The Ben Mulroney Show - Jordan Peterson says Narcissism has no political stripes

Episode Date: April 24, 2025

Guests and Topics: -The Legalization of Marijuana has exploded Underage Teen use Guest: Dr. Oren Amitay, Psychologist 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

Welcome back to The Ben Mulroney Show and welcome back on whatever platform you find us on, be it radio, be it a streaming service or Spotify, Apple Music or Amazon Music. If you're the type of listener of The Ben Mulroney Show who enjoys the podcast, just search up Ben Mulroney or The Ben Mulroney Show on the podcast platform of your choice and have at it at your discretion. Please welcome to the show Dr. Orin Amate, a psychologist and good friend of the show. We've got a lot to talk about with you today, Doc. I hope you're doing well. I'm doing great, thank you, Ben. So enough time has now passed since the legalization of cannabis in Canada that we've been able

to do some significant studies. And there's a new one that says that teen cannabis use has increased by 43% after legalization and the knock-on effects are significant. Well yes, and look, cards on the table. I had my first joint when I was 12. I don't remember high school because I was high through almost all of it. So I'm not someone who's like, oh, you know, what is this devil's weed and stuff like that, right? I know what I'm talking about and I do know that there are significant psychological and neurological effects or potential neurological effects especially on teenage brains. And we should point out

that there's this survey, the survey that was done that we're referencing right now, 106,000 students aged between 12 and 17. So not a small sample size. This is massive. It is massive. It is and you know, it's self report. But, you know, all these studies are self report. So if it's a change, it's showing that something has happened. And the 46% actually was increasing edible use, I think it's 23 or 26% for regular marijuana, 46 for edible. And that's an important point, because for a certain portion of the population, the taboo nature of weed

is what is its appeal, right? But for many others, the fact that it's normalized, that it seems harmless, that everybody's doing it, especially if it's an edible, it's in a package, it's like a gummy bear. It's a gummy bear, right, exactly. And the fact is, we should highlight that 12 to 17 means the people that are self-reporting technically are not allowed, according to the law, to be consuming cannabis in any way, shape or form. And I'll take people back to 2015 when the Liberals sort of cobbled together this vision of a cannabis legal Canada.

One of the justifications was to ensure the death of the black market, but also to protect kids from cannabis. And this tells me that at least on one front, they weren't very successful. Well, I would say on both fronts because the black market is still thriving. Of course. So, yeah, and it's important. So again, I'm a big fan, like, of marijuana. I know many people who benefit from it medically, but that's the cannabinoids. That's not the THC. That's not the part that's fun. Kids aren't smoking weed for, just for the, oh my gosh, for the non-fun effects. They're smoking it to get high, but they're also, unfortunately, when you're young and you start to develop it as a habit,

it becomes an unhealthy coping strategy. develop it as a habit, it becomes an unhealthy coping strategy. Now it's a way to escape. And what is it doing, based on the information that we have today, what are the effects that cannabis is having on those still developing brains? Well, so mostly studies, anything on human has to be correlational because you can't ethically do a study where you subject kids to smoking weed and potentially destroy their brains. So, right, so it's most it's correlational in humans but it affects the structure of the brain, it affects the cortical development,

especially again these are presumed effects but it seems to also affect the prefrontal cortex and that's where we have our judgment, our motivation, our decision-making. Okay, so if that's becoming impaired, you know, even if it's a 5% reduction, 5% in motivation, 5% drive, I'm not even saying 5%, it can be much more, depending on how much you use, depending on the brain's natural vulnerability, depending on who the kid is. So it can have significant impacts on how they function. And also, we do know, one of the most powerful psychological effects is anxiety. When you ask people, if they say, you know what, I've asked so many patients and students, and they tell me that they had their first panic attack, they had the first bout of anxiety after using weed, usually an

edible, they had too much and that it's called the scar effect, meaning that once you have it, it makes you more susceptible to future episodes. So if you know if somebody is being plagued by anxiety, you know it makes it harder, much harder for them to function on their daily tasks. So, right, so there's the neurological, there's a psychological, there's a behavioral effects. It's not this benign product, especially for kids. And you know, that's a really important point because I, it feels like a different world from say the 1980s when we were told, oh, marijuana is the gateway drug and if you start that,

who knows what path you're going to go down. I don't know how accurate that was, but the flip side to that was also, I remember proponents of legalizing marijuana would say things like, no one has ever overdosed on marijuana, which may or may not be true, but it's sort of a false flag to suggest that there are no negative effects to marijuana. It's from the earth. It's a natural herb. And it just, it feels to me that we went into this legalizing enterprise, possibly, without our eyes open on either side of the debate. Well, exactly. And the problem is the debate is, you're right, it's either side. Very few

people have a nuance to take. It's black and white. And some people say, look, and there are numerous people, Joe Rogan is an example where he gets high every day, Snoop Dogg, every day, all day. And they're very ambitious. They're very creative. You know, they live a really rewarding life, but they are probably the outliers. Most people, when they get high, they get lazy. I'm like, it's better than alcohol. If I had to force someone to take a drug, I'd be saying, weed over alcohol. But in reality, it's not harmless. It's not benign. It's not benign, especially on 12-year-olds.

And you just mentioned Joe Rogan, which is a perfect segue into what we're going to talk about next, because one of his regular guests is Jordan Peterson. And Jordan Peterson is putting forth a new theory on, I guess, narcissism and how it has no political stripes. The problem is that 4 to 5% of the population, something like that, is cluster B, that's the DSM-5 terms, histrionic, narcissistic, antisocial, psychopathic, and they have dark tetrad traits, they're Machiavellian, they're sadistic, that's about 4%. Okay, so the question is how do these people maneuver? And the answer is they go to where the power is and they adopt those ideas and they put themselves even on the

forefront of that. But the ideas are completely irrelevant. All they're doing is they're the Pharisees, they're the modern version of the Pharisees. They're the people who use God's name in vain, right? As they proclaim moral virtue. It doesn't matter whether it's right or left or Christian or Jewish or Islam. They invade the idea space and then they use those ideas as false weapons to advance their narcissistic advantage. Alright, Doc, do you think that Jordan Peterson is on to something? Is this an accurate assessment of what's going on? Is it all about the power and not necessarily the ideas?

Well, two things. One, he made a huge mistake when he talked about cluster B, when he talked about the narcissism, antisocial, histrionic, and then he said psychopathy or psychopath. No, it's borderline personality disorder. Like, psychopathy is not in the DSM. It's mentioned as part of antisocial personality disorder. But that was a crazy mistake that he made. I'm not sure how he made the mistake, but you know, hey, it happens. But as for hers, what he's saying, yes, this is why societies, you know, a, let's say a communal society, this is why socialism never works, because there is a certain proportion of the population between 1 and 5 percent who will have some of the

most dark, you know, sadistic, terrible traits, and they will have some of the most dark, sadistic, terrible traits and they will take advantage of people. And yes, they will sell you what you want to buy, they will tell you what you want to hear, they will be the proverbial wolf in sheep's clothing and they know how to manipulate. And the best way to manipulate, and this is really important because it's happening in Canada right now, the best way is through fear. You tell them there is an enemy, there is a pandemic, there is something out there to get you and I'm the one. I have the ability to lead us through this and then people will give up their rights

in order to feel safe and secure. So yes, he's absolutely right. And the narcissist, the psychopath, they're the best at doing this. Dr. Orin Amitay, really appreciate you, sir. All the best to you and I hope to talk to you again soon. Thank you, Ben. All the best to you, and I hope to talk to you again soon. Thank you, Ben. Always a pleasure. There's no limit to how far criminals will go to cover their tracks.

But investigators will go even further to uncover the truth. I'm Nancy Hicks, a senior crime reporter for Global News. This season on Crime Beat, I'll take you from the crime scene to the courtroom and inside some of Canada's most high-profile cases and some you've likely never heard of before. Search for and listen to Crime Beat on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, and wherever you find your favorite podcasts.