The Adam and Dr. Drew Show - #1757 Trial & Error: Some History on Doctors, Medicine & Drugs

Episode Date: August 21, 2023

Today, we have a lively conversation with Dr. Drew and his friend Mark Geragos. They discuss a wide variety of fascinating topics such as the history of the medical industry and its relationships with infamous drugs like cocaine and opiods. We discover which drug Freud first thought was a perfect antidepressant. And we also learn about various health markers for alcoholism, and what food group Dr. Drew cut out for better health. Please Support Our Sponsor: Angi.com

Join Adam Carolla and his pal Jay Leno this October, along with fellow comics Alonzo Bowden, Harland Williams, Carol Leaver, and Caroline Ray, together with some of the best writers from TV shows like Seinfeld, Friends, The Tim Allen Show, King of Queens, Two Broke Girls, and more, for a one-of-a-kind experience for aspiring comedians, comedy writers, and everyone interested in comedy. comedians, comedy writers, and everyone interested in comedy. Hey, it's Adam Carolla here, and I'm excited to announce our first ever Comedy Fantasy Camp, Thursday through Sunday, October 12th through the 15th in Hollywood, California. We're going to cover stand-up, improv, writing, podcasting, and more, plus a live performance of the famous Hollywood Imp improv on the final day of camp.

So get your chops ready. Spend four days with me and some of the most successful people in the comedy business and get on the fast track into the world of comedy. Go to AdamCarolla.com, ComedyFantasyCamp.com, or call 888-762-2263 to sign up. That's this October 12 to 15, the first ever comedy fantasy camp in Los Angeles with Adam Carolla, Jay Leno, and a host of comedy stars and TV writers. Oh,

that's just me. Perez Hilton. Drinking all the tea that goes on in this world. And with the way social media is, I just can't get enough. I'm obsessed. It's like every day something new and scandalous comes out and I want it all. I'm the OG of entertainment gossip. And if you are like me and have an unrelenting thirst for all the drama that's flying around,

you should listen to my podcast, The Perez Hilton Podcast, available wherever you get your podcasts. Recorded live at Corolla One Studios with Mark Garagos and board-certified physician and addiction medicine specialist, Dr. Drew Pinsky. You're listening to The Adam and Dr. Drew Show. Get it on. Got to get it on. No choice but to get it on.

Mandate. Get it on. I love the new beginning for Mr. Garagos. Fantastic. By the way. Back by demand, I tell you. The fans demand it. And I had you on Beyond a Reasonable Doubt.

Yes. And it jumped up the charts and was wild. So I'm actually... You're here to make a proposition. I am here to make a proposition. I feel like there's something coming. There's some paperwork coming my way. I think that there's something very soon that you and I are going to do together in the podcast world.

What do you think? I've been talking about it for a long time. What do you think, Emmy? People are asking for it. People are clamoring for more. I literally went, can Mark just come in and do it with Mark? And they're like, oh, hell yeah. First choice, only choice.

Nobody says that around Adam, however. But the thing about Drew, and I've said this so many times that everybody's heard until they're sick in the face, I don't get to sit and talk with you all that often, which is insane. Because when we do talk, it's like we haven't missed a beat in 50 years. And I learned something, too. It's the other thing. My field of view has expanded. And that's what I literally sat down this morning and started writing notes. I never do that. but I was so excited

to talk to you. So I thought of you last week. It's a bizarre thought. Tony Bennett died. By the way, thank you for the Celsius. You got a cool drink here. I didn't know you were into this. Yeah, I go back and forth. It is good. It gives me a little... So Tony Bennett dies. I remember

and then what occurred to me as I was reading an obituary, a nice article that was done on him, basically his comeback. He was a rampant cocaine user in the 80s. I didn't know that. I thought that was Tom Jones. Yeah. I confused those two.

But you remember from Perkins Palace days. Oh, yeah. Which is what? 40 some odd years ago. The amount of cocaine in the music industry in the 70s and 80s. Yeah. Now, we're going to walk down memory lane here. In the early 80s, and by early, I mean the first half of the 80s, cocaine was a rich

people drug and harmless. Remember that? Yep. There was no reason that you shouldn't do this drug. It's completely harmless, and it's just, you know, what's the big deal? It's no big deal. Everybody did cocaine, especially in the radio business. There were lots of them around there.

Oh, my God. And that came in. Yeah. At K-Rock? Right. I mean, I was there at K-Rock, 79, 80, 81, 82. Yeah. Wild.

Right. So I get there in 83, 84, and people started to have problems with stuff then. But the cocaine was – it was literally being sold. I mean, I think Time – maybe you can find this, Time Magazine. It's like the new recreational pastime, cocaine. And no one seemed to look back at what had trans – we never look at history, for Christ's sake. I mean, Freud himself –

Well, I see you took the thought right out of my head. I was going to go back because you always invoked Freud. Well, Freud thought he had discovered the first antidepressant because people would take it and their mood would improve. True. It does do that. And he was an enthusiast. He used it. He prescribed it.

He was going down this road. And then one of his colleagues developed severe cocaine addiction and cocaine psychosis. And there are pictures of this guy with the crazy hair and the wild eyes, full-on manic psychosis. That's when he pulled back and said, maybe it's not quite what we thought it was. But then it came back. You know, the same thing with the opiates. We had an opioid epidemic at the turn of the 20th century. At the turn of the 20th century.

Yeah. And that's when they called – remember opium dens and the whole idea that you're going to just sit there and get into this kind of zone state. Well, but people miss the piece of that history, too. And it reminds me of the black history stuff that's going on right now. I want to make that point, too. But the history then was essentially the end of the Civil War. The hypodermic needle had been invented and morphine sulfate had been isolated.

Then diacetylmorphine, heroin, came along. And doctors were prescribing it, much the way we did this time. We fueled the whole thing. It's always the doctors. And then you could do the conspiracy theories that it's at the behest of whoever the pharmaceutical company is. But there really wasn't anything like that at that point. Exactly. There wasn't then. Yeah.

It undercuts the narrative of today. Right. The drug companies always just put fuel behind whatever we're doing, right? And I'm going to put a little COVID caveat on this too. But back then, that's what generated the Harrison Narcotic Act, was originally to clamp down on doctors, not on opiate users. There was something called the web versus somebody that expanded it to include the users. But they put, I've heard estimates, as many as 20,000 physicians in jail for the misappropriation

of opiates. And that created this complete phobia of opiates for about 50 years. They were, oh, you know, I don't touch that stuff. I can't prescribe that, blah, blah, blah. Here's three pills after your surgery, which we're doing again now, right? Same exact freaking thing. It's identical.

I know. Which is so disgusting to me as someone who understands both sides of this thing. both sides of this thing. But at the core, particularly this last go-around, there were evangelical physicians. There was a group of pain management specialists that evangelized. Pain was never going to be experienced in the United States. At the end of that, 90% of the Vicodin prescribed in the world prescribed the United States. Not because we had more pain, because we had these evangelists. And pain became the fifth vital sign. Do you remember that? It's as important as your fucking pulse.

Exactly. Your blood pressure, your oxygen, and your pain. Your pain level. And if you didn't measure the pain, a little happy face scale, remember that thing? The Department of Mental Health, the Joint Commission of Hospital Accreditation, the California Medical Association, all of them will crash down on you. And why is it? You know, I always thought they could have been on to something where if they – because obviously the kind of medical establishment. there is something to be said about a lack of pain. Yes.

Or getting up or enduring pain. No, there's a – right? Right. And they went berserk on one direction. Exactly. And now they're going berserk on the other direction. That's what I don't understand because when people talk about my health is good, what are they really saying? They're saying I'm not in pain.

When people say my health is bad. They have vitality too. I feel good. I have vitality. I sleep right. I eat right. I have energy. I'm not in pain.

Yeah, pain is a common thing. Opioids, not a good solution for chronic non-cancer pain. There's never been a single study that showed they work. In fact, they make things worse. It actually intensifies the perception of pain. It creates chronic withdrawal so you get headache and back pain. There's never been a single study that showed they work. In fact, they make things worse. It actually intensifies the perception of pain. It creates chronic

withdrawal, so you get headache and back pain. Except for that first 48 hours. First couple weeks. Yeah, first couple weeks you're fine. And that's when it should be used, by the way. And then it has that same cocaine psychosis that sets in later on. But by the way, you're not going to overdose on an

oral opiate, essentially ever, until,, you're not going to overdose on an oral opiate essentially ever until when you're not sleeping, the doctor adds in a benzodiazepine. Now it's easy, easy to overdose. So then I'm going to come full circle to where I started. So I was thinking about Tony Bennett. I was thinking about the fentanyl alley. There is a phenomena. I mean, he was a self-described rampant cocaine user, yet gets off of it, resurrects his career, lives into his 90s.

And I was thinking about another guy who will remain nameless, who was kind of a mentor of mine, one of the greatest criminal defense lawyers. In fact, a lot of people always said that Matlock was based off of him. And he was in L.A. And he was a heavy drinker for maybe 40 years. And then went – Is his first name Lee? I'm just guessing.

Then went sober and lived into his 90s. Sure. And I would always invoke, you know, when I was drinking. Yeah, of course. I deal with people like this all the time, right? But you can cross over to where you hurt yourself so badly you don't fully recover. So where is that line? Different for different people.

Different drugs. Really? Yeah. Alcohol, you can get something called a Korsakoff syndrome where you just – you get a dementia. You can get a Wernicke syndrome, which is a different thing, but the Korsakoff syndrome – there's wet brain, there's brain damage, and there's Korsakoff syndrome. All look like dementia. Wet brain gets better. The other two do not.

And how do guys do it for 40 years and then go sober and then be fully functional into their 90s. You're asking the question, how does their brain not get destroyed? Correct. The answer is, and how does their liver not get destroyed, too? And how do they not get cancer? Because liver, I understand to some degree because it regenerates. I get that. Provided you don't cause cirrhosis.

Cirrhosis. But not everybody gets cirrhosis. Yes. I get that. Provided you don't cause cirrhosis. Cirrhosis. Because not everybody gets cirrhosis. Right. And if you – I laugh sometimes that the – if you're killing the brain cells because there are guys – just think of another guy that I know who's 93, still as sharp as can be, lawyer. And I knew him for years. I'm thinking of another judge I appeared in front of last week who I've gone out drinking with.

This guy can out drink me every day of the week. And he's still on the bench at 93 and he's sharp as shit. Quick sidebar. Do you know the one marker that distinguishes sons of alcoholics that are going to develop alcoholism as compared to all their peers? They've tried to figure out how can we predict who's going to get this thing. There's a biological marker? There's one behavioral marker. Behavioral.

People go, oh, it's sensitivity, it's sleep trouble, it's anxiety, it goes to perfectionism. Resistance to alcohol intoxication. Wow. And it turns out the genetics around that go all the way down to the fruit fly. So we're able to study quite a bit about those genes. Wow. So I did one of those comprehensive blood test executive health things. A buddy of mine had called up and said, you got to try this.

You got to try this. The kinds of stuff. Call me next time you get there. Because I was going to. Because after I spent the money, I said, maybe I should have talked to Drew. Oh, my God. I have so many things that would be good. Homeowners, you know how much work it takes to maintain that home,

whether it's everyday maintenance or repairs or just taking on a dream project. In addition to your home, it can be hard to even know where to start. All you need is Angie, your home for everything home. Find a skilled local pro who will deliver quality and expertise. Over 20 years of home service experience. Bring them your project online or with the Angie app. Answer a few questions and Angie can handle the rest. Nothing could be better.

It's so confusing, particularly for people like me that are, let's just say I'm a little challenged. Take care of just about any home project in just a few taps. Download the free Angie mobile app today or visit Angie.com. Again, that is Angie, A-N-G-I.com. So tell me, do you buy any of it because... Of what? Well, you know what I'm talking about. There's a lot of those things out there. I don't know what they gave you.

I won't mention the name. Who knows if they're a sponsor. Here's what I buy. There's the routine stuff we always do. There are some very fancy lipid profiles you can get. They're excellent, and we don't do that enough. Yeah, because the reading I've done, you know, I started to talk to you about this a couple of weeks ago.

What is it? The AP? LP little A. Yeah. Are you reading Peter Atiyah's book? Yeah. It's a great book. That is one of the best books. I can't even advise people strongly enough. You must read it. Nick, if you're ever in Austin, let me know. I'll start to hook you guys up because he's a friend of mine.

And he, in that book, in the first like 50 pages, gives the best sort of lowdown of lipids and how they work. It's just all there. He goes right through it. It's like, boy, anybody can understand this. Well, he also talks about the five markers, if you will, of metabolic syndrome. Yeah. And it's interesting because one is blood pressure. If your blood pressure is over, I think he says 130 over 85.

Check that off. The next one is your pressure. If your blood pressure is over, I think he says 130 over 85. Check that off. The next one is your waist. Central obesity. Central obesity, which is if you're over 40. 40 inches for a male. Then he had, oh, this one, HDL

too low. HDL below 50 in a man or 40 in a woman. And some will throw triglycerides into that too. He throws triglycerides in and your resting glucose. Those are the five markers.

And there are fancier ways to do all that now. 85% of Americans have at least two or three of those markers. We have a problem with insulin in this country and we don't think about that enough. We think about blood pressure or gluten but insulin. I've never been it was so eye opening because

it was so simple. So listen to my deal. So I have large vessel vascular disease in my family. Bad. My dad had... And I was like, I don't want that. I remember with you. Yeah, I don't want that. So I got a statin when I was like 35 and my LDL I could never get it down with Donnie.

I could never get it down. Half of a Vitorin, a third of a Vitorin, boom, my LDL just crushed it. So I'm like, all right, I'm staying on that. But my HDL never came up. My triglycerides never got below 225 no matter what I did. No kidding. Until I cut out carbohydrates. And then that did the –

Eat three months. It's crazy what that does with your triglycerides. Yes. So I am out carbohydrates. And then that did the triglycerides. In three months. It's crazy what that does with your triglycerides. Yes. So I am off carbs. Also, if you stop drinking. Alcohol. For any period of time. And test before and after.

Triglycerides is a good marker of excess alcohol consumption, but not a reliable marker. It's like if you're one of those people that does that, yes, it will drop it. Yes, it will drop it. Well, so interestingly, I do Lent every year where I give up alcohol. Is this when you did the testing? Yes. I do testing before and after, right? It's amazing how the blood work changes. Oh, yeah, yeah. Well, shocking. But back to your question about the neurological stuff. But back to your question about the neurological stuff. We don't know why some people get more problems than others, except there does seem to be, in my experience, some sort of threshold phenomenon.

Like you're okay, you're okay, you're okay, and you fall off a cliff with alcohol, dementia. And once you fall off that cliff, coming back seems to be next to impossible. Really? Yeah. It? Yeah. It's weird. And at least for sure in Korsakoff syndrome, which is this very specific thing where they're disorganized and they confabulate. You could go, hey, wasn't it great playing for the Rams this morning? And they're like, yeah, I was quarterback. They'll just confabulate.

It's crazy. But I would also go back to the evangelist thing. So we had the evangelist for the opioids. We had evangelists around COVID. We had Deborah Birx running amok all over the country evangelizing about lockdowns. I can't wait. Wait. Emmy, I don't want to misstate this.

Deborah Birx just got a new job. Pfizer? CEO. Of? A pharma company. Yeah, shocking. Shocking. You know, when I first learned this, I think I talked to you during this trial.

I did a trial 16 years ago against Pfizer. And they were accused of stealing trade secrets from my client, who was just a wonderful guy. And he had a nonprofit, Schemia Centers. And I've told you this story. And they didn't want to pay to run through. He had assembled all the data under the SPDR data and coalesced it. You could query him and you could get some pretty good answers without having to do clinical trials and things like that. That's the new world, by the way.

Oh, tell me about it. He was 17, 20 years ahead of his time. I told him if he – I've often – he's one of the most brilliant guys I've ever met. But my takeaway from that case was you cannot believe – I had the chief medical officer on the stand. And some of these answers were just shocking to me. And some of these answers were just shocking to me. And then they would put on their own witnesses, which is a guy who had regulated at the FDA and then immediately goes to Pfizer and is on Pfizer's board. And then they're paying him gobs of money and giving him an equity stake. What could be wrong with that?

How is that even possible? You know who I learned that from? I didn't realize how cozy it was. RFK Jr. Really? He really drilled it home for me. You can call him a conspiracy theorist. I watched it firsthand.

I started – I mean, it was 2008. You know what's interesting about him? His contention is that that exists all through government, in the military, in the weapons production. You're not wrong because I did also about 15 years ago, a defense contractor fraud case. And it became apparent that the defense contractors, they would just hire a guy out of the Pentagon or whichever one they wanted, and then they'd run the grants through there. And then you talk about this. And the reason RFK is so singularly interesting to me is because he actually tried cases.

Yes, yes. Right? He's actually been in a courtroom and tried cases. And he's been around Washington for his entire life. His entire life. But I remember one case in particular where he came in and did the closing argument on a case. And I think it was a drug, a pharma case. But these things, he's not talking

about you know tinfoil hat shit oh no no this is stuff that is sworn testimony that is happening in courtrooms where they're fighting tooth and nail so you know it's not like somebody's rolling over it's not somebody who's writing me a a single space 45 page letter about electrodes implanted in their brain this guy's talking about things that are demonstrable. And then why does he get diminished as the crazy man? I don't have words. Why is that? You know why?

Because he goes a little too far. Because he goes into autism and he goes – and his only contention is we need more thorough, better testing. That Reagan gave the vaccine production, the vaccine development a pass on their usual testing that we do for every other pharmaceutical. They just have a pass on that. He's saying that shouldn't be. We should do more testing. There are some questions to be answered. But he calls on things that makes him sound like a conspiracy theorist.

Right. Like autism and all kinds of stuff. Well, but by the way, remember three years ago when Adam and you and me were ranting about the COVID origin stories? Yeah. And we were getting banned. Killed. And we were getting killed. Yeah.

And people would yell at me. Yes. And people would yell at me. I'd say, all I want to say is I can't buy the coincidence factor that it's a wet market. It's down the street. It's down the street from this lab. And you know what's interesting? I interviewed some – I listened to some of the scientists and I read the material on the wet market theory. It was a good analysis. It wasn't wrong.

It wasn't too crazy. Yeah. It was a good analysis. It wasn't wrong. It wasn't too crazy. Yeah, it was a good analysis. It happened to be wrong. They couldn't accept being wrong. They were wrong. So this is what bugs me about it. It's such a good point of yours. The whole idea of science, at least as a non-scientist, is you come up with theories and you argue about the theories.

You test them back and forth. And you test them back and forth. And by the way, some of the greatest scientific discoveries known to man were guys who were thought of as crackpots originally. Of course. I mean you could name every single one. Including Einstein. Exactly. They always were diminished.

And this one I guess was scarier because of the censorship of it and the misleading, the government misleading. But the government has always tried to mislead. Well, so you tell us. I didn't know that before all this. Well, I have to tell you. In a courtroom, defending people who are being prosecuted for four decades. Yeah, I get it. But here's my, you know, we have now, I guess this is going to be a week after LeBron James' son has a cardiac arrest on the court. And everyone goes, could it be?

Could it be? Well, it could be COVID too, right? It could be COVID. It could be both the vaccine and COVID. But you're not allowed to ask any questions because it might refer back to the vaccine. My question is, what's been driving me insane is, why the over-the-top push for the vaccine in young people, there's no clear benefit. Do you know what the death rate from COVID is right now for 18 to 29-year-old? I think I read this this morning. Is it less than the purported peer-reviewed non-U.S. studies that show that the death rate from the vaccine may be higher?

Well, that's my concern. That is what I'm trying to do, risk-reward analysis for patients. And my elderly patients, all vaxxed, all boosted. It's been worth it. It's been a very good move. Without question, right? Without question. Without question, if you had –

Especially against Alpha and Delta. Right. Even with Omicron, though, I'm saying good thing for older people. Yes, I agree. And so – And if you had a preexisting problem or condition? And I've seen no side effects in old people, and I've given it up hundreds of times. Nothing.

Old – young people, I am seeing all kinds of shit. And all cardiac and stroke and pull my ambulance, all kinds of shit. And then you've hit the nub of another question I wanted to ask you. We're not asking if it's the vaccine or if it's COVID. Right. So you don't get to ask that question. You can't ask that question

because I want to ask that question. Or is it both? Or is it a combination of both? Yeah. I know. Well, there's some data coming in showing that COVID does some nasty stuff, but none of it really points at these things that people are getting down the way down the road from COVID. But the death rate from COVID in an 18 to 29-year-old is 0.000015%. 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 1, 5%. Do you know what the incidence of opioid death is in that population? I'm sorry. That's of all deaths.

That's not the risk of death. That's the risk of COVID deaths amongst all deaths. And opioid deaths are 20%. And yet we're not even thinking about it. The municipalities have moved on to try to get settlements from the opioid companies in order to fund whatever they're going to do. Well, so this is interesting. I'm going to have to hold this until next show. But I spoke to the National Association of County Supervisors over the weekend in Austin.

And I was admonishing them that – I was like, what are you doing? You have psychiatric illnesses, as we've discussed, in the streets, and you have no doctors involved in the treatment of these brain disorders. You expect social workers to be able to handle this. They are not trained. It is literally the same thing as, Mark, you have a severe orthopedic problem. Let me just send you to a physical therapist. Don't see that orthopedist.

I'm going to go to the chiropractor. But let's say you need... You just tore your arm off and they're going to reattach it. Sorry, we're going to see a physical therapist. No surgeon. They are not trained to do the surgery. I would say that a physical therapist is more closely related to the person that you would want to use. No, no, you're missing.

You're missing my point. I got to come up with something else then. Because the point is. Because the social worker has a vital role, but it's not for the people who are. It's not being the doctor. Yeah. They're not physicians. They can't evaluate medical problems.

They can't treat medical problems. That's us. That's why I keep – I've mentioned this to you before. I always thought, although I'm not so sure it's still in effect, I thought New York City's idea of kind of a team with a doctor, a social worker, a policeman. It's happening. How is we not implementing? Why are we not implementing that? Because all the money is going to the complex of social work and real – it's just – it's

too convenient for them to use as some sort of model of income inequality. I feel like they don't want to solve it because these are open-air hospitals without doctors and nurses. It's crazy. But by the way – It wouldn't be bad for the public, I suppose, as you've said, people are dropping dead in open-air hospitals. Seven a day. But these are also people committing acts of violence against others. Oh, yeah.

And it's like where is the – the whole thing is you're supposed to protect. No, that's math. And how about you think the guy with the machete, a psychotic on meth, is happier because he's doing that? Right. That he's living his best life? Exactly. Are you fucking kidding me?

But here's the thing. I've been complaining about this for years, as you know. I know. 2,500 people in the room, they leaned in. They're like, what? It was shocking to me they're like these are what because it's not part of the orthodox they had no idea and they were interested so there seems to be some but you you've posed uniquely a threat to that kind of the money

the money where it's going well i remember I remember when Catherine, speaking of county supervisors. She was one that took me to Austin. Yeah. Yep. And she proposed you on one of these commissions. Yep. And leave it to the LA Times and the usual suspects to come out and start saying, oh, he was wrong about this or he said something about this. Worse than that.

Yeah. Worse than that. Worse than that. Worse than that. She went to an advocate with no clinical training, took his opinion, did not articulate my opinion at all, did not interview me to get my opinion, and said the state of California says he's licensed in this state. That was my training. I called her back. Jacqueline, what the fuck?

I said, what is wrong with you? Why don't you ask me what my training is? I'm an assistant clinical professor in two different departments. I'm a fellow in two different disciplines. What are you talking about? I had leadership positions in psychiatric hospitals. You talk to a former homeless person, and that's the opinion that's going to prevail? That's insane. Right.

Sure. Whoa, whoa, whoa. No. Okay. Here we are. Here we are. Made me crazy, my friend. Well, I don't blame you.

What I don't blame you. What I don't understand is what is it going to take? You know, it's funny because Newsom is now. He's been saying some okay things. I was just going to say. All of a sudden he realizes, you know, the more times, and I think it may have more to do with his presidential ambitions. Yeah, I suspect. But the more times they replay that clip of him 10 years ago talking about his tenure plan, it's failed miserably, and he knows it.

How about on Adam's show where he went, well, the face of homelessness is the mother with three kids who lost her job. Find that person. Find her out on the street. I dare you. Find one person. There's 80,000 people out there. You find that one that you say is the face.

And then I also saw – Gosh,000 people out there. You find that one that you say is the face. And then I also saw – Gosh, this is so crazy. There was an article about – I want to say – I don't remember the name of the organization, but now civilians replacing police for a lot of these. It's part of the same ideology again. It's the same thing as doctors being replaced by social workers. But the really interesting thing to me is that these board of supervisors around the country who are now sort of like, huh? I think they were handed wishful thinking from the previous generation.

Like this was the orthodoxy handed over to them. They didn't know what they were getting into this way. And it's fascinating that when you explain it and they have to listen in a closed setting, because I think, and once again, I'll be the cynic, I ascribe their revelatory kind of epiphany to the fact that they understand that politically people aren't putting up with this anymore. I mean there are homeowners, there are business owners, there are people who have to deal with this every day who are complaining and saying, what in the hell does it matter with you? How are you a public servant?

The first thing you can't guarantee for me is safety. And I don't think you know this, but fundamentally this started from the Community Mental Health Act in 1963. It was the last act that John F. Kennedy signed before going to Dallas. And it was to dismantle the state healthcare system, something that had taken 200 years to develop. All those patients, which there were thousands, tens of thousands, were sent to the streets, the prisons, and the nursing homes. And there they have remained. And people blame Reagan. Correct.

Reagan, they built these community mental health centers, which were designed to prevent mental illness. There's no such thing. They were abject failures. They were set up by three consecutive heads of the National Institute of Mental Health who were all psychoanalysts who had never been in a long-term psychiatric facility before and believed that psychiatric illness was caused by hospitals.

And so they had this orthodoxy ideology again. And then your profession got involved and started taking the position that there's no justification for involuntary holds. Right. And then no good deed goes unpunished. Ten years, 13 years later, you get Lanterman-Petras Act here in California. That's one of several decisions that make it impossible for us to treat patients. He went to his grave saying that no good deed goes unpunished, unintended consequences.

He said it was a huge mistake. Yeah. He believed it was a mistake. So, wow. This is the fastest 30 minutes of podcasting. But I wanted to make one last comment. You're not going to tease it for the next episode? All right, all right.

I'll tease it for the next episode. Tease it for the next episode. I wanted to say something which I said on the Adam and Drew show, but I want to propose it to you about the – Well, propose it and then I'll wait at the cliffhanger. Well, the black history controversy in Florida. There's all this consternation about this black historian, elderly gentleman I saw interviewed just today, who in some paragraph said that slaves were able to learn crafts that they could then use to help their family and benefit themselves, like blacksmithing.

Okay? There's a piece of that story that's the actually meaningful part of the story that nobody is talking about. So I'm going to wait for next episode, right, Emmy? Fastest 30 minutes. 30 minutes in the world. Exactly. Not only the best 30 minutes, but the fastest. That's right.

All right. See you next time. Exactly. Not only the best 30 minutes, but the fastest. That's right. All right. See you next time. See what hit blockbusters are streaming free this month during popcorn summer movies on Pluto TV. Watch Django Unchained or Transformers Dark of the Moon for an action packed evening or The Truman Show and School of Rock for a good laugh with the whole family. Plus, Pluto TV has thousands of other free movies, available online and on demand. Download Pluto TV on all your favorite devices for free

and start streaming now.