The Ben Mulroney Show - Is the Multi-Trillion-Dollar Wellness Industry Making Us Sick?

Episode Date: January 22, 2025

Guests and Topics on Today's Show -Is the Multi-Trillion-Dollar Wellness Industry Making Us Sick? with Guest: Jonathan Stea, Practising clinical psychologist and professor in the department of psychol...ogy at the University of Calgary -Taking a historical look at Sir Sam Hughes, who was our Minister of Militia for the first part of the First World War with Guest: Craig Baird, Host of Canadian History Ehx -We have a huge drug problem in Canada and it’s time to take our heads out of the sand with Guest: Yonah Budd, Corus addictions and counselling expert YonahBudd.com If you enjoyed the podcast, tell a friend! For more of the Ben Mulroney Show, subscribe to the podcast! https://globalnews.ca/national/program/the-ben-mulroney-show Follow Ben on Twitter/X at https://x.com/BenMulroney Enjoy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Starting point is 00:01:27 Jonathan Staya is a practicing clinical psychologist and adjunct assistant professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of Calgary. And he's written a piece in The Walrus about the multi trillion dollar trillion with a T wellness industry and how it might not be making us so well. And we welcome Jonathan to the show. Jonathan, thank you so much for being here. My pleasure. Thank you so much for having me.
Starting point is 00:01:50 So multi trillion is an understatement. It's 5.6 trillion dollars according to certain studies. What makes up the wellness industry? It's a super lucrative business. You know, it does include bonafide sources of health like sports and exercise classes. But what really concerned me is this alternative medicine industry, which is really predicated on pseudoscience. So these are alternative medicine treatments, wellness, influencers, gurus, coaches, people that are purporting to be able to treat
Starting point is 00:02:28 people's health conditions and especially mental health conditions, which is my beef. And they're doing it with very, very little to no evidentiary backing whatsoever. And some of them are actually pseudoscientific, meaning that they don't confine to the laws of science at all. And social media amplifies that and deepens it and makes, you know, if your favorite influencer is peddling some of this stuff, you're more likely to say, well, what's good for the goose is good for the gander. Absolutely.
Starting point is 00:03:02 That's a big problem with this stuff because a lot of these wellness ideas are perpetuated on social media and in popular media and even in our health care institutions, but especially on social media where you get guys like Andrew Tate say, saying absurd claims like depression isn't real or even guys like Elon Musk who's tweeting to hundreds and millions of people that anti-depressant medication is more harmful than helpful. Those are patently false, but the problem is that when you're tweeting to so many people out there, it capitalizes on the psychological phenomenon called the illusory truth effect, which is the idea that our brains aren't very good at differentiating familiarity from the truth. So the more time that we hear and we see these kinds of false claims,
Starting point is 00:03:48 the more likely we are to believe it. And so that's why it's really important for people to arm themselves and protect themselves against these false claims. Well, Jonathan, does it have anything to do as well with the fact that we're living in a time where there's a lot of mistrust in what used to be trustworthy institutions. So the healthcare industry, government, all those administrations that are, and bodies that are there to keep us healthy, we mistrust them now,
Starting point is 00:04:17 and therefore the opposite must be true. If they tell us to get a vaccine, then surely not getting the vaccine is what we should be doing. If somebody says, oh, then surely the not getting the vaccine is what we should be doing. If somebody says, oh, these are the things, the steps that you need to take. If someone, a Western doctor says, these are the steps you need to take to stay healthy. They'll say, oh, I don't trust that I'm going in the other direction. I think you nailed it. I mean, that mistrust is one of the biggest
Starting point is 00:04:41 drivers of this kind of misinformation and propaganda that we see. And we want to pay attention to that because in a lot of cases that mistrust has been well earned. The problem though is that the solution to that mistrust is better accountability, better science, better access to things like evidence-based care. The solution is not more misinformation and more propaganda under the guise of say wellness or alternative medicine and even really extreme leaders in the anti-vaccine movement that actually capitalize and amplify that mistrust in order to sell and market their own ideas which have no
Starting point is 00:05:22 science whatsoever behind them. And I mean this is a fairly unregulated area of the economy. Is that a fair thing to say? Absolutely. The wellness industry, as opposed to say something like Big Pharma, which, and again, Big Pharma doesn't get a pass because there's a huge history of conflicts of interest and corruption in Big Pharma. At the same time, again, the solution to big pharma is a better accountability and better science.
Starting point is 00:05:48 It's not the wellness industry, which is largely unregulated for things like safety and effectiveness. So what's the solution? Well, I wish I had all of the answers for the solution because I think it's a multi-pronged approach. And I come at it from the angle as a clinical psychologist. So I work at the individual level. I don't pretend to know the answers at the social or policy level. What I try
Starting point is 00:06:14 to do in my new book and just in my social media advocacy and science communication advocacy is try to help people at the individual level, which is to protect themselves, which means arming them with science literacy skills and things like mental health literacy skills, and being able to identify and spot pseudoscience and spot kind of that mental health misinformation and alternative medicine ideas that are really unhelpful to their health. That's what I can offer. But, you know, some people don't want that help. I mean, listen, you bring it up in your article where you went to the Alex Jones,
Starting point is 00:06:50 a website, info word wars, and there was advertisements arm your body's probiotic potential with prebiotic fiber back in stock 40% off shop now and then you clicked on the info word store and health and wellness section and you got dietary supplements for better mood mushroom max no tropics CBD full spectrum hundred milligrams immune support I mean If people are going to Alex Jones For health advice then they're telling us they don't want They're not looking for information.
Starting point is 00:07:25 They're happy with the misinformation they're getting. That's a great point. It's absolutely bonkers out there. And you know, I would say that that's a sub sub sample of the population. And unfortunately, you know, that's that's really hard to manage. It's a very tall order when people buy into, you know, deep rabbit holes and conspiracy theories. And there's good predictors of who falls for that and who doesn't. And those people are harder to reach. I'd say, you know, from a science communication perspective, the audience of a
Starting point is 00:07:56 science communicator is kind of the general public. It's not the ideologically possessed. But, you know, we do need to reach those people too. And they are reachable. It's just a lot more difficult. Well, Jonathan Steyer, I want to thank you need to reach those people too, and they are reachable. It's just a lot more difficult. Well, Jonathan Steyer, I want to thank you for joining us. It's, it is a behemoth of an industry, is largely unregulated, but I think you, you give us a really good snapshot of it in your piece in The Walrus, entitled The Multi-Trillion Dollar Wellness Industry. Is it making us, is making us sick.
Starting point is 00:08:24 So thank you very much for joining us. My pleasure. Thank you. BetMGM, authorized gaming partner of the NBA, has your back all season long. From tip off to the final buzzer, you're always taken care of with a sportsbook born in Vegas. That's a feeling you can only get with BetMGM. And no matter your team, your favorite player or your style, the the best sports book worth a slam dunk and authorized gaming partner of the NBA. BetMGM.com for terms and conditions.
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Starting point is 00:09:56 on Disney Plus. All right, do you remember the TV show Talking to Americans? The Rick Mercer show where you go down south and he'd ask some pretty basic questions about Canada to Americans and they wouldn't get it right and then we'd all laugh at them. Look at those funny dumb Americans who don't know anything about Canadian history. I guarantee you that you could do that exact same show about Canadian history with Canadians. You could do the exact same show because we do not study our history. We do not celebrate our history.
Starting point is 00:10:28 We do not talk enough about our history. We don't take pride in our history. We don't challenge our history. And it's a sad statement, you know? And I'm a part of it as well. I don't know nearly enough about our history as I should, as I want to. And so in an effort to rectify that, part of it as well. I don't know nearly enough about our history as I should, as I want to.
Starting point is 00:10:45 And so in an effort to rectify that, we've invited onto the show Craig Baird, the host of Canadian History X. I've spoken with Craig before in the past. This guy knows his stuff. Welcome to the show, Craig. Thanks for having me. Yeah, it's a, I just, Viola Desmond, for example, you know, she's on a $10 bill now and people say she's Canada's Rosa Parks, except she predates Rosa Parks. Oh, absolutely. She does by a number of years. In fact, my upcoming episode in February for Black History Month, I actually do tell the story of Viola Desmond. And she was somebody who Canadians knew nothing about pretty much almost to the 21st century. They could tell you who Rosa Parks was, but they couldn't tell you who Viola Desmond was.
Starting point is 00:11:29 Yeah. And she took a stand, what it was in an East coast movie theater, correct? Yes, it was. She went to actually see a movie at the Roseland theater in New Glasgow after her car broke down and was hauled out because she sat on the, in the floor seats, which were reserved for whites rather than the balcony, which were reserved for whites, rather than the balcony, which was reserved for black Canadians.
Starting point is 00:11:48 And it sparked this whole civil rights thing and eventually led to a lot of change. Yeah. And this is someone that everyone should know, and it should be taught in schools from day one. Uh, you know, a lot of Canadians know, uh, about the RCMP and they know about the, they, um, they know about, uh, Sir John A and they know about Terry Fox.
Starting point is 00:12:08 And we kind of we're kind of stuck there. Yeah, I would say, you know, we know that the big names and the big events, but there's so much more to Canadian history than that. And all of these very interesting stories that sometimes take years or even decades to to come out and for people to know about like Viola Desmond. Well, Viola Desmond is one, but today we're gonna talk about someone I've never heard his name, I didn't know he existed, and I wanna know more about him.
Starting point is 00:12:33 Tell us about Sir Sam Hughes. Well, Sir Sam Hughes was very famous when he was alive, but this man was a real piece of work. Like, he was unlike any Broadway politician we've ever had. He was somebody who was very grandiose, very egotistical. He used to be a teacher and he would eat chalk
Starting point is 00:12:54 while he was giving lectures to his students. And that wasn't enough for him. So he wanted to eventually become a politician. He wanted to be a war hero. This was just a very grandiose individual who had kind of a large impact on Canada's history during the first world war, but also a very sad individual as people started to shy away from him because of his overbearing personality, I'll say.
Starting point is 00:13:19 So, so he got elected to parliament, uh, in, he served from 1892 until his death in 1921, what. What party was he in? He was part of the Conservatives. So he would have been under the government of initially Sir Charles Tupper and then under Sir Robert Borden. And then when the Conservatives came to power in 1911, that's when he took over as Minister of Militia because he had actually served in the Boer War kind of he went to the Boer War wearing a uniform and, you know, he had this grandiose view of himself. He felt he should have been awarded two Victoria Crosses for his service. Like I said, this was a hard individual to take.
Starting point is 00:13:57 Do we know if he served with honour? Or did he just think that because he was there, he deserved two Victoria Crosses? Well, he did serve in a battle and he did save someone's life, but very grandiose. He felt he deserved much more. He wrote about how when he was told that he had to go back to Canada, his commanding officer was sobbing in front of him because he was so sad to see him leaving. He had a very warped view of himself and the world around him. And so he served as a minister of militia from 1911 to 1916.
Starting point is 00:14:28 They changed the minister of militia in the middle of the First World War. Is there a reason why they changed horses midstream? Yeah, because pretty much everybody hated Sam Hughes. Jesus! There were a lot of problems with him. He did, you know, he did kind of create the Canadian expeditionary force and get all the Canadians kind of training in Canada and sent over. So like there was tiny good things he did, but
Starting point is 00:14:52 there was a lot of other problems. There was a lot of waste. Uh, there was the fact that he was not really listening to the government. He was kind of making promotions within the army, which is mind boggling. It'd be like today, you know, the Minister of Defense promoting somebody just because they want to. And so he was really rubbing
Starting point is 00:15:11 people the wrong way, but Sir Robert Borden was very loyal to him because Sir Sam Hughes was loyal to him. But eventually it just became too much. Sam Hughes was eventually criticizing the Prime Minister and criticizing the generals and the leaders and eventually just wore out his welcome. So he was dismissed in 1916. Well, that must have hurt until until he died in 1921. Did he have because he had these delusions of grandeur? Did he did he see himself one day as being prime minister? I don't know if he was going to try and be prime minister. I think he was very happy as minister of militia because he always wanted to be a soldier and he saw himself as this great military leader. He hated Sir Arthur Curry who arguably was our greatest military leader and when he was dismissed he kind of just
Starting point is 00:15:55 started attacking the government which he was part of and saying they were mismanaging it and he was calling Arthur Curry this madman who was just, you know, killing people in France. And he, I don't know if he ever wanted to be Prime Minister, he definitely wanted to be knighted. And he pushed for that heavily until he finally was. And he's really a big reason why we do not knight people today because of how much he pushed to be knighted. After that, they left the Brits with such a bad taste in their mouth that they decided no more Canadians? Well actually we were the ones who decided that. We passed what was called the Nickel Resolution and that essentially stopped the knighting of Canadians until the 1930s when R.B. Bennett came in and he brought it back briefly. So that's why you have Sir Frederick Banting. But he's a reason why every Prime Minister after Sir Robert Borden isn't knighted.
Starting point is 00:16:47 So yeah, he kind of ruined it for everybody because of how much he pushed for it and how many people felt he didn't actually deserve to be knighted. I gotta say, I've been so caught up in this conversation, I completely forgot that we had a clip to play of this very good subject. Let's play the same Sam Hughes. It was said over the next few months, Hughes insulted everyone from the Governor General down to regular citizens as he organized the Canadian Expeditionary Force. When the Anglican Bishop of Montreal visited Hughes to speak about the shortage of Church of England chaplains at Camp Valcarte, Hughes went into a rage and swore, dropping plenty of F-bombs at the reverend. At one point, the president of the Toronto Humane Society spoke to Hughes and expressed
Starting point is 00:17:28 concern over how horses were being treated. Hughes responded by screaming that the man was a liar and then physically throwing him out of his office. It was not long before those around Hughes began to question if he had lost his mind. Sir George Foster, the Minister of Trade and Commerce wrote, There is only one feeling about Sam, that he is crazy. Sir Joseph Flavell, a Canadian industrials, called Hughes mentally unbalanced with the cleverness associated with the insane. Angus MacDonald, a conservative MP, was straight to the point when he said, The man is insane. At Camp Volkerche, Hughes did not let up with his grandiose view of himself and
Starting point is 00:18:05 disdain for those around him. He insisted on having an honor guard around him as he shouted infantry maneuvers, most of which were out of date with modern military tactics. He openly criticized officers in front of the men and made no secret of the fact he only wanted English Canadians to command brigades, never French Canadians. They say in order to live a happy, fulfilling life, you got to learn something new every single day. I feel like I have done that. Thank you, Craig, host of Canadian History X. Where can people find the show? They can listen to it on the Corus Radio Network across the country every weekend and just check your local listings or follow me on social media where I actually post the schedule on Fridays. And also listen to Canadian History X on all podcast platforms. Craig Baird, I love talking to you. I hope you come back again because I really feel
Starting point is 00:18:52 that we would be doing a service to my listeners by having you on and where you can teach us these things that I think we need to know about ourselves. Oh well, thank you so much and thanks for having me. Alright, appreciate it. Take care. Hello dearest listener. In the thick of the winter season, you may be in need of some joie de vivre. Well, look no further, honey, because Sunwing's Best Value Vacays has your budget-friendly escapes all the way to five-star luxury. Yes, you heard correctly, budget and luxury all in one place.
Starting point is 00:19:20 So instead of ice scraping and teeth chattering, choose coconut sipping and pole splashing. Oh, and, uh, yeah, book by February 16th with your local travel advisor or at... -♪ Something that's the end! -♪ Breaking news happens anywhere, anytime. Police have warned. The protesters repeatedly get back. CBC News brings the story to you live.
Starting point is 00:19:42 Hundreds of wildfires are burning. Be the first to know what's going on and what that means for you and for Canada. This situation has changed very quickly. Helping make sense of the world when it matters most. Stay in the know. Download the free CBC News app or visit cbcnews.ca. We have a huge drug problem in Canada. It's time we take our heads out of the sand.
Starting point is 00:20:07 And I couldn't think of anyone better to have this conversation with than Yonah Budd, chorus addictions and counseling expert. You can find me at yonahbudd.com. Yonah, thank you so much for coming back to the Ben Mulroney Show. Thanks for having me, Ben. Appreciate it. Okay, let's start at sort of the macro level with Trump reiterating that there is a huge problem with the flow of fentanyl across the border into the United States from Canada. They've allowed both of them in Canada, very much so. They've allowed millions and millions of people to come into our country that shouldn't be
Starting point is 00:20:40 here. They could have stopped them and they didn't. And they've killed 300,000 people last year, my opinion, have been destroyed by drugs, by fentanyl. The fentanyl coming through Canada is massive. Yeah, it's a look. I saw a study that said I think three kilos of fentanyl were stopped at the border. Like, I don't know if that means that millions of kilos are getting across. And I did hear, Yona, that we used to get all of our fentanyl
Starting point is 00:21:15 from China, and at one point we started, someone started manufacturing it here in Canada, which was a disturbing thing to hear. But is he completely off base? Is there a shred of truth to what he's saying? What's what's your assessment? So my assessment based on what I hear on the street and from people that I work with is that there are definitely there are fentanyl labs in across Canada in Ontario and BC and Alberta,
Starting point is 00:21:42 Manitoba, there are active fentanyl labs that produce kilos and kilos of this horrible drug. And they are getting some of the components from components that make up the fentanyl from other parts of the world. But my understanding of the amount of fentanyl that goes from Canada to the US is rather minimal by comparison to what comes south, from the south into the US is is rather minimal by comparison to what comes south into the from
Starting point is 00:22:06 the south into the into the US to say that there isn't any fentanyl leaking into, you know, Michigan, Upper State New York and places like that. I think it would be an illogical, you know, conclusion to come to. But is it is it what's killing millions and millions and millions of or 300,000, you know, Americans, I think we play a part of it. But is it what's killing millions and millions and millions of or 300,000, you know, Americans? I think we play a part of it. But I think depending on that we're talking about being produced in Canada is killing Canadians. Yeah. And he's not looking at the entire equation. I got to wonder about the drugs and the guns that are coming across the border from to Canada from the United States. Right. So the majority of cocaine and things like that
Starting point is 00:22:47 are coming up through the US that we know there was a big bus as I'm sure you're aware. And coming through, we are getting through other ports into the US into Canada, other forms of drugs if there's any real, we're getting a lot of pills, a lot of pill mills in the Southern U.S. states and producing pills that come up here in droves and guns for sure.
Starting point is 00:23:10 And they all go together, by the way, the whole crime thing of guns and drugs, they all go together and he knows it and we all know that. Do we pose a problem? I think there's more, frankly, there's more contraband coming from the U.S. into Canada than Canada into the US. Yeah, I have to assume that as well. One of the reasons I have to assume is that we have such a
Starting point is 00:23:29 porous border anyway. It's just easier to get stuff going north than it is going south. Let's talk about that $83 million cocaine bust, biggest in the history of Toronto police. There are ties to a very violent Mexican cartel. But what I'd love to hear from you, Jona, is $83 million of cocaine, like from the movies that I've seen, that $83 million of cocaine gets turned into far more cocaine because they cut it with like baby powder and stuff like that. Jona Hickman Well, yeah, how do you like this? They cut it with fentanyl. Jona Hickman Oh, Jesus. Jona Hickman So, you know, a few years ago, the Nurses Association in Ontario did a test of street
Starting point is 00:24:06 drugs. Eighty-three percent of the street drugs that they found, including marijuana, was tainted with some form of fentanyl. Oh, my God. So, because it's a cheap cut, which is what it's called, it's a cheap cut, and it takes the edge off the cocaine. So you can do more cocaine. You won't get as sketchy and as edgy as you would using cocaine
Starting point is 00:24:25 that's cut with other forms of speed and other forms of amphetamines that add to the buzz. But pure cocaine, if you use it, doesn't make you sketchy like that. So when you use it mixed with fentanyl, it's just kind of a mellower version of Coke and it stretches that 83 million to, I don't know, three or four times. It so three or four times that so sure it millions of potential
Starting point is 00:24:49 weekends for individuals across the country. Yeah, well, we listen I can I treated someone not long ago who practices law for living and him and his buddies were having a card game in a hotel that they had every Saturday night. And they used to bring a couple of grams of blow and a couple of joints and you know, they play cards and whatever and his buddies were having a card game in a hotel that they had every Saturday night. And they used to bring a couple of grams of blow and a couple of joints and they play cards and whatever. And two of them end up in the hospital for fentanyl overdose and had to go home and explain to their wives
Starting point is 00:25:13 and their partners why they have fentanyl in their system. Oh, wow. But, Yona, if they're cutting sort of cocaine, which is speeds you up and fentanyl, which slows you down. Isn't that what killed John Belushi? So the combination of uppers and downers together in large doses over a long period of time, just takes your nervous system and your heart
Starting point is 00:25:37 and all that stuff and just throws it way out of whack. So it's a form of ups and downs or, uppers and downers or amphetamines versus, you know, opioids, so to speak, that combination in your blood, I think, you know, at any given time, just races through you and then your body doesn't know how to respond, is it going up, is it going down?
Starting point is 00:25:57 So then you have these horrible heart attacks and seizures and such, and essentially kills people at some point. You know, there's an article, I'd love to bring this down to the sort of the street level and the individuals. There's a national health charity said a survey recently commissioned shows there is more public support for government led harm reduction efforts than there is opposition. And while we don't have to necessarily get into that, but in this same survey,
Starting point is 00:26:22 it said that one out of every four Canadians knows somebody who is has a family member struggling with substance abuse. That is a shocking number to me. Yeah, it's well, I can imagine it's shocking for you. For me, it's it's you know, I live in it every day, right? So I mean, I've never been busier, my team has never been busier. And I'm hearing from people who, you know, are and the people that hearing from people who, and the people that we're talking about, the people that we're seeing are,
Starting point is 00:26:48 what one would call productive people in society, holding down real jobs and not people unfortunately living in cardboard boxes or anything like that. And someone knows someone who either has an alcohol dependency, who has some form of pill dependency, who has a gambling dependency, eating disorder, pretty much like you say, one in four is, I think, a safe average.
Starting point is 00:27:10 But anyone I talk to, anyone I talk to, who says to me, so what do you do for a living? And I tell them, oh man, I wish I would have known you a year ago because my cousin was having a hard time or my brother-in-law was having a hard time or my sister. So it's a huge problem, yet we're not, as a society,
Starting point is 00:27:27 addressing it as they did, let's say, in Alberta, where they declared this type of addiction issue and mental health issue part of the healthcare program, so everyone got the help that they need. In Ontario in particular, and other parts of the country, there just aren't enough beds or enough services or enough opportunities to help people move from self-medicating, which is really what you're talking about, move from self-medicating to giving them other
Starting point is 00:27:51 tools. But, Yona, like never before in the history of this country have we been more open to having these conversations. We've been trying to destigmatize the conversation around these sorts of issues. And it's not a personal failing. It's not a moral failing. It's an illness. We want to help you. And so with such an openness to having that dialogue,
Starting point is 00:28:14 why are people suffering in silence and in secret? Because we're having a conversation about something and then there's nowhere to go to get the help. Yeah. Yeah. If you can afford help, you can get help. And I got to tell you, I, you know, I run treatment centers, I operate them and we have, you know, we do excellent work, but there's a lot of folks in my industry that are, are, take, that take advantage of families that don't do great work.
Starting point is 00:28:37 So that once you, once you go to rehab and it doesn't work for you, you turned off it completely. So going to the wrong place is worse than going to nowhere at all, frankly, because it just turns you off to help. But we don the wrong place is worse than going to nowhere at all, frankly, um, because it just turns you off to help. But we don't, we don't, Ben, we don't have places for people to go. Like if you called me and said, yo, now listen, God forbid I have so-and-so and so-and-so and he's 19 years old, he's having this kind of problem. I need to get him into a bed. Um, you know, you and I are having a conversation that it's, you know, six, eight,
Starting point is 00:29:01 12 week wait if they can afford it. They can't afford it. It's months of waiting. And try to find a psychologist or a psychiatrist to deal with you or to deal with your meds. You know, I have patients constantly trying to get their meds adjusted and their psychiatrists have retired and no one else is picking them up. So they self-medicate to try to make the, you know,
Starting point is 00:29:19 the discomfort go away. Like we're having a conversation, but then it's like you and I and having a conversation about, wow, wouldn't it be great to go to Mars. You and I have no place to book. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Hey, Yona, I want to thank you so much for joining us. This is a conversation that we should have more often to remind people about just how serious this issue is. And I thank you very much for your commitment and for your voice. My pleasure. Anytime. Thanks, Ben.
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