Realfoodology - 31: Psychedelic Therapy with Ronan Levy

Episode Date: April 14, 2021

I speak with RONAN LEVY, Co-Founder and Executive Chairman of the Field Trip Health. A company redefining mental well-being and consciousness through psychedelic-enhanced psychotherapy. Field Trip recently opened their doors to physical clinics on both the East (NYC) and West (LA) Coasts respectively where ketamine is administered to qualified patients in a supervised setting in an attempt to help people overcome depression, anxiety, pain and other tough-to-beat mental issues.  I also tell my personal experience with psychedelic mushrooms that helped bring me a lot of relief around a very traumatic experience involving the death of a loved one I had as a child. Show Links: https://www.fieldtriphealth.com/ https://www.tripapp.co/ https://www.instagram.com/fieldtriphealth/ https://www.instagram.com/ronandlevy/ Midnight Gospel (on Netflix). The episode is called Mouse of Silver Michael Pollan How to Change your Mind https://amzn.to/3trWbpA

On today's episode of the Real Foodology podcast, what started happening is doctors started using ketamine like an antidepressant. They just give it to you like an antidepressant and you feel better for a while. You know, it's much more effective than conventional antidepressants, it seems, where people seem to do a lot better for a lot longer and don't have to do it every day. Hey guys, welcome back. This is the Real Foodology podcast and I am your host, Courtney Swan. I am the creator behind Real Foodology,, and I am your host, Courtney Swan. I am the creator behind Real Foodology, which is, of course, this podcast, but it is also a food blog, an Instagram, and now more recently, a TikTok. I finally did it. I caved and I joined, and it's actually been really fun. So

follow me all across the board at Real Foodology. I'm going to try very hard to not cry during this intro, and you will understand why in a minute. Before we get into the episode, I want to give a little bit of a disclaimer as well as a trigger warning. We dive deep into psychedelic drugs. Some of them are illegal. Some are legal in certain states. Some are legal in most states. But I want to say first and foremost that we do not condone the use of illegal drugs. And if you are looking to start doing any of the therapeutics that we talk about in this episode, please talk to your doctor. This is not meant to be in lieu of your doctor's recommendations. Please talk to your doctor first. Everything we talk about is for

informational purposes only. So if you are curious about any of the therapeutics that we talk about in this episode, please do not mistake those for recommendations. You have to talk to a licensed professional before doing anything. I also need to give a trigger warning for just the intro. I talk about death and loss and my experiences with it. So if you are easily triggered about stories of death and loss, then I would skip through the intro. Imagine having a metabolic coach in your pocket that you could access at any point, any time in the day, whenever you want. That's what Lumen is. Lumen is the world's first handheld metabolic coach. It's a device that measures your metabolism through your breath. And on the app, it lets you know if you're burning fat or carbs and gives you tailored guidance to improve your

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today's episode. I interview Ronan Levy, who is the co-founder and executive chairman of the Fieldtrip Health, which is a company redefining mental well-being and consciousness through psychedelic enhanced psychotherapy. This is really cool. Fieldtrip recently opened their doors to physical clinics on both the East in New York city and the West LA coasts, respectively, where ketamine is administered to qualified patients in a supervised setting in an attempt to help people overcome depression, anxiety, pain, and other tough to beat mental health issues. This is something that I have really been intrigued by in the last couple of years. And we dive more into this obviously in the episode,

but I have a girlfriend who was going through ketamine drips a couple of years ago to help through, to help herself through something through a really hard time in her life. And as I've started to dive more into the science of neuroplasticity and psychedelics, I just find it all very intriguing. I'm also a huge fan of Michael Pollan. I love his book, How to Change Your Mind. There's just a lot of really good stuff that's scientifically backed coming out right now about psychedelics being used therapeutically. So I'm just really excited for you to hear this episode. Now, I mentioned in the beginning that I'm going to try not to cry. I wanted to share a little bit more about what I go into in this episode.

I share an experience of mine that I had last November. And if you follow me on Instagram, you may already know about this because I talked pretty candidly about it. But I really haven't gone too much into the details of it. And I didn't either during this episode, because to be quite honest, I could feel that I was going to start crying about it if I went too deep into it. However, I'm a very candid person. I'm an open book. I really believe in being honest about my experiences and hopes that if anyone's struggling, is listening, can maybe find solace and know that

they're not alone. Or, you know, maybe, yeah, I'm just hoping that my story maybe will help people, which is why I'm so candid about it. So when I was eight years old, my little sister was hit by a car riding her bike. And this happened two blocks from my house. And I was the first person to see her. I was far away. My mom came quickly afterwards and kind of threw me off to a neighbor, so I didn't get to see up close, but I saw her being lifted into the ambulance. And sadly, she did not make it, which hence the trauma around it. You know, when things like this happen in life, there's not like this rule book or guidelines to help you navigate and go through this. You know, especially at my age,

when I was so young, I really wasn't given the tools to figure out or know how to cope with this really deep traumatic experience that I had. Of course, my parents put me in therapy, but you know, at the time I really wasn't ready to look at it, to face it. And I'll never forget this. The therapist told my parents that she said, you know what? She will face it and look at it and open up about it when she's ready. And she just needs time. And man, was that true for my life. But it's interesting how you can go through such a traumatic experience and disconnect so far from it. It's as if it didn't even happen to you. And last November, I had the most insane clarity about this. And this is where this all ties back into this conversation with Ronan. I did mushrooms

with a friend of mine and I did not set out to have this experience, but it was, it seemed like it was time for me to face it. I had watched this episode with my friend of this show called Midnight Gospel, which I highly recommend, by the way. It is just such a beautiful show in so many ways. And there's an episode where he talks about the cycle of life and death. And at this point, the mushrooms had kicked in pretty hard for me. By the way, I want to make a little note here and just say I was in Colorado. They're fully legal. So please don't come at me about that. Anyways, so they were talking about, um, so he interviews his mother and they're talking about the life cycle of birth and death. And, you know, as they got to the part about death,

I just started sobbing uncontrollably. And my friend pauses the episode and he's like, are you okay? And I was like, I mean, I literally just blurted it out loud. And my friend didn't even know this about me yet because, um, I don't, this is not information I generally divulge in the beginning of friendships. It's usually something as we get closer, I let people into my inner world and I just kind of blurted out. I was like, my little sister died in a very tragic accident when I was eight. And he was like, oh my gosh. And his response was so beautiful. He just created such a safe space for me and started asking questions. And it was so beautiful. And ultimately what happened was, well, one, I mean, I cried harder than I think I've ever cried about it. And to give you guys a little bit of perspective, I'm 36 now. And this happened when I was eight. And I don't know that

I've ever cried that hard about it. And what I realized as it was happening is I was just like, oh my gosh, there's all this like really deep grief that was just sitting in my body, just waiting to be let out because I was so scared of it. It felt so scary and big and dark. It honestly felt like it was going to kill me, which obviously we know won't, but sometimes grief can feel that way. And I think the most profound thing that I had throughout that entire experience was at one point, I kind of came up for air from my sobbing and I had this moment of clarity and I just looked at him and I said, so he asked me the story of it. And I told the story and then I looked at him and I was like,

I have been telling that story my whole life as if it happened to someone else. It was as if it was not my story to tell. And he was like, holy shit, Courtney, I think you just got some really amazing clarity around this. And I will never forget this. I came home from that vacation because I did it when I was in Colorado. And I was telling one of my best girlfriends about this. And as I was telling the story, I hadn't even told her what I had said to my friend yet about having that clarity. I was just telling her about the experience. And she looked at me and she was corny. I just have to pause you for a second. She goes, I'm so glad that you had this experience because I noticed that whenever you would talk about the story, whether you were telling me

about it or I would witness you telling it to someone else around you would talk about the story, whether you were telling me about it, or I would witness you telling it to someone else around you, or when I was there, it was as if it was not your story to tell. Ooh, that just spent, that just like sent chills down my spine because it's true. And I didn't even realize it. I went for 28 years of my life telling a story as if it wasn't my own because I was so disconnected from it. And yeah, that's the story. You guys will get more context as you listen to the episode because I share about my, I go a little

bit deeper into my experience with mushrooms and how it really helped me get to that point. But that experience is what changed everything for me and changed my mind about, about taking plant medicine. Honestly, I think, um, you know, I've been watching all the science and the studies come out the last few years and have just found it so fascinating and it makes so much sense. And then actually experiencing it for myself and realizing that I may have never gotten to that point without the assistance of the mushrooms, because there's something about taking psychedelics like that, that allow you to face things in life that you may be really scared to face because in a way, they almost kind of force you to go there. And, but it felt really safe. And it was as if my guard was down, my ego was down and I just full force, like just faced it head on. And I can tell

you right now that I wish I had done it sooner because it made such an impact on me that I don't walk through the world anymore carrying that heavy trauma. Now look, nothing will ever, ever change that experience that I had. Nothing will ever take that away. But I don't feel like I'm carrying it around like this heaviness that I used to carry around. I literally felt lighter when I excavated that and really, truly let it get out of my body. So that's my story. And if you're listening and you have any sort of judgments or preconceived notions about psychedelics, I really hope that you will listen to this episode. And I would check out Michael Pollan's book too, and hopefully we can change that mindset a little

bit with that. Let's get to a question. And then we're going to dive deep into this episode. Today's question is from Jesse and she wrote, I hear so many mixed things about gluten. Some experts say it only affects those who have allergies and others say it's inflammatory and harmful to most people allergy or not. So this can be, um, gluten can be a little bit tricky. I think a lot of people don't make the connection to their symptoms and the gluten in their diet. So I believe that many people don't even realize that they have an issue with gluten. And I'll give you an example of this. So when I was in high school, I, I have what I think was psoriasis in the back of my scalp. And the reason why I say I think is because I never actually got it diagnosed.

But I mean, it plagued me for years. It was constantly inflamed back there, always super itchy. And I never really made the connection to what it was. And to be quite honest, I didn't even realize that it had gone away until kind of recently, um, a couple of months ago, I had a friend come stay with me and he was baking bread every day with, uh, he was making this wonderful sourdough bread and pizza crust and pancakes and all this stuff. And I've been gluten-free for 10 years now. And I'm kind of of the mindset that if I'm eating really good organic gluten, that every once in a while I can have a little bit and I'm okay.

And that usually is the case. I can have a little bit. I won't really see the effects of it, but I went overboard. And I, I mean, in a way, like I kind of tested out, I tested the waters and I was eating his glutens in form of bread, pancakes, whatever it is for a week. I got home from that trip and I had such crazy itchy scalp. It came back from this issue that I'd had in high school suddenly was plaguing me again. And I remembered, I was like, oh my God, wait, this used to be a huge problem that I had in high school and then throughout college. And it went away when I stopped eating gluten. So my point in all of this is that you may not even realize that there is some sort of symptom going on in your body that you're not even making the connection to some sort of sensitivity

in your body. And I've found with a lot of people, gluten tends to be that issue for a lot of people. There's also a lot of theories and studies that it's not actually the gluten itself, but what has been done to the gluten. We spray wheat in the U.S. like crazy with glyphosate, which is also known as Roundup, and it's an herbicide linked to cancer that disrupts the microbiome. So there's a lot of theories that it's the glyphosate that's affecting people and not actually the gluten. And this is why you hear a lot of people saying that

they can't eat gluten in the U.S., but they can eat it with no symptoms when they go overseas. Also, we use a modern hybrid of wheat in the U.S., and it looks really different than the ancient heirloom wheat that our ancestors were eating. So that's kind of another theory that it's just we need to be eating wheat that looks more like the heirloom wheat that our ancestors ate. So my advice in this is if you're dealing with any sort of symptom, any sort of health symptom, especially something that you can't really get to the bottom of, try cutting out gluten and see what happens. If this symptom goes away, then you probably have a sensitivity to it.

If it doesn't go away, then you're probably fine to consume it. But just make sure that you're reaching for organic ancient grains and wheat. This is really exciting. Organifi now has kid stuff. They just released two kid products. One is called Easy Greens, and it's a refreshing green apple juice where kids will never know that it's packed with veggies. And the other one is called Protect. It's a delicious wild berry punch like the Kool-Aid that we used to have as a kid, but without any sugar. This is really exciting. And if you've listened to the podcast for a while, you know that I'm a huge fan of Organifi and most specifically because every single product that they make is glyphosate residue free. So you know that you're going to be able to give these powders to your kids and

know that they will be able to consume them safely without any glyphosate in it. So let's break down each one. The Easy Greens is a nourishing and delicious blend of superfoods and veggies that provides essential nutrients, probiotics, and digestive enzymes to bring balance to kids growing bodies without fillers, additives, or junk. It helps to fill in nutritional gaps, aids in growth and development, supports digestive health, has a rich micronutrient profile, and includes digestive enzymes. This would be a great way to sneak in greens for your little one without them actually knowing that it's healthy for them. And the second one, which is the wild berry punch,

similar to Kool-Aid is called protect. And it is to support your child's daily immune health with food derived nutrients that work to strengthen their body's first line of defense. I know just through girlfriends of mine that have children that when your kids are going to school, going to daycare, uh, they're coming home sick a lot more often just because they're getting exposed to different kids and different viruses when they're out in the world playing with kids. So this would be a great way to help to support your little one's immune health. It's organic and it's also made with real whole food ingredients. It has a delicious berry taste and it's low sugar and it's gentle enough for kids to take every single day. And I really love the ingredients in this one. It's orange and acerol cherry, which is a powerful source of

vitamin C and antioxidants, astragalus, elderberry, and propolis. These are all really great for overall immune health. If you want to try the products that I talked about today or any of the Organifi products, go to Organifi.com slash Real Foodology and use code real food ology for 20% off. Again, that's Organifi. It's O-R-G-A-N-I-F-I dot com slash real food ology. Did you know that most cookware and appliances are made with forever chemicals? Yes, that means your nonstick pans, your air fryers, your waffle makers, your blender could possibly have PFAS, and yes, even our beloved crockpots and pressure cookers. I have actually been talking about this for so long. Back in 2006, my mom came to my dorm room and made me get rid of all my nonstick pans because she was

concerned about me being exposed to something called Teflon. Teflon is a coating that is used on nonstick pans and a lot of these appliances that I just named. So I've avoided Teflon, nonstick, PFA coated appliances, pots and pans, you name it for a very long time. And the only option for the, for a very long time was just stainless steel pots and pans. So I was really excited when a company like our place came out because they started creating really beautiful cookware and appliances that are like pieces of art. Every appliance that I have from our place, I legit want to store it on the counter. And I'm the type of person that does not want anything on my counter because I like it to look really just clean and minimal. But I'm so obsessed with all the our place products that I have so many of them displayed on my counter because they are

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The ceramics are beautiful. The colors are amazing. Like I said, everything is like a piece of art. If you want to try any of the products from our place, go to fromourplace.com and enter my code real foodology checkout to receive 10% off sitewide. That's from our place.com code real foodology. Our place offers a 100 day trial with free shipping and returns. Hey, uh, I want to ask a favor of you guys. So I'm running out of questions. I've been getting a lot of my questions on Instagram lately,

but I would love to answer your questions. I know sometimes people may think that I just get flooded with questions. And so you may as well just not even waste your time emailing me, but please send me your questions. I would love to answer them on air and we can address whatever, whatever you're dealing with right now. Just email me at real food, all G podcast at gmail.com. Let's talk about stress burnout for a second. While this has always been an issue in our modern world, it's really become more prevalent lately, especially in the last year. And while stress is a normal part of life and it serves a useful, a useful purpose when controlled chronic stress leads to an imbalance of critical minerals that support your energy production, immune system, metabolism, and overall health. And we know this, but chronic or prolonged stress can wreak havoc on your thyroid and adrenal glands,

depleting them of the nutrients needed to maintain energy so that you can really keep up with the demands of your life. Now, we often see this accelerated in people with a fast metabolism, which typically reveals some sort of imbalance of like phosphorus to calcium, resulting in lower thyroid and adrenal function. Ronan, I'm so excited to have you on the podcast today. Let's just get straight into it. For everyone listening, why don't you give them a little bit of your background and what you do? Sure. So presently, I act as the executive chairman, and I'm actually one of the co-founders of a company called Field Trip Health Limited. We are one of the groups that is, at least I like to think so, leading

the psychedelic renaissance that seems to be happening around the world, at least certainly in North America right now. Amazing. Yeah. Well, tell everyone what Fieldtrip is. Sure. So we are what we like to call an integrated psychedelics company. So when it comes to psychedelics, and it's important to know from the get-go that when we're talking about psychedelics and everything that's happening around psychedelics right now, we're really talking about psychedelic-assisted therapy, which means we're not just producing drugs or mushrooms or anything along those lines. What we are doing is really building the infrastructure to deliver therapy that's really being enhanced with psychedelic drugs like psilocybin, like MDMA, like FT-104, the one that we're developing internally. So with Fieldtrip, we're doing two core things. One is building the spaces for delivering psychedelic therapies. You know, when it comes to psychedelic therapies, where you do it, the preparation you bring into it,

your mindset, all of these things actually really matter on the outcomes that people experience. So it's actually isn't like conventional medicine where you just go to a doctor and they give you two pills and send you on your way. There's a lot of work and processes involved with psychedelic therapies that really matters. And so with Fieldtrip Health, our clinic division, we're building out spaces, beautiful spaces across North America and Europe, where people can feel safe and comfortable to come in and have psychedelic-assisted therapy, using primarily ketamine right now, which is legal and prescribable in North America. And then the other side of Fieldtrip, we have Fieldtrip Discovery, which is our R&D division. So two things being done there. The first is advancing work with a novel psychedelic that we've actually developed in-house that addresses what we think

are some of the limitations around some of the classic psychedelics, at least vis-a-vis as they apply to conventional modern Western medicine, as well as doing cutting edge research on psilocybin producing mushrooms. You know, having come out of the cannabis industry, personally, I know that scaling cultivation of things that were once illegal and trying to make them legal and compliant isn't as easy as just building a bigger box. It takes a lot of work and sophistication. So we set up a partnership with the University of West Indies to build what we believe to be the first cultivation and research facility dedicated exclusively to psilocybin mushrooms and plant-based psychedelics. Well, that's really cool. So I first started really honing, I started really paying attention

to this, I would say about a year and a half ago, because I have a really good girlfriend that was going through a divorce and she started going to a ketamine clinic here in LA. And I had never heard anything like that before. I never knew anything like that existed. And for anyone listening who doesn't really know how that works, actually, why don't you explain how the ketamine clinic works? Sure. So the way we do ketamine-assisted therapy is different than I think how your friend actually experienced it. But there's kind of two operating models right now. One is what your friend experienced is called a ketamine infusion center, where they treat ketamine like an antidepressant. You get an IV drip with ketamine. And what we found,

because ketamine actually has been around a very long time. It's been used in medicine, Western medicine, since the 1960s or so. It's very safe and very effective. And what they found when they used it as an anesthetic for people is that people who received surgery or had it used as an anesthetic reported that their mental health improved. They just reported feeling a lot better mentally as well as, you know, whatever kind of physical surgery that they went through. And so what started happening is doctors started using ketamine like an antidepressant. They just give it to you like an antidepressant and you feel better for a while. You know, it's much more effective than conventional antidepressants, it seems, where people seem to do a lot better for

a lot longer and don't have to do it every day. But it really is thinking about it like an antidepressant. We treat ketamine like a psychedelic, which is a bit different, which is we think of the ketamine, as well as any other psychedelic drug that we talked about today is really a catalyst that improves the efficiency of psychotherapy, of cognitive behavioral psychotherapy. And so with ketamine, with other psychedelics, the reason they seem to be so effective, and when I talk about effective, I mean really effective. We've seen studies that suggest a single psilocybin-assisted therapy session can provide antidepressant effects for up to five years. It's because there seems to be three things happening at the same time.

One is ketamine is a rapid antidepressant, rapid acting antidepressant, like psilocybin, like LSD, like MDMA. People just feel better really quickly when they take it. Um, it's just kind of a lift. Secondly, um, because they're psychedelics, people are able to go inward. What seems to happen when you have a psychedelic experience is that your ego kind of quiets that defense mechanism that makes you who you are and doesn't really want to change, kind of gets tempered a little bit. So you're more open to going back and revisiting past traumas, past experiences, past memories, things that may

still be affecting you to this day, but you can't really go there because your ego kind of gets in the way. So people start to do the processing. So it's kind of like if you've done conventional therapy, what you can do in 10 years in conventional therapy, you can maybe do in an afternoon on a psychedelic in terms of how deep you can go. And then the other thing that happens is with psychedelics on a neurochemical neurology basis is they increase neuroplasticity. They've actually found that ketamine and other psychedelics cause your brain to grow new neural synapses, the connections between your brain cells. So not only are you doing the emotional processing, you're kind of adding new pathways in your brain that change the thought patterns that you have.

So you no longer kind of get into those old patterns. And that's why we're so excited about ketamine as a psychedelic, as opposed to an antidepressant, because you kind of get the stacking of all three of these things happening at the same time, as opposed to just feeling better for a while and then falling back into routine. Wow. I have so many questions. Where do I start? So when you say that you guys treat it like a psychedelic and some people treat it like an antidepressant, what is the difference in your method then when using it like a psychedelic? Sure. Two primary ways that it's different. So when you have it as an antidepressant, when it comes in an IV infusion, it's a slow, consistent drip. So you don't go too far into the psychedelic experience. You're just kind of getting a slow, consistent amount and that's it. Then you go home and you go back to regular life. With us, we typically administer

it through an intramuscular injection. So a needle in the arm or in the hip. And the reason we do this is because we want you to have the most intense psychedelic experience possible with a small amount of dose. So you can go into those past memories, those past traumas, and really revisit them. So we actually want you to go deep as opposed to just going shallow, which is how the IV infusions work. The other thing we do is we pair our entire treatment program with therapy. So a typical ketamine experience when given by intramuscular injection is, call it an hour to an hour and a half that you're really feeling the effects of the ketamine and able to go inward. And we invite people to go inward. So we put on

noise canceling headphones and eye masks and all that kind of stuff. And then after you have an hour with a therapist just to talk about what came up, you know, what feelings came up, what emotions came up, what memories came up, anything that comes up and you get to start to talk about it and start to process all the feelings around that. And what we do is we do that typically, I mean, it depends on every individual person's experience and needs, but typically you'd have two ketamine experiences plus that therapy in a week. And then following every two sessions, we have a pure cognitive behavioral conventional therapy session where we take that openness, we take that emotional processing, we take that neuroplasticity, and we help you turn it into action. And that action could be, you know, just getting up in

the morning earlier, or that could be eating healthier, or that could be just changing your attitude and outlook and mindset. So not only are we making you, helping you feel better through the ketamine and the therapy, we're also helping you make real concrete lifestyle changes. So all the benefits you're experiencing can be sustained over a much longer period. So that's the difference between what we do and what the other IV infusion centers do. That's really incredible. And you know, and I'd never heard about that being used with ketamine. I've heard a lot about people having therapy sessions with psilocybin, MDMA. Would you say that those kind of have similar effects? Like, would you put all those drugs kind of in the same vein of, of help therapeutically? Yeah, there's a, there's a debate within the, you know, psychedelic community and industry of what is a psychedelic and what isn't a psychedelic. To me, anything that kind of quiets the ego, slows down the default mode

network in the brain, which is kind of the part of your brain that just keeps operating, keeps you alive, even when you're not thinking about it. Anything that slows that down and opens you up to therapy, to me, that's a psychedelic. So that can be ketamine, that can be psilocybin, that could be MDMA, that could be LSD, that can be meditation, that can be breathwork. All of these things are different ways of getting to the same place, which is just really people, opening people up to changing their perspectives and attitudes. So yeah, all of those are psychedelics. Now there's some people who would say the classic psychedelics are only things that engage a specific receptor in the brain and there's legitimate legitimacy to that.

But, uh, I don't think it's constructive for the purposes of trying to help people. The truth is, is we just want to help people and whatever helps people get to that place is good by me. Let's talk about liver health. The liver performs over 500 different functions, making it one of the most important organs in the body. This is why when it becomes sick, different aspects of your health can become negatively impacted as a result. And we're seeing a rise in issues with the liver. Thanks to our modern

environment, pollution, unfiltered water, non-organic foods that are sprayed with synthetic pesticides. All of these can lead to a clogged or sluggish liver that isn't functioning optimally. This can result in acne, hormonal imbalance, and so many other health issues. And this is something I actually experienced a few years ago. And when I cleaned up my diet and I started taking a liver supporting supplement, my acne went away and I was able to balance my hormones. So I want to dive a little bit into the changing of the neural pathways, which you brought up. So when this happens, does that mean that over time, because we're able to change those neural pathways, that this person's not going to struggle with that anxiety and depression anymore? I mean,

is that obviously that's the hope. Have you seen that that is really what happens? I mean, anecdotally, yes. And there's some evidence to suggest it. It's hard to say. I mean, we've been operating our first clinic opened in Toronto in March, but then we closed down quite promptly because that was the first real lockdown in North America. And then we've been operating continuously since June in Toronto and then in New York and in LA and so on and so forth. And the results we're seeing are really quite powerful. We conducted a study with our initial cohort of patients and we showed people, we found that people reported significantly improved depression and anxiety symptoms for at least a month after a treatment program, maybe even longer,

but it's just hard to track that long given the kind of short timeframes that we've seen. And then subjectively, the responses have been, you know, absolutely life-affirming, touching, heartwarming. You know, we've had a survivor of sexual trauma who couldn't look at herself in the mirror report that she was able to see herself as beautiful for the first time, or a military veteran who had lost all connection to empathy starting to feel empathy again. So, you know, it really is changing people's pathways and their perspectives. You know, Michael Pollan, who wrote the book, How to Change Your Mind, which has been a seminal work in this reemergence, talks about how it's

kind of like a snow globe, you know, your brain, like all the pieces settle. And when you go through a psychedelic session, it kind of scrambles it all up. So you have the freedom to create new pathways. And that seems to be what's happening actually in your brain after a psychedelic experience, provided you have the right support and really do the work to take advantage of the spirit of neuroplasticity. That is so amazing. So do you find that people, do they do this in conjunction with like their anxiety and depression meds or is the hope they can do it instead of the meds? And of course, for anyone listening, I'm not trying to say like get off your meds or anything like that. I'm just speaking more, you know, just out of curiosity.

Yeah, it's one of the reasons, even though the results associated with ketamine aren't quite as profound as what we see with MDMA or psilocybin, one of the advantages of ketamine aren't quite as profound as what we see with MDMA or psilocybin. One of the advantages of ketamine is that you don't have to get off the conventional anxiety or depression medications to do the ketamine therapy. When it comes to psilocybin, at least, it seems like you don't want to be using SSRIs while doing psilocybin therapy as well. So there's one of the advantages of that with ketamine. So people don't need to get off their conventional meds, at least with what we're doing now. In the future, depending on the drug, it may be more advisable. Okay. That's interesting. So I have a question about microdosing, and this would be maybe more about psilocybin in particular, but

do people microdose with ketamine? Do you think it's effective? Is there a certain way that you suggest that people microdose effectively? Yeah, I'm not familiar with many people microdosing with ketamine, to be quite honest. It does seem to be something more that's done with psilocybin or LSD. And there are a number of different protocols out there. And, you know, if people want to engage in that, then I think they've just got to figure out what works for them. And I don't think there's a standard method that works with everyone. The only thing to be cautious about really is that you can develop a tolerance, uh, for, um, psilocybin and LSD such that it won't work after a while. It's kind of one of the nice things about psychedelics. Cause I mean, if your high school experience was anything like mine, you got told all about

the dangers of psychedelics and how addictive and they'll drive you crazy. And it turns out most of that was BS. But psychedelics are actually non-addictive by and large. They lose their effects. So you can't actually get addicted to them, at least when it comes to psilocybin and MDMA. So the important thing with microdosing is that you're taking breaks. You know, some people do it five days on, two days off. Some people do it every other day. You know, the amount that people use really depends on their own personal biology. But typically I've heard people using, you know, 100 to 200 milligrams of psilocybin, ground up psilocybin, whereas a typical therapeutic dose of psilocybin would be the equivalent of five grams of mushrooms. So you're talking about one-fiftieth of a typical

amount or a typical large dose for psilocybin. As to whether it works, this is a subject of quite a bit of debate. There have been a couple of studies that come out that say that microdosing psilocybin is no more effective than a placebo, to which I say I don't really care. I mean, the truth is, if people feel better and feel they're more creative or feel that they're happier, really, that's the objective that we're pursuing, you know, to be dogmatic that, well, it's the placebo as opposed to the drug. The truth is, is because with psilocybin, the risks associated with microdosing tend to be so low, it doesn't really matter. You know, if you're talking about something where it was high risk and there are real consequences to doing it just for the benefit of the placebo, I'd say it's a different conversation. But here, because we know psilocybin to be reasonably safe, we know it's

non-addictive. We know that it's like cannabis, almost impossible to overdose on it. If people feel better just because of the placebo effect, you know, I think that's wonderful. That's really what we're aspiring to. Yeah. I mean, that's really interesting. I've always been, I don't know if skeptical is the right word. I guess for me personally, I've always been a little bit concerned about microdosing in general because part of the reason, so I've struggled a lot with anxiety most of my life. And one of the main reasons that I'm not personally on medication for it is because I've always been of the mindset that I don't want to feel like I have to rely on anything, you know, to get myself through the day. And so my mindset is like, oh man, if I feel like I then have to now take mushrooms every day or every couple of days in order to feel better than it's kind of for me personally going against my way of wanting to do things.

But I'm curious if we do, and maybe you don't even know the answer to this, but if we see the same kind of effects with the microdosing on the neural pathway changing versus like doing it where you go into a clinic and you just get like a massive dose of it. Do you know? I don't. I mean, again, the studies around microdosing are so preliminary. The research around psychedelics and large dose psychedelics actually goes back. I mean, it's been used historically in various cultures for many, many years.

But in terms of modern Western medicine, the studies go back to the 50s and 60s. And most of those studies looked at large doses, large transformational doses. And that's where we see the kind of neuroplasticity and real results. We just don't have the evidence around microdosing. Now, one of the challenges associated with the microdosing studies is that conceptually, a microdose is supposed to be sub perceptual. So you don't feel it. Uh, I've never been able to, uh, take a microdose that I didn't feel. So it's one of those things where it's like, you know, it, maybe it's the wrong question, right. Uh, as to what constitutes a microdose. Um, but, uh, I hear your point. And that's the thing that I like about psychedelics

is like, unlike conventional approaches to medicine where the person is a passive participant you go to the doctor the doctor says here's what's wrong here are the pills they should make you feel better and you hope for the best with psychedelic medicine it's very proactive you know it gives the person a lot of autonomy and agency because it's essential for that person to have a lot of autonomy and agency in the experience you it's really one of those things you get out of it, what you put into it. And so if something isn't right for you, because the notion of being reliant on taking a microdose every few days, you know, like that, then that's perfectly fine. You know, there are alternative approaches. And I'm the same way. You

know, I've resisted drinking coffee for most of my life because I never wanted to be addicted to coffee. Now with two young kids and getting older and not enough sleep, coffee is becoming more of a, an essential component to my life. But you know, the, the, the mindset you talked about is entirely consistent with my, my viewpoints. And I think it makes sense too. Okay. So for people listening that are maybe either scared or skeptical of this, what would you say to them? You know, when it comes to psychedelic medicine, whether ketamine assisted therapy or the other psychedelics, it's really about doing the research. You know, we've been fed a whole bunch of stories across a number of

different things. And I'm definitely not a conspiracy theorist when it comes to most things, but I do recognize that people have incentives and sometimes those incentives influence the way things play out. And certainly when it comes to psychedelics, what we've been told by and large, at least if your high school and grade school experience was anything like mine, it's just not true. We know for a fact that psychedelics are non-addictive, like I mentioned, it's almost impossible to overdose on most psychedelics. And, you know, those urban legends of people getting high on LSD and jumping out of a window, the truth is that has happened, but it probably is much more overblown than most people would think. And there goes the blender again. And the truth is that when we talk about how psychedelic therapies are being developed in the modern context, it really is in controlled environments.

You're doing it with a therapist in a setting that should be safe and comfortable and inviting. And so if something goes intense, you're not going to be in a position where you can do something stupid because there will be someone, a professional who's equipped and trained to manage the situation to make sure everything goes okay. And that's actually one of the important things that I should mention as well, which is this notion of the bad trip. You know, I think that that's what everyone thinks. Don't do the brown acid, right? The current belief in medicine and science is that there's no such thing as a bad trip per se, which is there's hard trips, there's hard experiences, and there are easy experiences. And the vast majority of experiences are actually

easy and pleasant and warm and lovely and inviting. Some of them can go dark. But the belief is that if you embrace the challenging experience, if you go towards that thing that scares you, it can actually be the most therapeutic and most cathartic therapeutic session that you'll have. But that's why it's important to do it with someone who's qualified and knows how to handle the situations and help you through it. Because if you do have a hard experience and you're not made to feel comfortable and you can't get out of it in a way that feels safe, then that can create its own instance of trauma and actually be a bad trip. But it's really one of those things where you have the fork in the road. You can either really

focus on trying to make the most of it and take on that challenge, you know, embrace the suck and the word of CrossFit, or you can let it get the better of you. And if it gets the on that challenge, you know, embrace the suck and the word of CrossFit, or you can let it get the better of you. And if it gets the better of you, then it can potentially be problematic. But it means that at any given instance, it's really, you know, you have the opportunity to make the most out of every situation. And worrying about bad trips in advance is probably something you shouldn't be doing, particularly if you're doing it with a qualified professional who's overseeing the experience. Absolutely. And I've found in my own experience of doing mushrooms that as long as I'm in an environment where I feel safe,

I really don't go to a dark place. And then alternatively, I was one time in a place where I didn't feel super safe. And then I started going dark and I was like, Oh, I'm getting out of here and then went back to a safe place. And then I was fine. Yeah. So I think oftentimes it really depends on on your your environment and really where you are. And it's so interesting because you you've touched on this a couple of times. But, you know, I had one experience with mushrooms actually with a friend who just happened to unknowingly at the time, but create a really safe space for me to dive really deep into a traumatic

experience that happened to me as a child. And it was the most beautiful thing I think I've ever experienced in life. Like I took a lot of mushrooms, had no intention of going to that place, somehow ended up in this place where I was unpacking all this trauma, excavated all of this stuff that I did not even realize. And the thing that was most profound for me, I think in that moment was that I found so much clarity around that traumatic experience that I had had and the way that I'd carried it through, you know, my childhood and most of my adulthood up until now. And I will say ever since I had that experience, I mean, it changed me. I feel like I let go part of that trauma that I've been holding on since I was eight.

It was a wild experience. A hundred percent. I mean, I had a similar experience where, you know, growing up, my parents got divorced at a very young age. And for whatever reason, you know, my father was painted to be the bad guy. And I, and I lived with my mom and was very close with my grandparents. And I remember being a child and I remember eating a banana. I don't know why the banana features so prominently in my memory, but it was there. And my mom told me that my father was coming for a visit. And I remember immediately started to cry. I felt like that was not something I wanted. It was, it felt like such a breach of trust for my mom to let that happen. You know, and I remember

when he showed up, I tried to run away. And in my infinite wisdom as a four-year-old, I thought running around the corner of the fence would be enough of a hiding spot that he'd never find me, but he found me. And then during a psychedelic experience that I had, I realized how that feeling of betrayal, you know, played out at various points again in my life. And so like, when I have a fight with my, my wife or something, I'm not fighting about the specific subject matter of like at issue, I'm actually fighting from the place of I feel betrayed as that four year old. And as soon as you become aware of that, you can let go of it. But if you don't know that that's the emotion that's playing out throughout so many of your experiences, you're doomed to repeat them, right?

And so, yeah, that's why it's so powerful. And it gives you just a new lens. One of the things that they found too is that in addition to increasing neuroplasticity, they've put people on a psychedelic experience in an fMRI, so functional magnetic resonance imaging machine to see what happens in the brain. And interestingly, different parts of the brain talk to each other more when you're on a psychedelic experience. Your brain is actually more active, not less active. And that's why people can often report, you know, music has a taste or a smell or, you know, has a color or all of these things that, you know, synesthetes often report, but the average person doesn't. It's because parts of your brain that never talk to each other are talking to each

other all of a sudden. So you can make connections being like, oh, I didn't realize that, you know, when my mom did this, it made me feel that or anything along those lines. You put those together and all of a sudden things can move in a very substantial way, exactly like you described. That's so amazing. And that would explain why when you're on mushrooms, suddenly all the colors look so much more beautiful. Nature feels more alive and it's just such a beautiful experience. It really is. Yeah, exactly. There's some studies where they looked at psilocybin-assisted therapy for smoking cessation. And one of the interesting results was that something like, and I'm quoting from memory, so I'm not going to be entirely accurate, but something like 77% of the participants reported a significant drop in their tobacco

consumption or, you know, addictive cravings. But 85% of them reported that their experience on psilocybin was one of the most meaningful experiences of their lives up there with the birth of a child or a marriage or something along those lines. So people have really, really profound experiences with psychedelics when they have a good experience for sure. Yeah, absolutely. And I loved what you said about even, you know, the quote unquote bad trip is usually you just facing a darkness in you that you're scared to look at, you know, and I find that that's really beautiful because that's often where we're going to find the answers that we need in order to improve certain areas of our life. So I think that's really cool. Absolutely.

So you barely touched on this, but I want to go, I want to dive a little bit more into this, especially in the realm of ketamine. So, I mean, are there risks? Like we know that there are risks of overdose with MDMA, for example, or, you know, my friends joke all the time about going into a K-hole at a party. Like, yeah. Can we talk about that a little bit? Absolutely. So ketamine specifically, talking about ketamine, it's actually one of the safest drugs we have in our arsenal. And that's not specific to mental health or psychedelics. It's been used for 50, 60 some odd years very safely. You know, everybody in Vietnam was sent there with ketamine because it doesn't depress the central nervous system.

So with other anesthetics, if you give someone too much, much like an overdose on heroin or something along those lines, you can actually depress the CNS and people stop breathing. Ketamine, that's not a risk, actually. If you have a child and your child breaks a bone and you go to the emergency room and the doctor feels that anesthetic is appropriate, they'll probably use ketamine. It's kind of that kind of safety profile in terms of risk of overdose. Ketamine can be addictive.

You know, if you're using it chronically, it is mildly addictive. So people do report addiction. But particularly with how we do our protocols of Fieldtrip, because it's really intended to be episodic. You know, you do it six times over the course of a month, and then ideally, hopefully, you feel a lot better for many months at a time, such that you don't have to ever go back to taking it so frequently. That's why we're so focused on doing it as a psychedelic as opposed to an antidepressant, is that we think we can actually help people feel better longer so they don't ever become reliant on it. So there is a small risk of addiction with ketamine, but that's about it. You know, dropping into K-holes, I've never experienced it personally.

It sounds like it's probably not very pleasant, but as far as most drugs go, as far as most narcotics go, it's probably one of the lowest risk drugs. In fact, Professor David Nutt, who is at MDMA, ketamine, and cannabis were amongst the lowest harm drugs, even though they are amongst the most vilified drugs. And he measured that both in terms of harm to self and harm to others. So the risks aren't zero, and I'd never suggest that they are. But as far as the overall safety profile of most illicit drugs, as well as many legal prescription drugs, they tend to be amongst the safest. Yeah.

I mean, that's what I was just going to say is we have side effects with prescription drugs as well, you know, so it's kind of like pick which one you want or do both. No, no shame judgment here. No. Yeah. So I found, again, for me personally, because I can only speak from my own experience and I've only done mushrooms. I've found that sometimes like the day after I do kind of a lot more mushrooms, there's

almost this like hangover, like sadness effect. And then, you know, people talk about this all the time after MDMA, you have that like two day period where you're just really kind of in the, we joke like in the basement where you're just like, okay, the serotonin is gone. Does this happen as well with ketamine? And I mean, is that, is that going to be worse for some of the anxiety and depression? Or is there anything that you suggest that people do post that? That's a good question. I actually don't know the answer to that one. I suspect it's probably less with ketamine because ketamine actually acts on different receptors. It acts on glutamate receptors as opposed to the serotonin receptors. So I suspect it's probably

less, but I don't know. I haven't heard anything anecdotally from any of the people that we've treated, but I'm certainly going to look into that I mean I think part of it is the the neurology of it that yeah you are using up your serotonin supplies and therefore there's going to be a void associated with that but I also believe it's probably part of the processing part of like the letting go of whatever you're going through to or need to let go so there's the emotional component as well kind of brings me back to like my theory about alcohol and drinking which is like i always believe that you know you have a certain you know the way to measure it is that you have a certain amount of happiness in life and what alcohol does is just compress that into like one side of the

graph and so for every up there has to be the corresponding down and that's how you can philosophically explain a hangover and and maybe that's the same here, but I suspect it's very different than alcohol. But it kind of feels the same. Yeah. Okay. So for people listening that are very new to this, can you kind of walk through what a treatment would look like in your ketamine clinic? Sure. So anyone who's interested in seeking treatment at Fieldtrip, what happens is, of course, we'd set up an introductory conversation to help you understand the process. If you're interested in proceeding,

then what we do is we do a screen with a psychiatrist because we're really focused on doing good medicine. One of the things we learned coming out of helping build the medical cannabis industry prior to starting Fieldtrip was that the best way to help drive mainstream acceptance of this is focused on doing good medicine as opposed to just giving access to whoever wants it. You need the buy-in of the medical community to really make this scale. And so we're focused on being very prudent. So first step is to have a psychiatrist do a screening, making sure that ketamine-assisted therapy is an appropriate treatment option.

And generally, for most people, it can and will be. There are some contraindications for people who have uncontrolled high blood pressure because ketamine can increase blood pressure. It may not be appropriate for you. People who may have risk of compressed breathing airways, again, because it is a sedative that may not be appropriate. And people who have extreme mental health issues, kind of like schizophrenia, who have already probably fairly tenuous grip on objective reality, probably not appropriate for them,

but for most other people. Something really fast. What about for bipolar? I think that it'll be a case by case basis and the extent of the severity of it. And truthfully, it'll be a discretion of our clinical team to make that assessment. But, but beyond, you know, certain limited contraindications, most people are probably qualified for ketamine assisted therapy. So we do a psychiatric screen, we'll also do a medical screen to make sure that you're physically healthy enough for it, assuming everything looks good. Then you would meet your therapeutic team, the therapist will be leading your sessions as well as doing the integration work. You get scheduled for your first dose dosing. And then what we try to do is

ideally the treatment program, which would involve four to six ketamine exploratory sessions, would happen over a two to three week period. So it's really compressed and really taking advantage of the neuroplasticity that's happening after an experience. So you'd come in for your first dosing, you would receive the ketamine, ketamine experiences, call it an hour to an hour and a half. You would do the exploratory therapy afterwards with your therapist. Again, very light touch. It's not very intense. You don't go very deep. It's just an opportunity to kind of express what happened. You do that twice, say within a week. And then the following week, early the following week, you do an integration session where there's no ketamine involved, just taking

all the learnings, all of the insights, all of the awareness and putting them into action. And you'd complete that program, you know, over the course, three times, two or three times over the course of a few weeks. And that's what a treatment looks like. And then, you know, because we're starting to see patients on a longer term basis now, we're seeing people who may come in for what we call like an amplifier dose. So people feel like they've been doing really well, but feel like old habits or perspectives are starting to creep back in. And so they can come in for an amplification dose or a maintenance dose and sort of more conventional medical language.

And that's typically treatment. Now we're looking to really support people. So we're, you know, exploring opportunities to offer additional kind of lifestyle coaching or therapies, whether it's nutrition coaching and diet coaching or exercise or anything along these lines. We really want to be a source of support for patients and people on an ongoing basis. And really, to me, it's like, I really foresee a future where we start to think about mental health as like our primary consideration, not our physical health, that we're going to see this inversion in how we approach medicine. Because I don't know about your experience with your family doctor, but with my family doctor, who I have a lot of

respect for and I like, I think he's quite good. I spend 10 minutes with him, you know, maybe once a year, twice a year, and that's it. And yet he's supposed to be the triage point for all of my healthcare, which doesn't really reflect who I am or what I need or anything along those lines. It's a very narrow perspective on how to approach healthcare. Whereas with psychedelic medicine, you know, you're going to have a deep and truthfully very intimate relationship with your therapist or your therapy team, who's also going to be a qualified professional and maybe even a medical professional, like a nurse practitioner or a doctor, who then is probably much more equipped to say like, yeah, you know, you clearly come in with depression, but you've got a lot of trauma. So we should work on this.

And by the way, like, you know, there's a lot of interfaces, I'm sure, you know, between like gut health as well as your emotional health. So let's get you focused on eating better and some supplementation. And I think that's going to invert the system that people will look to their psychedelic medical medicine provider as their first point of contact, because they're going to know them a lot better and have a much more holistic perspective of a person's health. And that's what excites me. You know, that's what's, I think, going to be really exciting about the future of medicine is it's going to be much more holistic, much more integrative, and I believe will serve people a lot better than our current

approaches, which I don't mean to like speak negatively about it. You know, modern Western medicine is the reason most of us get to live to 70, 80, 90. But it doesn't mean it can't be better. And I really see an opportunity for it to get better through this lens. Of course. Oh, I mean, you're speaking my language right now. I talk about this all the time. It needs to be multifaceted. You know, we can't just look at this one angle. We have to look at, like you said, the mental health aspect, but then we also really need to look at the diet because there's a direct connection through the vagus nerve from our gut directly to our brain. So if we're not taking care of our, our diet, or if our gut is inflamed, that's going

to affect our brain. And I'm not saying, you know, it's the end all be all, but it needs to be a multifaceted approach. Yeah. And people don't, aren't very knowledgeable about this, but there are actually neurons. So the same cells in our brain are in our gut. In fact, the gut is the second largest source of neurons after our brain and then our heart actually yeah and our heart actually has neurons as well so one of my good friends works at a company called heart math which is really about helping to train your heart response which you know in many ways can drive your brain response and vice versa and these are all perspectives that you know were once outlandish and scoffed

at by mainstream medicine. And slowly but surely, they're gaining traction and there's the evidence to back it. And, you know, I think it's exciting. I think it's really, really positive to take this perspective. And, you know, food is one of the one of the things like one of the reasons I think psychedelics are having a thing right now, as well as cannabis, is because in part of the opioid crisis, right, we were taught to believe and trust the system of conventional Western medical approaches. And then you have the opioid crisis thing, you know, not just people, but doctors as well, being like, what the, you know, what just happened? How did we get so badly duped into believing this? And I think it's opened people's perspective to,

you know, alternative approaches and looking at things that they once considered off limits, like cannabis and like psychedelics. And, you know, I think it can swing too far the other way. And like the example, just going back to food, another example of where we were misled was like the food guide. I'm sure you have lots of perspectives on the food guide about like yeah it's like you want to be starting your diet primarily from grains and dairy and it's like you know why why would anyone think to question that you know it seems like natural and healthy but it's like and now they've kind of admitted being like oh yeah maybe fats aren't't bad. And maybe you should tone down on grain. It's like, that's the problem is that trust is, what's the expression? It's like,

slow to be given and easily lost. And so that's one of the challenges that, you know, I think health authorities have had to grapple with is that they've made a couple of big swinging mistakes recently. And of course, people are questioning their authority on some subjects. Well, exactly. And that's what's so exciting about this psychedelic therapeutics, because the goal is to find ways to help ourselves with the minimal amount of side effects, right? And it seems like this is kind of exactly what we're looking for is, you know, with the prescription drugs, again, I don't want to vilify them. They're helping humanity in so many ways. But like you said, we're waking up what we're looking for is, you know, with the prescription drugs, again, I don't want to vilify them. They're, they're helping humanity in so many ways, but like you said, we're waking up and we're, you're realizing, oh my God, we have, we have so many side effects

from these prescription drugs. There has to be another way. And, you know, and like you said earlier, it's not to say that these psychedelics don't have any sort of side effects or risks, but they seem to be minimal compared to the prescription drugs, which is what is really exciting for me and really helping. Yeah, that's exactly right. I think that's a fair perspective. And the nice thing is, and it's one of the things that like people challenge us about how do you build a business in psychedelics? Because like I said, with psilocybin, we've seen people who have gone five years with antidepressant effects. With the MDMA studies, I mean, they're simply mind-blowing. They found close to 70% of people with chronic severe PTSD no longer qualified as having PTSD after two or three sessions.

These are potentially curative, not just addressing the symptomology, but addressing the underlying causes of people's mental health challenges. And so people ask, like, if they're that effective, how do you build a business out of this? And, you know, our response, which sounds a little bit glib, but truthfully, it's not, is like, listen, if we cure depression and we no longer have any patients to serve because we cure depression, then that's an outcome we're okay with you know we're we're happy to let the business kind of like wither but the truth is is like it's not reflective of reality it's like even if we could cure all depression life is an ongoing experience people die relationships and things happen you know there's all these events that we need to process that we need to work through and psychedelic therapies are just extremely powerful tools to help you do that in a way that's very, as far as most things

go, natural and with little side effects and low risk of addiction. And so I think they're just really, really powerful. Yeah, that's really cool. I'm happy to hear you talk about MDMA in that light as well, because I wanted to just briefly touch on this. I'm happy to hear you talk about MDMA in that light as well, because I wanted to just briefly touch on this. I don't know how much you know about it, but I think MDMA has been really vilified as this party drug. And I mean, you know, it is for a lot of people, but there are a lot of studies that it therapeutically, it's really helping a lot of people. I listened to a podcast about it not that long ago. And I don't know if many people know this, but MDMA actually started out as a therapy drug. It was being used in therapeutic sessions between couples, I believe it was, to help them really like get past their, you know,

let their guards down, let go of their ego and talk more like empathetically to each other and really understand each other. So I just find, I don't know, just I'm a nerd and I like to dive into the studies and the science of it because to me, that's where I'm like, okay, yes, this gives me the validation, you know, that it, that it really works. Same with LSD. I mean, LSD has been so vilified, uh, but you know, it started, you know, as a, as a drug developed by Sandoz in the 1930s, um, and was studied extensively. It was one of the most extensively studied medicines in the fifties and sixties in a therapeutic context from institutions like Harvard and Yale and some of the white tower ivory institutions. The challenge was that it escaped the lab, uh, or the clinics and people started using it, uh, on, on a self-discovery

basis and, you know, for good or bad, that's to be debated. But the truth is, we're going to face that same challenge now. You know, it's gone mainstream. I mean, you know, I realized that there's a huge zeitgeist happening a few years ago when I was, we had just launched Fieldtrip. We had just incorporated Fieldtrip. And I was at a restaurant and I overheard the server talking to the bartender and she was like, yeah, I did a boatload of mushrooms last week and my mood has never been

better. I haven't felt this good. And the bartender was like, yeah, I tried LSD because I was suicidal and I haven't had a suicidal thought since. And I was like, wow, you know, this has really gone very mainstream and no one's been paying attention. You know, again, when we started the business just through that given lens, it's like most people are like, well, how big is the business? And they think about cannabis and they're like, okay, well, people don't do mushrooms nearly as much as cannabis. So let's just think about how big the cannabis market is and take a percentage of that, which is maybe 10% of cannabis and sales. And that's the size of the psychedelic industry. And that's wrong in so many ways. But one of the reasons it's very wrong is because much like Donald Trump, it's like if you looked at all the polling, at least when, you know, not this last election, but the one before that, Donald Trump wasn't expected to win, but there is this silent majority of people who wouldn't admit to it. And now we're seeing that silent majority of people, at least, you know, in metropolitan centers,

coming out of the woodwork and starting to ultimately talk about their work with psychedelics and how it's improved their lives. And so, you know, there's a huge cultural shift happening. And I think it's very exciting because I think it leads not uniformly, but generally speaking to really good things to people. You know, we talk about the mental health applications. Oh, it's good for depression and anxiety and PTSD. What we don't really talk about yet is all of the pro-social side effects of psychedelics, right? Like they make people feel more empathetic. They give people a greater connection to the planet or other people. They may help people be more creative. They make people more open-minded and tolerant of other people's

viewpoints. These are all wonderful things that I'm not going to say are in short supply, but I think are never in enough supply. And that's what gets me really excited about our future. It's like we've got a lot of challenges as a species and as a planet, but starting to tap into some of the best qualities of humanity, like empathy, like caring, like open-mindedness and creativity. It's like those are the things that are going to lead to the solutions for the challenges we have as a society. I'm quite confident about that. Yeah. I mean, a girlfriend and I joke about this every once in a while. We're like, we really should just be microdosing the population with like mushrooms or something in the water.

I mean, totally joking, but maybe it would help. You're not the first. So apparently like, I think it may have been Aldous Huxley, but I can't remember. But some of the, you know, forefathers or forebears of the psychedelic movement in the 50s and 60s were like, we need to dose the water at the White House and the Kremlin with LSD because that will avert World War III. You know, it's definitely been an idea that has been percolating for a long time. You know, I'm sure everyone appreciates what's not okay about that. But yeah, it's a nice thought experiment. How about that? Yes, exactly. Well, okay. So as a child who grew up in the D.A.R.E. program, and hopefully people

listening know what D.A.R.E. is, I actually don't even remember what the acronym stand for. But essentially, it was like a program when I was in school that was to really, I mean, to make us scared of drugs. I still carry some of that along with me. And I wanted to ask you about this. And I don't know if you know the answer to this, but more specifically in the terms of like LSD, because I don't really feel this way about mushrooms, but you know, we've heard those horror stories of people taking too much LSD and then losing their mind and then never coming back, essentially never coming back to planet earth. What would you say about that? I mean, is that a risk or is that more of a wives tale?

I think that's more of a wives tale. You know, I've had the privilege of speaking with Rick Doblin, who's the founder of MAPS. And probably if there's anyone who can take the mantle for being the source of the psychedelic renaissance, it's probably Rick, because he's been at this for 40 years. And he tells the story about how when he was a kid he was told that if he did lsd six times you'd be legally insane afterwards yes and he's like i may be insane but he's like i've done lsd way more than six times and i'm doing okay um and so yes again i think it goes back to the conversation about bad trips and hard trips which is like people can have hard really bad trips but not supported properly and that can create issues especially people who already have, you know, a tenuous grip with reality, people who are schizophrenic, who, you know, just don't always see the world that most other people see. And so it can exacerbate that. There's no doubt about that. But I mean,

it's not unique to LSD. There are a lot of drugs that can exacerbate that. There's no doubt about that. But I mean, it's not unique to LSD. There are a lot of drugs that can exacerbate that. But the risks tend to be quite low, and that's why I'm a big advocate for a regulated approach. You see states decriminalizing it, which I think a lot of people take as tacit legalization or approval. And then other states like Oregon actually are creating regulated frameworks to make sure that if people are doing psychedelics or doing it under, you know, with proper supervision, I don't mean to infantilize people or suggest we need to be paternalistic, but making sure that the circumstances are set up for positive outcomes as opposed to negative outcomes, I think is prudent, at least at this point in time.

So we can minimize those risks. We can demand that if you are one of those people, a therapist or a guide or a trip sitter or however you want to define it, that you at least take the moment to consider whether this is a high risk person whose risk of a really negative outcome is high. And I think that that's a good place to start. You know, I don't know if that's the place we should end. You know, there's a lot of people who don't disagree with that view that these are things that all people should have access to and we should be okay with that. And there's a part of me that totally resonates with it, which is like, let's respect people, you know, to do whatever they want to their own bodies if it's not harming other people. But I think we need to get there. I don't think we need to, I don't think we need to start there. And so I think the risks for people who are thinking

about this and have those terrible memories of grade school and the dare winners don't do drugs kind of programs can feel reasonably confident that the likelihood of a negative outcome, especially if you're working with someone who's qualified and knows what they're doing is pretty low. Cool. Well, before we wrap up here, you spoke a lot about the people that probably shouldn't do this, but I'm curious what, um, what kind of mental disorders do you see psychedelics really helping the most? So anxiety, whatever it is, et cetera. Yeah, the evidence seems to be that around depression, around anxiety, around PTSD, so classically defined DSM, mental health conditions know, again, if you look at psychedelics as being

used as a catalyst for therapy, and to the extent, and I believe this is the case, that everyone can benefit from therapy, just like everyone can benefit from exercise. You know, I think psychedelics can really be for anybody, you know, whether you have depression or anxiety, everybody on the planet has some trauma that they probably need to work through. And certainly, I think everyone can benefit from seeing the world in a new light. You know, it's kind of like just meditation on a new level of intensity. And so if meditation is potentially good for everybody, and again, I think it is, then in many ways, I think psychedelic therapies can be good for everybody, you know, with certain limited exceptions. But that's my opinion. The evidence seems to be around depression, anxiety, PTSD. Now we're seeing expand to psychedelics being used for migraines and

cluster headaches. And they're actually potent anti-inflammatory molecules as well. So there's potentially a lot of interest from that perspective. But again, it's a little bit more preliminary than the mental health conditions that we're talking about. Yeah, that's really cool. I love that mindset because I'm really of the mindset that therapy should be for everyone. Like I feel like, you know, similarly that we are expected to go to the doctor once a year. I know a lot of people don't do that, even that, but I'm of the mind that people should all just go to therapy once a week, you know, because we're all, we have different things that we're struggling with and these are just better ways to help us cope with life. Life is hard, you know, and we need support. So I love that. I feel

like this would work for pretty much almost anyone because we just want to see people better their lives. I work with a gentleman, his name is Erwin Perlman. He's based in LA actually. And, you know, when I say work with, I mean for, you know, meditation, coaching therapy. And he said, like, the only constant in this universe is growth. Either you choose to grow or the universe makes you grow. But through that lens, you know, to the extent that psychedelics can help make that growth, whether it's from, you know, below baseline, because you are depressed or anxious or whatever the case may be up to baseline, or if it's beyond baseline and above, it's like, it's all worthwhile and it's all beneficial and it's all meaningful.

And so to the extent that they help us go somewhere because we're all going somewhere, I think it's really positive and very exciting. And it helps me be even more optimistic about the future. Yeah, absolutely. Me too. Well, for everyone listening, well, actually, I have two questions. One, if they don't have access, if they're not, because you're, where, are you guys in LA and Toronto, your field trip clinics? Yeah, so we have locations in Toronto, New York, LA, Chicago, and Atlanta. We're opening up in Houston.

I think we've disclosed a couple of other locations right now, which are going to be in San Diego, Seattle, and Washington, D.C. And we're continuing to expand. We hope to have 75 locations across North America over the next couple of years. So that's where you can find us for if you're interested in becoming a participant in our in-clinic treatment programs. We've actually also launched an app called Trip, where we took all of the protocols from our clinics and put them into an app. So anyone who's doing this on a self-discovery basis, whether they're using meditation or breathwork or legal psychedelics, and we never condone illicit use, but even if you're using things illicitly, it gives you the tools. It helps you set a framework. It helps you prepare.

It provides you with music and meditations as you're going through the psychedelic experience, and it helps you with the integration afterwards. So if you're doing it on your own, it's a really useful tool to make sure you're doing it on a thoughtful basis. That's really amazing. Okay, well, you answered my question because I was going to say anyone listening that is not near one of your clinics, what would you suggest they do? And you just answered it. So that's great.

Yeah. And to be clear, I would never suggest TripApp is an adequate replacement for someone who's very experienced and qualified to take you through an experience. So, you know, keep that in mind. But if you're hell bent on doing it, regardless of the circumstances, and you can't find someone to be a guide or support, then I think Trip is a very good tool to support your experience. I love that so much. Well, for everyone listening, where can they find you? So if you want to find Fieldtrip, our websites, I guess there are three. We have fieldtriphealth.com,

which is for our clinics, the ones I just mentioned. If you're interested from an investment perspective, we are a publicly traded company. So you can go to meetfieldtrip.com, which is our investor relations site. And then if you want to download the app, go to tripapp.co. So T-R-I-P-A-P-P.co. And then on socials, we're at field at field trip health. And I'm at Ronan D as in David Levy on Twitter and Instagram and all that kind of stuff. Amazing. Well, thank you so much for coming on. This was a really insightful conversation. My pleasure. Thank you for having me. It's been great. Thanks for listening to today's episode of the Real Foodology Podcast. If you liked this episode, please leave a review in your podcast app to let me know. This is a resident media production produced by Drake Peterson and edited by Chris McCone. The theme song is called Heaven

by the amazing singer Georgie, spelled with a J. Love you guys so much. See you next week. Thank you. I know that smile is funny Cause I always see him, see him Checking me out All he thinks about is to kiss him And make me tell him, tell him That I am his guy So if he doesn't like me At least I know I am for him All the time, I won't be wasted anymore

He won't be quite so funny But I'm still here Bye. សូវាប់បានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានូវនន្រូវនន្រូវនន្រូវន្រូវន្រូវន្រូវន្រូវន្រូវន្រូវន្រូវន្រូវន្រូវន្រូវន្រូវន្រូវន្រូវន្រូវន្រូវន្រូវន្រូវន្រូវន្រូវន្រូវន្រូវន្រូវន្រូវន្រូវន្រូវន្រូវន្រូវន្រូវន្រូវន្រូវន្រូវន្រូវន្រូវន្រូវន្រូវន្រ� I'll see you next time.