Joe Rogan Experience #1964 - Rick Doblin

1. 0:00 – 15:00

   (drumming music plays) Joe Rogan podcast,…

   1. NANarrator0:00

      (drumming music plays) Joe Rogan podcast, check it out. The Joe Rogan Experience.

   2. RDRick Doblin0:06

      Train by day, Joe Rogan podcast by night, all day. (instrumental music plays) Hello, Rick. (laughs)

   3. JRJoe Rogan0:13

      Good to see you again, my friend. How are you?

   4. RDRick Doblin0:15

      Yeah, I'm doing great. It was so nice to be with you a couple weeks ago.

   5. JRJoe Rogan0:19

      Yeah, it was fun to have you at the club. You were there, like, one of the first days.

   6. RDRick Doblin0:23

      Yeah, I think I saw the, um, first event in the small room.

   7. JRJoe Rogan0:26

      Yes. Yeah, did you see Dave Chappelle?

   8. RDRick Doblin0:30

      I did.

   9. JRJoe Rogan0:30

      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.

   10. RDRick Doblin0:38

       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.

   11. JRJoe Rogan0:45

       Yeah, he's a big fan of what you guys are doing.

   12. RDRick Doblin0:47

       Yes. (laughs)

   13. JRJoe Rogan0:47

       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.

   14. RDRick Doblin1:02

       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)

   15. JRJoe Rogan1:17

       (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?

   16. RDRick Doblin1:28

       Yeah, that was in 1970. Yeah, things looked grim.

   17. JRJoe Rogan1:32

       Didn't look good.

   18. RDRick Doblin1:33

       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."

   19. JRJoe Rogan2:56

       Mm.

   20. RDRick Doblin2:57

       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."

   21. JRJoe Rogan3:31

       What ever happened? Did you wind up getting in trouble?

   22. RDRick Doblin3:34

       No, it's astonishing. I think a lot of times we overestimate the efficiency of the government.

   23. JRJoe Rogan3:39

       Mm.

   24. RDRick Doblin3:40

       And a- so nothing happened at all.

   25. JRJoe Rogan3:44

       Wow.

   26. RDRick Doblin3:44

       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.

   27. JRJoe Rogan4:10

       What year was that?

   28. RDRick Doblin4:11

       This was-

   29. JRJoe Rogan4:11

       '76?

   30. RDRick Doblin4:12

       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.
2. 15:00 – 30:00

   Mm-hmm. …

   1. JRJoe Rogan15:00

      And, you know, I knew a lot of cops from martial arts.

   2. RDRick Doblin15:03

      Mm-hmm.

   3. JRJoe Rogan15:03

      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.

   4. RDRick Doblin15:11

      Right.

   5. JRJoe Rogan15:11

      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?

   6. RDRick Doblin15:29

      Right. (laughs)

   7. JRJoe Rogan15:30

      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.

   8. RDRick Doblin16:25

      Yeah. But, but w- would you be comfortable sharing some of your own psychedelic experiences?

   9. JRJoe Rogan16:30

      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-

   10. RDRick Doblin17:08

       Yeah, yeah.

   11. JRJoe Rogan17:08

       ... 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-

   12. RDRick Doblin17:27

       Yeah.

   13. JRJoe Rogan17:27

       ... that keeps you from just embracing the great mystery of this existence-

   14. RDRick Doblin17:32

       Yeah.

   15. JRJoe Rogan17:33

       ... whatever it is.

   16. RDRick Doblin17:34

       Yeah. I think we're built on these layers and layers of billions of dollar- billions of dollar- billions of years-

   17. JRJoe Rogan17:39

       Yeah.

   18. RDRick Doblin17:40

       ... of evolution and, and sort of from the single cellular organisms, it's all in a still.

   19. JRJoe Rogan17:45

       Mm-hmm.

   20. RDRick Doblin17:45

       And that, uh, our prefrontal cortex, our brain, has kind of helped us focus on what we need as humans in our transition from birth to death. But that when you sort of ... Well, we, we talk about the default mode network, which is sort of the part of the brain that's identified as the sense of self.

   21. JRJoe Rogan18:01

       Mm-hmm.

   22. RDRick Doblin18:02

       And the classic psychedelics weaken that part, and then more information floods. So, I think we can get back through all of the intercellular knowledge that is stored in our bodies-

   23. JRJoe Rogan18:11

       Yeah.

   24. RDRick Doblin18:12

       ... and, uh, and connect with this deeper unitive sense. It's amazing.

   25. JRJoe Rogan18:17

       Yeah, it's also, uh, they help so much to abandon preconceived notions. And, and just sort of-

   26. RDRick Doblin18:23

       Yeah.

   27. JRJoe Rogan18:23

       We don't realize how much of the way we sort of see ourselves and see the world is, is, uh, kind of a convenient-... set of armor that we put on-

   28. RDRick Doblin18:34

       Yeah.

   29. JRJoe Rogan18:34

       ... to try to protect us from uncomfortable thoughts, and protect us from, you know, just, uh, just mystery. The, the mystery of ev- But, but there is a lot of mystery in life. Like, it's mostly mystery.

   30. RDRick Doblin18:47

       Yeah.
3. 30:00 – 45:00

   Is there any headway,…

   1. RDRick Doblin30:00

      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.

   2. JRJoe Rogan30:14

      Is there any headway, uh, that's being made on bringing ibogaine to the United States?

   3. RDRick Doblin30:20

      Um ... (sighs)

   4. JRJoe Rogan30:20

      'Cause if you think about the opiate crisis that we have here-

   5. RDRick Doblin30:23

      Yeah.

   6. JRJoe Rogan30:23

      ... that seems like one of the ver- very best sort of remedies for that.

   7. RDRick Doblin30:27

      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.

   8. JRJoe Rogan30:40

      Yeah.

   9. RDRick Doblin30:40

      If, if at all.

   10. JRJoe Rogan30:41

       Well, it's a 24-hour drug, right?

   11. RDRick Doblin30:43

       And, and, and it knocks-

   12. JRJoe Rogan30:44

       Some people haven't done it, but I'm-

   13. RDRick Doblin30:45

       It knocks you down. I, I would, um, highly recommend it.

   14. JRJoe Rogan30:48

       Yeah?

   15. RDRick Doblin30:49

       But, but I would rec- I, I, I've had, um, I'd say one of the most important experiences of my whole life was, was ibogaine.

   16. JRJoe Rogan30:56

       Yeah?

   17. RDRick Doblin30:57

       Yeah. Um-

   18. JRJoe Rogan30:58

       What happened?

   19. RDRick Doblin30:58

       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."

   20. NANarrator31:32

       (laughs)

   21. RDRick Doblin31:33

       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-

   22. NANarrator31:52

       (laughs)

   23. RDRick Doblin31:52

       ... 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.

   24. NANarrator32:08

       Oh, my God.

   25. RDRick Doblin32:09

       And, and-

   26. NANarrator32:10

       So, like, presidents and bankers and-

   27. RDRick Doblin32:12

       Different kinds of people like that, yes. They would-

   28. NANarrator32:14

       (laughs)

   29. RDRick Doblin32:14

       ... 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.

   30. NANarrator32:59

       Mm.
4. 45:00 – 1:00:00

   Mm. …

   1. RDRick Doblin45:00

      um, a logical, rational country would make this available. And we should have clinics right here in Austin and all over the country, um-

   2. JRJoe Rogan45:07

      Mm.

   3. RDRick Doblin45:07

      ... because we have a massive problem, and, and yet it's this remnant of the drug war, which... And again, I would say Nixon... Well, John Ehrlichman, who was Nixon's domestic policy advisor, uh, came out in the late '70s, and he said that the Nixon White House had two main enemies. Those were the Blacks for civil rights and the hippies, the anti-war. And e- th- what Ehrlichman said is, "We realize that if we could criminalize the drugs that they did-"

   4. JRJoe Rogan45:34

      Yeah.

   5. RDRick Doblin45:35

      "... we could bust them up. We could, uh, arrest their leaders."

   6. JRJoe Rogan45:37

      Yeah.

   7. RDRick Doblin45:37

      "We could bust up their meetings." And then Ehrlichman said, "Did we know we were exaggerating the risks of those drugs? Uh, of course, we did." So, I, I think we could make a good scientific and rational case now that ibogaine never should've been criminalized, and it should be legally available but by trained therapists in proper circumstances so that the safety i- i- is found. Um, but I think what has happened and what we've seen with, uh, medical marijuana leading to marijuana legalization, changing people's attitudes, we see that a lot of the psychedelic re- research with MDMA and psilocybin has led to Oregon, uh, decriminalizing drugs and making the Oregon Psilocybin Initiative with a sort of state legal program that they're trying to implement with local guides. Colorado, um, in November, the last election, legalized the natural plant medicines. So, I think with ibogaine, we will see a similar kind of a thing, that there will be a lot of, um, hopefully research over the next couple years, and that will change people's attitudes. And then maybe we can remove ibogaine from Schedule I. And then the bigger question is the l- you're saying like, um, you know, nobody really looks back and thinks Vietnam is, was a good idea.

   8. JRJoe Rogan46:52

      I'm gonna pause you right here 'cause I have to pee so bad.

   9. RDRick Doblin46:54

      Oh. (laughs)

   10. JRJoe Rogan46:54

       I'm really sorry.

   11. RDRick Doblin46:55

       Okay. (laughs)

   12. JRJoe Rogan46:55

       Just hold on one second. Be right back. So.

   13. RDRick Doblin46:57

       Oh.

   14. JRJoe Rogan46:58

       Vietnam.

   15. RDRick Doblin46:59

       Yeah. So, um, nobody looks back and thinks Vietnam was a, a good idea, you said.

   16. JRJoe Rogan47:04

       Yeah.

   17. RDRick Doblin47:04

       But I think it's gonna be the same way for the drug war. That, that peop-

   18. JRJoe Rogan47:07

       Yeah, for sure.

   19. RDRick Doblin47:08

       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)

   20. JRJoe Rogan47:26

       Okay.

   21. RDRick Doblin47:27

       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.

   22. JRJoe Rogan47:45

       Right.

   23. RDRick Doblin47:46

       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)

   24. JRJoe Rogan48:35

       (laughs)

   25. RDRick Doblin48:35

       It doesn't matter. (laughs) So, you know, diapers at, uh, Burning Man is like a new fashion trend. (laughs)

   26. JRJoe Rogan48:41

       Jesus Christ.

   27. RDRick Doblin48:42

       (laughs) I don't-

   28. JRJoe Rogan48:44

       Have other people adopted this?

   29. RDRick Doblin48:45

       (laughs) People were joking about it. This would be-

   30. JRJoe Rogan48:47

       Oh my God. You started a trend.
5. 1:00:00 – 1:15:00

   Yeah. …

   1. JRJoe Rogan1:00:00

      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.

   2. RDRick Doblin1:00:22

      Yeah.

   3. JRJoe Rogan1:00:22

      Yeah.

   4. RDRick Doblin1:00:23

      Yeah, and, and I think the, like, long-form podcasts where you can have the whole story.

   5. JRJoe Rogan1:00:26

      Mm-hmm.

   6. RDRick Doblin1:00:27

      Y- you can get the whole story out unedited by people-

   7. JRJoe Rogan1:00:30

      Yeah.

   8. RDRick Doblin1:00:30

      ... that are wanting to do it. But I will say in terms of educating people about psychedelics, what we're doing is, um, a lot of MAPS is about public education. And so, we're hosting the world's largest conference on psychedelics ever. And it's gonna take place June 19th to the 23rd.

   9. JRJoe Rogan1:00:47

      How many DEA agents do you think will be in the audience? (laughs)

   10. RDRick Doblin1:00:50

       Well, I think, um, some. We also have some police officers who are f- we have one. Sarko Gragarian is a full-time police officer in Winthrop near, uh, Boston, but he's also a psychotherapist. And he's been through our training program.

   11. JRJoe Rogan1:01:07

       Oh, wow.

   12. RDRick Doblin1:01:07

       In order to give MDMA therapy to other police officers.

   13. JRJoe Rogan1:01:11

       Mm.

   14. RDRick Doblin1:01:11

       We, we just had a, a incredible, the first psychedelic conference in Iceland, and Sarko came and also did his, uh, police chief came. And we met with the Minister of Justice in Iceland. The conference was phenomenal, this, the psychedelic conference in Iceland. And now, the Minister of Justice is interested in having Iceland fund a study to give MDMA to, uh, prisoners to work with them to see about dealing with their traumas to reduce recidivism, also with victims of crime to help them deal with their PTSD, and also with prison guards and police.

   15. JRJoe Rogan1:01:46

       Mm.

   16. RDRick Doblin1:01:47

       So, we have this, um, opportunity in Iceland to potentially make it a, uh, example of a countrywide approach. Our- our new big vision, and I'll- I'll get back to the Psychedelic Science Conference in just a second, but our new big vision is a world of net trauma by 2070. So this idea of every year, we're adding to the burden of trauma that people are experiencing, and, um, and then it lasts. There are some people that get better, but the- there's many people that get stuck in PTSD. And then there's multi-generational PTSD. There's, uh, what's called epigenetics, which is, um, you know, biological evolution takes place over long periods of time, but what turns the genes on and off is epigenetics, above the genes. That can change from your own experience. And there's a woman, Rachel Yehuda at the Bronx VA, that has done studies with Holocaust survivors and her- and her children, and has identified an epigenetic mechanism by which this is passed on from, um, parent to child. And it could be either from the father or the mother line. It's- it's in either of our genetics. So this idea that we are increasing the burden of trauma by, um, there's some estimates that by 2050 that if climate change continues as it does, that there will be about a billion climate refugees from, um, droughts and poor crops and, you know, lack of water and- and- and all of this. So that it feels like the humanity is gonna be burdened more by trauma. We have incredible problems with mental health because of both the COVID and- and- and other things, so that what we wanna do is reduce the burden of trauma every year and get to net zero trauma. And that- that's... and it will take multi-generations. And the end goal is mass mental health and a spiritualized humanity, and- and that's the hope for the- for the future. And we will be talking about this at the Psychedelic Science Conference. So it's gonna be at the Denver Convention Center. We have the entire Denver Convention Center. We already have, um, yes, be part of the breakthrough.

   17. JRJoe Rogan1:03:53

       June 19 through 23?

   18. RDRick Doblin1:03:54

       Yeah. And it's, uh, or we got over 5,000 people coming. We hope there'll be about 10,000. And we'd also like to say that we have, um, a special discount code (laughs) for people who are listening. So it's psychedelicscience.org, and if you just put in Rogan20, it's a 20% discount.

   19. JRJoe Rogan1:04:12

       All right.

   20. RDRick Doblin1:04:13

       And so we- we- we think if people really want to get involved in this field in any way, to be a therapist or to run clinics or to manufacture drugs or start new companies or just, um, how do you blend this with meditation? Anything. There's gonna be over 300 speakers. We- we have, um, incredible, uh, opportunities for people to- to learn and grow and get involved. We have this, uh, the Denver Convention Center. We have enormous number of exhibits from, you know, probably 150, 175 different ex- exhibits. And, um, you know, Deepak Chopra will be there. Um, you know, I mentioned Aubrey Marcus, he's coming with Aaron Rodgers, the- the football player who's used ayahuasca, which is DMT in tea form. Um, Michael Pollan is gonna be there. Paul Stamets is gonna be there. You know, pretty much the research community from around the world doing psychedelics research, uh, and also drug policy reformers. And Denver was the first city that made mushrooms the lowest enforcement priority.

   21. JRJoe Rogan1:05:14

       Mm.

   22. RDRick Doblin1:05:15

       So we're gonna have, uh, experiential opportunities for people that will be, um, federally legal.

   23. JRJoe Rogan1:05:20

       I think Denver was also the first city that decriminalized marijuana.

   24. RDRick Doblin1:05:24

       They've, yeah, they have done, um-

   25. JRJoe Rogan1:05:27

       Because it was a long time ago when marijuana-

   26. RDRick Doblin1:05:29

       Yeah.

   27. JRJoe Rogan1:05:29

       ... was not state legal.

   28. RDRick Doblin1:05:30

       Yeah. I think Ann Arbor might have been one of the very first.

   29. JRJoe Rogan1:05:32

       Oh really? Michigan?

   30. RDRick Doblin1:05:33

       Yeah. Well, just because of the college there.
6. 1:15:00 – 1:21:19

   Wow. …

   1. RDRick Doblin1:15:00

      chance that it was random. It was just incredible. Now, how do you do that? How do you get such great statistical significance? You get it because you have, um, a, a big difference between the two groups, and you also have not that much variability. So what it means is, the people that got MDMA, pretty much of them got major benefits, and the people that got the therapy without MDMA ... So I should say, the people who got therapy with MDMA did great, uh, pretty, not very much variability. It doesn't work for everybody, but we had 88% responders. We had 67% no longer had a diagnosis of PTSD. These are severe PTSD patients that, uh, had PTSD an average of 14 years, one-third over 20 years.

   2. JRJoe Rogan1:15:48

      Wow.

   3. RDRick Doblin1:15:48

      And then we had, um, just, uh, another 21% had, uh, what's called clinically significant response. And, uh, they still have PTSD, but over time, they might get better. If they could have had a fourth session, they might get better. So, and we had a great safety record. We had nobody atten- ... We had actually nobody in the MDMA therapy group tried to kill themselves, tried to hurt themselves. We enroll people that have previously attempted suicide. We did have one woman try to kill herself twice during the study, but she was in the placebo group. She got therapy without MDMA. We had another woman, it was so difficult for her to confront her trauma, that she checked herself into a hospital to not self-harm. She also was in the placebo group. So the results were phenomenal. And, uh, Science, the journal Science, one of the most important, uh, journals in, in the world in science, at the end of every year, they publish a list of what they think are the top 10 scientific breakthroughs of the year. And they chose our study in Nature Medicine as one of the world's top 10 breakthroughs of the year. It was, it was phenomenal. And we had, um, special, um, appreciation for what Science was willing to do, because y- you talked about beforehand about the holes in the brain.

   4. JRJoe Rogan1:17:08

      Mm-hmm.

   5. RDRick Doblin1:17:09

      So 20 years before, Science had published this article that they never should have published, um, and this was by researchers at Johns Hopkins that had been funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse, and what they claimed is that MDMA could hurt dopamine. This was a study in primates. And they said, "Oh my God, MDMA can hurt dopamine, and it could cause Parkinson's, and that this could be real danger." Now, this was around 2002, 2003, and they had, um ... since 1985, it had all been about MDMA supposedly hurting serotonin and causing holes in the brains from serotonin. And we had done studies in primates before with these same researchers where none of the primates died from overdoses. The, there didn't seem to be any problems with dopamine. Um, but the, the narrative of the, the anti-drug people and the National Institute on Drug Abuse about serotonin neurotoxicity was sort of diminishing. Uh, people weren't showing problems. And so what they were saying was, "Well, you're reducing your cognitive reserves. And so you don't show problems now, but when you get older, you're gonna show problems." So the time bomb theory.

   6. JRJoe Rogan1:18:17

      Did they have evidence of this?

   7. RDRick Doblin1:18:18

      No. And not only did they not have evidence, but a lot of older people took MDMA, and they were fine. So if they had had this, you know, decline of aging, age-related decline, they, they were great. So, so, uh-

   8. JRJoe Rogan1:18:27

      But it does drop your dopamine levels, right? Or serotonin levels?

   9. RDRick Doblin1:18:31

      No. I- i- in a short term, yes.

   10. JRJoe Rogan1:18:33

       Yeah.

   11. RDRick Doblin1:18:33

       Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, it does. But it doesn't do this kind of damage to the brain in that way. They recover within a day or so.

   12. JRJoe Rogan1:18:39

       And there's mitigation, uh, techniques, like with 5-HTP.

   13. RDRick Doblin1:18:43

       W- w- w- we don't use those, but people do use those. So-

   14. JRJoe Rogan1:18:45

       Why don't you use those?

   15. RDRick Doblin1:18:46

       Because we don't think it's necessary. So what we, what we, we first proposed, we ... in 1992 is when we got permission for the first study with MDMA.

   16. JRJoe Rogan1:18:55

       Mm-hmm.

   17. RDRick Doblin1:18:55

       And people had been using 5-HTP after MDMA. Um-

   18. JRJoe Rogan1:18:59

       But there's, there is a benefit to using 5-HTP. It boosts your serotonin levels quicker, correct?

   19. RDRick Doblin1:19:04

       I- i- i- yes, yes. It, it can be helpful. But what we do in a therapy context ... So the FDA, we said, "Should we try administering with 5-HTP or something like that?"

   20. JRJoe Rogan1:19:12

       Mm-hmm.

   21. RDRick Doblin1:19:13

       They said, um, they said, "Don't do that." You know, "Let's do everything under observation and see what the problems are. And if you need, if you see problems, then we should figure out how to mitigate the problems." So the key thing that we do is to say to people that "When you take MDMA, it's a two-day experience. It's not a one-day experience, and the second day is for rest and for reflection. And they have no obligations, no appointments, nothing that you need to do. Just take the second day and, and rest." And that's where people would take 5-HTP if they wanted to. But we don't see this, uh, dip in mood any more in the MDMA group than in the group that gets therapy without it. So this, people talk about Suicide Tuesdays or, you know, this, this, the depression after you've used up serotonin. Um, but I think the rest part is part of the therapeutic process, and it ... so we have never felt the need to recommend that people do 5-HTP. I don't think it's a bad idea to do-I mean, if people wanted to do it, it can be helpful. But we just feel that the rest is just as helpful and it's more therapeutic. So, what-

   22. NANarrator1:20:22

       But w- but they're not mutually exclusive?

   23. RDRick Doblin1:20:23

       No. N- no, we could do both, yeah, for sure, for sure. But, but we don't in the research. We h- we haven't found the need. So, but what science had, um, uh, yeah, so, so this idea of serotonergic neurotoxicity and holes in your brain and time bomb theories just wasn't working anymore. It wasn't persuading people. It wasn't persuading the FDA. So NIDA funded this study, uh, Una McCann and George Riccardi, and it was in primates. And, um, as it turned out, a bunch of the primates died of overdoses and, um, and they published the paper in Science that said that MDMA could cause Parkinson's, it could hurt dopamine. And the editor of, uh, the... Science is published by the American Association for the Advancement of Science. The h- the president of that was Alan Leshner. He used to be the head of NIDA and he, he fanned the fears of MDMA and he, he did that in Congress and it was great because then he got more money for NIDA, got him-

Episode duration: 2:49:20