#2357 - Sarko Gergerian

28:42It was actually part of the program to destroy the medicine and women. Medicine men and medicine women, wisdom keepers, which directly connects, I believe, to the war on drugs. That's called on forever, right? I mean, that's the Illusinian mysteries. The Roman silence that. That's right. You go to Siberian shaman, the Rome, I mean, they were silenced by the powers that be in those days. It's just always been the case where people that take things that allow them to understand the methods of control that are being inflicted upon them. And how to escape that. And then they get a bunch of other people that follow them and they don't want to listen to propaganda anymore.

29:26And then people go, hey, this is a real problem. What's the cause of this? Oh, it's these fucking dudes go to elicis and they figure out life. We got to stop that. That's right. Yeah, we got to put a fucking caboch on that. And then they spread all throughout the world to try to do it. There it is. And they went into hiding. Let's bring that threat all the way to the present. And I want to see if I can succeed at making this point. And it has now hijacked law enforcement. It has hijacked law enforcement. And it moves law enforcement away from protecting and serving life liberty pursuit of happiness in the First Amendment, religious expression into industry interest profits.

30:09Without us, us, even knowing it. I'm not pointing a finger at anyone, law enforcement professional. I'm challenging people to wake up to what's going on. Because when we kick indoors and arrest black and brown people for having a relationship with a plant like cannabis and charge them and put them in a cage and lock them up. And they weren't doing anything violent. We have to ask, who is this hurting? And I'm here to tell you it's hurting them and us. For sure. For sure. Because anyone who's a law enforcement officer that's arresting someone for weed, they know that they're not doing anything good.

30:48Moral injury. Yeah, it's a moral injury on the person that's actually being forced to reinforce, forced to enforce those laws. That's right. That's right. Yeah, because you can't feel good about yourself. You're arresting some guy who's got an alto weed who's sitting at home with his wife, chilling. That's crazy. And that went on for decades in this country, decades. Well, it's still happening. Only for somewhere around 40 states have recreationalized or medicalized. So we still have work to do. And if you look at the drug policy alliance, a few years back, we could look this up. We're still arresting in the hundreds of thousands of people, nonviolent marijuana.

31:22Well, they're trying to go backwards in Texas. Yeah. The lieutenant governor is trying to go backwards. And he's against the legalization. And so they're trying to ban all THC products. It's completely inappropriate. It's not just inappropriate. It's funded. Okay. Right? It's funded by the alcohol lobby. And they know that they're losing people from drinking alcohol. That's right. The numbers are already showing it. Yeah. They're building up to a collapse. People are going to get off the alcohol. They're not going to be able to rely on the profits to be the same. I agree with you. And then you know what else?

31:55Cannabis is such a threat. Because it's a medicine that can help with such a broad array of symptoms and challenges. What a threat to pharma. Yeah. It's definitely that. It's one plant. It's one plant. Yeah. I know. And it's not just a threat to pharma. I mean, I'm sure you were aware of the original reason why it was outlawed. Hit me. Okay. Remind me. William Randolph Hurst. So William Randolph Hurst. So if you go back to the 1930s when alcohol prohibition ended, you have a bunch of enforcement officers that aren't doing anything anymore. Then you have William Randolph Hurst. And then there's a machine, an invention called the decorticator.

32:38And the decorticator allowed them to effectively process hemp fiber. Hemp was always a very difficult plant to process. And when Eli Whitney created the cotton gin, is that what it was? I think that sounds right. When they created the cotton gin, now cotton took over for hemp clothing. So cannabis, hemp, you know, the term cannabis, that was what canvas was. So all paintings, the first draft, the Declaration of Independence was made on hemp paper. It's a superior textile. It's a superior paper. It's a commodity. You can take an acre of land that you're using to grow trees on that you process into paper.

33:28And it'll take you years and years to regrow the trees in order to have the same amount of paper in that area. With hemp, it's instantaneous almost. It grows very quickly. And within a few months, you have these plants again. You harvest the stocks. You run it through the decorticator. So in 1930s something, cover of popular science magazine, hemp, the new billion dollar crop, because of this invention. So this invention was going to, because hemp makes superior clothes, I have a hemp jujitsu ghee that I got from this company called Datsura. It's fucking indestructible. My cotton guis, they rip apart all the time.

34:10They're good for a year or two, and then they tear, and you got to buy a new one, or you just show up in class with a fucked up ghee, which a lot of people do. Hemp guis are way better. They're just far superior. Hemp paper. You grab it, you pull it, you tear it, you're like, this is crazy. It's so much stronger than regular paper. It's a superior product. So William Randolph Hearst, who didn't just own Hearst publications, he didn't just own this news empire. He also owned paper mills. So he also owned forests that he was growing trees in. He recognized this threat from this new industry. And so to combat that threat, he starts putting out propaganda pieces.

34:48And then they coined the term marijuana. So marijuana was originally a term, a slang term for a wild Mexican tobacco. It had nothing to do with cannabis. Cannabis which had been used for thousands of years, and hemp which had been used for thousands of years. So then they start printing new stories. That blacks and Mexicans were taking this new drug and raping white women. And then you have the reaper, reaper madness films. And all these propaganda films that show young people taking a smoke of marijuana and losing their mind. So people act quickly and they pass laws. Not even knowing that they're outlawing hemp.

35:29Thinking that they're stopping this new drug. Because most people are unaware of it. Clearly this is a time before the internet. Very difficult to access information and understand exactly what's going on. So they hoodwink the entire world. So Harry Anselinger, William Randolph Hearst, they all conspired to the world. Stop a commodity. And that's what hemp was. It had nothing to do with the psychoactive form of THC. It had everything to do with hemp as a commodity that was threatening to the businesses. Only just business. And to this day, you can make hemp crete. It's a superior building material.

36:07It's flame resistant. It's lighter. It's stronger. It lasts longer. You can build houses with it. You can make clothes with it. Hemp oil. Hemp seeds. Not only are they good for you. They contain all the amino acids. It's a superior protein source. It's like hemp protein powder is fantastic for you. It's like really good stuff in so many different ways. And they put the kabash on that in the 1930s. And that 90 fucking years later is still this. This anchor around our next -door carry. It's still in place. Yeah, one asshole. That's right. One asshole in the 1930s who didn't want to compete with hemp and had this incredible power because he owned the newspapers.

36:55Yeah. He started this all. That's right. That's right, I'm tracking. You ever seen that article? Pull up that article, hemp, the new billion -dollar crop. Because it's wild to watch. Yeah. Because this machine, this decorticated, before that, it was really brutal, brutal, back -breaking work to take the hemp fiber and break it down. Because it's such a durable plant. Like, if you ever pick up a hemp stock, a hemp stock that would, this is a mammoth tusk, but this is heavy. But if you had a hemp stock that was this size, it would be incredibly light like balsa wood. But hard, like oak. It's like an alien plant.

37:34Yeah, it sounds amazing. It sounds amazing. And everything else. So here it is. Yeah. The new billion -dollar crop. American farmers are promised a new cash crop with the annual value of several hundred million dollars, all because of a machine that has been invented, which can solve a problem more than 6 ,000 years old. It is hemp, a crop that will compete with other American products. Instead, it will displace imports of raw materials and manufactured products produced by underpaid. What is that? It's like a cool and peasant labor and will provide thousands of jobs for American workers throughout the land.

38:11So that was the machine underneath it. That's the decorticator and that's this new machine that they invented. And this is what it's all about. It has nothing to do with marijuana was a real problem. We were losing people. No, people have been smoking marijuana and taking marijuana in edible form and the sados and taking hachish. People have been using it for thousands and thousands of years without problems. Can you abuse it? Of course, you can abuse cheeseburgers too. I was just going to say that. Yeah, but I don't think you should shut down burger king. You should be able to get a fucking cheeseburger if you want.

38:43And there's a lot of things that people can abuse. You can abuse every single thing. You can abuse cake. You can abuse everything. Human beings tend to abuse things. That doesn't mean that they shouldn't be allowed to use it. It's like a hammer. You can build a house with a hammer or you can hit yourself in the dick if you're fucking crazy. It doesn't mean we should outlaw hammers, right? There is a use for these things. And it requires discipline and requires an understanding of what the thing is. But when you turn that thing into a scheduled one substance, when everybody knows that's not true, especially when you have a scheduled one substance that is illegal when there's things like alcohol that are totally legal that I support.

39:21You should be able to drink. I don't I have on a bar. I don't care. I don't drink anymore. But I feel like you should be able to drink. I drink most of my life. Drink if you want to. I say the same thing about that. But it's not good for you. Right. Right. It's a depressant. That's a carcinogen. It's also fun. It's also fun. And I drink. And I drink. It's interesting. Yeah. But the point is, we need freedom. And you need the freedom to be able to explore these things and find out what's right for you and wrong for you. And you need the freedom to be able to run studies and get accurate information in terms of dosages and side effects and what sort of genetic issues that certain people might have that made them that make them more inclined to be addicted to alcohol or addicted to cannabis or whatever their issue is, whether it's psychological or biological, we need to have information and to put a blockade on this in the form of prohibition is stupid.

40:14And the fact that we're doing it in 2025 with all the information that we have available today, we have an abundance of information. That's right. Well, look, I think it was as you as you said, there was intentionality behind what was done. And when you don't have 50 years of creating an evidence base, you have a weaker argument for decriminalization. And that was intentional. Yes. That was intentional. For sure. Right, Joe, I mean, you brought this up, right? Highly addictive, no known medical use. That's a lie. We can go through the list of schedule one and we can point out which one it's a lie about, which one is actually anti -addictive.

40:54You take psilocybin and you have an experience with psilocybin magic mushrooms, you don't want to drink. We don't know why we haven't been able to study that, right? Ibo gain. You want to reprieve from your opioid use disorder? Ibo gain. I'll give it to you three, four months. Yeah. What's that about? Yeah, it's also one experience has an 80 % success rate. 80 % of the people don't go back to opiates. With two experiences is in the high 90s. So look, look, those numbers are staggering. Science can't make sense of it. We're in an epidemic. Well, we got to slow down. Watch out for the risks. We need to study these things more.

41:34I can respect that, but there's harm in not allowing access to. We got to talk about it. You also have to make sense of it in a time where things are prescribed and you can infer a doctor from a doctor that we absolutely know are addictive and highly damaging and kill people. So make sense of it to me. There's something. Cannabis is the easy one, right? Because it doesn't kill anybody. It literally doesn't kill anybody. The LD50 rate for cannabis is fucking bananas. That's right. It's not even physically possible to consume enough to kill you. Same thing with Silas Ivan. Yes. Exactly. There's this research study.

42:14You don't have to eat a mushroom the size of this fucking table. You wouldn't physically be able to consume it. If that even does. Right. If that even kills. And that's LD50. That would be 50 % of the population would die of an overdose from that. And you wouldn't be able to consume it. Physically you wouldn't be able to fit it into your body enough to kill you. And then on top of that, Joe, we have the federal government giving permission to certain groups of people to access plant's cacti -funga animal secretions with permission and not others under a religious context. Right. So, is it dangerous?

42:54Is it not? Is it a sacred sacrament? Is it not? Right. Is it a medicine? Brazilian churches that are taking ayahuasca. Right. Yeah. And again, we're talking, we talk, I don't want to talk poorly about alcohol. I drink alcohol. I'm not talking poorly about these people should go get their rights, right? Yes. On more power to them. But you can't have it both ways, not them. Right. We're talking to the government. Right. You have to make logical sense as to why you're imposing these laws and then imprisoning people and taking away their freedom for not listening to you. That's right. Because you don't make any sense.

43:30And here's another part of the problem. A vast majority of the people that are pushing for these laws and want these people to be locked up have not had these experiences themselves. That's right. And that's a part of the problem. That's a big part of the problem. They don't know what they're talking about. That's right. They don't know what these experiences are. That's right. But these drugs are going to ruin your mind. Are you fucking sure? Because I don't think they are. I don't think you're correct. I think they open your mind up to new possibilities and expand your consciousness in a way that I don't think is available without them.

44:03I agree. It isn't available without them. And that was intentionally blocked out. So you know that we're hearing the stories about the really brilliant tech people, right? You dig deep enough. They've had some experiences with these things. Yeah. A large number of them. Right? And still do a large number of them. Right. Yeah. So these things that are so dangerous, or are we blocking out certain, blocking out certain groups from having access? And this is one of my primary things that I try to talk about. I want the audience that's in law enforcement to go, why? Why is this the case? Why do I feel uncomfortable not talking about this?

44:41Why do I feel uncomfortable saying that this sergeant who might be hurting needs access? Say it. Bring it up. Talk. Go into your power. But people are scared of losing their career, right? Imagine. Yeah. For talking about something. And losing their career because most people are ignorant of it. That's right. Yeah. That's right. And the only way that that's going to change is you and I and other people to continue to have these public conversations where more people hear it. And there's a guarantee that people listening to this right now that have never heard this before, never consider this before.

45:16Am I wrong? Do I have these deep held beliefs that are completely ignorant? And why do I have these beliefs? What started them? Why do I have this in my mind as this is what this stuff is? Exactly. And there's a lot of people out there that are stone cold, sober, disciplined people think that's the only way. This is the way. That's right. And you know what? Maybe this is the way. That's your way. Yeah. We're human beings. We're called to create an artistic expression of a unique life. To me, that's what the divine is commanding. That's what the divine gets to experience. The more of us who get to live and be our authentic selves internally and expressing them outwardly, the more the divine gets to experience unique difference.

46:07Well, the more possibilities there are for creativity, the more possibilities there are for people to rethink their lives, to get on a better path, there's a lot that people are missing just because you've been hoodwinked and you've been led into this false narrative. That's right. That's also the, there's a problem with the term drugs because just I hear a drug, I hear a drug, I hear someone is all fucked up and doesn't know what's going on. How are you putting all these things under the same blanket, including nicotine and caffeine and things that people use on a daily basis? These are all drugs.

46:45That's right. And then you have cannabis in there and you also have methamphetamine in that category. How do you have cannabis and methamphetamine in the same thing? How do you have psilocybin and heroin in the same group of things? That's right. This is crazy. That's right. How do you have industrial opiates? Yeah. Yeah, you're all in that same category? We've been stripped of our power to define what medicine is. Yes. Right? Yeah. Have you heard people say, community is medicine. Yeah. Joy is medicine. Oh, yeah, for sure. It is. Right. Yeah. Well, ask a hardcore Western science model is that medicine and that go, well, you've got to show us the evidence.

47:25Yeah. Right? There is evidence that loneliness is worse than cigarette smoking. That's right. In terms of how long you live. That's right. Well, we can show that, right? But is community medicine? I say it is. Yeah. But the point I'm trying to make is how did we lose the power to define what medicine is for ourselves? Yeah. Right? Joy is medicine. Community is medicine. And there's the right. Maybe the term medicine is the wrong term. Maybe is good for you. Sure. But why define medicine in such a rigid way? Also, why only allow one methodology to create an evidence base for that medicine? Let me give you an example.

48:08And this is Paul Stamets, I listened to him talk at Psychedelic Science 2025 where he said we should see the world through two eyes. Western science and indigenous wisdom, right? Yeah. And they don't have to be attacking one another. Right. Right. The time of extractionary capitalistic relationships with this living planet might have to be coming to an end. And what's going to replace it? Resiprocity, stewardship, care, community. Yeah. Right? These two eyes, they need to be in the same being. They need to watch this. It really makes you wonder what would the world look like? Had they not placed that sweeping psychedelic act of 1970 and then imposed those standards on most of the rest of the world as well?

48:58What would the world look like? It would be radically different. I believe that it would be radically different. Right. Well, this is what they were scared of. The difference between the 1950s and the 1960s culturally is clear. It's evident in everything. It's evident in the music. It's evident in the artwork. The films. It's evident in the cars, the design of the automobiles, everything changed. And it changed because the culture was accepting psychedelics. It was a big part of it. It was LSD and psilocybin and marijuana and all these different things that these people were experimenting with.

49:35And then out of that, you get Jimmy Hendrix. You get this wild, new form of expression that was radically different than music that appeared before that. That's right. They were scared of that. That's right. And you know, I just made a comment about my belief system to you. Who gets to experience and be with that or in that and of that? That's the divine. That's Jimmy Hendrix outside of the box. Yeah. That level of artistic expression, I think that's our purpose. Yeah. Right. And you're right. We took that away. We pushed it into the underground. And then we hijacked our law enforcement to show up as enforces, kick indoors and take people to cages.

50:15Yeah. Right. Members of our own community. That's right. And who did we hurt? Our community and our law enforcement. Yeah. So this is what I want to be clear on here. I want law enforcement to ask why. Why? Why are we in this current moment? Why are we still arresting people for wanting a relationship with plants, cacti, fungi, animal secretions? Why? Are we protecting and serving our community members or industry interests? When you start asking these questions, think shake. For me, they did. They made me into an activist. Not only an advocate, but an activist. So I got behind Massachusetts ballot question four in a very public way.

50:56What is that? That was to decriminalize the psychedelics and create healing centers in Massachusetts. 43, 44 % of adults voted yes, but it wasn't enough. Wasn't enough. Well, listen to what I just found out before I came to your show today. The psyche, atric society of Massachusetts just endorsed or got behind three silocybin bills. They didn't get behind the ballot question, which failed, but they're now getting behind decriminalizing silocybin measures that are at the state house. That's great. It's great. Wouldn't it be great to manage your portfolio on one platform? Well now you can trade only one place on Robinhood.

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52:12Crypto held through Robinhood crypto is not FDIC insured or SIPC protected. Network fees may apply to crypto transfers. Crypto transfers may not be available to all customers. Investing involves risk, including loss of principle. Security's trading is offered through an account with Robinhood financial LLC. Member SIPC, a registered broker dealer. Yeah, promise is being made. It happens at a snail's pace and it happens through back breaking labor from people like you and Paul Stammett and Rick Doblin and so many more who are doing the Lord's work literally. But this is just a frustrating thing for a lot of people that know the truth behind this, that how many people can help and then how many people who are being damaged by these unfair, unjust, immoral and illogical laws.

52:55There they are. That's right. Yeah. And if we bend it, if you take on one end the enforcers, right, which I believe are called to be peace officers and guardians and the other end, the civilians, which are being split up into groups and pitted against one another and you bend them. Everybody's getting hurt and trauma load is exponentially growing. Yeah. Exponentially growing. And what is the media like to put out there? Not media like this, but standard media. The algorithm is based on hate, fear, division, isolation. Well, the algorithm is based on your interaction and unfortunately people tend to lean towards those things.

53:37Yeah. That's the problem. The algorithm is not evil. The problem is human beings can be easily manipulated by their own ideas and these ideas that they have and these, this inclination to pay more attention to things that outrage you. And fear and fear. Yeah. Things that cause rage and fear and distrust. Unfortunately, things that you hate is that those are things you pay attention to. That's right. That's right. I mean, we're biologically created to worry about things that we fear. Right. Right. And logically, I'll give you an example from my community. I think about this all the time. There's about 20, 25 ,000 people in my community.

54:18Every day they wake up, they go to work, they interact with one another and go to bed. 20, 25 ,000 people with one or two issues that the cops have to go to. That's amazing. People are wildly nice. Yeah, for the most part, right? And in control and OK. Yeah. But the problem is cops deal with the very small percentage of people that aren't. There it is. Yeah. There's this research article called the Clinicians Delusion. I call it the Enforces Delusion, where your perspective gets completely warped based on the people that you continually interact with. So when you're continually showing up and helping people in their worst moment, you think everybody's their worst moment all the time.

55:01Of course. Right. That's a box. That's a dark box, a lonely, terrible box to be in. And to require officers to be able to escape that and have objectivity is crazy. Like how, how, but through what mechanism of the human mind allows you to ignore all the evidence that you see on a daily basis. Your evidence, right, personal experience. That critical incident, amplified data set, that activated nervous system, it actually makes you rely on your biases more. Instead of being able to check your biases, it actually listens to your biases more. So, so an officer now is taught, try to slow down if you can.

55:53Why? So you can breathe. Why? So you can check your bias before you act, right? Yeah. Because you're amped up. Right. The quicker you act to say for you'll be. Right. And that's through that automatic process near the brainstem. Right. Not here. Yeah. Yeah, it's, it's a dark predicament. You know, because there's a lot of people that are going to fall victim before anything gets changed. I agree. I agree. And you know, Joe, when back to that FDA committee that delayed everything with MDMA, I ended up really, really sad for like three months because of what you just said. A lot of people who will benefit from MDMA are not going to be able to access, not access, not for a month or two for years, for years.

56:48At a cost that could hurt a person like Rick Doblin and maps and, and Likos and the philanthropist that help them get to this point. That's how expensive it is. Yeah. And then the cost of human life and the cost of human life is compounded every year. That's right. And all the people they interact with, the butterfly effect of that. That's right. Yeah. And let's, let's take that thread back to what you said. Could you imagine the world we could live in if these things were available to people so that they could heal, so that they could dream, so that they can become their own versions of Jimmy Hendrix?

57:26Yeah. You know? I know. It's, it's really crazy when you think about it that one president and one administration changed the course of civilization because they wanted control and they wanted to stop the anti -war movement in the silver rights moment. And that's the fact. That's really what happened. And I like that statement, course of civilization. Because they succeeded at taking it on a road show into other countries through international treaties. Yes. You know, this brings something up. I was blessed with being able to go and speak on a panel at the United Nations and it was put together by an organization called Leap Law Enforcement Action Partnership.

58:06I want to give a shout out to Diane Goldstein, amazing executive director of a wonderful organization of law enforcement that are trying to change these issues. And we spoke about access for psychedelics for law enforcement. And I was able to call out schedule one at the United Nations at the CND, Commission on Archatic Drugs, and say we need to do away with the schedule. And here's the two things that I found out I wanted to get to this point. The World Health Organization is now recognized that schedule one is a fraud. It's fake. It's unscientific. They're going to try to create their own. Right?

58:43And two, I got to see how they spend all day on a treaty focusing on one word across like 40 countries, whether they agree on that one word or not. The rules of the word? I'm make up a word. Are they going to allow harm reduction into the treaty? All day. 12 hours later, they're asking this country if it's okay, and that country, if it's okay, I went, oh my God, you said snail's pace. I think you said snail's pace. This is even slower than a snail's pace. It's painful. You know, change. Having it happen is painful. It's incredible. Yeah, it's, well, it's what happens when people, once people have laws and they enforce those laws and someone comes along and says those laws are unjust, it's very difficult to get back rights that you've already lost, very difficult.

59:48Once they're lost, like, and this is like what's really obvious about the 1970s schedule one act. Because it's like, we're dealing with the same issue all these years later, but it's not the 1970s, right? So we have all the access to the data now, instantaneously, you can pull it up on chat GPT. Yeah. You know, like right now, instantaneously. So there's no excuse for it, but yet it's still difficult to get these laws changed. Insanely difficult takes so much time. Well, so the system that we have takes the power and then it doesn't want to give it back. This is what I'm hearing. And then you've got to fight to give it back, but you did indicate something which I agree with.

1:00:31Things are speeding up. Because of technology, I mean, technologies involved in this show and us being able to talk to each other. Right? This is a miracle in and of itself. People being able to share ideas at a lightning pace influencing one another. Yeah. If that's a miracle in and of itself, but I want to bring up a point, maybe we can explore this together. People are taking back their power and recognizing that the founding documents of this country are designed to protect the life, liberty, pursuit of happiness and religious expression of the individual human being. It's the most radical thing ever.

1:01:12Yeah, that's it. It's a sacred establishment that we're working under, but people don't realize that the individual, when they truly sincerely believe what they're doing in this country, they can do it. As long as it doesn't harm another human being, it's that simple. Yeah, that's what it should be. Yeah. Let's talk about that. How do we get to the point where people realize that that's the way it should be? We wake the enforcers up. We get the politicians to help create safe space for the exploration of these topics. We meet up in conversation and break bread and safety.

1:02:00Well, I think the big thing is public perception. Public perception moves all those other things because then people will contact politicians and respond by not voting for them or voting people out that do have like this lieutenant governor. He's politically in deep water because so many people have reacted so negatively to this draconian attempt to ban all THC products where people are like, why? Yeah. Like, what are you doing? What are you being paid by? What lobbies are enforcing this idea? What where is this coming from? Right. Right. So it's going to weaken his position. Yeah. Yeah. Well, it's going to weaken his career and rightly so.

1:02:44Right. So it should. He's on the wrong side of history. There it is. There it is. Yeah. Right. And the public perception has changed. It's changed pretty radically. And I credit the internet with that because over the last 20 years, you've seen this massive shift in this idea that psychedelics are dangerous. You could lose your mind to, hey, that's how my uncle quits smoking. You know, hey, that's how my aunt got off of opiates. Hey, that's, you know, and everyone knows somebody that's had positive experiences that was, you know, deeply depressed and now is a different person and there, there's so much happier and healthier because of it.

1:03:18And so it's the, the narrative publicly has shifted. Has shifted. And a lot of it is because of conversations and a lot of it is because of podcasts, a lot of it is access to information. There's plenty of online documentaries about it now. That's right. Yeah. And you know, Joe, I want to give credit to the courageous people who are the carriers of this knowledge and wisdom by experimenting, learning, realizing, right? This is the hero's journey, right? Going into the darkness, like metaphorically and literally into the underground and coming back with the bounty, the realization, right? The gold and sharing it.

1:03:55Yeah, and having the courage to share it. That's a courageous act. Well, especially if you're in a business like yourself, like law enforcement, you know, where it's like, that's a forbidden topic. That's right. That's right. That's right. And you know, I was able to access MDMA and I had a new man of experience. I felt like I was surrounded by love. I was gifted a gratitude that was big enough to hold everything that went into who I am in the present moment. Let me explain that real quick. If I accept myself wholly, wholly, completely, I have to accept my light and dark aspect as well. I have to accept my traumas as well.

1:04:35I have to expect my lineage's history as well in its entirety. I'm not saying something radical. There's been books written about this by smarter people than I. MDMA helped me access that, right? I've experienced ketamine. Ketamine, I say, was like a luscious massage of my soul. I felt like the energy of my being was traveling in and out of my body. And I had three energetic streams traveling with me. My martial arts instructor, periodically, my wife and God, on ketamine. It was unbelievable. What do you mean through streams? Like more energetic streams. So on ketamine, I felt like there was a bit of a disembodiment that occurred, right?

1:05:21And we can label what that disembodiment is. It's a disassociative anesthetic. People say it feels like their spirit, soul, or identity disconnected from their body. I had that happen. But the energy wasn't just one. I had remembrances of these three. I felt like I needed to give gratitude to God. I felt like the presence of my wife was with me and my martial arts instructor as well. Dorine Cagliandro. And her energetic streams were going in and out of my body. And I could remember such joyous thoughts associated to them. It was like a massage to my spirit, you know? And the thoughts associated with that massage and that peace and that sense of safety was there.

1:06:14ketamine lifts suicideality in minutes. It just became a medicine approved for depression. Why? That's weird. Why did that just happen? I don't know. Well, it's been going on for quite a bit, right? I mean, I know people in Los Angeles were doing it a decade ago. Well, here's the thing. Let's broaden that. How long were the people partying with it, right? I don't know. I knew of a guy who had a problem with it. He was a MMA fighter. He got addicted to ketamine. And I remember a friend of mine went to visit him in a rehab center and he was all fucked up. But that was the narrative that he was doing ketamine.

1:06:51I was like, oh, he's doing a tranquilizer. Like this was 1990s. Like late 90s? Okay. Well, you can get addicted. Ketamine is addicted. You can get physically. Ketamine. Not like an opiate. Is it a psychological addiction or is it a physical addiction? There might be a combination. I don't want to purport to speak about it scientifically too much, but I've heard that can be a compulsion to music. And it can kind of, it can hurt your bladder if you go overboard. I know a lot of people in the Austin area use it recreationally. We actually had a girl go into a K hole at my club, which was in the middle of the comedy club just.

1:07:29Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, that's full disembodiment, right? You're in another place and your somatic self has to be kept safe. Well, they're doing a nasal spray. So they're like doing it throughout the day. That's the prescription. I forget from what company for depression. Yeah. So you could kind of double pump and go a little overboard. Yeah. Do it all day long. If you want. If you want it to. Yeah, that's a problem with, well, that's a problem with everything, right? You know, it's a problem with any, I mean, if you really need aterol, you have like chronic fatigue and aterol is the only thing that lifts you out of that.

1:08:06What's the stop you've been taking two pills? I'm glad you did the repel. That's right. Or even coffee, right? I double the espresso can become a quad. Yeah. Then you're drinking sex. Oh, I know a lot of people are doing it. I mean, I'm kind of addicted to caffeine. Yeah. I quit it when I was on my vacation. I was on vacation for 10 days. And I didn't have any coffee, any caffeine at all for five, six days. And I was like, ooh, I sleep so much better. I feel so much better. But I feel like when it comes to conversations, it's like I lean on it. I lean on caffeine. Yeah. Lean on it to get me going.

1:08:36I'm a happier person on caffeine. I really enjoy that substance. I like it. I just wanted to know that I could stop taking it and there wouldn't be any problem. It was no problem at all. Yeah. I stopped taking nicotine pouches and I stopped taking caffeine for, I stopped the nicotine pouches for 10 whole days. And I was like, well, fine. And I stopped the caffeine for five or six days. And I said, ah, I feel like having a cup of coffee. And I limited myself to one cup a day. Mm -hmm. Yeah, I get, I have a hard time coming off of caffeine. But I get headache. But I've done it. Yeah, I get headaches.

1:09:05It affects my mood a little bit. Mm -hmm. I like it. I like the caffeine. Yeah, I don't think it's overall detrimental. I don't think it affects your judgment. I don't think it makes you do anything squirrely. Yeah. It just gives you a little pepsi up a little bit. I mean, most of the world is having it in the morning. Yeah. Right. And then most of the world is having a drink at night. Yeah. But you know, this is also the argument for coca leaves. Because coca leaves, apparently, is a superior stimulant. It's just they chew it. And they chew coca leaves. And this is something that, you know, farmers and hardworking people in South America have been doing forever.

1:09:41That's right. And unfortunately, somebody figured out how to synthesize it and turned it to cocaine and then it became illegal. Illegal. Yeah. Now you can't get, because if you get just coca leaves and just chew on coca leaves in America, I mean, maybe that's a period of coffee. And we don't know, because we can't try. Exactly. And that is the block of experimentation. Yeah. That's unjust. Yeah. Right. You know what's interesting about cocaine is it's medically appropriate. I think they use it for eye surgery. Right. Yeah. There's medical uses for it. So I can't off the top of my head remember if it's on schedule one, I don't think it is.

1:10:22Cocaine's on schedule one, really? I mean, we could look it up because it is interesting. Well, here's the thing. If it can be used for eye surgery, right? So it would be interesting to see. Yeah. So is it like a numbing agent? Is that what it is? They've just, I've heard that they've realized before it was, it became a big issue that it's safe for eyeball. Yeah. Numbing agent. Well, I know there's medical cocaine. I do know that. I just don't know what the applications are. Yeah. You know, the number one manufacturer of it. Coca -Cola. Coca -Cola. Yeah. They still use the coca leaf for flavor for Coca -Cola, but like they shut down the cocaine molecule somehow.

1:11:05They extract it. Right. And they use it to produce medical grade cocaine. Interesting. Yeah. And then some thing of that still gets into coca. The flavor. Yes. I guess it's the flavonoids. That's what's in Coca -Cola. And it used to be cocaine was in Coca -Cola. Yeah. I would like to go back and try something like that. I like to go, like, what was that like? Like how much cocaine was in there? You think they have original recipe coke bottles at the factory? With cocaine? With coca. I mean, what year was that? I mean, what year was that? What year did they, let's find out what year they took cocaine out of Coca -Cola?

1:11:42Because I remember the whole story for, I don't remember exactly the details of like how cocaine was in Coca -Cola for the first place. But cocaine used to be prescribed. 1929. So 1903 fresh coca leaves were removed from the formula after 1904 instead of using fresh coca leaves. Coca -Cola started using spent leaves, the leftovers of the cocaine extraction process with trace levels of cocaine. And since then by 1929 they've used cocaine free. So in 1903 they started removing cocaine. But they're still using cocaine free coca leaf extract. Yes. Yes. And they're the only company I believe that's allowed to do that.

1:12:31I think they're grandfathered in. And how did, who invented coca -Cola with cocaine? Find that out. Like what's the story? What is the story of cocaine in Coca -Cola? Okay. Pemberton called for five ounces of coca leaf per gallon of syrup a significant dose. In 1891 Candler claimed his formula altered extensively from Pemberton's originally contained only a tenth of this amount. So it used to be really juicy. Coca -Cola once contained an estimated nine milligrams of cocaine per glass. For comparison a typical dose or a line of cocaine is 50 to 75 milligrams. So it was like a mile pick me up, nine milligrams.

1:13:15After 1904 instead of using fresh leaves, coca -Cola started using spent leaves. Today that extract is prepared at a Stefan company, Stepan company plant in Maywood, New Jersey, the only manufacturing plant authorized by the federal government to import and process coca leaves, which it obtains from Peru and Bolivia, Stepan company extracts cocaine from the leaves, which it sells to Malen Croct, the only company in the United States licensed to purify cocaine for medical use. You're medical use, there it is. Wild. They call it here and not. And it's intellectual beverage. Ah, intellectual beverage.

1:13:55Variable brain tonic. A valuable brain tonic. A cure for all nervous afflictions, affections, sick headache, neurologica, whatever that is, hysteria, melancholy, etc. The particular, oh, peculiar flavor of coca -Cola delights every palate. It is dispensed from the soda fountains in the same manner as any of the fruit syrups. Wow. What an advertisement. Wow. I like to go back and try that. I like to go back to 1900 and get a glass and see what's up. You hear the pop and the bubbly pour it over rice right out of the fountain. Yeah, well, that's a beautiful advertisement. Wow. Long after this year, it ceased to contain any significant amounts of cocaine.

1:14:42In North Carolina, dope remained a common colloquialism for coca -Cola. And dope wagons were trucks that transported it. Wow. Must've been good. It must've been real good. Must've been real good. Like a just a little bit of a juice. The cola nut. Cola nuts for caffeine. Cola nut acts as a flavoring in the original source of caffeine and coca -Cola. It contains two to 3 .5 percent caffeine and has a bitter flavor. In 1911, the US government sued the United States versus 40 barrels and 20 kegs of coca -Cola, hoping to force the coca -Cola company to remove caffeine from its formula. Interesting.

1:15:22That's interesting. Court found the syrup when diluted as directed, we result in a beverage containing 1 .21 grains, 78 .4 milligrams of caffeine per eight fluid ounces. The case was decided in favor of coca -Cola company at the district court, but subsequently in 1912, the US pure food and drug act was amended, adding caffeine to the lift of habit forming and deleterious substances, which must be listed on a product's label. In 1913, the case was appealed by the Sixth Circuit in Cincinnati, where the ruling was affirmed, but then appealed again in 1916 to the Supreme Court, where the government effectively won as a new trial was ordered, the company then voluntarily reduced the amount of caffeine in its product.

1:16:10And that and ordered offered rather to pay the government's legal cost to settle and avoid further litigation. Wow, that was all over caffeine content. 70 milligrams per eight, and now it's 46 per 12. Yeah, but like, what is a red bull? I was going to say what's in a monster. So let's find out how much caffeine is in a monster. One of the things that monster, I don't know if monster does it, but some of these companies do it. It's kind of tricky. By the way, I like monster. I drink them all the time when I do the U .S .A. The problem is it'll say like two servings. Who's splitting a monster with their friends?

1:16:49It's like, you have some 86 servings. 86 servings. Yeah. And how many servings are in a can of monster? Well, this says, per serving. Does it say it in a can? Like when you get a big old can. Man, just want to Google it, just sit one serving. Because they have big hands. Yeah, that's a monster. Yeah, yeah, that's a dumbass ass. I had a friend who was a Mormon, and he wasn't allowed to drink coffee. And that motherfucker would pound energy drinks all day. I was like, hey, dude. What do you do, man? It's a gray area in the room. A monster is, oh my god, 140 for zero sugar. A regular monster has 160.

1:17:30160. Mountain Dew rise has 180. That's incredible. Beyond raw lit. That is 250. Bang with 300. Five hour energy shots as 200? Holy shit, man. Those little tiny energy shots. Those five hour energy drinks has 200 milligrams of caffeine. Wow. Bang has 300. Holy shit, man. And Coca -Cola led the battle. When was that? 1911? Yeah, something. Something about caffeine. Yeah. A mount being in it. And it's like people have always tried to control other people. For whatever reason, especially when the government has the power to do it, for whatever reason, human beings really enjoy controlling other people.

1:18:18They really do. And once they have power, they really enjoy exercising that power. And keeping it and controlling it and not giving it back. And you've got to resist. Yeah, you do. You've got to resist. But the problem is like legalizing these things would cause a big problem. They'd be a big problem. If you just legalize them, there's a lot of people that would never try any illegal drug, who would try a legal drug. You know, if you made heroin, cocaine, you know, fill in the blank, all the different substances, psychedelic and otherwise, if you made them all legal, you're going to have a bunch of people that are going to have problems with these things that wouldn't have problems with them normally.

1:19:04So there would be a period of time where it would cause damage. And that would be really problematic for politicians, lawmakers, anybody who enforced these ideas. You know, they'd be bloodies on your hands. But this infantilization of human beings, like turning them into babies that need to be controlled by the state. That's the problem. And we're in this problem. And the only way to get out of that problem is to tear the fucking bandaid off. And I completely agree with you. And I don't want to do cocaine. I've never done cocaine my whole life. I saw when I was a kid in high school, I saw a bunch of people that had cocaine problems and I was like, I don't want to have anything to do with that.

1:19:44Right. Right. But listen, you made that decision for yourself. Yeah. Right. And look, we know we would just touch in upon examples of people having a relationship with a coca plant without it causing an issue. Yeah. I don't think it's that addictive when you're just chewing the leaves. Right. I think those people do it without much problems. There's also Mante de coca, which is a tea that they make from the leaves. Mm hmm. Well, look, we're starting to talk about, we're using the word legalization and saying, there will be a problem with legalization for a time being. Why don't we talk about decriminalization and regulation?

1:20:20But the problem is, even with decriminalization, what's the supply? Where are people getting it from? Right. If you can't sell it legally, then how do I know it's pure? That's right. That's the real issue. The real issue with cocaine is probably not cocaine itself. The real issue is getting cocaine that's stepped on and cut and cut a lot of times with fentanyl. We all know people that have died from fentanyl overdoses. I know a bunch of people that have. Yeah. I've done follow up on police calls to people who said to me directly, I was trying to get coke. I got fentanyl and almost died. That's a tragedy.

1:20:56But Joe, you're jumping to this next idea that we should probably explore, which is called safe supply. Yeah. And who should control safe supply? But let me remind our audience, and let me bring this back into the conversation. Our police promotional books, we're not talking radical here. Our police promotion books talk about the problem with prohibition and criminalization unleashing gangsters and dangerous supply on our civilians. And that's where the cartels come into play. Exactly. Look, when we were kids, the cartels were an issue. That's right. Do you ever remember how old you? I don't. I grew up in Chelsea Mass.

1:21:38I'm almost 58. I grew up in Newton. I didn't ever hear about cartels. That's right. You never heard about Mexican cartels. You never heard about the problem. Now it's like all over the news. It's a big thing. Why is it a big thing? Because they control the drug supply into the United States because drugs are illegal. So only outlaws sell drugs. And what happens with value when you make something illegal? Yeah. Shoots through the roof. That's right. And the most violent come in and replace the less violent. Exactly. You know? Just like during prohibition when the mob took over. That's right. That's how they gained power.

1:22:13That's how they got money. That's right. They were selling alcohol. And what, so what safe supply or safe use room? I would purport to say that a bar is a safe use room where you can get safe supply. Right. Right. You know, you're getting actual real alcohol. That's it. And how about we incorporate treating adults like adults. Yeah. Powerful education and decide who's going to control safe supply. Because right now the most dangerous people on earth control it. Yes. And I think education, what you just said is a huge part of it. And let people understand like, hey, everyone knows. There's giant problems with alcohol use.

1:22:50There's alcoholism, there's liver failure, there's a host of different diseases that come from being an alcoholic. And then there's also operating motor vehicles when you're drunk and drunk driving kills a ton of people every year. And also a bunch of violent acts that get perpetrated by people that are drunk. There's a lot of things wrong with alcohol. But yet we allow alcohol. You know? And alcohol is one of the worst drugs. It's one of the worst drugs for you physically. It's one of the only drugs that if you become addicted to it, you can't quit cold turkey or you're fucking dying. That's right.

1:23:25Right then and there. Yeah. So working with this logic show, right? Because people sometimes make me out to be out of my mind when I say this stuff. Of course. If the most dangerous toxic and carcinogenic is available and the least dangerous, helpful, non -addictic is not available, let's fix that. Yeah. Why do I sound wild when I say that? Yeah. Well, I think the mushroom one is the easiest one because of the fact that it genuinely can't kill people. Cocaine is a lot harder so because also like I don't necessarily think it's good for you. But I know people that have done pure cocaine that really enjoyed the experience and didn't get addicted to it.

1:24:08So I don't, I can't speak on that. I just think that things that are physically addictive that have been known to ruin your life are things you should probably avoid. And we can teach upon that. And we can educate upon that. I mean, look at the wonderful job we've done at kind of putting the reins on nicotine through advertisement and education. Well, cigarette smoking in particular because the problem isn't really the nicotine, which we've found to be. That's right. Yeah, it's like nicotine actually has health benefits to it, which sounds crazy to people. It's neuroprotectant. It actually stopped people from getting COVID.

1:24:45So there's a lot of weird stuff with the compound nicotine. But then there's the delivery method. And it's not even just like, it's hard to know what's true or what's not true. But I'm sure you saw that Russell Crowe movie, The Insider. I haven't. It's a great movie. But it's about these companies that added chemicals to cigarettes to make them far more addictive. And he was a whistleblower. He was a chemist that was working at this company. Russell Crowe was playing this doctor. He was a real guy whose life was threatened because he exposed that these companies had put a bunch of different chemicals into cigarettes to make them highly addictive, much more addictive than just plain regular tobacco smoking.

1:25:30Well, I was told that those scientists were absorbed into the food industry. Well, that's the problem is that the companies that were getting sued after it was determined that cigarette smoking does cause cancer. Sigarettes are addictive. Once they lost a bunch of money, they went out and bought all the processed food companies. And now they made those more addictive. And so now they even openly flaunted a Biccany One Chip. That's right. That's right. Biccany One Chip. Give it a try. Open a bag of Doritos. Yeah. I mean, that's the thing. And again, I think you should be able to eat Doritos. I like them.

1:26:09They're delicious. Same here. Now they're wrong with them. But they are addictive. And why are they addictive? Because they're chemically designed to be addictive. That's right. Because these food manufacturing companies want you to buy more of them. Simple. Like how do we get people to eat more chips, make the chips impossible to put down? That's very difficult to put down. And if you want to increase their value through the roof, prohibit access after they've tasted them and let the cartels produce them in another country and try to get them across the border to sell to our people. You're going to get fentanyl potidoges.

1:26:39That's right.

1:26:43Which is so crazy. What an image. Imagine if they outlawed all processed foods and you had to get fucking contraband twinkies. Right. Good Lord. Right. I think you should be able to buy ring dings. They should be legal. But I wouldn't recommend eating them every day. They're fucking terrible for you. Exactly. But they taste delicious. You want one every now and again. And that's the environment that we're in. Yes. With some things and not others. Right. And that's the problem. It's illogical. It's illogical and there's also this fear aspect to it. Because if you go against it, you're going to get put into a very bad position where there's people with enormous power and influence that want to silence you.

1:27:23And this is why guys like Rick Doblin are so courageous. Like because he spent like his entire life trying to do this the right way and doing it above board by the books and show through the use with police officers and military people and people experiencing PTSD that like this has extreme beneficial aspects to it that you shouldn't ignore and they're good for society. And we should probably expand the use of them in an appropriate way. That's right. I think that his work is leading to one of the first big kinks in the armor of the system. And you speak to the value of the way that he did it.

1:28:06You know what I mean? Yeah. What are the rules? Tell me, we'll operate within them. What kind of data do I have to create? Well, let me make that data. How do I access the compound? How are you going to let me? Right. Right. And if we don't know how, we need the rules. Right. And sometimes the rules weren't there. And Rick and maps had to push, right? And in our system, how do we battle? What's the appropriate way to unleash violence? It's with lawyers. Right. It's frowned upon to physically be violent. So he had to fight. He had to fight with the government. And what really makes me nuts, Joe, is, you know, the amount of back and forth again, I heard that they did with the FDA, with the regulators.

1:28:48They knew what they were doing, the design of the process. Everything was being talked about, right? And they get a, let's wait. It's interesting, the results were too good. You know? I mean, just from the ones I hold in my heart. Yeah. So what kind of pressure do you think they're under to not allow these things? Like, because that's the question, like, what is it? Is it public social pressure? Because if they do pass this, then they'll be scrutinized and people that are ignorant and then have bought into the narrative. Well, then look at them as like, you're a part of the problem. You're contributing to the deterioration of society by allowing this use of MDMA to push forward and by minimizing the risks of it, by talking about the benefits of it, you're essentially allowing people to think that it's a lot safer than it really is.

1:29:42Look, I think that's, I think that's a component, right? We were talking about public perception and that changing and then that pressuring and things changing as well. Yeah. I think this is a paradigm changing and shifting thing that the entire system, including Pharma and all these people that are on these boards, these decision makers, power brokers, right, are trying to make sense of. And I'll explain. We have identified disorder or challenge. We have a medicine that masks that symptom. This is going to allow people to truly heal. When you truly heal, you don't have to keep taking a medicine.

1:30:24You might have to come back to it periodically. Sure. Let's call that a flare up. Yeah, let's call it a touch up. But when you're not taking your pill every day, every other day, that's going to be a big hit to people's power and money. Right, especially when you deal with things like there's a giant business in keeping people, I don't want to say happy, but not depressed. Right. There's a giant industry in people that are on SSRIs and antidepressant and anti -exhiding medication. When it's been proven that exercise is far more effective than SSRIs are. Far more medically proven, statistically proven that SSRIs are not as effective as regular exercise.

1:31:13Well, let me throw something in there. Is that a medicine? Right. Yeah, oh, exercise is definitely a medicine. Right. So there's an organization, I think it's called Exercise Asmetic Medicine. But a mainstream medical doctor going to be able to prescribe exercise to somebody, they can't. They should be able to. They should be able to. Yeah, they really should. But the problem is there's no profit in that. Right. Unless you own the gym. Do it on your own. Right. Join the gym yourself. And you don't have to people aren't going to go because they're scared. Right. They don't want to look goofy. Right.

1:31:46The other quarter who do go might not approach it correctly. Right. They can hurt themselves. Yeah, you need trainers. Right. Yeah. It's a really interesting thing here. So back to your question, this is going to be a paradigm shifting thing. I believe that psychedelic assisted talk therapy is going to allow talk therapy to live up to its promise as a talking cure. I believe the psychedelics are going to be able to cure or push into remission. A lot of these unshakable challenges. And that's going to be a big hit to the SSRIs. That's going to be a big hit to certain medicines. You know what else I think it's going to do?

1:32:28I think it's going to move people from agnosticism or atheism towards religion and spirituality. And it's also going to be a boon for religion. Which is wild to live. Wild. Yeah. Wild. Have you ever heard of John Marco Allegro's book, The Sacred Mushroom in the Cross? No. It's a book that he wrote after he was one of the people that was contracted to decipher the Dead Sea Scrolls. It was like a 14 year job where they were deciphering the Dead Sea Scrolls. And he was the only one on the committee that was agnostic. He was an ordained minister, but through his studying of theology, he started becoming agnostic because he recognized that there's just too many religions and too many parallels.

1:33:18And what's the real religion and root of this all? Or origin rather and root of this all? So he wrote this book after 14 years where he was going to sort of paraphrase. But he thought that the entire Christian religion was based on the consumption of psychedelic mushrooms and fertility rituals. And that this was what it was all about. And I believe the book, because I've said this before, I need to know it's true, was the book bought up by the Catholic Church? I think it was bought up by the Catholic Church and they stopped production of it. And then he released a new book called The Dead Sea Scrolls in the Christian Myth.

1:33:57And that one was available. But then since then they've republished. Both of them? Yeah, both of them. But the big one was the sacred mushroom in the cross because that was the one that was kind of very difficult to get. And I have a couple copies of it, but they're original copies that I had to buy. Okay. And it's a fascinating book. It's a fascinating book because he translated it. Or he breaks down the word Christ to an ancient Sumerian word, which was a mushroom covered in God's semen. And this is what he's saying is that they thought that when it rained that this was God, his semen on the earth, which has caused all life to rise from, we all need water.

1:34:46And then plants of course need water. And then after rainfall, they would find these mushrooms because mushrooms grew incredibly quickly. And they would consume these mushrooms and have these religious experiences. And this was a hugely controversial book, of course. And to really be able to know if he's right or wrong, you would have to have a deep understanding of ancient languages and the Bible and so many different things. Well, you know what that brings up in me, Joe, is the sacredness of sexuality. One, I don't know why that what you just said triggered that in me. And the other is what about every Sunday, magically transmuting bread and wine into flesh and blood of God, right?

1:35:31This isn't a radical concept. This is accepted. This is like a billion followers strong, right? Type of Christianity that is through sacred ritual, transforming food into the body and blood of God, right? Just because we can understand that this is wood and a table and we've labeled it and boxed it and analyzed, it doesn't mean that the mystery of it all has been stripped away. And I don't think we need to allow that process to happen, right? This is a magical, mysterious experience. When we're staring at one another, just because we identify as human beings, do we really know what's happening or is that ego inflation and science trying to dumb down a mystery and a magic?

1:36:27Well, it's all a mystery, right? We've become accustomed to the mystery, so it seems normal. But, you know, if you didn't exist on earth and earth was a drug that you could take with experience life on earth, but this is crazy. It absolutely is wise. Being a human being, interacting with people, looking at things through your eyes, hearing things through your ears, touching and feeling, smelling and using all your senses and navigating through this bizarre experience of life, very weird. And what about that image of the auroboros, right? The snake or dragon yidding itself? I mean, let's talk about sacred sexuality and the fact that every living thing is in a system that's eating and birthing itself continuously in all directions.

1:37:10How do you wrap your mind around that? Right. You know, I got a big sense of that when I went into old birth rainforest in Costa Rica for the first time. And I touched like the handle of a bridge and it felt like it was moving because like every drop of everything is alive and everything is either competing, going along with and helping supporting or eating one another in that space. And it's like, what is happening in here? It's like everything is alive. Yeah. You know? And I had that type of an experience on psychedelics in the religious context, Silo Sibon. I felt like I dropped into the collective conscience and I got to see the partitioned section that was my psychic space where all my complexes and traumas were pulsing energetically into one another and how that energy was spilling over on my family and community.

1:38:03That was the access that was given to me through Silo Sibon. You know? And those energetic forces are pushing me around right now as we speak. Well, it makes you think like if you were an ancient person and you had this experience, of course you would think you're communing with God. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I agree. And look, we're all ancient persons right now in this war and time and I believe that. Yeah. Well, we are ancient and you know, if you go 5 ,000 years from now, how they're going to look at us like these dorks. That's why the shit that was illegal. That they were fighting and arguing about.

1:38:36Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

1:38:42Yeah. God. It's not a crazy thing that if you ask a person, is it possible in your lifetime for a war to not exist? Most people would be like, there's no way. Which is insane. It's so insane. Because in small groups, it's clearly easy. Like if it was just you, me and Jamie and we were the only people on earth, it would be super easy to not go to war with each other. That's right. We just communicate. But then we deal with different languages and control of resources and then you have people that are leaders that have control over giant groups of people and then use propaganda manipulation. Yeah.

1:39:15And manipulate them into thinking that the only ways we have to go over there and kill these people is the only way to fight for your freedom. Yeah. And Joe, you know, when we, there's research out there that shows that for a period of time, our species ended up having something like 5 ,000 of us on earth. It's out there, right? Have you seen that? We've seen a few moments in history, right? The toe of volcano. And how did we survive that? Did we eat each other or hurt each other? We probably helped each other. Yeah. Right? Well, there was probably so a few people they had to. Yeah. That's right.

1:39:53Well, this is also the point of Allegro's work that fertility rituals were important because people didn't really survive much. You know, it was very difficult. Well, just labor. Just childbirth killed a lot of women, killed a lot of babies, infections killed a lot of people. You break your leg, you're dead. There's a lot of things that cause people to die. So it was very important to have as many children as possible because most of them weren't going to live. That's right. And you bring up a point the woman might not have made it through the process itself. Yeah. And what an important process for the overall species well -being.

1:40:28Yeah. We have the most critical of all processes and that's been reduced to a thing now that's like trivialized. Trifoldized or even still taboo. Yeah. Yeah. It's kind of crazy. I mean, there's people out there that love people that don't want to have children. Like, okay. Why wouldn't want to bring a child in this world? Like, yeah, why would you with all the books in medicine and shit? Like, nicely said. Yeah. Like, people had people, people gave birth when they didn't know what a door was. They hadn't figured out floors yet. You know, it's like we were constantly in this process of evolving and changing and growing, but it just gets stifled by so many different aspects of civilization, so many different aspects of control and propaganda and manipulation and fear and fear of others.

1:41:13And fear. I mean, look at what's happening with our life expectancy. Like you said, and good medicine keeping people alive. And we're living to be 80, 90 years old. And hopefully if you live to be 80 or 90 years old, you'd be wiser. Hopefully. Hopefully you get more of an understanding of what you've done wrong and why have I lived my life in this foolish way? What can I do to correct that? What can I do to make more positive impact on people around me and live my life in a more harmonious way? But some people, they're 80 years old, they just watch Fox News and yell at the TV. You know, they're, right?

1:41:53The image that went through my head is somebody turning the TV off, maybe picking up a book. And then, you know, there's a choice point here, Joe, where you can, sometimes it's hard because this thing's in the psyche that are manipulating what you're focusing on. Trauma's plus external factors. But if you start focusing on gratitude, if you start focusing on the beauty, if you start focusing on the benefits of science, the benefits of operating in communion with other human beings, that thing that we said, I mean, how many people in Manhattan, right? Every day waking up, they go to work, they go home.

1:42:31Yeah, there's a handful of problems, but that's not how it's presented. Yeah. It's miraculous, if you think about it. It is. Right. The amount of negative interactions that people have are incredibly small. Yeah. We think about the sheer number of humans. That's right. Yeah. But yet, we concentrate on the fear. Exactly. We concentrate on the dangers. And the media zooms in on someone who doesn't have a house. Yeah. Someone who has an addiction problem. Uh -huh. Someone is violent. Someone who's violent. Someone who's a criminal. That's right. Someone who's stealing. That's right. That's all you hear.

1:43:04That's right. Yeah. I heard a statistic that the military knows about 2 % of people are sociopathic or psychopathic. They don't have that same conscience that we automatically assume a human has. Right on everything. Empathy. Right. Yeah. And it seems to me that we're so fear -based that we built the outer ecology that people have access to around concerns related to that. We build the mainstream culture, the laws that we operate under out of concern for the 2 % rather than celebration of the 98%. Yeah. That do care. Yeah. That do feel empathy. That do. And that is the problem with the algorithm.

1:43:53That's the problem with social media. And that's the problem with this addiction to devices that you are constantly being inundated with the negative. Yeah. You're constantly interacting with the worst aspects of life on earth and not appreciating all the good. That's right. That's right. Yeah. And the algorithm, Joe, like you brought up so eloquently, it takes you down the path that you click towards. You know. And I recall intentionally starting to click things outside of my comfort zone and follow thinkers and presenters not within my bubble. And that's what it starts filling with as well. Oh, yeah.

1:44:35You certainly can do that if you curate a good feed. You know, you can ignore the negative. And there's a lot of great stuff. One of the great things about social media is just the access to new and fascinating information. You're constantly, if you do follow the right people and do go down the right roads, you'll be constantly inundated with fascinating information. That's right. New discoveries, the James Webb telescope and the new things of people learning about quantum physics and all these different fascinating things that can enrich your mind and expand your understanding of the world that we live in, instead of dwelling on all the negative aspects of human civilization.

1:45:17Right. And that kind of speaks to the fact that we are lucky to be able to have access to social media in that way. There's nations that don't allow that type of access by design. Yeah. Right. So the power, the power of our method is liberty and freedom. Yes. Right. Not criminalization and prohibition. Right. See the jump I'm trying to make there. And the jump also is what you were talking about before with education. And I think we need an education too with people in social media use. People need to be kind of coached and understand how to use it. How to use it correctly. Right. And, you know, I've been trying to express to as many people as I can, especially people in the public eye, don't read comments.

1:46:01You gotta stop doing that. Don't read things about you. Don't read negative things about you. It's bad for you. Yeah. It's bad for you. And also you're dealing with the percentage of people that are commenting negative things. Those people almost entirely live lives that you would not envy. Nicely said. They're almost all a mess. That's right. And so you're interacting with the, I don't say the worst aspects of society, but the most troubled human beings, the people that are thinking in the most ridiculous way, they're constantly focusing on negative aspects of either human beings or of society in general.

1:46:40And they're feeding off of it. And that's their focus all day long. And they spend most of their time arguing with people online. Yeah. Do you want to be involved in that? Like that is said, when we live in what is primarily a beautiful world. Nicely said. Yeah. And I think you're pointing at something that's important to keep in mind is be careful about what you let in. Yes. Right. Yeah. I think that's like, that's a universal principle, but it's eloquently shared in Buddhism where they say guard your dharma gates. Right. Your eyes. Yes. Dharma gates. Dharma gates. Right. Your senses. What are you taking in?

1:47:17Yes. Because, you know, there's other philosophies that say thoughts are things. Be careful what you think. You know. Yeah. And I've come to notice, let's call it the CBT triangle, cognitive behavioral therapy or theory triangle, right? Thoughts lead to emotions, lead to actions, right? Because of psychedelic work, I've able to see how a thought actually is a portal that allows us to certain energetic flow into you and that affects you and that can manifest in reality out of you. As a therapist, how have you incorporated this in everyday life with your patients? Two things come to mind when you asked that question.

1:48:01It's made me more empathetic because I've had direct access, direct experience of some of these theories you read about or have a teacher as the expert tell you about. I've had direct access to. The second is, I'm able to share with people when they come to me being pulled towards experiencing these things, ideas around harm reduction, where to go, right? There's legal states. There's less legal states. I can talk to them about the substances, right? I'm not prescribing, but if you come to talk to me, I can listen. Yeah. See what I'm saying? I know from direct experience, some things. I'm also able to fight off fear and I can go into these territories with people.

1:48:55Therapists need to know that themselves. You don't want to step outside of what the lanes that you're comfortable being in, right? If you're not comfortable being in a certain lane, you've got to go get training. Training and experience to be an ethical practitioner before you talk about something. Right? And I've got that experience. It's never ending. I'm not done. I'm just in my process of awakening. Right. And I can share from that reference point, you know, as a therapist, that was your question. Right. That's how I think I can help people. I'm more empathetic. You come in and want to talk to me about a particular substance.

1:49:29I have a little bit of a lived experience knowledge base I can share with you. And legally, I'm allowed to talk harm reduction. Yeah. Right. I can't prescribe. I'm not going to tell you to do something illegal. Right. But if you want to talk to me about it, I know a thing or two. Not everything. Just a thing or two. I think one of the best arguments against decriminalization is what happened with Portland. Okay. So, you know, they went down this path. It was Portland, right? It wasn't Seattle. They went on this path of pure legalization. Oregon. Everything. Yeah. Decriminalized everything. Yeah.

1:50:06And it went sideways. And I think it was probably because the culture that had already been firmly established in that place condoned open air drug markets, people that were addicted to fentanyl and opiates out on the street and methamphetamines out on the street using them constantly, no education. And then they just sort of opened the doors for everything. And then people went there specifically because they could do these things. And be that on the streets. And also be subsidized. Yeah. Yeah. So, let me bring some things up about that. So, you know, I believe in decriminalization. But there's a right and not so right way to do something.

1:50:56Right. And I'm going to use examples of laws we already have on the book. This might not be a popular statement, but it's my truth. If you say you're going to decriminalize, you can look at the way we handle alcohol. We don't allow public drunkenness. We don't have to allow it. A lot of places say you can't walk around and be inebriated and open bottle drink, even the most liberal places, right? A cop can come up. They can protect custody you into a cage or they can help you get home, right? Why don't those rules apply? If you're in public, we can say we're not going to want you to use openly in public.

1:51:36Right. You know? But when you've already got people openly camping out on the streets and littering everywhere and like what they've already allowed, unfortunately, they need to clean that up first before they can say we're going to decriminalize everything. Because you've already allowed people to do something that, you know, publicly is frowned upon to just like be shitting on the street and to open drug use everywhere. Have people camped out homeless people like covering up sidewalks where you can't get around and there's needles everywhere and garbage everywhere. Well, we can agree that we don't want that.

1:52:14In many places, like there's local ordinances against that, there's state level laws against that and we can go all the way up. We're not doing anything about that. Well, that's the thing we can analyze. Yeah. Why wasn't the funding in place to ensure that public areas with public access followed some rules? Why? What happened? You know? I think that can be figured out. Yeah. Right? So we realize that if we say full -scale decriminalization, anything goes, doesn't work, I would have told you right from the beginning. Well, that's kind of freaky. Why are we going that far? Why don't we have any funding to help people and tell them, no, you can't take a shit over there.

1:52:59Right. Yeah. Have to take a shit over here. We can all agree. We don't want human feces over here. Right? That's not a shot against that person. We got to figure out what's going on. Why are they pooping over there and not in the porta -party over here? Or how about have a location where those people can go that isn't a prison? Right. Where we have wraparound services. Where we have maybe access to what they need. Maybe access to what they're addicted to. Right? Now we're starting to talk about safe supply with care and medical intervention. Yeah. There's no one's ever done that successfully though, right?

1:53:35Like, does any state ever incorporate some sort of successful program where they gave people safe supply and then counseling and got like percentage of them off drugs and healthy? So I've heard that Canada is exploring the medical access of medical grade heroin for certain people. And we know that certain countries for years at this point have safe injection facilities where people can come to use their drugs under care and consideration and then leave. We know these things work, but they've got to be curated properly. Yeah. When you also can't impose it on all the rest of society by allowing people to just camp out everywhere in the streets.

1:54:19Well, that's the example that, right? Like we can have rules, local ordinances that say we, this isn't a campground. Yeah. Right. Right. And what do you need for this not to be a campground? Let's talk. Come talk in this building over here. Right. Right. We could even figure out what kind of, I mean, what's that going to cost? We could figure that out. And why isn't it being funded? Right. And why aren't the police properly funded to act in a guardianship way in those situations? Right. Yeah. Because look, look, our efforts go in the direction that our funding goes because people build their lives around that.

1:55:01And if funding is 90 % on enforcement, then that's what you're going to get. Right. Right. Right. And we talked about the problems and how hurtful defund was. How about properly funding law enforcement to work in a guardianship paradigm for these situations that aren't necessarily criminal, they might be public health? Now you keep in the cops involved. Right. Right. You're not saying we're going to defund you, we don't need you, we do need you. You play a vital role in our society. But that would require like a fundamental shift to progressive ideology, enough to like change the way they view cops.

1:55:41Maybe that'll have to be incorporated in drips and drabs and carefully into training. Yeah. But I got an example for you. I got an example for you. I think it's really important. It's from where I come. Right. And Winthrop Massachusetts, Winthrop Massachusetts, 10 years ago, when I was a patrol officer and I kept coming in and seeing public health issues in the police logs and police incidents, public health issue, mental health challenge. A person not having access to their psychiatrist running out of their medicine, overdose save, overdose loss tragically over and over and over again. I went talk to the police chief.

1:56:17I said, his name's Terence De LaHante. I said, chief, on patrol when I'm in, will you let me make a pile of work? Let's call it cases to investigate because I think I have a detective fetish. I've never been a detective, but I want to investigate things too. He's like, then, what are you going to do with that pile? I'm going to follow up in police uniform patrol, I'm going to go knock on a dorm, have a conversation with somebody, see what they really need to prevent that 911 call for service. He's on record saying he thought I was going to bang my head up against the wall. He's like, there's no one's going to talk to this kid in full uniform.

1:56:52But he was so excited I had to let him try. Two, three weeks later, I come back, I said, chief, I got a problem. People are inviting me into their house, telling me to sit down, calling somebody down, who's telling me that they were looking for cocaine, got fentanyl. We have a good problem. I got to connect these people to their appropriate help. You know what he said to me? He said, connect them to the public health department. There's a woman in there, her name's Meredith Hurley, and she's brought in people who lived in living experience with challenges related to intoxicating substances who are open about it to help with the overdose crisis.

1:57:28Bang. Public safety connected with public health, we created what I call the public, the police to public health pipeline. Right? Picture this, a cop showing up to your house, because they know what's going on in your house. You called 911 and you told us without us even coercing you and saying, Joe, what's going on? What do you need? What do you need to be well? We don't want you to die. Talk to us. We're not going to use it against you. I'm actually not going to run you, because I'm playing this distinct role. I'm not going to run you. I don't want to know if there's any outstanding warrants.

1:58:09I'm not here. I'm not here to snoop around to find something that I'm going to be able to charge you with. I'm here to see what you need to not die and not have my detective show up and put you on a cage. That started in Winthrop. Over 10 years ago, it's called Clear, Community and Law Enforcement Assisted Recovery. Well, that's hopeful. You've got to expand something like that. I think we have room to expand it across the whole country. We are repositories, police departments, our repositories of information on human suffering. You know what we're doing with that? If it's not traditional enforcement -based policing to make cases for court, nothing.

1:58:58That's not right. So it's the way it's approached. It's the way these problems are approached and that they need new solutions. Solutions that are preventative and that enforce the sense of community and help law enforcement officers ingratiate themselves with these people and be a part of the community instead of just being a person who comes to lock them up. There it is. You know what that is? That's community policing. We call it recovery -oriented community policing. Now, let me plug something else in that I think is a sophisticated, important point that people have got to keep in mind. This isn't an attack on traditional enforcement type of policing.

1:59:52If you are sensitive to human nature, you know there's going to be violations of the type that need somebody to show up and take a person out of their housing cuffs, put them in a jail cell and take them to court. Unfortunately, the dark side is a part of human nature and that type of policing done right is important and it keeps us well. But when it's the only type of policing, we're missing something. We're missing something important and special and our people are expecting our officers to show up and put a hand out, a hand, a helping hand and say, we know what's going on and we want you to be well.

2:00:33We don't want you to die. We don't want you to be in a cage, human being in a cage. I think it is fundamentally law enforcement's role to do that.

2:00:47This and that. Yeah, well said. That might be a good way to end this. Tell people how they can get a hold of you, social media, like where you are. Sure. I appreciate that. Well, they can look up my name, Sarko, Jedjadjana. I'm out of Winthrop Massachusetts. Spell those last name because they're not going to be able to get that right. Sure. It's G -E -R -G -E -R -I -A -N. I'm out of Winthrop Massachusetts. I'm a lieutenant with the Winthrop Police Department. Joe, let me plug this in. I am here speaking of my own beliefs, sharing about the positives, about my community, my department, the safety I found there.

2:01:27But these are my ideas. I'm not important to talk on behalf of Winthrop Police, Winthrop Mass. I just need people to know that. But they can find me online. They can get a hold of me at my work email. I liberally share my personal email and if they send me an email, I'll respond. How do they get your email? You know, it's just my last name at gmail .com, g -e -r -g -e -r -i -a -n, at gmail .com. Okay. Good luck with the amount of emails you're going to get after this. All right. Let's do it. Give me some time to get back to you. All right. Well, thanks, brother. I appreciate you. I appreciate you, your perspective, the fact that you're willing to express it the way you do and that you're willing to come on here and stick your neck out like this means a lot.

2:02:16Joe, let me say something back to you, man. This was a really special moment for me. I'm not only a colleague of yours, man. I'm a fan and a number of close personal friends, one in particular, Billy Reinstein, who I love to death said to tell Joe that he has helped me so tremendously. His show has helped me stay well, be well, be happy, and I wanted to get that message out. That's awesome. Shout out to Billy. All right. All right. Thank you very much. Appreciate it. All right. Bye, buddy.