TrueLife - Jenny Chen Robertson - Psychedelic Science 2025

Episode Date: June 26, 2025

One on One Video Call W/George https://tidycal.com/georgepmonty/60-minute-meetingSupport the show:https://www.paypal.me/Truelifepodcast?locale.x=en_US🚨🚨Curious about the future of psych...edelics? Imagine if Alan Watts started a secret society with Ram Dass and Hunter S. Thompson… now open the door. Use Promocode TRUELIFE for Get 25% off monthly or 30% off the annual plan For the first yearhttps://www.district216.com/Jenny Chen RobertsonIn an empire of numbness, where sedation is sold as salvation,One woman dares to weaponize wisdom and baptize bureaucracy in the psilocybin sacrament.”Jenny is not a facilitator.She is a forger of frameworks,A cartographer of care,Turning risk-reduction into revolution.She walks the fault line between clinical ethics and ecstatic experience—MBA-trained, yes—But with soul credentials inked in sweat, in silence,In sacred listening.She’s briefed lawmakers with the calm of a nun and the clarity of a sniper.She’s testified with tremors in her voice and steel in her spine.Her resume reads like a paradox:Real estate magnate turned mycelial matriarch.Spreadsheet whisperer turned soul doula.Jenny co-founded the Safer Psychedelics Association of New EnglandNot to play nice with power—But to redefine it.She speaks for the trip-gone-sideways,For the mothers who don’t trust “the system,”For the cops confused by consciousness,For the firemen called to burning minds.This isn’t harm reduction—it’s harm revolution.This isn’t education—it’s uncolonized knowing.She doesn’t just talk set and setting—She re-sets the setting of the entire conversation.So lean in close, fam—Because when Jenny speaks,The old paradigm doesn’t just shudder—It begs for a blindfold.And the future?It’s already listening.SPAN: Safer Psychedelics Association of New EnglandJenny Chen Robertson One on One Video call W/George https://tidycal.com/georgepmonty/60-minute-meetingSupport the show:https://www.paypal.me/Truelifepodcast?locale.x=en_USCheck out our YouTube:https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLPzfOaFtA1hF8UhnuvOQnTgKcIYPI9Ni9&si=Jgg9ATGwzhzdmjkg

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Starting point is 00:00:01 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, fear. Hears through ruins maze, lights my war cry, born from the blaze.
Starting point is 00:00:40 The poem is Angels with Rifles. The track, I Am Sorrow, I Am Lust by Codex Serafini. Check out the entire song at the end of the cast. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to the True Life podcast. I hope you having a beautiful day. I hope the sun is shining. The birds are singing. We are at Psychedelic Science 2025.
Starting point is 00:01:11 And I found my friend Jenny. Jenny, can you tell my audience who you are, what you got going on? Great. Yeah, thanks for asking, George. My name is Jenny Chen Robertson. I am the co-founder and executive director of the Safer Psychedelics Association of New England. So we have been at this conference, Jenny, for like five days. It has been a lot. There's been a lot of things going on. Some good times, some fun times, and a lot of cool science and a lot of cool things about spirituality that I've found. I've had great talks with people. I know you have too. What are some of the highlights? It's been super great meeting with people from all over the world. As I was telling George, last week I was in Taipei. I gave a talk on preparation and integration and safe psychedelic engagement. And my collaborator from Taipei is also here. So it's
Starting point is 00:02:02 great to have him as part of the Taiwanese psychedelic collective kind of connect with the rest at the community where the movement is happening. I've met some amazing people just from all over the world. It's been just unbelievable. The new science has been coming out and all of the research and where the movement is trending. Yeah, I have seen so many cool stories coming out and so many ideas. You know, I really see this whole conference as being a place
Starting point is 00:02:36 where people are going to return to their communities with some great ideas and some great things. that are able to produce fruit, I hope. Yeah, I agree. I think one of the most valuable things here is to learn and to have a community. Actually, the first thing that's valuable I find is to have a community. We know that having a community to talk about this, to normalize it, to destigmatize it, is the mission of span.
Starting point is 00:02:59 And that community is what allows us to also heal and move forward together. So that's the first thing that I've really taken away from this. Second thing I hope is to in within that community to find the support that the various community or various areas in this, you know, in our country and around the world needs in order to collaborate to move forward. One of my friends, friends that I met, you know, he's located in the Midwest state, what's really conservative. And he said that, you know, one of the reasons he stays is because he's a therapist there. And he sees the pain. And it's one of the state with one of the highest suicide rates. So, you know, that's why he stays despite how conservative the state is, but he also feels the onus and to help him move forward with legalizing and making it accessible in his state.
Starting point is 00:03:52 Yeah. I'm so thankful that we live at this time. There's a lot of crisis going on, but I really think that the opportunity for psychedelics to help people become more aware and heal, even their communities. Can you tell people a little bit more about what you got going on at Spann and some of the policies that you guys, have that are helping the community. Yeah, so we are coming out with our second book pretty soon, psychedelic safety essentials. We're working on some new training programs for the community for, you know, teachers, parents, so forth, just really educating and education to help people understand and take
Starting point is 00:04:28 some of that fear away. Like I always say for folks, you know, we probably wouldn't take a Tylenol or aspirin if we actually read the fine print, you know, and here we are. just buying it in the supermarket, right? Or wherever, drugs, right? And I think psychedelics itself is a loaded word. And so this is why we are so passionate about destigmatizing it so that we can have an authentic and open and evidence-based community like a conversation about it.
Starting point is 00:04:58 Yeah. I think it speaks volumes of where we are. You know, it's interesting here because there's so many different communities here. There's like an indigenous community here. There's like an Asian community here. There's like a queer community here. Have you been visiting some of these talks that are sort of targeted towards different communities? Yeah.
Starting point is 00:05:18 Yeah. So I participated in the plant power liberation talk by my friends at the Athenogenic or Athenagen Melanin Collective in Boston, the EMC. They are the Bipoc community for psychedelics. I've also been participating with the Asian psychedelic collective. And of course, my friend from Taiwan. representing the Taiwan Psychedelic Collective as well. So it's and then I met a woman in Sweden,
Starting point is 00:05:44 which I understand they have very, very conservative, I think attitudes around drug use, drug use, we call it substance. And so it's just really inspiring to see how people are engaging and the sincerity that they want to move forward. Is the talk the same in all the communities that are going to? Like, are there similarities and differences about psychedelics that are different to, like, the different communities? I think, yeah, I've definitely seen that there's some more
Starting point is 00:06:18 openness in certain communities and also, and fear. But I think the underlying, I would say, theme might be fear of the unknown and probably a little confusion, right? Because, again, the psychedelics is such a loaded word. In America, we've had this. war on drugs, which is perpetuated throughout the globe, right? And so being Asian and from a small island nation, we follow, Taiwan follows very closely with a U.S. drug policy. And so the idea of, you know, drugs being helpful is really mind-boggling and kind of like, you know, for people now, I think. But to really change that perspective. Yeah. It's interesting to bring up the reasons why things are illegal. We may have met the same person from Sweden. It was a young girl
Starting point is 00:07:13 named Stephanie that I spoke to and she was telling me how conservative they are there. And when I asked her, why do you think it is? She says it's a morality issue. The government sees drugs as a morality issue. That's a pretty tough racket to be, right? Same in Taiwan. You know, we're talking about a lot of like harm reduction and morality issues, right? And so it's interesting because I can't speak to Sweden, but they're a Christian nation. So that may makes that kind of makes sense to me, right? To kind of rely upon one's morality or perhaps a Christian-based faith in Taiwan, there is Buddhism, Christianity, Taoism.
Starting point is 00:07:51 And so there's a lot of kind of cultural aspects and religious aspects that are mixed in with societal culture. That's even kind of hard to differentiate and pick the threads from. So the conversation that I was at least having about Asian countries, is there is really no such idea or concept of harm reduction. Right. Right. Because people who use drugs are bad and they deserve to die.
Starting point is 00:08:20 You know, like, beautiful things, not a thing. Like, well, if you're going to shoot up drugs, this is what you get. And it's just a different concept. It's fascinating to see it from that angle. Yeah. I think it's a legacy of our drug war, right? I think so. tens of people for very minor infractions.
Starting point is 00:08:38 Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I don't even get me starting a drug war. Like, I don't have a war on poverty. Like, there's so many more things we could have a war on besides the war on drugs. Right, right.
Starting point is 00:08:50 How do you see it, Jenny? Like, on my darker days, I see the whole psychedelic renaissance as something that's going to come above ground and then sort of be shattered by an attempt of like commodification or some sort of greed. some sort of greed. I don't want to believe that. But I think psychedelics ends up in the underground moving forward. Am I being too pessimistic? Yeah, no. I show those same fears. I share those same fears because we are so indoctrinated in this medical model of trusting people with, you know, white coats and research. And I think the research does suss out that psychedelics can be helpful, may be helpful for the right population, just like any drug. You wouldn't take an anticholesterol drug if you don't have high cholesterol, right?
Starting point is 00:09:35 Right. So with that medical model in mind, it's very unique that in the U.S., we also commodify prescription medication. Yeah. And so I think that is my fear that it will be commodified in that way. And we look for quick fix. It's not unique to the U.S. I want to be really clear on that.
Starting point is 00:09:57 But I think as a society that we talked about in our last conversation, this optimization desire, We want to optimize and take away the pain so that we can continue to push ourselves to optimize, right? And I just don't, I just, I know that's not how this medicine works. Yeah, it's really well said. It seems to be, this seems to be, at least here at this conference, an overwhelming sense of new awareness. And I see it in all of the different talks that I've heard and the people walking out. Like, it really seems to me, like there is this.
Starting point is 00:10:32 sort of evolving awareness. What do you think about when I say an evolving awareness coming out of psychedelics? I think that's a great, great kind of encapsulation of what's going on because psychedelics is so loaded. It's funny. We were talking about why certain words are so loaded. So ketamine, federally legal, also legal in Taiwan. And instead of calling it ketamine because they had a ketamine problem societally with it being like a party drug
Starting point is 00:11:00 and so they don't even call it ketamine when it's used therapeutically they call it R-A-A-D rapid-acting
Starting point is 00:11:08 anti-depressant they've re-branded reframed it so that people don't even know that it's ketamine anymore and because
Starting point is 00:11:17 ketamine has such a bad you know so I don't know you know maybe maybe the word psychedelics needs to be
Starting point is 00:11:24 changed to something else or maybe we just really really need to work really hard to take away the stigma. Yeah, it's a beautiful answer. I'd expect nothing less from you though, Jenny. Let's talk about labels because when I look at the Western model, especially here in
Starting point is 00:11:39 psychedelic science, there's a lot of talk about depression or anxiety, but these are these labels. And once you give someone a label, it's so difficult to get out of that, especially if it's a diagnosis. What are your thoughts on maybe changing the language around? What if instead of it's PTSD, maybe it's PTG? like post-traumatic growth opportunity. Can we really change outcomes by changing language?
Starting point is 00:12:02 I think yes. To your question, yes. We can change outcomes at changing language. And I think that with our current medical model, the fact that we need to have diagnostic codes, billing, insurance, etc. I heard this one talk by Dr. Franklin King out of Harvard. He gave it such an eloquent, kind of easy to understand. explanation of how our medical model works, right? He is a medical doctor. He said that our medical
Starting point is 00:12:32 model takes us up to 100%. When we are suffering from depression, PTSD, anxiety, we are no longer at that 100%. And so these medications take us back to 100% and that's where we are. That's the medical model, how we presume to heal people. When you say post-traumatic growth opportunity, that presumes over 100%. But maybe not, right? Because we know that's not what we're saying. But I think in our current medical model, that is the assumption. So it's maybe if we say something like post-traumatic, you know,
Starting point is 00:13:11 I don't even know what would be the word, like filling opportunity to sell us up back to 100%. I don't know. But that's kind of where our medical model is that we are only, We only deserve healing when we are below this are 100% of being. Yeah, that makes sense. I think we can change it with language. Yeah. You know, and it's interesting to me to be, just to be here now and seeing so much coming out of here.
Starting point is 00:13:41 You know, in psychedelics, there is, there seems to be or has been this underlying tension between spirituality and science. What are your thoughts on that? What have you seen here at the conference? Yeah, I think the conference has done an amazing, amazing job. Agreed. Blending the two that both are important, right? Some of the research that, like, Professor David Nett out in Preo College presented, talked about the mystical experience,
Starting point is 00:14:08 and that some of it being the most profound experience that some of these test patients experienced. And I think that we decouple our mind from our bodies, that we think that we can take a substance to heal our body and it is different from mind. How many times have we heard of someone who is diagnosed or suffers an accident and was told they cannot walk or they cannot do something, barring losing a limb or something, right? Right. And that some people are able to regain a lot of mobility despite this very terrible diagnosis.
Starting point is 00:14:44 I am not saying that the mind cures everything, but I do think that our bodies, our body, a physical body, and our spiritual body is one, and that we can not stop, we can, we have to stop treating them as two separate entities. One of my friends so eloquently told me that, you know, Jenny, I don't want the same person healing my broken arm to heal my broken arm. I don't think they're the same qualifications. And I think she's right. Yeah. That's a fascinating concept to think about the whole mystical process of it to me like I've had so many mystical experiences using psychedelics you know for me when I think of mystical it's like seeing maybe it's the observer effect you get to see yourself outside of yourself what is there a certain mystical experiences
Starting point is 00:15:38 you've had using psychics you care if we talk about psychedelics sure I mean I you know my organization is an educational organization but personally I am pro-psychadelics, right? Nice. And, you know, with the kind of safety guards and guard rails there. But yeah, definitely. I think that I was able to turn around my very, very rigid thinking into something new. This is not to say I'm a different person.
Starting point is 00:16:04 Right. I'm the same person. But I would say that the relationships that I have with my loved ones, friends, have vastly improved because I've been able to see how these, responses to traumatic events in my life has shaped me and then thereby shaping my former responses and now feeling such agency to respond in a different way that I can actually engage in a much more thoughtful way. So personally, that's my experience. I'm thankful to have had the correct support to integrate these lessons into my life. And that's why a community
Starting point is 00:16:42 is so important for that integration process. Yeah, it's a beautiful answer. Thank you for that. Thank you for asking. Yeah, we're a good team here, Jenny. When I think of safer psychedelics, I think about my youth and as a young man, I had a really recreational experience with psychedelics. Like I would go out, I was probably reckless quite a bit, but I still was able to use them.
Starting point is 00:17:05 And I think that they worked incredible. I had some amazing conversations with my friends and figured out a lot of things. What is the responsibility to be safe in a recreational setting? Yeah. Actually, our board and I, our board had a meeting and we talked about language as well. Okay. You know, we are not espousing that you should go do it or don't go do it. We're just simply saying, if you do, this is how you be safe about it. And so you'll notice that our name is safer psychedelics. We are not saying that it is no harm or no, no risk, right? There's inherent risk with everything. And so we hope that there are, so some of the fears as an example. Okay. People think you're going to lose your mind if you go do psychedelics.
Starting point is 00:17:47 You're going to go crazy, right? And you know what? There are medical conditions that exclude people from, might be a good idea from using psychedelics. Yeah. First order schizophrenia. Yep. Bipolar.
Starting point is 00:18:00 There's no research on this just yet. And I think there are some research initiatives going in this direction. You know, can psychedelics trigger it? I'm not a medical professional, so I don't know. However, these are some of the precautions that I think the public should know about. You know, if you have a friend and you're like, hey, but you know, isn't your cousin or your uncle or whatever, whatever, brother. You know, and maybe, you know, we know that you shouldn't drink and drive anymore. Right.
Starting point is 00:18:31 We know that when you get into your car, you buckle your safety belt, right? This is kind of that same precaution. Yeah, it makes sense to me. And just the fact that for me, I get caught up in the fact that it's illegal. Like it seems like it should be a birthright. And maybe if it wasn't so looked down upon or didn't have such a stigma or it wasn't illegal, people would be a little bit more free to experiment and there wouldn't have to be such a dangerous environment around it. If there was a place you could go and find it that was, you knew it was legitimate and you knew the product you're getting was going to be okay.
Starting point is 00:19:06 That would take a lot away from the harm aspect of it. Do you think that we're going to get to see that? I know that we saw Texas and Ibo Gain and there's some, actually we're here in Denver, which is pretty amazing. Do you think we're going to continue to see this sort of legislation happen throughout the states? I believe so. And our organization believes so as well.
Starting point is 00:19:26 We believe that psychedelics is going to go mainstream, whether federally or at the state level. And so this is really the same thing. Now, I've heard, I've not, I've not experienced this myself, but I've heard from friends that have young children or, you know, teenage children, that they, there are parties now that where parents will allow their teens to drink at home. Okay. Safely and then call on Uber or call their parents to pick them up.
Starting point is 00:19:55 Because it takes away from that, what's curiosity. Right. And that kind of just the curiosity aspect. Right. And so that when they go off and live on their own, they're not going to, you know, hopefully, hopefully not abuse alcohol and excess and so forth. Perhaps maybe people can do that with their kids. But I think, again, it boils down to fear.
Starting point is 00:20:19 We're such a bad rap from the 60s coming out of Nixon and war and everything that people are, we hear that we're psychedelics and they think, you know, kids jumping off, you know, out of windows, you know. Yeah. It's so interesting to be here in Denver. Like last time I was walking on the streets and there's people like openly selling like mushroom candy bars and I seen people are you walking It was right out here in front of the convention There was a booth set up and they were selling like they had gummies and everything and I'm like oh my gosh Did you guys be hiding too much? Yeah
Starting point is 00:20:54 It's so interesting but you know what even more than that Jenny? I went out to the psychedelic playhouse They had an event and I didn't hardly see almost that many people drinking Clearly there were people drinking sure but a large part of the people were probably on some sort of a psychedelic. And it was amazing. Like there was all these presenters there and the conversations were lively. And I didn't see a whole lot of people
Starting point is 00:21:17 exhibiting like the over-alcohol aspect of it. Like no fights? Yeah, there were like no fights. Thank you from putting it like that. There's no fights. There was no belligerency. Yeah, yeah. But there was lots of great conversations.
Starting point is 00:21:30 Do you think we can look forward to a future like that? I hope so. You know, I think, you know, being from the West Coast, one of my favorite artists from back when I was a kid was a snoop dog. Yeah. And he said that, you know, you get some guys in a room. I don't remember the exact quote, but it was about cannabis.
Starting point is 00:21:45 And he said, basically, if you get some dudes in a room together, you give them alcohol, you know, fight. It's going to break out, you know, fisticuffs. Right. But if you pass a joint around, by the end of the night, you guys are all friends. Right. So I think that's kind of a good analogy for psychedelics, you know. I do.
Starting point is 00:22:01 Provided it's safe. You're with friends and you feel comfortable. And it's, you know, nice. setting. Yeah. That reminds me of the great quote that says politics is downstream from culture. Right. And if we can begin changing the culture at this level, people coming home and, you know, trying to solve problems and they use psychedelics for maybe rights of passage or maybe to solve problems with their loved ones are in their community. Do you think we can change the policy by changing our community? I think so. I think that's where that's where change starts. I agree. Yeah,
Starting point is 00:22:33 I think that's where change starts. I mean, if you think about the history of sex, psychedelics, it became demonized because the community was rallying around it. And unfortunately, the time that it happened, the community that was rallying around it was a younger community amidst this societal change in our country. Now change is, you know, there's a change du jour, right? We get new change every six hours. I mean, God willing, this administration, right? Like, we've been at the conference for a week.
Starting point is 00:23:05 I don't even know what I miss. I know. And so, you know, I'm going to have like 50 emails to kind of go through like to catch up on like the last week's news. So I think we're at a precipice where we can, we're expected to adapt to change so quickly. And I think we're doing a decent job. Right. And so I do think that change can swell from below to influence a talk to your question. Yeah. I think it can too. It's interesting that you bring up the 60s and the radical change there that happened. It seems that the war on drugs began happening, and on some level, the culture became a threat to the status quo. Do you think that that could possibly happen again here and maybe force psychedelics back underground? I think anything could happen.
Starting point is 00:23:50 That's such a great answer. I think anything could happen. Some of the things that I thought like, no, I don't happen in America. This is America. Right. It's happened. So I'm not sure how to answer that. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:24:04 Yeah, it could. Yeah. It's interesting. What are you most excited for in the world of psychedelics? Like you have you've been all, first off, you've been all over the world recently. Yeah. Yeah. All right. East, back to California. We're here to Denver. What are you most excited for in the world of psychedelics? Oh, gosh. There's just so much. I think in terms of the research that's coming out is actually really, really exciting because we are a researched, you know, based education organization. So as the research comes out, reading it, that's super exciting. Even, you know, even the, even the, even the, even the, even the, you know, even the, you know, even the, you know, even the research. the research saying the risks of psychedelics. That's good. It's good to know. We want to know the good
Starting point is 00:24:39 and the bad, right? Just keep that conversation honest. Because I think the people are like, oh my gosh, psychedelics is like 10 years of therapy and like six hours. That's not going to be like that for everyone. Right? Not. There's no way. And that is that is anecdotal experience of one person, which is amazing and beautiful. But that's not going to be everyone's story. And I think it'd be unfair and a disservice to the medicine and those holding the medicine to to perpetuate this narrative of like it's this like panacea. One thing I do kind of think about too is that because the experience now is being so commercialized. Totally. Right.
Starting point is 00:25:25 There might be pressure because of this commodification of it to give people. good experience right I want people to have good experiences right and they can be catholic and healing course and I believe that challenging experiences also yields some really great fruit yeah yeah it is the challenge I think it's always the challenging experiences like when you look back on your life some of the biggest traumas you've been through have been the most fertile soil from which the flowers grew right right you look back on that and while at the time it was painful afterwards like I could never have done it unless that
Starting point is 00:26:01 happened or it would never be who I am. I guess that kind of brings up the idea of the bad trip. A lot of people talk about it. Some people say there's no such thing as a bad trip. And it doesn't have to be a binary answer, but some people say there is. But what do you think about when I say the bad trip? Yeah, we at Span, differentiate between bad and challenging. Oh, that's beautiful. Bad, something bad actually happens. Maybe you get up and there's toys on the floor, something on the floor, you trip and you like stub your toe or something. That's bad. Or you fall and you fall.
Starting point is 00:26:32 Yeah. That's bad, right? Yes. Then there's challenging. Okay. We are, I personally and as span we teach that challenging is not necessarily bad. It is challenging. And we help people navigate, learn techniques to help their loved one navigate through the challenging
Starting point is 00:26:52 experience. If they are with someone. Because the fact is if someone's having, if someone is having a good experience, they're probably going to be okay. Maybe they're doing it by themselves. We're not advocating that. We're simply acknowledging. That's what happens.
Starting point is 00:27:05 And that's what may happen, right? It is when someone is having a bad trip or challenging experience that they might call you, that they might be like, hey, I'm scared. And so that's where our education comes in. We want to help you understand what is going on and how to help your loved one, friend, et cetera, neighbor navigate through that challenging experience. So I think to your earlier question of what excites me, I think that for me it is really about continuing this conversation, continuing to build communities and have that space to desigmatize
Starting point is 00:27:40 psychedelics and to have open conversations about it. I think you and I are really, really quite lucky people. Yeah, without a doubt. We have community that we can talk about it openly. You have a podcast we're talking about it now, right? With so many people. And so we're really fortunate. And you are doing great work as part of this destigmatizing.
Starting point is 00:27:58 So thank you. Yeah. Doing this. I want to make sure I heard this, right? Like at Span, is it like a hotline people can call or like? We would eventually like to get there. But right now, yeah, right now we are just, we're not even funded. We are just, yeah, we, it is my co-founder, Dr. Brie Riser and I, and we have this cohort of
Starting point is 00:28:18 amazing volunteers and amazing board members and advisory members. And we are really kind of honing. in our next two, I think, big projects coming out is that we are issuing our second version of our psychedelic safety essentials. Okay. So that will be available on our site for download and Amazon, but I want to disclose. Amazon only allows us to give a free download once a quarter. So we'll sign up our mailing list. Right. We will let you know when that day is. And then we are creating community trainings for communities and first responders. I think we're starting with fire first. I love that. And it brings up a great point. I know.
Starting point is 00:28:54 I'm in Santa Rosa and I was actually having a really cool conversation with a fire captain around in Northern California and he was telling me about some of the incredible things that the first responders have to do. He had mentioned that for some reason the firefighters seemed to be the people that have to take care of the bodies inside the cars or or sometimes at like a scene. He had mentioned to me that not only that aspect of it but he had a new guy on the job And in the first week, the guy had to respond to like multiple 911 calls where there were like homicides and they were the first on the scene, so no cops were there yet. And there's nothing, as firemen, there's nothing they can do.
Starting point is 00:29:33 So they just show up and they're like, I'm sorry, there's nothing we can do. They wait for the cops and they leave. But if you think about, if you start seeing that multiple times a month or how many times you see that a year, as a first responder, you carry that with you. And so I really think the first responders are people that could benefit incredibly well from psychedelics. But unfortunately, there's this idea that they're drugs and you can't use them.
Starting point is 00:29:57 They're not covered by insurance. Do you see any pathways getting around that? Yeah. So that is also one of our initiatives that we want to make this conversation normal, right? Right. One of our advisory council members, Lieutenant Sarko, Zigerian, he is out of the One Threat Police,
Starting point is 00:30:14 and he is a MAPS-trained peace officer. Oh, nice. He was able to get a religious exemption to participate in the maps training. So he's also, he's an amazing person, also a trained therapist. Nice. And so he sees first responders. And I can't remember the exact statistic, but I think he said on a daily basis, a first responder is 15 times more likely to encounter traumatizing events than you or I walking on the street. Oh, I could see that. Okay. Yeah. And so you're right. They carry it with them. So he is starting an organization. And he talked about it here at psychedelic sciences to allow first responders to get a religious
Starting point is 00:30:50 exemption to engage with psychedelics should they want to. Wow. Yeah. Because we know that psychedelics can help release or address, process, digest, whatever word you like to use, some of that secondary trauma. Yeah. I think it's needed. And so many of these therapies aren't seeming to do the trick anymore.
Starting point is 00:31:11 People are turning to other substances to try to feed it or to get rid of it. It's such an exciting time. It is. It is. and excited to be here with you, Doris. Yeah. Jenny, you're amazing. I'm so stoked on, so stoked to see you here in person and what you guys are doing.
Starting point is 00:31:27 But for everybody that's watching, can you give out your information, like where they can find you or where they can find Span and I get a hold of you. Thank you. So we are at www. Spanbase.org. That's S-P-A-N as a nice B-A-S-E. That's our homebase online. Dot org. Fantastic.
Starting point is 00:31:48 Ladies and gentlemen, thank you so much for hanging out. That's all we got. Aloha. All right. We did it.

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