TrueLife - David Heldreth - Past, Present & Future of Commercialised Psychedelics

Episode Date: October 31, 2022

David Heldreth Patented Inventor (multiple others pending) - CEO, Research Leader and Educational Consultant for medicinal plants w/ special emphasis in cannabis and psychedelics

Darkness struck, a gut-punched theft, Sun ripped away, her health bereft. I roar at the void. This ain't just fate, a cosmic scam I spit my hate. The games rigged tight, shadows deal, blood on their hands, I'll never kneel. Yet in the rage, a crack ignites, occulted sparks cut through the nights. The scars my key, hermetic and stark. To see, to rise, I hunt in the dark. fumbling, furious through ruins

maze, lights my war cry Born from the blaze The poem is Angels with Rifles The track, I Am Sorrow, I Am Lust by Kodak Serafini Check out the entire song at the end of the cast Ladies and gentlemen,

Welcome back to the True Life podcast We are here with the one and only A scientist, an inventor, An educator, He has played a pretty awesome role, it seems like, in keeping some psychedelics off the Schedule I list. David, thank you for your role in that. And I'm excited that you're here with me today, my friend.

And I'm excited to talk to you about what's going on, man. So maybe is there anything I left out in the introduction that you can maybe fill people in with? Oh, I mean, previously was a journalist as well. And so having the goal of sharing information. So that I guess would be another part of its lent into why I'm so keen on sharing information and interacting with the government. Yeah. It's an important role. I think I left out, too, that you're also the CEO and owner of Panacea plants and Ziz Farms.

Am I saying that part right? Or am I misperatured? Yeah, that's my wife's maiden name. And they were German Jewish farmers and sweetmakers who relocated to the United States and operated farms in Southern California. And so whenever we started the hemp company, I named it for my wife's family to honor their family history was part of it as well. So don't worry about the pronunciation. You actually got it correct, which is rare. I'm one in one then.

I'm one in one. So I wanted to maybe start out a little bit. I think you also hold some patents, but can you tell us a little bit about Panacea Farms? It seems like you have a whole lot of things going on there. Yeah, it's a fantasy of plant sciences. and what we're in essentially it's a research company researching psychedelic medicines and cannabis and other medicines but also the cultivation the methods of increasing the yields or other things and in that we have patents that have been granted for methods to increase the yields of cannabinoids and

turpherpines and other compounds in in the plant by with various like applications of vital hormones and then we've done similar experiments and a patent filed for some things but in so or the same concepts i should say but in uh mushrooms and and psilocybin and lafifhora and cacti and ibogaine containing plants and so forth as well. And so, but then also on the formulations, which there's a lot to get into there. So I'll like, we'll see how deep to get as we go. Yeah, that's super exciting. It's super exciting.

I kind of just want to jump into this. I was going to ask this question a little bit later. However, I'm having a difficult time keeping my curiosity down. So I'll just ask you now, do you see, like you've been around the cannabis industry for a while? And I've learned that anybody who has the ability to understand how to extract compounds and to increase yields and really knows their way around cannabis. I'm curious, do you think maybe that's what's going to happen in the world of psychedelics too? Like in my mind, I see this idea of using blends of different kinds of mushrooms or maybe different strains could be used for different types of ailments or they could be used for different types of optimization the same way the different strains of cannabis can. Do you see maybe the same thing burgeoning in the world of psychedelics as that would happen with cannabis in the beginning?

In terms of the science on how these items work, yeah. So essentially it's just a in terms of that it's the entourage effect again. And so just to use psilocybin mushrooms as an example is that psilocybin, psilocybin, psilocylusin, biocystin, nor bayocyssin, they also then, and so that's just the tryptomines and then argayasin and that's just the common ones. And so like that's like when you compare to THC and cannabinoids. It's like when we knew about just CBG and THC and CBC, like those first five. And that's like nothing now.

You know that. And so it's like similar. But then it's beyond that is that there's also MAOIs. So like monoxide, like hormal compounds, which are, you know, used for ayahuasca. And so for DMT, it can't be your stomach breaks it down. I don't know if you know that, but you have monoxide in your stomach and it blocks your body from metabolizing certain drugs because there's actually a lot of things in. in nature, that'll get you, I don't know, of high is the right word, but not normal.

And or poison you. And so your body's leg has to filter that out. So DMT can't make it through your stomach. So technically, or your liver and, you know, all about processing. And so you have to take MEOIs with it. Native of peoples figured that out, combined those two things, why it's why it's two plants for DMT. Interestingly, mushrooms make caramel alkaloids.

So they also make the MAAOI compounds. So which M-A-Y compounds are being made in what ratios in which species of mushroom that you're eating or cultivar? Which ratio of those tryptomines? And then getting into the tryptomines, they've shown that when Bayocystin, or Norbeostin, sorry, by itself, no psychedelic effect. But, well, I'll get into that. But then, but when you combine it with psilocybin, you know, in psilocybin, it increases the effect of psilocybin and siloicin. And that's because it's acting. There's multiple ways it could be acting.

We don't have the complete answer, but it increases it because the way they did the experiment, which is interesting. So the way we measure a lot of this is mice have what's known as a head twitch response. And it literally means that it's like kind of twitch. And that is exactly correlated generally to the subjective strength of the drugs binding on the same receptor that causes the psychedelic experience. What? Yeah, it's the 5HD2A receptor.

So you buy the more times in a particular genetic variety of mouse, because there's just different amounts of Twitch depending on, to give this drug to like these 10 different, just like plants, and people, animals have cultivars or genotypes as well. And so that genotype of mouse responds in a predictable way to drugs. And so this rat or this. And so if you've given a drug class to a particular animal, you can repeatedly do that. like in this case, and head to a response is pretty predictable. And so they use that as a way to, like, in animal model,

to be like, does this act on a receptor? It's like a really, it's an interesting way. And so they did that with combining just psilocybin or just norbeostisans or together. And that's how they showed that. And then now we need more data.

But like it's, that's like the, oh, hey, there's something here. That's so awesome, man. You are a wealth of information.

I love talking to people that have the understanding that you have. Like, it doesn't it seem weird that we would use a subjective head twitch to thoroughly understand, like, yep, this is working right here, or this is a pretty, it's a pretty effective, like, this is just, it just is active on that receptor. Yeah, well, exactly. But we can't talk to the mouse. I mean, I hate to say it that way, but that's so, that's the, that's the issue. And it doesn't mean anything other than there's activity on that receptor. But it is.

It's like, it is funny, though. It's like, hey, hey, how you feeling? But no, it's fun. I mean, I mean, but people think about it's like when we do animal experiments, what do we, what does that mean? Right. Right. Go ahead. I'm curious.

Like, I think in the world of psychedelics, there may be something said for the experiments to be done in, like, in some levels, in some sort of, in some sort of medicinal. cultures. Maybe I'm asking myself. I'm all excited, my friend, so bear it more than your firm. Well, I think you're asking. Like, why don't, why don't we take it and then put ourselves in the fMRI and then watch exactly what's happening? Well, so first off, you have to prove these items are safe for humans to take.

And although we, you know, even though it's implied, like, it is important to do these things and get some of this initial data in regard to that before humans take some of these compounds because some of them aren't from plants because there's also like the compounds we're talking about from the DEA case earlier, those are all in nature. Well, I should say have not yet been found in nature because often in science, what happens is humans create something, thinking that we did it first and then we find the plant or the animal or the thing that's already done it, and we're like, oh, oh. So, so like methyl, methyl athron.

Oh, God, that's so hard to pronounce. But it's basically the grape, like what we think of is like the fake grape flavoring. That actually is in grapes, Concord grapes. but it was first discovered and used as an artificial flavoring from petroleum before we found it in grapes. Because once you create something and have the structure, it's easy to find. So it was in something we were eating already. We just didn't know until science got better.

So that's what's always funny to me about humans thinking that we create things. It's like you don't know that nature didn't do it first yet. Yeah, sometimes I wonder if we even have the capacity to create things that haven't been created already. What problem is there's lack of absence of proof isn't proof of absence. Right. That's well said. Yeah.

In my imagination and if I was looking into a crystal ball, I see a future where we have different kinds of blends that have different kinds of ailments. And, you know, but I'm not, I wasn't around or in a position like you were when the cannabis industry started. moving in the direction that it's moving before. And so that's why I was curious to ask you, like, wow, what are some similarity? Like, let me just continue down that road. What are some similarities and what are some differences that you can kind of see being on the edge of creation of these two industries? I think the similarities have little to do with the actual industry part and more to do with

that it's people who are seeking use for these things because of medical conditions and the people that are not always all the business people at this point because it's moved past it, but well, there's like different things. So there's the state models and then there's the, so that's the thing. I'll just go to what's different. So what's different is the key thing because it makes it easier to the other part. This is separating where like it's cannabis, the biggest thing that I think that they messed up in like with hemp in regards to getting things approved as food is that everyone focused on CBD,

which is great, but CBD and THC and CBD is already been. approved as a drug so there's all these regulatory problems with getting it approved through the FDA and why it's taking so long and so but there's CBG and other cannabis and if people had done the general regard to safe studies and other things for that that would have already been put into sale for food approved by the FDA and done and could have been done much easier and so I think and but because those things didn't happen in cannabis you end up in a situation where because there are pathways to to getting things approved, for medicines, for foods, cannabis tried to go around it.

And, like, yes, I agree. It just shouldn't be scared of all these things. But you can fight the system or you can fight the system and work it at the same time and, like, get some shit done and maybe have transformational change. But if you just focus on one of the two, then you leave the other to the giant corporations and people who have different goals.

So cannabis was really bad at that because it's a counterculture thing. I mean, let's be real. I mean, and so then what happens is you end up with that situation. So in psychedelics, there's been this noticing of that. And then you had people with like, oh my gosh, my brain right now. Strassman, I believe, Rick Strassman, that did the secret molecule and got the first DAA approval to do human experimentation on with psychedelics. And to do the first trial and got the first FDA license for, I have first DA license for schedule one for those things.

And so that to me was like the step where the psychedelics were like, oh, we're just going to, like, we can't, the government will let us do this if we just do it right. And so you can like participate in the system. It's not always great. And I fight the DA in court and, you know, at the same time while, but you don't, it doesn't have to be one or the other to me. You like, and so you can, and so what's happening with psychics is that you're ending up the situation where because any legal item, you can get DEA licenses to study it.

And then that means corporations are doing that. And then they can then get a drug approved. And then you can end up in a situation where what happens is just because the FDA approves a drug, it doesn't mean that all of that drug is unscheduled now. So if one of these companies gets psilocybin approved as a therapy, what will actually happen is that once it's approved as a therapy, then only their formulation is descheduled. all other psilocybin and all other mushrooms remain Schedule 1. It doesn't mean that anyone, that your mushrooms that you have at home are legal.

They'll still go arrest you while letting pharma sell the item that they just got approved through the FDA. And so that is the system. And that is why corporate, and that's how the government and corporations or anything keep that system going. And that's what's happening. Then you have states models outside of that. But the reality is like eventually, like how is, like, how is. that there's going to it the state model isn't federally legal right and so it's really complicated and so what's happening is you're getting this like the cannabis-ish style states type stuff starting

to happen and early stuff and you have the people really passionate about helping people and who or have had issues themselves and use these items I had back surgery with cannabis and other issues and And so I've been a medical, and other issues, so I've, and PTSD. So I had used cannabis since 2002 and had a medical card. And that's why I then got into testing. And that's why, and so it's been something I've been, and was an activist in that, just like with psychedelics now. It's, I had issues with PTSD and trauma and depression.

And so I, and then from the back surgery had used too many opiates. It was all within the transcript of the mouth they gave me. But the amounts they gave me, which is fucking much. Excuse my language. And like, looking back, I mean, 10, no, Norco. a day prescription with a with uh or sorry 10 uh soma or not soma sorry nor no it was norco is the is the uh opiate so yes 10 norco three soma three clonopin jesus christ are you kidding me no that's so it was like 15 or 16 pills a day

and it was just and these are like whoa so it's gab you know it's that you know is caught up and stronger than Xanax. And so those plus the opiates, the 10-Norco, three, three and three plus an extra pain breakthrough. And these are all within like the, I think I never took over and then I weaned myself off and made myself. I think I saw prescriptions. I was like,

it's been this many months after my surgery and tapered. Like no doctor ever told me to. This was 2005. And so it's just like when you've experienced that as, I mean, and before that, but like when you've gone through all of that yourself, like then, and so it makes you passionate about helping other people have access to these things so they don't have to do it. Because those things helped me get off of the pain medications.

It wasn't conscious to me to do it for that reason. I was conscious to do it, but psychedelics are why. And then cannabis helped me immensely get off of it. I had to use lots and lots of RSO and other things helped the pain at the time and the nerve pain because, like, I was on, oh, I was also on six gabapet in a day. for the nerve pain. So cannabis and psychedelics were for the mental side of it as well as for the pain side of it immensely helpful and the withdrawal and everything else. So I weaned myself off and got myself back in healthy, but like within six months I was

playing soccer again after back surgery. Wow. Let me ask you this. Sorry, it explains why like I do this. I love it. It's an awesome story. And it does. some of the most interesting people that I talk to are people that have gone through tragic experiences and found their own way to heal themselves.

Like that's what I'm hearing is like, Jesus Christ, I think the doctors are trying to kill you with all those drugs. Like, that's so crazy to me. Well, you have one, you have one doctor trying to treat the depression from multiple years of horrific injuries and trauma and other things. and then you have the doctor prescribing the pain medications and you're telling them both about each other. And the pharmacist is giving you both drugs. And I'm like, I was still working,

I was working in the newspaper at the time. So I remember, like, sitting at a desk like, I don't remember. Like, there's newspapers that, like, I have copies of them. I don't remember doing that. The facts are even more relevant. It was in Barstow at that time.

So I was in back. country. So yeah. No, I mean, I eventually had to take disability because I was just like, I am too high to be driving. And this isn't Psychiatrics. This is the pain meds and everything else. I was just like, I can't, I can't do this. And then, like, had the surgery and, like, forced myself off everything. And then I've never been on another medication since then. Okay, let me ask you this one. I just, that's like literally, no, I've never, I treat myself. Like, I treat myself. Like, Besides, you know, I got vaccinated and things like that. But I generally do everything I can using natural medicines and have been able to avoid, like, I mean, unless like knock on wood, I like get a car accident.

But, you know. Don't say that. I got a wood too. Okay, so let me ask you this one. So, you know, there's a lot of interesting literature and case studies out there about psilocybin, psychedelics, and PTSD. And some of them you read, they're pretty miraculous. It's like you can read case studies of people who may have had like two or three sessions and they say that they feel as if they're completely cured of that.

And I'm wondering from someone, you had mentioned that you had PTSD and you also... Sorry, I just, I agree. No, I was like, sorry, I would say it does. But the problem is, is you feel like it does, but like eventually it surfaces again the way, like to me, like I... It's hard to me to say that you're ever cured. Or cheered, yeah. It's maybe some people are. For me, it's more like a cup.

And like every and like, well, like the tension or whatever, like everything is going on or the symptoms. Like it's like you suppress them. But over time there's a cup of water and eventually life or things will fill that cup up. And there's things you can do like meditation or, you know, and other things that can reduce that. But you can't always dump it out faster than it fills up. And sometimes then you have breakthrough symptoms. And I think, you know, and psychedelics help like dump the cup out, essentially. It's not like pouring a little bit out.

It's like, nip. But then like life still happens. And so it's still like it doesn't stop. But I think that's where like to me a lot of that stuff is I try not to be so cured. or like because I don't necessarily it's hard at least in my experience that it ever is gone language is important and if you find the right way to explain something you're better you're better able to find language that helps you deal with that thing at least in my opinion like if you whether it's a cup or it's a window that's dirty that you're cleaning or you know everybody

should have maybe that's part of healing is finding your own language to describe the ailment Once you do that, you can find your path forward, it seems like. I'm curious as if like what were some of the problems curing, I'm sorry, that's a horrible word, were some of the problems treating the PTSD more difficult than getting over the addiction to the pills or like getting rid of the pain? Were those two things similar? Were those two types of pains and those two types of ailments similar using psychedelics to. get away from and those two things would be PTSD and then the pain from the drugs or maybe the addiction to the drugs.

Well, the underlying issues with trauma and the things that caused you to get hurt end up being what makes it harder to get off of the pills and what also makes the, you know, and the PTSD is the underlying PTSD. And so there's, and the psychedelics really help with making you deal with that part of it. Um, but, or not making, and, and so it makes you aware of and think about and deal with it, but it also makes it easier to because you hide it from yourself. And so it more of surfaces things. But the other thing I tell people is like, yes, bad, what people consider bad trips can be

helpful and I do think that. But there's this obsession in the psychedelic space of people that that's a good thing. And it's a good thing when you can deal with it, when you have support, when, because when it can't is that those situations then can lead to traumatization and lead to trauma because people can get basically it's to me is like oh god my brain right now but the it's like a whenever people get trapped night terrors right so night terrors can different can create traumatizing experiences for people and you can get trapped in it and you can't move so you can't get out of it and you sit there and it's because you're asleep technically.

It's like having a dream where you're awake and you can't move. You're paralyzed because your body's asleep. And so to me, psychedelics can be that because you can awaken and surface this trauma. And if you haven't been trained to deal with it yourself or develop the co-communisms to be able to deal with it and dealing with it while doing that and then or have someone who can help you do that the same time, then you can be just scaring yourself and inflicting more trauma. Do you think people like need to be read? Like so it sounds you need that experience. You need to be scared, but you need to be supported. Right. And I'm curious if you think that people need to

be ready to face those demons when they take like if they want to get over their trauma, just like in regular therapy, you know, there's a saying that says you can't get up until you hit rock bottom because you don't really want that help until you've hit a spot where you ask for help. And I'm wondering in the psychedelic-based sort of, you know, when people use psychedelics to treat trauma, especially some psychosomatic trauma or some real trauma that happened to them, be it, you know, a sexual trauma or maybe people have PTSD from being at war or something like that, do you think that maybe people need to have some sort of understanding of what's going to happen? Like, hey, in this particular trip, in this particular therapy, you are going to get the opportunity to face those demons again.

Are you ready for that? Should there be some sort of questionnaire or some sort of pre-therapy before someone goes into therapy? Yes, so I have rules for myself, like, based on this. Like, I do it myself, and this is only I tell the all the time. It's like you like if the even if you're even if I'm I know that things of service is like I don't do it if or there's rules like if you're having incredibly if something is traumatic is happening. You don't fucking do it. Yeah. You don't do it like if something is drastically changing in your life.

If something, you don't do it in the midst of the thing. You do it maybe if you know something is coming, you can prepare for it with something like that in the call before the storm. Right. Excuse me. Or after. But typically, like, that seems like a bad, because you're unsteady. You need to be steady because you're going to make yourself unsteady. And so if you aren't at least somewhat balanced before that, then you're just going to be

completely taken off your foundation. Yeah. Yeah, I don't, I hear a lot of people talk about set and setting, but I don't really ever hear people say what you just said before that. Like you hear set and setting all the time. You are part of that. You are part of the set and you are part of the setting. Yes. It's just I don't think people think of it that way. And because it is. It's what's happening in your life. Who is going to be around you and where and all of it matters. But you and what isn't happening in you at that moment is very important because you don't know what's going to surface. You have a pretty, you might have ideas.

but often with trauma you have a lot that you've buried. Hence the trauma, right? One is because people don't think of it because it's married. Or even just like a stroke victim loses the ability or maybe loses some connections where, you know, there's been plenty of cases where people get a stroke and then they have to teach themselves how to talk again. And it's theorized that maybe those connections in the brains have been severed when that stroke happen. And I think a lot of that similar type of trauma happens to people who block stuff

out. It's like they block that connection. And I think psychedelics, they reestablish, maybe not that exact same connection, but a similar connection to it. So you can't not not think about it. Like that is probably going to come, these things that you have very neatly compartmentalized so you don't have to think about them. It breaks down the walls. It breaks down the walls and it's thought loops is what we call. like a lot of people I know it called and it creates thought loops where you're reliving that experience that traumatized you because you're like, what should I have done different? Or it's a mistake you've made in your life. So a lot, there's two, there's two parts. So the good part of it to me is when it's not the past trauma, where it is because here's the thing is, you can also then sometimes take yourself out of it and be like, yeah, that happened. And when you become aware that it's, the other thing is to always be aware that what you're experiencing isn't real. It's real and it's not real. Nothing when you. you're taking psychedelics is real and nothing can physically hurt you. Nothing can mentally hurt you if you are aware of it and know that it is not real. And the problem is that those walls are dissolved. And so reality and your subconscious are neat. And so which is helpful because that's

what you want because you are trying to work with your subconscious and remove those problems. so you need that, but at the same time, then you still, like, that's happening. And so once that happens, you have to be able to deal with it. Otherwise, you just get that it can get worse. Yeah. Yeah, I have in my life, I have found, I really like that term thought loops. And it makes me, I would add to it that there's sort of a time dilation to those thoughts. You know what I mean?

Like you can relive that moment slowed down or you can relive it super fast or you can relive it from standing in a different side, a third person point of view. Exactly. And that's where you can go and see you. How helpful is that? That's super helpful, right? Like when you can see it, be like, oh, that guy's a dummy. Hey, that's me.

I'm a dummy. Because the ego gets us off. So the you is it. So you can see it without being you. Yeah. It's just weird to say out loud, but it's exactly what it is. It's being objective because the fear and everything else. And the emotion and the memories have created these walls around it.

And if you can objectively look at it and with the trauma, and be like, whatever is causing the trauma. Yeah, that was a bad experience. And that happened. But it's over. And I am over here now. Do you think that once, so first off, it's really refreshing to talk to somebody who's had a lot of these experiences.

Thank you for having the courage to go through them and then talk about it and doing the things you're doing. I'm really enjoying this. And I'm curious if you find that once you have soft, a big trauma in your life, whether it was PTSD or maybe it was a relationship problem you had with a parent or a loved one or maybe something happened to you. Do you find that even after you have had a psychedelic experience or maybe a series of them and you've worked through that problem that now you can begin to see your life differently even without the psychedelics? Yeah, definitely. I don't, that's the point.

I mean, I mean, the psychics shouldn't be. something, and the whole point of doing this to change what you're doing. Right. Or to change something. At least until a cup fills back up. Yeah. Well, yeah. Well, it does.

And then it's like, well, that's the thing is I don't do it until there is. Like, sometimes it just needs to be a release. And there isn't, like, something that's, like, I can't even put a finger on. It's just things build up. And, like, there's no. But then, like, you start what happens to me is, like, those things are happening. And then I start remembering or a trigger start happening easier. And so it's like basically at that point like whenever a splash of water happens like it like it splashes out.

Yeah. Like it's like hey, hey, and so then it drips on other people. I'm like, oh fuck. Oh fuck. Yeah. I shit. I got to, oh, fuck. I got to keep that to myself.

I'm just pulled on over that person right there. Whoops. Let me get that for you. You know. I'm sorry. So. Funny. Well, and that's and so it's like and so sometimes like that's just, you know, something you have to be aware of.

And it's like, but. Life happens and you can't. Also, it's like if I can't set aside a whole 24 hour period minimum, where nothing, where my wife can't take care of our dog and I can't leave and go do whatever, where I'm not going to need to drive, where I don't know I can have someone to take care of me as what happens, where like all of the things I need to do where I have food set up beforehand, where I have, like, all of those things are planned. If I can't do all of the things I need to do to make sure that I'm safe and protected and in that environment and my life isn't that way, then I won't do it.

And if I have all that set up and then something happens, I cancel it. And so, like, you, and that's one of those things where, like, as you do these things, I feel like you develop these rules and it's different for everybody. But it's, or should people I hope develop it. And I think that's the part of the problem is, it's not that I think that using substances for recreation is bad, because I don't think anyone should, whatever. But I just want people to be aware that you could do. you something for what you think is fun, and then all of a sudden you're reliving a past

experience that you didn't even know you had. Yeah, that happens all the time, you know. And I think that maybe one way to, I think one way to explain. Which isn't bad, because it can heal somebody accidentally too, or, but like you just, it's, if you don't know it's coming, it's jarring. Yeah, yeah. And, you know, I think that what you had described is like the ritualistic nature of it. I think the ritual part of it is important.

When you're going to do something that can be life-affirming or life-changing or is going to deal with a problem, it should be treated with like a ritual, even if the ritual, if a recreational dose, you can still have like a ritual with your friend where you sit down and talk about it for a minute or you plan things out or you have some things going on. But I think that this idea of the ritualistic nature is just a way of confirming the importance of it, and giving respect to it because it is a powerful thing. It can change the way in which you're going to react with yourself and the people and the environment around you. So I think there's an important ritual quality that people who get involved with them should respect on that level.

Would you say that's accurate? I mean, I think it'll happen whether they intend to or not. But yes. It's still, it's these, these odd things that I find that people do. Well, as it expands, there's so many different cases or ways of using it. So I don't want to tell people they're wrong. And that's why it's more of just like, you'll end up developing your own or these without intending to.

It's just funny. And it's like what I find is like in the group that you work with on these things, that you'll end up having your own words for the thought loops or the this or that. Yeah. As the experience happens, it's like, and when I've done this with military veterans and other people, like, it's nice is that like, because, of that you're bonded to these people from the experience

because you're all talking about the worst things that ever happened to you and a lot of the time and it's stuff that you can't talk about usually and so then all of a sudden you're like it comes up and then you're like bruhuh but then and but like everybody oh sorry

but everybody is there is why does it keep everybody that's had that experience has had that happen has had something traumatic happen and so it doesn't make any of those people uncomfortable. And sometimes it does. And sometimes somebody's trauma will, can,

in reliving of it, can make somebody in the group not comfortable. And so that's the other reason why I think group therapy is important for these things. So it allows like a group of people with different experiences to support each other, but then also to like break into smaller groups because sometimes this person needs to be alone for a minute, but watched. And this person needs like three people talking to them to make them feel safe. And then by talking to them, those people feel better because they're supporting that person. And then the group comes together and sits on the fire and talks about what they all talked about.

And then like it's not like this one thing. It's it is, but it isn't. Right. It makes sense. Yeah, I'm with you. There's different roles people, different play. There's different roles that people play that they may not even know we're therapeutic or they may not even know are part of the actual psychedelic act. You know, I've sat down with lots of people before and I wasn't even stripping, but I felt like it was more of a psychedelic experience for me than them.

You know, like being the support person is very therapeutic. Yeah. And it feels good to help other people, but then you talk about your things because it helps them. And so you end up doing it too. Like, whether you intend to or not. And, you know, and then how can you not feel better whenever you see somebody go through that experience? Yeah. And then we're right back to being bonded even tighter with that person.

There's this idea of shared sacrifice and shared experience in the psychedelic trip or any sort of, any sort of extreme moment. I think that you come upon this idea of shared sacrifice. But what really, for me anyways, what really makes it different in the psychedelic experience is that language fails sometimes. And, you know, if you and I have done, like, just some, let's say we've both done, like, a crazy amount of mushrooms. And there's sometimes, like, you can't bring stuff back. But it's really helpful to sit with somebody who's seen it. It's like seeing a car accident or seeing a train wreck or seeing a trauma. Like, we can't really explain it.

I call it a dream. It's like once the moment when you're coming out of it, you know, when you wake up in the morning. You're like, oh, that dream. And then buy your first cup of coffee. Like, what? But if, so dream journaling. So that's something else. Like if you is write things down.

Or like you said, having someone else who can. Because if they tell you what you were saying, then you're like, oh, yeah. And then it, like, and so, like, when you first come out, like, your experience, like, that's why, again, having someone there. And because it's not just the drug. Like, you need to do things. You need, like, you need to. do something. And part of that is saying what happened and talking about it. And if you're alone,

you can't really do that. Yeah. Even if you're journaling, like I still don't think you can get the most out of it if you do it. And maybe that's why there's so many ceremonial settings of different types of psychedelics. Maybe there are obviously there's ways that really help you as an individual. And I'm not opposed to doing it that way. I do it quite a bit that way. However, I do think that there are a lot of benefits to a group setting where you can talk about it and you can be with people. And you can help out younger people and you can get advice from people who are more experienced than you. Oh, and I've dealt with things myself where I've done it alone. Of course.

But no, exactly. There's just something different about a group. Right. Yeah. And there's, you know, that might, that may be something we find in the future too is, you know, it seems that for this particular type of ailment, You got it, this is a journey, this is the hero's journey. You may have to go it alone for this one, you know. There's not much you can get for a group setting, but for other ailments, you know,

I think that group settings may, depending on what the problem you're trying to solve is, a group setting may be advantageous versus like a solo sitting. But you know what I'm like, we probably both. Probably both. Maybe one and then the other, right? Maybe, maybe. That's, I, we don't know what the best protocols are for any conditions that. point that's part of what's going on and in regards to the pain side is the other thing is that like

besides dealing with that is that like so the phenethamines which is the class that mdemean are are actually incredibly anti-inflammatory uh and pain relieving and actually that they're as effective as albuterol for asthma wow i didn't know that it's new new studies and so they haven't done animal or human trials yet but they've done animal trials and so what they've shown is and they've they looked at, it's the pharmacore with like the structure of the molecules, and they compared tryptomines to phlynithamines and lysine, it's the phlyneithamines to do it. Like, so the really anti-inflammatory, anti-asma, anti-joint pain, and all that, which are phleinethamines. And so phlemines are incredibly good for asthma and for that and for pain and inflammation. So it's,

I think that, you know, that'll be, and anti-cancer. in that regard. There's, there, uh, so I think that you'll find a lot of, and we're working on some of that stuff with, uh, with some of those studies in that regard.

And then, you know, then you have Bufuttenan, which is, uh, antiviral. So I'm most people don't know that. It can kill rabies and herpes.

Yeah. And so there's been, and so we're working on, and there's also combinations of peptides that are found in in the toad as well, uh, with the venom that, you know, proteins that make it more effective for antiviral.

or for different things. And it was, Chan Su is the Chinese name for it, Toad Venom, and it was actually used with Bhufitana, and it was actually used to, in some trials for COVID as well. Wow.

It's, it's always mesmerizing to me how psychedelics, at least in my experience, have, they made me begin to understand that maybe all these ideas we think we learn, we're not really learning them, we're just uncovering them. Like, it's just, it's being revealed to us.

It's not that we're learning them. It's just like, oh, now you can say the answer. So Native Americans have been saying this forever and indigenous people. So, like, Lafafora, peyote, they prefer us not to use that name. I've been told to use the species name unless you're in ceremony, using it for a container, like, anyway. So basically, like, those plants, self-enough means, and using it for pain, using it, like, all those things, those are, like, what they do.

Like, they're like, yeah. And they're like, yeah, the plant's sold this title a thousand years ago. Yeah, yeah, guys. Like, oh, and the other thing is, like, Haramol al-Qlodes we were talking about earlier, actually restart beta cell growth. I don't know what does that mean. I don't know.

So the beta cells are the cells in your pancreas, which make insulin. Oh, wow. Diabetes is caused by you either are born of the genetic defect of some kind, which causes your body to either kill or not create insulin, which is, you know, your beta cells are gone or something happened to them. Or you are poisoned, drink too much, poison, drugs, poison, you poison them until you kill them off.

Diet, you can do it too, obesity. There's lots of ways, but basically you just tax your body so bad. Your body's like, well, fuck you. And so you get type 2 diabetes. That's the type 1, type 2 is the difference, really. And so, and some type 2 still have some beta cells. because of that, because you might not have killed them all yet. And so, but with, and the Holy Grail has always been, well, like, instead of insulin,

let's like just, like, let's fix the problem. Like, let's cure it. And so they found that harming actually restarts beta, or harmless alacloids, a variety of them can actually restart beta cell growth, the only compounds found in history. And so they did huge compound scans that. And now they've actually found that there's two or three other compound classes that act on different pathways that were combined with it, synergistically increase the amount of cells and the length of them even produce more insulin.

So we're on the precipice of using this to cure diabetes, and there's actually, again, oh, yeah, the tribes in South America said this for like, said that the plants told them this 5,000 years ago. So, but it's just, that's the funny thing to me is almost all of these things. They're like, yeah. So, but it's interesting to start seeing, like you said. So it's like, did we find it or like you said, we're just rediscovering what's what other people have been trying to tell us and the plants. Yeah. In some ways, it just, it makes me so excited and so thankful to see how maybe we're moving away from these idea of medicine being putting a patch on things to actually finding and treating stuff at the root of it.

Isn't it weird that like the, I'm always zook out on language like, hey, let's get to the root of the problem. Well, where do you find roots in plants? Well, it's like the cure versus it's, the language you use is very important and it's hard. I was a writer, so of course I'm like, like the other side, it's like, well, and I was in radio. So it's like word choice is all you have.

That's good. That is the tool. And then you take psychedelics and you're like, I don't know the words to use. So it is funny. but no that's language is funny in general and that's what I mean just why do words mean what they mean

it's so intriguing and then why again whenever I say something when I mean something and someone else hears it like where do they take that and so it's interesting to like think about how to make sure people understand what we're trying to communicate

clearly yeah a great I think it was Christopher Hitchens who he who learns to speak well in front of crowds will never have to sleep or dine alone. Super true, you know what I mean? But psychedelics, in a way, is its own language. Like, there's a whole different language

that people use for plants. I forgot what the particular precise language botanists used to describe plants, like the ovate leaves. They have, like, their own taxonomy for it or something like that. But even when you take psychedelics and you can't find word or you can't quite explain to someone what that experience was. In your mind, you're frantically searching to describe it. And in doing so, you're expanding your vocabulary.

You're expanding your concepts. And it takes us all the way back to Terrence McKinnis Stone Ape Theory and language and communication. And there's so much there that, you know, Well, and biologically, while this is happening, is your brain is literally, creating new connections and rewiring itself. And so that's why all of this

weird shit's going on is because your brain's doing like the normal network is just like it's almost like those old movies when there was phone switch operators where they had to plug your brain. And then there's the person's and they're like,

randomly plugging stuff in. And then everyone's like, who are you? And that's and that is the and so that's why you're like, Like, you're like, yeah, I don't know that words. Like, it's connected to something different right now. I see blue when you say that. Yeah.

I'm thinking about that, man. Like this idea of synesthesia where, especially in the psychedelic realm, like, on a high dose of something, all of a sudden, you know, you're starting to process sound in the visual cortex. No. But when they cut people's brains open, I hate to get a little gory. But, and so when they're doing neuro, when they're doing, if you have a tumor, if you have a tumor, in your brain and they can operate on it. It's not going to kill you if they do. They cut your brain open, your head open, and they cut into that little spot. But as they're doing it, you're awake, and they're pushing different parts of your brain because they have to map your brain

because we're not all exactly the same to make sure they don't kill you. And so they do the same thing, and they just do a little bit electric. And they're like, and you'll think of something, or you'll smell something, or you'll see color. And it's like the same. So it's all of those things are just firing in little signals in our brain. Yep. So it makes sense. I mean, it's weird to, like, bring us down to, like, just that. But we, like, every thought we have is just electrical impulse.

Yeah. And chemical. It's like the great equalizer, man. You know, people say our blood is all red, but maybe our brain's all electric is a better way to look at it. You know? Well, it's like, I mean, we're basically just, like, computers and batteries. receivers maybe too right

I mean our heart there's little hydraulic pumps yeah yeah it's pretty mechanistic when you get down to it but there's more there obviously but it's like the sum of the parts is obviously greater than the whole

like but it's why we don't know yet I mean that's like I mean there's we don't we know more about space in the brain I think hmm they might be the same thing well I do I doubt consciousness being in

the brain. I see us, I believe that we're picking up a signal and that our brains are simply antennas and our bodies are powering the antenna and that there's a quantum field of consciousness. And the animals, plants, and people all are depending on the quality

of your antenna picking it up at different strengths. Yeah. I do you, I subscribe to the idea that like you don't come into this world, you come out of it. The same way that a banana tree grows bananas, the earth grows people. You know, like, we're all, it's one body.

Exactly. It's just like, that's why we're all, and I think that just like gravity is a field and that exists everywhere, regardless based on mass, there's the same thing with consciousness. But it's not mass. It's something else that I can't say, I know what that is. Exactly. You were back to limiting language.

You're describe what the hell's happening. So we just make it up. Yeah. Well, that's, no one's died and came back, uh, like with a book. So, like, it's really, you know, oh, I have the movie out of my brain. You can watch. Yeah. Yeah.

It's fascinating to think about. I, you know, another road I kind of see happening, I got a niece, uh, my niece, my niece Lauren, she's getting ready to graduate high school and she's been writing some papers to apply for sports medicine. I think that, and as I was talking about it. to her, I was trying to help her write a good paper, and I told her, you know, you may want to explore the idea of integrating psychedelics into sports medicine, because I think that it can be a form of optimization. You know, if you can, the same way people meditate, like, why wouldn't you as a team go on a retreat and take some, you know, five grams of psilocybin and think about how you want to dominate in basketball and how you can work as a team, how you can come up with strategies to do. things that no one's done before. I mean,

individual sport or a team sport. Aaron Rogers basically did that. I can't say it's gone well for him, but he's a unique person. But, but no, like, I do. I agree. And so there's actually

occupational therapists that we, that we know that are working on things similarly for that regard. And it's also, again, they're anti-inflammatory. Like those and those other ones. So, um, there could be benefit,

a lot of benefits for recovery and things regarding that. So I mean, it's, there's just, and that's the thing I often find myself pointing to is like the anti-inflammatory and antiviral and all these, and the anti-cancer and these, because I love the mental health aspect, but there's just so, and the diabetes, there's just so many other ways because other parts of it. Because the thing is, is just like cannabinoids, yeah, CB1 and CB2 maybe in the brain and like CB1 might get you high, but it's also, in your,

stomach and that's why you have all of those medical effects that come from the different you know not and it acts on other receptors but that's you know and psychedelics that 5H2 receptor is also why your capillaries tighten for example and dialate in things and different things like that and so there's all kinds and other things and so they're because those receptors are all throughout your body and so they're not just in your brain and so that's why there's all these different you know part of the reason there's all these different effects. And so it's just complicated, but it's also great because as it goes on, we're going to keep learning what these things can be used for because, oh, man, it's just there's so many plants and so many fungus and so many animals. With cannabis, it was, I mean, it's an amazing plant and I love it, but we have like hundreds over here.

Yeah, there's so many different ways. I've been, I think all of us in this space that have a real affinity towards psychedelics have all. engaged in some sort of self-experimentation. And one of the experiments that I have been doing is when I'll take, when I'll take mushrooms, I'll usually take it with a pretty high dose of like an orally active HGH sacralog or something like that I could put in my tongue. And even though HG, people say, oh, HGH is not orally viable, fuck you, part of it is. You know, so like there's a particular thing called MK 677 and it's like a pro hormone in a way. And I have found, and this is all subjective because all I have is my notes, I don't have any scans or anything, but I have found that, at least in my opinion, it radically increases a lot of the benefits from the strength of the trip to the overall sense of well-being to the tingling sensation throughout my body.

When I take it with, I'll take the HGH about an hour before I take the mushrooms. And I feel a real difference in the size of the trip, if that makes sense, every time I do it versus the time I don't. And if you start looking at, you know, if you take different studies about HGH, there's so much right now, especially in older men that are taking it. And you're seeing the increased levels of testosterone and the increased levels of different neurotransmitters and things of this nature. I think it works really well together. And the reason I'm telling everybody is for those of you that are self-experimenting with psychedelics for well-being, I would encourage you on a purely, on a pure level that you would assume all your own risks that it works. And people should try it more often. I think it's a great combination.

And as a self-experimenter and a tinkerer, I like to share that information with other tinker. So thanks for letting me do that. Oh, of course. Have you, oh gosh, the species name is crue. crazy, but people call it horny goatweed. I've tried some of that, yes. Icarin is the active compound and that, and you can get it isolated pretty easily now. Right.

And that's a natural one that people might want to try for similar things as well. It's really great for topical inflammation as well. It's really hard to get across the skin barrier, though. So it's another, but I like literally combine RSO and Icarin with just dragon bomb usually. Like because the turpines, the camphor, and the borgiael are helpful for the skin penetration as well as for the other two as well as being helpful for that. And the other thing is orally is have you ever taken peppering? I have, yes. Yeah, usually before.

Yeah, it helps open up everything, right? and get the bioavailability it increases the bioavillability of kuker of kumarin and cannabinoids and all kinds of drugs so it's really effective for that for drug of bioavailability it makes it helps it absorb into the the body so it's it's an interesting one it's a it's mixed almost it always now into like if you buy blends of turmeric and ginger, they usually have

those two blended with with it as a three-way because they have like a really good combination. Yeah. You know what?

I've been, like I've been a pretty big fan of for the last few years is different types of like different types of gosh, dang it,

I can't think of the, the names of them. But like, It'll come to me at a minimum. When I have, I take like every three or four days. This is one called phenobut. And it's like it works on the gabber receptors. It sort of opens everything up right there.

And like if you take too much about, you're definitely going to get like this phenobut hangover. And it pretty much sucks. But if you take like a gram and everybody's different and everybody's body. I think they're about to control that, aren't they? Probably. It's pretty powerful. Like if I could see how people would get pretty messed up on it.

But it's incredibly useful. It's incredibly helpful. But I could see it being a controlled substance. I testified at the World Health Organization last year or this year. Everything's boring together. And it was about Khartong that I was speaking on it. But I believe that Fina Butt may have been one of the synthetics they were looking at. I can't remember.

It was either them with the DEA. Too many things blurting together. Sorry. I'll have to Google it later. But yeah, it's, it's a little because I'm always watching what the government's trying to control. Yeah, you know, all the race tams, too. Like, those used to be pretty easy to find online. But nowadays, it's difficult to find just the different paracetam and aniracetam and all the analogs from that.

There must have been some sort of breakdown on, or maybe it's because we're in the middle of some sort of. Well, so like, also with, what's it called? The one you take with MDMA, acetycholine? No, it's not acetyl. That's, anyone in greatest, but no. And acetyl cysteine, sorry. Enicel cyn. So that was approved as a drug.

And so the pharma companies have been pushing the FDA to crack down on the sales of business supplement. And so Amazon blocked the sale of it. And so what's happening is like now the government like more and more companies are using that to go tell Amazon and their suppliers to stop carrying a lot of the supplements. And it is some of them are illegal to sell or borderline or a question of a lot. And then that was to push back from the public about it in single cystine with the government. And so there's it's going to be interesting.

There's a it's it there's like mandatory product listings with supplements and all there's there's a fight with pharma supplements psychedelics, kind of like all of these things. There's a, the lobbies are fine and food, all of these careers. There's something's coming. I don't know what's going to come out of it. But it's a mess. We all know it. But I don't know what's going to happen because of it yet.

Yeah, that makes, thank you for clarifying that. I knew something was, I knew there was a problem because I could see the scarcity of everything. But now that you say that, it makes perfect sense. For a long time, those people have been at odds with the supplements and the vitamins and pharma and, you know, just the different sort of plants and stuff like that. It totally makes sense to see it from that particular angle. You know what? If we shift gear, if we downshift or shift into another gear about cannabis and psychedelics

and how some things may be foreshadowing others, I think we may have both read this article about licensing in Southern California, marijuana licensing in Southern California. And they're talking about pricing out legacy operators. And I'm just wondering if you were to look back into your crystal ball. And do you think that the licensing arrangement, like is that the structure, if psychedelics were to become legal, do you think states would follow the same sort of licensing agreements they did with cannabis with psychedelics? I think what's

So I think that people that run state legal cannabis still are at risk to having their whole operations gone when it goes federal. Oh, wow. Why do you think that? Well, because when alcohol was made illegal and after prohibition, only 10% of the people who previously operated in the industry were allowed back into it after prohibition ended and given licenses and the federal government when I went federal to be legal again after, specifically struck down and limited who could get licenses and made it very hard. put up things like a million dollar bonds to be able to get a license to make it. And what you do that, that's what happens because if they're going to make it legal,

they're going to do it so their friends and other people can benefit from it. They're not going to do it because we all want it. And so that's what's going to happen. And it's the same thing that happened in hemp. And I told everybody that. And like, look what's happened. CBD's not allowed. And once they do it, it's going to be a way that they can control it.

Yep. You can be mad about it, but capitalism is capitalism is capitalism. and you can all say that you love the free market, but whenever it plays out in your government and it plays out the cost of your drugs and plays out in you not being able to own a business because people with more money can buy it and fucking say that there should be a million dollar

regulatory fee, you create, that's what that system is. Yeah, that's really, it's almost like you've talked about this before. The problem is that capitalism is a flawed system and people can say that it's not, but this is exactly what capitalism rocks.

This is exactly what it is. Everything that we talk about about doing to change it makes it into a socialist system. Yeah, I would argue that it's socialism at the very top. Like it's socialized... Well, but for the wrong people.

Privatize the profits and socialize the losses, right? That's the reality of capitalism typically. You're always externalizing it somewhere. Right. And so it's not... I mean, until we create a system we can capture all of these things,

like it's not, which I'm like carbon, my, there's a lot, I mean, I'm down for a lot of different solutions to make this system kind of work, but reality is it just needs to be, that's the thing is like, it's hard to talk about psychedelics and cannabis without being like, well, the whole fucking system is the problem.

Like, it's like we're like trying to create something special for cannabis and psychedelics while everything else keeps operating in this flaw another way. I mean, sorry to that's why I always tell people. I'm like, in psychedelics and cannabis make you realize it's a flawed fuck system, but then you're like,

but then you're like, because then you're going to go deal with people who don't take them. Well, I mean, so that's like, how do you bridge that? And so that's my, I hate, I'm always like the buzzkill. Like, but it's like, because in hemp, I told everybody when that bill was passed, that CBD wasn't to prove for food and all of it was still going to be illegal

and it wasn't going to be allowed in food in that bill, and it wouldn't be for years. I told everybody that, so did you see that recently the court ruled that it once, if you're extracting hemp and it goes above point three, people remediate the THC out. That's not legal. Can you explain that for people who make it?

So if you, so the farm bill legalized hemp. Hemp means that it's cannabis below 0.3% THC. When you extract hemp, you increase the CBD content, the TACC content. If it's 0.3% THC when you start, If you're increasing the CBD content, it's going to increase the THC content.

And then they then just take out that THC and then call it hemp again. The government says, no. Under federal law, it's hemp. Once you extract it and if that THC level ever goes above point three, you cannot. You can take out the THC, but once it becomes above point three, it is not hemp. It's marijuana, federally legal, and it cannot go back to being hemp. The only way it can go back to being hemp is if you did that inside of a DEA federal license. And in that, because if you're, so his thing is companies that make migraine medications or other medications have licenses because they make scheduled substances like LSD on accident, not an accident, but it's byproducts and the manufacturer because ERGOT is the main ingredient for LSD and the main ingredient for headache medication.

there's a reason why psychedelics work for headaches. And so because of that, you basically, like, this isn't a new system. Like, that already exists and it's existed since control substance acts existed. It's like that once, and so if you, even for half a second in your processing, make another compound, like an LSD compound that then gets converted into a drug that's not that, you still have to have a DEA license. Or you've committed Schedule I drug manufacturing. And there was a federal case where all the hemp manufacturers took it to court, and it went all over to the federal court. And the federal court was like, you're fucking stupid. No, if you exceed point three, it's fucking marijuana.

And if you don't have a DE license, you've committed drug manufacturing. Which means every single head manufacturer in this country has committed drug manufacturing for Schedule 1 substances at massive scales. And the statute of limitations is seven years. Which means they're all on the hook. So at any point, the federal government can just choose to go in and arrest all of them, and that would be life in prison. Schedule one, right? So all the employees, and the sales, and every company that's ever sold CBD Isolate has sold a Schedule 1 substance. Wow, where, and it's on, and the government court has already ruled all these, the federal case has already happened.

Like, at this point, it's on their discretion. to not arrest people. Wow. That's fucking crazy. No one thinks about the overarch of what that court case meant. And so starting January 1st of this year, you can't even test hemp unless you have a DEA license. Because guess what? If you test it and it goes up a point three, what do you have?

I have marijuana. Wow. So starting January 1st, all labs for hemp have to be DA licensed. no one's getting ready for it. And I said this when the bill passed that it was going to be a requirement. It was like, it didn't say that in the bill. I'm like, how are you going to have hemp

if it tests hot? You then have marijuana and they can arrest you. So they're not going to let that happen. So you're going to have to have a DE license. I told everyone all this. It's like, it's just how the system was built. You're going to process it. You're going to do the license and to fucking test it.

You're going to do DEA license. Only the grower is going to be the only, the manufacturer once you have an isolated CBD out of that D.A license and the grower before are the only steps that won't need D.A. licenses. So they'll just come in and choose the one person that they want to be the person that can do it. I mean, they can't, by getting, people can be applying right now.

This is what you tell you. That's what blows my mind. People can be going and getting hemp licenses, getting analytical companies that test hemp right now, could just go apply for DSA. Look at five grand. Wow. You just have to follow all their rules. Like, that's what I mean.

It's just people being ignorant and not doing what they, That's why it's like, oh, the government, blah, blah, blah. No, people just don't fucking listen. Like, the rules were written down. People read into it what they want. And that's human nature. Well, yeah. And it's like the right fucking there.

And that's the thing is, yes, and the government uses our ignorance. So the DEA, at the beginning of the start, when they were doing the amounts of drugs to be scheduled and things like that, I pushed for there to be more. But when they started doing it, they were supposed to put the public comment on the website on government regulations.gov for comment. They didn't. They never made the comment page live. I wrote them for like a month and they never did.

I eventually got regulations.gov and talked to them and they told me no, they never made it live. Obviously, got proof from all the agencies and then sent it to them. And then they still didn't. And then I put out a press release publicly and said the DA has done this, this, this, this, this, here's regulations.gov information.

I think it must be a technical air. And then all of a sudden, a week later, they restarted the comment process and it had six weeks to it. Imagine that. Because they had never had, guess what, this wasn't the first time they did that. Or the second or the third or the fourth of the fifth.

Because guess what? All these journalists and all these marijuana magazines that write these articles, the DEA is asking for comment about the levels of the drugs to manufacture. And not one of them put in a comment or tried to put in a comment to see if the system was live for years.

Because that's how. half-assed journalists are and I am used to and I am and I'm so that's what pisses me off is because I know guess what I did oh I did it and oh change the whole system like by just doing it because they don't do that now they make it live every time because I embarrass them and that's the only what that you have to things don't happen if you don't do something so they play on us high they play on the fact that people won't look be paying attention yeah it's a great point and it's it's it's embarrassing in some ways it's it's I'm embarrassed for other journalists.

Because it's like, I know a bunch of people that wrote articles on that that I know personally. And not a lot of them caught onto it. And I'm like, oh, you know, as a rule is a journalist for me, whenever I wrote an article and my editor just told me, if you include anything about a website, you go to the website and you make sure it works. And I mean, I've been doing that for 20 years. That's been a common fucking rule. And that just tells me that the quality of journalists in this country are, boom! because that's fucking like and I'm just like imagine

how where that iterates into and this is just like adults imagine everything else in our life that's what the government does for everything they do put all the information out people and people can go calm and change things people just don't people don't want to go do jury duty you want to make drugs legal do you want to know how alcohol prohibition ended it didn't end because it was bad

jury nullification people went and did jury duty and they refused to convict people for crimes related alcohol. That's how it ended. The government gave up because they couldn't convict people. Yeah, it's, you know, I would say it's even for, like, it goes even deeper. It comes down to critical thinking and asking questions, right? Like how many people in every field don't challenge authority? How many people don't ask questions? How many people are okay reading the headline instead of the article? But I'm lucky that my mom was a teacher and my, my, and her best

friend's mom marched with Martin Luther King. And I was around people. like that and my mom wanted us to ask questions and we talked about things my whole life she explained things and then when i was 15 i was working in the polls in 16 elections uh by choice because i wanted know how our system worked and then i was working at a radio station at 16 and then i was working at newspapers by 18 so it's one of these things where you know i just uh very early was like how does this all work? Like, how is this government system? What is this thing? Yeah, it's, it's crazy to think about the, the walls that are almost made a paper that surround us, that if you're willing to push through your comfort zone or push through some of the boundaries that are up, what you can accomplish

or where you can go. But it seems almost like we're, I don't know, if I put on my, if I put on my, my my my my my I don't know which hat you would call it maybe my I don't know if I put on my tinfoil hat then I would say that it's almost like we're we're just fucking being blinded by the smallest things in the world that don't matter instead of the time machine there you go man there you go right I mean but people probably even know what the fuck we meant now though you know i i see well hd wells everybody right the more with the more locks and i forgot the other one you know i don't know which one we are are we the guys underground or are we the pretty angels up top you know i i don't know which one's worse to be honest with you both yeah yeah it's crazy to think about you know what let me if we

if we were just to stop talking about psychedelics for a moment and talk about something psychedelic in the news. I got a debate that I'm going to moderate about Kanye and Lex and all these guys. Have you been paying attention to this? Which part? Yeah. I mean, yeah. Oh, God. On one level, I'm so blown away that like people are paying attention to like a bill, like a couple billionaires complaining about their lives. Like, how does that affect my life or your life? Like, dude, who cares? Like, you have fucking billions of dollars and you're going to worry about some contract law. I'm not even sure what to think about it, David. It blows my mind, man.

You want to weigh in on any of that? Oh, I have to be careful because I know too many people. But it's insane to me the amount of, well, it's the same way I feel about celebrity. Yes. I mean, even take it outside of like money, just like in general, like the things we care. even professional sports. Even to get to that, like, don't get me wrong.

I played soccer my whole life. I love soccer. I mean, I was a sports editor. Like, in my past life, I mean, but the fact, I also have a lot of teachers of my family and seeing the fact that, like, teachers get paid when they get paid while athletes get paid when they get paid. And it makes it kind of hard to, you know, while the football teams of universities and the, you know, have, you know, these crazy things.

and then the people who want to study the sciences have to pay their own way. It seems to look great. I mean, so the people were to cure you once you have the cancer, the brain injuries from playing that sport, you have to pay for their college while you get a free ride to go hurt yourself.

I mean, anyway, but so it's like our society has a strange valuation system, but I think that's, again, I think that our culture likes to, I think that humanity likes to watch people get hurt. And I think that that's what's, and we like to watch people compete while they do it. And all sports is as gladiators,

which is just people not being able to see warfare and killing and hanging before that. And I think that it's just to, it's all the same shit. And like, we think that we're fucking great because we play sports instead of fucking have people fight to the death in the Coliseum.

So as a jerk, bread and circus, right? Like, nothing's changed in some ways. If you look at it. That's what I mean. I'm like, it's, I mean, I mean, but it is.

I mean, is it better? Yeah, but like, but it's also like, why are we still funding that? Because that still is the core of a lot of us, like, of humans. But like, why? Like, why can't we get away from that and the tribalism and into, like, working together and, like, efforts to bridge gaps? And I mean, there are people, but it's not the whole. I've, I've actually, there's this weird, crazy thought while tripping the people of that is like, are we having different mushrooms fighting each other? Different fungus fighting each other. The beer fungus and the yeast versus the psilocybe more? I don't know. They're like he's controlling us, but in different ways. I think if you planted those two funguses together, you could see how they interact. You know what I mean? And you could kind of see what they're doing

for the human condition. If we go with the premise that you don't come into this world, you come out of it, and then you plant a fungus to see how it acts on the life around it, I think you could draw at least some comparisons to how it acts on the human organism. People act like yeast. right now and they spread and colonize and so I mean okay that's I mean we are we drink

alcohol and so we act like yeast and we should be eating mushrooms and acting more like mushrooms and turning shit into gold that's the that's like the philosopher's stone that's alchemy right there right well yeah I mean so that's what's funny it's like that's what mushrooms do. And so it's funny because, yeah, we are like a fucking yeast mold growing on top of the world. You know what? If we just go with that thought, it seems that maybe the psychedelic fungus is beginning to win. And like maybe that's the changes you're beginning to see in this world. Is that colonizing? Yeah, we're not quite at the fruiting stage yet. You know, we're still colonizing, but it's growing pretty strong, it seems like.

The yeast tried to kill it, but it's a few pockets of it stayed alive, and now it's... We just went underground. We went underground for a while. There's a lot of shit now, so... A lot of shit for them to eat. Yeah, there's no shortage of it, without a doubt.

So, no, it's funny, because it is, it's interesting to see this transition, and I, but I'm also always, like I said, just with the hemp thing and the way things are structured, worried about we saw a movement like this in the 60s and the 70s and then where here we are 60 years later and nothing's changed. So this brings me to a point.

Like I actually got to talk to Dr. Strassman about psychedelics and about Schedule 1 drugs. And I had asked him, do you see what's happening now? Do you think it's possible things could get shut down today the way they were shut down in the 60s? And he didn't even take a second. He's like, absolutely. He's like, you don't, he's like, there's going to be another Charles Manson. There's going to be another Kool-Aid, you know, like that's going to happen.

And when it does, be ready because you're going to shut everything down again. He's like, I'm not saying that it's going to happen tomorrow. I'm not going to, I'm not saying it's going to happen next month, but it'll happen again. And when it does happen, you know, if we just look at history, much like you were saying about, you know, licensing and stuff like that. All you got to do is look back at history and see the way in which things unfolded in the past. and those things have already gone through the formality of actually happening. So that might they actually happen again is yes. Well, and there's a lot that can make it not happen or happen, but can it?

Totally. Like, I mean, we were so close in the 60s and the 70s. I was even bored, but there's moments where I just looked back and it's like, but that's exactly. You went from that and then Nixon. Like, that's Nixon. And then you get fucking everything that came from that, which is the CSA and all, like,

everything we're talking about now. So it's like, right, you know what led to that? The fucking movement against it. The movement to open psychedelics is what fucking crushed it. Because, I mean, it's why I'm always like, just be good citizens, be careful even though we shouldn't have to. Drugs are stupid, yes, but people accept it. I don't know why. Like, they cause way more harm, but we, it's like we have like this, we have to be better than them because it's, you know, it sucks.

but like if mushrooms cause one tenth of the damage that can it that second that uh that alcohol or anything does then we're fucked like even if it like heals like a bunch of things and fixes a bunch of things but causes a little bit of problems unfortunately it's going to be really hard for a while and honestly i think organ's going to be a real good test of that but you're also seeing that most of the counties are just banning it you're going to end up with like basically Portland. It's going to be the Portland and Noma plan basically, not the Oregon plan. Yeah, it's, you know, I had thought that maybe

the ability to tax it would be its savings grace. I thought that you know, there would be some sort of NIMBY. What's that NIMBY? Not in my backyard. Even if they want it, they don't want it anywhere near them. So nobody wants it in their county. They want, even if they want it, it in Oregon, they don't want it in their city and they don't want it in their county. Interesting.

No, that's exactly. That's the thing. Even if people think this should exist somewhere, just not here. That's the problem. It's like low-income housing, right? That's what I mean by, or safe injection sites, or things that will save people's life, obviously, but

like, it's so bizarre. I mean, at the same time, I can understand, it, but it's just why, it's one of those things where it's like we're going to have these problems until as a society we adopt these things wholesale, and then it'll be transformative. But like you have this situation where, well, yeah, but okay, well, there's problems with safe injection sites because of what? Well, all those problems can be addressed as well. All the problems with the psychedelics, all those things, but the problem is there's underlying

other problems, which make all of that. Like, it's not the injection sites, and it's not the psychedelics that are those things. it's problem with other things. But the finger gets pointed at the symptom. Yeah. Just like, just like, it's interesting to see our problems as a whole. Like if you look at society and you see the problems as a whole and then like that's on the grand scale, but then you just look at it on a small scale.

Like the same problem we have in our society is the same problem we have with medicine. And that is that we treat the symptoms instead of treating the disease. Right. Like it's, you can see it on a grand scale and it just plays out on a small scale, whether it's the body of the planet or the body of the human. The forest or the trees. It's hard to see through that, you know. Everybody ought to go to this trees.

I can't see the forest. Yeah, yeah. It's crazy to think. My friend and I always talk about, you know, everybody hears the old adage that history doesn't repeat, but it rhymes. But I think it moves more in a helical model. Like, I like to believe we're moving up through the spiral instead of just coming around and repeating the same stuff.

And that to me at least gives me hope that we can learn. So when we got here in the 60s on the last revolution, it exploded before we really solved the problem. But here we are again moving towards it. And the fact that we're conscious of what happened in the past should at least allow us to think about what we can do this time. The problem is, again, that you and I are conscious of it. There's many, many, many people in this. and that's why we're talking about this. So that way hopefully it doesn't happen again because people learn.

And I don't want to scare people. Like it's like, it's like, it's I do, but I don't. It's like, I want to warn you about things that can happen. Like I don't want people to be afraid, but I don't, right. You need to make the right decisions. It's like, some people think I want people to be afraid. I'm like, no, but these things can happen. Like the hemp thing with all those things, they could just start arresting people.

Like if some conservative group got in that really hated, cannabis decided to change and there was enough people that somehow something happened in our country and there was a pushback, it could decidedly happen. I could see cannabis and psychedelics both being completely criminalized again really easily in the next 10 years. Yeah, it could be a tape goat. You know, they're going to say for, look at all these problems happening. It's the drugs. Well, and the other thing is they'll just let the medical trials go through and only allow, I mean, THC has been approved for 30 years as, as, what's it called? Trinavino, which is synthetic THC.

You could have, there's been a prescription available from the FDA for, for years. And now there's CBD Epidialex, but CBD still isn't from a plant, like besides epidialics, still can't be taken safely as, or it claims the FDA for a safe amount in food or supplement. But they allow that drug company to do it. So, like, that, and that's the thing. And so the real thing is that pharma wants it to be that way. And so, and that's industry. And so you have companies like ours who are trying to change that model.

And that's why I created the company is like that we're, as we're doing this research, is to make other companies do sliding scale pricing and give away medication to low-income people and do things like that whenever we create the IP and then license it to groups. That way it drives costs down. and gives benefits to indigenous groups as we're developing the things. And so that's the structure and the reason why I ended up creating a company is because all the things we're talking about. The reality is that you can push government change. You can do all these things, but if you don't create a company and do the work yourself in a different way,

you can keep talking about telling someone else to do it about how far much should be different, but like someone has to do it. And so that's like, sometimes it's like insane to be like creating a pharma, you know, trying to do pharma and study these things while talking shit about people who study these things and pharma. But but it's so it's like it's basically it's like the realization that like you have to participate just like in government or only the bad people do. Yeah, it's true. Yeah. Have you, do you think that there were, it seems on this go around. that a lot of people are using the idea of religion and sacraments in a way that they maybe didn't do in the 60s.

So that's, well, I have done the same thing. I have a church that is incorporated in Washington State. And because it's something that I mean, I wrote this 20 years ago when I, this is something I've been doing for a long time, but I just incorporated it. And it's because of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act. and so peyote lafifora is used by native americans in the 90s there were two native americans who were also drug treatment counselors and they were ironically arrested for peyote or no no no they weren't arrested sorry they were denied they were fired for using peyote and they

went to court to sue for their religion and use because that and they won in Oregon and the Supreme Court of Oregon agreed I believe and then the state challenged that to the Supreme Court and the Supreme Court ruled in favor of the state against the state Supreme Court saying that it was legal to discriminate based on their use of peyote because the law wasn't directed at religion. It was equally applied to everyone. regardless of religion. So, and then because of that, everyone got pissed and they created the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, which changed that. However, then later the Supreme Court struck that down in terms of, it only applies to federal decisions. It doesn't apply to state

decisions. And so, but that basically says that they have to, it provides more protection for religions for a lot of things. And part of that was then in 2000, I believe, there's a groups that were Santon daime and Unin de Vegetal, which are two churches that are Christian in nature that are also used ayahuasca, similar to the Native American church typically in the United States using peyote and combining traditional indigenous and Christian beliefs. But the people in South America in those different areas, just to give context. And they, so they were, they had shipments seized and people arrested. And so they took it to the Supreme, they took the DA to the court. And it was stayed because they were winning. So it never actually fully finished, but basically

the Supreme Court ruled that like they put a stay on it saying that they had the right to import the things. And basically since then, it's been held up. And it said now the DA has actually created an entire licensing program for giving licenses to religions, but they haven't given any, really. And so the churches are suing them now based on it. There's actually the Yahai Assembly in Arizona is in a case with them right now. It was actually supposed to be settled. They were working on settling it. But then that case got pushed back and they couldn't reach a settlement.

And so now by Monday, there has to be a final response on that and then the judge rule. So we'll see what happens. And that will be about their freedom of religion case because the DA hasn't given them a license. But because of all of that movement and because currently over the last few years when Trump was in office, there were all these, the justices at the Supreme Court that were placed that are obviously skewed towards religious conservatism. while, like I, anyway, you can use that. You can be upset about what the other side does or not in the other side or by how life plays out. Or you can adapt and be like, well, now it's like, you know, it's like, you know, use the other side's weight against them. And so, oh, religion, okay then.

So this is how we do it. And so New Hampshire, there was a Supreme Court case in the state of New Hampshire where they ruled that psilocybin is protected under their religious use there. And then I believe that, you know, there's actually churches that are in Washington State and in Oregon that were the ones that were involved in the original Sontfield Diamond Union of the Veggital cases. And so and some of them have gotten actually have a couple have D permits, I believe now. and then some of them are operating outside of it and going to court with the DEA. There's a really interesting paper. If anyone goes to Google Scholar and puts in the words bubbling ayahuasca, there's a paper and it's basically a case study on all the things I just talked about.

And it's the history of all of that. But like the case law, all the names I mentioned, everything. And B. Labate from Chakruna was one of the authors and then a professor from Washington as well. But it's one where if you're interested in this, you should read. Thank you for that. That's super awesome. How do you know all this stuff, man? How do you stay on top of all that?

I've been doing this for like 20 years. Like I said, I started creating it like 20 years ago. And I was involved with activism with cannabis previously. And I had an experience when I was 18 with the psychedelics that changed my life. and so it's just I have just and then because of that I very quickly got into non-appropriative methods of doing these things and so like biopiracy and looking into that and actually like Nagoya product all these things were like I something I started like 20 years ago I don't I just was like I don't want to like it's their thing why I how

how do I or but then there's also the other thing is so so many people should know is there are plants that contain psychedelics all over the world like you don't know need to go take ayahuasca in the Amazon. There's DMT containing plants that grow here. There, uh, that are in North America. They're actually called prairie acacia and prairie homosa because they actually even have the same leaf structure. I'll, um, um, lepta. I'm going to kill the name. But if you, uh, Dismanthus, uh, is, does, is the, um, making sure family name. Family of the plant is the would be of that plant species, uh, or the family of it before the species would be, leptopterus and you can there's multiple DMT containing plants that grow from like

Ohio to Arizona allies waiting to be found there are empty parking spots in the structure that no one's even parked in yet one Hibascus has MEOIs and tobacco has MEOIs and harm and they're in a lot of plants you can easily if you look at Haramala alkaloid you'll find there in a whole lot more things than people realize and so it's that's one of those things also is the tools are are or are more readily available than people are aware of. Yeah, in some ways, it's almost comical to think that, you know, government organizations want to ban these certain substances because you ban this one. There's like another 50 right over here.

You know what I mean? Well, Stolgan talk about some. Yeah, that's a T-KL and P-Kal. If anyone here does, the listening doesn't know T-C-Kal and P-Kel, you probably want to read those books too. Yeah. Talk about a fire hose of information that is easily accessible. for everybody is standing on the shoulders of giants you know when you think about

shogun and just the people that came before us that have written down their ideas and their experiments and their three four five plus systems of what they're rated like and you know before I'm having an absolute blast but I wish I had more time to talk to maybe we can come up yeah we can do a I usually end up doing follow-ups with people because it usually goes this way Yeah, yeah. Maybe we can touch on this before we go real fast. This idea of religion, like, you know, in the beginning of this renaissance, we saw a lot of people that would flock to South America or would flock to other parts of the world to have these ceremonies. And sometimes you wonder, like, this particular ceremony, like, let's just say an ayahuasca ceremony in Brazil has quickly transformed to an ayahuasca ceremony at the Hilton in Brazil on the beach.

You know, and like, I'm just wondering how much is really lost in this transition and how this commercialization has kind of changed the way things are. Wouldn't it be beautiful? And I think you kind of see it happening is if you do see churches up here beginning to adopt their own sort of ceremonies where they can begin to influence and talk to people in a way of religion that is indigenous to them. You know, what do you think about that? I think it needs to happen because people need to stop being culturally appropriative. So I'm reconnecting to my family roots on this in variety of ways. I have family in Ireland and also that I'm connected to and for Irish and Celtic and then also for Norse family. I'm also connecting with my Native American family and I'm enrolling with the Cherokee tribe currently because my family is and there's a tradition of mushroom use there.

And so it's and learning about, I'm learning the language and learning the cultures of all of these as I'm doing this. And, you know, Sam Haynes coming up and I will be practicing that. I will be getting mead for those ancestors. I will be doing tobacco offerings for the corn ceremony, which is also this time of year for the Cherokee. I will be because, so for me, it's been finding my ancestors practices. and trying to do those. And for everyone, that's going to be. And then creating, also then also create your own is like of the faith is me trying to merge all three of those into one thing.

So that's what I'm, I saw you, I mean, that's what I'm trying to do. And I think it will help alleviate all of the cultural appropriation of Native American culture regarding peyote here or ayahuasca and the different tribes there. because if you're there or if they invite you or they think it's different than if you're doing that here. And the compounds, again, are in lots of different places. So there's lots of different ways to do this. And I'm not saying that anyone doing something is wrong. It's just that if you're involving a cultural item, you should be doing it with the cultural people. And when they say.

Yeah. They have years of background. for that ceremony to be a certain way. And I'm not saying you can't get results, but there's a certain method that they have created that's been happening for generations. Anytime you take something out of context, you lose the meaning of it in some way, right?

If I take a certain sentence out of context, it may be a powerful sentence, but I don't get the background. And so I think the same is also true with any sort of experience, not just in language, but experience in life. I think that people could create their own. And that's kind of where the magic happened is when you begin to create something that is sacred for you and those around you. We were talking about ceremony earlier.

In inherently you do. And I think people should just do those things. Go into nature and go camping with your friends or your community that you're doing it with. Yeah. Like that and you'll end up making your own. I promise. Yes. I promise you it'll happen whether you want it to or not.

Yeah. So, David, before we go, what is it, do you have some things coming up? Where can people find you? And what are you excited about? November 3rd, I'm speaking at the Spokane, at a web seminar on psychedelic law for the Spokane Legal Association. And then on November 15th, I'll be in Las Vegas. there's the I don't know when this is coming out but the or we'll be able for people but the

remind conference is uh mjpisc cons new psychedelic conference and i'm one of the advisors for it and this is the first year and we've actually gotten five or six native americans that will be speaking on different panels thankfully this year which is the only one that i know that's doing that and this isn't just like speaking on native issues they're actually lawyers and different things who are involved in the industries who are speaking on their expertise but also happen to have that back background and then they've agreed to give four tickets to Native American students as well, which is incredible. And it's been nice to see a conference be able to start living up to some of those ideals. No offense to any of the other ones, but I know MJ. Wisconsin's been doing some really good work with

drug war prisoners and things like that for attendance and doing scholarships, which is amazing as well. So I think those are really important that the people of color room put in jail are given licenses, no matter how this happens. happens. Yeah, that sounds exciting. I'm looking forward to. I noticed on your LinkedIn page that there are a few links to that remind event coming up in Vegas and it looks like it's really well marketed and I think you're going to have a lot of success with it. I'm looking forward to hearing the speakers and looking forward to how that we're going to make it to Vegas? I don't know. I I've got a I'm a UPS driver and so Christmas time coming up right here is usually a event in itself. I would love to get out there. And maybe not this time, but I plan on coming and taking the podcast on the road next year and going to multiple events and getting to talk to the participants. And so, yeah, I am forecasting a bigger future for the true life podcast and getting

to meet cool people like you and getting to actually help out with some of the people that are publishing papers. And as we're talking about it real fast, I want everyone to know too. I got a couple events coming up where I have been monitoring some of the people that are writing papers. There seems to be no shortage of psychedelic events that have been happening around. And one thing that I am aspiring to do is that I am having people come on, present their papers in front of me and a panel of guests, and then push that out to my podcast network of people. You should talk to the cannabis science conference would be someone you should talk to.

They are basically, that's all they do is they have people present papers. their papers at the conferences and they did a psychedelic one this year as well and just one room of the path of it. So there was like 10 rooms for different types of science in cannabis and then they added a psychedelic one this year for one room and they're going to expand it next year. But it's like that basically you could sit in that place and interview people for the whole time. That would happen for me. There's an East Coast one and a West Coast one every year.

Okay. And the cannabis science conference, is that what, is that what? what I would look up there. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No, that would be perfect.

It would be, I did this year, but like there's just so many good people. Like the people who did the COVID and cannabinoid studies were there, for example. Like the, the CBD and CBG and CBN and cannabinoids, and they're actually working on something psychedelics.

I'm not supposed to say much, but there's some impersonal on that coming out. So you, I, you would have fun. See, this is what makes me excited. Like,

I feel like we're on the precipice of some really good, good experiments and some really good knowledge is beginning to be reintroduced to us. I'm so excited for that. And I'm so excited to thank, thanks again, David, for your time. This is really fun. And I may have mentioned it before, but it is really refreshing for me. And I think people that listen to the podcast to get to hear somebody who is not only points towards the direction, but participates in it. So thank you for that. Man, I really appreciate it. Oh, thank you. I just want other people to be able to dump out that cup of water. Yeah.

Great one. Is there, if I, if you were going to recommend a book to someone, I try to ask this as a last question, what is, what is a book you would recommend or is there a good book that you have read recently that you would like to, to recommend the people? Aldous Huxley's the perennial philosophy. Nice. I mean, that's kind of the basis of my life. So the truth is everywhere.

Yeah. Yep. Well, that's what we, ladies and gentlemen, thank you so much for spending time with us. Please check out David's website. I'll put his links below. And is there anything else that people can reach you out? You have a Twitter handle or is there any of the time?

Penesia plant sigh because you can't put the full thing. It's just the, our main Twitter handle. But, and then, yeah, we're on Facebook. And I, Instagram with the pictures makes it really easy for me to share pictures.

of science articles. So I generally do that because I'm a weirdo and share too much science. So I don't know if people can like it or not, but it's what I do. Yeah. And I would recommend everybody listening. Reach out to David. He's full of information. He's really helped out in the community. And he's somebody you definitely want to keep your eye on. If you enjoy learning and laughing and having a good time, then this is the guy you want to spend some time with. Thank you so much, David. I'm going to shut this down, but maybe you can hang on for a second after this. Sounds great. Thank you so much for having me. Yeah, pleasure's all mine.