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DPP #26: New Fun Drugs are Coming Soon! Apr 30, 2021

Show notes

Are you ready for a new drug? In this episode I interview neuroscientist Matthew Baggott about his new company, Tactogen, which is synthesizing and bringing to market new MDMA-like substances. We also discuss the pros and cons of the new psychedelic renaissance, what the mainstreaming of psychedelics might look like in the near future and how it might affect the underground culture, especially with the entrance of big money capitalists like Peter Thiel and the dreaded Compass Pathways.

[Reagent test kits and fentanyl test strips available at Grassroots Harm Reduction]

Transcript of the Introduction

Hi everyone. In this episode I interview neuroscientist Matthew Baggott. Matthew has been a friend and colleague of mine for over twenty years. He was an early consultant for DanceSafe and he's recently founded a company, Tactogen, which seeks to synthesize and market new MDMA-like drugs, or entactogens. This is a fascinating interview. In it, we discuss the pros and cons of the new psychedelic renaissance, what the mainstreaming of psychedelics might look like and how it might affect the underground culture, especially with the entrance of big money capitalists like Peter Thiel and the dreaded Compass Pathways.

We talk about upcoming models for prescription psychedelics, including the potential for take-home prescriptions… what the lack of trained psychedelic therapists is going to mean for medical legalization, how the decriminalization movement and growing recreational psychedelic use, interfaces with the medical psychedelic movement, and a lot more…

I did this interview a few months ago and what's really interesting to me is that between then and now I actually had the opportunity to try a new entactogen that I had never taken before: 5-MAPB, or 5-methyl-amino-proply-benzo-furan. And I have to say…. It was great! I loved it.

It was similar to MDMA, but unlike other entatctogens I've taken, I didn't feel it was missing anything. It was a complete experience. And for me that's different, because when I take other entactogens, like MDA (also known as Sass), or methylone (a cathinone class drug) … I always feel like I didn't quite get where I wanted to be, as if the drug is trying to be like MDMA but just doesn't quite get all the way there. So there's always a feeling that something's missing.

But with 5-MAPB, I didn't have that feeling. There was a kind of whole emotional component, a complete stress-free state like there is with MDMA. But the difference was there wasn't that gushing, sort of overwhelming emotional empathy like there is with MDMA. It wasn't mushy, in other words. There was a bit more… discernment I guess… like you don't feel compelled to tell complete strangers that you love them.

One way I like to describe it is that I used to think MDMA was just one effect, a continuous single effect. Call it the MDMA-entactogenic effect. And that other MDMA-like entactogens get you part of the way there. So like MDA or methylone always felt to me like "lesser" entactogens in this way. They only got you part of the way up the MDMA-like ladder, if you will.

But after taking 5-MAPB, I now realize there are two distinct effects from MDMA. Because 5-MAPB (to me at least) produces one of them in full completeness. And that would be the stress relief, and the sociability. The taking away of social anxiety. In this regard 5-MAPB felt exactly like MDMA. It wasn't lesser in this regard. And this is something MDA and methylone don't have. To me.

So if you can imagine two effects from MDMA. One the stress relief, and the other the mushy lovey-dovey part, 5-MAPB has all of one and none of the other. And given that I can no longer experience either with MDMA (because I've taken it too many times), I must say I am thrilled to have discovered 5-MAPB.

Anyway, when I did this interview with Matthew, I hadn't had the 5-MAPB experience yet, and you'll hear I open with skepticism of him or anyone actually being able to find other entactogens similar to MDMA. He sort of convinces me in the interview that they're out there, but how strange that just a few weeks later I actually take one. And now I'm even more excited than ever at the potential to find even more, which is what Matthew's start-up is attempting to do… with machine-learning algorithms, actually, which you'll soon hear about in the interview.

So I'm gonna keep this intro short. I do want to say that I'm beginning work on my documentary again after taking two years off, so that's exciting. And the worst of covid MAY be coming to an end, at least in the US, which means we MAY see festivals start up again sooner than expected. So maybe life will get back to normal soon. But of course we have to watch closely what's happening in India, and Brazil right now. Horrible. It shows that things can change quickly, and for the worse, as the virus mutates. So far the vaccines are amazingly effective, even with all the known variants, but we need to get them distributed fast, and globally, before even newer variants appear that may escape the vaccines. And while you or I can't do much to speed up vaccine distribution, there is something we can do. And that is, get vaccinated. Mutations occur much more easily in non-vaccinated populations, so please, get your damn vaccine. I got mine. The risks of the vaccines are minuscule, whereas the risks of Covid are not as minuscule.

Ok enough of that. Let's get right to it. Here's my interview with Matthew Baggott.

[Matthew's new company, Tactogen can be found here.]

DPP #25: When Will Festivals Happen Again? Feb 02, 2021

Show notes

It's been almost a year since the pandemic ended mass gatherings. A year without live music and festivals has taken its toll on many of us. When will they start up again? In this episode I discuss the latest COVID science to try to find an answer to that question. [Reagent test kits and fentanyl test strips available at Grassroots Harm Reduction] Rough Transcript Hi everyone. I'm back, and once again . . . I know it's been a long time since my last episode. I'm not even gonna apologize this time, because in the end just gets ridiculous. All I'm gonna say is that I do INTEND to produce episodes more regularly. And I will at some point. But … so much has been happening in my life it's crazy. I'll tell you about it briefly, and then we'll get into the episode, which is about covid and festivals. Basically… when festivals are likely to start happening again. Ok, but me first… Here's what's happening… A few months ago, in my last episode I told you about my mom and her dementia. And thank you everyone who wrote me with your sympathy and words of encouragement, and those who asked me how she was doing. It's actually quite interesting. She's doing maybe 70% better, but she does still have dementia. It wasn't all about the medication she was on. If you remember I was hopeful her problems were all about this one medication called pramipexole, and that once I got her doctors to discontinue it, she would get better. But it really wasn't that. It was another whole month before she improved. But here's the thing… I believe it was the covid that fucked with her brain, and that during those few months she had it, IT was responsible for wiping out her short term memory. I mean she couldn't remember what we spoke about from moment to moment. She'd literally say the same thing over and over, not realizing she just said it. But when she finally beat the covid, she slowly got better… I mean… 70% better, which is huge… and that just doesn't happen with typical Alzheimer's. With typical Alzheimers, it's a steady downhill. You don't get better like that. You may have good days and bad days, but her improvement is dramatic. I really have my mom back. And I plan to visit her as soon as I'm allowed to travel internationally, and as soon I get a covid vaccine. She just got her first shot herself a few days ago. But here's why I think the covid affected her brain so much. You see, this virus can strike anywhere in the body, and there's a lot of cases of people who get cognitive problems when they get covid, problems that can last a quite while. You've probably hear of post-covid brain fog. There's a lot of people talking about that, but there's even covid-psychosis. Seriously. Some people who get covid literally become psychotic, as in full-on schizophrenia type psychotic. It doesn't seem to be permanent, but these are people with no history of mental illness. Totally weird. So we know this virus can affect the brain, and it can also produce lots of different symptoms all over the body. And so… here's my theory… Again it's just just a theory. But what I think is that some of these non-standard symptoms that some people get… meaning more than a cough and fever and stuff, depend on the particulars of a person's immune system, and particularly, where that person might be experiencing inflammation. Preexisting inflammation. Everyone has SOME degree of inflammation. There's so many toxins in our environment these days. So many foreign things getting into our bodies. And our immune system tries to recognize them and attack them, but sometimes it gets confused and attacks our own tissues instead, even after those toxins are gone. And this can cause chronic pain and disease. Inflammation is so common in fact that we take it for granted. Inflammation is the number 1 cause of pain and illness … by far. When it gets way out of hand people get diagnosed with autoimmune disorders, like ALS, multiple sclerosis, arthritis. You name it. There are so many. But … for the vast majority of us, inflammation remains mild. So we just take ibuprofen on occasion. But the thing is… it tends to strike in the same place when it does. Wherever a person might get inflammation, that's generally where it stays. And so Alzheimers is correlated with brain inflammation. My mom was already in the early stages of Alzheimers when she got covid, which means she already HAD some inflammation happening in her brain. Then she got COVID and her main symptoms were in her brain. A total loss of short term memory. So I think what's going on is that her immune system was already primed to attack the neurons in her brain. So when she got covid, the cytokines that attack foreign invaders, as well as that cause inflammation, mainly went there, and they went to town there. So I think that covid is more likely to affect areas in your body if you already have inflammation going on there. And this is why it's hitting people with preexisting diseases so hard, because so many of them, like Alzheimers, are a result of inflammation, of the immune system being a bit out of whack. Anyway, that's my theory. And that's my mom. She's doing so much better. Again thank you everyone who wrote me, with your love and support. And let me just say one more thing before I move on from this. Remember in my last episode I gave a list of things you can do to prevent dementia. Well, here's one more thing I learned… Tack this on to the list I gave in my last episode. And that is. Eat more fiber. You see, fiber feeds the good bacteria in your colon that excrete anti-inflammatory molecules that prevent brain inflammation, molecules that sweep up cytokines and keep them in balance. And Alzheimers is highly correlated with low levels of these molecules. This could be why Alzheimers is on the rise… especially in the west, in the US and Northern Europe, because our diets suck and we don't get enough fiber. So what are these bacteria in our colon that we need to keep happy? The first thing to know is they aren't acidophilus and bifodus. Those are good bacteria also, and you can buy those in supplement form. Everyone knows about those. But we're talking about different bacteria, lower down in your colon. And you can't eat them for whatever reason. They can't be put into supplements. So how do you increase them if you can't eat them? And the answer is… you feed them. Well, you could also get a fecal transplant where you stick some healthier person's poop up your butt… and yes, this is really a thing. But let's not go there right now. And easier way to increase the number of these good bacteria in your butt is simply to eat fiber. That's what they live on. So eat more vegetables people. I know I sound like your mom, but in this case your mom was right. Feed those good bugs in your poop and they will reward you by pooping out anti-inflammatory molecules in their poop, which will prevent dementia later in life. No joke. And remember to exercise and take your psychedelics regularly also. So another reason I haven't put out any new episodes in a few months is that … a few weeks after my last episode, I had to go to Florida, because the pandemic basically killed my family business and I had to go down there to shut it down. It's a dry cleaners… which has been in my family since 1937. My sister and I inherited it when our father passed away in 2012. But when covid hit people stopped going into the office for work, and so they stopped wearing dry cleanable clothes. So we lost 60% of our business almost instantly last March, and it hasn't improved at all. So we basically had to close it, and I've been dealing with that, which is a lot of work. But at the same time I wanna tell you something really good that's happened in my life, and that has ALSO taken up a lot of my time. And that is I've met someone super awesome. Her name is Becky and she lives in Michigan. She's a friend of friend and we started chatting back in September and we really hit it off and so we've been spending time together. She flew down to Florida when I was there and stayed with me in my RV and we took a trip around Florida and I just recently drove her back to Michigan, where I am right now. So… in the middle of all this trauma and death and financial collapse and NO FESTIVALS… something actually really good happened to me in 2020. Anyway, that's what's been happening with me. Living in my RV. Mailing out fentanyl testing strips. Get them at DanceSafe.org everyone. Test it before you ingest it. Okay… let's get on to the episode! Festivals. When are they gonna happen again? And let me say first I'm talking here about commercial festivals. I'm not talking about small private events. I'm talking about the big festivals we all love. With music and drugs and port-potties and thousands or tens of thousands of people. I miss them so much! The last one I attended was Hulaween in Florida, back in October of 2019. And the last indoor concert I saw was Mark Farina in El Paso in early March. I took 2C-B and holy shit! We danced for hours in a packed nightclub wall to wall with tons of sweaty strangers. I mean, if anyone had covid in there we all would have gotten it. But it was so much fun. Dancing to music on psychedelics with others… is my medicine. Like it is for so many people. And we haven't been able to do that, really, in a year. And people are suffering because of it. Depression and mental illness are skyrocketing. Not just because of the lack of festivals, but the entire social distancing phenomena. A friend of mine just posted on Facebook today a photo of herself crying because of what she says has been the lack of human touch since the pandemic started. I think I've faired better … emotionally … than a lot of people. I get so much of my social interaction online anyway, and verbal communication is really my mainstay. Speaking and writing. So I've been able to maintain that. I also don't get depressed much anyway. I'm lucky in that regard. But I miss live music and dancing in groups. Dancing alone just isn't the same. And recorded music isn't the same as live music. Seriously there's evolutionary, biological reasons for that. I'm actually gonna do a podcast episode about it one day. Humans ability to appreciate music… evolved in us for social bonding purposes. It's really important for our mental health. And one of the problems in general with modern society in general is that those experiences are often limited. To begin with. Even before covid. But now it's terrible. I miss festivals for another reason too. And that is… usually, I attend festivals with DanceSafe, the nonprofit I founded … 22 years ago. I spend a lot of time at festivals at the DanceSafe booth testing drugs for people. We'd actually just finished fundraising for two spectroscopy machines that we were going to start bringing to festivals before covid hit. These machines shoot a laser into the powder … and because every molecule reflects a different spectrum of light, it can tell every drug in the sample with precision. Super cool drug checking technology. And right when we got the money to buy them… Boom. Covid ends festivals. The last event DanceSafe did was Gem and Jam in Arizona last February. That actually may have been the last big festival that's happened in the United States. Almost year ago. I'm also worried about the chapters. The DanceSafe national office is doing ok. People are still buying test kits. But because there's no festivals, our local chapters around the country have nothing to do, and I'm really worried if this situation lasts another year, we may have to almost start all over again, organizing local chapters. The festival culture … OUR festival culture … is beautiful. And I miss it so much. Burning Man, Lightning in a Bottle, Shambala, Symbiosis … My favorites. Electric Forest… there's too many to name. When are they going to start up again? That's what I'm gonna talk about now. And of course, it's all about the pandemic. So I'm gonna get into the science of covid…. Covid science… virology, immunology, epidemiology … it's kind of taken over my intellectual life this past year. I been a non-stop researcher. It's actually one of the reasons I decided to do this episode. To get some of it out of my system. Maybe then I can get back to making regular podcast episodes about drugs. But anyway, here's the main thing about when festivals will happen again. They won't happen again until they're safe… until they won't become super-spreader events that lead to deadly covid outbreaks. And this applies to all mass gatherings. The most dangerous events of all… the one's that lead to the most fatalities in the long run, are large, mass gatherings … because you have thousands of strangers coming together, and then they go back to their respective communities, spreading the virus far and wide. So when will mass gatherings no longer lead to deadly covid outbreaks? Or specifically, when will enough scientists, public health professionals, lawmakers, promoters and attendees, BELIEVE this to be the case. Because that's really when they'll happen again. And so I think the general answer to this… or where the discussion begins is … when enough people are vaccinated. It's more complicate than that, but let's start with that. Let me tell you about the vaccines first. The main thing to know about the two current vaccines out there, the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines, is that they likely won't prevent you from getting infected with covid and spreading it to others. They will only prevent you from getting a severe, systemic infection. Fauci and the media aren't really talking about this too much. I think they don't want to turn people off from getting the vaccine, so they aren't saying things that could be construed as negative. But many virologists doubt that the vaccines will prevent infections and transmissions. Why? … It has to do with the route of administration. The vaccines are injected into your arm. They contain messenger RNA that cause the muscle cells in your arm to temporarily produce molecules that resemble parts of the coronavirus spike protein. These molecules then stimulate your immune system to produce antibodies, which circulate in your blood. But these antibodies don't easily get into the epithelial cells in your upper respiratory tract. So what they think is that the coronavirus will likely still be able to take hold there, infect the cells in your nose and throat, and start to multiply. And then you can breathe those virus particles out and infect others around you. Immunologists have actually known about the importance of vaccine route of administration for a long time. It's the reason why the later polio vaccine was oral rather than injected. You see… the first polio vaccine prevented severe illness, paralysis and death, but it didn't prevent people from actually getting polio and passing it on to others. And this is because the antibodies had a hard time reaching the epithelial cells in the gut, where polio first takes hold. Polio is spread from feces. Virus particles in feces can get onto food or in water in a number of ways and then when someone else ingests them, they bind to epithelial cells in the intestines, where the antibodies in the blood can't easily reach. Epithelial cells, by the way, are the cells that divide the inside of us from the outside of us. Like skin cells. So they're at the periphery. The farthest place from blood flow. So when sci…

Full show notes at the publisher

DPP #24: Drugs, Dementia and a Little Bit of Dharma Oct 18, 2020

Show notes

When Sasha Shulgin was at the end of his life, experiencing dementia, I had the privilege of interviewing him. Then both my parents got dementia. These experiences taught me lessons in life I won't forget, and I want to share them with you. [Reagent test kits and fentanyl test strips available at Grassroots Harm Reduction] ROUGH TRANSCRIPT Hi everyone. I really hate that I have to begin my show again, for the third time in a row, with an apology for how long it's taking me to produce new episodes. But I've really been 2020'd hard. Since the last episode I've had three people in my life die. My best friend from high school, Pat Welch, died in a motorcycle accident, my good friend and colleague, Kevin Zeese, who founded of the Drug Policy Foundation and served on the board of DanceSafe for a while, died of a heart attack, and just week ago my step father died of covid. And… my mom also has covid, and she's been in the hospital for the past two weeks. And for some unknown reason… it might be the covid… right around the same time she got it, she lost virtually all of short term memory, and she can't care for herself. So for the past two weeks I've been on the phone with doctors, nurses, lawyers, and her friends in England… to try to manage her care. And I've been talking to her every day. And it's tragic, because when you lose your short term memory you can't grieve. Her husband died a week ago but she keeps asking her nurses, "where's Jim?" And she has to re-learn over and over again multiple times a day that he died. It's like she's being continually re-traumatized. You need to be able to encode new memories or you can't grieve. I can't think of anything worse, and it's really affecting me. My mom has always been a smart, super competent, and highly motivated woman who took care of everyone around her, and now she's in this horrible twilight zone hell of non-stop misery and I feel helpless to do anything about it. The nurses aren't allowed to tell me what medications she's taking. She can't remember obviously. All she does is cry and say, "what am I gonna do. I can't live without him." It's just awful. And because of the covid, it's even worse. She's not allowed visitors. She's just alone in a hospital bed crying and confused. Even the doctors who might be capable of assessing her short-term memory issues aren't allowed to see her. I'm not allowed to fly over there. Even if I did I couldn't see her now. I'd have to quarantine for two weeks first. So I feel helpless. FUCK YOU 2020! YOU FUCKING SUCK! [MUSIC] Hi again everyone. So I recorded that about a week ago. I don't know what I was thinking, how I would possible have been able to record an entire show in the state I was in back then. I t may have been because I started taking Adderall every day. I convinced myself it would help me manage my mother's situation, and maybe it did, but I think it really just added to my overall stress. And maybe minor mania too. There was no way I record an episode in that state. No way in hell. Why would I even want to? I think I felt guilty that yet again a month was ticking by with no new episodes, and I do feel a commitment to you all. My listeners. But anyway, I think I can do it now, and I'll tell you why. First, my mother's getting better. She finally tested negative for covid, and the past three days her memory is much better. Maybe it WAS the covid affecting her brain, but it also could have been this one medication she was taking. After fighting with her nurses for a week I finally got a list of her medications, and she'd been on this Parkinson's drug called Pramipexole. She doesn't have Parkinson's, but Pramipexole is sometimes prescribed for restless leg syndrome, this condition where your leg twitches when you try to fall asleep. Anyway, as I was googling her medications, all these warnings popped up around Pramipexole about, I fucking kid you not, SEVERE SHORT TERM MEMORY IMPAIRMENT! Are you kidding me? A twelve-year old could have discovered this about this drug, yet the nurses who were witnessing her memory problems on a daily basis were giving it to her every night. So I fucking called them right away and told them to stop giving her that drug, and they told me they couldn't without talking to her GP. In England a GP, or general practitioner, is like a primary care physician in the States. I said, "what about a doctor there" and they said the covid ward doctors couldn't make a decision about anything other than covid treatment. Jesus fuck! So then I realized I had to talk to her GP, but for the past month her friends in England had been trying to get a hold of her GP and they would never call back. My sister tried also about a week ago… specifically to try to get a list of her medications, and they wouldn't even put my sister (HER DAUGHTER) through. Everyone had been telling them that my mom had this sudden dementia and she needed to be assessed. I don't know if it was the covid or bureaucracy or whatever, but her GP wouldn't talk to anyone. So I called and told the receptionist that I was a doctor in America, and my mother was likely suffering memory impairment from a certain medication she was on, and that we had been trying to get a hold of her doctor for a month, and the situation was critical now, and I want to the doctor to immediately call the hospital and have them discontinue this medication. "Right away Dr. Sferios. Let me put you through to her doctor." Same conversation with her doctor, with an added, "didn't you know Pramipexole has a common side effect of severe short term memory loss? And… why is it in England it takes a month to get through to a GP?" Well, he called and had this Parkinson's drug discontinued right away. And the next day, my mom seemed a little bit better. Yesterday too, and today… I just got off the phone with her, and she's back. I fucking have my mother back. Now, it's too early to know whether it will last. Maybe it was the covid. Maybe it was the medication, or maybe even she's just having a good spell, which can happen with dementia. But either way, Pramipexole is contraindicated with dementia. You just don't prescribe someone that drug if they are experiencing dementia, especially for an off-label use like restless leg syndrome. I stopped taking the adderall, by the way. Can't fucking do stimulants eery day. My blood pressure was high. It wasn't good for me. Drugs. This is a podcast about drugs. But look, if you've been following me, you know I don't compartmentalize my life. I talk about everything. So this is my personal life. But I'm telling you, as I always do, because it's who I am. Full honesty. Full authenticity. And I wanted you to know why, once again, I wasn't putting out regular episodes. But there are some drug lessons here, aren't there. Other than watch out for adderall and high blood pressure, particular when you hit middle age… there's also something obvious here, but I guess not obvious enough for my mom… who's a hello a smart woman. And that is… don't ever let a doctor prescribe a drug for you without researching it first yourself. You can't trust doctors to know everything about every drug they prescribe. New drugs are released constantly and they get pens and paperweights sent to them by the pharmaceuticals with the new drug's name on them in order to convince the doctor to prescribe it… FOR MONEY! If you wouldn't take a new research chemical without researching it, why would you take a pharmaceutical EVERY DAY OF YOUR LIFE, without researching it? And I get it. Some people want to trust their doctors. They don't trust themselves to know what the truth is. But even if you are't the brightest egg, at least google and read the top five links, and if you see side effects that bother you, like "SEVERE SHORT TERM MEMORY IMPAIRMENT," at least ask your doctor about it? Say, "hey doc I noticed this side effect of this drug you want me to take." And if you doctor says, "I'm not too worried about that" then ask, "why not?" And if you don't get an answer that makes sense, you need to do a risk-benefit analysis for yourself. Is a twitching leg at night worth losing all your short term memory? Is a night of cocaine fun worth dying because you didn't test it for fentanyl first? We're a drug happy culture, and I'm not against any drug, as I'm sure all of you know. But remember pushers have an interest in getting you on their drugs. This is capitalism. And to be honest, illicit drug makers are FAR MORE ETHICAL than the pharmaceuticals. The NBOMe's have kind of disappeared. So have some of the dangerous cathinones. When a recreational drug comes out and people start dying, we've seen a tendency for manufactures to stop selling them. The dark net these days is mostly filled with the good drugs. You used to be able to get anything. Now most of them have banned fentanyl, and the nBOMe's etc. Pharmaceuticals won't do that. They will lie about their studies. They will coverup the dangers, so with pharmaceuticals you need to be even more vigilant. The cartels of course are an exception when it comes to illegal drugs. They're more like the pharmaceuticals than they are small underground chemists. That's why fentanyl is more prevalent than ever. Despite the dark net markets refusing to allow them, and small-time chemists no longer making it, giant Chinese labs in cahoots with Mexican cartels are still flooding our drug supply with fentanyl. So test your fucking drugs for fentanyl. Get your testing strips at dancesafe.org. sigh… Memory… it's so fucking important. I remember when I saw Sasha Shulgin for the last time. I was interviewing him and and Ann for my documentary. This was a bout six weeks before Sasha died, and was struggling with dementia himself at the time. I asked him what it feels like from the inside to have memory issues like he was having. In true Sasha fashion, he rubbed his chin and thought for a moment, then looked up and said, "I can't remember" with a big smile. Sasha, the great lover of puns, couldn't resist the opportunity for a good joke. But here's the real thing, and trust me on this. I've been talking to my mom now, who's back remember, and I told her about everything that had happened over the past month, and she was kind of in disbelief. Yes mom Jim died almost two weeks ago. Yes mom you've been in the hospital over three weeks. This may sound trite but I'll tell you why it's not in a minute… WHEN YOU LOSE YOUR MEMORY, YOU CAN'T REMEMBER. You don't know it. When you lose your short term memory, you don't realize it. This is profound shit. You feel the same on the inside. You will be confused, but you have no clue it's because of memory. In the throngs of my mom's short term memory loss, she kept saying, "what am I going to do?" Over and over, and "I can't live without him." This is so unlike my mom. Her husband almost died of cancer ten years ago and when he was in the hospital having surgery with some chance oof death, my mom was calm and coherent. We talked about what she wanted to do when he died. Did she want to move back to the States and live with me? Would she want to live alone? She said she didn't want to move back. She had a young grandson she loved, Liam, her husband's grandson. Liam is now 13. She wanted to be near him. But when her short term memory was gone, she was just in a panic. And she didn't know why. She just knew on some intuitive level that she was confused… "I DON'T KNOW WHAT TO DO," she kept saying. That was true. But she didn't know why. When I would tell her it was her memory, she denied it. "Oh everyone is telling me the but my memory is fine." When you're in it you don't realize it. You won't be able to remember that you can't remember when you lose your memory. Short term or long term. And what does that mean for us? What's the lesson here? What's the difference between Sasha, who was his jolly old self even though his dementia at the time I last saw him was worse than my mom's, and my mom's who was emotionally hysterical … for weeks. Ok the obvious is that my mom had just lost her husband and was re-learning that over and over, whereas Sasha had his beloved Ann right nest to him the whole time. So you never know what situation you might find yourself in later in life. But still, I think there's a lesson here. That means something we can learn about this situation that gives us practical information. And so here's what I think it is… Both is if someone we love gets dementia. And if we get it. If someone you love gets dementia… what I learned, from my mother's hopefully brief situation, to my father who died in 2012 after a year-long fight with dementia… is that you need to meet them where they are at. You need to do your own grieving as quickly as possible, over the loss of whatever you were attached to in regards to your loved one, and you need to realize they are still there. On the inside, no matter what is going on on the outside, THEY—THEIR CONSCIOUSNESS—is still their. They still feel themselves exactly as they were. And you need to treat them with respect. For me, with my mom, that meant trying to make her happy and calm her. I didn't want to lie to her that Jim was still alive (although I have heard in some long-term cases when the short term memory doesn't come back, some families choose to lie, and that's ok. I just couldn't write off that she wouldn't get better, it was too early, and I'm glad I didn't.) So I kept telling her, "Don't worry mom. I'm here and you have tons of people who love you and we're going to help you through this. You don't need to do anything. We're taking care of the funereal, and you're going to see him and get to say goodbye very soon." A minute later… "what am I going to do?" "You don't need to do anything, mom. We're taking care of everything. You're going to see him soon at the funereal and say goodbye." For ten minutes it would go on like this. But it would calm her down. I hope you never have to deal with this. But a lot of us will, as dementia affects more and more people. Like I said, I went through it with my father, and now my mother, and while I hope it was just the covid, or the medication that caused it, I don't know. And the fact that BOTH my parents might have some predisposition towards dementia, I've been doing a lot of thinking about what I can do NOW, so that if I get it, I'll be more like Sasha. And I do think there's a lesson here. Maybe just a small one, because there's a lot of unknowns, and of course factors we have no control over. But in general I think the lesson is to deal with your demons now, before they come back to haunt you. And those demons are attachments. Literally, the things you think you need live or to be happy. For my mom it was her ability to take care of people. Her hysteria around her husband's death wasn't because of his death per se, but because she realized she was confused and on a basic level realized couldn't plan the funereal or deal with the myriad other things she was used to doing. Again, she was the smart and competent one, and always took charge. And when she couldn't (because of the memory impai…

Full show notes at the publisher

DPP #23: QAnon is a US Intel Psyop Sep 05, 2020

Show notes

In this episode I break from the topic of drugs to discuss the most important issue of our times: QAnon and the rising tide of authoritarian fascism. I interview investigative journalist, filmmaker and podcaster, Robbie Martin. Robbie is an expert on QAnon, and he takes us through its history and origins inside US intelligence agencies as well as the Trump administration, warning us of the dire consequences that could result from the weaponization of conspiracy theory culture.

Click here and here to listen to Robbie's own two-part podcast episodes on QAnon.

[Reagent test kits and fentanyl test strips available at Grassroots Harm Reduction]

DPP #22: Are You Addicted? Maia Szalavitz and the Unbroken Brain May 14, 2020

Show notes

In this episode I interview Maia Szalavitz, author of Unbroken Brain: A Revolutionary New Way of Understanding Addiction. In these pandemic times, problematic drug use is on the rise. Alcohol sales are skyrocketing, and more than ever we need to understand the root causes of addiction and how to help those who are suffering.

[Reagent test kits and fentanyl test strips available at Grassroots Harm Reduction]

DPP #21: Straight Inc - A Survivor's Story Apr 11, 2020

Show notes

In this episode I interview Frank Haines, who describes his experiences being held captive for more than a year in Florida's notorious anti-drug cult, Straight. Started by millionaire shopping mall developer and founder of the Partnership for a Drug Free America, Mel Sembler, in the 1980s, Straight was eventually shut down after numerous successful lawsuits exposed systemic violence, including physical abuse and torture.

[Reagent test kits and fentanyl test strips available at Grassroots Harm Reduction]

DPP #20: Lucy in the Sky with Nazis Mar 21, 2020

Show notes

In this episode I interview Brian Pace, board member of Psymposia and co-host of the Plus Three Podcast, where we discuss the political right's embracing and promotion of psychedelics. With fringe Nazi groups and corporate capitalists like Peter Thiel all getting involved in the new psychedelic renaissance, the mainstreaming of psychedelic drugs has opened up deeper questions into what we should value as a society and culture.

[Reagent test kits and fentanyl test strips available at Grassroots Harm Reduction]

Ack! There's Coronavirus in My Meth! Mar 05, 2020

Show notes

In this episode of Drug Nonsense, Mason and I discuss lying cops, massive LSD overdoses, new psilocybin trademarks and other incidents of interest to druggies, reformers and those who love them. All new and now forever free, our Patreon podcast is open to the public.

[Reagent test kits and fentanyl test strips available at Grassroots Harm Reduction]

DPP #19: Heroin, Stigma and Psychedelic Chauvinism Feb 28, 2020

Show notes

A live recording of Emanuel's talk at the Utah Psychedelic Society in Salt Lake City on February 22, 2020. Emanuel addresses the state of the drug policy reform movement, why the psychedelic community needs to embrace the decriminalization of all drugs, and why harm reduction is the argument that will build bridges with non-drug users and take us to the next level in the fight to end the drug war.

[Reagent test kits and fentanyl test strips available at Grassroots Harm Reduction]

DPP #18: Stop Vaping Until You Listen to This! Jan 14, 2020

Show notes

In this episode I interview David Downs, Cannabis Editor at Leafly.com. We discuss the frightening truth about unregulated cannabis vape cartridges. VAPI, or Vaping Associated Pulmonary Injury, killed 52 people last year. It's real, and although the main cause, a thickening agents known as vitamin E acetate, appears to be on the decline, millions of contaminated vape carts are still out there. We also discuss other serious risks with the unregulated vape market, and why we need government regulation over the industry.

[Reagent test kits and fentanyl test strips available at Grassroots Harm Reduction]

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