> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://ghost.psymposia.com/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # Enhanced Games Peptide Grift, MAHA Public Health Slop, Psychedelic Christian Nationalism 06.03.2026 - URL: https://ghost.psymposia.com/enhanced-games-peptide-grift-maha-public-health-slop-psychedelic-christian-nationalism-06-03-2026/ - Published: 2026-06-03T14:00:06.000Z - Updated: 2026-09-29T01:01:51.000Z - Description: Normie, Neşe, Russell, and James dive into the telehealth supplement play behind the Enhanced Games, dissect the Secretary of Homeland Security's significant stake in Botanic Tonics, unpack the dangerous rhetoric of the MAHA movement and its real-world impact on mental health policy and infant… - Author: Mike Elliott - Tags: Videos, #youtube, #youtube-transcript SUPPORT: [https://www.patreon.com/psymposia](https://www.patreon.com/psymposia?ref=ghost.psymposia.com) FOLLOW: [https://www.instagram.com/psymposia/](https://www.instagram.com/psymposia/?ref=ghost.psymposia.com) [https://x.com/psymposia](https://x.com/psymposia?ref=ghost.psymposia.com) [https://bsky.app/profile/psymposia.bsky.social](https://bsky.app/profile/psymposia.bsky.social?ref=ghost.psymposia.com) Normie, Neşe, Russell, and James dive into the telehealth supplement play behind the Enhanced Games, dissect the Secretary of Homeland Security's significant stake in Botanic Tonics, unpack the dangerous rhetoric of the MAHA movement and its real-world impact on mental health policy and infant mortality, and examine the key figure pushing ibogaine from fringe psychedelic to centerpiece of a broader Christian nationalist movement. Chapters: 00:00:00 Intro conversation 00:04:50 Patreon Updates 00:06:20 The Enhanced Games is a peptide telehealth grift 00:27:30 Botanic Tonics MAHA donation, Markwayne Mullin's Botanic Tonics investment 00:42:31 New MAHA initiative on mental health prescriptions 00:54:05 Parents are rejecting Vitamin K shots, babies are dying 01:00:18 Duncan Trussell pushes MAHA talking points and endorses Alex Jones 01:06:10 Bryan Hubbard and the push for psychedelic Christian nationalism Footnotes: The Enhanced Games Explained: Inside the $1.2 Billion Bet on Doping in Sports (Huddle Up) How a kratom giant got what it wanted from RFK and new Homeland Security chief (Kansas City Star) [https://www.kansascity.com/opinion/opn-columns-blogs/david-hudnall/article315593616.html](https://www.kansascity.com/opinion/opn-columns-blogs/david-hudnall/article315593616.html?ref=ghost.psymposia.com) RFK Jr. launches plan to address ‘overuse’ of psychiatric medications (CNN) [https://www.cnn.com/2026/05/05/health/rfk-jr-overprescribing-psychiatric-drugs-wellness](https://www.cnn.com/2026/05/05/health/rfk-jr-overprescribing-psychiatric-drugs-wellness?ref=ghost.psymposia.com) Babies Are Bleeding to Death as Parents Reject a Vitamin Shot Given at Birth (Propublica) [https://www.propublica.org/article/more-parents-decline-vitamin-k-shot-newborns](https://www.propublica.org/article/more-parents-decline-vitamin-k-shot-newborns?ref=ghost.psymposia.com) The Man Behind the Trump Administration’s Favorite Psychedelic (The Atlantic) [https://www.theatlantic.com/health/2026/05/psychedelics-ibogaine-bryan-hubbard-republican/687281/](https://www.theatlantic.com/health/2026/05/psychedelics-ibogaine-bryan-hubbard-republican/687281/?ref=ghost.psymposia.com) ## Transcript *This transcript was generated automatically from YouTube's captions, then cleaned up by removing filler words, repeated words and background sounds. It may still contain errors.* [\[00:00\]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3izzj5nuT0&t=0s&ref=ghost.psymposia.com) Enhanced for us is really a movement. Christian Anger Memmer, one of the co-founders of this, he's probably I would say he's the biggest psychedelic investor in this space. Yeah. And some of the investors that are in it, of course, is Peter Teal, Bellagi, Shernavasan, Winklvos Twins, some of the Saudis, and Trump Jr.'s 1789 Capital. The enhanced games achieved that valuation because investors are betting it can be a direct to consumer peptide teleaalth business that uses a steroid f friendly Olympic style event as its top of funnel marketing engine. All right, so apparently this is our maha pseudocience bad \[expletive\] policy RFK episode. I guess this is the kind of rhetoric that built the Maha platform. Saying the very normal things of taking your baby's temperature when it's born and getting its vaccinations and stuff is some radical thing that isn't actually the boon the bright side of modern medicine that we can like give babies what they [\[01:02\]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3izzj5nuT0&t=62s&ref=ghost.psymposia.com) Need at birth and keep them alive longer than we could in the past. like he's demonizing these incredibly normal medical interventions. That clip kind of gets at that this is not really about public health. This is Ibegan is essentially a vehicle for a revival of Christian nationalism in the United States as you know some of the people at the forefront of the national IANE project are envisioning it. This is something that I think the public does not by and large fully understand. Hey everybody, welcome to the Psymposia podcast. I am Normie and today I am joined with Russell Nishe and Jay Gordon Curtis. [\[01:51\]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3izzj5nuT0&t=111s&ref=ghost.psymposia.com) How's everybody doing? Good. Good. Doing good. Waking up. Getting caffeinated. Yeah. Did any of you guys hear the meteor yesterday? I No. Tell me about that. It's wild. Tell me your experience. So, I was sitting here. It was like It was 2:00\. It was just past 2:00 and there was just this huge explosion. It sounded like a bomb went off. I texted my sister and I was like, there was either just a bomb that went off or there was just a strike of lightning. My house rattled. My windows rattled. And I waited for it for a little bit to see if there was any sirens or anything like that. And there was nothing. So I kind of just dismissed it as a random strike of lightning even though there was no other lightning. [\[02:38\]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3izzj5nuT0&t=158s&ref=ghost.psymposia.com) And I don't know a half hour later my sister texted me back and she sent me some Facebook link and someone was like speculating that it was a meteor and I was like just dismiss that and it's not a meteor. Like what do you mean it's a meteor? But then yeah it was confirmed that it was a meteor. struck off kind of in Massachusetts Bay, a little bit off the coast of Boston. And they're estimating it was like between a one and 2 meter rock. They call it a bolide that it was a fireball, but it was wild. Never heard it before. And I think a night before there was one in or a day or two before there was just one in New York or South Carolina or something like that, too. Yeah, they searched. There we go. No, I think it burned up. Well, I did see something today. They weren't sure if it hit or not. [\[03:25\]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3izzj5nuT0&t=205s&ref=ghost.psymposia.com) I don't think there was any seismic activity. So, says that it fragmented 40 miles over and the energy released was the equivalent of 300 tons of TNT. Oh, they put that out. Yeah, I was searching for that. I just couldn't believe how loud it was or the sonic boom. I have some friends like 50 miles away and it shook their house, too. So, I don't know. You said that happened like the day before somewhere else. Are these like common like more so than you would guess? I looked up if there was a meteor shower or something like that. I couldn't I just looked it up quickly if it was, you know, the two strikes were part of a larger meteor shower or some comet tail or something. [\[04:10\]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3izzj5nuT0&t=250s&ref=ghost.psymposia.com) I didn't really find anything. My father told me some people did hear it in Maryland. I don't know if that's true or not. I'm not sure. Have any of you guys heard a meteor before? Never. No. I've been witnessed like a meteor shower. When I was younger in Canada, there was this gorgeous meteor shower that we all laid out on the back porch and watched happen. That was really cool. But never heard one land. Yeah. It's just wild that a small rock like that could unleash so much energy and that that energy comes from it not hitting the earth, too. Like that's super crazy. \[laughter\] All right. So, anything else from anybody before we get into Well, I've got some business up top here. We did just relaunch some of our Patreon tiers. [\[04:58\]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3izzj5nuT0&t=298s&ref=ghost.psymposia.com) I wanted to sneak in with this before we start the episode. We are simplifying our Patreon tiers down to a $5 level and a $10 level. That's going to get you extra content on the back end of these episodes. Somewhere between 30 minutes and an hour usually of us reacting to clips. Weird and wonderful. Shirley, right now up until July 1st, we've also got a $2 tier that's been around for years. If you get in at that level right now, you'll be grandfathered in moving forward at the $2 level and get everything you'd get for the $5 tier, but that will be going away July 1st. So, feel free to jump in on that early if you like. There's buttons in it for you. There's stickers. There's bladder paper. All the like. So, big fan likes to make quick sticker promo. [\[05:46\]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3izzj5nuT0&t=346s&ref=ghost.psymposia.com) Russ likes to make stickers, many of which we can't put on the store, but that's a hobby. Some holographic ones. I think those are available in our stores. There's the one that James just showed. The Normie, Plug that Plug the artist who made our logo there. Do you know what that Yeah, was an artist from Baltimore named Summer Blake. We had gone into I had gone to visit Baltimore. We went into an art show and I thought that was a cool illustration. So, I ended up using that. Yeah, I think it's represented Psymposia well over the years. All right, so let's get into it. So, so the first what are we talking about today? Yeah. So, the first story we're going to talk about is the enhanced games and everything to do with that. So, basically, I think it was a couple years ago now, they announced this new sort of Olympic competitor called the enhanced games. [\[06:38\]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3izzj5nuT0&t=398s&ref=ghost.psymposia.com) People refer to it as like the steroid Olympics. Yeah. The media has been calling it the steroid Olympics. So they just held it in Las Vegas. There was a bunch of prize money. Their supposed thing is that it's FDA. It's any drug that the FDA has already approved versus like Major League Baseball, basketball where even though if there are FDA approved drugs, you can't use them within the sport, competitive disadvantages and whatnot. One of the co-founders of that, of course, was Christian Anger Meyer. James, do you want to play that quick video so we can get kind of a little overview? Yeah. You want the Tellah Health description or number two? Number two. Yeah, a lot of the criticism is a bigger part is B and people say it either because they want attention because they thriving of I have so many never heard scientists who give a quote and say oh this is all risky and I was like look you're a scientist I've never heard of yeah and you have your two minutes of fame because you write on that it's very [\[07:40\]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3izzj5nuT0&t=460s&ref=ghost.psymposia.com) Sad a lot you have your two minutes of fame which is obviously every scientist out there is looking for fame so I also just love that that's the defense they have there is like you got these no-name scientists saying that \[laughter\] performance-enhancing drugs being dangerous is is a radical statement or something. Yeah. And some of the investors that are in it of course is Peter Teal, Bellagi, Shernavasan, Winklvos twins, some of the Saudis and Trump Jr.'s 1789 capital is also in invested in that. And so they spent $20 million on a 2500 seat arena in Vegas. And their whole one of their big objectives was to see how many world records that that they could actually beat. [\[08:28\]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3izzj5nuT0&t=508s&ref=ghost.psymposia.com) And Rossy, I think you were the one that brought up in chat the other day. So they beat one of the swimmers beat officially beat one world record by like a few milliseconds or something. Okay. So I was just looking at this morning cuz I was like, how can I describe this? What's like a good way to put into perspective how much they beat this record by? It was 007 seconds, which is quicker than it takes you to blink. It was the band suit, right? Yeah. Some kind of performance-enhancing technique was used to beat the So, my understanding is they had banned the polyurethane suits because they gave an advantage underwater to larger athletes. And so that's why they're not even allowed in like professional I don't know what the swimming league is, but in the professional swimming league. [\[09:14\]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3izzj5nuT0&t=554s&ref=ghost.psymposia.com) Yeah. Yeah, that makes sense. That was when I was reading about it. It was talking about performance-enhancing drugs and prosthesis and other performance-enhancing materials. So like we're all allowed in the games. You know, one of the things when I was thinking about when I was thinking about all of this is, you know, in that clip, Anger Meyer is talking about and just so just a little bit of context, Christian Anger Meyer, one of the co-founders of this, he is he's the founder of a Thai Life Sciences and he's a big investor in Compass. He's probably I would say he's the biggest psychedelic investor in the space, the most prominent at this point. He's both in so he runs a Thai life sciences and they recently acquired Beckley but also they're a big investor in Compass Pathways and that pretty much makes up a huge percentage of all of the psychedelic companies right now. [\[10:08\]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3izzj5nuT0&t=608s&ref=ghost.psymposia.com) Compass is probably going to get psilocybin approvals later this year some point next year. That's what it's looking like. James, do you want to get screenshot seven queued up? The reason why I wanted to share this is because so while he's talking about all these new drugs and you know and criticizing no-name scientists, this is this was Anger Meyer's we've been reporting on Anger Meyer for a while now. Yeah. But during COVID when hydroxychloricquin came out as like you know when that was being pushed by the first Trump administration and Rogan and all of that and just the insanity that was going around in podcast world he was all about it. So he said in normal times this is from April 5th of 2020. [\[10:53\]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3izzj5nuT0&t=653s&ref=ghost.psymposia.com) So right after like the pandemic was you know formalized. He says in normal times it's important to have due process when applying when approving drugs or repurposing them. But these are not normal times. People are dying. Economy is in freef fall. Time is too expensive to waste. We need #hydroxychloricquin now in caps. Frontline doctors agree. And it's just an instance of pushing drugs that just it's been thoroughly debunked at this point that there is absolutely no benefit to using it all. In fact, there's been some studies that came out that were don't use it. Wasn't this Was this the drug I'm just trying to think out loud now. Was this the drug that like some people were accidentally going into the like aquariums? [\[11:40\]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3izzj5nuT0&t=700s&ref=ghost.psymposia.com) Wasn't there like some cases where people went into aquariums and it was like fish tank cleaner? The first thing that comes up from March 20th, what from March 2020 is corona virus. Man dies from taking fish tank cleaner as virus drug. This is chloricquin. or a classmate. So, it seems like it maybe was named similar. \[laughter\] Well, this is what happens when people like just, you know, they do their Twitter Twitter doctor prescriptions and you know, I think what's crazy is it sounds like what he's saying is we cannot waste time, but we can waste the people who will get harmed from like just plowing ahead. Like what? like how is time more important than like the safety of the people who are taking the drug. [\[12:28\]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3izzj5nuT0&t=748s&ref=ghost.psymposia.com) Yeah. And of course this was sort of in the period when we were like public health officials and whatnot were saying yeah it was different stay home I you know isolate but you know the alternative any medicine that's another part of it is like he's you know in the elite class where like us staying home and isolating was a threat to him for most of us. I mean, like I was able to like find a career for myself, like figure out a life for myself and like that's kind of a direct threat to the status quo corporate oligarchy. This is the point like I had an elderly grandma at a nursing home at this point. There was about a hundred patients in her nursing home and they had to lock that down. [\[13:14\]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3izzj5nuT0&t=794s&ref=ghost.psymposia.com) CO ripped through that nursing home. out of a hundred patients, 15 of them died and almost everyone got infected in that nursing home. And so this is I just hear this a lot with people, you know, in retrospect looking back now on the early days of COVID and \[expletive\] on every doctor expert that's out there. In my lived experience, I saw all these elderly people dying and like I just feel very few people were thinking about that at the time. It was more of this like \[expletive\] this, I'm doing what I want, you know? Yeah. My family members and I see you nurse. And every time people downplay the severity of COVID, she's like, "Tell that to all the \[expletive\] people I zipped up in a body bag during this time that were coming in unvaccinated with all these lung issues." [\[14:07\]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3izzj5nuT0&t=847s&ref=ghost.psymposia.com) Yeah, that was like the there was that brief period of time where like thank first responders and you remember all that seems bang your pots and pans. Yeah. Forever ago at this point. All right. So getting back to this, Anger Meyer has built his career a lot around the fringes of the next big thing in medicine like whether it's psychedelics, whether it's longevity now. Yeah. Yeah. And so so enhanced is not just this sporting event. It is it's also a publicly traded. They launched they're publicly traded now and it's actually a store as well. And so they raised all this money from those various sources and they achieved a $1.2 billion valuation, but their big bet, what I didn't realize was that their big bet was actually the teleaalth store. [\[14:58\]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3izzj5nuT0&t=898s&ref=ghost.psymposia.com) James, do you want to share the screenshot too? Yeah. And so this was from a Substack article called the enhanced games explained inside the $1.2 2 billion dollar bet on doping in sports by Joe Pompiano. And so what he writes is what you'll read online is that this is the d this is a dangerous event that is also guaranteed to lose money. Regulatory bodies have called it everything from a clown show to dangerous and irresponsible. And given that the organization is projected to lose tens of millions of dollars on this weekend's event alone, the media rights and all 2500 tickets were given out for free. Many insight, many industry insiders and sports fans are already calling it a disaster. But this is the wrong way to look at it. The enhanced games didn't go public at a billion dollar valuation before the first event because investors thought it would be the next Olympics. [\[15:50\]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3izzj5nuT0&t=950s&ref=ghost.psymposia.com) The enhanced games achieved that valuation because investors are betting it can be a DTC direct to consumer peptide teleaalth business that uses a steroid friendly Olympic style event as its top of funnel marketing engine. enhanced for us is really a movement. But let's talk about the tell health business because like as Mark said like the one is a sport event May 24th with a little bit of promotion. That's where people can see it but like what we actually want to be we want to be the showcase we want to be a platform the movement to allow people what I said before at any stage for any gender to live a fully enhanced positive life. Additionally to the sport event, yeah, we have our own tellahalth business and the range goes from hormone replacement therapy, TRT for men, yeah, hormone replacement therapy for women, two peptides to the very famous GLP1s, the weight loss drugs. [\[16:44\]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3izzj5nuT0&t=1004s&ref=ghost.psymposia.com) And when you actually go to their website, you can you they're selling all kinds of products, but these are the various products that the athletes are actually all using. And the sporting events, they're designed to clip. They're very short and they're pushed out on social media and everything. So that's why they were willing to lose so much money on this because what they're really trying to do with enhance is create like a hims and hers competitor, a tellahalth competitor that is focused on the new peptide market. So to what extent are you guys following the whole peptide craze right now? Are you I've had some students in my classes write about peptides and their marketing on social media. [\[17:32\]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3izzj5nuT0&t=1052s&ref=ghost.psymposia.com) That's actually the first time that I became really aware of it was reading about my students covering it. But I know especially from that generation, so like you know 18 to 20 year old, like there's a lot of they're exposed to a lot of influencers and other kind of just like online content and a pipeline towards like sales and to purchase these products. I was talking to a friend who follows like the peptide thing. He's been to health and weightlifting and everything for years now. And he was telling me I don't know 10 years ago he was buying some of them like sort of dark webbby like compoundingarmacies they were in the research chem chemical kind of category they weren't directly approved they're coming from China and all that and so yeah so like with my understanding is with ompic with segletide I guess that's how you pronounce it that sort of kind of blew through the mainstream and I think there's around 30 million people now who are using ompic type [\[18:33\]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3izzj5nuT0&t=1113s&ref=ghost.psymposia.com) GLP-1 drugs and then like more recently it's become super popular because like influencers starting to push that with clavvicular pushing it various peptides but also and specific stacks as well is what I heard like their unique kind of combinations. Yeah. And also they are they they're starting to develop like new classes of them. They're improving them and everything like that. So what I was talking to my friend about is and they actually sell it on the enhanced website is one called turepatide. So this is like one of the new classes of peptides. [\[19:18\]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3izzj5nuT0&t=1158s&ref=ghost.psymposia.com) Yeah. On the right hand side there. Yeah. And so they sell it And the thing is you can't I was poking around I was poking around the site. So it's very easy for someone wants to get into these. So I'm not entirely sure how enhanced is doing it but say you wanted to get them you can pay one of the telealth companies a fee. You pay them 60 bucks. You get the tellahalth appointment but you're not entirely sure if you're going to be able to get the prescription because they got to prescribe it for you. And so basically you can and they told my friend we'll do our best to accommodate your preference for dosing because he didn't want to go too high. So you know they're kind of poking around and asking them what he exactly wants it for blah blah blah and you can kind of make \[expletive\] up and you're going to get the you're going to get the prescription. [\[20:12\]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3izzj5nuT0&t=1212s&ref=ghost.psymposia.com) But on the enhanced website I couldn't tell. They don't list the dosing. I don't think they can list the dosing just due to because they have to kind of personalize it based on your responses and everything. So they have like a regulatoride. They have a micro dosed version. I was trying to guess what the doses would kind of be. It seems like the prices are somewhat in alignment with the other teleaalth companies, but if you poke around, you can find a compounding pharmacy for much cheaper. And so s so you're kind of you would go with an enhanced or one of these other hims and hers type places because there's more of a trust factor apparent trust factor you know that you're not buying it from some rando compounding pharmacy you know well and that's like that's built into anger's pitch for the website is oh all of these people are getting it from China and these research chemical sites from China but you want to buy it from a trusted like western provider of these [\[21:14\]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3izzj5nuT0&t=1274s&ref=ghost.psymposia.com) Pep peptide medications or whatever. Where does these come from? I wonder. Yeah. And so there's just new ones coming out to market. There's one of them now called Redat Trutide, which is a triple agonist. It's a GLP1, a JIP, and a glucagon. And so yeah, these are just they're trying to push these they're trying to push these for that young market. The one that you were mentioning, Shay, the Huddle Up article that some of this was coming from, I thought put it interestingly, which is that the his and hers markets are really big right now for things that are already deteriorating. They have this kind of telealth market cornered for things like male pattern baldness, erectile dysfunction, like estrogen level change over time, but that the enhanced games is trying to corner this market of, oh, it's not that you're deteriorating already, it's that you want to enhance yourself. [\[22:06\]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3izzj5nuT0&t=1326s&ref=ghost.psymposia.com) They're cornering this peptide and teleahalth market around physical enhancement. Personally for me, I don't know how if you guys feel differently, I'm fine with it to certain to some certain extent for some conditions, you know, and whatnot. I'm fine for if that's going to help someone out for whatever their reasons are. I think what turns me off is the they're just really pushing it to young guys who are insecure, who are trying to looks max or whatever that, you know, they're really trying to push that hard to those guys. And while everybody thinks it's some sporting event, that's really like the loss leader, you know, for pushing the tella health business, which I did not even realize before diving into this story whatsoever. [\[22:57\]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3izzj5nuT0&t=1377s&ref=ghost.psymposia.com) Yeah. I wonder how different things would be if we just acknowledged that like Aderall has weight loss benefits too. And for like people \[laughter\] who needed like a weight loss drug like we've already got a pretty good one out there, you know, like and vice versa. I used to have a friend who would take his dad's diet pills to go study. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. This is such a longer conversation on \[laughter\] the bioeththics of GLP ones I find to be so fascinating. James, in that screenshot that you just had, does that mention the marketing spend? Yeah, I found this really, really fascinating. Yeah, sorry. I thought that's where we were heading when Russ started. So, in 2024, Himsenhurst spent $678 million on marketing, which is almost 50% of their total revenue. [\[23:45\]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3izzj5nuT0&t=1425s&ref=ghost.psymposia.com) And so that's what kind of they're trying to do with the enhanced games is to create that, you know, viral online, you know, kind of controversial steroid Olympics, you know, to draw attention to this, to push that. So yeah, and it's the way of the future for medicine. It's my entire Instagram feed. Every other post is tellahalth ketamine right now as well. It's just everywhere. I was trying to explain this to my father on the phone and I was like, "Dad, yeah, like you just get prescriptions now by calling a teleahalth company. It's like, you know, it's so easy." And so anyways, enhanced went public. Do you want to bring up the screenshot of the stock performance since it launched in May? [\[24:31\]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3izzj5nuT0&t=1471s&ref=ghost.psymposia.com) Real quick before we get there though, I do want to say like the overease of tellaalth is like definitely a downside, but there are a lot like I think that we would all agree that there's too many restrictions around people getting the prescriptions they want anyways. And like I have lived with ADHD my whole life. And it wasn't until after COVID and tellaalth became a thing that it was actually attainable for me to like get a prescription for it, get tested for it, and like get on medication for it. And so like I do want to just say like it's a double-edged sword, but there's definitely positives too. And I just want to make sure that it doesn't seem like we're all just like \[expletive\] on tellahalth. Yeah. No. Yeah. Good. I'm glad you tossed that in. [\[25:17\]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3izzj5nuT0&t=1517s&ref=ghost.psymposia.com) Yeah. Yeah, I mean it's you know it's the bigger context of this like stage of capitalism that we're in and the way that like you know people are so vulnerable and there's such a profit incentive that that's where we get into some of the slippery implementations of tella health. Yeah. No, I tell people all the time, tellahalth is amazing if you already know what you need. And it's really bad a lot of times if you need to get a diagnosis. Like if you already kind of know what you have, like it's a lot easier. But yeah, it's hard to go in and try to get a diagnosis legitimately on them a lot of times. Yeah. If you're dealing with a doctor or someone you're consulting with that's primary aim is not just driving revenue and making sales, you know. Yeah. [\[26:02\]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3izzj5nuT0&t=1562s&ref=ghost.psymposia.com) Yeah. I mean, like the first time I told them like I drank coffee and I smoke weed and they tried to put me on mood stabilizers because they said I was self-medicating with uppers and downers and I was like that sounds like you don't understand weed or coffee. But \[laughter\] that's obviously going to ex exist with your regular doctors any you know that's still going to exist there. I just think in the same I don't know this just popped into my mind. In the same way that fine, we're we as a society, we're going to decide whether or not we want to have casinos, right? And there's a difference between having the casino and having the casino in everyone's pocket where 24/7 you can play sports bets if you're whatever 20 years old, 18 years old in Massachusetts. [\[26:48\]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3izzj5nuT0&t=1608s&ref=ghost.psymposia.com) Maybe it's 21\. Maybe it's 21\. I don't know. I don't sports bet. But yeah, there are ones that appeal to kids too and that are like actively seeking them out. So yeah, that's a whole other can of worms. Yeah. So do you want to Yeah. Some good news. \[laughter\] Yeah. So this launched in May, I think just before I think this was a week or two before the games went live. The stock has absolutely \[expletive\] the bed. Curious where this goes. Curious if they're even able to kind of become the peptide teleahalth company. We'll see. But if you invest stock needs some performance ruged. Yeah, that was a good line. All right, you want to wrap that one there? sounds good. Let's move on. [\[27:33\]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3izzj5nuT0&t=1653s&ref=ghost.psymposia.com) So, this story is about the story is wild. So, it is about in 2023, the feds raided a warehouse in Oklahoma from this company, this So, what are we at? We atratom orratom? How is this pronounced? I mean, I'm gonna go ahead and sayratom just because that's what Google told me. The arratomay gave me \[expletive\] before when we were reviewing the notes that I \[laughter\] mispronounced. I think we're two for two on this one. I'm going You guys can have Yeah. So, this story is wild. So, in 2023, the feds raided an Oklahoma facility that had something like 250,000 bottles of aratom supplement. [\[28:20\]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3izzj5nuT0&t=1700s&ref=ghost.psymposia.com) It's like a little tonic. The company is called Botanic Botanic Tonics. By the way, I've had them before. What's your Have you I have Tell Tell us. When back when I worked at a hemp shop, I was like that was one of the things that we sold. And was it the feel free? Yeah. Yeah. And I think they also had one that was Cabba. I personally I've only ever tried Kratom in earnest like once and I feel like it just made me itchy and so I was not super into it after that. \[laughter\] But I did try that. I had it like gifted to me by my employer when I worked at the he hemp shop and I remember that if there was an effect it was not enough to be like this is definitely effect and not just me kind of wanting one but I have like what they're supposed to be at. [\[29:16\]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3izzj5nuT0&t=1756s&ref=ghost.psymposia.com) I don't know. I have a funny story. I used to do an Airbnb out of my apartment. And so I would get the and my Airbnb was sort of like my marketing that I did was sort of aimed towards plant people and hippies and stuff like that, which was kind of a nice filter because I would get really interesting people. And so on any given random night at any time, I would have people from all over the world staying. So one night I get this guy and he comes over. He's a really interesting guy. We're sitting in my living room. talking and he goes, "Hey, do you mind if I you mind if I bring up myrratom? I got some supplies." He's like, "I just have to cook it up." And I was like, "No, all right, cool." And so he brings in this big ass \[expletive\] bag ofratom and he like takes my pot on the stove and he starts boiling all theratom. [\[30:05\]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3izzj5nuT0&t=1805s&ref=ghost.psymposia.com) And I had it I had a like a coffee mug of it. That's the only time I've really done like a significant dose of it. But it was nice. It made me feel it made me feel nice. The nausea was definitely there but it wasn't pleasant like a very pleasant experience. As a harm reductionist, it's an amazing tool. I have like I worked at a vape shop that sold like a huge supply ofratom and I talked to a ton of people who like that was how they had gotten off of other opioids. And you know it is still like an opioid. You can still have like withdrawal symptoms and you can still overuse and abuse it 100%. But I mean in terms of reducing harms, it definitely does that. [\[30:53\]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3izzj5nuT0&t=1853s&ref=ghost.psymposia.com) It's 100% harm reduction. And you know, I'm a fan of it for that reason. It's just never been something that I feel like has connected with me. My understanding, and I'm curious if this is supported by what you've seen, is that there is still an addictive property to it. But is there less of an overdose potential fromratom? Yeah. Yeah. No, there there definitely is still an addictive quality to it, but overdoing it on cratomratom is like mostly just unpleasant. It's it kind of encourages like a moderate dose a lot of times and then when people like you definitely can get to the point where you're overusing it and get to the point where you're like have a problematic like relationship with it as well. But you know again like I it's better probably to have that withratom than it would be with like fentanyl or heroin in most cases. [\[31:40\]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3izzj5nuT0&t=1900s&ref=ghost.psymposia.com) You know can definitely still be an unhealthy thing and can have like physical or like you know medical problems associated with it but again harm reduction not harm removal. I definitely think yeah for sure. So let's tie up some of these loose ends because we're totally burying the lead here right now. So in 2023, the Biden Biden administration botanic was raided. They seized 250,000 bottles. And then fast forward, that was in April 2023\. And then fast forward to December of last year, that case was suddenly they had the company had filed a motion to dismiss in December. And then suddenly the DOJ dropped the case, completely dropped the case. [\[32:29\]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3izzj5nuT0&t=1949s&ref=ghost.psymposia.com) And Politico had then reported that 10 weeks after that case was dropped, they gave that company, Botanic Tonics, made a $500,000 donation to Maha Pact. And it's one of the groups that's aligned with Kennedy's Make America Healthy Again. And there's some interesting background on Botanic Tonics that the founder, his name is JW Ross, but he's also known as Jerry Cash. He was convicted for federal fraud for embezzling $10 million from an oil and gas company to fund his lifestyle. And but the big part of this story is that DHS Secretary Mark Wayne Mullen had a stake in Botanic Tonics for between when he did his disclosure to become DHS secretary, they reported $500,000 to a million dollars holdings of Botanic Tonics. [\[33:22\]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3izzj5nuT0&t=2002s&ref=ghost.psymposia.com) So, so basically they're raided in December of last year. The case is dropped. They immediately make a $500,000 donation to Maha Pack and then and found out that Mark Wayne Mullen had a between a half million and a million dollar stake in the company. It's like the most blatant \[expletive\] I've ever seen. Yeah. But surprising move from Mark Wayne. you know, he's usually straight and narrow, but he's become one of the my understanding is he he's become one of the richest politicians in office right now since he's gotten in office. He he's worth a \[expletive\] ton of money. I thought he would might be worth $60 million now or so. Wow. It's just to fight union members. [\[34:07\]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3izzj5nuT0&t=2047s&ref=ghost.psymposia.com) Yeah, he has this edge. He has this edge. He can nudge people to make these donations and nothing matters. And then he participated in that like press conference with RFK and the Maha people around 77 70 700\. Is that right? Yeah. Do you want to briefly explain that Russ about what the point of that? Do you know anything James about 70? Oh no. I'm completely ignorant. So Okay. It seems like it's like the synthetic concentrated version of what's in like a cratom leaf and the and it's a it's gas station. Sorry, I didn't know the molecular name, but yeah, I have heard of hydro hydroxy metrain. [\[34:53\]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3izzj5nuT0&t=2093s&ref=ghost.psymposia.com) Metraanine, I think. Yeah, \[laughter\] that's what I said. I'm going to use that as a cold open. \[laughter\] Damn it. But it's sold in gas stations. It's sold in hemp shops at head shops across the United States and the kind of RFK admin was taking swings at 70 and they did this whole press conference that was essentially taking these swings at 70 which is a direct competitor to more natural umratom product which is direct competitor to feel free from which is the product from botanic tonics. Yeah. So, while Mark Wayne Mullen has all these investments in this, he went on stage at this press conference, we have a clip of to talk about 70, the competitor to the company he's invested in. [\[35:41\]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3izzj5nuT0&t=2141s&ref=ghost.psymposia.com) And then when someone goes and they go to rehab and you get out and because my lord, we've been to every rehab center you can imagine. And I'm sure some of you guys have experienced the same thing. and they're clean, they're doing better, and they find out they can go to a gas station or a vape shop or skate shop or bike shop and they can find something that's legal for them to take that gives them the same high and they can still pass drug tests even though they're on probation. And yet it it's a road to the same addiction. And you see the pattern. You see it in their face. You see it in their eyes. You see it in their words. You see it in their behavior. And you're going, "Oh my gosh, here we go again." and you go get them drug test and they're passing. You're going, "What is going on? How can they pass this? [\[36:27\]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3izzj5nuT0&t=2187s&ref=ghost.psymposia.com) What are you doing? I'm not doing anything. I'm not doing anything illegal." But you can read it because you've been with that loved one so long, you see it. And worst of all, they're not buying it from me. \[laughter\] Yeah. And you're help. And you once again, you know where the road is headed. And then honestly, those that of our family members that we've struggled with addiction, when they actually get put in prison, it's probably the first night you actually sleep well because you know where they're at. And in our case, the person gets out after years in prison and they find it in a drugstore again. And these individuals that are selling know what they're doing. They know the individuals are targeting. \[laughter\] And it's like if the without the context that he's invested in their competitor, there's almost something you could take away as being genuine from what he's saying. like of some worry there, but knowing that it's like rings so hollow, genuine and a little misguided, but you could see him being genuine. [\[37:21\]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3izzj5nuT0&t=2241s&ref=ghost.psymposia.com) Yeah. Until then, I Wow. I hated like every element of that. Like all of his alarms that he was ringing were that like people won't get more punishment. And it's like grow up. \[laughter\] Like why do you want people to get punished so bad? Why are you going teacher? Is that what he was calling for? Well, it was like he was like, you know, they get out and then they can still pass their drug tests, they can still get employed, they can still, you know, like it's like we're you're making it so like they don't get caught being bad, you know, like that's how it kind of felt to me at least. Yeah. I mean, I guess I heard that there's a way in which like I can understand the impulse which is like, you know, people are having a hard time with substances. is they might have already had some serious consequences whether work-wise or interpersonally with you know family and then they're trying to get back onto you know a kind of a better footing in life that's doesn't have all of these negative [\[38:22\]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3izzj5nuT0&t=2302s&ref=ghost.psymposia.com) Consequences and then there's these products that are marketed to them you know openly that are kind of undoing all of that effort that people are working towards I can understand that side of it you know but it is very much undermined by \[laughter\] by the products yeah Yeah. What you don't know as someone watching that is he's an investor in the competitor to the thing he's advocating against, which I just find ridiculous. They know who they're marketing to and I know who they're marketing to because I'm invested in a company that's also marketing to these people. Yeah. Yeah. And that that image of the kind of the stereotypical scenario that he was advancing, it's not everyone's life is like that and like you know everyone has their own situations, their own struggles and so it's not so simple but definitely the you know the marketing of because there was also that product recently I forget what it was called where like kids were purchasing some kind of drink from gas stations and they were getting like hooked on the drink. [\[39:20\]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3izzj5nuT0&t=2360s&ref=ghost.psymposia.com) It was like a blue do you know what I'm talking about? There was like a lot of discourse about it recently, but it's like there are these incent continual in incentives for new products to be marketed and hooking consumers. It's kind of like how people say the economy these days is just kind of addiction and gambling, you know, there's like those underlying drivers. \[laughter\] Yeah. And it's like so it's like I have a lot of sympathy towards that concern, but you know, when you kind of oversimplify things in a way that makes life harder for people, then we get into problems. Yeah. Were you thinking of tianapatine? Tianine tyipopine? I don't know what it's called, but this is a US FDA article here that's saying gas station heroin. Oh, yeah. [\[40:05\]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3izzj5nuT0&t=2405s&ref=ghost.psymposia.com) That's how it was being described. Yeah. Oh. Oh, that that is feel free. Feel free is the name of it. Okay. It's another botanic tonic drink. Oh, is it? I think that might be Cava, actually. Yeah, I've had that one before, too. Oh, yeah. That was the same. Yeah, that's so funny that I thought it was Oh, that is a botanic tonic. Yeah. Yep. That's really funny. Is that And is that actually different than that was just another product that they had. It's cava. Yeah. Mixed. So, this is actually the one that was rated. Yeah. I didn't realize \[laughter\] it. We're coming full circle here. Yeah. It turns out it was very on topic. All right. I think we're going to take a quick break and we'll be right back. Hey there. [\[40:51\]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3izzj5nuT0&t=2451s&ref=ghost.psymposia.com) Do you appreciate the work we do here at Psymposia? Independent research that's been cited in the New York Times, The Guardian, The Nation, Wired, ABC's Four Corners, Business Insider, the CBC, and more. Well, we've just revamped the ways that you can support our work on Patreon and what we can offer you in return. Starting on July 1st, we're going to be simplifying to two main Patreon tiers, a $5 and a $10 tier. Of course, there is still a $2 tier right now, and if you get in within the next month, you'll be grandfathered in at that level moving forward, but we will be retiring it at the beginning of July. You're also welcome to jump in at the $50 tier, though we don't expect that of everyone. So, what'll you get for supporting us? All of our paid members will receive access to adree early access podcast episodes released around twice a month. [\[41:39\]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3izzj5nuT0&t=2499s&ref=ghost.psymposia.com) Additionally, these episodes will have about 20 to 45 minutes of bonus content tacked on the end that non-Patreon members will not get to see. All paid members will also be able to access a group chat as well as a chat where you can suggest stories and topics for us to cover in future episodes. At our $10 level, you'll have access to live \[expletive\] postia sessions where we'll be going through our social media feeds together and answering audience questions. And if you subscribe for a whole year upfront at either the $5 or $10 level, you'll receive some extra merchandise. If you pay annually at the $5 level, you'll receive a sticker and a button. And if you pay annually at the $10 level, you'll receive both of those, as well as some Psymposia bladder art like this one up here. Thanks a lot for taking the time to hear all of these offerings and for considering supporting independent research like ours. [\[42:29\]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3izzj5nuT0&t=2549s&ref=ghost.psymposia.com) We couldn't do this without people like you. All right, and we're back. And so this next story is a story that was in CNN health. It's more maja RFK news for everybody. So this was RFK Jr. launches plan to address the overuse of psychiatric medications. And then there was a recent Maha Institute summit on mental health and overmedicalization. So Russ, do you want to take this story? Yeah, I can kind of take us through some of these clips from RFK's talk at the summit. I think the first clip we have is just one I always think is ironic to play when they start talking about how important this administration thinks mental health is, which is RFK thanking Donald Trump. I want to thank President Trump for his leadership, for driving this effort, and for advancing the great American recovery initiative through executive action, which aligns directly with the work that we are doing today to restore health, accountability, and trust in the [\[43:31\]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3izzj5nuT0&t=2611s&ref=ghost.psymposia.com) System. Oh man. Yeah. What he's pushing is that like the line that he's pushing is supporting patient autonomy, requiring informed consent and shared decision-making and shifting the standard of care towards prevention, transparency, and a more holistic approach to mental health. all fine talking points in my opinion. But I think my big takeaway from this summit and we'll watch a few more clips from it is that these are not new things. These are the things that mental health organizations and providers have been discussing as things that need done around anti-depressant medications and prescriptions and things like that. [\[44:16\]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3izzj5nuT0&t=2656s&ref=ghost.psymposia.com) And beyond the talking points that are sort of stigmatizing mental health drugs, all they're saying is that with your doctor, you should be discussing whether these are the right drugs for you, whether you need to come off the drugs, whether it would be good for you to come off the drugs, and how to taper off of these drugs. And none of that is new. None of that is radical. that is legitimately the standard of care that should be being implemented that all mental health providers would tell you. It's just they're in turn stigmatizing these drugs and being on them and the patients that use them in their rhetoric and making people probably more likely to just drop these meds altogether in an unhealthy way, in a way that wouldn't be recommended by their mental health providers. [\[45:06\]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3izzj5nuT0&t=2706s&ref=ghost.psymposia.com) Because saying you should be working with your mental health provider and tapering and taking the safe way and not everyone actually needs to come off of these that comes like many many paragraphs down in their rhetoric. The rhetoric that's the top line is there's an overprescription of mental health medications and it's unnecessary and all of this stuff. And in fact, to reinforce that point, if you want to play clip two, this is how they talk about the experts. And the New York Times and a lot of other outlets published a response from that saying that the experts disagreed with the secretary. And we all know that whenever they say trust the experts, they're they got nothing. Okay, they \[laughter\] got they got nothing. [\[45:51\]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3izzj5nuT0&t=2751s&ref=ghost.psymposia.com) But that's the general angle that the RFK maha movement is taking as they're pushing stuff that actually isn't radical when you actually start to look at it. The idea of like this the tapering the importance of understanding the medications you're taking. Those are all great, but then they're gussying it up in language that the experts don't know what they're talking about. They're not letting you talk about this stuff. It's all completely contradictory in my opinion. Yeah. No. And it feels like trying to kind of give this vibe that like they're the normal ones, right? Like we're going to come out and recommend living healthy. We're going to recommend tapering off of drugs if you've been taking them. We're going to recommend including therapy along with your anti-depressants. [\[46:38\]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3izzj5nuT0&t=2798s&ref=ghost.psymposia.com) And like a lot of people are listening to that going, "Wow, great." like this is such a like noble thing for our government to doing to be doing and they don't even realize like that's what we've been doing this. Yeah, that was the position of the lib doctors. You know, it's as if that's not what the experts are saying. The experts don't know what they're talking about here. Follow us saying exactly what they've been saying for \[laughter\] like the past decade. Don't trust the experts. Listen to me. Apples are actually good for you. Yes, the experts they got nothing. In talking with Normie about this, I just looked up in up to date, which is the a database that's programmed into most electronic medical record companies that gives you like easy patient handouts for certain medications, certain procedures, all that kind of stuff. [\[47:28\]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3izzj5nuT0&t=2848s&ref=ghost.psymposia.com) We use in like nursing or doctors can print these out from their electronic medical record stuff. I just looked up certuline just to see what the topline recommendations were and they were exactly that which is talk with your doctor if you're thinking about coming off of these. They need to be tapered. Like they can cause reactions if you just drop them. Like it's not something that you can't talk about. It's not something that's not being talked about. And they take this kind of podcast bro approach to medicine which is these are the things they don't want you to know about these drugs. Yeah. And it sounds like they're basically trying to throw the sort of ideal over to this recommendation that was published in JAMAMA for the deprescribing of psychotropic medications. [\[48:21\]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3izzj5nuT0&t=2901s&ref=ghost.psymposia.com) And like you know even just looking through it like clinicians should regularly and systematically evaluate the relevance and appropriateness of all components within a psychopharmarmacology regimen to determine when monitored deprescribing appears indicated. Yes. Yeah. So it's all splash. Like \[laughter\] got them. And if you put but what they are doing what they are doing around deprescription if you want to play clip four is introducing ways for doctors to get paid out for deprescribing people now and which is a new move. At the same time CMS the center for medical medicaid and Medicare services is issuing billing guidance that allows clinicians to get paid or deprescribing work for the first time care plan. [\[49:11\]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3izzj5nuT0&t=2951s&ref=ghost.psymposia.com) And so at the same time that they are saying you should listen to your doctor. You should have informed discussions and all of this stuff around your mental health medications, they're also incentivizing the deprescription of these medications for doctors. Trust your doctor who we've incentivized against prescribing medications. Yeah. Although I guess I don't know that is tough because I do feel like for years doctors have been kind of incentivized into prescribing medications. And so absolutely. You know, there is like I don't know. The thing with a lot of the Mah incentive in general probably the thing with so much of the Maha stuff to me is that there is maybe you guys disagree, but in so much of it there's like a little kernel of truth there to a lot of the stuff that they address. [\[49:57\]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3izzj5nuT0&t=2997s&ref=ghost.psymposia.com) But the whole to me maha it's just a smoke screen for the administration to say that we're tackling these big things and mean meanwhile they're doing nothing about Roundup and the biggest thing to me is how devastating that they want to increase access to mental health. No, they \[expletive\] don't. Like they have cut these programs. I just don't I don't know how anyone takes any of it seriously. the amount of people this administration has kicked off of health care and has kicked off of food benefits, which access to food for a child, a developing child is like the single most important thing in life. And then they get up there and they have the audacity to say that we care about mental health. [\[50:47\]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3izzj5nuT0&t=3047s&ref=ghost.psymposia.com) Like there was so this was a recent from the center on budget and policy priority priorities and this was data this was available data it says as of May 2026\. Yeah. And this was the available data from the 12 states that had data available that showed the amount of people total amount of people. So it's almost 1.6 6 million people who have lost benefits to SNAP, including 728 more than 728,000 children at this point since the big beautiful bill was enacted last year. And this is only 12 states, over 700,000 children. [\[51:33\]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3izzj5nuT0&t=3093s&ref=ghost.psymposia.com) And the estimates are that the big beautiful bill is going to result in 10 to something like 10 to 16 million people being removed from their health care for like a variety of different reasons. There's work requirements, the reduced federal funding, the kicking the some of the SNAP, some of the SNAP expenses over to the states, getting rid of the ACA tax credit. So big thing is the redeterminations in work which is a lot of like a lot of people are going to miss notifications. They have to reapply every 6 months. It's like a lot of paperwork that's involved in it's going to kick people off. So again it's like this is such a similar argument to so much of the stuff that we've done in the psychedelic space over the years. You got everybody talking about the mental health revolution while no one is focused on like the just the various like systemic drivers of mental health in the first place. [\[52:28\]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3izzj5nuT0&t=3148s&ref=ghost.psymposia.com) It's the same issue here. They're trying to oh, we're so for mental health, but don't look at the fact that we are sending millions of children to bed every night hungry. Yeah. And that's one of the things like that RFK specifically calls out in that talk which he gave which is that he's had family members who have had to quickly get dropped from their mental health medication, their depression medications and it's had terrible effects like suicidality and things like that. And then he does not get into why someone might have to quickly stop their depression medications, which would be like monetary, financial reasons, getting kicked off your insurance, losing your provider, all of that kind of stuff, which is happening under this administration are the exact reasons someone would have to stop without tapering their mental health medications. [\[53:23\]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3izzj5nuT0&t=3203s&ref=ghost.psymposia.com) The Yeah. And the elephant in the room is the only way you're going to have accessible mental health care for people is with Medicare for all and socialized medicine. And if you're not like advocating for those for that as a policy decision, you're just not serious about this conversation whatsoever. Absolutely. Yep. Housing and food security are like the number one things we can do for mental health. Yeah, like just making sure that everyone has food and housing would go a long way in addressing our mental health crisis right now. Well, we've got another maha child story coming up if we want to transition into the next one there. Yeah. All right. So, apparently this is our maha pseudocience bad \[expletive\] policy RFK episode, I guess. [\[54:12\]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3izzj5nuT0&t=3252s&ref=ghost.psymposia.com) So, this next story is extremely depressing. It was a story in ProPublica by Dua Alib. The story is called babies are bleeding to death as parents reject a vitamin shot given at birth. And she documents all these cases throughout the country where newborns suddenly bleed to death. And one of the major causes is because increasingly parents are not giving their children the recommended vitamin K shot which is responsible for in those children that have this issue. Vitamin K helps coagulate and prevent bleeding to death especially brain bleeds or brain bleeding circumcision anything where a baby might be bleeding. [\[55:04\]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3izzj5nuT0&t=3304s&ref=ghost.psymposia.com) Yeah. And one of the reasons is because infants in children, newborns and children up to several months old, they don't produce their own vitamin K. And it's also not transferred in breast milk. My understanding is some formulas are fortified with vitamin K, which is still not enough. But the production of vitamin K is tied to baby starting to eat normal food and developing gut bacteria which produce that. And yeah, so this story, there's been 700 newborns that have died from brain bleeds and other bleeding because of just parents who don't want to give it. It this is part of the sort of the antivax movement. [\[55:50\]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3izzj5nuT0&t=3350s&ref=ghost.psymposia.com) Even though the vitamin K shot is not a vaccine, it's been included in the I don't want to give my child anything at birth movement. I don't want to put toxins into my child. I don't want to put vaccines and everything else like that. Yeah. And the one quote from the article that I was thinking of was that Representative Kim Shrier of Washington pressed RFK Jr. to reassure parents that the vitamin K shot is safe and he refused to push back saying that he's never said anything about vitamin K. And she's like, "Exactly, but you are consistently talking about how babies are given too many exposed to too many shots and medical interventions at birth and that's leading parents to see these shots as dangerous to their children." [\[56:35\]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3izzj5nuT0&t=3395s&ref=ghost.psymposia.com) When the vitamin K shot was like it won like a Nobel Prize because of how impactful it was on the death rate of babies or curbing the death rate of babies from vitamin K deficiency. This is what blew my mind like looking up why is it called vitamin K? It's called vitamin K because the results in it was discovered in 1829 and the results were published in a German journal and the K stands for German word coagulation which begins with a K which I had no idea of whatsoever. It's right there in the name. Some of the stats that she writes in this article is that the refusal rates jumped 77% from 2017 to 2024. [\[57:22\]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3izzj5nuT0&t=3442s&ref=ghost.psymposia.com) In 2024, over 5% of US newborns didn't get the shot, which that I think has doubled over the last 10 years or so. Babies that don't have the vitamin K shot are 81 times a higher risk of fatal brain bleed. And of those brain bleeds, one in five of the vitamin K deficiency will result in the bleeding cases that which are fatal. Yeah. And this is tied into the you know we don't the new I think it was actually a judge when this administration announced no they don't recom they no longer recommend hepatitis B shots that was I think put on hold by a judge but it's all lumped in together and the sort of the fear of modern medicine the fear of all of that B is one of three medications that most babies leave the hospital with vitamin and K being another one. [\[58:20\]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3izzj5nuT0&t=3500s&ref=ghost.psymposia.com) There was one of the cases she documents in the piece is a there was a cluster of cases in Nashville about 13 years ago and so four babies were rushed to the hospital with a severe brain bleeding and didn't really know what was going on and they eventually found out that there was so she writes that the parents explained that they had declined the shot for a number of reasons. a concern based on long debunked claims that the shot could cause leukemia, a belief in the shot wasn't necessary, and a desire to reduce their baby's exposure to toxins. And it's like what Alex Jones for years on Infowars has pedled to the public has just now become an accepted part of, you know, mainstream sort of right-wing influence culture now that it's made its way. [\[59:08\]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3izzj5nuT0&t=3548s&ref=ghost.psymposia.com) And this is being just \[expletive\] on so many people who are because of like so much of the Trump maggot Trumpism is a you know is a rebellion towards institutions and so of course this is just brought in with that. Yeah. And the influencers that are pushing it are people like Candace Owens who said when who said in 2023 episode about vitamin K shots, "What big pharma is saying is that we realize that babies were born wrong. They don't have enough vitamin K and so we're going to give them what they always needed. God designed us wrong is how she's framing it." And even on the left wing, I cut that Duncan Trussell clip of him discussing his birth experience in the hospital. [\[59:57\]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3izzj5nuT0&t=3597s&ref=ghost.psymposia.com) Duncan being one of these podcast bros who is into the psychedelic stuff and who would generally be seen as kind of a leftleaning person. I do think what he put out online about his own hospital experience around the birth plays directly into these maja talking points if we wanted to take a quick look at that. When you came into this world, I hate to say it, but there was a \[expletive\] thermometer up your ass before you sucked on your mom's tits. And that's the wrong order when you're getting things up your ass. And that's just the truth. Every single one of us more than likely were medically sodomized within a few minutes of hitting this part of time space. Then more than likely you were probably taken away from your parents, thrown in a \[expletive\] pod, pricricked and poked. [\[1:00:50\]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3izzj5nuT0&t=3650s&ref=ghost.psymposia.com) You heard your mom crying cuz they're so upset. They just want to be with the baby. some weird \[expletive\] dude sort of curtly trying to calm them down, acting like they're idiots because they think something's off here. For some reason, they wanted to keep Yeah. He's spending too much time thinking about this. Yeah. I mean, this is the kind of rhetoric that is encouraging people to not get these vitamin K shots. You know what I mean? Like this is the kind of rhetoric that built the Maha platform saying the very normal things of taking your baby's temperature when it's born and getting its vaccinations and stuff is some radical thing that isn't actually the boon the bright side of modern medicine that we can like give babies what they need at birth and keep them alive longer than we could in the past. like he's demonizing these incredibly normal medical interventions in a way that I think plays directly into the kind of rhetoric being pushed [\[1:01:51\]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3izzj5nuT0&t=3711s&ref=ghost.psymposia.com) That by the Maha movement that's leading people to decide I don't want to give my kid a vitamin K shot because they got thrown in a pod at the pod he's talking about is probably just keeping the baby at a stable temperature or something and poked and prodded with a hep vaccination and a vitamin K shot. Like come on, dude. It's so disturbing. The guy's lost in the sauce. CO kind of broke his brain. He was already predisposed to it anyways. And then Elephant Graveyard came in. I don't know that he's recovered. Been kind of sad. I knew Duncan. I knew Duncan for a little bit back in 2016 2017\. Seeing the direction that he's gone in is depressing. Yeah, I was a huge fan for a while there. Z, I listened to a lot of him for a long time. [\[1:02:38\]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3izzj5nuT0&t=3758s&ref=ghost.psymposia.com) Does his conversation Psymposia event does the recording of that exist somewhere? I don't think we have that online. I'm not sure. It exists. It's somewhere in some hard drives. It It could be cool to pull up sometime. Yeah. It's somewhere we was 2016 actually. We did an event was 2016 and 2017\. We did a psychedelic stories event in Brooklyn. And then the next year we did kind of a conversation surrounded by the crowd type thing in Brooklyn. And you know the just a funny story. I don't know if I've told this on a podcast before. I was in New York. I think it was 2017\. Duncan invited me to he was testing out some material at a small comedy club. [\[1:03:23\]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3izzj5nuT0&t=3803s&ref=ghost.psymposia.com) So I went I he invited me there and then we went out for drinks after that and it was weird. It was the we're sitting at the bar and he's checking his phone. It was the day that Alex Jones was on Rogan and he was sitting at the bar texting with Rogan who was telling him, "Oh, you just got Alex Jones on." And I was like kind of feeling a little weird about that. \[laughter\] Like what the \[expletive\] are you doing? Like having Alex Jones on like you know it was a few years after Sandy Hook and like he's just pushing this \[expletive\] to young guys listening to his podcast and Duncan was like, "No, no, no, man. You don't get it. you're wrong on this. You have to the best way to expose it is with sunlight and like that's \[laughter\] you know the best disinfectant is sunlight and it's just a it was just weird but it was kind of you know it this is how it like progressed. [\[1:04:17\]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3izzj5nuT0&t=3857s&ref=ghost.psymposia.com) It progressed into that Alex Jones wasn't just this \[expletive\] weirdo that Rogan was interested in. No, it's like turned out not that Rogan is interested into exposing Alex Jones's \[expletive\] It was that he's actually genuinely interested in it. I tortured myself recently by listening to Duncan's recent interview with Alex Jones where he says he was one of his top three guests to have on and like goes out of his way to say he's a truthtelling journalist and give him all of these like give him all these laurels. Alex Jones, I gotta tell you right away, man. You are in my top three dream guests for this podcast. I've wanted you on this show for so long. Is Thank you for Well, I wanted to come on. I'm a huge fan of yours forever before I even met you like 15 years ago with Joe. [\[1:05:06\]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3izzj5nuT0&t=3906s&ref=ghost.psymposia.com) Thank you. Yeah. Oh, listen. You know, that's where I first met you was through Joe. Not in the flesh, but when I got to be friends with Joe, we go over to his house, get stoned, and we had like old school Infowars. Alex Jones stuff on VHS and we'd sit and watch it and just freak the \[expletive\] out. You know, I know Jose is like I met him in 98 to know him as friends 99\. But you're kind of like a Gonzo journalist. You're some kind of like combination of like oh god Hunter S. Thompson. You've got some Hunter S. Thompson in you. But you're a journalist. You're a journalist. You're a hard worker too. I can't imagine what your schedule's like. Insane usually implies heat, you know, like put a little heat on it and one thing. Yeah. But I just wanted to show that clip because I think the Maha movement was built on podcast bro rhetoric like this who are like decrying that experts don't know what they're talking about and actually you should go on vibes and yeah get out of the hospital. [\[1:06:04\]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3izzj5nuT0&t=3964s&ref=ghost.psymposia.com) Don't get your kid these shots. Like it's nasty. We can tell something's wrong against Don't give your kid autism with Tylenol. Yeah. All right. So let's talk about Brian Hubard. Shayla Love in the Atlantic just came out. recently came out the last week or so a story the man behind the Trump administration's favorite psychedelic Brian Hubard is the there's a W in front of him so W Brian Hubard is the Republican psychedelics whisperer and where to begin I don't even know where to start with this so Hubard is this guy who's come on the scene in the last handful of years he's a right-wing psychedelic operative he's one of the people that's mostly responsible for the Trump administration's executive reporter. The story basically goes that Hubard was on Rogan. [\[1:06:53\]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3izzj5nuT0&t=4013s&ref=ghost.psymposia.com) Rogan asked Hubard asked Rogan for a favor to text the president about Ibel Gain. Last year, Hubard formed Americans for Ibel Gain with Rick Perry, who was the first Trump administration's energy secretary. He's the former governor of Texas. and Hubard came the first time that I think most of us heard about Brian Hubard and we reported some of this in the psychedelic syndicate but basically he was the Kentucky opioid abatement advisory commission the chair for that that commission was tasked with allocating the way that they did it is when the pharmaceut when the opioid pharmaceutical companies settled with the states and the government that money was basically allocated to different states and so they had like these huge cash piles to distribute to various organizations for harm reduction work and whatnot. [\[1:07:51\]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3izzj5nuT0&t=4071s&ref=ghost.psymposia.com) And so in May of 2023, that commission proposed $42 million of that settlement money to go to Iberine Research. And like I said, you can read some of this in the psychedelic syndicate with PSFC's lobbying some of the veteran groups in Kentucky. We covered one of Genevie Jervson. She's on the PSFC board kind of celebrating the announcement, thanking Reason for Hope, which is one of the other veteran advocacy groups that the Silicon Valley Network funds. And yeah, that opioid settlement money was mostly meant for various harm reduction initiatives in the state. And the way that that basically it ended up all falling apart in Kentucky in the way the Daily Beast had covered this a few years ago, but at the time the Kentucky Attorney General David Cameron, he was running for governor. [\[1:08:47\]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3izzj5nuT0&t=4127s&ref=ghost.psymposia.com) And he suddenly received $3 million from the Republican like mega donor, billionaire Jeff Yas. And once that money came into Cameron's pack, it was one of Cameron's packs. Hubard was appointed to the abatement commission board and Ibugain is pushed and Jeff Yas was he had several companies that were doing Iain research and they would they were going to benefit from this and that kind of just totally fell apart because Cameron wasn't elected and the other guy I think was a former DEA guy and that just sort of fell apart and so Hubard's still been around and yeah so Shayla does this profile on him. I think we should start actually with some of the code switching that he's doing in the piece. [\[1:09:36\]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3izzj5nuT0&t=4176s&ref=ghost.psymposia.com) Do you want to share screenshot three? So, one thing that stood out to me in this piece is so it's a profile on Hubard, but he says a kind of few interesting things in here and he starts talking about like how his ancestors fought for the Union against the Confederacy. And one of the other things he's starting to talk about is he's concerned with like the politicization that's happening and the risk of like some of the work that he's doing with Ibuane being seen as a right-wing project. So Shayla writes that Hubard told me that his own politics are informed by his ancestors who were coal miners from the mountains of Virginia in western North Carolina and East Kentucky. One of his greatest influences, he said, is the United Mine Workers of America, a union that organized around improving working conditions and increasing wages. [\[1:10:29\]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3izzj5nuT0&t=4229s&ref=ghost.psymposia.com) He said his great greatgrandfather, along with four of his brothers, cross the Ohio River to fight against the South during the Civil War. Psychedelics by his reckoning are crucial for quote everybody who wants to have a shot at living with any measure of freedom or dignity. End quote. And then she writes that listening to Hubard muse about universal human rights and freedom, it's easy to understand why he's frequently compared to a preacher. His remarks about the medical benefits of Ibo quickly morph into pronouncements of the sacredness of humankind. And he said, I see the science as a gateway to spirituality. And what was interesting to me in this is you just have the executive order increasingly and it's a beat we Ross has covered for years now. [\[1:11:16\]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3izzj5nuT0&t=4276s&ref=ghost.psymposia.com) Increasingly and Nishay and our other colleague Brian Pace wrote right-wing psychedelia. It was very apparent that the whole play of the psychedelics industry this entire time under the guise of building bipartisan support was engaging the right and now they've engaged the right and Hubard is sort of the face of the right and now it's being seen as sort of a risk to their movement and Hubard I don't know if we have the other screenshot in here but Hubard is talking about how it's becoming a liability that he's not he's sensing it's not he's not able to appeal to some of the institutions that are going to be required for IO gain to be accepted and for research to be conducted and whatnot and so he's seeing that as a risk and so in my opinion he's doing this Atlantic article and trying to reframe what the public perception of him is and so we wanted to share a few different videos of him of what his actual views [\[1:12:19\]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3izzj5nuT0&t=4339s&ref=ghost.psymposia.com) On on the left are and some of his more concerning religious views. I'm going to pass this over to Nishay here. Could Could you say more about like the sense in which he mean code switching because he mentioned that term, but could you like spellill that out a little bit? He's a right-wing guy who is speaking to the Atlantic and kind of presenting him himself as having these traditional left-wing values in being pro-UN, but yet he has spoken publicly like in pretty harsh terms against like the left. Yeah. And could you pull up that quote one more time from The Atlantic? Because I wasn't sure if this was exactly the same as what you meant when you said code switching, but that line about everyone who wants to have a shot at living with any measure of freedom or dignity, like to me that's actually, you know, could be seen as euphemistic where there's like the full idea from his perspective is not expressed, but it's stated in a way that everyone can get behind. [\[1:13:17\]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3izzj5nuT0&t=4397s&ref=ghost.psymposia.com) You know, like you know, who would be opposed to freedom or dignity? in a general sense. But if you listen to his more extended worldview that he provides on other like podcasts and that sort of thing, it's pretty clear that his view of what is required for achieving any measure of freedom or dignity is within a kind of Christian nationalist sort of a frame. It is via, you know, the kind of a Christian creator God that those values are accessible. That that seems really important to emphasize from my perspective because there are a lot of examples of this in the psychedelic industry where people are kind of beyond their inroup presenting what it is that they do and say and believe in a way that is very easy to get behind, but they're kind of withholding some of the information in a way that kind of like makes it more palatable and keeps the gears turning. [\[1:14:14\]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3izzj5nuT0&t=4454s&ref=ghost.psymposia.com) Yeah. which I do have the clip that you suggested that kind of speaks to that where he's sort of talking what he think talking about what he thinks people can get out of psychedelics. I can play that real quick. It's real it's a pretty quick one just to give an idea of what we're talking about when we say he's endorsing these Christian values through psychedelic lens. The very thing that your audience can do I think is take what they have heard here spread it to their friends. All change in America begins at the kitchen table. Talk to your family, talk to your friends. use that social media and electronic gadgets that you carry around to spread the good word that God is real, God is love, and God has planted within this very earth a number of things that can help us connect to the ultimate reality which is our own eternal significance as individuals. [\[1:15:11\]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3izzj5nuT0&t=4511s&ref=ghost.psymposia.com) You Cino have a unique and special purpose to achieve with your life as does every member of your audience as does every person who carries God's breath in their body. Don't get sucked in that that like cut to the host like sitting in a chair with the laptop on his lap is so like jarring to me. Such a weird position to be in. Yeah, that clip kind of gets at that is not really about public health. This is Ibegan is essentially a vehicle for a revival of Christian nationalism in the United States as you know some of the people at the forefront of the national aane project are envisioning it. This is something that I think the public does not by and large fully understand. [\[1:15:59\]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3izzj5nuT0&t=4559s&ref=ghost.psymposia.com) No, not at all. And the thing is like with psychedelic research across the board and the various substances, IBO gain kind of had an open lane to an extent. It had an open lane that was kind of like a blank slate. People were doing, you know, there's not too much going on with LSD, but psilocybin super crowded, MDMA super crowded. I gain there wasn't a primary advocacy or research concentration in that space which has allowed them to occupy that lane and now they've sort of taken the narrative and that narrative has now spread to you know more conservative Republican states with the executive order they're trying to launch these statebacked initiatives so there's a portion that would come from the state and then the Fed would match that with research dollars. [\[1:16:50\]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3izzj5nuT0&t=4610s&ref=ghost.psymposia.com) So they can now fund their project kind of through taxpayer money as opposed to relying on the traditional philanthropic route which has got a lot of the research funded at this point. Something interesting that comes up in that Atlantic article that I think goes a little understated but he's become the champion of Ibeane. And in this Atlantic article, he does disclose that he on his psychedelic journey has done over 12 psilocybin trips that he marks as very significant but doesn't bring up politically because of the attachment that LSD and psilocybin has to kind of the left or the hippies or whatever. I thought that was just an interesting little detail that came out in this article as well. And he says he become he became a believer in and he uses that word a believer in psychedelic medicine like as a result of those psilocybin experiences. [\[1:17:42\]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3izzj5nuT0&t=4662s&ref=ghost.psymposia.com) That was in the podcast not the Atlantic article. I feel like a lot of times the people that are pushing Ibagane like to like include a line about how it's not fun and it's like a terrible experience. And it feels like that's part of what makes them on board with it sometimes. Like the fact that you have a little punishment for taking it, but it could also help. And I don't know, that just feels weird to me. Yep. Yeah. And regarding his ideological viewpoints on what Ibeain can do for the general American public, he speaks to that in one of the podcast episodes we clipped. If you want to play the clip about Hubard saying that America is in peril, I think that'll speak to some of what we've been discussing. [\[1:18:28\]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3izzj5nuT0&t=4708s&ref=ghost.psymposia.com) This country is in deep, deep, deep trouble for all of our material wealth and technological advancement, and it has no peer in this world. We are spiritually destitute. A country that was founded as the New Jerusalem is slouching toward Babylon. And if we don't do something now to fundamentally reestablish this nation's spiritual foundation as a place where everyone is endowed by their acknowledged creator with life, liberty, and the right to pursue happiness. And we don't do it now. We may very well lose the opportunity for generations to come. And what we have now by way of opportunity is too precious to let go. And that's what this Wow. [\[1:19:15\]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3izzj5nuT0&t=4755s&ref=ghost.psymposia.com) God, that's beautiful, man. Congratulations. Wow. Wow. I can't help. The whole time I was watching that, I am just thinking that this is like an NPC side quest if I'm playing Red Dead Redemption directing me to get a rule. Absolutely. Yeah. Established religion in America. Yeah. Yeah, I mean it really it connects also because there's a lot of discourse right now on like the Christian right about like you know we're in the midst of a spirit spiritual warfare where there's you know kind of battles against demons and the side of this of the population that's like on the side of God needs to like organize spiritually in order to withstand these opposing forces and this is kind of in that context in that millu of like you know there's a broader there's broader stakes of what's going on spiritually and This is a means of winning that battle. [\[1:20:08\]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3izzj5nuT0&t=4808s&ref=ghost.psymposia.com) Yeah. And as a former theology student, this is some Americanized ass Christianity where he even threw in life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness like it's in the Bible. And like \[laughter\] it is just like it is like a wild like merger of the two. Like why do I feel like the Bundy family would be really into what he's saying there? you \[laughter\] know, like the constitutionalists who like took over the nature preserve or whatever. Like there I feel like their brand of American constitutionalist Christianity like fits perfectly into some of these talking points. I mean, this would all be what it it'd be to me this would be like kind of in the whatever category of just like another psychedelic like a strange psychedelic offshoot little faction that existed out there. [\[1:20:59\]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3izzj5nuT0&t=4859s&ref=ghost.psymposia.com) So much of what he's saying, I think, is really already present in the new age kind of psychedelic movement, which I think is the majority of it at this point. The concern here is this guy's got serious connections. He's his like siphon is right into the White House. Like the executive order would have not passed probably without his influence on all that. So that's the big concern to me. That's what's been so interesting in the kind of modern psychedelic landscape is it felt like there was sort of an established group of people that got platformed for a really long time that you'd see Robin Carheart Harris I don't know like these very established researchers scientists figures kind of people who were popular in the space and just within like the last five years or so it feels like all of these other figures have taken a spotlight kind of out of nowhere maybe because of their ideals aligned with the funders in the space maybe because their ideals aligned with the political strategies that [\[1:22:00\]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3izzj5nuT0&t=4920s&ref=ghost.psymposia.com) They're shooting for to appeal to certain populations or whatever. But people like Brian Huard weren't on my radar at all just years ago. And now I feel like I can't read any psychedelic article without people saying Brian Hubard's the reason the rights embracing psychedelia and all of this stuff. But it's like it's kind of overtaken in a way the historical emphasis on like perennialism or perennial philosophy within religion. So there had been an attempt in you know some of the prehubard researchers funders to really advance psychedelics as a way of infusing belief and enthusiasm towards this like unitive model of all religions are actually connected. But it's like that's being lapped by this Christian nationalist approach where it's like they're no longer trying to say like, "Oh, we're all in this together." [\[1:22:52\]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3izzj5nuT0&t=4972s&ref=ghost.psymposia.com) It's about this, you know, vision of what's it called when it's like kind of like a balkcanized world where it's like the US is this Christian stronghold in this new kind of like fascist terrain that we're in. And so it kind of makes sense that the leading religious voice in that picture is more in that lane. Yeah. The new Jerusalem as he calls it. It's heading towards Babylon, though. Yeah, heading towards \[laughter\] Babylon. We do have two other clips that relate to Hubard engaging with political theory and the left and right side of the political spectrum in the United States. That might make sense to jump into here. This was an interview he did with William Leonard Peard, who is posing questions that his viewers or people submitted to him to read to Brian Hubard during the interview. and they get into his views on how the right might use psychedelics that we'll watch first and we can discuss and then the second clip on how he sees how the left might use psychedelics from the same dear friend anarchist in [\[1:23:54\]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3izzj5nuT0&t=5034s&ref=ghost.psymposia.com) The Hopkins area. I'll have to quote this because it's kind of difficult to say or paraphrase. So I'll just quote it. I'm curious about his thoughts on some of the big war machine money in the psychedelic space like Peter Teal. No offense, Peter. And whether mixing psychedelic medicine with an increasingly far-right government, especially in Texas, poses any risk. Can you wrap your mind around that question? Well, I can. And I think that when we look at either end of the political spectrum, there are attendant dangers that exist on each end of those spectrums. You know, I hear the concern about the far rightwing war machine. [\[1:24:41\]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3izzj5nuT0&t=5081s&ref=ghost.psymposia.com) I think that's legitimate. In fact, just last night, Joe Allice and I were talking about the fact that again speaking to vigilance, you know, when it comes to Ibeane, I can absolutely see the ambitious ulterior mind recognizing the opportunity to enhance the performance of the war machine by removing the spiritual essence of Iagain in favor of its materialist restoration of the mind and body in order to essentially be able to repair the war fighter to send them right back out in a condition of restoration to continue at a higher level the killing that their war trauma prevented them from doing before they were restored. [\[1:25:27\]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3izzj5nuT0&t=5127s&ref=ghost.psymposia.com) I think just like anything that can be wielded by the human hand, it can be done for good or it can be done for bad. And I think that on the right, the way in which I gain could be perverted to help and not just restore but enhance the war machine is something that we've got to be vigilant about recognizing and confronting if that becomes an emergent reality. So fairly reasonable I think overall. Great question. \[laughter\] The question was well worded and yeah, Leonard had reached out and he was looking, I think, for, you know, not to just have some softball questions, but to have some, you know, dynamic spicier questions \[laughter\] and so he reached out to me for that one. [\[1:26:14\]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3izzj5nuT0&t=5174s&ref=ghost.psymposia.com) What you're his source from John's Hopkins area? Really? The spice maester. We don't want to go with what he said about the left now. Yeah. I think before we jump into it, the I just want to say I think his answer there is fairly reasonable. Notably, he does not say what he's doing to curb these efforts as he's working alongside the right wing. I think but yeah, and what was the date on that? Because it's like back then people were more like more openly anti-war on the right and now that the war in Iran and everything has happened there. The same people who back then when he was speaking were very anti-war are now kind of making excuses for why the status quo is acceptable. So there, you know, it could be partially reflecting that that that's how a lot of people were talking back then. [\[1:27:04\]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3izzj5nuT0&t=5224s&ref=ghost.psymposia.com) It's not necessarily a sign that he is like explicitly opposed to defense department engagement with these substances. That was July 28th of last year, it looks like. Yeah. So then he goes on to discuss how the left might use it, which in my opinion is a bit less reasonable. Well, we'll see about that. on the left side. You know, if the right wing has a grand war machine, in my opinion, the political left has a beautiful subjugation machine that they like to deploy to create as many helpless and powerless people as they can that rely upon the large s of the government that they control for everything related to their basic needs. I think that psychedelics and the malleability that they produce within the human psyche to open up opportunities for those who have a messiah complex or a savior complex. [\[1:28:00\]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3izzj5nuT0&t=5280s&ref=ghost.psymposia.com) I think that's a danger. And I think that the way that the left demagods its leaders for the purposes of creating as much social capture as possible is a danger that has to be looked at there. Thank you, Brian. the left demagods, their leaders just this is how like fascists talk about the left. This is not how the left sees itself, which I think is pretty telling, you know? It's like it's actually the left that is this like fascistic force that's trying to keep the masses subjugated. I mean, that's not like what the actual left is doing is trying to organize to have more more agency in the hands of workers, right? I mean, that's like ultimately what we're talking about here. No one on the actual left would describe the left that way. [\[1:28:48\]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3izzj5nuT0&t=5328s&ref=ghost.psymposia.com) As a beautiful sub subjugation machine, you sure about that? Subjugation through social safety nets is basically what he's describing. Like I think we talked about code switching earlier and this is him sort of demonstrating that he knows what the right wants to hear about the left and he knows what the left wants to hear about the right and he can speak to both. 100%. Yeah. 100%. No. And you know, I'm happy that we took a minute to respond to the right-wing video before watching the leftwing because that was the whole response was like that was a pretty good answer. That was and the other just dumb like he's talking about the government large ass. It is a fact that Republican administrations consistently blow the budget out. It's something like 25% of the national debt right now has been created by Trump within the last five and a half years. [\[1:29:34\]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3izzj5nuT0&t=5374s&ref=ghost.psymposia.com) Five and a half years of his administration. it that talking point it just works every \[expletive\] election every time. It is a consistent talking point on the right that is the left that is spending way too much money when in fact the reality it is the right that is spending way too much money. It's just this right-wing delusion that talking point which I just felt the need to call out. Well, it actually it plays into because I hadn't heard that clip in a while and I just listened to the other podcast that we played a clip from and he talks in that about his kind of beef with conventional public health approaches to things and he kind of describes, you know, the use of things like Suboxone as keeping people separated from their soul and on this like barely subsistence like treadmill of just, you know, having government handouts and not amounting to fulfill the role that God has kind of, you know, ordained for each person. [\[1:30:33\]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3izzj5nuT0&t=5433s&ref=ghost.psymposia.com) So, these ideas kind of slot in together, I think. Yeah. I wonder if he thinks that it's a good thing to kick off several million ch children for SNAP food benefits. Is that government large? Is that Are you making a subjugated child for feeding them? It's just \[expletive\] pisses me off. You're giving them the opportunity to learn to fend for themselves. How could you? Do we want to watch that Suboxone clip? Yes. May have heard of as clinics that prescribe Suboxone, methadone, sublicate, and other derivatives which are essentially opioids with which to treat opioid dependency. Now, I want to make very clear recovery is an individual path unique to the dependent individual and opioid maintenance therapy has saved thousands of lives. [\[1:31:22\]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3izzj5nuT0&t=5482s&ref=ghost.psymposia.com) But the track record demonstrates that it delivers unacceptably mediocre results at scale. Suboxone treatment r loses roughly 50% of its patients at intake at the end of 6 months. And for those patients that remain, only 18% are compliant with the treatment regimen at the end of that same six-month period. Suboxone does marginally better with increased patient retention but about a 24% compliance rate at the end of 24 months and we call compliance as refraining from the consumption of any other illicit substances while taking either the suboxone or the methadone. What I found was that there were a number of clinics under active investigation, some of them jointly with the FBI for operating as glorified drug dealing operations where you have a physician with a medical license and his nursing staff with a prescription pad that is pre-signed and the only thing that they do is run a cattle call every single day where [\[1:32:22\]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3izzj5nuT0&t=5542s&ref=ghost.psymposia.com) Patients on a monthly basis are given the maximum milligram dosage for the maximum period of time and sent out the door without any counseling. without any effort to titrate them down from that medication which was the original design. And it is just this revolving door clinic that maximized the distribution of Suboxone throughout the community as much as possible every single day which explained a lot of the complaints that I was receiving from community leaders and elected officials of hey this stuff's supposed to be helping but it's all over the world. It's all over the place and people who are not even addicted are using it and we've got a huge problem with Suboxone diversion. What from what I have heard from people who like do research and harm reduction is that like the evidence base for Suboxone like keeping people alive and able to lead functioning lives is very good. like there's a lot of evidence to support it. [\[1:33:20\]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3izzj5nuT0&t=5600s&ref=ghost.psymposia.com) And that's why there are across the country a lot of initiatives to have like low barrier access to prescriptions for it that you can get, you know, a month supply at a time. You don't have to revolve your life around going to methadone clinics, which is an alternative option. I don't hear harm reductionist speaking about Suboxone in the way that he was presenting it here. There's this kind of like, you know, it's it was another example, honestly, of him speaking to both sides because he had that very good disclaimer at the front where he's like, to be clear, there's not like a one-sizefits-all solution for everyone. A lot of people do benefit, but then the bulk of the conversation is presenting it kind of like the way he presents the left where it's this like sinister kind of keeping people in this treadmill but not able to like fully live. The thing that's crazy is going after Suboxone in general. [\[1:34:07\]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3izzj5nuT0&t=5647s&ref=ghost.psymposia.com) Like cuz Suboxone is literally bupinorphine paired with nlloxxone. So it's like part of Suboxone is that you cannot get high on opioids for a period of time. So like it is not like people are going and getting high on Suboxone. It's like \[laughter\] like very much so the opposite. It's not even useful for like pain management. Like sometimes they will do bupinorphine for pain management, but once you pair it with the nlloxxone that you do for suboxone as like a brand name, like you're basically like kind of partial agonist for the opioid receptors, but at the same time you're doing the lock zone to make sure that there's no kind of euphoria or like kind of high effect from it at all. [\[1:34:53\]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3izzj5nuT0&t=5693s&ref=ghost.psymposia.com) I think you're on it. And it hasn't been my experience. I've had experience in methadone clinics as well where the and maybe these are great clinics or whatever, but they're the regimen is paired with counseling that's often required to like continue in their program. And what he's discussing there with compliance issues, it's not an issue of the drug. The drug isn't why people aren't being compliant. It's the situations in which they're living, the access they have to transportation, to funds to get these medications and that kind of stuff that's causing compliance issues. It's not I don't really know where he's going with the compliance issue conversation when he brings it up there as a big issue. [\[1:35:39\]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3izzj5nuT0&t=5739s&ref=ghost.psymposia.com) You know what would really improve compliance is if we just put up more barriers and we made it that's \[laughter\] like what it seems he seems to be getting at is like oh demonize these clinics like oh who's diverting suboxone like you know people who need to get off opioid like he you know it's like I don't understand much of the argument he's trying to make there or who he's trying to speak to with that. It's not like someone's going and like getting real high on suboxin or something. No, it's just like a funny fear to have. Like why even It seems ignorant to even pick that one to like fearmonger over. Yeah. So throughout this episode, we've discussed a lot of figures in this kind of maha health sphere that demonize experts and evidence-based practice. [\[1:36:26\]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3izzj5nuT0&t=5786s&ref=ghost.psymposia.com) And Brian Hubard has a tendency to do this in his talking points and rhetoric as well. You know, I come out of a blueco collar family and the wisest people I've ever known in my life didn't even have a high school degree and never darkened the door of a college. And I ain't got nothing against people against college degrees. I've got one. But this notion that a person has to have a sheet of paper from a four-year school or some, you know, post-graduate degree or a JD or something else. To be able to speak to what's good and to what's not good and to have a credential in order to have legitimacy is poison. And there's a lot of credentialism in our society where if you don't have this degree from this institution, then you're not even allowed to talk, let alone have an opinion. [\[1:37:15\]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3izzj5nuT0&t=5835s&ref=ghost.psymposia.com) I think the public health system has a lot of folks like that in it. If you don't have a series of alphaest beside your name, you're to sit there and listen and not be heard. And you're there to take what is given without question, without challenge because those people have earned their credentials and their credentials make them experts and that's it. And these experts have been trained within an educational process formed in no small part by the influence of the pharmaceutical industry that looks to build value and to build expected long-term return on investment in the creation of that educational infrastructure. Which seems in the minds of these folks to suggest that what we have now is the best we will ever have. [\[1:38:05\]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3izzj5nuT0&t=5885s&ref=ghost.psymposia.com) And all that we should ever have because it is the best. They engage in this circular reasoning whereby you know you have to prescribe the evidence-based best practice treatment because anything that's not the evidence-based best practice treatment is not the evidence-based practice treatment to which I asked the question. Wow. Yeah, that was a good point. Let's pause. So instead, what we should be making space for people like Duncan who it feels weird that your baby's getting a temperature in the hospital? That that's what I was going to actually say is that that like getting back to what Normie said a while back there is a kernel of truth to the fact that like you know sometimes people there's a lot of examples of people not being listened to by their doctors and like where they you know they do have something wrong with them and they're told it's anxiety or whatever else like that that does happen. [\[1:38:58\]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3izzj5nuT0&t=5938s&ref=ghost.psymposia.com) It is a problem. But the way that it's being described here, it's like laundering the wellnessification of public health and like a vibes-based approach to public health. You know, like I talked about vibes based epistemology and the psychedelic telepathy video. And here it's like you know like what I talked about in that conversation is that a lot of what science is about and learning about science and population level data is to understand that there are a lot of cognitive biases and heruristics that can lead our direct perceptions of the world to not be representative of things on a macro scale. that some things can feel via anecdote very persuasive and true without actually being a valid scientific approach to addressing an issue. [\[1:39:51\]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3izzj5nuT0&t=5991s&ref=ghost.psymposia.com) And so it's like when you are cutting down expertise as such in the public health terrain, you're opening the door for all of this, well, I've experienced it firsthand. I know that it's safe and effective kinds of approaches. It's so weird to be like so dismissive of evidence-based practice. Like it's okay to make a note that like sometimes you should step outside of evidence to try to like explore new routes or you know but like that is all evidence-based approaches still like that's the more evidence that's like what yeah that's what science is like and it's kind of treating it like evidence-based approach means like we've got this capsule of knowledge that we'll never go outside of and yeah like we've learned it all and so we know it and there's no need to move forward and that's just not how it's worked. [\[1:40:40\]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3izzj5nuT0&t=6040s&ref=ghost.psymposia.com) Like ever. Well, \[laughter\] and this gets back to the RFK connection as well because ultimately this rhetoric is serving as like a battering ram not for populism but for a different pharmaceutical wellness industry to establish to try to establish hgemony. There are barriers preventing that from happening. And by saying, "Oh, the experts don't know. The experts are corrupt. The experts are killing people." They're actually through the back door of their Trojan horse kind of operation setting up a new financial system behind a different approach to doing things. That's ultimately what's happening here between all of these figures, right? It's so wild that these conversations are happening in the broader context of trying to establish Ibeane as a pharmaceutical intervention. [\[1:41:28\]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3izzj5nuT0&t=6088s&ref=ghost.psymposia.com) He's like demonizing the pharma industry that is one day going to have a pill with a brand name sold by a pharmaceutical company if he has his way, you know. It's not pharma if it's not him, though. Yeah, that that how could that possibly be pharma? It reminds me there's a chapter in the Lir's high priest that I teach in Pace's class every semester where he's he has like an alternate history kind of in the margins of the text of like imagining if the psychedelic people had come into power back then like you know instead of being marginalized that they're like at the center of government and then there's this new upstart electronic brain stimulation people that come in and like they try to suppress that the way that people were trying to suppress the psychedelic people. [\[1:42:16\]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3izzj5nuT0&t=6136s&ref=ghost.psymposia.com) It's just a matter of like, you know, it's battling over whoever's on top, but they're using these rhetorical kind of like tools to make it seem like it's not just these competing corporate interests. Yeah. And the wider implications of demonizing the evidence-based practice, the experts, is that people without the expertise or the evidence behind them can suggest fairly dangerous options for people to do in underground contexts or putting the cart before the horse and just jumping into these treatments because some people have had good experiences with them in fairly dangerous ways through their rhetoric. The one clip I have here is Brian Hubard basically describing who he says Ibagain is for in this conversation. [\[1:43:06\]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3izzj5nuT0&t=6186s&ref=ghost.psymposia.com) I'll play that really quick. If at the end and nothing else has worked, I gain the last best stop you can make before you commit to taking yourself out of this world. So that's the first kind of person that it's for. Like that's without clinical trial, without making it through FDA approval without experts on board anything. He's saying that this is the last best approach before you decide to take yourself out of this world. So, so thought experiment, you know, say you're one of these people who is really considering taking yourself out of the world. Nothing else has worked. So, you decide this is the last best approach. [\[1:43:52\]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3izzj5nuT0&t=6232s&ref=ghost.psymposia.com) I'm happy I get to do this and it doesn't work either. and now you're left with nothing else. Like I don't know. There have been examples and like certainly conversation about the fact that people when they're told that something is like their last best shot at getting better and then it doesn't work out for them. That can itself lead to suicide or you know other kinds because if people are feel like they're they have no more options, right? And there are always other things that can be tried. You know that it's not like people actually have no other hope after I gain. So it just seems wildly irresponsible to be presenting it in that way. Yeah. Who is he to say that like this is the thing to do like automatically exclude all other potential avenues of help and this is the thing, right? [\[1:44:47\]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3izzj5nuT0&t=6287s&ref=ghost.psymposia.com) It's ridiculous. And so those are in my opinion some of the broader implications of pushing this without evidence, without expert backing, anything like that. And then I know normie that you've discussed as well some of the broader implications on an environmental level of this rhetoric around ibagane and pushing drugs before there's any kind of established supply chain or anything like that as well. Yeah, I've spoken to someone who's pretty in deep in the Iberine space and they were telling me if there's already right now starting to be pressure and issues, social issues, economic issues on the horizon. If I gain takes off here, that's taken from the Ibogga route in Gabon and that's a country that is does not have mass agriculture whatsoever. [\[1:45:36\]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3izzj5nuT0&t=6336s&ref=ghost.psymposia.com) And just like any other any of these other superfoods or plants that become trendy, drugs that become trendy, they grow somewhere. They're from somewhere. Someone is growing them. And when you start putting a lot of pressure on that supply chain, it's going to cause various issues. These are the issues that no one ever talks about. When Joe Rogan starts pushing ibo gain, he's not thinking whatsoever about like everything surrounding the cultivation and production of ibogga, it's just, oh, this plant, it's just going to suddenly materialize into the universe. You know, it's not about the politics or anything else that exists in that world. So yeah, I think it's worth thinking about and for other journalists or investigators to look into how some of these dynamics might play out in the present and moving forward. [\[1:46:31\]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3izzj5nuT0&t=6391s&ref=ghost.psymposia.com) Well, yeah, I think that's a pretty solid place to wrap the main feed episode here. There's been a lot of through lines today as far as figures stating don't trust the experts, don't follow evidence-based policy and run with what Nehe likes to describe as vibes-based epistemology around some of these substances and policy decisions. If you are a Patreon subscriber, stick around for the postshow content. We'll be getting into that after the outro plays.