Name: Huberman on the Emerging Science Around Psychedelics
Uploaded: 2023-03-21T17:03:50.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Huberman on the Emerging Science Around Psychedelics' from PowerfulJRE on Comedy Buff. Published 2023-03-21. Transcript available.

Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Huberman on the Emerging Science Around Psychedelics' from PowerfulJRE on Comedy Buff. Published 2023-03-21. Transcript available.

- The Joe Rogan Experience.
- This is now really big science,
and pharma's moving in very quickly.
What they're trying to do is create
non-psychedelic psychedelics.
Figure out what sorts of chemistry changes
that doesn't give you hallucinations
and create new antidepressants.
That's what they want to do with psilocybin.
'Cause doing two journeys on a drug and then you're done,
that's not good business.
And what I love about what Michael Pollan is saying
is that he's the one that's really,
he's really hitting the drum on this one.
He's saying these things work,
the clinical data are showing that.
65% plus success rate for what would otherwise be
intractable, untreatable suicidal depression, incredible.
And now the universities are behind it.
But they're behind it because laboratories
are getting funded to do it.
Laboratories are getting funded to do it
because there are grants.
Why are there now grants from the federal government?
Well, philanthropists came in early and provided money,
and now people are starting to see
that there are big, big potential outcomes
at the level of pharma.
Now, the classic psychedelics community
isn't gonna like that.
They're like, no, this is plant medicine.
It's got a 100,000 year history or more,
indigenous people, et cetera.
Academia and pharma don't care about that.
And I'm not, I'm not, I'm one of these people.
I don't, I'm not saying they're bad and they're good.
I'm saying that it's humans again.
So why are universities suddenly okay with the idea
of discussions about psychedelics in front
of their top tier donors, the people that literally supply
the blood to the university?
Well, because top tier donors are now really interested
in psychedelics.
So what drives every aspect of it from the student
who's pipetting in the lab to the highest tier
of administration and university all the way up
to directors of NIH, it's all interconnected
at the level of incentives.
- Right, but the top tier donors are clearly influenced
by the zeitgeist and the way people have approached
and thought about psychedelics has radically changed
- Completely.
- Over the last 10 years.
And Michael Pollan is one of the reasons for that
because the omnivore's dilemma, he had established himself
as a legitimate journalist who would comb through
and parse through all the data to give you
a comprehensive understanding of what exactly is going on.
- And he went out and did them, or at least some of them
as a kind of late, the typical person, not, you know,
and didn't come out with wearing a, you know, a robe.
- Right.
- You know, or sit in the lotus position or something.
- And he can discuss them like a journalist.
- And then having podcasts discuss it,
then you're getting these positive drug stories out to,
and I don't even like calling them drugs,
positive compound stories about psychedelics
that are going out to millions and millions
and millions of people.
And you're hearing about these people,
particularly soldiers who are coming back with PTSD
who are having tremendous results,
people with overwhelming depression,
people with all sorts of problems with drug addiction
and so many different ailments that are being helped
in this way.
- Yeah, absolutely.
And look, you deserve tremendous credit here.
I know you're not one to, you know, sit here and take praise
from your guests, but I'm going to just say that you've been
talking about this for a long time,
about the tremendous value of these things,
not just for gaining new perspective,
because I think in the sixties and seventies it was,
remember it was tune in and drop out, right?
Now we're talking about the use of psychedelic medicine
to be able to lean into life in a healthy way.
That's the major difference.
And you've really pioneered the discussion around that,
Michael Pollan and there are others too, I realize.
But you know, at a time when it was considered really wacky
and out there, now it's becoming,
it's headed towards mainstream medicine.
And I think it's fundamentally important.
I mean, I think Robin Cardhart-Harris' laboratory at UCSF
has a paper out just today on the use of DMT
for treatment of psychiatric illness.
His laboratory has been looking at high dose psilocybin,
two sessions, guided sessions.
Treatment of anorexia, ADHD, and depression
with very high success.
Nolan Williams' lab at my university at Stanford.
He's a triple board certified psychiatrist, neurologist,
running the studies with Veteran Solutions,
the group down in Mexico of tier one operators
and other people who come back who are just messed up.
They're either heading towards suicidal depression
or they're just not feeling quite right
and using Ibogaine DMT in tandem
and getting tremendously positive results.
So he's doing the neuroimaging on them.
So times are really changing and you and Michael
and others really deserve a token of gratitude.
I've completely revamped my stance on psychedelics.
I'm still yet to do a high dose psilocybin journey.
I haven't done that yet.
- What was your original stance on psychedelics?
- I don't wanna lose my job.
And I'll be honest, so I was kind of a wild youth,
barely finished high school and I did recreationally.
I took LSD and psilocybin in high school,
hung around with a wild bunch
and we were just partying with it.
I didn't know what I was doing.
So my view of it was, it was associated with a time
in my life where I was pretty wayward.
- Right.
- Then I never touched it.
I drank a little bit, smoked a little bit of weed
here and there, but never really liked weed very much.
It just wasn't my thing.
And then when I did this three sessions with MDMA,
that completely transformed my understanding
of how these drugs work.
I also realized, and you might,
you probably already know this,
but I was very curious about MDMA
and the reputation that puts holes in the brain,
kill serotonin neurons.
You know, the study on MDMA that showed neurotoxicity
is, was retracted from science.
They actually inadvertently injected methamphetamine
into those monkeys, but you never hear about that.
- How do you inadvertently inject methamphetamine?
And you don't hear about--
- Oh, I thought it was aspirin.
- Yeah, you don't hear about that retraction.
You hear that-- - Turns out it was meth.
- So they now have data in humans asking what are the safety
profiles on MDMA for people that take it every once in a while
to very, to people have taken hundreds of doses of MDMA.
And there's one population of people that you can do this on
that makes it a really good experiment.
Those people can't do any other drugs because then it becomes
confounded by, are they doing meth?
Are they doing coke?
Are they getting psilocybin?
What else?
- That's a good experiment.
You want single variable manipulation.
There's only one group that you can do that on.
And that's who they did it on.
And that's Mormons.
So the Church of Latter-day Saints has one drug
that's not on the banned substance list.
And that's MDMA.
- Wow. - And I'm not saying all Mormons--
- They can't even drink coffee.
- It makes an even better experiment.
And so I'm not saying that Mormons are all taking MDMA,
but there is a substantial number of LDS,
Latter-day Saints, I think they call themselves now Mormons,
as most people know them, who have taken tons of MDMA.
And they've done brain imaging and psychiatric profiles
on them.
Those data say that as long as it's not contaminated
with something else, which is a serious issue,
the neurotoxicity is nil to none.