Joe Rogan Experience #2251 - Rick Perry & W. Bryan Hubbard

1. 0:00 – 15:00

   (drumbeats) Joe Rogan podcast,…

   1. RPRick Perry0:00

      (drumbeats) Joe Rogan podcast, check it out.

   2. The Joe Rogan Experience. (rock music plays)

   3. NANarrator0:06

      Train by day, Joe Rogan podcast by night, all day.

   4. JRJoe Rogan0:12

      Well, Governor Perry, thank you very much for being here. It's a, it's a pleasure and honor to meet ya. And, uh, Brian, would you explain your relationship and how you guys know each other? And ...

   5. WHW. Bryan Hubbard0:22

      (inhales deeply) I had a public service career in the state of Kentucky, and the last stint of it involved my role as the chairman and executive director of the Kentucky Opioid Abatement Advisory Commission. (inhales deeply) Within that role, I designed for what, by lack of better term, was the Kentucky Ibogaine Initiative. The state had received $842 million in settlements that'll be paid out over the next 15 years by opioid distributors and manufacturers for their role in the creation and perpetuation of the opioid epidemic. And as the Kentucky Ibogaine Project was developed and executed, I was introduced to Governor Perry as someone who was a believer and advocate in the medicine. He and I developed a professional relationship. He was a vocal supporter and participant in the initiative itself. He appeared by video to give a testimonial about the immense potential around the development of ibogaine. And he also was so wonderfully helpful as to procure an op-ed in Newsweek Magazine in October of last year endorsing the initiative. He has been a tremendous supporter, mentor, and I am privileged to call him my friend.

   6. JRJoe Rogan1:40

      And Governor, how did you get involved in this?

   7. RPRick Perry1:43

      It's kind of a long story, so, uh, we got the time, if you don't mind-

   8. JRJoe Rogan1:46

      Sure. We have plenty of time.

   9. RPRick Perry1:46

      ... I'll just, uh, take you back. 2006, uh, my wife made me go on vacation, which I don't necessarily do very good, 'cause I have a little bit of ADHD, and-

   10. JRJoe Rogan1:55

       (laughs)

   11. RPRick Perry1:56

       ... uh, vacations are sitting on the beach, uh, some place. It's not high on my list of good things to do. But, uh, anyway, I went with her, and she took me to, uh, Coronado Island and, uh, the Hotel Del, uh, which is a fascinatingly interesting place. But my security detail went out early, and they were stopped there, I think, on, on Orange, um, and, uh, Orange Drive, the little b- breakfast nook, and they had walked in where they were supposed to meet the California Highway Patrol, uh, to do our advance. And there was this big guy, looked about like you, all buff and slicked-off head, and pretty healthy-looking boy, and they thought that was the patrolman they were supposed to meet. They went over, introduced themselves and said, "Are you here to, uh, meet Governor Perry?" And the guy went, "No, but I vote for him every chance I get." (laughs) And this kid happened to be a JTAC with SEAL Team 5, uh, who was a farmer, or was an F/A-18 driver who was assigned to SEAL Team 5 to go out on their next assignment. And, um, they just met him by the grace of God. And the kid gave him his card and said, "Hey, if the governor would like to go on a tour of the Special Warfare Center, I'd love to give him a tour." Well, the detail shows up next day, says, "Hey, we met this kid." And that's right down my alley, right? I, rather than sitting on the beach, take me over and show me what the Special Warfare Center does. And on Saturday morning, we went over, got that tour, and this young man led the tour, and he had a big old tall drink of water with him in his cammies and that assisted with the tour. Took about three hours to finish this tour. We finish it, and this young man says, "Did Marcus tell you where he was last weekend?" I said, "No." He said, "Yes, sir" once and "No, sir" once. He said, "Well, he was at the White House receiving the Navy Cross." Well, I know what the Navy Cross is, and, uh, I went back to the hotel room, looked it up on my computer, there's no mention of this Marcus Luttrell anywhere on my computer. And, uh, we had asked them to go have dinner with us the, uh, that night just to s- say thank you for their time and what have you, and that evening as we get back to the restaurant, friend is asking him all questions about what was it that he did. And the, during the conversation, Operation Red Wing came up, and, uh, and we finished dinner. I tell him, I said, "Look. Give me your mom's phone number. I'll call her when we get back to, to Texas, and if you're ever through Austin, come by and see me." Right? Which I would tell to, I probably told to hundreds of people, Joe, um, if, if we had known each other in those days. I would have said, "Hey, Joe. If you're ever through Austin, come by and see me." Fat chance you're going to come and knock on the door of the governor's mansion, right? Can't do it. So it's a nice thing to say, but realizing that you, they're not gonna show up. Well, I went back, looked up Operation Red Wing, and that's when my computer kind of blew up and I figured out who this young man was. And you remember in 2006-

   12. JRJoe Rogan5:12

       (laughs)

   13. RPRick Perry5:12

       ... nobody had heard of this, didn't know who Marcus Luttrell was and what have you. So go on about our business. They leave, they deploy, go back to Iraq, with his twin brother, Morgan, I might add. He, Morgan and Marcus, they, uh, deployed together on that. And the young man who led that, that tour that day was a lieutenant commander in the Navy, F/A-18 pilot, by the name of Jake Ellzey. Jake Ellzey is now a member of Congress. Uh, so incredible small world, uh, for me that started totally by the grace of God of meeting these boys in Coronado Island, and I called his mom when I got back to Austin, said, "Hey, saw your son. He's doing all right, and if I can ever help you, let me know." Went on about my business. That was in August of '06. The following May of '07-... the phone rang in the governor's mansion. The security detail said, "There's a young man down here who said you told him the next time he was through Austin, Texas you'd come by and see him and he's here." (laughs) And I said, I said, "That's hilarious." I said, "What's his name?" And, "Marcus Luttrell." I said, "Yeah, I told him that. Well, send him in." That was in May of '07, and he lived with us for the next two and a half years. In August of '09, he left, and that's what started me and my wife on this long journey, this adventure that has taken me to sitting at Joe Rogan's table, talking about veterans' mental health. We've been down literally dozens of rabbit trails. Um, frankly, the, the bulk of 'em, they were interesting, but they really didn't bring any relief, didn't bring any help. Uh, we learned about the brokenness of our government's ability to help these young men and women.

   14. (clears throat)

   15. I mean, Marcus literally was separated from the, uh, the Navy, uh, without the ability to have TRICARE even. He- the only place he could get his healthcare, Joe, was at the VA, and he had to have some very specific, uh, surgeries on his back, highly technical surgeries. And I told him, I said, "I'm not gonna let you go to the VA and have that done, no offense." But I said, "I'll go raise the money and find somebody that we can get you the type of help that you need." And I went to Houston, I talked to a doctor there, Stan Jones, uh, who's the, uh, chief medical officer for a stem cell company now called Celltex. Uh, but he had heard of Marcus by then. Marcus's book had come out, uh, I think in, in '08 when it came out, and it went to number one on the New York Times bestseller list. So people started to know who Marcus Luttrell was, knew his story, and we were able to, to get him, uh, the medical help that he needed. I also intervened, at that time, with the, uh, Secretary of the Navy, Ray Mabus. And I call Ray ... Ray was the former governor of Mississippi, so I knew him through that, uh, that role. And I told him, I said, "Here's what I've got." And I said, "This kid is a legit American hero." And I said, "Our government's just completely dropped the ball on being able to take care of him." And I said, "I don't want to embarrass your boss, but," I said, "you need to get this kid back in, reevaluate him, get him, uh, not fit for duty so he can get eligible for TRICARE." Of which they did, and my hats off to him for doing that and doing it. It just took a ... The, the sadness of all of this, Joe, from my perspective, is Marcus Luttrell was just fortunate in a lot of different ways, that by the grace of God he met a governor, a guy that could actually intervene and make a difference. There's literally thousands, thousands of young men and women out there today who have mental health issues that don't know a governor, don't have anybody to help. And that's why I've spent however many years that's been, 17 years, helping, being open, uh, to all the different ways, uh, that we could help these young men and women. Uh, back in '07, I helped create a, a foundation that, uh, uh, buys homes. It's called, uh, uh, Military Heroes Support Foundation, and, um, they've given away a thousand homes now. George Strait gives away one of their homes at every one of his concerts. Um, but even if you're, you're living in a great home, if you're in a mansion and your mind's not where it needs to be, you're just a, you're just a lonely person, a sad person, a broken person, in a beautiful home. But I've become a complete believer in plant medicine, uh, over the course of the last five or six years in particular, and, uh, the compound ibogaine, I-B-O-G-A-I-N-E, that most people never heard of before, uh, that's good and bad because, uh, it doesn't have a, a, a bad rap because nobody's heard of it before. My job and our job is to be able to educate the public about this plant medicine, this psychoactive plant medicine that absolutely is showing stunning ability to bring people back to normalcy, to reset their brains, to literally give them their lives back. Um, I made the decision that that's what I'm gonna do for the rest of my however many years I got left. This is where I want to spend the bulk of my time, telling people about it, explaining to people how this, you know, conservative, right-wing, knuckle-dragging Republican governor became a spokesperson willing to go publicly talk about this plant medicine that literally the data is ... I mean, I, I think the data is y- you can't argue with the data. Uh, we'll, we'll talk about a clinical trial that, uh, they did out of Stanford this last year. But that's how I went from basically being a guy that wasn't even open to having a conversation about ... In 2013, I got talked into talking to a mother who had a son who was an epileptic, and she said, "The only thing that we can give our son that's relieved him of this is THC." And I was against any of the, uh, the use of marijuana, medical or otherwise, in 2013. That mother came and sat down to me. I looked at the data.I listened to her powerful story, and we passed in Texas medical use of, of THC for the cases of, um, epilepsy. And that's my point with all of this, is that I'll never be for le- I know you and I may not agree on this, I'm not for the legalization of drugs. I love Rick Doblin. Rick and I have been on, uh, multiple stages together. Uh, a lot of the works that he did at MAPS is, I'm a big supporter of, and I tell him, I said, "But I'm not gonna get there on the legalization of drugs. I'm just not." And, and I don't want to get that confused with what we're doing here. This is medically diagnosed, medically dosed, having the proper medical people there, uh, the treatment, uh, the follow-up, all of that, and that's one of the reasons that I think that our, our government ... And thank God, Donald Trump won. I'm, I'm, I'm very open about this, that Donald Trump won this election. He's putting people into place that are open to plant medicine being used for our veterans' mental health. And so, I know I've covered a pretty broad, um, piece of, of landscape in all of that, that I've just talked about, but that's how I got here. Over a 17-year period of time, I went from an absolute, "Don't even talk to me about these drugs," to being the Johnny Appleseed (laughs) of ibogaine today, uh, where, you know, I, my wife probably gets tired of going places with me, and I s- and the next thing she knows, I'm talking to somebody about plant-based medicine and what I've seen and why we, as society, need to be really pushing this, talking to our congressmen, talking to our senators, talking to the people that are decision-makers, and the private sector, educating the public about this so that they know that there is help out there. And when you add to this the clear evidence that this works on addictions, uh, and we're talking across the board, then the populations that could be affected in a powerful and a positive way is substantial. And I, you know, that's what God put us on this Earth for, is to be good servants. And this, I believe, has the most powerful way to affect the most people in a positive way of anything that I've ever seen in my public serv- my 40 years of public service. So, um, I am committed to it. I'm completely and absolutely convinced that the data will back up what we're talking about, and we'll visit

2. 15:00 – 30:00

   All right, folks. It's…

   1. RPRick Perry15:00

      about this clinical trial, I'm sure, in the next couple hours.

   2. NANarrator15:04

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   3. RPRick Perry18:10

      Yeah.

   4. NANarrator18:10

      ... to that drug, and a matter of fact, it actually cures addiction-

   5. RPRick Perry18:13

      Yep.

   6. NANarrator18:13

      ... some way or another. It rewires the brain.

   7. RPRick Perry18:15

      Yeah.

   8. NANarrator18:16

      And do you know how, uh, ibogaine was introduced into the zeitgeist?

   9. RPRick Perry18:20

      I don't.

   10. It was a-

   11. Joe, you, you give it.

   12. No. Hunter S. Thompson in the 1970s, when, uh, it was Ed Muskie and George McGovern, when McGovern was, uh, running for president, when, uh, during the primaries, he, uh, he spread this rumor that Muskie was addicted to ibogaine and that he had a Brazilian witch doctor come to visit him, and it tanked, uh, Muskie's political career.

   13. I thought fake news was a new thing. (laughs)

   14. No, no, no. Hunter S. Thompson was the beginning of fake news.

   15. (laughs)

   16. Well, then, we called it gonzo journalism, you know?

   17. Oh, yeah.

   18. And what he would do is just mix in a bunch of very obviously fake things along with real things. But he was on the Dick Cavett show. See if you can find that clip. It's actually pretty funny.

   19. That's hilarious.

   20. This is him on the Di- I mean, he literally decided to tank this guy's political career by making up a rumor about him.

   21. People really believed that Muskie was getting ibogaine.

   22. WHW. Bryan Hubbard19:17

       I never said he was. I said there was a rumor in Milwaukee that he was.

   23. RPRick Perry19:20

       (laughs)

   24. WHW. Bryan Hubbard19:20

       Which was true, and I started the rumor in Milwaukee.

   25. RPRick Perry19:22

       (laughs)

   26. (laughs)

   27. They finally said, "Well, you made it all up."

   28. WHW. Bryan Hubbard19:25

       I couldn't believe that people really believed that Muskie was getting iboga-

   29. RPRick Perry19:27

       Yeah, it's just repeating itself over and over and over.

   30. My God.
3. 30:00 – 45:00

   His mother said that…

   1. WHW. Bryan Hubbard30:00

      years. Right now, there are individuals who live offshore from the United States who are using Ibogaine to effectively treat symptoms associated with multiple sclerosis, Lyme disease, and Parkinson's disease. Just about two weeks ago, Governor Perry and I had the privilege of spending some time with a researcher who is based out of the University of Zurich in Switzerland. This researcher has developed a protocol for the treatment of Parkinson's symptoms with Ibogaine-We had the privilege of visitin' with one of his patients, who wishes to remain anonymous, as well as a family member of this patient. We were shown a video whereby this individual had developed Parkinson's disease at the age of 41. It had advanced so aggressively that by age 51, this gentleman was completely bedfast. As a last resort, he underwent an invasive intracranial surgical procedure called deep brain stimulation, where they drilled holes through his skull and implanted electrodes which were designed to stimulate the production of what is called glioneurotropic growth factor, which essentially stimulates the dopamine receptors to produce dopamine, the absence of which is implicated in the development of Parkinson's disease. And while this gentleman was no longer bedfast, he was not able to volitionally control his bodily movements. The video that we saw demonstrated his attempts to stand and walk, and the ability to walk was non-existent. After, uh, he had undergone the deep brain stimulation, he signed up for euthanasia services in the country in which he lives because it is legal and he was at the end of his rope. He underwent a four-week course of upward titration with low-dose Ibogaine that did not produce a psychoactive experience, and at the end of those four weeks, that gentleman was able to stand, walk, and function as a normal human being. The outcome is nothing short of miraculous.

   2. RPRick Perry32:25

      His mother said that he rode his bike, uh, every day now.

   3. (laughs)

   4. I mean, I'm tellin' you, Joe, this is the most stunning... I mean, it's a short video, I get it. It's anecdotal. But for my purposes, it was just backin' up what we have seen and what we've learned about how Ibogaine... Now, the treatments down in Mexico are flood doses. This was a microdosing that they did over there. But again, it gets to my point of this is exactly why we as the United States, and with our medical, um, you know, capacity in this country, need to be doin' this type of, of clinical trials so that we, we find out-

   5. (coughs)

   6. ... is this really what we think it is? And if it is, this needs to be widespread, uh, treatment for MS, for Parkinson's, for addictions, for PTSD-

   7. (coughs)

   8. ... for traumatic brain injury. I mean, I think we're on the cusp of some extraordinary medical breakthroughs because of this compound, Ibogaine.

   9. WHW. Bryan Hubbard33:27

      Dr. Williams has said, and I agree, that Ibogaine is the most sophistic- med- sophisticated medication on the planet. The results of that Stanford study were published in a top five medical research journal called Nature Medicine on January 5th, 2024.

   10. RPRick Perry33:45

       (coughs)

   11. WHW. Bryan Hubbard33:45

       An organization called the Brain and Behavioral Research Foundation named the, that study as its number two study in terms of neuropharmacology in the world for the year 2024. I have become convinced that any system which maintains Ibogaine's criminality is, in fact, criminal and needs to be tore apart brick by brick.

   12. RPRick Perry34:15

       (coughs)

   13. It does seem like a miraculous compound, um, and what's fascinating to me is that how little was known about it until just a, basically a decade or so- ... till it started making its way into the zeitgeist, and primarily, w- I heard about it from people... My friend Ed Clay, uh, was the first person that I heard about it. He, he b- became addicted to pills. He had a back injury, and, um, he started talking about it. He went to Mexico and got treated, and then he wound up opening up a center in Mexico. And, uh, since then I've known quite a few veterans, mostly veterans, that they've been led there by other veterans, guys who've s- gotten help or new friends that had gotten help that way and sent 'em down there, and every single one of 'em that I've known that have come back-

   14. Yeah.

   15. ... from there has had a miraculous result. It's, it's almost, like, too good to promise. It's like-

   16. Yeah.

   17. ... when you're talking about it people are like, "Oh, uh, you know, uh, there's so many people probably listening to this that are at their- the end of their rope," and they're hearing this like, "Oh, come on. Don't, don't get my hopes up-"

   18. Yeah.

   19. "... for this miraculous thing,"-

   20. Yeah.

   21. ... 'cause nothing miraculous works. Most people think that.

   22. WHW. Bryan Hubbard35:22

       If it's too good to be true, it's probably too good to be true.

   23. RPRick Perry35:25

       Right, right.

   24. WHW. Bryan Hubbard35:26

       But I, I'm- I would have said that myself until I've seen with my own eyes, I've been studying this. You ask a little bit more about, um... In 2017, I went to Washington to be the Secretary of Energy. Um, I asked Morgan Luttrell, Marcus's twin brother, former Navy SEAL, was working on his PhD in brain science, if he would put that on hold and come with me up to DC to work at the Department of, of, of Energy, and, uh, Morgan did, uh, and he was over in a, in a part of the agency where we have, uh, oversight of all the supercomputers, uh, in the- or the bulk of the supercomputers in the United States, our national labs have, and we have some partnerships, uh, with different universities, University of, uh, s- uh, San Francisco, uh, Uni- University of California San Francisco, and, uh, a, uh, a researcher out there named Geoffrey Manley, MD, PhD, and he was doing, uh, some studies on, uh, the brain, uh, uh, for traumatic brain injury. And they were scanning the brain using our supercomputers at the Department of Energy, and Morgan was helping him oversee that as they were going through it because of his obvious background and his, uh, study on, on brain science and what have you. And that's the first time I ever heard about...

   25. RPRick Perry36:49

       ... anyone going to Mexico to be treated with this plant medicine was through Morgan, and I kind of picked it up, you know, in a conversation that he was having, and, and, you know, it kind of put me back on my heels a little bit, and I was like, "Morgan, you, you need to be careful with that now." (laughs) And I said, "Yes, sir." Uh, but anyway the... That, that was where, uh, I heard about ibogaine for the first time was in probably 20- late 2017, early 2018. And then, as I started educating myself about it, um, I was curious about it, "Does, does this work and why does it work?" Then, it's led to this study. Nolan... Dr. Nolan Williams, PhD, MD at Stanford, oversaw the study that, uh, Brian just did a fabulous job of laying out there. 30 vets, they all had moderate to severe PTSD. Um, they were all given a, a, a clinical psychological exam that put them into the moderate to severe, uh, PTSD range. Some of them had traumatic brain injuries, some of them had alcohol, um, uh, issues. Uh, I think eight out of the 30 had tried to kill themselves. Uh, I mean, this was a highly overseen group that were treated and the results, 88%, Joe, 88% of those individuals six months later had zero, not a little bit better, they had zero symptoms of PTSD. And I talked to Nolan with them, uh, uh, a few days ago and it appears that even after a year that these symptoms are gone. I mean, this is stunningly powerful work. And again, I sound like a broken record, but it... This is the reason that this country needs to put this into place so that we can clinically, uh, trial it at various and sundry places across this country, at the VA, at some of our great, uh, medical institutions, the private sector. If this is what we think it is, this could be the greatest, uh, the, the greatest medicine brought to mankind in history.

   26. You know, and it takes someone like you. Uh, it, it takes a Republican, straight-laced guy, who was a governor to... When you're coming out and talking about something like this, that's gonna open up a lot of people's eyes.

   27. I had a political consultant, uh, when I first started being public about this, uh, a, a young man, in this case, uh, call me up and he said, uh, "Hey, hey, governor. I, I heard you talking about this plant-based medicine and use of psychedelics for... What are, what are you doing?" He said, "You're fixing to throw away 40 years of, of building up a good conservative reputation." He said, you know, "You need to be really, really careful with this. What are you doing?" And I told him, I said, "Listen, I, I, I get your concern. I, I understand it." But I said two things, number one, "I have spent a lot of time studying this." I said, "I've, I've read, I've talked to people. I've been to Mexico multiple times to observe this and to see it." And I said, "I'm convinced of what I've seen is true, and that what I've, uh, what I've studied and what I've, I've, I've gone down and, and really put my arms around." I said, "I'm convinced that this data is what it is, and we need to move forward with this." But I said, "I'll tell you what's even more important for me. My reputation is not m- worth more than their lives." And that's what drives me, is that what I've seen, I believe, and I'm, I'm willing to put my reputation on the line. And I think, you know, when we see people like Marcus Luttrell and Morgan Luttrell, and, and other members of Congress who have been treated, uh, and have publicly talked about, that they have been to Mexico and they've been treated. Morgan will tell you it saved his marriage. Marcus will tell you it saved his life. That's powerful stuff.

   28. It's powerful stuff. Yeah, um, do you know, Sean Ryan?

   29. I know who he is.

   30. Yeah. Sean Ryan had a very similar experience, and, you know, obviously veteran, Navy SEAL.
4. 45:00 – 1:00:00

   Brian, could you explain…

   1. RPRick Perry45:01

      are in combat for weeks at a time, months at a time, and even when they're out of direct conflict, because of that environment that they're in, they're always... The, you know, their, their hormone levels th- you know, are through the roof, because they're always on, head on a swivel, looking around, "Is that person walking in here with the, uh, you know, with the, with the shawl on? Does it have a, uh, you know, uh, an explosive in it?" I mean, always on... Uh, the f- the fear of being attacked, being harmed is through the roof. And, and that's... W- we... These kids are all a bunch of, of, uh, guinea pigs from the standpoint of how this, these traumatic events affect them, and our government's failed, and, and I... This is, this is an opportunity for our government, both at the federal level and in the state level, and that's the reason that Brian has come to Texas to help us, uh, with the Texas ibogaine initiative. Uh, we're gonna be introducing to the Texas Legislature, uh, a, uh, an initiative for a clinical trial on ibogaine. Uh, I don't know all the details of it. Brian's probably got a better handle on it than me from that standpoint. Uh, but I look at this as we've been given this great gift of a parallel track with the federal government, with, with these individuals that, uh, hopefully are gonna be coming in at, uh, HHS, at, uh, uh, all of the underagencies that are involved there, and at the same time Texas, uh, going with a parallel, uh, legislation to both educate the public about ibogaine and to do clinical trials so that we've got the data to back up, uh, the education process that's going on.

   2. WHW. Bryan Hubbard47:03

      Brian, could you explain what, what is the unique pathway that allows ibogaine to help people with addictions? Because it's, it's a very unusual thing that it, that it does to people. If I might provide some historical context on the reality that you have just articulated. In 1962, a heroin addict by the name of Howard Lotsof, whose, uh, widow, uh, Norma, is still living in New York City, he was, uh, part of, um, an underground subculture in the early '60s known as the Yippies, and Howard came into contact with ibogaine in 1962, and he took it out of curiosity just to see what would occur. After he took it, he discovered that his desire for heroin had vanished, despite a nine-year hardcore dependency. Howard, along with a guy by the name of Stanley Glick, a gentleman by the name of Dana Bill, joined also by a guy by the name of Dr. Kenneth Alper, were the original pioneers who essentially engaged in a decades-long process of developing observational field data which demonstrated that ibogaine had the unique ability to resolve physiological dependence on opioids. The mechanism of action was not understood, and is still not understood. What is known is that the opioid-dependent brain does not have the capacity to produce its own dopamine and serotonin. Dopamine and serotonin are our baseline survival chemicals. They drive all of our most fundamental human instincts.... the drive to eat, the drive to drink, the drive to procreate. The human body's natural physical capacity to produce dopamine at its maximum, as measured in what's called nanograms per deciliter, is 125 nanograms per deciliter. Opioids produce a dopamine response of 925 nanograms per deciliter, exceeded only by meth, which produces a dopamine response of 1,100 nanograms per deciliter. For y- for years, individuals as the opioid epidemic has played out in this country, uh, with the detonation of OxyContin in the Appalachian Mountains in 1996, for years, we looked at this problem as one of profound moral failure by those who found themselves trapped in addiction. What I learned in my roles in government was that that was completely wrong. What we are seeing are the results of a profound neurochemical brain injury expressed by the shutdown of dopamine and serotonin in the brain due to opioid exposure. Ibogaine has the unique ability to restore the brain's dopamine and serotonin production to its pre-opioid exposure levels within 36 to 48 hours, thereby fully resolving physiological opioid dependence with a single administration for 80% of individuals the first time. That number goes to 97% with a second supportive dose.

   3. RPRick Perry50:30

      Wow.

   4. WHW. Bryan Hubbard50:32

      It is extraordinary, especially when we consider the, the outcomes that are produced by our existing treatment system. Addiction currently, you have two pathways. One is abstinence-only, and the other is what's called medication for opioid use disorder, or what I refer to as opioid maintenance treatment. Outcomes associated with abstinence treatment are essentially a rate of success of 7%, and the reason for that is because it takes the brain 18 months of complete abstinence from opioids to recover its own individual dopamine and serotonin production. You have to be completely abstinent for 18 months before the brain begins to heal. Ibogaine shortens that to 48 hours. It is something that is not understood, but it's concrete and real. One other thing is important to mention about its physiological properties. Ibogaine can produce miraculous outcomes for individuals who find themselves substance-dependent. Its applications haven't just been successful when it comes to opioid dependency. It is the only known substance to successfully treat meth dependency, and we, when we consider that the current street economy, the prevailing combination is fentanyl and meth, there is no more compelling circumstance to demand the accelerated development of this therapeutic than the current reality of drug dependency and death in America. (sighs) And, and i- the risk comes with misadministration. There is a significant cardiac risk which accompanies ibogaine. It has the propensity to prolong the beats between the heart, or what is called prolonged QT interval. The fancy word for it is Torsades syndrome. If an individual is given ibogaine improperly, it will slow and stop their heart, and they will die. This is a very serious medication, and it must, at all times, be administered by a medical professional with a background in interventional cardiology, supported by a nursing team that can deliver the administration of atropine to stabilize the heart's rhythm if it goes out of whack during the course of treatment. The other important thing to know is, though that risk exists, it can be fully and completely mitigated by the co-administration of magnesium. Uh, a methodology that the best practice clinics in Mexico, uh, I've been, had the privilege of going to two. The first was previously mentioned, which is AMBO, south of Tijuana, and the other is called Beond, and it is in Cancun.

   5. RPRick Perry53:31

      B-E-O-N?

   6. WHW. Bryan Hubbard53:32

      B-E-O-N-D.

   7. RPRick Perry53:34

      B-E-O-N-D?

   8. WHW. Bryan Hubbard53:34

      Yes, sir. Both of those clinics utilize the co-administration of magnesium in order to prevent the development of Torsades. I explain all this to say to your audience, do not, under any circumstances try to order ibogaine online for self-administration. Do not free venture out into the world looking for any old clinic. Be very careful and selective. There are informational websites. One is maintained by a lady by the name of Juliana Mulligan called Innervisions Ibogaine, which has a list of providers. Um, as I said, I have been to both AMBO and Beond, uh, they are clinical operations that adhere to the absolute best highest standards of safety, and you wanna make sure if you have a family member that you're sending them to a place that recognizes that ibogaine is the very best possible beginning that you can give an individual to restore their lives in the aftermath of the devastation associated with addiction. You wanna make sure that the clinical staff com- is comprised of highly credentialed physicians, nurses with intensive care background and certification, who are also believers in the advancement of this particular medication, and who also have experience with it. It needs to be delivered within a supportive therapeutic environment whereby you are within a community that is connected to your humanity, where you have the ability to receive services that heal your mind, your body...... and most importantly, your soul.

   9. RPRick Perry55:16

      Amen.

   10. And it can actually be done.

   11. WHW. Bryan Hubbard55:20

       Yes.

   12. RPRick Perry55:20

       That this is... It sounds so crazy that this is illegal, and it sounds so crazy that this is so beneficial, and that it's taken so long that here we are in 2024. You know, all the... 54 years after all this stuff was made illegal, and we're still dealing with the repercussions of this political decision.

   13. WHW. Bryan Hubbard55:42

       (laughs)

   14. RPRick Perry55:42

       Essentially, you know, by the Nixon administration.

   15. WHW. Bryan Hubbard55:47

       Is it all right if I talk about how I came to learn about this?

   16. RPRick Perry55:49

       Please.

   17. WHW. Bryan Hubbard55:51

       I'm gonna have to start at the beginning, (laughs) and I will try to be as economical with the use of words as possible. I was raised in one of Virginia's five coal mining counties, Russell County, Virginia, which economically and culturally is much more similar to Eastern Kentucky and southern West Virginia than it is to any other part of Virginia. I come out of a coal mining family. My grandfathers were both grade school educated. My father's father stopped attending school in the third grade. My mother's father stopped attending school in the sixth. Both of them were underground at the age of 16, and that's where they spent 40 years of their lives. My family has been generationally devastated by profound effects of alcohol and substance abuse, as well as untreated mental illness. It has blighted us for as long as anyone can remember. This is the environment in which my parents grew up. They married early. My first memories as a child were of screaming, cussing, and chaos. I can remember my grandfathers, who lived incredibly difficult lives. My mother's father was one of 16, had a pair of shoes give to him once a year. My father's father was one of 11. Neither one of them had a full set of fingers. You could hear my dad's dad breathe 50 feet away from the combined effects of black lung and tuberculosis that he had contracted in the coal camp in which my father was raised. (inhales deeply) When I was a, a young boy and I would go and visit them, each of them separately and independently would at some point pull me aside, and they would say, "Papaw knows that you're scared and that you're anxious, but you need to know a couple of things. Number one, Papaw loves you. Number two, and most importantly, God loves you. You have a special and unique purpose to achieve with your life that has been handed to you from on high. And no matter how scared you get, no matter how rough you think things are, if you will have faith that God will take care of you, you're gonna come through just fine." If my grandfathers had not provided me in those very early years with sanctuary from that early chaos, the stability of their love, and an affirmation of their spiritu- of, of my spiritual significance, the chances are, if I were alive at all, I certainly would not be sitting here. I would be looking to people like Governor Perry and people who held jobs like I once did, wondering what they were going to do to pull me out of the ditch. I went through, uh, school at a time when Ronald Reagan was president, and just like the duckling to the duck, he was my North Star as to what America was all about. I had a very idealized version of American history and civics education delivered to me by grade school teachers who had come of age during World War II, or ladies who had been trained by those teachers. Coming out of a working class family, my dad was a installer for the telephone company and a lineman for 40 years. He had some struggles with alcohol when I was very young that he, through iron will, overcame, and today he is one of my absolute best and dear friends in this life. I was raised, along with my brother, to recognize the benchmarks of success as becoming either a doctor or lawyer. I wasn't much good by way of math or science, but I could write and talk a little bit. And I was also taught that law was the way in which you could defend

5. 1:00:00 – 1:15:00

   Section 5

   1. WHW. Bryan Hubbard1:00:00

      truth, justice, and the American way. So with dewy-eyed optimism, I went to undergrad and had a wonderful time, and then I went to law school. And by the end of that first semester, with the acquisition of significant student loan debt, all of those dewy-eyed notions had been crushed and destroyed before my very eyes. At the end of the three-year legal education process, I came to know and to understand that law has nothing to do with any of those things that I was raised to believe, that law is often nothing other oftentimes than the tyrant's will, and always so when it is used to produce predetermined manipulated outcomes in the hands of judges who drive results based on their own individual biases, predilections, and preferences. Because I owed such debt, my first job was to just get a job, and I found myself with an accidental career practicing workers' compensation law in Kentucky. I had the privilege of being mentored by a lady named Mary Kay Williams for one year. She had managed to achieve partnership at the law firm at which we worked together.But in May of 2002, tragically at the age of 33, she died as a result of a fall from her attic at her home after a Memorial Day party. The next day, I went into the office. The senior partner called me in and said, "There's no easy time to have this discussion, so we're gonna have it now. There is a 300 caseload, 300 case caseload that Mary Kay handled. The bulk of those cases belonged to Walmart stores. They are a significant client to this law firm. I don't know you, but you are the, one of the few associates of which she had glowing things to say. I need you to get in there and get your hands around that caseload and anchor this client to this firm." That touched off what was a 16-year legal career practicing workers' compensation law across Kentucky in the years which coincided with the onset and explosion of the opioid epidemic out of Central and Southern Appalachia. I traveled from one end of the state to the other, representing Walmart, Tyson Foods, and Tennessee Valley Authority, uh, practicing thousands of cases over the course of those years. I can remember taking the deposition of a particular individual who I would describe as representative of the, of the dynamics of the opioid epidemic. This person was usually, uh, a middle-aged woman somewhere between the ages of, uh, 45 and, and 70. She would have worked tirelessly her entire life, usually in Eastern Kentucky, working in low-skill, low-wage jobs, convenience stores, Family Dollars, Walmarts, and she worked hard, and she worked consistently, and she would have been someone whose labor was a monument of devotion to her family. At some point in time, she would have had a, a work accident, a slip and fall, or a lifting injury. She would make her way to either a physician or, in some cases, a lawyer. She would undergo an evaluation, and, uh, she would endorse the existence of pain complaints throughout her body. This person would undergo a series of diagnostic studies that failed to reveal anything that was significant, certainly not enough to explain all of the pain symptoms that this person endorsed. As a young lawyer, I took this lady's deposition probably 30 or 40 times, and I would get them to speak to their pain, I would get them to speak to their debility, and then I would pull out their medical records, which demonstrated that CT scans, MRIs, electrodiagnostic studies all had failed to reveal any objective physiological explanation for their complaints of pain. And being enthusiastic and wanting to defend the very best interests of my clients, I thought that I was being put on, that the plaintiff's lawyer had sat with this lady and had come up with a sob story to tell me in order to pull money out of my client's pockets. I was always very patient, and I was kind with the individual, but I would say, "Ma'am, we have gone through a stack of medical records, and there does not appear to be anything wrong with you." And this lady would start to cry, and she would say, "Mr. Hubbard, I'm not a doctor, and I can't tell you what's wrong with me. The only thing that I can tell you is from the time I open my eyes until I go to bed, I hurt from the top of my head to the bottom of my feet, and I can't hardly make myself get up out of bed." This person's medical treatment, by the time they got to me, had consisted of the application of high-powered narcotic medications in response to their complaints, along with habituating psychotropic medications, OxyContin, Xanax, Zanaflex, the whole nine yards. If they were not physiologically disabled by their accident, they had been physiologically disabled by the pharmacology that had been thrown at them. I took this person's deposition hundreds of times, and one day driving down the road, it dawned on me that whether these ladies had physical symptoms which were identifiable or not, they were truly, genuinely experiencing profound pain which had caused significant debility. That pain was not physical. It was emotional, and it was spiritual. These ladies had worked lifetimes looking at a dead end, and at the time that they had their work accident, it was the straw that broke the camel's back for any hope they had of a future defined by dignity and autonomy, and their hope had been broken. And that broken hope came through as profound physical pain that was rooted within their spirit. By virtue of my connection to an expert who I had utilized in my workers' compensation cases, in December of 2016, I received a call from the, uh, uh, member of the then administration of Governor Matt Bevin, and they were looking for an individual who could come in and look at the state's Social Security Disability system. That's a federal program that e- exists to help individuals who are disabled as a result of either physical or mental maladies, and while it's a federal program, it is administered by the individual states, and I was asked, "What do you know about Social Security Disability?" And I said, "Well, not much. I know it and workers' compensation go hand in hand, and I know that Kentucky, for as long as anyone can remember, has a significant portion of its adult population receiving that benefit. We've been second only to West Virginia for at least 30 years." And they said, "Well..."We're looking for someone who can come in and evaluate the system, understand how it works, and understand why Kentucky has so many people receiving it. Is this a job that you think that you could do?" And I said, "I don't know, but I'll sure give it my best try, and it's an honor to be considered. I'll take it." So in February of '17, I went in and began to lead Kentucky's Social Security Disability system. My first job was to understand why things were the way they were. I assembled a team of, uh, high-caliber intellects who had years, decades of policy experience with the Social Security Disability program, and I wrote down 19 different statistical metrics that I wished for us to evaluate around the enrollment into the Social Security Disability program, as well as different socioeconomic factors which were unique to Kentucky. And in October of 2017, we issued what was the very first of its kind retrospective study of the evolution of the Social Security Disability program in Kentucky covering the years 1980 through 2015, and here were some of the statistics that were the highlights of that report. Between 1980 and 2015, Kentucky's population grew 20%. Enrollment in the Social Security Disability program grew 249%. Childhood enrollment... Now, these are children who are under the age of 18, most of them come from highly impoverished backgrounds where there's very little opportunity, uh, to have what we con- consider to be a conventional healthy childhood. Childhood enrollment grew 449% over those 35 years. We paired the enrollment statistics with the state's Medicaid database, which tracked issuance of every single pill that was capable of habituation to the state's SSI Medicaid population. Between 2001 and 2015, the issuance of prescription opioids to adults within the Social Security Disability system grew 210% from 47 doses per adult to 147 doses per adult. The issuance of habituating psychotropic medications to children, whether it was amphetamine, whether it was antidepressant, anything that could create physiological dependence, grew 168% from 275 doses per child to 457 doses per SSI Medicaid child. My first month on the job, we had the Social Security Administration's federal liaison to the state of Kentucky come in for what was called the home agency visit. This was a semi-annual review of the state's Social Security Disability program and the way in which it was meeting federal performance standards. I wish that I had had a recording of this meeting when it occurred, because this person gave me a gift of truth right off the bat. I assembled a management team, I was sitting at the end of the table, and this person began by saying, "Folks, claims are down, and that's bad, because claims equal budget." I came to learn that the Social Security Disability program was not necessarily run primary for the benefit of the Social Security Disability recipients. It was run for the perpetual expansion of the SSA's own bureaucracy, and that while Social Security Disability benefits represented 16% of benefit payments within the system, it consumed 45% of the agency's budget. In order to get more money, you must have more recipients, despite the nature of those outcomes. I came to also run the state's child support enforcement system within that role. Uh, it was perceived that, uh, the state was not delivering child support payments to children. It is the largest single anti-poverty program, not just in Kentucky, but in the country, direct payment transfers from an obligated parent to the custodial parent. It was believed that there were a number of deadbeat dads who were just not paying the bill. And what I came to find out was that those officials who were responsible for running the program, and in Kentucky that was 120 individually elected county attorneys, uh, in fact had some systemic issues. There were a cohort of county attorneys who were running that program perfectly, there was another cohort that were running it with some degree of success, but not necessarily at top performance, and then there was another group that were running their operations horribly. I discovered that within the cohort of 117 elected officials, 40 of them owned their own property, which they then turned around and charged the child supportment- rent, child support program rent. Essentially, federal and state tax dollars through rent payments were going to allow for the acquisition of private real estate equity interest by s- elected officials at the county level, something that was immediately ended when I came into that job. Governor Bevin lost his race for re-election in 2019, and because of some of the measures that were taken to bring accountability, transparency, and performance expectations to that child support program, I was terminated from my job on hour one of day one of the administration of newly elected Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear. I was picked up by a gentleman who is my dear friend by the name of Daniel Cameron.... who had been elected attorney general in 2019. He asked that I run his Office of Medicaid Fraud and Abuse Control, a law enforcement office which investigates and prosecutes medical providers for being engaged in fraud against the state's Medicaid system. This coincided with the onset of COVID. I brought in a deputy by the name of Mack Kleinert, who was a Medicaid policy expert, and over the course of two years, despite the shutdown of the state's court system, we doubled the number of criminal indictments and convictions of medical providers on that system. A significant portion of that caseload was comprised of providers of opioid maintenance treatments who were using their clinics, which were intended to help those who were struggling with opioid dic- addiction, as glorified drug dealing operations which fomented the diversion of Suboxone in every little town and county in Kentucky. And it was an eye-opening experience to recognize the predators within this universe of operation that is supposed to be restorative and helpful to people in recovery. Because of the way in which I believe I had developed a reputation as a no-nonsense, get-it-done public servant, the deputy attorney general at the time, his name was Barry Dunn, asked me if I would have any interest in running the state's opioid commission. The Kentucky legislature had set up a framework to administer what is now $1 billion in settlements from opioid distributors and manufacturers for their role in the creation and perpetuation of the opioid epidemic.

6. 1:15:00 – 1:30:00

   Section 6

   1. WHW. Bryan Hubbard1:15:00

      While the people at home are wonderful and beautiful, many of the conditions that exist there exist because of how terribly Kentucky's state government has functioned since the end of the Civil War. Kentucky, in many categories, is first where one would wish to be last, and last where folks would wish to be first. It has one of the highest rates of childhood poverty in the country, one of the highest rates of child abuse in the country, one of the highest rates of parental incarceration in the country, one of the highest rates of child sexual abuse in the country, all of the tender and material that is necessary to create the devastation associated with the opioid epidemic. Kentucky was like a drought-stricken forest and OxyContin was the lightning bolt that set it on fire in 1996. Like Louisiana, there has been a history of systemic political corruption which has impaired the ability to produce progress for our people. So when I was asked if I had an interest in doing that job, I said, "Well, this is a very treacherous opportunity, because with this amount of money coming in, there's gonna be a lot of buzzards gathered around the wagon who are ready to pick the bones clean. If y'all will let me set up this commission and run it in a way that is accessible, accountable, and transparent to the people of Kentucky, I would be privileged to have the opportunity to do it." Mr. Dunn looked at me and said, "We wouldn't d- have it any other way." I had to go through an interview process, and through that process the question was asked, "What do we need to do with that money?" And I said, "Well, let's recognize that while $842 million is a tremendous sum of money to the average ear, it's gonna be paid to this state over 15 years. At its height, Purdue Pharma was making $100 million a month off the sales of OxyContin. This settlement represents roughly eight and a half months of OxyContin sales, but we're gonna be getting it over 15 years. These are crumbs off the tables of gluttons, and we have got to make sure that this one-time, non-recurring revenue stream is utilized for its maximum best impact to pull this state out of this travesty." And I said, "One thing that we have got to look for is an opportunity to develop a breakthrough therapeutic that can deliver materially better outcomes than what we are getting with our existing system. Our existing system, it's unacceptably mediocre, and it is necessary if we're gonna change generational dynamics to improve upon what we have. We've got to look for Kentucky's Manhattan Project opportunity to pioneer a therapeutic breakthrough for opioid addiction." And I said, "I don't know what that is, but I'm gonna get to looking." In 2018, I came into knowledge of the psilocybin mushroom and the way in which it has profound impacts on treatment-resistant anxiety and depression, and in the case of me in particular with my family's history, alcoholism. And I followed developments around its research applications over the next several years. I came into contact with an author who goes by the pen name of Juliana Christina, who wrote beautifully about her own experiences with the psilocybin mushroom which helped her overcome a lifetime of debility anchored in anxiety, depression, and a near fatal eating disorder. On July the 29th, 2022, I reached out to her and I said, "Hey, this is who I am. I've been given this job. What can you tell me about the universe of psychedelics and whether there is anything that shows special application or impact for opioid dependency?" She said, "Have you ever heard of ibogaine?" I said, "I had not." She said, "I'm gonna put you in touch with a woman by the name of Juliana Mulligan. You tell her that I sent you, and ask her to tell you her story." So I reached out to Juliana, told her who I was, and I said, "Tell me your story." Juliana proceeded to tell me about her life with addiction as a young American woman...She herself had been a heroin addict, she had been incarcerated, she had been homeless, and at one point in time, she moved to Colombia to teach English as a second language. And while there, she discovered that Colombia has open pharmacies that are unregulated. She said that she was able to go into a pharmacy in Colombia and get as much of what she wanted whenever she wanted, and she did. And she said one morning that she woke up and looked in the mirror, and she said, "I knew that I was gonna die. This was it. And I was desperate to give myself a chance to live." And she said, "I had done every form of treatment that was known, I did abstinence, I did Suboxone." And she said, "What they didn't tell me about Suboxone was, if you try to take yourself off of it, Suboxone withdrawal made my heroin withdrawal look like a cakewalk. It was one of the most horrific experiences I ever had in my life." She said, "I found about this, uh, ibogaine called alkaloid... this alkaloid called ibogaine through online internet research." And she said, "What I didn't know was that there are a number of operations that operate within the underground that don't necessarily adhere to the necessary safety practices to assure that this treatment can both be safe and effective." She said, "I made my way to Guatemala, I was in the hands of a practitioner who didn't know what they were doing, and I was given double the dose that I should have received." She said, "I went into cardiac arrest six times and nearly died." She said, "I remember waking up in the intensive care unit of a Guatemalan hospital," and she said, "I felt the best I ever felt in my entire life." Juliana put me in touch with a lady by the name of Adriana Kuerzer in New York City, who at the time ran a boutique law firm called The Plant Medicine Law Firm. Adriana and I had a brief introductory conversation, I told her, I said, "I want to learn as much as I possibly can about ibogaine. I've spoken with Juliana and, and this sounds too good to be true. I want to know if there's any legitimacy about this, and if so, perhaps what the state of Kentucky can do to move the needle on its development." She said, "I have a Rolodex of people that I think could be helpful to you, who would you like to meet?" And I said, "Well, I don't know the names of folks around this, I can just give you generally the category of folks that I would love to be able to speak with. I need to know who the foremost academic and medical researchers of this compound are, I need to understand, um, the existence of any activist organizations that would have particular cultural relevance to Kentucky, a profoundly politically conservative and religiously fundamentalist state." And I said finally, "I need to know whether there are any philanthropists who are willing to support or who have an interest and an opportunity that may exist around ibogaine." She said, "All right, let me get to work." She said, "Would you be willing to travel to New York City if I hosted a dinner party for you?" And I said, "Yes, but on one condition." I said, "I work in a deeply politically conservative office, and I'm pretty sure I've got some people around me who would be ready to cut my head off if they knew that I was even sniffing around the area of psychedelics for a potential treatment." I said, "If I come, this has to be done completely confidentially and everybody must take a vow of silence until such time as I can decide whether or not this is something to present to the office." My wife and I, along with one of my close friends by the name of Scott Hornbuckle, who was also an advisor to the commission who I brought in, traveled to New York City on December 5th of 2022. On December 9th, we had this dinner party. I met with these individuals who had gathered, the researchers, the philanthropists, veteran activists who had gathered around ibogaine, as well as the application of other psychedelics for the treatment of war-related trauma. When I got home to Kentucky on December 11th, they opened up their networks and put me in touch with Amber and Marcus Capone, Dr. Nolan Williams, Dr. Kenneth Alper, and all other folks who have gathered around ibogaine to push for its accessibility within the US medical system. On January 31st of '23, I gave a presentation to Attorney General Cameron, and I said, "I believe we have found Kentucky's Manhattan Project opportunity." And I laid out what the concrete realities are of ibogaine, and they are three. Number one, it resolves physiological substance dependence on an accelerated timeframe in a matter that frees an individual from the physical consequences of their dependencies. Number two, it has a profound psychological effect for the individual whereby on the back end of treatment, having been physiologically restored, they have a sense of ownership over their self and their future, whereby they will live a life that is defined by choice rather than compulsion, and that is a fundamental quality that one must have if they are going to rebuild their life. Finally, and most significantly, many people, the overwhelming majority of folks who have an ibogaine experience, come away with an affirmation that they are a spiritual being who is made in the image of an eternal creator whose essence is pure and unconditional love, and that that creator has conferred a special and unique purpose on their life to be achieved.When those three qualities were properly understood, Attorney General Cameron blessed me to lead the commission on the exploration of setting aside $42 million, 5% of the state's settlement funds, to create a public-private partnership, whereby a drug developer would match the state's investment on the front end by assuming all legal, logistical, and financial risks associated with securing the FDA's approval to pursue clinical research trials for the development of ibogaine as a breakthrough therapeutic treatment for opioid use disorder, co-occurring substance use disorder, and any other mental health conditions for which it demonstrated efficacy. We had a high-profile public announcement on May the 31st of 2023 to announce this exploration. We conducted three very high-profile public hearings, each of which lasted about five hours, about all aspects of ibogaine. These hearings are available online as a formal part of the public record for anyone to view. The first hearing involved the science of ibogaine. It included the testimony of Dr. Nolan Williams, Dr. Kenneth Alper, and Dr. Deborah Mash, who has been a pioneer around the development of ibogaine's application to opioid addiction for over 30 years now. We had a second public hearing, which involved the testimonials of individuals who had received, provided, or had sent loved ones for ibogaine treatment. All of this was done in a very high-profile and public way, because we wanted the people of Kentucky to understand all aspects of this opportunity, its profundity, and the way it c- which it could transform not just the lives of their families, but the future of this state. That second public hearing was one of the most moving public proceedings of which I have ever been a part. And I don't know how anyone could listen to those testimonials, which included one from Governor Perry, and come away with any other conclusion, but that ibogaine must be developed as expeditiously and safely as possible for the sake of our brothers and sisters in this country. The third hearing, which occurred at the request of the University of Kentucky, which along with Andy Beshear fought this proposal every step of the way, centered on the question of whether the FDA would even consider approving clinical trials, given what was repeatedly asserted as the unacceptable level of cardiac risk associated with its application. Within that hearing, we were able to procure the testimony of the scientist general who was in charge of controlled substances research at the FDA, a gentleman by the name of Dr. Javier Muniz, along with his colleague, Dr. Walter Dunn, who sat on the FDA's Advisory Board of Psychopharmacology. I believe he still sits on there. And those gentlemen, after having heard the testimony, as well as questioning from the University of Kentucky's representative, which suggested that the FDA would never approve it, began their testimony by saying, "It has been asserted that the cardiac risk associated with ibogaine would disqualify it from consideration by the FDA for clinical trials. That is absolutely and completely incorrect. The question for ibogaine is not one of the existence of risk. The question is how and if that risk can be mitigated. And assuming that the drug developer can demonstrate that cardiac risk can be safely mitigated and controlled, there is no reason that we would not approve that clinical trial." And with that, the chief objection was nuked. We had one last piece of due diligence to perform before my commission, which had a membership of nine, was ready to cast a deciding vote to secure the allocation of this $42 million for what was going to be a fabulous leadership opportunity for the people of Kentucky to pioneer an entirely new field of biomedical research that will revolutionize how we treat not just addiction, but the problems that we have all sat here and talked about already. And that was the delivery of testimony from Dr. Nolan Williams following the publication of his research in the journal Nature Medicine about the neuroregenerative properties of ibogaine in the brain as applied to the veteran population with TBI and PTSD. Unfortunately, there was an election in Kentucky in 2023. My boss, Attorney General Cameron, ran for governor and lost. Andy Beshear was reelected, and a new Kentucky Attorney General took office. And while this new guy had gone in public and had, uh, expressed his open-minded willingness to give ibogaine consideration, uh, I had briefed him individually before we had our public announcement in anticipation that he would take office. After he won, I reached out and asked if I could have an opportunity to brief him on all of the developmental energy which had gathered around this project. That energy included the commitment

7. 1:30:00 – 1:38:48

   Well, that's an incredible…

   1. WHW. Bryan Hubbard1:30:00

      of two significant philanthropic organizations, one of which was the Jervason Foundation, led by Steven and Genevieve Jervason. The other was the Steven and Alexandra Cohen Foundation, led by Steven and Alexandra Cohen. And then the third was the Melitha- Melissa Etheridge Foundation, all of which made commitments to partner with Kentucky to make this come to pass. We had secured the commitment of two drug developers who were willing to establish corporate presence in Kentucky, and to anchor all of their research and development activity around its advanced therapeutic applications within that state. On the cusp of success, I was brought in to a meeting on December 15th with the newly elected attorney general and members of his transition team. And what I thought was gonna be an opportunity to explain and secure approval for the finalization of this project turned into an ambush meeting, in which it was demanded that I resign for having been an unapologetic advocate for ibogaine research, something that the new attorney general found highly objectionable. I walked out of that meeting...... and was in shock and despair, not over the loss of my job, I was always gonna be able to find another job, but for the loss of the opportunity for the long-suffering people at home who deserved to have an opportunity to transform their future with what ibogaine has the potential to do for them individually and collectively. In what has been a tremendously providential blessing, everything that happened in Kentucky was followed by a gentleman by the name of Rex Elsasse. Mr. Elsasse is an individual who, in his prior life, has been a high-level Republican campaign ad producer. His firm is one of the top campaign producing ad companies for Republican candidates across the country, in the country. Rex has a foundation called The Reid Foundation, which is named in honor of his son, Reid, who struggled for a decade with opioid addiction beginning when he was a 16-year-old in high school. Reid encountered plant medicine with an ayahuasca five years before he passed away. Rex became a believer in plant medicine because of the therapeutic response Reid experienced after that exposure to ayahuasca. Rex was introduced to me, ironically, (laughs) by Melissa Ethridge in February of '23. He showed up at every Kentucky hearing, he showed up at our public announcement, and he said, "Whatever you need to help make this successful, I'm available to you anytime." The Reid Foundation stands for Rescuing Everyone in Distress, because Reid, unfortunately and tragically in 2019, died of a fentanyl overdose. Rex became involved with the Kentucky movement because he believed had Reid had an opportunity to receive ibogaine treatment, he would be alive today. When I walked out of that meeting thinking that it was all over, I called Rex and I said, "They've killed it. This is over. All that work and all that effort is, is, is vanished." He said, "If I can procure opportunities for you to speak to what ibogaine can do to other elected officials across the country with whom I have relationships, would you be willing to work with my foundation so that we can attempt to preserve what has been done here, and transplant it to a state that has leadership with the vision and courage to complete the job that you have begun?" Joe, at this point I had staked everything that I had become, by way of reputation and by way of knowledge, on this opportunity. I came, just as Governor Perry has, to believe that this was the opportunity of a lifetime to generate tremendous progress on behalf of everyone who needs all of the restorative power that ibogaine can deliver. And I said, "This is the mission of my life, and I will go anywhere, I will talk to anyone, and will do whatever is necessary to keep this alive." And thank the Lord, with the leadership of Governor Perry and his ally-ship, here we sit on the cusp of an opportunity for the State of Texas to finish the job that was begun in Kentucky, and I hope and pray with all my might that that is exactly what we see happen over the course of the next five months.

   2. RPRick Perry1:34:41

      Well, that's an incredible journey. What, what are the steps now? Wh- what are the steps that need to be taken to implement this in Texas?

   3. So, if you will recall, I think four years ago, um, Marcus and Amber were involved with... Marcus and Amber Capone were involved with, uh, the passage of a, uh, piece of legislation in Texas dealing with psilocybin, uh, clinical trials there. And, um, you know, there was some concern that it was not gonna... It generally takes about three legislative sessions for a controversial piece of legislation to get passed in most cases. We actually passed that, the first, uh, bite of the apple, so to speak. Uh, I think Alex, uh, Dominguez, who is a Democrat, uh, member of the State House, carried it. Uh, I helped, Marcus, uh, Luttrell came and, and supported it, as did Morgan, and, uh, I think it passed 142 to 8 in the State House, and I think it passed the Senate without any, uh, opposing votes, and, and, uh, it became law. Uh, and so we had a, uh, already had a record that the state of Texas, a conservative red state, would support, uh, the use of a, in this case a psychedelic, uh, plant medicine for the treatment of veterans. So, so we have this record of, of already supporting this. Ibogaine and the, the challenge for us, uh, is to be able to educate the public about what is ibogaine? How does it work? What's the, uh, results? And I think we're gonna be able to do that. This show obviously is a, is a good step in that direction of being able to educate the public about this extraordinary, uh, compound that has amazing results out there, giving people their, their lives back, resetting their brains. I mean, literally regenerating the brain, uh, m- moving away from addictions, uh, with one treatment. I mean, just some stunning results. When you add Parkinson's and MS with this, then it's a, uh, this broad base of being able to go out and to share with the people of the state of Texas that Texas can lead. As a matter of fact, our s- legislative session only lasts for 140 days every other year, which is a great concept. I wish (laughs) more places would, uh, take a look at that, uh, as a way to do business. But we know that we've gotta get our work done-... at the same time, there's this parallel track going on in Washington, D.C Uh, they'll take longer, it's just, you know, that's a fact. But Texas can lead the nation here. What you started in Kentucky, uh, and, you know, we, we can sit here and, and, and browbeat this, which we won't, uh, about why that got killed in, in Kentucky, but I think the leadership of Kentucky will look over their shoulder one of these days and see that they absolutely lost a great opportunity to lead the nation, uh, in the recovery of, uh, people who have lost their lives to opioids, or to traumatic brain injury, or to PTSD in some form or fashion. And Texas is gonna wear that mantle. And I, and I'm proud that Texas is gonna lead that mantle. Uh, we've got great leadership in both the House and the Senate that understand this issue, uh, that we're gonna spend time with, uh, to get a piece of legislation. The Texas Ibogaine Initiative, as it's, as it's gonna be known, uh, will look for those private sector partners, will look for, uh, most likely the VA to be a partner in this as well, uh, and our university system. So I, I, I'm just, uh, I'm very confident that with the proper education, uh, the openness of this legislature, the love of our veterans that we have in the state, uh, that the Texas Ibogaine Initiative, uh, will, uh, become the law of the land for the State of Texas by September of 2025.

Episode duration: 2:07:09