﻿1
00:00:01,040 --> 00:00:02,750
I have done psychedelics,

2
00:00:02,750 --> 00:00:05,130
less now, but once a lot.

3
00:00:05,130 --> 00:00:08,300
Yeah, I have exactly zero experience using psychedelics.

4
00:00:08,300 --> 00:00:10,760
Reality is distorted somewhat,

5
00:00:10,760 --> 00:00:13,143
and there's a lot of laughing.

6
00:00:14,360 --> 00:00:16,550
Psychedelic drugs have impacted humanity

7
00:00:16,550 --> 00:00:18,260
for as long as there've been people

8
00:00:18,260 --> 00:00:20,443
who wanna get their minds blown.

9
00:00:21,650 --> 00:00:23,470
There has been hardly any society

10
00:00:23,470 --> 00:00:28,090
that hasn't used some kind of psychoactive substance.

11
00:00:28,090 --> 00:00:29,540
It's been used ritualistically,

12
00:00:29,540 --> 00:00:31,300
it has been used therapeutically.

13
00:00:31,300 --> 00:00:33,040
They can cause shifts and perspectives

14
00:00:33,040 --> 00:00:36,150
that can be terrifying or revolutionary.

15
00:00:36,150 --> 00:00:38,860
I definitely think psychedelics played a role

16
00:00:38,860 --> 00:00:40,593
in changing the status quo.

17
00:00:41,510 --> 00:00:43,450
{\an8}Women went from the kitchen to the boardroom,

18
00:00:43,450 --> 00:00:46,060
{\an8}people of color from the woodshed to the White House.

19
00:00:46,060 --> 00:00:48,510
{\an8}gay people from the closet to the altar.

20
00:00:48,510 --> 00:00:52,240
The one ingredient in the recipe is social transformation

21
00:00:52,240 --> 00:00:55,560
and change is that millions of us laid prostrate

22
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{\an8}before the gates of awe, having taken a psychedelic.

23
00:00:59,170 --> 00:01:01,420
These substances are so powerful

24
00:01:01,420 --> 00:01:05,033
that the tiniest amount can make a big difference.

25
00:01:06,412 --> 00:01:07,520
{\an8}Two hundred and fifty micrograms.

26
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{\an8}Two hundred and fifty.

27
00:01:09,460 --> 00:01:11,720
Like, let's say you take 350 micrograms,

28
00:01:11,720 --> 00:01:12,553
then what happens?

29
00:01:12,553 --> 00:01:13,770
Two hundred and fifty.

30
00:01:13,770 --> 00:01:14,750
Two hundred and fifty micrograms,

31
00:01:14,750 --> 00:01:16,470
that's gonna change everything.

32
00:01:16,470 --> 00:01:18,060
Such a tiny amount can change

33
00:01:18,060 --> 00:01:20,110
not only the way we see the world,

34
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but change the world itself.

35
00:01:22,470 --> 00:01:24,210
This is a psychedelic history

36
00:01:24,210 --> 00:01:27,833
with trippy numbers that are groovy, man.

37
00:01:29,052 --> 00:01:31,635
(upbeat music)

38
00:01:49,950 --> 00:01:51,290
Let's begin at the beginning

39
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and start with the number one.

40
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Psychedelics like magic mushrooms and LSD

41
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are a class of drugs that alter the user's cautiousness

42
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They can cause hallucinations

43
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and ecstatic feelings of communion.

44
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{\an8}Psychedelics are popular now

45
00:02:08,540 --> 00:02:12,090
{\an8}because they help us have experiences and thoughts

46
00:02:12,090 --> 00:02:16,800
beyond what is considered common or normally acceptable.

47
00:02:16,800 --> 00:02:20,733
And people often really enjoy those experiences.

48
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Or they can cause fear, paranoia and confusion.

49
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Bad trips are really bad.

50
00:02:27,760 --> 00:02:29,430
{\an8}The hallucinations takeover,

51
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{\an8}paranoia sets in,

52
00:02:31,410 --> 00:02:32,820
{\an8}and a person dissolves

53
00:02:32,820 --> 00:02:35,400
into the experience and are essentially assaulted

54
00:02:35,400 --> 00:02:38,513
by the images, sounds and hallucinations.

55
00:02:40,070 --> 00:02:40,903
Which is why,

56
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according to the U S Drug Enforcement Agency,

57
00:02:43,340 --> 00:02:45,260
psychedelics are a controlled substance

58
00:02:45,260 --> 00:02:46,923
and a schedule 1 drug.

59
00:02:50,160 --> 00:02:53,010
But if you're not a government agency,

60
00:02:53,010 --> 00:02:56,680
being number one is sometimes the whole point.

61
00:02:56,680 --> 00:02:57,703
Take Steve jobs.

62
00:02:59,050 --> 00:03:00,790
Steve Jobs is the entrepreneur

63
00:03:00,790 --> 00:03:03,310
and co-founder of Apple computer.

64
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Before that, he was a hippie.

65
00:03:08,120 --> 00:03:11,250
We started Apple because we wanted the product ourselves.

66
00:03:11,250 --> 00:03:12,920
Job said that using psychedelics

67
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was a profound and positive life changing experience.

68
00:03:16,600 --> 00:03:18,440
But I don't think it's because of the experience

69
00:03:18,440 --> 00:03:20,490
of LSD that Jobs was creative,

70
00:03:20,490 --> 00:03:22,950
but I think happened was that people like Jobs,

71
00:03:22,950 --> 00:03:25,380
rewrote the meaning of computers,

72
00:03:25,380 --> 00:03:28,630
turned them from tools of cold war industry,

73
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into tools of personal exploration.

74
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At the same time,

75
00:03:32,740 --> 00:03:35,493
turning Apple into the number one company in the world.

76
00:03:36,980 --> 00:03:38,630
A lot of people that I know doing psychedelics

77
00:03:38,630 --> 00:03:41,690
are not inventing any iPhones or iPads.

78
00:03:41,690 --> 00:03:44,920
The iPhone is the ultimate toy for somebody who's high.

79
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Drug use is fantastic for ideation.

80
00:03:47,510 --> 00:03:49,360
It's not great for actually working on things

81
00:03:49,360 --> 00:03:51,310
and implementing them being functional.

82
00:03:54,160 --> 00:03:56,950
{\an8}Admittedly, Steve jobs was one in a million

83
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or perhaps one in 32 million.

84
00:04:00,640 --> 00:04:03,240
Ten percent of the adult population in the United States

85
00:04:03,240 --> 00:04:05,910
has used psychedelic drugs at least once.

86
00:04:05,910 --> 00:04:07,983
That's 32 million people.

87
00:04:09,100 --> 00:04:11,750
It's a psychedelic Renaissance.

88
00:04:11,750 --> 00:04:15,513
And surprisingly, it puts the 1960s to shame.

89
00:04:16,410 --> 00:04:19,630
Today's millennial might not look like yesterday's hippie,

90
00:04:19,630 --> 00:04:21,120
but if you're in your thirties,

91
00:04:21,120 --> 00:04:23,850
you are 10 times more likely to use psychedelics

92
00:04:23,850 --> 00:04:26,260
than the flower power generation was.

93
00:04:26,260 --> 00:04:27,860
Groovy.

94
00:04:27,860 --> 00:04:31,000
LSD, the psychedelic of the hippie generation

95
00:04:31,000 --> 00:04:34,130
was discovered as a result of 25 trials

96
00:04:34,130 --> 00:04:36,453
and one tiny error.

97
00:04:38,410 --> 00:04:41,200
It's 1943 in Basel, Switzerland.

98
00:04:41,200 --> 00:04:44,096
Albert Hoffman is doing medical research.

99
00:04:44,096 --> 00:04:45,697
Ah, very interesting.

100
00:04:45,697 --> 00:04:48,280
And he is just about to accidentally kick off

101
00:04:48,280 --> 00:04:50,093
the modern psychedelic era.

102
00:04:51,220 --> 00:04:52,740
Hoffman from a young age

103
00:04:52,740 --> 00:04:54,340
{\an8}was a mental explorer.

104
00:04:54,340 --> 00:04:56,090
{\an8}He was very spiritual.

105
00:04:56,090 --> 00:04:57,670
{\an8}His friends were surprised

106
00:04:57,670 --> 00:04:59,870
{\an8}when he decided to become a chemist.

107
00:04:59,870 --> 00:05:03,620
Nineteen forty three, working on ergot,

108
00:05:03,620 --> 00:05:05,883
this curious fungal parasite,

109
00:05:06,930 --> 00:05:08,980
Hoffman had made on a whim,

110
00:05:08,980 --> 00:05:11,970
{\an8}the 25th of a series of indole alkaloids

111
00:05:11,970 --> 00:05:13,863
{\an8}when suddenly he got dizzy.

112
00:05:15,210 --> 00:05:17,860
A tiny trace has found its way onto his skin.

113
00:05:17,860 --> 00:05:20,343
As little as 20 millionths of a gram.

114
00:05:21,650 --> 00:05:26,090
As he put it, he felt quite sick, but not unpleasantly.

115
00:05:26,090 --> 00:05:27,870
Hoffman scientific curiosity

116
00:05:27,870 --> 00:05:30,033
is aroused by this one tiny mistake.

117
00:05:31,270 --> 00:05:34,860
And on April 19th, he ingests a higher dose,

118
00:05:34,860 --> 00:05:37,510
250 micrograms,

119
00:05:37,510 --> 00:05:39,360
then decides to head home.

120
00:05:39,360 --> 00:05:41,010
He was riding his bike back at home

121
00:05:41,010 --> 00:05:43,440
and he end up going on the most momentous

122
00:05:43,440 --> 00:05:45,270
bicycle ride in history

123
00:05:45,270 --> 00:05:48,970
{\an8}Because the substance was LCD-25.

124
00:05:48,970 --> 00:05:51,153
He went on the world's first acid trip.

125
00:05:52,350 --> 00:05:56,460
Can you imagine riding home on your bicycle hallucinating,

126
00:05:56,460 --> 00:05:59,710
seeing, you know, purple rings around the lights,

127
00:05:59,710 --> 00:06:01,290
seeing the traffic going by

128
00:06:01,290 --> 00:06:03,910
and making strange cenesthetic sounds.

129
00:06:03,910 --> 00:06:06,590
Tsh, tsh, tsh, tsh, tsh, tsh.

130
00:06:06,590 --> 00:06:09,380
I don't know whether it would've been terrifying,

131
00:06:09,380 --> 00:06:11,790
delightful or both.

132
00:06:11,790 --> 00:06:13,800
He was watching the road one minute.

133
00:06:13,800 --> 00:06:14,910
And then the next second,

134
00:06:14,910 --> 00:06:17,610
the whole thing turns into an episode of the Simpsons.

135
00:06:18,650 --> 00:06:19,810
If I'm tripping balls,

136
00:06:19,810 --> 00:06:22,230
I don't want to be operating any sort of a vehicle.

137
00:06:22,230 --> 00:06:24,870
I can't even operate this vehicle

138
00:06:24,870 --> 00:06:26,980
by putting one foot in front of the other.

139
00:06:26,980 --> 00:06:30,030
{\an8}You made it home safe, that's all that mattered.

140
00:06:30,030 --> 00:06:32,890
This is an electrifying experience for Hoffman

141
00:06:32,890 --> 00:06:35,780
who believes he has discovered a sacred drug,

142
00:06:35,780 --> 00:06:39,210
a drug so powerful that this magic bike ride

143
00:06:39,210 --> 00:06:42,543
is fueled by an absolutely teeny weeny dose.

144
00:06:43,415 --> 00:06:45,760
{\an8}Two hundred and fifty micrograms

145
00:06:45,760 --> 00:06:49,120
{\an8}is 10 times lighter than a human hair.

146
00:06:49,120 --> 00:06:50,720
{\an8}Two hundred and fifty micrograms

147
00:06:50,720 --> 00:06:52,700
is a pretty small amount,

148
00:06:52,700 --> 00:06:55,730
but it can have a massive impact.

149
00:06:55,730 --> 00:07:00,390
Neuro-transmitters are already relatively small molecules.

150
00:07:00,390 --> 00:07:03,380
So it wouldn't take a whole lot of lysergic acid

151
00:07:03,380 --> 00:07:06,423
to completely reorient the way you see the world.

152
00:07:07,420 --> 00:07:10,420
So what exactly does this minuscule dose

153
00:07:10,420 --> 00:07:12,593
do to Hoffman on his famous bike ride?

154
00:07:14,630 --> 00:07:17,323
Shuts down parts of your prefrontal cortex.

155
00:07:18,330 --> 00:07:22,010
So there was parts of yourself that associate your identity

156
00:07:22,010 --> 00:07:24,540
with how you look,

157
00:07:24,540 --> 00:07:25,560
how you dress,

158
00:07:25,560 --> 00:07:26,910
what you're capable of.

159
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All those regions go off-line.

160
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You're no longer

161
00:07:31,110 --> 00:07:33,870
so associated with your identity,

162
00:07:33,870 --> 00:07:37,230
that you can only see your existence through your lens

163
00:07:37,230 --> 00:07:38,193
at that time.

164
00:07:39,750 --> 00:07:42,780
Hoffman presents his LSD findings to Sandoz,

165
00:07:42,780 --> 00:07:45,060
{\an8}the pharmaceutical firm he's working for.

166
00:07:45,060 --> 00:07:48,400
But they consider it of no practical use and shelve it.

167
00:07:48,400 --> 00:07:49,570
Ten years later,

168
00:07:49,570 --> 00:07:52,160
Hoffman's moldering joy drug will be dusted off

169
00:07:52,160 --> 00:07:54,393
by the unlikeliest of customers.

170
00:07:58,260 --> 00:08:02,230
It's the 1950s an agricultural scientist, Sidney Gottlieb,

171
00:08:02,230 --> 00:08:06,020
is living in a rural cabin without any running water

172
00:08:06,020 --> 00:08:09,200
when he's recruited by the CIA

173
00:08:09,200 --> 00:08:11,040
in the fight against communism.

174
00:08:11,040 --> 00:08:13,100
We're trying to invent faster than them,

175
00:08:13,100 --> 00:08:17,320
we're trying to invent more destructive devices than them.

176
00:08:17,320 --> 00:08:20,550
We're trying to impact, politically,

177
00:08:20,550 --> 00:08:22,250
more countries than they are.

178
00:08:22,250 --> 00:08:26,710
So it's literally a two-country fight for world domination.

179
00:08:26,710 --> 00:08:28,630
We're locked in a cold war

180
00:08:28,630 --> 00:08:32,200
and American state officials were terrified

181
00:08:32,200 --> 00:08:34,880
that there were these secret communist forces

182
00:08:34,880 --> 00:08:37,010
slipping into our society.

183
00:08:37,010 --> 00:08:40,360
Do you have any evidence of any claim to win the case

184
00:08:40,360 --> 00:08:42,860
if there's any subversive amongst these young men.

185
00:08:43,715 --> 00:08:45,930
(bomb exploding)

186
00:08:45,930 --> 00:08:47,340
The U S has a stockpile

187
00:08:47,340 --> 00:08:50,110
of around 1,000 nuclear warheads,

188
00:08:50,110 --> 00:08:53,570
but that's not nearly enough weapons for the CIA,

189
00:08:53,570 --> 00:08:56,400
which wants a thousand times more.

190
00:08:56,400 --> 00:08:59,010
And Gottlieb is the man to get them.

191
00:08:59,010 --> 00:09:01,430
The CIA taps him to come in

192
00:09:01,430 --> 00:09:03,780
and research potential

193
00:09:03,780 --> 00:09:07,480
poisons for warfare uses

194
00:09:07,480 --> 00:09:09,380
and Gottlieb ends up getting the nickname,

195
00:09:09,380 --> 00:09:11,140
the black sorcerer.

196
00:09:11,140 --> 00:09:14,280
The sorcerers' on the case.

197
00:09:14,280 --> 00:09:15,960
Gottlieb thinks way,

198
00:09:15,960 --> 00:09:18,380
way outside the box.

199
00:09:18,380 --> 00:09:19,380
Later in his career,

200
00:09:19,380 --> 00:09:21,523
he will try to take down Fidel Castro.

201
00:09:22,370 --> 00:09:24,740
Viva la Revolution.

202
00:09:24,740 --> 00:09:26,830
And he's not above using slapstick comedy

203
00:09:26,830 --> 00:09:27,960
to do it.

204
00:09:27,960 --> 00:09:29,010
Ouch.

205
00:09:29,010 --> 00:09:30,170
He attempts to kill Castro

206
00:09:30,170 --> 00:09:33,763
with a poisonous cigar, and exploding conch shell,

207
00:09:35,670 --> 00:09:38,000
and a pair of radioactive shoes

208
00:09:38,000 --> 00:09:41,540
designed to make Fidel Castro's beard dropout.

209
00:09:41,540 --> 00:09:44,860
The U S was really desperate to find any kind of weapon

210
00:09:44,860 --> 00:09:47,290
that would allow them to one up the Russians,

211
00:09:47,290 --> 00:09:50,040
whether that's a warhead

212
00:09:50,040 --> 00:09:52,890
or some sort of chemical weapon.

213
00:09:52,890 --> 00:09:54,690
When Gottlieb hears about LSD

214
00:09:54,690 --> 00:09:56,514
from an operative in Switzerland.

215
00:09:56,514 --> 00:09:57,380
Hello.

216
00:09:57,380 --> 00:10:00,790
{\an8}He spies a one in a million opportunity.

217
00:10:00,790 --> 00:10:03,550
The CIA, one of the things they were looking for

218
00:10:03,550 --> 00:10:04,900
was some sort of truth serum,

219
00:10:04,900 --> 00:10:07,543
and they were hoping that LSD would provide that.

220
00:10:10,840 --> 00:10:12,650
Gottlieb wants to corner the market

221
00:10:12,650 --> 00:10:16,200
before the Soviets can get to this powerful new drug.

222
00:10:16,200 --> 00:10:19,590
So he agrees to pay $240,000

223
00:10:19,590 --> 00:10:22,880
for what he believes is the world's entire supply,

224
00:10:22,880 --> 00:10:25,160
100 million doses.

225
00:10:25,160 --> 00:10:28,090
He not only keeps the drug out of the hands of the Russians,

226
00:10:28,090 --> 00:10:30,330
but he also becomes the unwitting drug mule

227
00:10:30,330 --> 00:10:33,630
who brings LSD to the states.

228
00:10:33,630 --> 00:10:37,050
{\an8}There were already rumors of Chinese mind control

229
00:10:37,050 --> 00:10:39,260
{\an8}being experimented on American soldiers

230
00:10:39,260 --> 00:10:40,713
{\an8}during the Korean war.

231
00:10:43,280 --> 00:10:46,040
{\an8}Then there've been talk of brainwashing.

232
00:10:46,040 --> 00:10:48,490
{\an8}wasn't brainwashing a big thing with the Chinese?

233
00:10:49,750 --> 00:10:52,810
In 1953, the CIA appoints Gottlieb

234
00:10:52,810 --> 00:10:55,210
{\an8}as head of project MK-Ultra,

235
00:10:55,210 --> 00:10:57,940
a program that will test drugs like LSD

236
00:10:57,940 --> 00:11:00,663
on unsuspecting members of the American public.

237
00:11:04,610 --> 00:11:07,490
Gottlieb will head MK-Ultra for 20 years.

238
00:11:07,490 --> 00:11:09,160
That's a long time.

239
00:11:09,160 --> 00:11:10,210
In that time,

240
00:11:10,210 --> 00:11:13,763
he will oversee 149 mind control experiments,

241
00:11:14,930 --> 00:11:16,710
more than 25 of these experiments

242
00:11:16,710 --> 00:11:18,560
involve administering LSD

243
00:11:18,560 --> 00:11:22,520
to thousands of non-consenting victims.

244
00:11:22,520 --> 00:11:27,520
One test subject was given LSD for 174 consecutive days.

245
00:11:29,120 --> 00:11:30,950
But much of MK-Ultra's research

246
00:11:30,950 --> 00:11:32,753
is carried out in broad daylight.

247
00:11:34,083 --> 00:11:36,930
The subjects of MK-Ultra with which I'm most familiar,

248
00:11:36,930 --> 00:11:38,930
were college students and young people

249
00:11:38,930 --> 00:11:40,900
here in Northern California

250
00:11:40,900 --> 00:11:42,710
administered as a standard drug trial,

251
00:11:42,710 --> 00:11:44,960
just as any other drug trial would have been.

252
00:11:46,160 --> 00:11:47,430
For all the time and effort,

253
00:11:47,430 --> 00:11:49,530
the extensive MK-Ultra experiments

254
00:11:49,530 --> 00:11:52,143
failed to produce any practical applications.

255
00:11:54,322 --> 00:11:56,700
I really don't think LSD would make a great truth serum.

256
00:11:56,700 --> 00:11:59,260
You're still capable of lying on acid.

257
00:11:59,260 --> 00:12:00,620
They gave acid to Ted Kaczynski,

258
00:12:00,620 --> 00:12:02,530
a brilliant mathematics student at Harvard,

259
00:12:02,530 --> 00:12:05,160
and then subjected him to a traumatic experience.

260
00:12:05,160 --> 00:12:06,580
Guess what gave the world the Unabomber?

261
00:12:06,580 --> 00:12:08,000
It's like, that's so inconsiderate.

262
00:12:08,000 --> 00:12:09,810
I don't know what type of truth you're going to get.

263
00:12:09,810 --> 00:12:14,063
It might be somebody's own truth, which is I am a tree.

264
00:12:15,160 --> 00:12:17,090
I don't think LSD worked as a truth serum at all.

265
00:12:17,090 --> 00:12:18,890
I don't see any evidence for that.

266
00:12:18,890 --> 00:12:20,010
I think more recently,

267
00:12:20,010 --> 00:12:24,880
LSD has been shown to offer a sense of interconnection.

268
00:12:24,880 --> 00:12:27,880
With MK-Ultra was not looking to help people

269
00:12:27,880 --> 00:12:30,370
feel more peaceful and happy with one another.

270
00:12:30,370 --> 00:12:33,073
MK-Ultra was looking to stave off communism.

271
00:12:34,210 --> 00:12:38,520
The CIA's truth serum has zero success,

272
00:12:38,520 --> 00:12:41,330
but it will prove to be a game changer.

273
00:12:41,330 --> 00:12:44,073
Thanks to 14 tie dye t-shirts.

274
00:12:48,320 --> 00:12:52,523
The CIA's MK-Ultra program had some unintended consequences.

275
00:12:53,510 --> 00:12:56,590
They were trying to root out subversive elements in America.

276
00:12:56,590 --> 00:12:59,430
But for many of the participants of the experiments,

277
00:12:59,430 --> 00:13:03,023
LSD opened their eyes to a new way of seeing the world.

278
00:13:04,890 --> 00:13:08,580
The CIA gave the gift of LSD to the 1960s,

279
00:13:08,580 --> 00:13:12,110
creating a whole new class of subversive weirdos,

280
00:13:12,110 --> 00:13:13,860
beat poet, Allen Ginsburg,

281
00:13:13,860 --> 00:13:16,170
and Grateful Dead lyricist, Robert Hunter,

282
00:13:16,170 --> 00:13:20,880
had their first experiences with LSD in these experiments.

283
00:13:20,880 --> 00:13:24,200
{\an8}This is a program designed to produce the truth serum,

284
00:13:24,200 --> 00:13:27,193
{\an8}but it ends up energizing the counter-culture.

285
00:13:28,130 --> 00:13:31,410
In the late 1950s, Ken Kesey is a young writer

286
00:13:31,410 --> 00:13:33,600
who was working in a psychiatric ward

287
00:13:33,600 --> 00:13:36,573
and volunteering in drug trials to make some extra money.

288
00:13:37,960 --> 00:13:40,070
Ken Kesey was in the process of writing

289
00:13:40,070 --> 00:13:41,280
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

290
00:13:41,280 --> 00:13:45,310
and he participated in the MK-Ultra studies in 1959.

291
00:13:45,310 --> 00:13:48,360
He said he suddenly cracked open

292
00:13:48,360 --> 00:13:50,700
and became a different kind of person.

293
00:13:50,700 --> 00:13:53,760
He formed a group of 14 psychedelic adventurers

294
00:13:53,760 --> 00:13:55,853
called the Merry Pranksters.

295
00:13:57,260 --> 00:13:59,420
And fits them out with a vehicle designed to travel

296
00:13:59,420 --> 00:14:01,493
into the cosmic heart of America.

297
00:14:03,200 --> 00:14:04,860
Imagine if you would,

298
00:14:04,860 --> 00:14:06,820
the same school bus to pick you up everyday

299
00:14:06,820 --> 00:14:08,240
as you went to school,

300
00:14:08,240 --> 00:14:11,970
covered in swirling pinks and greens and yellows.

301
00:14:11,970 --> 00:14:14,590
On the front, they paint their destination.

302
00:14:14,590 --> 00:14:15,690
Further.

303
00:14:15,690 --> 00:14:17,540
This becomes the name of the bus,

304
00:14:17,540 --> 00:14:20,440
as well as the mission statement for the Merry Pranksters.

305
00:14:20,440 --> 00:14:21,730
{\an8}They become kind of

306
00:14:22,668 --> 00:14:25,810
{\an8}1960s Instagram influencers

307
00:14:25,810 --> 00:14:29,620
going around and putting on artistic shows,

308
00:14:29,620 --> 00:14:33,593
sharing LSD with people and living #vanlife.

309
00:14:34,570 --> 00:14:36,940
The kind of free artists lifestyle

310
00:14:36,940 --> 00:14:39,233
that is very aspirational today.

311
00:14:40,320 --> 00:14:42,680
They drive from California to New York,

312
00:14:42,680 --> 00:14:45,790
a 12-day hallucinogenic odyssey.

313
00:14:45,790 --> 00:14:49,330
When the bus swerves off an Arizona highway into a swamp,

314
00:14:49,330 --> 00:14:52,440
they pour paint into the water and dip their clothes,

315
00:14:52,440 --> 00:14:55,925
inventing the classic uniform of the 1960s.

316
00:14:55,925 --> 00:14:56,758
Love the colors.

317
00:14:56,758 --> 00:14:58,330
The tie dye t-shirts.

318
00:14:59,700 --> 00:15:03,050
And whether antics attract the attention to the police.

319
00:15:03,050 --> 00:15:04,470
Groovy ticket, baby.

320
00:15:04,470 --> 00:15:06,530
They skate away without consequences

321
00:15:06,530 --> 00:15:11,313
because in 1964, LSD is still completely legal.

322
00:15:13,240 --> 00:15:15,300
The Merry Pranksters create the template

323
00:15:15,300 --> 00:15:18,540
for the hippie movement, freedom, spontaneity,

324
00:15:18,540 --> 00:15:20,970
and communion with art and nature.

325
00:15:20,970 --> 00:15:24,570
It's all an alternate universe that's unlocked with LSD.

326
00:15:24,570 --> 00:15:26,810
A substance that is still legal,

327
00:15:26,810 --> 00:15:30,130
but finding a source for the stuff is tricky.

328
00:15:30,130 --> 00:15:32,630
{\an8}Owsley Stanley or Bear

329
00:15:32,630 --> 00:15:37,090
was famous for being the live mixing board operator

330
00:15:37,090 --> 00:15:38,740
for the Grateful Dead,

331
00:15:38,740 --> 00:15:41,630
but he was also the one that made the LSD

332
00:15:41,630 --> 00:15:45,930
that was given to dozens of musicians from the time period

333
00:15:45,930 --> 00:15:48,583
that we associate with psychedelics.

334
00:15:49,850 --> 00:15:52,740
Between 1965 and 1967,

335
00:15:52,740 --> 00:15:56,260
Owsley Stanley produces 500 grams of LSD,

336
00:15:56,260 --> 00:15:58,623
more than 5 million doses.

337
00:16:00,130 --> 00:16:01,980
He produces so much, in fact,

338
00:16:01,980 --> 00:16:05,220
that Owsley is added to the Oxford English dictionary,

339
00:16:05,220 --> 00:16:09,283
meaning an extremely potent high quality form of LSD.

340
00:16:11,740 --> 00:16:14,870
But the sixties will be a decade split down the middle

341
00:16:14,870 --> 00:16:16,623
by the number 23.

342
00:16:18,560 --> 00:16:21,190
Owsley calls his acid, white lightning,

343
00:16:21,190 --> 00:16:22,810
and Ken Kesey and the pranksters

344
00:16:22,810 --> 00:16:25,810
begin to distribute it at a series of 23 parties

345
00:16:25,810 --> 00:16:27,980
they call, acid tests,

346
00:16:27,980 --> 00:16:31,670
multimedia events that celebrate LSD.

347
00:16:31,670 --> 00:16:33,600
You would've have seen flickering lights.

348
00:16:33,600 --> 00:16:35,730
You would have heard the music of the Grateful Dead.

349
00:16:35,730 --> 00:16:37,680
You would've seen DayGlo paint.

350
00:16:37,680 --> 00:16:40,120
There's just an enormous dance party

351
00:16:40,120 --> 00:16:41,440
and people are tripping

352
00:16:41,440 --> 00:16:43,880
and they are forming a new kind of society

353
00:16:43,880 --> 00:16:47,493
connected by the sensation of shared consciousness.

354
00:16:48,520 --> 00:16:50,220
Tales of Kesey's acid tests

355
00:16:50,220 --> 00:16:51,743
spread like wildfire.

356
00:16:52,810 --> 00:16:56,503
LSD becomes a rite of passage for the baby boom generation.

357
00:16:57,690 --> 00:17:02,343
But the party suddenly stops on May 30th, 1966.

358
00:17:03,230 --> 00:17:05,210
Enter Donald L Grunsky,

359
00:17:05,210 --> 00:17:08,120
{\an8}Senator for California's 23rd district,

360
00:17:08,120 --> 00:17:11,370
whose bill will make LSD illegal in the state.

361
00:17:11,370 --> 00:17:13,870
Uh, bummer, man.

362
00:17:13,870 --> 00:17:16,360
But the genie isn't going back in the bottle.

363
00:17:16,360 --> 00:17:19,870
Legal or not, LSD is part of a cultural shift

364
00:17:19,870 --> 00:17:21,660
that's sweeping America,

365
00:17:21,660 --> 00:17:24,743
a shift that's defined by six simple words.

366
00:17:26,660 --> 00:17:30,000
It's January 14th, 1967,

367
00:17:30,000 --> 00:17:32,720
Timothy Leary is a 47 year old psychologist

368
00:17:32,720 --> 00:17:36,090
who has been fired from Harvard for his work on LSD.

369
00:17:36,090 --> 00:17:39,440
And he's become a full-time evangelist for the drug.

370
00:17:39,440 --> 00:17:42,010
He is about to address 25,000 hippies

371
00:17:42,010 --> 00:17:45,160
who have gathered at San Francisco's Golden Gate Park.

372
00:17:45,160 --> 00:17:47,433
Many of them are naked.

373
00:17:48,890 --> 00:17:52,420
The Human Be-In was a festival in Golden Gate Park.

374
00:17:52,420 --> 00:17:54,290
People came from all over the city.

375
00:17:54,290 --> 00:17:55,840
They put flowers in their hair.

376
00:17:57,440 --> 00:18:00,070
A parachuter throws free doses of LSD

377
00:18:00,070 --> 00:18:01,280
to the crowd.

378
00:18:01,280 --> 00:18:03,910
The local chapter of the Hells Angels,

379
00:18:03,910 --> 00:18:06,483
mellowed by LSD, are the security.

380
00:18:07,430 --> 00:18:09,400
{\an8}They listened to music by Janis Joplin

381
00:18:09,400 --> 00:18:10,840
{\an8}and Jefferson Airplane.

382
00:18:10,840 --> 00:18:13,543
{\an8}They hear Alan Ginsburg chanting Hare Krishna.

383
00:18:15,490 --> 00:18:17,460
The hippies are confronting the darkness

384
00:18:17,460 --> 00:18:19,337
in their country with love.

385
00:18:19,337 --> 00:18:20,910
Make love not war.

386
00:18:20,910 --> 00:18:22,520
This is during the Vietnam war.

387
00:18:22,520 --> 00:18:25,210
This is in the wake of race riots

388
00:18:25,210 --> 00:18:27,010
that are occurring around the United States.

389
00:18:27,010 --> 00:18:29,980
The Human Be-In offers us a glimpse

390
00:18:29,980 --> 00:18:31,620
{\an8}of a different America,

391
00:18:31,620 --> 00:18:34,453
{\an8}an America that could be based around peacefulness.

392
00:18:35,740 --> 00:18:37,250
Timothy Leary takes the stage

393
00:18:37,250 --> 00:18:41,240
and utters six words that will define a generation.

394
00:18:41,240 --> 00:18:42,083
Turn on,

395
00:18:42,950 --> 00:18:44,110
tune in,

396
00:18:44,110 --> 00:18:44,943
drop out.

397
00:18:50,680 --> 00:18:52,680
Turn on, take LSD.

398
00:18:52,680 --> 00:18:55,580
Tune in to the secret system of vibrations

399
00:18:55,580 --> 00:18:57,770
and currents that LSD revealed,

400
00:18:57,770 --> 00:19:01,690
and drop out of mainstream bureaucratic society.

401
00:19:01,690 --> 00:19:03,040
They thought that if they did,

402
00:19:03,040 --> 00:19:04,680
society as a whole would change,

403
00:19:04,680 --> 00:19:05,810
we'd have a new America.

404
00:19:05,810 --> 00:19:08,250
You know, telling kids to just tune in, turn out

405
00:19:08,250 --> 00:19:10,290
and drop out, seems pretty negative,

406
00:19:10,290 --> 00:19:11,770
{\an8}especially from a teacher.

407
00:19:11,770 --> 00:19:13,630
{\an8}Never encourage my students to drop out.

408
00:19:13,630 --> 00:19:18,630
I'm going to pass on to my psychedelic co-religionists

409
00:19:20,270 --> 00:19:23,600
the lessons that we have learned over the last six years.

410
00:19:23,600 --> 00:19:25,550
I think many young people, even today,

411
00:19:25,550 --> 00:19:29,470
connect to with the phrase, turn on tune in and drop out,

412
00:19:29,470 --> 00:19:32,330
because it suggests a spiritual connection

413
00:19:32,330 --> 00:19:34,283
between us and the larger universe.

414
00:19:35,550 --> 00:19:36,500
The Human Be-In

415
00:19:36,500 --> 00:19:38,970
was the dress rehearsal for Woodstock,

416
00:19:38,970 --> 00:19:42,010
a three-day music festival in upstate New York.

417
00:19:42,010 --> 00:19:46,273
That includes a tent to help people navigating bad trips.

418
00:19:47,690 --> 00:19:48,950
Four hundred thousand people

419
00:19:48,950 --> 00:19:52,460
showing up in the same place to share an experience,

420
00:19:52,460 --> 00:19:56,433
to receive a message and to commune with one another.

421
00:19:57,400 --> 00:19:58,680
Well, what the hippie generation

422
00:19:58,680 --> 00:20:01,543
doesn't realize is that they're late for their own party.

423
00:20:02,620 --> 00:20:05,333
Approximately 9,000 years late.

424
00:20:08,070 --> 00:20:11,620
In 1955, Gordon Wasson is a banker,

425
00:20:11,620 --> 00:20:15,283
but more importantly, he's a mycophil, a mushroom lover.

426
00:20:17,550 --> 00:20:19,750
And he'll be one of the first Americans to discover

427
00:20:19,750 --> 00:20:22,230
there was more than one way of getting high,

428
00:20:22,230 --> 00:20:24,250
more like 200 ways,

429
00:20:24,250 --> 00:20:26,163
sprouting up all over the planet.

430
00:20:27,310 --> 00:20:28,660
But he wouldn't have found out

431
00:20:28,660 --> 00:20:31,410
if it had not been for the number 58.

432
00:20:31,410 --> 00:20:33,010
It's important to remember that,

433
00:20:33,010 --> 00:20:35,080
{\an8}whereas the era of Timothy Leary

434
00:20:35,080 --> 00:20:38,830
{\an8}led to the complete popularization of these substances,

435
00:20:38,830 --> 00:20:41,000
up until 1960,

436
00:20:41,000 --> 00:20:44,010
those who studied these plants were really remarkable

437
00:20:44,010 --> 00:20:46,883
at collecting handful of scholars.

438
00:20:48,350 --> 00:20:49,830
Gordon Wasson has a theory

439
00:20:49,830 --> 00:20:52,100
that there are cultures who use mushrooms

440
00:20:52,100 --> 00:20:53,000
for their religion.

441
00:20:53,000 --> 00:20:54,570
Hmm, I wonder?

442
00:20:54,570 --> 00:20:56,040
So when he learns from a pen pal

443
00:20:56,040 --> 00:20:57,890
that the people in Oaxaca have a mushroom,

444
00:20:57,890 --> 00:21:01,010
they call Teonanacatl, God's flesh.

445
00:21:01,010 --> 00:21:03,640
He gets there as fast as he can.

446
00:21:03,640 --> 00:21:06,410
The Mazatec people were not the only indigenous group

447
00:21:06,410 --> 00:21:08,680
that used psilocybin,

448
00:21:08,680 --> 00:21:11,160
but he was the one that he found.

449
00:21:11,160 --> 00:21:12,390
Ola.

450
00:21:12,390 --> 00:21:14,440
Wasson meets a woman named Maria Sabina,

451
00:21:14,440 --> 00:21:16,203
who knows about Teonanacatl.

452
00:21:17,290 --> 00:21:21,470
{\an8}Maria Sabina was a traditional Mazatec healer.

453
00:21:21,470 --> 00:21:23,600
{\an8}In many ways she was just

454
00:21:23,600 --> 00:21:25,300
one among other healers.

455
00:21:25,300 --> 00:21:29,900
She was very humble, poor local woman.

456
00:21:29,900 --> 00:21:32,110
Gordon Wasson pretends to be sick

457
00:21:32,110 --> 00:21:33,830
and persuades Maria to let him attend

458
00:21:33,830 --> 00:21:37,400
one of her all night Veladas or healing ceremonies.

459
00:21:37,400 --> 00:21:40,040
He is the first outsider to ingest this mushroom

460
00:21:40,040 --> 00:21:41,830
in a sacred context.

461
00:21:41,830 --> 00:21:43,260
And he photographs it.

462
00:21:43,260 --> 00:21:45,300
He wrote it up for life magazine,

463
00:21:45,300 --> 00:21:47,410
an editor picked a snappy title,

464
00:21:47,410 --> 00:21:49,460
Seeking the magic mushrooms.

465
00:21:49,460 --> 00:21:51,540
Timothy Leary had a subscription.

466
00:21:51,540 --> 00:21:54,270
He made his own beeline to Cuernavaca.

467
00:21:54,270 --> 00:21:57,163
{\an8}The psychedelic gold rush was on.

468
00:21:58,530 --> 00:22:00,310
Suddenly the whole world knows

469
00:22:00,310 --> 00:22:02,300
that if you want magic mushrooms,

470
00:22:02,300 --> 00:22:04,323
Maria Sabina is the woman to see.

471
00:22:05,410 --> 00:22:07,940
Maria Sabina got to be really famous,

472
00:22:07,940 --> 00:22:12,940
but she also experienced the cruelties of that fame.

473
00:22:13,210 --> 00:22:16,050
Maria's village is overrun with hippies,

474
00:22:16,050 --> 00:22:19,730
scientists and all kinds of scumbag who just wanna get high.

475
00:22:19,730 --> 00:22:21,495
Hey, you know where

476
00:22:21,495 --> 00:22:22,328
I can score some shrooms?

477
00:22:22,328 --> 00:22:24,170
To the police, she's a drug dealer.

478
00:22:24,170 --> 00:22:25,220
Her house was burnt,

479
00:22:25,220 --> 00:22:28,810
there was a lot of tragic episodes in her life.

480
00:22:28,810 --> 00:22:31,010
Maria's life is shattered by the attention

481
00:22:31,010 --> 00:22:32,770
from the outside world.

482
00:22:32,770 --> 00:22:34,340
Wasson on the other hand,

483
00:22:34,340 --> 00:22:37,200
had a terrific Mexican adventure paid for,

484
00:22:37,200 --> 00:22:41,983
as it turns out by the CIA as MK-Ultra sub-project 58.

485
00:22:42,970 --> 00:22:43,803
When he was done,

486
00:22:43,803 --> 00:22:48,290
he sent samples of the mushrooms to his pal, Albert Hoffman.

487
00:22:48,290 --> 00:22:50,947
You see, it's all connected, man.

488
00:22:52,400 --> 00:22:54,290
From that point forward,

489
00:22:54,290 --> 00:22:58,350
Americans became fascinated by mushrooms.

490
00:22:58,350 --> 00:23:01,100
You don't have to synthesize them in a laboratory,

491
00:23:01,100 --> 00:23:03,820
like LSD or MBMA.

492
00:23:03,820 --> 00:23:06,920
You can just go in the field, pick them,

493
00:23:06,920 --> 00:23:08,333
dry them, and eat them.

494
00:23:11,060 --> 00:23:13,120
No one knows how many species of mushroom

495
00:23:13,120 --> 00:23:13,953
there are.

496
00:23:13,953 --> 00:23:18,140
Though it's estimated there may be as many as 3.8 million.

497
00:23:18,140 --> 00:23:21,990
Of these, more than 200 are psilocybin mushrooms.

498
00:23:21,990 --> 00:23:25,710
Psilocybin is the magic part of magic mushrooms.

499
00:23:25,710 --> 00:23:28,323
The chemical that causes psychedelic effects.

500
00:23:29,190 --> 00:23:31,920
Psilocybin mushrooms grow across six continents.

501
00:23:31,920 --> 00:23:34,570
There aren't any mushrooms on Antarctica.

502
00:23:34,570 --> 00:23:36,540
Mexico is the global hotspot,

503
00:23:36,540 --> 00:23:39,483
home to 53 species of magic mushrooms.

504
00:23:40,480 --> 00:23:41,820
Do mushrooms count?

505
00:23:41,820 --> 00:23:43,880
Oh, then I have been high on psychedelics.

506
00:23:43,880 --> 00:23:45,200
I like shrooms more,

507
00:23:45,200 --> 00:23:46,860
if we're going to be talking about drugs.

508
00:23:46,860 --> 00:23:49,110
It's like acid with a seatbelt, so it's nice.

509
00:23:51,330 --> 00:23:53,060
We don't realize that in order to find out

510
00:23:53,060 --> 00:23:54,060
what you can eat,

511
00:23:54,060 --> 00:23:56,780
that people literally had to try things

512
00:23:56,780 --> 00:23:58,950
{\an8}and make people aware that this is something

513
00:23:58,950 --> 00:24:00,090
{\an8}you want to stay away from.

514
00:24:00,090 --> 00:24:02,760
Or Hey, this mushroom right here, it's nourishing.

515
00:24:02,760 --> 00:24:05,700
And it gives you an interesting perspective on life.

516
00:24:05,700 --> 00:24:07,780
And as we're discovering,

517
00:24:07,780 --> 00:24:10,940
people have been getting an interesting perspective on life

518
00:24:10,940 --> 00:24:13,470
for the last 9,000 years.

519
00:24:13,470 --> 00:24:16,050
{\an8}Probably our very earliest evidence

520
00:24:16,050 --> 00:24:19,190
{\an8}that people were using mushrooms

521
00:24:19,190 --> 00:24:22,130
for reasons other than a food

522
00:24:22,130 --> 00:24:25,220
is from the site of Tassili N'Ajjer in Algeria .

523
00:24:25,220 --> 00:24:27,440
We have a depiction of a humanoid figure

524
00:24:27,440 --> 00:24:29,600
who has a bee or insects' face,

525
00:24:29,600 --> 00:24:33,180
but they're also surrounded by an aura of mushrooms,

526
00:24:33,180 --> 00:24:34,480
which suggests to us

527
00:24:34,480 --> 00:24:36,843
that this is about a religious experience.

528
00:24:38,120 --> 00:24:39,930
People have been finding different ways

529
00:24:39,930 --> 00:24:43,770
to alter their minds for a long, long time.

530
00:24:43,770 --> 00:24:45,330
And it's not just mushrooms.

531
00:24:45,330 --> 00:24:49,253
They've been using flowers, cacti, vines, and even toads.

532
00:24:50,160 --> 00:24:54,330
{\an8}Of the 120 or so recognized hallucinogens,

533
00:24:54,330 --> 00:24:56,610
several of which are questionable.

534
00:24:56,610 --> 00:25:00,383
Fully 90% of them are from the American hemisphere.

535
00:25:02,620 --> 00:25:05,580
It turns out Albert Hoffman and Gordon Wasson,

536
00:25:05,580 --> 00:25:07,600
not to mention Sydney Gottlieb,

537
00:25:07,600 --> 00:25:09,853
weren't discovering anything new,

538
00:25:10,930 --> 00:25:12,810
which begs the question.

539
00:25:12,810 --> 00:25:15,330
Why did it take the west so long to catch on

540
00:25:15,330 --> 00:25:18,600
when psychedelics can be found almost everywhere?

541
00:25:18,600 --> 00:25:23,033
One answer can be found hiding somewhere in the number 548.

542
00:25:27,250 --> 00:25:30,530
For many cultures, psychedelics aren't drugs,

543
00:25:30,530 --> 00:25:33,340
they're religious or ritual sacraments.

544
00:25:33,340 --> 00:25:35,610
{\an8}The use of psychedelics, particularly,

545
00:25:35,610 --> 00:25:37,510
{\an8}has been really influential

546
00:25:37,510 --> 00:25:39,910
{\an8}for indigenous peoples across the Americas,

547
00:25:39,910 --> 00:25:43,430
but not only in Americas, all over the planet.

548
00:25:43,430 --> 00:25:45,680
Indigenous people have used these substances

549
00:25:45,680 --> 00:25:49,810
for thousands of years and having no drug abuse problems.

550
00:25:49,810 --> 00:25:51,430
How did they do it?

551
00:25:51,430 --> 00:25:54,210
Well, first they recognize the use of these substances,

552
00:25:54,210 --> 00:25:56,130
a legitimate thing to do.

553
00:25:56,130 --> 00:25:58,550
They use their plants in natural form,

554
00:25:58,550 --> 00:26:00,990
which is pharmacological safer,

555
00:26:00,990 --> 00:26:03,220
and critically, they envelop the user

556
00:26:03,220 --> 00:26:05,020
in a protective cloak of ritual

557
00:26:05,020 --> 00:26:07,620
that insulates him or her

558
00:26:07,620 --> 00:26:12,300
from the sometimes dazzling psychological

559
00:26:12,300 --> 00:26:15,740
and psychic power of these substances.

560
00:26:15,740 --> 00:26:17,310
And so that's the path we should follow,

561
00:26:17,310 --> 00:26:18,853
the path of the shaman.

562
00:26:21,540 --> 00:26:23,280
{\an8}Standing at just half an inch high,

563
00:26:23,280 --> 00:26:25,790
{\an8}the Psilocybe mexicana magic mushroom

564
00:26:25,790 --> 00:26:28,050
{\an8}packs a psychedelic punch.

565
00:26:28,050 --> 00:26:30,816
By contrast the Amazonian psychedelic vine,

566
00:26:30,816 --> 00:26:32,480
Banisteriopsis caapi,

567
00:26:32,480 --> 00:26:35,720
is 2,352 times bigger

568
00:26:35,720 --> 00:26:37,223
at 98 feet long.

569
00:26:38,980 --> 00:26:42,500
{\an8}But as Explorer, Manuel Villavicencio, finds out,

570
00:26:42,500 --> 00:26:43,940
{\an8}size doesn't matter.

571
00:26:43,940 --> 00:26:45,490
{\an8}It's all about how you brew it.

572
00:26:47,781 --> 00:26:49,070
In the 1850s,

573
00:26:49,070 --> 00:26:52,330
Manuel Villavicencio is following the path of the shaman

574
00:26:52,330 --> 00:26:55,030
across Ecuador and in the remote Eastern part

575
00:26:55,030 --> 00:26:55,970
of the country,

576
00:26:55,970 --> 00:26:59,170
he becomes immersed in the traditions of the Jivaro people.

577
00:26:59,170 --> 00:27:00,637
He studied the Jivaro,

578
00:27:00,637 --> 00:27:04,110
the Jivaro were famous and a little bit exoticized

579
00:27:04,110 --> 00:27:07,663
for the practice of shrinking heads and things like that.

580
00:27:11,730 --> 00:27:13,950
Manual Villavicencio watches

581
00:27:13,950 --> 00:27:15,870
as the Jivaro shaman brews a drink

582
00:27:15,870 --> 00:27:19,910
from the bark of a giant vine boiled for 12 hours.

583
00:27:19,910 --> 00:27:22,420
By firelight, the shaman drinks

584
00:27:22,420 --> 00:27:24,780
and hands it to Villavicencio.

585
00:27:24,780 --> 00:27:28,880
He takes a swig and suddenly he's swimming

586
00:27:29,780 --> 00:27:33,850
or is he flying and tastic birds glide by

587
00:27:33,850 --> 00:27:34,993
and speak to him.

588
00:27:36,090 --> 00:27:38,104
Hey, man, how's it going?

589
00:27:38,104 --> 00:27:39,510
And then he plunges to earth

590
00:27:39,510 --> 00:27:42,403
to be consumed by unimaginable horrors.

591
00:27:43,530 --> 00:27:46,217
Manuel Villavicencio has taken Ayahuasca,

592
00:27:46,217 --> 00:27:49,970
one of the most potent hallucinogens on the planet.

593
00:27:49,970 --> 00:27:54,800
Ayahuasca is a very traditional sacred plant of the Amazon

594
00:27:54,800 --> 00:27:59,800
that has been used by more than 17 indigenous groups.

595
00:27:59,920 --> 00:28:02,040
Ayahuasca, it means vine of the soul.

596
00:28:02,040 --> 00:28:04,820
The people of the actual Northwest Amazon

597
00:28:04,820 --> 00:28:07,470
say you're sucking at the breast of Jaguar woman

598
00:28:07,470 --> 00:28:09,270
when she tears you from her tit

599
00:28:09,270 --> 00:28:11,313
and throws you in the pit of vipers.

600
00:28:12,680 --> 00:28:14,540
It's about getting to the other side.

601
00:28:14,540 --> 00:28:16,810
Villavicencio writes one of the first accounts

602
00:28:16,810 --> 00:28:20,500
of Ayahuasca in his book, Geografia Republica Del Ecuador.

603
00:28:20,500 --> 00:28:23,320
It was only published in Spanish.

604
00:28:23,320 --> 00:28:25,970
So it didn't get a lot of visibility.

605
00:28:25,970 --> 00:28:27,930
It's one of the most powerful psychedelics

606
00:28:27,930 --> 00:28:29,230
known to humankind.

607
00:28:29,230 --> 00:28:31,930
But Villavicencio's obscured geography textbook

608
00:28:31,930 --> 00:28:33,340
is no bestseller.

609
00:28:33,340 --> 00:28:35,610
And the secret of Ayahuasca will lie hidden

610
00:28:35,610 --> 00:28:39,890
somewhere inside it's 548 pages for a hundred years.

611
00:28:39,890 --> 00:28:42,660
But if Ayahuasca was one of the best kept psychedelic

612
00:28:42,660 --> 00:28:45,423
secrets of the last century, it isn't anymore.

613
00:28:46,890 --> 00:28:48,950
Today, living in the bay area,

614
00:28:48,950 --> 00:28:50,960
the Uber driver knows about Ayahuasca,

615
00:28:50,960 --> 00:28:54,090
the person who grow food knows about Ayahuasca.

616
00:28:54,090 --> 00:28:55,680
But for rookie Westerners,

617
00:28:55,680 --> 00:28:58,600
this is not a substance that should be taken lightly.

618
00:28:58,600 --> 00:29:01,290
{\an8}The few people that I know who've tried Ayahuasca

619
00:29:01,290 --> 00:29:04,310
{\an8}describe it as physically really rough.

620
00:29:04,310 --> 00:29:06,495
It makes you very nauseously vomit.

621
00:29:06,495 --> 00:29:07,610
Blaargh.

622
00:29:07,610 --> 00:29:09,070
Traditionally is considered

623
00:29:09,070 --> 00:29:11,580
some kind of purging substance,

624
00:29:11,580 --> 00:29:14,633
like having a medicine that cleans you up.

625
00:29:16,180 --> 00:29:18,200
And then you have a series of hallucinations

626
00:29:18,200 --> 00:29:20,810
that are very much a kind of religious experience,

627
00:29:20,810 --> 00:29:22,253
almost a kind of psychosis.

628
00:29:23,550 --> 00:29:25,340
It's a psychosis best explained

629
00:29:25,340 --> 00:29:26,623
by the number 13.

630
00:29:27,985 --> 00:29:30,150
Ayahuasca's powerful effects can be attributed

631
00:29:30,150 --> 00:29:34,840
to its main active ingredient dimethyltryptamine or DMT,

632
00:29:34,840 --> 00:29:35,940
a chemical in the brain

633
00:29:35,940 --> 00:29:39,290
associated with near death experiences.

634
00:29:39,290 --> 00:29:42,740
People often describe leaving the experience

635
00:29:42,740 --> 00:29:44,660
{\an8}as a feeling reborn.

636
00:29:44,660 --> 00:29:45,960
{\an8}And so to be reborn,

637
00:29:45,960 --> 00:29:49,960
{\an8}one must die in a spiritual sense.

638
00:29:49,960 --> 00:29:52,360
And this is a common description that we see

639
00:29:52,360 --> 00:29:55,223
even in people recently who've tried Ayahuasca.

640
00:29:57,170 --> 00:29:58,003
Because end of the day,

641
00:29:58,003 --> 00:30:01,270
we're talking about the great mysteries of life,

642
00:30:01,270 --> 00:30:05,363
and we still have a lot of existential questions.

643
00:30:07,160 --> 00:30:09,100
In a recent scientific study,

644
00:30:09,100 --> 00:30:12,190
out of 13 volunteers, given DMT,

645
00:30:12,190 --> 00:30:15,820
all 13 have out of body experiences.

646
00:30:15,820 --> 00:30:17,560
Hey, has anyone seen my body?

647
00:30:17,560 --> 00:30:20,250
Sixty six percent report meeting aliens,

648
00:30:20,250 --> 00:30:22,173
robots were elves during their trip.

649
00:30:22,173 --> 00:30:24,350
Oh, not the probe, again.

650
00:30:24,350 --> 00:30:26,970
And 80% reported their experiences

651
00:30:26,970 --> 00:30:30,823
under the influence are more real than their waking lives.

652
00:30:34,380 --> 00:30:36,500
Whether you're talking about the Siberian shaman,

653
00:30:36,500 --> 00:30:38,410
who traveled through the trees

654
00:30:38,410 --> 00:30:39,990
and go up into the spirit world,

655
00:30:39,990 --> 00:30:42,660
{\an8}or whether you're talking about the Peruvian shamans

656
00:30:42,660 --> 00:30:46,250
{\an8}who do the same with the vine of the soul, Ayahuasca

657
00:30:46,250 --> 00:30:48,330
{\an8}there is the sense of traveling

658
00:30:48,330 --> 00:30:50,150
through some sort of spirit world

659
00:30:50,150 --> 00:30:53,003
that cuts across psychedelic rituals across the planet.

660
00:30:56,550 --> 00:30:58,740
But indigenous peoples are not the only ones

661
00:30:58,740 --> 00:31:01,810
who've had their culture shaped by psychedelics.

662
00:31:01,810 --> 00:31:04,580
It turns out, so was the west.

663
00:31:04,580 --> 00:31:07,610
If you've ever counted how many days till Christmas,

664
00:31:07,610 --> 00:31:09,570
you've been waiting for one of the patron saints

665
00:31:09,570 --> 00:31:11,340
of psychedelia.

666
00:31:11,340 --> 00:31:14,310
There is speculation that Santa Claus

667
00:31:14,310 --> 00:31:17,020
was a mushroom, Amanita muscaria,

668
00:31:17,020 --> 00:31:22,020
because it is a red and white buttoned mushrooms.

669
00:31:22,230 --> 00:31:27,040
He goes on a trip across the sky with flying reindeer,

670
00:31:27,040 --> 00:31:30,660
a species that also incidentally loves to eat mushrooms,

671
00:31:30,660 --> 00:31:33,810
especially Amanita muscaria mushrooms.

672
00:31:33,810 --> 00:31:35,100
A dude's going to come into your home

673
00:31:35,100 --> 00:31:36,080
and not steal your things,

674
00:31:36,080 --> 00:31:37,480
but he'll give you things, you know,

675
00:31:37,480 --> 00:31:39,990
like, all he asks is milk.

676
00:31:39,990 --> 00:31:41,860
You have all sorts of characters dealing drugs.

677
00:31:41,860 --> 00:31:44,993
You got Santa Claus, apparently, leprechauns,

678
00:31:45,920 --> 00:31:47,773
my old college roommates.

679
00:31:49,150 --> 00:31:50,940
But Santa isn't the only trace

680
00:31:50,940 --> 00:31:53,010
of psychedelics in Western culture.

681
00:31:53,010 --> 00:31:55,840
One of the active ingredients in LSD is nothing new.

682
00:31:55,840 --> 00:31:58,240
It's called, Ergot, a fungal parasite

683
00:31:58,240 --> 00:32:03,130
that develops on crops, such as oats, rye, barley, and rice.

684
00:32:03,130 --> 00:32:04,440
Hoffman thought he was the first

685
00:32:04,440 --> 00:32:06,330
to go on the trip of a lifetime.

686
00:32:06,330 --> 00:32:08,763
It turns out he was more like the 6 millionth.

687
00:32:12,700 --> 00:32:16,923
Let's rewind 2,500 years to ancient Greece.

688
00:32:18,200 --> 00:32:21,680
{\an8}Socrates, yes, that Socrates,

689
00:32:21,680 --> 00:32:25,840
was one of 6 million men were inducted into a secret society

690
00:32:25,840 --> 00:32:28,300
known as the Eleusinian mysteries,

691
00:32:28,300 --> 00:32:31,533
a multi-day ritual with a psychedelic conclusion.

692
00:32:32,380 --> 00:32:36,053
We know that people were pilgrimaging for multiple days,

693
00:32:37,120 --> 00:32:40,370
{\an8}praying, chanting in these large groups

694
00:32:40,370 --> 00:32:43,130
{\an8}and at the very end taking a drink

695
00:32:43,130 --> 00:32:46,810
that cause them to have experiences that were incredible,

696
00:32:46,810 --> 00:32:50,560
but we don't know what exactly the elixir they take

697
00:32:50,560 --> 00:32:53,710
at the end to hallucinate, was.

698
00:32:53,710 --> 00:32:55,850
This elixir was called Kykeon

699
00:32:55,850 --> 00:32:58,720
and no one knows what the active ingredient was,

700
00:32:58,720 --> 00:33:02,670
but psychedelic scholar, Gordon Wasson, remember him?

701
00:33:02,670 --> 00:33:03,623
He had a theory.

702
00:33:04,780 --> 00:33:07,830
{\an8}He suggested that wasn't in fact psychoactive

703
00:33:07,830 --> 00:33:10,900
{\an8}and that it was based on ergot,

704
00:33:10,900 --> 00:33:13,250
which of course years later, Albert Hoffman,

705
00:33:13,250 --> 00:33:17,220
would be working with when he discovered LSD.

706
00:33:17,220 --> 00:33:18,930
Ancient Greece was not the first

707
00:33:18,930 --> 00:33:21,880
or last culture in the west to tangle with ergot,

708
00:33:21,880 --> 00:33:23,700
which has proved to be both a blessing

709
00:33:23,700 --> 00:33:25,710
and a curse to humanity.

710
00:33:25,710 --> 00:33:28,610
Remember the adage of Paracelsus,

711
00:33:28,610 --> 00:33:30,580
the difference from a poison, a drug,

712
00:33:30,580 --> 00:33:33,533
and hallucinogen and narcotic, is just dosage.

713
00:33:34,930 --> 00:33:36,030
In the middle ages,

714
00:33:36,030 --> 00:33:38,830
ergot was both a poison and a drug.

715
00:33:38,830 --> 00:33:41,260
Midwives used it to aid childbirth,

716
00:33:41,260 --> 00:33:42,950
but a tainted loaf of rye bread

717
00:33:42,950 --> 00:33:45,803
could cause temporary madness or worse.

718
00:33:46,820 --> 00:33:49,960
Ergot, this curious fungal parasite

719
00:33:49,960 --> 00:33:53,650
that caused St Anthony's fire when entire medieval towns

720
00:33:53,650 --> 00:33:56,960
would go crazy and fingers would go necrotic

721
00:33:56,960 --> 00:33:58,890
and noses would fall off.

722
00:33:58,890 --> 00:34:02,750
Lots of people in medieval Europe and in the Americas

723
00:34:02,750 --> 00:34:06,630
understood not to eat ergot, and to remove it from the rye.

724
00:34:06,630 --> 00:34:08,370
But sometimes people didn't know

725
00:34:08,370 --> 00:34:12,060
and it can decimate a village.

726
00:34:12,060 --> 00:34:13,300
what is a hallucinogen?

727
00:34:13,300 --> 00:34:14,400
What is a poison?

728
00:34:14,400 --> 00:34:17,110
I mean the key thing is whether or not a culture

729
00:34:17,110 --> 00:34:21,880
is able to use a plant substance in helpful ways.

730
00:34:23,360 --> 00:34:24,910
How can you tell the difference between

731
00:34:24,910 --> 00:34:28,540
psychedelic good and psychedelic bad?

732
00:34:28,540 --> 00:34:30,610
In 17th century, New England,

733
00:34:30,610 --> 00:34:33,773
the number 24 will show just how bad it can get.

734
00:34:35,400 --> 00:34:39,393
{\an8}It's 1692, a nine-year-old Betty Parris is not feeling well.

735
00:34:41,260 --> 00:34:43,880
{\an8}After she and her friends dabble in fortune telling,

736
00:34:43,880 --> 00:34:45,123
{\an8}she develops a fever.

737
00:34:46,010 --> 00:34:48,178
But soon she is hiding under furniture.

738
00:34:48,178 --> 00:34:49,130
(Evil laughing)

739
00:34:49,130 --> 00:34:51,960
Then she barks like a dog.
(dark barking and howling)

740
00:34:51,960 --> 00:34:54,740
She has uncontrollable screaming fits,

741
00:34:54,740 --> 00:34:57,609
and then the condition spreads to her friends.

742
00:34:57,609 --> 00:34:59,270
(Kids screaming)

743
00:34:59,270 --> 00:35:02,360
We're talking about a very restricted

744
00:35:02,360 --> 00:35:04,420
conservative society.

745
00:35:04,420 --> 00:35:06,550
Any sort of strange behavior,

746
00:35:06,550 --> 00:35:09,000
especially on the part of young girls

747
00:35:09,000 --> 00:35:11,413
would have been viewed as heresy.

748
00:35:12,640 --> 00:35:14,960
The local minister believes she's bewitched

749
00:35:14,960 --> 00:35:18,591
and it will end badly in the Salem witch trials.

750
00:35:18,591 --> 00:35:20,600
(child screaming)

751
00:35:20,600 --> 00:35:24,230
I remember watching Salem witch trial movies

752
00:35:24,230 --> 00:35:26,020
when I was in junior high school.

753
00:35:26,020 --> 00:35:27,560
And it was just put forward

754
00:35:27,560 --> 00:35:30,293
that these witches had gone crazy.

755
00:35:32,050 --> 00:35:34,920
More recently, there is speculation

756
00:35:34,920 --> 00:35:39,920
that they might have been eating tainted bread with ergot.

757
00:35:40,780 --> 00:35:45,170
What she was experiencing may have been in her mind,

758
00:35:45,170 --> 00:35:48,170
or it may have been LSD.

759
00:35:48,170 --> 00:35:51,190
We have many examples in the past of ergotism

760
00:35:51,190 --> 00:35:53,180
impacting entire communities.

761
00:35:53,180 --> 00:35:55,770
{\an8}And even fairly recently in the 1950s

762
00:35:55,770 --> 00:35:57,420
{\an8}that occurred in France

763
00:35:57,420 --> 00:35:59,600
{\an8}And in 2001 in Ethiopia,

764
00:35:59,600 --> 00:36:01,963
{\an8}this is not something relegated to the past.

765
00:36:03,090 --> 00:36:04,700
During the Salem witch trials,

766
00:36:04,700 --> 00:36:07,603
over 200 people are accused of witchcraft.

767
00:36:09,030 --> 00:36:10,603
Thirty are found guilty.

768
00:36:13,010 --> 00:36:14,373
Nineteen are hanged.

769
00:36:15,330 --> 00:36:16,793
Four die in prison.

770
00:36:18,160 --> 00:36:20,603
And one is crushed to death under stones.

771
00:36:22,020 --> 00:36:25,623
That's a total of 24 deaths and countless ruined lives.

772
00:36:27,250 --> 00:36:28,870
Betty Parris was lucky.

773
00:36:28,870 --> 00:36:30,910
She survived the witch hunts.

774
00:36:30,910 --> 00:36:32,660
But 300 years later,

775
00:36:32,660 --> 00:36:34,710
a new kind of witch hunt is taking place.

776
00:36:39,210 --> 00:36:42,290
Remember Woodstock in the summer of 1969?

777
00:36:42,290 --> 00:36:44,600
Well, 400,000 party-goers

778
00:36:44,600 --> 00:36:47,450
are about to come up against the power of the number one.

779
00:36:48,600 --> 00:36:51,210
LSD and the hope for society

780
00:36:51,210 --> 00:36:53,960
based on benevolent shared consciousness

781
00:36:53,960 --> 00:36:56,700
is bumping up against the reality of our crimes

782
00:36:56,700 --> 00:36:58,850
in the Vietnam war and the race riots

783
00:36:58,850 --> 00:37:00,480
and the racial tension here at home.

784
00:37:00,480 --> 00:37:03,940
And it becomes clear that LSD can't fix that stuff.

785
00:37:03,940 --> 00:37:08,653
What's more, LSD starts to look like a source of crime.

786
00:37:10,280 --> 00:37:11,920
At the same time as Woodstock,

787
00:37:11,920 --> 00:37:15,500
a gruesome mass murder in Hollywood shocks America.

788
00:37:15,500 --> 00:37:18,430
{\an8}These seven murders were committed by a gang of hippie thugs

789
00:37:18,430 --> 00:37:20,720
{\an8}known as the Manson family.

790
00:37:20,720 --> 00:37:22,850
Charles Manson is said to have used LSD

791
00:37:22,850 --> 00:37:24,420
to control his followers

792
00:37:24,420 --> 00:37:27,033
and reshape their sense of morality and reality.

793
00:37:28,660 --> 00:37:30,210
When it came to the Manson trial,

794
00:37:30,210 --> 00:37:32,210
that was everything the government needed.

795
00:37:32,210 --> 00:37:35,490
People take this, they commit acts like this,

796
00:37:35,490 --> 00:37:39,250
and that was extremely powerful anti LSD advertisement

797
00:37:39,250 --> 00:37:40,083
right there.

798
00:37:40,083 --> 00:37:42,590
There was a lot of hysteria about people painting LSD

799
00:37:42,590 --> 00:37:46,400
on door knobs or putting it in Halloween candy.

800
00:37:46,400 --> 00:37:49,670
There was never any documented evidence of this occurring,

801
00:37:49,670 --> 00:37:54,530
but this really scares a lot of Americans.

802
00:37:54,530 --> 00:37:56,520
LSD has already been classified

803
00:37:56,520 --> 00:37:58,970
{\an8}as a schedule 1 controlled substance,

804
00:37:58,970 --> 00:38:01,173
the same legal category as heroin.

805
00:38:02,580 --> 00:38:04,640
{\an8}I am glad that in this administration,

806
00:38:04,640 --> 00:38:06,110
{\an8}we have increased

807
00:38:06,110 --> 00:38:08,600
the amount of money for handling the problem

808
00:38:08,600 --> 00:38:11,900
of dangerous drugs, seven fold.

809
00:38:11,900 --> 00:38:15,560
In 1971, President Richard Nixon goes further

810
00:38:15,560 --> 00:38:18,860
and declares drugs to be public enemy number one,

811
00:38:18,860 --> 00:38:19,900
putting psychedelics

812
00:38:19,900 --> 00:38:22,680
squarely in U S law enforcement's crosshairs.

813
00:38:22,680 --> 00:38:24,440
Then in the 1980s,

814
00:38:24,440 --> 00:38:27,570
Nancy Reagan spearheads the war on drugs with her,

815
00:38:27,570 --> 00:38:29,530
Just say no, campaign.

816
00:38:29,530 --> 00:38:31,905
It's never been because the drug is bad for you.

817
00:38:31,905 --> 00:38:35,010
It's always been a way to target the community using it.

818
00:38:35,010 --> 00:38:37,450
You have marijuana in the early 1900s,

819
00:38:37,450 --> 00:38:40,200
which target Mexican laborers.

820
00:38:40,200 --> 00:38:41,780
Then you have the criminalization of cocaine,

821
00:38:41,780 --> 00:38:45,040
which was targeting the African-American community.

822
00:38:45,040 --> 00:38:47,010
{\an8}Prohibition is about a hundred years old

823
00:38:47,010 --> 00:38:50,500
{\an8}and it's a kind of anomaly in the history of humankind

824
00:38:50,500 --> 00:38:53,270
{\an8}if you look in the bigger picture.

825
00:38:53,270 --> 00:38:56,590
The war on drugs has gone on now for 50 years,

826
00:38:56,590 --> 00:38:58,310
{\an8}it's cost a trillion dollars.

827
00:38:58,310 --> 00:39:00,680
{\an8}A trillion dollars is a stack of dollar bills

828
00:39:00,680 --> 00:39:04,430
{\an8}that would reach a quarter of the way to the moon.

829
00:39:04,430 --> 00:39:07,470
{\an8}And today, there are more people in more places

830
00:39:07,470 --> 00:39:11,533
{\an8}using worst drugs in worse ways than ever before.

831
00:39:12,840 --> 00:39:14,020
The number of Americans

832
00:39:14,020 --> 00:39:18,070
arrested for drug possession has tripled since 1980.

833
00:39:18,070 --> 00:39:20,470
Every 25 seconds, somebody is arrested

834
00:39:20,470 --> 00:39:22,020
for drug possession in the U S.

835
00:39:27,360 --> 00:39:31,200
In 2015, there are 1.3 million arrests.

836
00:39:31,200 --> 00:39:35,153
That's the equivalent of one in every 252 Americans,

837
00:39:38,920 --> 00:39:41,080
Twenty percent of the prison population,

838
00:39:41,080 --> 00:39:45,803
or 456,000 individuals are serving time on a drug charge.

839
00:39:49,230 --> 00:39:54,230
That costs the Federal Government $9.2 million every day

840
00:39:54,510 --> 00:39:56,963
or 3.3 billion annually.

841
00:39:58,040 --> 00:40:00,633
War on drugs, that's just not gonna work.

842
00:40:00,633 --> 00:40:03,230
It feels like a failure, yeah.

843
00:40:03,230 --> 00:40:04,080
To be honest with you,

844
00:40:04,080 --> 00:40:06,630
I think there's other bigger battles to fight,

845
00:40:06,630 --> 00:40:08,773
war on poverty, how about that?

846
00:40:11,830 --> 00:40:12,940
Illegal or not,

847
00:40:12,940 --> 00:40:15,330
new drugs keep coming into fashion.

848
00:40:15,330 --> 00:40:17,750
{\an8}In the 1990s, a whole new generation

849
00:40:17,750 --> 00:40:21,060
{\an8}experiences their version of psychedelia.

850
00:40:21,060 --> 00:40:23,800
So how many letters does love have?

851
00:40:23,800 --> 00:40:26,013
The answer turns out to be 29.

852
00:40:27,540 --> 00:40:31,600
Methylenedioxy methamphetamine is a 29 letter word

853
00:40:31,600 --> 00:40:33,930
that shortened to MDMA.

854
00:40:33,930 --> 00:40:36,393
And as otherwise known as ecstasy.

855
00:40:37,660 --> 00:40:41,450
MDMA both encourages the release of serotonin,

856
00:40:41,450 --> 00:40:44,410
{\an8}but also inhibit the uptake of serotonin.

857
00:40:44,410 --> 00:40:46,490
{\an8}So people get really flooded

858
00:40:46,490 --> 00:40:50,260
by this feel-good neurotransmitter.

859
00:40:50,260 --> 00:40:53,530
It makes them want to

860
00:40:53,530 --> 00:40:55,340
dance and hug,

861
00:40:55,340 --> 00:40:59,300
and it's like receiving the best news of your life

862
00:40:59,300 --> 00:41:01,460
when nothing really has happened.

863
00:41:01,460 --> 00:41:02,720
Known as the love drug,

864
00:41:02,720 --> 00:41:06,190
It is the fuel for rave and electronic dance music culture

865
00:41:06,190 --> 00:41:09,233
that starts in the eighties and is only getting bigger.

866
00:41:10,080 --> 00:41:12,230
It's not hard to see the allure of a pill

867
00:41:12,230 --> 00:41:14,090
that promises ecstasy.

868
00:41:14,090 --> 00:41:16,040
But MDMAs blast of bliss

869
00:41:16,040 --> 00:41:18,623
can put users in dangerous situations.

870
00:41:20,810 --> 00:41:23,480
A handful of MDMA deaths by dehydration,

871
00:41:23,480 --> 00:41:26,183
set off a moral panic in Britain, in the 1980s.

872
00:41:26,183 --> 00:41:28,870
There were some deaths because of it.

873
00:41:28,870 --> 00:41:31,910
{\an8}What happened in the 1980s, especially in the UK,

874
00:41:31,910 --> 00:41:35,800
{\an8}was that MDMA was used at very early raves.

875
00:41:35,800 --> 00:41:38,670
And some of these clubs were turning off the taps

876
00:41:38,670 --> 00:41:43,580
in the bathroom and then selling cups of tap water for $15.

877
00:41:43,580 --> 00:41:45,250
There was no ventilation in the dance clubs.

878
00:41:45,250 --> 00:41:47,050
They were overheating on the MDMA

879
00:41:47,050 --> 00:41:48,410
and they weren't realizing it

880
00:41:48,410 --> 00:41:51,220
because they were having such a serotonin-based

881
00:41:51,220 --> 00:41:52,713
blissful experience.

882
00:41:57,120 --> 00:41:58,847
More recently,

883
00:41:58,847 --> 00:42:01,120
the psychedelic spotlight has returned to California.

884
00:42:01,120 --> 00:42:05,020
This time it's not naked hippies or groovy Hells Angels.

885
00:42:05,020 --> 00:42:07,320
It's the digital denisons of Silicon Valley

886
00:42:07,320 --> 00:42:09,830
who are hacking the technology of their own bodies

887
00:42:09,830 --> 00:42:11,003
by microdosing.

888
00:42:12,240 --> 00:42:13,940
Remember Albert Hofmann

889
00:42:13,940 --> 00:42:17,020
and what 250 micrograms did to him?

890
00:42:17,020 --> 00:42:20,060
Well, what if you took something smaller, much smaller,

891
00:42:20,060 --> 00:42:23,223
say 10 micrograms, what would happen then?

892
00:42:24,520 --> 00:42:28,060
Microdosing is taking very small amounts of LSD

893
00:42:28,060 --> 00:42:30,520
{\an8}that will not produce the kinds of hallucinations

894
00:42:30,520 --> 00:42:32,090
{\an8}that a larger dose would produce.

895
00:42:32,090 --> 00:42:33,703
{\an8}But might produce a mood shift.

896
00:42:34,810 --> 00:42:37,210
People are taking very minute doses

897
00:42:37,210 --> 00:42:40,070
much less than you would take to get high

898
00:42:40,070 --> 00:42:44,860
and using that instead of mood stabilizing drugs.

899
00:42:44,860 --> 00:42:48,290
And considering how many bad side effects are associated

900
00:42:48,290 --> 00:42:50,760
with the current pharmacology

901
00:42:50,760 --> 00:42:55,030
around treating depression, anxiety,

902
00:42:55,030 --> 00:42:57,530
this may be a really great solution.

903
00:42:57,530 --> 00:43:00,610
Microdosing is like a sneaky, fancy way

904
00:43:00,610 --> 00:43:01,790
to use drugs at work.

905
00:43:01,790 --> 00:43:03,270
But like if you work at a startup,

906
00:43:03,270 --> 00:43:05,270
I feel like the company just gives you some

907
00:43:05,270 --> 00:43:06,310
on your first day.

908
00:43:06,310 --> 00:43:07,720
If it actually helps people, great.

909
00:43:07,720 --> 00:43:11,703
So, yeah, I think it's worthy of study.

910
00:43:14,390 --> 00:43:16,220
After decades when it was impossible

911
00:43:16,220 --> 00:43:18,200
to study psychedelics legally,

912
00:43:18,200 --> 00:43:19,980
therefore is to follow the same path

913
00:43:19,980 --> 00:43:22,350
that cannabis took to legalization.

914
00:43:22,350 --> 00:43:24,690
First medical then recreational.

915
00:43:24,690 --> 00:43:26,840
And now billions of dollars of investment

916
00:43:26,840 --> 00:43:29,830
is pouring into the psychedelic startup sector.

917
00:43:29,830 --> 00:43:31,150
In the last two decades,

918
00:43:31,150 --> 00:43:33,660
the number of people using LSD in the U S

919
00:43:33,660 --> 00:43:36,583
has increased by over 200%.

920
00:43:37,490 --> 00:43:38,880
And you're more likely to be a user

921
00:43:38,880 --> 00:43:41,770
if you have a college degree,

922
00:43:41,770 --> 00:43:45,610
are single, divorced or separated,

923
00:43:45,610 --> 00:43:48,830
and you're in your late thirties or forties.

924
00:43:48,830 --> 00:43:51,880
The middle class is the new psychedelic generation,

925
00:43:51,880 --> 00:43:53,253
sorry hippies.

926
00:43:57,100 --> 00:43:59,920
In the USA, 17 states have legalized

927
00:43:59,920 --> 00:44:02,190
the recreational use of cannabis,

928
00:44:02,190 --> 00:44:05,400
36 have legalized it's use for medicinal purposes.

929
00:44:05,400 --> 00:44:07,480
One state has taken this a step further

930
00:44:07,480 --> 00:44:09,403
into the realm of the psychedelics.

931
00:44:11,577 --> 00:44:12,410
Just this last year,

932
00:44:12,410 --> 00:44:16,010
Oregon voted to openly allow the sale

933
00:44:16,010 --> 00:44:19,460
and distribution of psilocybin mushrooms.

934
00:44:19,460 --> 00:44:22,030
I hope to see for the future of psychedelics,

935
00:44:22,030 --> 00:44:24,040
that there's more openness

936
00:44:24,040 --> 00:44:28,210
to researching their possible uses in humans.

937
00:44:28,210 --> 00:44:29,650
On the positive side,

938
00:44:29,650 --> 00:44:34,410
I see psychiatry embracing psychedelic therapy,

939
00:44:34,410 --> 00:44:36,360
but the money behind it

940
00:44:36,360 --> 00:44:41,250
is going to drive false claims about psychedelics.

941
00:44:41,250 --> 00:44:43,510
And you're going to see more and more

942
00:44:43,510 --> 00:44:46,690
that the medical industry is going to push psychedelics

943
00:44:46,690 --> 00:44:51,043
into places where they might not necessarily fit.

944
00:44:52,370 --> 00:44:55,340
I do think certain psychedelics will become legal,

945
00:44:55,340 --> 00:44:59,050
especially for medical reasons, but it is still illegal.

946
00:44:59,050 --> 00:45:00,410
I do not promote it.

947
00:45:00,410 --> 00:45:03,630
I do not encourage anybody to do it.

948
00:45:03,630 --> 00:45:07,700
Without dough, substance like ecstasy is ideal

949
00:45:07,700 --> 00:45:08,790
{\an8}for couples therapy.

950
00:45:08,790 --> 00:45:09,900
{\an8}It's ideal

951
00:45:09,900 --> 00:45:11,700
for post-traumatic stress.

952
00:45:11,700 --> 00:45:15,240
A substance like the tryptamines mushrooms,

953
00:45:15,240 --> 00:45:18,200
I can see being extremely valuable for palliative care,

954
00:45:18,200 --> 00:45:22,310
for hospice care, for end of life counseling.

955
00:45:22,310 --> 00:45:24,400
I think it's important to really understand

956
00:45:24,400 --> 00:45:27,790
that psychedelics is not a panache for everything,

957
00:45:27,790 --> 00:45:29,510
not a magic solution.

958
00:45:29,510 --> 00:45:31,173
And it's not for everybody.

959
00:45:32,800 --> 00:45:35,110
Hey, kids don't do drugs, but if you do do drugs,

960
00:45:35,110 --> 00:45:36,640
picture you'd have snacks.

961
00:45:36,640 --> 00:45:38,070
Oh God, my parents are gonna watch this and be like,

962
00:45:38,070 --> 00:45:40,060
oh my God, my son is a drug addict.

963
00:45:40,060 --> 00:45:40,920
They need to do shrooms.

964
00:45:40,920 --> 00:45:43,430
I've had some ideas that I've written down

965
00:45:43,430 --> 00:45:47,730
when I was on psychedelics and they weren't so good.

966
00:45:47,730 --> 00:45:49,083
That's why I don't tend to mess

967
00:45:49,083 --> 00:45:50,150
with those kinds of things

968
00:45:50,150 --> 00:45:51,510
'cause I'm like, a small amount of that

969
00:45:51,510 --> 00:45:53,700
can do irreparable damage.

970
00:45:53,700 --> 00:45:56,190
I just want to know that I can do basic arithmetic

971
00:45:56,190 --> 00:45:57,591
when I come back.

972
00:45:57,591 --> 00:46:00,174
(upbeat music)

