Joe Rogan Experience #1615 - Hamilton Morris

1. 0:00 – 15:00

   (drum music) Joe Rogan podcast,…

   1. HMHamilton Morris0:00

      (drum music) Joe Rogan podcast, check it out.

   2. NANarrator0:04

      The Joe Rogan Experience.

   3. JRJoe Rogan0:06

      Train by day, Joe Rogan podcast by night. All day. (energetic music) Hello, Hamilton.

   4. HMHamilton Morris0:16

      Hey, Joe.

   5. JRJoe Rogan0:16

      Good to see you, man. What's happening?

   6. HMHamilton Morris0:18

      Good to see you. None of this.

   7. JRJoe Rogan0:19

      This is, uh, our third podcast, but not really. I only count two of them, because of the first one we were literally so stoned we couldn't communicate.

   8. HMHamilton Morris0:28

      (laughs)

   9. JRJoe Rogan0:28

      Remember that one?

   10. HMHamilton Morris0:29

       I remember it well.

   11. JRJoe Rogan0:31

       (laughs)

   12. HMHamilton Morris0:31

       I like it. I feel like I'm getting the tour. First it was your home, then the LA location, and now this new intermediate red tube.

   13. JRJoe Rogan0:39

       Yeah, the red tube. Some folks call it the red pill, but that also has a lot of negative connotations.

   14. HMHamilton Morris0:44

       So the red tube, then?

   15. JRJoe Rogan0:45

       Yeah. The- the whatever it is. This is, uh, this is podcast studio number one, two, three, four, five? It's number five?

   16. HMHamilton Morris0:59

       It's the third one I've been.

   17. JRJoe Rogan1:01

       I think it's number five. It might be number six. One... Yeah. Well, number seven or number six, whichever is right next door and it's gonna be... (smacks lips)

   18. HMHamilton Morris1:11

       Okay.

   19. JRJoe Rogan1:12

       It's gonna be... All I've learned from constructing podcast studios, this one was very haphazardly constructed last minute, because we made the decision to get the fuck out of LA and we had five weeks. And, uh, my friend Matt Alvarez put this place together in five weeks. Set it all up and then five weeks later we were broadcasting from Texas.

   20. HMHamilton Morris1:33

       It looks good.

   21. JRJoe Rogan1:34

       It's not bad. It's okay. It's odd.

   22. HMHamilton Morris1:37

       What is the optimal arrangement going to be?

   23. JRJoe Rogan1:40

       The optimal arrangement is probably less weird on the eyes. Like the thing about this is like you're looking around and you're like, "Why are there back lights behind those sound panels? Why is everything red and black?"

   24. HMHamilton Morris1:51

       (laughs)

   25. JRJoe Rogan1:51

       Why is it- why is it like- like tube shaped? And it's just- it's an odd room, man. It's odd. But I like- I like it. I just don't- I just think we could do better. We can make it weird. Plus, I'm bored. Get bored easy. Been here for six months. Wanna mix it up.

   26. HMHamilton Morris2:07

       Yeah.

   27. JRJoe Rogan2:07

       Mix it up.

   28. HMHamilton Morris2:08

       Yeah.

   29. JRJoe Rogan2:08

       How's Brooklyn?

   30. HMHamilton Morris2:10

       It's grim.
2. 15:00 – 30:00

   That's the problem, right?…

   1. HMHamilton Morris15:00

      But-

   2. JRJoe Rogan15:00

      That's the problem, right?

   3. HMHamilton Morris15:01

      ... it, it is. I think it's a huge problem-

   4. JRJoe Rogan15:03

      Yeah.

   5. HMHamilton Morris15:03

      ... because, you know, like a molecule shouldn't be politicized.

   6. JRJoe Rogan15:08

      Yeah.

   7. HMHamilton Morris15:08

      It should have efficacy or not, but it shouldn't be a Republican molecule or a Democrat molecule.

   8. JRJoe Rogan15:13

      Like anything attached to Trump becomes poison.

   9. HMHamilton Morris15:16

      Well, if he-

   10. JRJoe Rogan15:16

       Even if that's like the... If you were an evil person and you wanted the world to be fucked, what you would do is get Trump to re- promote everything good for you (laughs) .

   11. HMHamilton Morris15:25

       Yeah. And I can, I can provide maybe a little bit of insight into that because I saw... So when, when all this was happening, um, the, there were, you know, a few antiviral therapies that people were talking about like remdesivir and favipiravir.

   12. JRJoe Rogan15:37

       Ivermectin.

   13. HMHamilton Morris15:38

       Yeah. And, uh, ivermectin. And, um, the problem with remdesivir is it had never been approved by the FDA at that time. It's kind of difficult to synthesize and it was very expensive and it's administered IV. And so all those things kind of weighed against it just being made in some, uh, gray market lab in India or China and being mass distributed as like a, a potential intervention. And I remember, you know, when this started happening, the first thing I did was think, "Okay. I should, you know, start contacting various labs that I know and see if I can get interesting experimental, uh, antiviral treatments if only to maybe write a scientific paper about the, the purity of antiviral drugs that are being sold in the context of a pandemic." That was my justification, but I also just thought it would be cool to get all these things.

   14. JRJoe Rogan16:24

       (laughs)

   15. HMHamilton Morris16:25

       And, um, and I remember I was ordering remdesivir early on, probably in March, and one of these labs said, "Oh, well, you know, it's very expensive. It's $2,000 a gram or something, but there's this other drug that we're using in China right now called chloroquine, very, very cheap. It works just as well. Would you like to try that?" And, uh, and I thought, "Hmm. That's interesting." That was the first that I'd heard about it. Then there was this huge buzz surrounding it. Everyone was talking about chloroquine, and there were a small number of studies that had been published that provided a little bit of support for it potentially being useful. Um, but then it became so politicized that people couldn't talk about it rationally anymore.

   16. JRJoe Rogan17:06

       Right.

   17. HMHamilton Morris17:06

       And it was a, a total, total mess. I, I, like, I think that's, you know, the worst thing that could possibly happen in medicine.

   18. JRJoe Rogan17:13

       My friend got COVID and the doctor literally asked him what his political leanings are.

   19. HMHamilton Morris17:18

       (laughs)

   20. JRJoe Rogan17:18

       And he said, "Why?" He goes, "Well, I just want to tell you that in the early stages of infection, there's some evidence that hydroxychloroquine has a positive effect." He goes, "I don't give a fuck about politics."

   21. HMHamilton Morris17:28

       (laughs)

   22. JRJoe Rogan17:28

       Like, he goes, "Give me what works." He's like, "How are we having this conversation?" And the doctor started laughing. He goes, "I know. It's just when I bring that up, some people are so anti-Trump that they didn't, don't even want to hear it."

   23. HMHamilton Morris17:39

       Oh, yeah.

   24. JRJoe Rogan17:40

       And this was like, you know, May-ish, June-ish, somewhere around there.

   25. HMHamilton Morris17:44

       And people were afraid to acknowledge the fact-

   26. JRJoe Rogan17:46

       Yeah.

   27. HMHamilton Morris17:46

       ... that they were using it. I knew physicians who had used it themselves, but they would never publicly acknowledge it.

   28. JRJoe Rogan17:50

       Isn't that crazy?

   29. HMHamilton Morris17:51

       Yeah.

   30. JRJoe Rogan17:51

       It's so weird.
3. 30:00 – 45:00

   That would be better.…

   1. JRJoe Rogan30:00

      of them microdose and give another one placebo.

   2. HMHamilton Morris30:02

      That would be better.

   3. JRJoe Rogan30:04

      (laughs)

   4. HMHamilton Morris30:04

      That would be ideal. (laughs) Yes.

   5. JRJoe Rogan30:06

      You know what I'm saying though?

   6. HMHamilton Morris30:07

      But these people, they, they self-randomized-

   7. JRJoe Rogan30:09

      Mm-hmm.

   8. HMHamilton Morris30:09

      ... so they would have some capsules that contained placebo, some that contained a microdose. And this is not the end of it.

   9. JRJoe Rogan30:14

      Right.

   10. HMHamilton Morris30:14

       People will continue talking about this, and it also depends on, you know, dose is so important in microdosing.

   11. JRJoe Rogan30:20

       Yeah.

   12. HMHamilton Morris30:20

       But no one really knows the dose they're taking. That's a pretty big limitation as far as I'm concerned.

   13. JRJoe Rogan30:25

       I've microdosed, uh, LSD and I've microdosed psilocybin, and I particularly find that psilocybin microdosing makes me very happy. It does something real nice. It just gives you a nice feeling, and I think it's real. I think... I don't, I don't... I think if you feel nice and you feel happy, I think that in- influences the way you interact with people, which influences your whole life.

   14. HMHamilton Morris30:47

       Yeah.

   15. JRJoe Rogan30:47

       I mean, I haven't done it a lot, but I've done it enough to know that it's i- it's legitimately effective. And anecdotally, I have a lot of friends that do it all the time. And one in particular is li- he, he goes, "This is my medicine." He goes like, "This has changed my life." He's like, he was depressed, he was, you know, bummed out about all sorts of things in his life, getting a divorce, all, all sorts of shit was going down in his life. Started microdosing and is just, every time you see him, he's got a big smile, hugging everybody. (laughs)

   16. HMHamilton Morris31:14

       And, and what dose do you use when you microdose?

   17. JRJoe Rogan31:16

       Um, with psilocybin, see, the problem is I was getting it ground up and put into capsules.

   18. HMHamilton Morris31:21

       Hmm.

   19. JRJoe Rogan31:22

       So we're taking two of these capsules a day.

   20. HMHamilton Morris31:24

       Hmm.

   21. JRJoe Rogan31:24

       It's a very small amount, but enough to... It gives you like this, ah.

   22. HMHamilton Morris31:28

       Hmm.

   23. JRJoe Rogan31:28

       Like that's what it gives you, like an ah. Like nothing crazy, um, but, uh-

   24. HMHamilton Morris31:33

       Well, this is one of the problems, I think, is just even defining microdosing.

   25. JRJoe Rogan31:36

       Right.

   26. HMHamilton Morris31:36

       Because for some people it might be a low, a very subtle trip, and that could be... And for some people they define it as a sub-psychodelic experience.

   27. JRJoe Rogan31:43

       Right.

   28. HMHamilton Morris31:43

       And so there's gonna be a lot of work that's be, to be done on optimizing those sorts of effects. I mean, the other thing is, when we talk about microdosing, we're just talking about microdosing these two common psychedelics, psilocybin and LSD. But Alexander Shulgin, um, you know, he was doing a lot of research on maybe there are psychedelics that just are less psychedelic in general that have a little bit of that sort of effect that people are looking for with a microdose of LSD, where it's maybe a mild stimulant, maybe produces a small amount of empathy or just a small-

   29. JRJoe Rogan32:17

       Hmm.

   30. HMHamilton Morris32:17

       ... change of one kind or another. I mean, this has even been approved medicinally in the past, both with when ibogaine was a pharmaceutical product under the name Lambarene in France. It was-
4. 45:00 – 1:00:00

   Yeah, I know. …

   1. JRJoe Rogan45:00

      you know what I mean? He, he really gets it, you know? He's a research scientist. You understand? You know, he was a complete straight-laced guy. Wasn't doing anything till he was in his 30s.

   2. HMHamilton Morris45:10

      Yeah, I know.

   3. JRJoe Rogan45:12

      Pretty crazy story.

   4. HMHamilton Morris45:13

      It is a crazy story. And what I really appreciate about what he does is I think there's a lot of perhaps justified insecurity in the world of drugs. So, people have been oppressed for such a long time that they need a justification of some kind. "I'm using psychedelics because it's religious. I'm using psychedelics because it's medical, it's a therapy. I'm using psychedelics because it's traditional, it's part of my religion. I'm using psychedelics for this reason or that reason." It's very rare that people will just stand up and say, "I'm using these things because that's my freedom."

   5. JRJoe Rogan45:46

      Yeah.

   6. HMHamilton Morris45:46

      "I don't need to justify it. I don't need to say that I have chronic back pain and it's treating it and I should be allowed to treat my pain. It doesn't matter. It's just my choice as an adult, even if it's bad for me, it's my choice as an adult."

   7. JRJoe Rogan46:00

      Yeah.

   8. HMHamilton Morris46:00

      "And it needs no justification."

   9. JRJoe Rogan46:02

      Like whiskey.

   10. HMHamilton Morris46:03

       Yeah.

   11. JRJoe Rogan46:04

       I mean, whiskey's celebrated and it's on television. You can watch ads for whiskey during TV shows. It's like, celebrate it. Have a glass of whiskey. And I like whiskey, but you drink a lot of whiskey, it will fuck you up. And we don't care. We, we, we're just accustomed to it. It's become a part of our culture. So it's a traditional use. It's, it's sanctioned by the government. You got a nice tax stamp on it, and so we're okay with it.

   12. HMHamilton Morris46:28

       But all these patterns that I just described emerged during prohibition as well.

   13. JRJoe Rogan46:32

       Yeah.

   14. HMHamilton Morris46:33

       So you, so alcohol is prohibited, so you have medical whiskey. You have, you get a prescription from your doctor-

   15. JRJoe Rogan46:39

       Yeah.

   16. HMHamilton Morris46:39

       ... for whiskey 'cause it's, uh, it's good for your nerves. It's good-

   17. JRJoe Rogan46:42

       One of our sponsors, Buffalo Trace, they've been around longer than the United States. They've been around since 1773, and they made whiskey during prohibition. They're still running. They're the longest running distillery in America, and they made whiskey for medicinal purposes during prohibition, which is kind of hilarious.

   18. HMHamilton Morris47:00

       And, of course, we see it with cannabis as well. And I get it. I understand why people are doing this because it remains very controversial and so you want some kind of justification, but you should remember, at the end of the day, that no justification should be required.

   19. JRJoe Rogan47:14

       Right.

   20. HMHamilton Morris47:14

       And if you get too lost in the justification, you might forget why you're doing it in the first place. Like, an analogy that I've been thinking about for years, like, this is kind of like a long analogy, so this is gonna be like a one-minute analogy. But, like, it would be, it would be like if, um, in the '60s people started listening to music for the first time and they decided that it was associated with the counterculture, anti-war movement, um, some people were listening to music too loud and causing irreversible damage to their hearing. And so medical doctors said, "Okay, this is clearly a problem. This person is deaf as a result of listening to music. We've gotta regulate it, we've gotta prohibit it to protect people 'cause it's a problem. And then on top of that, there's an added advantage that because everyone is gonna continue listening to music, we can selectively prosecute the people that we want to because it's a little crime that everyone is committing." And then that keeps going for years and people continue listening to music and playing music.... and they create their own biases where they say, "It's okay to listen to music. It's just ... as long as you don't perform it or record it."

   21. JRJoe Rogan48:18

       Yeah.

   22. HMHamilton Morris48:18

       It's all right as long as you're just a listener. And then eventually, some scientists get together, and they all say that they've never listened to music before, because if they had, it would somehow bias their understanding, and that would be terrible. So they've never listened to music before, but they've looked at old pre-Prohibition information on music, and they've decided scientifically that it is in fact very good and can be used as a medicine. And then everyone embraces it as a medicine and says, "Oh, I just listened to music today. It was so wonderful for my anxiety. It was really fantastic." And that would be great, and that would be good, and that would be a way to make music legal again, but it also would entirely miss the point-

   23. JRJoe Rogan48:53

       Yeah.

   24. HMHamilton Morris48:53

       ... that music doesn't have to be a medicine. And to be clear, you could do these studies with music. Music is a medicine. There is music therapy. I'm sure you could design a, a study where music treats neurodegenerative diseases or music treats depression. I guarantee it. And you could get positive results, and you, you could then say that music is a medicine. But so what? It doesn't need to be a medicine.

   25. JRJoe Rogan49:18

       Right.

   26. HMHamilton Morris49:18

       And I just want people to ... As, as much as I enjoy this new medicalization and the decriminalization that's taking place, I just hope people remember that it doesn't need to be any of those things. And this history of justification is ultimately something that we are doing because we're afraid, afraid that to acknowledge the fact that we should be free to do whatever we want regardless of whether or not it's good.

   27. JRJoe Rogan49:48

       Yes.

   28. HMHamilton Morris49:48

       Yeah.

   29. JRJoe Rogan49:49

       Well said. So, I mean, you could use that for anything, right? You could say that about exercise. You could say that about running. You like to run. Well, there's been medical studies that show that running is bad for your knees. You should stop running.

   30. HMHamilton Morris49:58

       Oh, yeah. Yeah.
5. 1:00:00 – 1:15:00

   You can fast-forward on…

   1. HMHamilton Morris1:00:00

   2. JRJoe Rogan1:00:00

      You can fast-forward on Spotify?

   3. HMHamilton Morris1:00:02

      Oh, you can?

   4. JRJoe Rogan1:00:02

      Yeah.

   5. HMHamilton Morris1:00:02

      Oh. Or like you could change the speed of playback.

   6. JRJoe Rogan1:00:05

      Oh, I don't know if they have ... They don't have to.

   7. NANarrator1:00:07

      They have that too. Yeah, they have that.

   8. JRJoe Rogan1:00:07

      No.

   9. NANarrator1:00:07

      They have a little 15 second skip button too.

   10. HMHamilton Morris1:00:09

       Okay. All right.

   11. NANarrator1:00:09

       If you can ... Let's get past that.

   12. JRJoe Rogan1:00:11

       Spotify slowly but surely getting its shit together-

   13. HMHamilton Morris1:00:13

       Okay.

   14. JRJoe Rogan1:00:13

       ... when it comes to, like, video playback and stuff. But yeah, this was a boring section, section of the podcast and I apologize for anybody that's freaking the fuck out right now screaming in their car, "Are you real ... You guys were having a really interesting conversation and Rogen, you fucked it up! You fucked it up with the cigar! You fucking junkie!"

   15. HMHamilton Morris1:00:32

       (laughs)

   16. JRJoe Rogan1:00:33

       Mm.

   17. HMHamilton Morris1:00:35

       Mm. Ah, that's nice. Well-

   18. JRJoe Rogan1:00:40

       Feels good, right?

   19. HMHamilton Morris1:00:41

       Yeah.

   20. JRJoe Rogan1:00:42

       Nice.

   21. HMHamilton Morris1:00:43

       I mean, I remember when I was in high school, I went to a very progressive high school and at that time in the early 2000s, there was a magazine called Adbusters. It was very popular. Do you remember this? And it was kind of like-

   22. JRJoe Rogan1:00:56

       No, I don't.

   23. HMHamilton Morris1:00:57

       You know, it, it... All these ideas about the way advertising affects people were being talked about constantly. Advertising causes eating disorders. Um, advertising of junk food and soft drinks causes obesity. We need to regulate advertisements so that women don't have a negative self-image and people aren't obese. And I remember thinking that it was a complicated scenario, because of course, I do believe that advertisements have these effects on people, but I also believe that advertising has become a totally ubiquitous part of our culture that is inescapable, and no amount of censorship will ever protect us from the advertising that pervades every dimension of our existence. And so it is our responsibility to protect ourselves as much as possible, because we'll never truly be free, you know? So, you get rid of Joe Camel and you regulate the way tobacco can be advertised, and it's probably the right thing to do. I'm not entirely sure. It seems intuitively like it's not a bad idea not to advertise cigarettes to children.

   24. JRJoe Rogan1:02:11

       Yeah.

   25. HMHamilton Morris1:02:12

       Um, but then you get JUUL. Is JUUL better? Probably it is. I imagine that it is. But-

   26. JRJoe Rogan1:02:19

       I don't think it is.

   27. HMHamilton Morris1:02:20

       You don't think it is?

   28. JRJoe Rogan1:02:21

       No. I don't think it is.

   29. HMHamilton Morris1:02:22

       Well, I think it... Um-

   30. JRJoe Rogan1:02:24

       There's a lot of lung damage that comes particularly with just unregulated vaping, right? There's a lot of vaping where you, you don't really know how they're making this oil, like what they're using to, to put together the, the ni- whatever the nicotine they're using, you know, like when you go to vape stores, like you're just getting some vape shit. And some of it causes serious lung damage to people.
6. 1:15:00 – 1:18:33

   (gasps) …

   1. HMHamilton Morris1:15:00

      like that aspect of it because it doesn't just treat the depression, it gives you a little bit of energy to maybe tackle the tasks before you. Okay, fine. The problem is that people start using extremely, extremely large doses of amaneptine, and they're addicted to it. That's maybe a problem in and of itself, arguably. Depends on your s- position on that matter. But it's also hepatotoxic, so they're damaging their liver, and it produces this monstrous, uh, dermatological toxicity where people have these kind of grotesque, um, lesions on their body, on their genitals and face-

   2. JRJoe Rogan1:15:33

      (gasps)

   3. HMHamilton Morris1:15:33

      ... as a result of taking this antidepressant. So that's not good. Amaneptine is removed from the market and replaced with a non-addictive alternative, an old story. There's a, you know ... And this new drug is called tianeptine. Tianeptine is interesting because the stated mechanism of action is that it is a serotonin reuptake enhancer. Not inhibitor, enhancer. It has the opposite mechanism of Prozac and every conventional SSRI antidepressant.

   4. JRJoe Rogan1:16:05

      Hmm.

   5. HMHamilton Morris1:16:05

      Hmm, interesting, strange. Um, I even w- wrote a little article for Playboy years ago about like, "Gee-whiz, uh, the mind sure is strange that you can have these two antidepressants with opposing pharmacologies that both exert a therapeutic effect." Hmm. Um, as it turns out, the pharmaceutical company, Servier, had not disclosed that tianeptine also was a full agonist at the mu opioid receptor, that it basically shared a pharmacology with morphine and heroin. And this was a really important thing because there were all these people taking this antidepressant, and they were saying, "Yeah, this stuff works really well, but, you know, I used to be, I used to use heroin, and, like, I, I swear, this stuff feels, it feels kinda like heroin to me."

   6. JRJoe Rogan1:16:48

      (laughs)

   7. HMHamilton Morris1:16:48

      And, uh, and people on, you know, different forums would say like, "Oh, sure, sure, sure, it feels like heroin, but, you know, that's just, it's, uh, serotonin reuptake enhancer, that's that." And this went on and on. There were people that would take huge, huge quantities saying like, "I don't know what it is about this stuff, but my, I'm itchy, my pupils are pinpoints, and I'm extremely, extremely high when I take this serotonergic antidepressant." Eventually, somebody overdosed on the stuff, which is actually, um, pretty safe in high doses. And a physician injected them with naloxone or Narcan, the-

   8. JRJoe Rogan1:17:19

      Hmm.

   9. HMHamilton Morris1:17:20

      ... opioid antagonist, and it reversed the effect. So I remember reading that case report and thinking, "Huh. Wow. This serotonergic drug produces an intoxication that is reversed by an opioid antagonist. Curious. Very strange." Then, an acquaintance at Columbia started actually looking at the pharmacology of this stuff and ... This guy's name is Andrew Kruegel. And he found that it is primarily exerting its effect via the mu opioid receptor, and that the pharmaceutical company had not told people that. So all these people taking what they thought was a serotonergic antidepressant were actually taking an opioid. This was never approved in the United States. But that is an instance, I think, of, you know, really unacceptable pharmaceutical deception, where you're tes- you're telling someone that a drug does one thing, and in fact, it does something entirely different. With oxycodone, I feel like it's a little bit harder to make that argument because it had been used for over 100 years and because people already knew that it was addictive. They were making a- an argument that it was less addictive because it was a time-release formulation, which is also a complicated thing because in many instances, uh, slow release of a compound does reduce its potential for abuse.

Episode duration: 2:47:43