EVERY SPOKEN WORD
150 min read · 30,352 words- 0:00 – 1:17
Reconnecting at the comedy club and why MAPS matters
- NANarrator
(drumming music plays) Joe Rogan podcast, check it out. The Joe Rogan Experience.
- RDRick Doblin
Train by day, Joe Rogan podcast by night, all day. (instrumental music plays) Hello, Rick. (laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
Good to see you again, my friend. How are you?
- RDRick Doblin
Yeah, I'm doing great. It was so nice to be with you a couple weeks ago.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah, it was fun to have you at the club. You were there, like, one of the first days.
- RDRick Doblin
Yeah, I think I saw the, um, first event in the small room.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yes. Yeah, did you see Dave Chappelle?
- RDRick Doblin
I did.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah, that, that was the first one. Yeah, we had Dave there. He wanted to do that room. We opened it specifically for him. That was the first time we did a show there. It was very exciting.
- RDRick Doblin
Yeah, I really liked having the opportunity to just talk to him a little bit afterwards, and to listen to him. It was, it was hilarious.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah, he's a big fan of what you guys are doing.
- RDRick Doblin
Yes. (laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
As is, as is everybody, you know? And I think what you guys are doing at Maps is one of the most important things for society and culture, and just consciousness in general, that's, that's happening today, and I'm very, very happy that you're doing that.
- RDRick Doblin
Thank you, yeah. Yeah, I'm, I'm pretty e- extremely lucky that, uh, 51 years ago when I was 18, in 1972, and I decided to focus my life on psychedelics, that now I'm 69, all these years later, and it still makes sense. (laughs)
- 1:17 – 4:30
Draft resistance, civil disobedience, and an unlikely alliance with veterans
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs) Well, back then it must've been a big risk because in the 1970s, when you focused your life on psychedelics, that was like right after that whole sweeping Schedule One Psychedelics Act was passed, right?
- RDRick Doblin
Yeah, that was in 1970. Yeah, things looked grim.
- JRJoe Rogan
Didn't look good.
- RDRick Doblin
Yeah. Well, I was a, um, draft resister. I th- I thought that I would, um, serve my country by going to jail, uh, which is kind of a funny way to say it. But I had felt that I'm, I'm not a conscientious, uh, objector. In order to do that, you have to be a pacifist, and so I, I'm not a pacifist. I think there are some times you need to fight and defend yourselves. Um, so the only options for me, as I studied how to respond to, to Vietnam, was to ... I didn't want to pretend I had bone spurs (laughs) or r- run away to Canada, or anything like that. And I studied, uh, Tolstoy and Gandhi and non-violent resistance and decided that, um, the thing that I would do would be to not register for the draft. And I was paying taxes, I had a Social Security number, I had a driver's license, I was in high school. I figured the government knows who I am, and knows where I am, and knows my age, and so I assumed that I would go to jail and that that would be a way to drain the system of energy and to register my protest that way. Martin Luther King actually said a great thing. He said, "The person that thinks a law is unjust and violates it and is willing to suffer the consequences as an example to others about the unjust nature of the law actually has the highest respect for the law."
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm.
- RDRick Doblin
He was trying to reframe civil disobedience as patriotism, and that made sense to me. And so when I talked to my parents about it, they were like, "Well, okay, you know, we don't think you should go to Vietnam either. We don't think it's, um, in America's best interest, but you're never gonna be a doctor or lawyer," my dad was a doctor, "because you'll be a felon." And I'm like, "That's a price I'll have to pay. What am I gonna do with my life? I can't have a normal job, in a way." So then when I stumbled on psychedelics (laughs) I was like, "Great! I could be a underground psychedelic therapist (laughs) that doesn't need a license."
- JRJoe Rogan
What ever happened? Did you wind up getting in trouble?
- RDRick Doblin
No, it's astonishing. I think a lot of times we overestimate the efficiency of the government.
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm.
- RDRick Doblin
And a- so nothing happened at all.
- JRJoe Rogan
Wow.
- RDRick Doblin
I mean, I turned 18. Later was the lottery. I did have a higher lottery number, but nothing ever happened, and, and I just was shocked by that. And later what happened was that Jimmy Carter on his first day in office he pardoned all the draft resisters, and that made me sort of move from my identification as a counterculture drug-using criminal (laughs) to somebody who wasn't quite a criminal in that same way.
- JRJoe Rogan
What year was that?
- RDRick Doblin
This was-
- JRJoe Rogan
'76?
- RDRick Doblin
Yeah, se- well, as soon as he got inaugurated, '77 is when, when he, he did that, the first day in office. And I later read there was about 60,000 people that never registered for the draft, but enough people were going in that they were able to find enough, uh, bodies and people to send to Vietnam.
- 4:30 – 8:15
Vietnam, Gulf of Tonkin, Ellsberg, and finding common ground across divides
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah, it's one of the rare, um, military operations in history that's, like, universally regarded as a terrible thing.
- RDRick Doblin
Yes.
- JRJoe Rogan
I mean, nobody today defends the Vietnam War. There's still some people that think it was a good idea that we got Saddam Hussein out of power despite all the col- horrible collateral damage and the million people that are innocent that wound up dying in Iraq because of that invasion, but nobody thinks Vietnam was good.
- RDRick Doblin
Right, it was starting to be this, uh, imperial overreach.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- RDRick Doblin
And we've had a fair amount of that.
- JRJoe Rogan
Based on a false flag.
- RDRick Doblin
Com- Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah, which is very scary. It's very scary that that was just, you know, 1960s, it just happened.
- RDRick Doblin
Yeah. Well, one of the people also quite interested and supportive of psychedelic therapy is Daniel Ellsberg, who was the person that released the Pentagon Papers.
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm.
- RDRick Doblin
But the false flag began with the Gulf of Tonkin incident.
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- RDRick Doblin
And so where we, um, were told that our ships were being attacked, and he was, um ... I- I've gotten to spend some time talking to him and he said that he had just started the National Security Administration at, uh, at that time, was, um, looking at some of these cables and realized it didn't make sense, but he thought somebody above him knew more than he did.
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm.
- RDRick Doblin
And he didn't feel like he should say anything about it, and then all these years later when he released the Pentagon Papers-And people think of him as a hero because he was willing to go to jail for decades and decades, potentially the rest of his life, which is what the government was trying to do for him. Went all the way up to the Supreme Court, and he won the case, or the New York Times also won the case. But, um, he thinks of himself not just as a hero, but that he should've had more courage early on, and if he would've done something early on, maybe more people would've realized that this wasn't the way the government was saying it was.
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm.
- RDRick Doblin
But- but I do think that there is patriotism in, um, civil disobedience.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah, certainly. Es- especially when you feel it's morally wrong to participate in whatever this thing that you're being obligated to do.
- RDRick Doblin
Yeah. A- and I think it's really remarkable for me now that because I was not a, um, pacifist, and I was not, um, a conscientious objector, I- I always felt that the freedom that I had was defended by our military, you know, in World War II. If we had lost, and I'm Jewish, I probably would've been killed a- along with others. So, I always felt that the m- military was essential and it was protecting my freedom. And so now all these years later to have so much work to be, um, done with veterans and w- in the Veterans Administrations and with, um, you know, special operators and all sorts of people with PTSD, um, i- it feels right in a way that- that a draft resister (laughs) should form an alliance with suffering, um, veterans.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah, I think that's one of the best aspects o- at least publicly of what you guys are doing is that you are working with all these soldiers.
- RDRick Doblin
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
And so you've got a lot of support from people that traditionally wouldn't be invested in psychedelics, which has really kind of opened up. It used to be that a lot of people on the right thought of psychedelics as a way to waste your life-
- RDRick Doblin
Yeah. Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
... and you're gonna be a hippie and a loser. But because of the benefits that it's been showing to people with PTSD and people coming back from, you know, a- all these various foreign conflicts, then you're- you're getting, now you're getting support from veterans, you're getting support from the people on the right, and people that know veterans that have had incredible experiences with psychedelics where it's completely changed their life and sort of reset their mind.
- 8:15 – 14:12
Bridge-building in practice: conservatives, celebrities, and controversial donations
- RDRick Doblin
Yeah, just several d- days ago, I was in Nashville with, uh, Shawn Ryan doing, uh, his podcast. And- and he is a, um, former Navy SEAL and CIA contractor, and he was just talking about how much he had benefited from his experience with ibogaine in Mexico and how it's changed his views about things. And we've heard this a lot, but- but he still said that if he were to be attacked, if America was to be attacked, he would defend it. It doesn't turn people, again, into pacifists-
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- RDRick Doblin
... necessarily in that same way, and there's something noble and honorable about willing to serve your co- country and be willing to give your life to protect others. I think it's a problem in some cases when the political leadership makes terrible choices and, you know, you've enlisted to do that. But I- I think the other part, last week, um, I was in Dallas and we had, uh, an event that, uh, Governor Rick Perry attended and, uh, Marcus Capone.
- JRJoe Rogan
Hm.
- RDRick Doblin
And, um, Jeff George, who's the, uh, chair of the board of directors of our MAPS Public Benefit Corp., our, um... And then also Amy Emerson, who's the CEO of that. And we- we have, um, Governor Perry's support because he's heard from so many veterans. He's also talked about, uh, Marcus Luttrell-
- JRJoe Rogan
Hm.
- RDRick Doblin
... who lived with him at the State House w- when he was very emotionally damaged from his time in the military. And then he saw Marcus, um, get a lot better when he went down to Mexico and got ibogaine. And so Governor Perry... Th- there's people that I have never thought that I would find common ground with, and one of the ones that I thought was the most, um, far, th- that I couldn't imagine building a bridge, I mean, one of our themes is be the bridge, but it was with, um, Ted Nugent.
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- RDRick Doblin
(laughs) And I thought, you know, "H- h- how would I, you know, build a bridge with Ted Nugent?" Well, uh, Rocco Moon, his son, connected us, and Rocco is interested in being a psychedelic therapist, and he's been doing a lot of work educating his dad. And we had a really remarkable conversation. Um, and Ted actually said that, um, he could be extremely effective for helping us because he's known as being so anti-drug.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- RDRick Doblin
A- and yet he can see, even he can see that in a therapeutic setting for veterans, that's h- what he cares about the most, but others, that these things can be helpful. So this idea of building bridges. Um, there- there was one point in time, one of the most important, uh, lessons I learned was actually, um, from a Supreme Court Justice where I was sitting next to him at a Passover Seder, a- and Passover, this is Stephen Breyer, and I had, um, accepted a donation from Rebekah Mercer. Now, Rebekah Mercer, um, her father, and she, they own Cambridge Analytica, they own Breitbart, you know, she's very much a supporter of Republican causes. And she gave us a million dollars and said that it was, uh, restricted to use in veterans. And I thought, "This is really a good thing to do to take this." But I've gotten more criticism from taking that donation from Rebekah Mercer than most anything I've done in the entire 37 years of MAPS. And so at this Passover Seder, I was si- my wife and I got there late, our friends were somewhere else. There was this old couple sitting next to us. And, um, I didn't know who they were and I thought, "Oh, this will be boring," you know? And- and so I- I talked to this guy and I said, well, everybody else was pretty much scientists. And I said, "Are you, um, a scientist?" He said, "No, I'm a judge." And then his wife started talking about how she had written a book about, uh, grieving parents wh- who have, um, illnesses that their kids have fatal illnesses and- and how to handle grief. And so we had this incredible conversation about, um, MDMA therapy and about how it can be helpful for grief and all. And then w-After hours, the Passover Seders take hours (laughs) and hours, I finally realized that there was something more going on. And I, I, I thought, "This guy is not just a judge, I think he's s- Stephen Breyer the Supreme Court judge." And I, I, I said, "Are, are you Stephen Breyer?" And he said yes. And I said, "Well, I have a m- uh, an ethical question to ask you. You know, I have taken this, uh, resources from Rebekah Mercer, and she's very much supporting Trump and supporting Bannon and, and others." And I said, "What, what do you think about that choice ethically? Was that, um, a wise idea?" And he said that the essence of democracy is trying to find common ground with people with whom you may disagree on everything else. And he said in our hyper-partisan, polarized world, there's not nearly enough of that.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- RDRick Doblin
And so, he supported that. And so, I felt that that was like a, the judgment of the Supreme Court. (laughs) It was okay what I did.
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs) At least one.
- RDRick Doblin
At least one. (laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- RDRick Doblin
But, but I like that concept is that we need to find common ground. Uh, uh, I mean, I thought that was one of the things that Dave Chappelle was saying in-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- RDRick Doblin
... you know? I thought it was very interesting.
- JRJoe Rogan
Dave is, he very much is in tune with that and speaks about that all the time. It's very important to him. Because there's just, it's just too easy to just dig in your heels and, uh, uh, embrace the conflict and, and push away any ideas that are connected to, uh, uh, the other side. If you can get someone who's a Republican, who's a Trump supporter to engage in psychedelics, understand the benefits of psychedelics for, whether it's for soldiers or whether it's for grieving parents or anyone, if that can make it into their life and perhaps they can have an experience, I think a psychedelic experience is one of the greatest ways that someone can relax any ideological, dogmatic ideas that they might have that restrict them from taking in some of the opinions of the left.
- 14:12 – 22:05
Joe’s psychedelic worldview: DMT and 5-MeO as ‘onion-peeling’ experiences
- RDRick Doblin
Yeah. W- w- would you, um, feel comfortable sharing some of your own experiences?
- JRJoe Rogan
Well, sure. Well, I've never been a right-wing person. I'm very left-wing, for the most part.
- RDRick Doblin
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
Other than, um, support for the Second Amendment and some, some other things, and just a general distrust of, of government.
- RDRick Doblin
Mm-hmm.
- JRJoe Rogan
I j- I, uh, you know, I was raised by hippies.
- RDRick Doblin
(laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
You know, I, I lived in San Francisco during the Vietnam War when I was a little kid. I mean, we were, you know, m- my stepdad has long, uh, or had long hair when I was a kid.
- RDRick Doblin
Hm.
- JRJoe Rogan
So, I was, you know ... But then I also grew up and I was a fighter, so I was always around these, like, hard-nosed, like, very tough, you know, no-nonsense people.
- RDRick Doblin
Mm-hmm.
- JRJoe Rogan
And a lot of them were very right-wing. And, you know, I knew a lot of cops from martial arts.
- RDRick Doblin
Mm-hmm.
- JRJoe Rogan
And, you know, people have these ideas about what, you know, what drugs are in that blanket term, which I really don't like the term drugs.
- RDRick Doblin
Right.
- JRJoe Rogan
And drug users, what drug users are. And one of, you know, one of the things that I'm kind of proud of is that if anybody wants to say that, uh, people who enjoy psychedelics or people that, uh, enjoy marijuana are lazy and they don't contribute or they don't ... you know, like, like, what about me?
- RDRick Doblin
Right. (laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
Like, what about me? Like, I work hard and I work a lot and I work out a lot. And I have a lot of friends that are very much like me, and they're very open-minded people that are ... th- they embrace all cultures and ideas and all kinds of different things. But they're also, you know, these hard-nosed, determined, very disciplined people that you would sort of automatically, maybe callously lump in with people who are, uh, cruel or unkind or not embracing, uh, you know, other ideas. And I just think that these ideas that we have of people, that we, it's so convenient to push people into one category or another. And it's also very convenient to embrace one category, uh, and adopt their sort of pre-determined pattern of ideas.
- RDRick Doblin
Yeah. But, but w- would you be comfortable sharing some of your own psychedelic experiences?
- JRJoe Rogan
Sure, sure. I mean, um, the DMT experiences are f- by far the most profound. And those are the ones that have really made me ... Uh, every time I've done it, it's just completely made me rethink how I interface with people, what, what life is, and what that experience ... What is that? Is that a well of souls you're entering into? Is it another dimension? Is it some sort of parallel, uh, dimension of, uh, disembodied consciousness that you seem to be engaging with life forms-
- RDRick Doblin
Yeah, yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
... with things th- that know you, that can see your thoughts and see resistance and see bullshit in you? I mean, it's, um, every time I've done it, it's sort of just, like, in one way or another, just removed one layer of the onion. You know, one layer of bullshit-
- RDRick Doblin
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
... that keeps you from just embracing the great mystery of this existence-
- RDRick Doblin
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
... whatever it is.
- RDRick Doblin
Yeah. I think we're built on these layers and layers of billions of dollar- billions of dollar- billions of years-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- RDRick Doblin
... of evolution and, and sort of from the single cellular organisms, it's all in a still.
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- 22:05 – 22:36
Integration and neuroplasticity: why duration and aftercare matter
- RDRick Doblin
And yet, there is an aspect of memory, and there is an aspect of us paying attention.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- RDRick Doblin
There, there's still this observer in some ways.
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm. Yeah. It's pre- it's pretty compromised, but-
- RDRick Doblin
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
... there's something that you come back with. But it's also very difficult to hold onto, right?
- RDRick Doblin
It, it is, and that's this process of integration that's necessary. But also for the 5-MeO, it's so brief.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- RDRick Doblin
So that's where the ibogaine experience can be 12 hours or more, or the MDMA experiences, we make them into eight-hour sessions.
- 22:36 – 30:58
Ibogaine: addiction recovery, policy failure, and Michael Marcus’ role
- JRJoe Rogan
I haven't done ibogaine.
- RDRick Doblin
Oh. Oh.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah. I've, I've heard on, really great things from people that have, uh, addiction problems, like people that are addicted to pills in particular, who've gone to Mexico, and-
- RDRick Doblin
Yes.
- JRJoe Rogan
... one of them was my friend, uh, Ed Clay, who, who went down to Mexico because of a pill problem he had, and then he wound up opening up an ibogaine center down there once-
- RDRick Doblin
That's great.
- JRJoe Rogan
... he'd been cured of it.
- RDRick Doblin
There, there is that phenomena where people, once they get healed, they wanna help others.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- RDRick Doblin
And in particular, in the military, you're trained to leave nobody behind.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- RDRick Doblin
And many people have said that, th- that they, once they've gotten help, now they wanna bring all their brothers to, to have help as well, that there's something about, um, this feeling that, that it can help not just them but, but many other people.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- RDRick Doblin
And I think the other part, there's been about why Governor Perry is so interested, in a sense, is that there's been now, um, around 800, uh, Navy SEALs and others that have gone down to Mexico for ibogaine, for both, uh, PTSD, depression, traumatic brain injury-
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- RDRick Doblin
... addiction.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- RDRick Doblin
And he's heard just remarkable stories. But, but now that you mention, um, or that we're talking about ibogaine, I just would like to say, um, a bit of ... We have a mutual friend, Aubrey Marcus, and I've been, um, texting him this morning, and, and it's, um, a bit s- sad. His father died.
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm.
- RDRick Doblin
And so, um, he's sitting shiva, which is this Jewish tradition where for a week after someone dies, um, people come over to the house, and you, you just mourn for a week. So I'll be there tomorrow morning. But his father, Michael Marcus, actually helped start ibogaine research. And so I'd like to explain that just a tiny bit. So Michael had, um, studied, uh, a bit of holotropic breath work with Stan Grof. So Stanislav Grof is the world's leading LSD researcher. He's, um, almost 92 years old, um, but he worked at Johns Hopkins. He was, uh, did LSD research in the Czech Republic, and when the Russians came in in '68 to crush their rebellion, he escaped and came to the US. Um, and, but Michael got to know, um, Stan and did work with him, where once psychedelics were criminalized, Stan realized that you can f-... catalyze similar experiences through hyperventilation, without a drug. And that it- oh, I mean, it is like a drug. It changes the chemistry in your brain. Um, and so I got to know Michael, and, um, at one point he was a, a stock trader, and he felt like he was losing his edge. And this is probably, you know, 15 more years ago. And what he said was, um, he wondered maybe a psychedelic experience could be helpful for him. And I suggested ibogaine. And he went down to Mexico for an ibogaine experience, and it, it helped him. And then he felt like he regained his confidence, and then he, um, bet that there was gonna be a massive, uh, stock crash. He shorted the market and then it, there was a major crash. Um, and then he, he contacted me and he said this ibogaine really helped him and he would like to know, um, how he might pay it back. And I said, "Well, we've got this project we're trying to start for a long time." It's the first project where we're gonna look at a clinic in Mexico and test people, do before and after, just how are they doing? It'd be a long-term follow-up, because ibogaine, for no good reason at all, other than the drug war, is illegal in the United States. But it- and, and it's not a drug of abuse. It helps treat drug of abuse, but it is legal in Mexico and in Canada. (clears throat) And so just the day before, I'd gotten an, uh, a matching grant offer of, uh, $10,000 for a $20,000 study. And, uh, I said, "Michael, would you be willing to match this?" And, um, he said, "Sure, yeah." I said, "Great, now we're gonna have this first ibogaine study." And then he said, um, "What else do you have?" And I was like, "Well, okay, if you wanna know more, I'd say the most difficult thing for us to fund, the most, um, idealistic thing we're doing..." This was at the time was, we were trying to start research in Jordan. You know, we have research in Israel, we have research in Canada. We have research, but we've no research in the Arab countries. And I thought, if we could do something in Jordan, uh, and I had incredible connections in, in Jordan with the, uh, mayor of Amman, whose, um, son-in-law actually had found, uh, LSD helpful for cluster headaches. And anyway, I went to Michael, I said, "The, the most idealistic thing, the most far-reaching is, at this point would be to do this study in Amman." And he said, "Well, how much does that cost?" And I said, "Well, it's about, um, 85,000." Something like that, 90,000. And, um, he said, "All right, I'll do that too." And so that started the first project with ibogaine, and then we eventually did another long-term follow-up in New Zealand, and now there are people now, we're- we're- there's this project in Spain to, with, uh, a group called iCEARS, and it's to take, um, increasing amounts of ibogaine to help people withdraw from methadone. There's projects in Brazil with ibogaine. Um, there's, uh, a company, Atai, uh, that's one of the for-profit psychedelic companies that's working with, uh, Deborah Maas from, uh, Demyrx. They've merged, and they're interested in ibogaine. So ibogaine is one of the classic examples of a disastrous drug policy. It turns out that there were, um, LSD dealers in the '60s who got busted, and they happened to have ibogaine. And so the government made ibogaine illegal.
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm.
- RDRick Doblin
But these LSD dealers, Howard Latzoff was also, uh, experimenting with opiates, and when they tried ibogaine, they felt no desire for opiates and they went through the withdrawal without any pain. It's just remarkable what opiates, um, do for you when you go through th- withdrawal. It's terrible. But if you have ibogaine, you can go through it in a couple of days and you have a lot of psychological experiences about why you might wanna run away from your problems into opiates.
- JRJoe Rogan
Isn't there something that happens with ibogaine where it, uh, like, literally rewires?
- RDRick Doblin
Yes. Now, that's true with other psychedelics as well. It's called neuroplasticity. And so what that means is that there is this, um, ability for our neurons to have new synaptic connections. And that's what we mean is neuroplasticity. Our brain is constantly being rewired. E- every time we have a, every time we do anything, we have memories, and the memories are encoded. And sometimes they get encoded in, um, harmful ways, like with trauma, with PTSD. They, the memories are so painful that they never really get fully processed, they never really get put into long-term storage. Um, there's, there's a lot of, um, changes in your brain whe- when, when you have PTSD. Um, but that this idea that you can then rewire your brain once you experience them. And so th- there's researchers at, uh, Gül Dölen is at, uh, Johns Hopkins. She's done studies in mice with MDMA and showed that, um, it releases oxytocin, which is the hormone that we have for love and connection, nursing mothers, but it also promotes this new neural growth. So ibogaine does that, LSD does that, psilocybin does that. And what Gül has found, which is really interesting, is that the longer you're in the psychedelic state, the longer afterwards this period of neuroplasticity lasts, where you can do more integration work, where you have this, uh, uh, enhanced ability to reroute patterns in your brain. And so ibogaine, uh, opens up this, uh, period of neuroplasticity for several weeks after, because the experience can last for more than a day or two.
- JRJoe Rogan
Is there any headway, uh, that's being made on bringing ibogaine to the United States?
- RDRick Doblin
Um ... (sighs)
- JRJoe Rogan
'Cause if you think about the opiate crisis that we have here-
- RDRick Doblin
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
... that seems like one of the ver- very best sort of remedies for that.
- RDRick Doblin
It is. And, and this is where if you were to look back over the last, um, 50 years, um, I doubt that there's more than five cases that the government has about anybody abusing ibogaine.
- 30:58 – 47:08
Rick’s pivotal ibogaine + LSD experience: perfectionism, purging, and self-acceptance
- RDRick Doblin
Well, um, so...There's a fellow named Leo Zeff, who is the, um, we called him the secret chief. So he was the leader of the underground psychedelic therapy movement, and he worked closely with Sasha Shulgin. And Sasha Shulgin was the chemist that invented hundreds of psychedelics. He, he, he worked for Dow in the '60s, and he devel- inv- invented a, um, biodegradable insecticide, and they rewarded him with his own lab to do whatever he wanted. And so Sasha tried to do more psychedelics, and they're like, "Well, maybe these are not (laughs) gonna lead to products."
- NANarrator
(laughs)
- RDRick Doblin
So, so he realized he had to leave, and he set up a lab at home, and he taught. But they would have this process of, um, inventing new drugs, new psychedelic drugs, looking for new therapy drugs. And they would then, um, Sasha would take it into himself, and then if he thought it was okay, he would give it to his wife, Anne. Uh, they were-
- NANarrator
(laughs)
- RDRick Doblin
... now both, and they would do these together. And then if they, then they had a group of 12 people that would meet, like, once a month, and they would try these new drugs. Sasha, by the way, did go to the Bohemian Grove, where he was a musician there, and so he was able to go. But he would test new drugs with people at Bohemian Grove.
- NANarrator
Oh, my God.
- RDRick Doblin
And, and-
- NANarrator
So, like, presidents and bankers and-
- RDRick Doblin
Different kinds of people like that, yes. They would-
- NANarrator
(laughs)
- RDRick Doblin
... try these new things. They'd go for walks in the woods. They, 'cause you go to Bohemian Grove for a week or two, and so it's not like you're there for a day or so. But, um, so this small group of 12 people decided that, uh, MDMA had incredible potential. This is in the middle '70s. And they gave this to Leo Zeff, and Leo said, "Wow." He was, uh, about to retire. He was a clinical psych PhD, and he was, um, getting up there in years, and he was about to retire. He, he trained a lot of people with LSD and other things. And so he did not retire in order to bring forth MDMA. And so he really pioneered the use of therapeutic use of MDMA. And this is now MDMA being a therapy drug before it became ecstasy as a party drug.
- NANarrator
Mm.
- RDRick Doblin
And, and that lot happened in Dallas at the Star Club, which is, you know, a public place where, you know, incredible stories of Star, uh, the Star Club. There's gonna be a documentary by, uh, Michael Cain is working on a documentary about the Star Club.
- NANarrator
Really?
- RDRick Doblin
But, but, but, um, but that attracted Lloyd Bentsen, the senator from Texas. He heard about this, and then he complained to the DEA. And then the DEA moved to criminalize... We, we knew that this public use of, um, MDMA was gonna eventually result in DEA crackdown. This is Nancy Reagan and Ronald Reagan-
- NANarrator
Mm-hmm.
- RDRick Doblin
... and all of that. And so w- we had a jump start in a sense that, that we... The DEA didn't know we were there. They, they only knew the party drug. They didn't knew the therapy parts. But we knew that the DEA was there, and they were coming after us. So I started a nonprofit before MAPS in '84, and, and that was to prepare and gather this community together in order to, um, defend MDMA once the DEA moved. And so Leo Zeff came to me, and he said, "Y- you're starting to be an advocate, and I'd like to offer you an ibogaine experience, because we need to, um, own our own shadow, own our own weaknesses, own, own our own, um, things that we're, we're not comfortable with, and, and, and also, you know, have spiritual connections and things like that." And he said, "If I can help you, this might help i- in your political work, because then you'll see that we're mixtures of good and bad, everybody is, and that you won't demonize the DEA, and that you may be able to find a way to, you know, build a bridge." And so he offered me this ibogaine experience. And I said, "Great, I would, I would love to do this." Um, and so we had this whole long day to, uh, set aside to do this, and ibogaine in plant form takes a while to take in effect. So, uh, Leo said, um, "I'd like to give you a bunch of LSD at the same time." (laughs)
- NANarrator
(laughs)
- RDRick Doblin
It was, uh, 350 micrograms of LSD, which is a pretty hefty dose. Um, the first LSD experience that we know of, Albert Hofmann, uh, April, uh, 19th, uh, 1943, was, um, an amount that he thought would have no real effect 'cause it would be so small, 250 micrograms, which is a, a major existential challenge. So 350 micrograms is, is pretty good as well. And so I actually, um, got administered ibogaine, a bunch of it in plant form, and then also the LSD at the same time. And I could tell the differences between the drugs. I could tell coming up on the LSD and the moving towards this, um, kind of ego dissolution and opening up and different my emotions, and how am I gonna do this political work? And, and who am I? And, you know, am I qualified in all of this? Um, and I sort of had a lot of experience with LSD, had never done ibogaine before, and I was able to, to open up pretty well for the LSD. But then this sort of low guttural rumble started from the ibogaine. The LSD peaks around three hours or so. And, and I could feel this ibogaine building and building and building. LSD is also very much in your head, very ethereal, m- more so than psilocybin mushrooms, which are more embodied. Um, and so this ibogaine started coming up, um, this experience, and I started feeling like if I could just let go, if I could just fully have this, uh, experience, and if I didn't have these fears and anxieties, then I would be a better advocate, and, and I needed to, and so much was at stake. But then I felt I couldn't let go 'cause I was too scared, and, and then I would be, um, hating myself. Uh, so I, I felt that there was this, uh, cycle of, oh, I'm, I'm not as good as I should be. I, I wish I could let go. I do have these emotions of fear. Um, and then I would feel that and get nauseous, and then I would vomit. And, and then I would feel relief for, like, a minute or so, and then the swirl would begin, and each of them is, like, 15 or 20-minute cycles and stuff. And then I would get to this peak, and then I would, uh, vomit again and over and over and over. And for, um, for a Jewish person, the, the imagery that I had was that I was being crucified on the cross of self-perfectionism.... that I didn't wanna be human in a way. I wanted to be perfect. I wanted to be more than I was, and that this idea that I was, um, not perfect, that, that, um, you know, it, it just was this connection between self-criticism and self-hatred. And I could see that, and, and that just made me sick, and I, I wished I could do more. But I couldn't get out of it, and I had like a 12-hour cycle of that-
- NANarrator
Mm-hmm.
- RDRick Doblin
... over and over and over. I mean, I, I, you know, I was like dry heaving. I had nothing left to throw up anymore. And I just so, um, saw this connection between wanting to be perfect, not wanting to be human, being super self-critical, leading to s- self-hatred, and shutting myself down. And so, at the end of that day, I was so exhausted, um, I, I called it, um, transcendence through exhaustion. You know, I just gave up. Uh, I just beat myself up so much, uh, I just gave up, and I had the most blissful night. It was so beautiful. It was like no struggle, completely open, everything. And I realized that what I needed to do was keep the self-criticism 'cause that is the drive for quality. You need access to the self-critical part of your mind.
- NANarrator
Yeah.
- RDRick Doblin
But if it's connected to self-hatred, you don't listen as much because then you're a bad person.
- NANarrator
Right.
- RDRick Doblin
So, I, I sort of severed the connection between self-criticism and self-hatred. I accepted myself as a flawed human being that had a lot of room to grow, and that I had made friends in a way, I made an ally out of the self-critical part of my brain. And it, I think, has helped me to, uh, learn and grow because we're doing things that I've never done before, we're doing things I've never done before, nobody's never done before, bringing this through the FDA, psychedelic psychotherapy, and we've constantly making mistakes. Uh, uh, I like to say that, um, I'm just a fuck-up who just keeps on trying.
- NANarrator
(laughs)
- RDRick Doblin
(laughs) You know, and, and so this, and then, but I told myself this story. This was the most beautiful night. All night, I was just super alert, didn't sleep at all, and just saw the stars. But I, I told myself a story, uh, and so much is governed by stories, uh, as you know. But the story was, that I was telling myself is that, that I had not earned this. I, I hadn't had a breakthrough. I just exhausted myself. So I said, "When the sun comes up, I'll be back stuck in this nauseous space." Uh, I don't know why I told myself that story, but, but I did. And the sun comes up, and then I was like stuck and nauseous again, and I couldn't move for a day. I actually had to sit there in a f- or lie there really in a fetal position. A friend was supposed to come pick me up. I said, "I can't move."
- NANarrator
Do you think you brought that on yourself?
- RDRick Doblin
In a way, I do. Uh, I think the stories we tell ourselves, I mean, I mean that's sort of PTSD or depression.
- NANarrator
Yeah.
- 47:08 – 54:16
Drug war critique, language problems, and honesty about risks
- RDRick Doblin
And, and so I think we will think of it as a massive tragic experiment that has been, uh, exported all over the world, caused enormous violence. And I think the idea of ibogaine, um, removing, it's, getting it removed from Schedule I could be really important. But I have a little pee joke, if I could tell you. (laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
Okay.
- RDRick Doblin
Uh, people will know that you just went out to pee and come back, but, but that's what brought this to mind. So, I, um, actually was... I'm very lucky. I had, um, prostate cancer, and I had... It was caught early. And so I, but I had prostate surgery, and, and now I'm fine. But it, it affects your, um, ability to control your bladder for a while.
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- RDRick Doblin
Right? So I had to wear and, and still do these, um, sort of basic Depends and pads and all this kind... You know. But there was a time, um, shortly after the operation, this is very short, I was at Burning Man. And, um, we had to... You know, we have a village at Burning Man. We do psychedelic harm reduction there. So, a group of us were in this, um, sort of cuddle puddle in this... You know, I, I was not doing MDMA at the time, but other people were. Um, and it was like 3:00 in the morning, and we'd been there for hours, and we're just, like 14 of us or something just talking. And, and this one woman goes out to pee and comes back, and you know, other people do that. And then she, this woman t- turned to me and said, "I don't understand. You, you just had this operation. You were supposed to, you know, pee more often. And, um, you know, what's up with you? It's like you're just sitting here the whole time." I said, "I've been peeing the entire time." (laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- RDRick Doblin
It doesn't matter. (laughs) So, you know, diapers at, uh, Burning Man is like a new fashion trend. (laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
Jesus Christ.
- RDRick Doblin
(laughs) I don't-
- JRJoe Rogan
Have other people adopted this?
- RDRick Doblin
(laughs) People were joking about it. This would be-
- JRJoe Rogan
Oh my God. You started a trend.
- RDRick Doblin
(laughs) Uh-
- JRJoe Rogan
That seems like it would be uncomfortable.
- RDRick Doblin
No.
- JRJoe Rogan
Like, it would be better to just go pee somewhere.
- RDRick Doblin
It, it, it would be, but then you interrupt the conversation flow and stuff.
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- RDRick Doblin
But-
- JRJoe Rogan
Like I just did. Maybe I should do podcasts with a diaper on.
- RDRick Doblin
W- well, it wicks it away. It's not even that uncomfortable.
- JRJoe Rogan
Ugh.
- RDRick Doblin
I, I mean, a- anyway. (laughs) I just...
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- RDRick Doblin
I just had to do the pee joke. I'm sorry. (laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah. No worries. So, back to, um, this idea that i- in the future we're gonna look at the drug war-
- RDRick Doblin
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
... as being an overall negative thing and a mistake.
- RDRick Doblin
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
For sure. Well, I think the biggest thing is gonna be this blanket definition of drugs, you know, that there's-
- 54:16 – 1:29:12
MDMA myths and media propaganda: ‘holes in the brain’ and the meth mix-up retraction
- JRJoe Rogan
We should talk about this while, while we're being brought up, 'cause there's a common misconception about MDMA that has been, uh, proven to be false. And i- it was that, that it g- l- makes holes in your brain.
- RDRick Doblin
Well, yes, y-
- JRJoe Rogan
You know?
- RDRick Doblin
Yeah. Um, Oprah is a big, uh, person responsible for that, actually. Um, so, um, there was... Uh, it started on MTV and went to Oprah. This is around 2001. So what had happened was that there was a young woman who, um, her, her mother worked at a drug abuse treatment center, and she had problems with cocaine. She had problems with marijuana. She had problems with ecstasy, other things. And so they arranged, uh, and this was for, uh, this MTV show, that, that this woman would go and do a brain scan, a SPECT scan, which is blood flow in the brain, and then they would reveal the results to her live on TV. And, um, this was at this, uh, drug abuse treatment center that, that their, her mother worked at. And they, they revealed the results, and the results showed these holes in the brain. And w- it was a graphically manipulated image. So SPECT scans show blood flow through the brain, and there's certain areas that light up when you have more blood flow than others. And so they took an arbitrary cutoff. Any place that had lower than a certain amount of blood flow, they showed as a hole.And it was just complete propaganda. It was to scare this young woman to supposedly do it. She'd done all these other drugs and ecstasy anyway. So, short time after that, Oprah decides that she's gonna do a show, and she contacts me a- and us 'cause we are now, you know, advocates, and she, she knew about what we're doing, and we were trying to start MDMA research. She, she says, uh, she, her team says that, uh, they wanna do two shows on ecstasy. It's such a big thing. They wanna do one on the risks and one on the benefits. I'm like, "Great. Sounds great." And they said, "Well, we're gonna do the one on the risks first." And they, they brought this woman who had all these holes in the brain supposedly to be, um, on the show. If you had all the holes in the brain that they showed, you wouldn't be walking and talking (laughs) . You would be... It was just big holes in her brain. So, nobody seemed to put it together. Here, this woman, she seems fine, but this is her damaged brain. And we told Oprah's team, "Don't show this. This is fake. This is not real." And, um, and they did it anyway. And they had one woman who was th- um, a 24-year-old woman that was a raver, but she had, um, positive experiences about MDMA. So they said, okay, she would be the one that would sort of, um, say something positive about MDMA. And, and then Oprah said to her, um, "Do you know what you might be doing to your brain with all these holes in the brain? Um, we'd like to offer you a brain scan, and if your brain scan looked like hers, um, would you..." I think it was Lynn Smith was her name that, that had the holes in the brain. Um, "Would you stop using if your brain looked like that?" And, and she said, "Well, I'd be willing to do a brain scan." But the very next day, she contacted MAPS. She contacted us and said that, um, should she do this brain scan? And I said, "You definitely should do it, but do it with different people. Don't, (laughs) don't do it with the people that they're... But definitely do this brain scan, and, and then you'll be on the show again, and you can show what the, what the results are." So, she did the brain scan, and, um, then she wrote me back, and she said, "Well, no holes, and, uh, they've canceled the next show. There's (laughs) no show on the benefits, and they're not bringing me back." (laughs) And I'm like, "God."
- JRJoe Rogan
They tricked you.
- RDRick Doblin
They did. And then years-
- JRJoe Rogan
That's kinda normal Hollywood producer shit.
- RDRick Doblin
It was just, and yeah, no show on the benefits. Um, but then years later, over a decade later, when, uh, Oprah was just a, a short time from closing her, um, her show, uh, but she had O Magazine. So, she decided she would do a story on, um, she would assign a senior editor to do a story on ex- on MDMA and the therapeutic use. And it was, it was like Oprah doing atonement. I said, "Would you be willing, though, to do another show on your TV show and bring this woman back who had all these holes in the brain, and let's see what she's doing now?" And, and she actually did show some si- some signs of brain damage in that she was working for the Partnership for a Drug Free America. (laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- RDRick Doblin
And she was, as the exhibit of, oh, you know, MDMA is terrible. (laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
So do you think they scared her with the holes in the brain to the point where she thought that drugs were ruining her life and she wanted to save other people?
- RDRick Doblin
I think s- I think there was that, yeah. And I think that, uh, she wanted to get back in the good graces with her mother.
- JRJoe Rogan
Oh.
- RDRick Doblin
And that, that then she gets support-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- RDRick Doblin
... and then she gets a job and this whole thing. And so, um, Oprah said n- no, she's not willing to do another show, but this article would go forward in O Magazine. And the article was great. And the woman, um, who was the reporter ended up, um, going for, um, an underground MDMA experience, whi- which I helped arrange, and it was very successful. And that's how the article ends. But it's great 'cause it didn't, like, make a big deal about, oh, this is illegal underground. It was just like here's what happened to her tour with the MDMA.
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- RDRick Doblin
Um, but it was, in some ways, propaganda in the positive way. It was like, can a single pill save your life?
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- RDRick Doblin
You know, before it's like-
- JRJoe Rogan
Simplistic.
- RDRick Doblin
... this is gonna, like, cause holes in your brain. Now, one pill is all you need, a magic pill, and then you're gonna be better for everything. Ignores the whole point that it's about the therapy and the context and the relationship.
- JRJoe Rogan
It seems like, unfortunately, because of those kind of television shows and because of, uh, up until podcasts and the internet, you, you had a, a limited sort of ability to fully express the pros and the cons-
- RDRick Doblin
Yes.
- JRJoe Rogan
... and explain the nuance of what these experiences are about. And you're, you're instead dealing with this sensationalist perspective where they're just trying to, you know, f- just trying to highlight whatever the most, uh, wildest aspects of the experience, pro or con, would be so they can get a lot of people to pay attention to it. It's like it's becomes prostituted.
- RDRick Doblin
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- RDRick Doblin
Yeah, and, and I think the, like, long-form podcasts where you can have the whole story.
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- RDRick Doblin
Y- you can get the whole story out unedited by people-
Episode duration: 2:49:20
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Transcript of episode jYfAhupxaTs
