist. One is you f- you, you're sick of the topic by the time you finish and you can't wait to be done, and the other is, "God, I just scratched the surface," and this was one of those.

   29. JRJoe Rogan3:12

       Did you have any experiences personally with psychedelics before you wrote this book?

   30. MPMichael Pollan3:16

       Very limited. Um, I, for some peculiar reason, never did psychedelics in college. They just weren't around. I went to the-
2. 15:00 – 30:00

   Oh, I don't know…

   1. MPMichael Pollan15:00

      the campfire. We were, uh, cooking some dinner, uh, outside our yurt and, uh, he said, "Yes, I ... These, these are almost too strong for me." I said, "Really? Why?" And he says, "Well, they, they have a side effect that bothers some people." I said, "What's that?" "Temporary paralysis." (laughs)

   2. JRJoe Rogan15:15

      Oh, I don't know why that would bother anybody.

   3. MPMichael Pollan15:17

      (laughs)

   4. JRJoe Rogan15:18

      So weird.

   5. MPMichael Pollan15:19

      Yeah, I know. I know.

   6. JRJoe Rogan15:20

      Temporary paralysis? (laughs)

   7. MPMichael Pollan15:21

      Picky, picky.

   8. JRJoe Rogan15:22

      Oh my God.

   9. MPMichael Pollan15:22

      So I was a little reluctant to take them, but I, I, I ... So I did. I had, uh, my first psilocybin experience since my 20s was, uh ... And at the time, I was like 60 or approaching 60. Actually, I have to be very vague on where all these things happ- when all these things happened.

   10. JRJoe Rogan15:37

       Right.

   11. MPMichael Pollan15:37

       Um, uh, and I had a, a kind of a wonder- I didn't take a lot of them. I made a tea, and I had a, a really powerful experience. Uh, it was very much about being in nature. I was at our house. Uh, we have a house in New England that we've had for many years, and I was in my garden. And, you know, I've written a lot about plants and I've written about plant intelligence and plant consciousness and things like that, and I've always believed intellectually that plants, domesticated plants are acting on us. It's, it's not just ... It's, it's a two-way street. We change plants, they change us. We have been, um, uh, in the same way that say, the apple tree or the flower is manipulating the bee, making it come pay attention to it, offering it nectar in exchange for it picking up pollen on its legs. It b- and doesn't even realize what it's really doing is being tricked by the plant into pollinating it and carrying its genes down the street or around the world. That's happening to us too, and plants work on us. And I ... It's a slightly trippy idea, but it's just co-evolution. That's what, how co-evolution works. So in, during this experience, I felt that in a way I never had. That idea became flesh, and I felt that these plants were kind of looking back at me, uh, and that they were very benign, they had only good intentions, but that there were more subjectivities in my garden than I had thought. You know, we go through the world thinking we're the only thinking subject.

   12. JRJoe Rogan17:09

       Yes.

   13. MPMichael Pollan17:09

       Everything else is an object. One of the things that happens on psychedelics is everything becomes ... Has, has life in it.

   14. JRJoe Rogan17:15

       Yeah.

   15. MPMichael Pollan17:15

       Has consciousness in it. And that was a powerful and beautiful experience, and so that was my dipping my toes in. And then after that, I, I sought a, a guide, um, because I was trying to simulate the experience I was hearing about at Hopkins and, uh, NYU where they were doing these studies. Uh, not just with the dying, they were doing it with smokers and alcoholics and meditators, all these different groups, but I didn't qualify to enter into those, so I had to go underground. And one of the things I learned is that there is this thriving network of underground guides all over the country. I don't know how many there are, um, but they're very professional people. Um, they're not drug dealers. They're therapists, and some of them are trained psychologists or MDs in some cases actually, and they're so convinced of the healing value of these medicines that they're willing to risk their freedom, uh, and their livelihood to, uh, work underground. So I found my way into this community, and, um, uh, and, and interviewed a bunch of people, and some of them were not the kind of people you wanna trust your mind to. I mean, and, and no doubt there are lots of charlatans. Everyone I, I, I interview is pretty professional, but some of them were just a little too casual about something I, I was kind of, um, you know, worried about. Uh, there was one guy, I remember this Romanian psychonaut therapist in his 70s who, uh, I said, "Well, what happens if something bad happens? You know, what if, what if somebody dies, you know, while they're with you getting this trip?" And he said, "You bury them with all the other people."... and that, that kinda casualness really troubled me.

   16. JRJoe Rogan18:54

       Mm-hmm.

   17. MPMichael Pollan18:54

       So I didn't work with him.

   18. JRJoe Rogan18:55

       Yeah.

   19. MPMichael Pollan18:56

       Um, but eventually I found people that I-

   20. JRJoe Rogan18:59

       (clears throat)

   21. MPMichael Pollan18:59

       ... uh, I trusted and I had a bond with, and I had some very powerful, uh, experiences with them, and, uh, that did change me, uh, in ways that I'm still kind of, you know, digesting.

   22. JRJoe Rogan19:11

       Now w- I would like to take you back to the, the garden thing, when you were-

   23. MPMichael Pollan19:14

       Yeah.

   24. JRJoe Rogan19:14

       ... having these experience with, uh, these plants. I had a, a experience once on a v- very high dose of marijuana edibles, I went into a grow room that, uh, this, um, local dispensary had set up. It's this big room filled with plants and it was the first time a- like, when I walked in, this is the first time I've ever been around pot plants where I felt like they were aware that I was there.

   25. MPMichael Pollan19:40

       Yeah.

   26. JRJoe Rogan19:40

       It was very strange. It, you, you had this weird feeling of them having much more sensitivity than you imagined, that they, they're aware of you, but as you said, they're benign and they're just sorta sitting there, but it was almost like they were saying hello to me.

   27. MPMichael Pollan19:57

       Uh-huh. (laughs)

   28. JRJoe Rogan19:58

       Like they recognized that I could tune into them because I was so barbecued that I was-

   29. MPMichael Pollan20:02

       (laughs)

   30. JRJoe Rogan20:02

       ... I was on their wavelength. When you're out there with those plants and you said that you felt consciousness from them, now as an intelligent, rational person, did you start pondering whether or not you were just perceiving this-
3. 30:00 – 45:00

   Yeah. …

   1. MPMichael Pollan30:00

      and they go crazy. Some people think the Salem Witch Trials was-

   2. JRJoe Rogan30:02

      Yeah.

   3. MPMichael Pollan30:02

      ... came after a wet year and people had absorbed, uh, these women had eaten ergot and were having visions and things like that, which was interpreted as witchcraft, which to them was a very-

   4. JRJoe Rogan30:13

      I thought they were saying that the men had absorbed it and thought they were under spells.

   5. MPMichael Pollan30:17

      Oh, maybe.

   6. JRJoe Rogan30:17

      Yeah.

   7. MPMichael Pollan30:17

      Maybe, maybe that too. I, I just-

   8. JRJoe Rogan30:19

      Yeah, probably everybody's tripping.

   9. MPMichael Pollan30:20

      Yeah. (laughs) So, um, anyway, so-

   10. JRJoe Rogan30:24

       So they think it's somehow or another

   11. MPMichael Pollan30:24

       The thinking is if you just eat ergot, you're not gonna be... You could get gangrene. It's, it's a m-

   12. JRJoe Rogan30:29

       Oh.

   13. MPMichael Pollan30:29

       It's not a clean chemical. And, um, but the thinking of, uh, Gordon Wasson and Carl Ruck, and they were collaborators on this theory, um, was that the Greeks perhaps had figured out a way to derive, uh, a purer chemical from ergot that could be made into something very much like LSD. But again, nobody has succeeded, and they've tried for the last 20 or 30 years to take ergot and make something, you know, through simple processes-

   14. JRJoe Rogan30:57

       Hm.

   15. MPMichael Pollan30:57

       ... that the Greeks could have mastered. So it may have been a mushroom. Um, you know, there's a lot of psychedelic plants out there. It's one of the mysteries of evolution that, you know, DMT is like coursing through the, the plant world.

   16. JRJoe Rogan31:09

       Yeah, thousands of plants.

   17. MPMichael Pollan31:10

       Yeah. Yeah.

   18. JRJoe Rogan31:11

       Yeah.

   19. MPMichael Pollan31:11

       So, so...... I, I do find it plausible that there's some links between psychedelics. I think psychedelics have, have influenced cultural history at various points along the way, and one of those may have been to kind of nurture this religious impulse. But again, I can't prove it.

   20. JRJoe Rogan31:29

       The, the Greeks spent, uh, some of the great Greek scholars spent a lot of time in Egypt as well.

   21. MPMichael Pollan31:34

       Don't know anything about that.

   22. JRJoe Rogan31:35

       Yeah.

   23. MPMichael Pollan31:36

       Really?

   24. JRJoe Rogan31:36

       Yeah, I was won- trying to figure... Yeah, those, uh, they, they were trying to figure out what psychedelics, if any, the, uh, the Egyptians took, and they never really figured it out. They made some connections to DMT that are sort of, uh, loosely connected to their worship of the pineal gland-

   25. MPMichael Pollan31:52

       Yeah.

   26. JRJoe Rogan31:52

       ... which, uh, appears-

   27. MPMichael Pollan31:52

       Right, where we found DMT in rats.

   28. JRJoe Rogan31:55

       Yeah, yeah. The, yeah, the Cottonwood Research Foundation.

   29. MPMichael Pollan31:57

       Yeah. So you did that film about DMT, right?

   30. JRJoe Rogan32:00

       Yeah, yeah.
4. 45:00 – 1:00:00

   Right. …

   1. MPMichael Pollan45:00

      ... Or this woman ... I- I was speaking at Google in Seattle and this, this woman stands up and she says, "Well, after I read your book, I had to, I had to slaughter a pig. I had to learn how to slaughter a pig. You made me wanna do that. And when I was driving to work today, I didn't think I'd, I'd ever take s- LSD, but now ... Or psilocybin, but now I feel like I need to." I don't wanna do that to people. I don't want them to feel they have to have this experience. You can learn a lot about the mind. This book is as much about the mind as it is about psychedelics.

   2. JRJoe Rogan45:29

      Right.

   3. MPMichael Pollan45:30

      This is a book that uses psychedelics to explore this really interesting mystery called consciousness. Um, and it- it's also exploring the nature of addiction, the nature of depression, all the, all the illnesses that psychedelics turns out to be very helpful in, um ... You know, but I- I- I'm not holding a brief that people should do this. Um, I'm not an ad- ... I'm not an advocate for psychedelics. I'm an advocate for the research at this point. I don't know enough to say, "Yeah, everybody should do this. This is what our culture needs." You know, I don't ... I'm not in that Timothy Leary head. You know, I think, I think we have a powerful agent that, that there's good data now that this can help heal people who are really suffering. And the other reason for the openness that's going on right now that surprised me, 'cause I expected to get a lot of pushback from the psychiatric establishment, uh, and I, and I looked for it. I- I called around, you know, "I wanna hear the critical voice on the Hopkins work and the NYU work." And what I kept hearing blew my mind. It was like ... I remember calling the head of the National Institute of Mental Health to get what I thought would be a really negative quote about psilocybin research and he was like, "No, this ... We have to look at this. This is really interesting research."

   4. JRJoe Rogan46:41

      Mm.

   5. MPMichael Pollan46:41

      Former heads of the American Psychiatric Association. And the reason they're so open to it is that mental health treatment in this country is just a mess. I mean, we only reach half of the people who are struggling with mental illness at all, have any exposure to the system. If you compare mental health treatment to any other branch of medicine, oncology, cardiology, infectious disease, it's accomplished very little. It hasn't prolonged life span, it's not saving lives. Um, and yet, we have, uh, you know, soaring rates of depression. Depression is now the, the leading cause of disability worldwide. There are 300 million people with major depression or treatment-resistant depression in the world right now. Um, and suicide rates are way up. Um, partly it's the vets, but, uh, in general, uh, the taboo is coming off ... Is come off suicide and suicide is climbing rapidly. And addiction, as we know, is rampant. So, they need some new tools. There hasn't really been innovation in mental health treatment since the early '90s, late '80s, with the introduction of the SSRI antidepressants, drugs like, you know, uh, Paxil and, uh, Prozac. Um, they need some new tools, and that's why they're open to this, and that's why I think it will be embraced eventually by, um, by the medical world.

   6. JRJoe Rogan48:00

      Well, isn't it on the ballot in 2018 in California?

   7. MPMichael Pollan48:03

      They haven't quite got it on ... They're doing their petition drive right now.

   8. JRJoe Rogan48:06

      Mm-hmm.

   9. MPMichael Pollan48:06

      And in Oregon, too. And, um ... So, I don't know that it'll get through this time. It's a weird item to put on the ballot 'cause actually, a- a small minority of people know what psilocybin is. When I ... On this show, you're the first person who's said the ingredient in ma- ... Didn't say the ingredient in magic mushrooms.

   10. JRJoe Rogan48:24

       Mm-hmm.

   11. MPMichael Pollan48:25

       You have some confidence that your audience knows what psilocybin is. But, but it's a v- unfamiliar word to most people. So, I don't know how people vote on that.

   12. JRJoe Rogan48:32

       Right. Yeah, um-

   13. MPMichael Pollan48:33

       It may be premature, is what I'm suggesting.

   14. JRJoe Rogan48:35

       Well, it's all dependent upon getting the word out.

   15. MPMichael Pollan48:38

       Yeah.

   16. JRJoe Rogan48:38

       I think if people understand what ... Like, the John Hopkins research or just the anecdotal research that some of these people have, uh, uh, had these incredibly life-changing experiences. But I think one of the things that you're saying is I think d- very important is that this isn't for everybody, and that if you have problems with normal consciousness, this is likely not for you.

   17. MPMichael Pollan49:00

       Yeah.

   18. JRJoe Rogan49:00

       If you're one of those people that has schizophrenia in your family, perhaps, or-

   19. MPMichael Pollan49:03

       Forget it. Yeah.

   20. JRJoe Rogan49:04

       Yeah. Don't do it.

   21. MPMichael Pollan49:05

       And, and, and in fact, those people are screened out of this research very carefully.

   22. JRJoe Rogan49:08

       Yeah.

   23. MPMichael Pollan49:08

       Um ...

   24. JRJoe Rogan49:08

       Schizo- schizophrenia, it's, it's a real issue with people with, uh, psilocybin and ma- and many psychedelics, right?

   25. MPMichael Pollan49:14

       Yeah. What happens with schizophrenia is if you are at risk for it, um, either for, uh, because of, uh, inheritance, um, a psychedelic trip can set you off, can be the trigger for, uh, a life of it. And other things can, too. A divorce, your parents getting divorced sets people off.

   26. JRJoe Rogan49:33

       Parents? (laughs)

   27. MPMichael Pollan49:33

       Going to graduate school sets people off. Uh, if you're someone who's probably gonna get schizophrenia, any kind of mental trauma, if it happens at that window, which is in your early 20s and your late 20s, I think, um, and that's, that's why we did see some cases, 'cause that's the age people were using psychedelics in the '60s.... of having their first psychotic break. So, yeah. So if you're at risk for that or, or bipolar-

   28. JRJoe Rogan49:57

       And marijuana as well, by the way.

   29. MPMichael Pollan49:58

       That's right.

   30. JRJoe Rogan49:59

       Yeah.
5. 1:00:00 – 1:15:00

   Well, I think most…

   1. MPMichael Pollan1:00:00

      um, there is a... You know, people doing it. I don't know exactly what the legal status is in Mexico, whether it's legal or just tolerated.

   2. JRJoe Rogan1:00:05

      Well, I think most drugs have been decriminalized in Mexico, including LSD and mushrooms and a lot of other things to try to do something to curb the violence-

   3. MPMichael Pollan1:00:14

      Oh, that's interesting.

   4. JRJoe Rogan1:00:14

      ... that they're experiencing from the drug cartels.

   5. MPMichael Pollan1:00:17

      Yeah.

   6. JRJoe Rogan1:00:17

      At least keep it non-local.

   7. MPMichael Pollan1:00:18

      Right.

   8. JRJoe Rogan1:00:18

      You know, a lot of the violence is coming from the drug cartels getting money to ship everything to the United States.

   9. MPMichael Pollan1:00:24

      Right. And we are-

   10. JRJoe Rogan1:00:24

       Which is-

   11. MPMichael Pollan1:00:24

       ... driving that violence-

   12. JRJoe Rogan1:00:25

       Yeah, it's-

   13. MPMichael Pollan1:00:26

       ... with our use. Um-

   14. JRJoe Rogan1:00:27

       Well, it, it is very strange that our insistence on prohibition is actually funding one of the largest drug and violence epidemics-

   15. MPMichael Pollan1:00:36

       Yeah.

   16. JRJoe Rogan1:00:36

       ... we've ever seen in terms of like what's happening south of the border.

   17. MPMichael Pollan1:00:38

       Well, yeah. And think about Columbia too.

   18. JRJoe Rogan1:00:40

       Yeah.

   19. MPMichael Pollan1:00:40

       The civil war in Columbia-

   20. JRJoe Rogan1:00:41

       Right.

   21. MPMichael Pollan1:00:41

       ... was funded by our, our-

   22. JRJoe Rogan1:00:43

       Cocaine.

   23. MPMichael Pollan1:00:43

       ... our cocaine interest. Um, so ibogaine is a very intense drug. It is, um-

   24. JRJoe Rogan1:00:49

       Did you do it for this?

   25. MPMichael Pollan1:00:50

       No, I didn't. I didn't. Uh, and I wouldn't do it, I don't think, because it has big implications for your heart.

   26. JRJoe Rogan1:00:57

       Really?

   27. MPMichael Pollan1:00:57

       And... Yeah-

   28. JRJoe Rogan1:00:57

       Hm.

   29. MPMichael Pollan1:00:57

       ... and in fact when you... So it is more toxic to the body than the so-called classic psychedelics and it can last like 36 hours. It's a very long trip.

   30. JRJoe Rogan1:01:07

       Yeah.
6. 1:15:00 – 1:15:33

   Section 6

   1. MPMichael Pollan1:15:00

      really useful. And, uh, it's only... I think it's the experience of ego dissolution that allows you to... 'Cause your ego enforces those habits, and you get a little break. There's a beautiful metaphor. One of the scientists I interviewed in the book, a Dutchman, uh, working in, uh, in Imperial College in London, he said, "Think of your mind as a hill covered in snow, and your thoughts are sleds going down that hill. And after a while, after a lot of thoughts have gone on that hill, there'll be these grooves, and they're gonna get deeper and deeper. And at a certain point, you can't go down the hill without slipping into those grooves."

Episode duration: 1:25:06