EVERY SPOKEN WORD
150 min read · 30,165 words- 0:00 – 15:00
... three, two, one.…
- JRJoe Rogan
... three, two, one. And we're live. Hello, Paul.
- PSPaul Stamets
Hey there.
- JRJoe Rogan
What's happening? How are you, sir?
- PSPaul Stamets
I'm very well. How are you?
- JRJoe Rogan
And you have newfangled mushroom hats. These are surprisingly durable. So the thing about these mushroom hats, they're ... h- you would think, "Oh, it's gonna fall apart in your fingers." But no, it's got like... It's quite pliable.
- PSPaul Stamets
It's quite pliable, and it's known as German felt. And this, um, allowed the Ice Man, Otzi, to be able to travel into the Alps. It was a firestarter mushroom.
- JRJoe Rogan
Really?
- PSPaul Stamets
And this r- actually revolutionized warfare because it helped flint spark guns ignite the gunpowder.
- JRJoe Rogan
Really?
- PSPaul Stamets
So ... And so amadou and, uh ... It comes from a birch polypore mushroom, which is the subject of much of our research these days.
- JRJoe Rogan
Now, when this grows in the wild, what does it look like? 'Cause this is, uh ... You, you've fashioned it into this hat.
- PSPaul Stamets
Well, some-
- JRJoe Rogan
Or had someone fashion it.
- PSPaul Stamets
Some ladies-
- JRJoe Rogan
That's what it looks like?
- PSPaul Stamets
Yeah, some ladies in Transylvania.
- JRJoe Rogan
Can I see that?
- PSPaul Stamets
Yeah. It's called, uh, Fomes fomentarius.
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm.
- PSPaul Stamets
It allowed for the portability of fire. There's no doubt we all came from Africa, and we went north and we discovered winter. This allowed for fire to be carried for days, and so your clan was absolutely dependent upon fire starting in order to survive the winter. And this mushroom allowed and enabled people to survive.
- JRJoe Rogan
Wow. It's very light. Um, is it edible?
- PSPaul Stamets
Excellent question. Um, Hippocrates first described it in 400, uh, BCE, um, as a tre- ... as an antiinflammatory. So in teas, yes, but, uh, you know, that's very, very tough. When you put it in ash and water, it delaminates into mycelium. And so some ladies in Transylvania still make these and as a fabric that you pull. N- That mushroom there will become, uh, one hat or maybe more.
- JRJoe Rogan
Really?
- PSPaul Stamets
'Cause it just keeps on elongating and it's made of mycelium and, um-
- JRJoe Rogan
So, like, explain the process. How would you take this slab of mushroom that I have that looks like ... sort of like a ... an enormous Hershey's Kiss, and then you would put that ...
- PSPaul Stamets
In water with ash from a fire, from a fire. And wh-
- JRJoe Rogan
Now, why, why ash? What is that ash good for-
- PSPaul Stamets
'Cause it's highly alkaline.
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- PSPaul Stamets
And then it helps it separate. It begins to delaminate.
- 15:00 – 30:00
Mm-hmm. …
- PSPaul Stamets
and the, the, you know, the scientific data out there is pretty disturbing. You know, 75% of flying insects in the past 27 years, in a report from Germany that just came out, have disappeared. Now, many li- many of your listeners are out in the country, you know? I grew up in the country. Remember all the bug splatter you used to have against your windshield?
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- PSPaul Stamets
You don't see that anymore, because the, the insects are dying because exposure to pesticides, monoculture. When you have monoculture, you have what's called pollination deserts. When you have lots of biodiversity and lots of plants and, and diversity, the plants are pollinating at different times of the season. When you do to a monoculture, all the plants, like almonds-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- PSPaul Stamets
... they'll all produce flowers all at once, and then it, there's no pollen available. So the immune system of the bees, due to factory farming, loss of habitat, deforestation, glyphosphates, you know, heavy metals, pollution, all those things are co-factors, but the nail in the coffin is by far these viruses. And so immunologically empowering and supporting the immune system of bees then l- gives the bees the opportunity or the ability to be able to survive longer, do more pollination.
- JRJoe Rogan
Is there a specific source of these viruses that they can isolate? Or is it, uh, uh, are these a new thing? 'Cause th-
- PSPaul Stamets
Well, actually, there's a, um, there's a slide that just shows the pandemic spread of these viruses, uh, throughout the world. They came from Asia, uh, and it's now a global pandemic. Uh, all bees in the world are now infected with these viruses because when they ... Infected honeybee, for instance, visits a flower, it leaves viral particles-
- JRJoe Rogan
In the flower?
- PSPaul Stamets
... in the flower, and then a wild bumblebee comes and visits it and it becomes infected.
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- PSPaul Stamets
So there is, is a un- unfortunate, I don't wanna use the word perfect storm, it's a terrible storm of co-factors. And because, you know, 80% of the benefit the farmers receive is from wild bees-
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- PSPaul Stamets
... but we can't count them. And you know, I have s- uh, I have, uh, beehives and, and what happens in a colony collapse, you go out on Monday, the bees are happy. You go out on Thursday, they're all gone. I mean, it's, it's-
- JRJoe Rogan
Really?
- PSPaul Stamets
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
It's that quick?
- PSPaul Stamets
That quick. And it's not like there's hundreds of dead bees around your beehive. They're just gone. And there could be hundreds of pounds of honey and the bees, you know, they, uh, th- they're, they're gone.
- JRJoe Rogan
So they go off somewhere, do they die?
- PSPaul Stamets
What happens is because the newly hatched bees are called nurse bees, and the nurse bees take care of the baby bees, but when the colony senses there's not enough pollen and food to support the brood and the colony, the nurse bees are prematurely recruited to go out and find pollen, so they abandon the babies and then the varroa mites are un- they just go un- un- controlled-
- JRJoe Rogan
Infect.
- PSPaul Stamets
... and they start injecting viruses. And so there are other co-factors, just like when you get an infection from a f- a s- viral infection, you can get bacterial infections.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- PSPaul Stamets
And so there's a, uh, there's a cascade of opportunistic infections as the immunolo- im- immunology is decreased because of these viruses. So-
- JRJoe Rogan
Wasn't there, um, a contributing factor that had to do with cellphones as well?
- PSPaul Stamets
I actually, it's ... I'm really glad you brought that up. Um, this is a contributing factor. I have not seen convincing evidence. It's a hypothesis that's not fully flushed out. Um, there are some people quite adamant in their belief in this, but I'm, I'm driven by science and data. I can, uh, the-... the rhythms, the frequency of the high, uh, of cell phones, there's an argument that's made is, it, it's not in the same cosine wave of the wavelengths that we experience in nature. And so this is disruptive. I understand that. I'm still on the fence. I'd like to see really strong data and scientific evidence of that. Um, but it's a hypothesis that needs to be tested. That's why we're looking also at, uh, uh, low frequency, long-range communication systems.
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm. Um, I, uh, you know, I think I told you this story. If I didn't, I apologize. But, uh, when we were on Fear Factor, we had a bee stunt where we had to cover these people in bees. And, uh, a local bee colony flew in to check out what was going on. And those bees and the bees that were brought there met in the sky and worked it out. And the beekeeper told us, "Okay, we have to shut down, and everybody's gotta back outta here." So we had to shut down everything and back out for, like, about an hour, at least a half hour, while these bees communicated with each other. So they're flying, a giant swarm of them flying in the eye, in the, in the air, trying to figure out why, "Hey, what are you guys here for? What are you doing? Why are you in our neighborhood?" Like, "Oh, we're not moving in. We're just filming a TV show." Like, they had to work it out.
- PSPaul Stamets
That is so unusual.
- JRJoe Rogan
It was really weird.
- PSPaul Stamets
That's extraordinary, you know?
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- 30:00 – 45:00
Mm-hmm. …
- PSPaul Stamets
are correct, of the buzzing in your ears-
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- PSPaul Stamets
... and being able ... and people have resolved that from doing microdosing.
- JRJoe Rogan
Really?
- PSPaul Stamets
And 30% of Americans have hearing loss or more, it's progressive over time. How much hearing loss leads to depression because you can't hear your loved one say things and you get in arguments and, "I didn't hear you." And, "You didn't say that." And, I mean, it just, it just ramifies out. So, the ability of being able to have better cognition, a, a better neurological development, um, and helping hearing, vision, uh, depression. If ... the interesting thing about the microdosing that we've been collecting is that people tend to be happier, and when they're happier, they're more creative, and when they're more creative, they're happier. You learning a new kata, you are excited the next day, you nailed it. You're up and gonna do it again. You're writing a new book, you're doing an artist work, so creativity breeds happiness, happiness breeds creativity.
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm.
- PSPaul Stamets
And then the opposite is true. Malaise and depression. You're not as creative. You're, you're, uh, you're, you're not enjoying life, you're not looking forward to the next day. So I think it's almost a binary choice and the idea of using microdosing-And the, the, the definite of microdosing is, is, ha- has sort of a variable interpretations. So, the, using the psilocybe cubensis scale, which is the most common psilocybin mushroom in the world, um, one gram is liftoff, five grams is what Terence would say was the hero's journey. And when I was on last I did, with you, I did 20 grams (laughs) . You know, that was a little bit much-
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- PSPaul Stamets
... um, you might say. But when you do 1/10 of a one gram, you don't feel it. For 1/20, for sure you don't feel it. So the idea as you do microdosing below the threshold of intoxication, but then it benefits neurogenesis. Now, there's an extraordinarily interesting study that came out with, uh, uh, mice, but I think it's translational medicine, and they were doing, uh, microdosing versus macrodosing. So at... Th- these are some numbers, but basically one gram is almost equivalent to one milligram per kilogram of body weight. 70 kilos is 152 pounds. And so at one milligram per kilogram of, with these mice, that's like one gram of cubensis, that's, that's a dose. Um, it's not super high dose, but it's a dose. So what they did with these mice is they had them in an arena with a metal floor, and they gave a tone, dong. Then 40 seconds later, they were shocked. So they had the tone again a few minutes later, 40 seconds later, they got shocked. After 10 rotations, the mice realized, like Pavlov's dog, when there is a tone, there could be a, a negative consequence, a shock happening, so the mice would cower in fear. So then they dosed them with a microdose, 0.1 milligrams per kilogram versus one milligram per kilogram, 1/10 of a, of a dose versus a full dose. Interestingly, the full dose, it took 10 rotations of no shock, the tone and no shock before they forgot or became reacclimated, uh, not to have the fear condition response. With the microdose, 1/10 of that, it only took two rotations. Two rotations with a microdose and they dissociated potentially PTSD.
- JRJoe Rogan
Why do you think it's less? What-
- PSPaul Stamets
Well, that's a really good question, and the evidence we have so far, and again, this is very early evidence, lots of research is going on in this, it looks like the neurogenic benefits of microdosing are greater than the neurogenic benefits of macrodosing.
- JRJoe Rogan
Really?
- PSPaul Stamets
You, you flood the receptors, you're having this incredible trip, it's fantastic, it's colorful, it's life-changing. Yes, that is all beneficial for changing your life. But doing microdosing over the long term, because the nerves don't regrow in six hours, but over weeks of regeneration of nerves with microdosing, it seems to me that the microdosings, instead of flooding and overwhelming all the receptors are feeding these receptors, they're allowing for neurogenesis. Now, this is, uh, again, a hypothesis. There's so many great people studying this right now, but I'm advocating to all of the clinic- clinicians at Johns Hopkins, at Stanford, UCLA, at Harvard, please do testing of the patients for hearing and vision and other behavioral tests that are not just about emotion and mood in PTSD, but let's actually get some physical measurements. So then you can track prior... D- during, during is too complicated. It's, it's too in- too much intervention. You're tripping your brains out. You don't have time to, to be tested, you know, for vision and auditive. But then post-wise, and then looking at, at the, the residual effects. Now, Dr. James Fadiman, he has the, the Fadiman protocol. I have my protocol, the Stamets proto- protocol. Uh, James Fadiman's protocol was microdosing one day on, uh, two days off, one day's on. My protocol that I'm suggesting is four days on, three days off. Um, and James and I are good friends. We talk about this, we laugh, and we're s- we're just basically, these are hy- hypothetical, um, potential treatments. And yet-
- JRJoe Rogan
Are you comparing data between the two of you?
- PSPaul Stamets
This is what, um, microdose, uh, uh, not me, will do.
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- PSPaul Stamets
We wanted to say, "Are you following the Stamets protocol, the Fadiman protocol-"
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- PSPaul Stamets
"... your own protocol? Are you using it with niacin? Were you doing it with lion's mane? What are you using it with?" And lion's mane, it's phenomenally, uh, powerful neurogenically, and where there's two clinical studies out of Japan with mild, uh, cognitive, uh, decline in dementia showing very positive results taking four to gr- uh, two to four grams of lion's mane per day, the mycelium. Actually interesting, not the fruit bite, the mycelium is much more powerful. Um, and we just have been contracting with a neurological testing laboratory in France, and we just got some amazing results back showing that when we had lion's mane, um, extracts of the mycelium exposed to neurons and the, the com- positive control was the brain-derived nerve growth factor, nerve factor, and it was, it's used as a baseline for measuring neurogenic compounds comparatively. And the neurogenesis benefits from, uh, this is where pluripotent stem cells, stem cells that then differentiate into neurons, and the BDNF clearly shows that. It's a standard protocol. With a lion's mane, it also increased the number of neurons. And then we started looking at analogs of psilocybin, and the analogs, when we added the lion's mane mycelium with these psilocybin analogs, which are perfectly legal, they're not Schedule I substances.
- JRJoe Rogan
Psilocybin analogs are not?
- PSPaul Stamets
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
What, what is it exactly a psilocybin analog?
- PSPaul Stamets
There's a number of them that have been reported in the literature. There's baeocystin and norbaeocystin are two of the more prominent ones. Now-Um, I- I'm a psychonaut and in 1960, baeocystin, a report of a child died outside of Kelso, Washington from eating mushrooms in his yard. The family ingested the mushrooms. Um, they went to the hospital. The child developed a fever, eventually had renal failure and died. Uh, a- a chemist by the name of Lung and then Benedict and Tyler picked up on this, they analyzed the mushrooms looking for a new toxin. The mushrooms were identified as being psilocybe baeocystis. It is a mushroom that grows in Washington State and Oregon, sometimes in British Columbia, but not in Northern California. It's a very rare species, but grows in yards. When they analyzed the mushroom looking for a new potential toxin, they found this alkaloid is a dimethyltryptamine-based compound and they named it baeocystin after psilocybe baeocystis. So baeocystin had the reputation of potentially being a deadly poisonous toxin. It's present in cubensis, it's present in many psilocybin mushrooms and my book, Psilocybin Mushrooms of the World has charts that show how much baeocystin is in these things. But no one had ever eat- uh, consumed baeocystin because of this reputation. Baeocystin is legal. I obtained some pure baeocystin from a laboratory legally. I have no psilocybin, you know, nature provides, I don't, people. Make this very clear. Um, but I can have, I can possess these psilocybin analogs. And so, uh, since there was no reports in the scientific literature of whether this was truly toxic or not, I, with my- with a doctor friend of mine, an MD that measured my vitals and hooked me up, you know, to blood pressure, ECG, did all the biometrics that are needed, and so we did an N-of-1 study. I decided that even though it had a history of potentially of killing this child, I think that's a false positive. I think it was bad science. I couldn't find no one who ever ingested this, so I decided I would ingest it. Now, my friend Pam, she's an MD that goes into, um, at the Antarctica, she's the only doctor on a research vessel and so she goes down there and she gets to bring a roommate and it was me. And so Pam and I were working really hard, we had all of our plane tickets, we're ready to go to Antarctica, we had been planning this for months, um, and then we decided, well, just before we go, "Paul, let's do the, the baeocystin test." You know, we've been talking about this for months, we finally got the- the time to do this, but the next day we're going to Antarctica. So Pam looks at her cell phone and this- this Russian research vessel crashed into a reef, tore a hole in it, and it's like, it's now the trip is canceled. Now, I mean, I have American Express, you know, plane tickets, hotels, I got 24 hours to try to recapture all this money because I can't- we can't go. The sh- the trips have been canceled. So I had super high anxiety and I told my doctor friend, "I- I- I have too much anxiety. I can't go. This is too crazy." And then she kind of looked at me going, "Listen, we've been planning this for months, um, you know, please." And- and I listened to her and so I did 10 milligrams of baeocystin. She measured my heartbeat, blood pressure, all those- all those metrics. My eyes did dilate. She said that was good . So's how drug-like effect. And then she checked in with me every 10, 15 minutes. 20 minutes, you usually have liftoff. One hour, you're full blown into it. And she checked with me and she checked with me and she has... and I didn't get high. Not at all. She goes, "How do you feel?" And I said, "I feel great. I have no anxiety. Everything with this trip is going to be fine." So here we found an analog of psilocybin that does not get you high, that's legal, that reduced anxiety. I think this is the tip of the proverbial iceberg because all the clinical studies are approved right now for pure psilocybin. What about the analogs? They activate other receptor sites, you know, in your field- in- in- in- in- in your neurological field and that's why I think this is why looking at the natural form of these mushrooms standardized to a psilocybin, a certain concentration, versus the pure molecule, I think that is the way of the future because pure psilocybin is up to $6,000, $7,000 a gram, uh, and you can translate that into growing psilocybin mushrooms for $2 a gram. Now there are people out there listening saying, "Well, the price is coming down." Indeed it is. It's down maybe to $1,000 to $500 a gram but how many people in the urban, low- lower income, you know, uh, impoverished population suffering from PTSD who don't- can't afford to go to Johns Hopkins to spend tens of thousands of dollars to have a clinical treatment? I think this democratizes the- the use of psilocybin and microdosing that could be a benefit across our society and then what I'm proposing is you stack it with niacin and the reason why you stack it with niacin is you take one tenth of a gram of psilocybe cubensis, microdose, you add 100 to 200 milligrams of niacin. Now if someone tries to get high by taking 10 times as much, they'll have like two grams of niacin. This is flushing niacin, vitamin B3 and that flushing niacin will give you such an irritable reaction of skin itching and people who have taken vitamin B3, they know this. So it becomes the Antabuse for microdosing but moreover, it excites, um, the nerves, uh, at the end of the peripheral nervous system and neuropathies oftentimes present themselves as a deadening of the fingertip, the nerves of the fingertips and toes and it's also a vasodilator. So there's three attributes of stacking niacin with psilocybin mushrooms that prevents abuse, becomes the Antabuse, it dilates the blood vessels to deliver the neurogenic benefits of psilocybin to the endpoints of- of the peripheral nervous system and the central nervous system, um, and, um, it then- and also excites the nerve endings. So I think those three reasons, this could- uh, I hope to see in the future psilocybin mushrooms being over-the-counter vitamins.... approved by the FDA, stacked with niacin that allows for the universality of use for the benefit, uh, of our, our culture. And when we were talking last time- (coughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
Can I, can I pause you there for a second?
- PSPaul Stamets
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
Is there any other evidence of people taking these analogues and having this anti-anxiety effect other than you? I mean, this seems, is a very small sample size, right? It's just one person.
- PSPaul Stamets
Yes, there are. Uh, it's an antidepressant, as far as anxiety and, and, and depression are interrelated.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- PSPaul Stamets
There are, are reports. James Fadiman, in his studies, uh, his population study, which admittedly is small, did not see an anti-exi- anxiety component, but other clinical studies at Johns Hopkins, also the anxiety of dying from cancer.
- JRJoe Rogan
Right, but that was actually psilocybin.
- 45:00 – 1:00:00
Right. …
- PSPaul Stamets
literature. Johann Gartz mentions, he, I published psilocybe azurescens with him, the most potent psilocybin mushroom in the world. Johann Gartz, uh, says in one thing that he was asked and he said that the baeocystin was equal to that of psilocybin. I don't have high confidence in that statement. I consumed baeocystin. I was ready for liftoff. I was hoping for liftoff. I know what liftoff feels like.
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- PSPaul Stamets
And I didn't get it.
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- PSPaul Stamets
So, so this is, this is, what happens in science so much is, uh, the scientists, when they can't do a clinical study, y- you, we bioassay. This is very common. This is how Albert Hofmann, you know, discovered, you know, LSD. He bioassayed it.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- PSPaul Stamets
So-
- JRJoe Rogan
Didn't he do it accidentally though? In-
- PSPaul Stamets
He did it accidentally, right.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- PSPaul Stamets
He got on and, and went for this-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- PSPaul Stamets
... famous bike ride, but then he did it purposely, uh, after that. But nevertheless, this is what our scientific, you know, psychonauts must do sometimes is we-
- JRJoe Rogan
Sasha Shulgin, right?
- PSPaul Stamets
Yeah, Sasha Shulgin's the-
- JRJoe Rogan
Famous for it.
- PSPaul Stamets
... uh, the, the, the most famous of all and the, the most revered. Um, and he bioassayed based on his knowledge of chemistry. He wasn't gonna try to commit suicide, so.
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- PSPaul Stamets
So this is really an area that I think has enormous, um, value in, a, several meta-studies have come out. Uh, one that I had mentioned before is a population of several hundred thousand pr- prisoners and there was a 18%, uh, reduction in violent crime and, um, 22% or so, uh, reduction in larceny and theft in a population where they reported they had one psilocybin mushroom experience. Um, and statistically significant. Now association may not be causation, but it can be, but a more recent study from British Columbia, which I find to be so fascinating, is that they did a large population set and partner-to-partner violence, if your male partner had done one psilocybin trip, stat- statistically significant reduction of the probability of that partner being violent towards their other partner. Statistically significant. So I always thought if there's a dating app, maybe you should have on the dating app, have you tripped on psilocybin? Yes.
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- PSPaul Stamets
Well, uh, that might be a, a better, you know, candidate, uh, for, for dating. So I think psilocybin makes nicer people, and I think we need a lot more nicer people that are more creative, that are dedicated to helping the community, and I think this is a, a potential paradigm shifting, uh, drug.
- JRJoe Rogan
Unquestionably. And here's the other thing, this could be profit. You mean these, these companies that are seeking to profit off of pharmaceutical drugs, you can profit off this stuff wi- particularly with the protocol that you just described with adding niacin to it to ensure that people are doing only microdosing. Look, man, this could be a very profitable enterprise for some company and the benefits, if, if people can mirror the benefits that you had of this, uh, alleviation of anxiety, I mean, God, that's like most of what people struggle with. So many people out there listening to this right now are like, "Fuck, I wish there was something that didn't get me high, but just alleviated this fucking angst that so many people are struggling with every day."
- PSPaul Stamets
It's a, it's a massive disease complex that's swept our societies.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- PSPaul Stamets
And, um, and the, and facing all these problems, how could you not become depressed? Well, you cannot become depressed by becoming creative, and I think that psilocybin and microdosing enables the creative pathways for ingenuity for us to feel that we're, we're, have meaning. We can-
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- PSPaul Stamets
... make a meaningful difference and it's really important. You know, we've entered into 6X, the sixth greatest extinction event known in the history of life on this planet. We've had two other extinction events from asteroid impacts, 250 million years ago, 65 million years ago, but we're in now involved in a massive extinction event. And the research that came out today and the other research has come out with 75% of the insect population, 40% in, in immediate jeopardy. The research article came out said in Europe and North America, they have good data collection. The Amazon, they don't. So we didn't even, haven't measured the insect loss in the Amazon. But if you're a trout, if you're a bird (laughs) , if you like, uh, drinking coffee, uh, and you like chocolate and you like almonds, I mean, these are all dependent upon pollinators. Um, so if we lose these flying insects, we lose the pollination services and it threatens worldwide food biosecurity. This is one of the biggest threats to our ecosystem now.I think we can invent our ways out of this if we creatively, you know, expand our ability to come up with novel solutions. And I think the solutions are literally under foot and all around us today. We just have to wake up like I woke up to helping the bees. You know, there are so many smart people out there. If they just started r- realizing that nature is a deep well of evolutionary knowledge, and that we have evolved within this complexity, then to delve into that library of knowledge and pulling out applicable solutions vetted by science, controlled studies, but not looking at these pharmaceutical pure molecules as the way of the future, but looking at- upon the complexity of the microbiome, the complex interrelationships, and selecting out microbiomes that then create guilds of solutions that are applicable to the problems that we face today.
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm. All right. I like that idea. All of it. It's just, uh, it's- it's beautiful that there are these natural solutions that, you know, maybe if we could just shift people's ideas about how we view psilocybin, how we view the analogs, how we view the interaction with people in nature that you can, you know, we can make a- a real change, make a- a change that's tangible inside of our lifetime. And again, selling this stuff, like if, look, we're seeing what's happening right now with medical marijuana and then shifting to commercial marijuana and now hemp. It's giant. I mean, it's a huge industry through... It's changed Colorado. Colorado, Denver's real estate's gone through the roof. Uh, people are moving there so much that they've got traffic problems now they never conceived of in the past. It's- it's changed their economy, and it's changed their economy due to just a really obvious shift. Here's the shift. Marijuana is not bad for you. It's not. We thought it was. It's not. We're sorry. You can have it now, and now you could sell it, and now it's legal. But federally, we're still dealing with Schedule I. So it's- it's- there- these shifts are happening. These companies are investing money. There's a lot of profit to be made, and a lot of people are profiting, but it's still in this weird transitionary stage.
- PSPaul Stamets
It is, but this is a people's revolution.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yes.
- 1:00:00 – 1:15:00
They're scared? …
- PSPaul Stamets
are suffering in our societies from the media, from the politics, from the science showing the loss of habitat health, that we're under lots of stressors. Just like the bees are, we have a multiplicity of stressors and these stressors lead to malaise, depression, disease, uh, crime, and poverty. And this is something that I think can, can help do a tidal change for the better, provided it's done responsibly. Now you've mentioned companies. There's 20, at least, new psilocybin companies that have been formed in the past year. A lot of them from the Canadian cannabis industry. They made a ton of money so they're, they've... Several of them called me up. I've talked to two groups and both groups, when I asked them, "Have you done a heroic dose on psilocybin?" None of them would admit that they did. Uh-
- JRJoe Rogan
They're scared?
- PSPaul Stamets
They hadn't even tripped.
- JRJoe Rogan
What?
- PSPaul Stamets
I asked them, "Have you done a small dose?" They said... And then everyone's silent. And at one group I said, "You folks just seem like economic opportunists." And one of them has said, "That's exactly what we are."
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- PSPaul Stamets
"We just try to make money." So anyhow...
- JRJoe Rogan
Just make a deal with them.
- PSPaul Stamets
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
Listen, I, I need one afternoon of your time.
- PSPaul Stamets
I think-
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- PSPaul Stamets
... it's important that we preach that.
- JRJoe Rogan
Come to Jesus. (laughs)
- PSPaul Stamets
Yeah, yeah, that's a, that's a different subject.
- JRJoe Rogan
I mean, it would be amazing, right? Do that and say, "Look, I'll, I'll, I'll do this deal with you, but just give me five hours." You take the five hours, have them all trip together and now go, "Let's re-evaluate this."
- PSPaul Stamets
I'm, I'm with you. I'm with you, brother. And that's what's needed because those of us who understand the importance of this realize that this is something that we have to carefully, um, shepherd-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yes.
- PSPaul Stamets
... for maximum benefit and, um, and these commercialization of these companies, I call it Spore Wars™. Very soon there's going to be Spore Wars™.
- JRJoe Rogan
Dun, dun, dun.
- PSPaul Stamets
Yeah. It's between all these companies.
- JRJoe Rogan
Sounds like a good movie.
- PSPaul Stamets
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
That's the, that's the sequel.
- PSPaul Stamets
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
Spore Wars™. (laughs)
- PSPaul Stamets
(laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
But listen man, what I, what it's exciting to me is it's not dirty anymore. Okay? When... The first time I did mushrooms I think was very, very early 2000s, uh-... and, God, he'd tell people about it. They were like, "What's wrong with you? You're a grown adult. You t- pay taxes. You," you know?
- PSPaul Stamets
All my life.
- JRJoe Rogan
It's like, you, you, "W- what kind of a f- fuck up are you? At your age, you're doing mushrooms?"
- 1:15:00 – 1:20:34
They check your pockets?…
- PSPaul Stamets
I touched the mushrooms with a stick. Now am I actually touching the mushrooms or not?" Because if you touch the mushrooms-
- JRJoe Rogan
They check your pockets?
- PSPaul Stamets
They, they will search you, yeah. Uh-
- JRJoe Rogan
They'll search you for just randomly?
- PSPaul Stamets
No, if they have, uh, you know-
- JRJoe Rogan
Reason to believe.
- PSPaul Stamets
... reason to believe, they can search you.
- JRJoe Rogan
Stuff them in your underwear, bro.
- PSPaul Stamets
(laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
Just take a big fat baggie.
- PSPaul Stamets
Or swallow them quickly, but, um, you know, I don't ... this is ... it is preposterous.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah, what if they find you lying down w- with your eyes dilated?
- PSPaul Stamets
You'd have to talk to them, you know. Um, I don't know if they would do a fecal sample later on or what.
- JRJoe Rogan
Oh, Christ.
- PSPaul Stamets
But it, it's, it, it approaches the absurd.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- PSPaul Stamets
You know, and this is when the law enforcements becomes a- absurd. Even the law enforcement officers I know who, you know, if you've been in the martial arts a lot all your life s- myself as well, I had several schools for about 30 years and I had several law enforcement o- o- officers as students. And they, th-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah, they don't wanna be involved in that nonsense.
- PSPaul Stamets
They, they don't, they don't wanna be involved in that.
- JRJoe Rogan
No. They, they're, they, they get roped into it by the system.
- PSPaul Stamets
Yeah, they ... like, like this is not something they wanna do but they're, they're-
- JRJoe Rogan
I know a ton of cops.
- PSPaul Stamets
They're-
- JRJoe Rogan
None, none of them give a shit about mushrooms.
- PSPaul Stamets
Yeah, yeah. So ...
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah. It's ... yeah. It's a, it's a hugely, hugely unfortunate consequence of really ridiculous laws. And, you know, the, the idea of grown adults telling other grown adults that they can't do something that is incredibly beneficial that they themselves have never experienced so they have no knowledge of it at all other than the ancient stereotypes. Mushrooms being bad, mushrooms being for burnouts and losers and hippies and, oh, you can't handle life.
- PSPaul Stamets
Or they're, or they're-
- JRJoe Rogan
You need mushrooms.
- PSPaul Stamets
Or they're walking hypocrites and they know it.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yes.
Episode duration: 2:12:08
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