After Words Ernesto Londono, "Trippy - The Peril and Promise of Medicinal Psychedelics" : CSPAN2 : June 17, 2024 1:00am-2:03am EDT : Free Borrow & Streaming : Internet Archive (2024)

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that the early seeds of this planted by a handful of clinicians who you know weren't necessarily kind of huge names in the field, but were people who had stumbled into psychedelic medicine as a field, you know, outside the scope of work and saw how many were suffering and finding a reprieve with, you know, the things that they could offer tutionally. and it made a case to sort of overcome the regulatory hurdles required to administer these compounds as medicine within the ich was a huge amount of bureaucracy. the last chapter in my book takes, people behind the scenes on the ccians incalifornia in i think once a veterans started getting access to this, you know, word got around and there was just huge enthusiasm in the veteran community for this. i think there's enormous demand. i think va recognized that ther enormous demand and that they recognized that the science is pointing in a encouraging

direction. and i thinkf bubble these experiences compounds with, you know, a lot ofalso kind of carefully documen patient. it is in the va system. you know oftentimes somebody will walk away from a retreat in the amazon post, you know, an effusive review or a testimonial on socialkind walk away thinking, you know, this person's life forever and. what an extraordinary outcome. but you very seldom hear what happened to the patient. six months down the line. you know what's, this sustainable. did it really to you know a far better and healthier life and so i think in that to track patient over a long period of is going to tell us important about the efficacy and just how

long the effects of some of these interventions last for patients. i think that's a good point i mean for you really do detail your experience the book it's been a few years like for you. you had seen lasting ending and through yet i think i definitely have seen, you know, very profound changes in my life. and i can talk to you about some of the concrete things that happened kind of in the aftermath these experiences. you know, one of the things that happened in my case, whichious, but it's actually pretty common, is after my first psycho delic retreat, i never wanted to and that was very surprising to me because i used to really enjoy drinking wine and scotch and the idea that, you know i would go cold turkey overnight seemed. inconceivable. so one thing that happened was you know, intered state of consciousness and in the

aftermath of this first retreat,i clearly understood that my relationshipproblematic and that alcohol could have been detrimental both to my physical and mental health. so i was able to sort cut alcohol from my life pretty seamlessly in ways that to this day are a little mysterious. me but i think that was kind of one important way that i tthe and pivoted away from something that was harminge. you know, one other important thing that happened, i y, you know, after being mesmerized byalternate states, reveal about the mind and kind of my own really kinship with my thoughts in a way thoughts turn into sort of beliefs feelings. i became really interestedt reaping programing the mind rooted patterns of meditation practice and i kind of sense that that was a more sustainable and durable way of an arena, my relationship with my thinking

mind and the way my thoughts made me feel. and that's been a really rich investment for me. investment time and's been, i think, a real pillar of, you know, the way i i manage adversity and, kind of the whiplash of of life in this day and age and think it but, you know early on in my psychede kind of realized that i had been prioritizing of wr life and that, you know, the one thing i really hadn't gotten right was my approach to romantic relationships and love and once that became sort crystal clear and once i really zoomed into that idea as something that you know, was a big factor in why i had become depressed and why i had built a life that was pretty lonely. i was able to really kind of start thinking critically and t what it would mean to be successful at love andort of, you

know, having good and and it took a lot work. it took a lot of intention setting and risk taking. but that side of my life has been, you know, really rich and also, you know contributed allowing me to navigate periods ofression and slumps in ways that are than they were in the past. is. i think psychedelics kind of unlock insights in it. all of them also kind of gives you a key to open a door and once you step inside, take a look at the mess in the room, turn on the lights the is, you know, do i have the wherewithal and thdi straightening up these messes that i now see more know, and in my case i think it's been a work in progress. it's been a lot of time and effort. but i do feel i have made tremendous and and do feel that to a large extent i was able to do that because these ceremonies

and these experience this gave me clarity. yeah. no, it sound lot of extensive long term work, even beyond the treats themselves. but i am curious, i'm sure people would be interested in what that key looks like, like what is an ayahuasca retreat like? what what's happening there? well, there's a broad because i've you kno i'ceremonies with indigenous people who, you know, for whom this looks like kind a big wild party of singing, dancing collectively all participated saturday inner rituals. this is a syncretic churchu that began in brazil and, you know also involves sort of drinkingand i'm sorry, dancing and singing in a communal ritual. but i think the more and sort of ssible of this is a retreat where you sign up toul of ceremonies anywhere between 3 course of, i don't know, a long weekend to a couple of weeks and typically what

happens is on ceremony days ceremonies typically are held at night you meet in a room, a ceremony oftentimes called the locker when it's in the jungle, each person gets a court or a pillow, a blanket and a bucket, because oftentimes after they drink a recorded music or they're asleep. i participated in ceremonies run by indigenous healers who sing songs called catalysts and the way they describe these cere say they channel the spiritual realm which, you know which gives them the ability to sing the right songs to the right person at the time to sort of unlock that is stuck within them what happens i think for people in ceremony varies widely you know sometimes you'll ha ceremony where you will feel connected to i don't divine

realms where you feel very very peaceful and you feel very very soothed and it's almost like you're thinkingn standby and. all you feel is kind of the state of oftentimes i far more difficult journeys. you know some the things that happen to people in ceremonies to me specifically is you you feel like you're being to revisit some old and oftentimes very difficult memories and it's almost like you're kind of being forced to sit really uncomfortable can be triggering and to k of re revisit and re this theme oftentimes can be from childhood in aay t inevitably leaves you with a different perspective abou about how it made you feel, about how other people acted. and i think one of the things that was really useful for mecollectively, you know, having the ability to of zoom in on these different versions of my earlier self and you know,

sometimes it was very ized in the short term and i wanted to do anything to kind of get away feeling and reliving these these moments. but i thinkbly i walked away feeling a deep compathat time and for the tools they had. it like memories over time can get reframed in your mind. d's almost like you get to sort of store them in a way that is and a little lighter to carry at the end of the day, end up being healing for people mystery and i think there's a lot of ierest especially by neurologists to kind of the brain activity and toou know, get a clear understanding of what happens with function to explain these tools are therapeutic but there's a side of me that thinks that we'll never really, really know. i th okay it might be okay to kind of live

the fact that entails is mysterious and it may never really put into words. yeah that's interesting. i wonder is that okay? will the fda think that's okay? will that be okay for congresske i on one hand, i, i to like to just accept that some of life is mystery. but but yeah. will our our government take that i think it's a really difficult question. i think especially kind of like untangling this spiritual component and the mystical component from this experience versus, you know, when and if theyclinical tools is going to be tricky. and it raises allestions about how do you regulate these? do you set limits the people should be facilitating them. you know, who gets to draw the rules of the road if this is not going be strictla clinical thing? so i think we're going to be wrestling with this for a while. and i think there's of two sets

of lost and standards that will be applicable. one is the way we regulate medicine, which is pretty and you know, there's many kind of you precedents that we can look see different modalities and different treatments got approved and got scientific consensus. but then there are the whole question of religiousreedom laws, and much of this now is growing and sort of booming. more on the spiritual lane. it's being done by people who the view that for millennia le have used mind altering substances as sacraments and thing was valuable in rituals and, ceremonies and that the united states we have a very robust protections for religious. so i think there's people take a very kind of expansive and libertarian view of, you know, how permissible the landscape should be. and to me, it's open question of whether or not that continues to be kind of, you know, there continues to be acceptance for now, as these so-called psychedelic churches andmunities grow,

become more very little by law down, take action, you know, i think the reason for that is when tried this in the pastnded to lose in court. but i also think control on the spiritual side, if you start seeing scandals or communities that start, youcults or people getting will inevitably start seeing a little little bit of a backlash. and i the big the big question for me whether this is a community that will find the wherewithal to self regu up standards and of the road that make these experiences safer people. yeah that is a really good question and a complicated one i'm not suto. i mean, i'm also thinking of of congress a littleeen covering some of the psychedelics policy stuff i was talking with a member of congress this week about this and what he said sort of makes

sense here andt that people are already doing a lot of these different like veterans swear by it mental health advocates are saying it works. housewives are taking it, you know, with or without the research. like, what are we waiting for? and i'm that point of view that, everyone's already doing it. and so like the fda should just move ahead. yeah. so i mean, for better or for worse in my current role, ican't get too far editorializing there. but but on the other hand, like, you know, as somebody who spent lot of time thinking about these issues i'm kind of glad that i'm not in a prescriptive because the answers are really hard. but i do think the the point that people are already doing you know whether it's on their own at home and sort of self-medicating and taking matters into their own hands or know hiring a sitter off some website reddit or, you know, guide.

like the reality is this is already happening. the reality is we're in environment where people perceive that the legal of acquiring or growing and selling these compounds is relatively because law enforcement is a lot more with far more addictive and destructive drugsike opioids. i think that is really the know people are going on these experiences are being commodified in ways that are strikingly open considering these are still schedule one drugs and are putting their faith in this in the compounds and in theeople. these experiences. but i do think there's room for lawmakers, for policymakersquestions, they have to do so in. the context of a crisis or series of scandals. i think that, would not be the ideal setting and environment to have these difficult and nuanced

conversations. so i the earlier people start really kind of grappling with how would you know, how should this be regulated? and, y know, much, should we fund more research and what ki research, you know, what are sort of our blind spots in and in in terms of research that should be prioritized? you know, if and when this really becomes more available, how do we best access, you know, do we ensure that the people who need this the access in environments that controlled? and i like one psychedelics in the in the broader about d policy is you know there's there's tended to be sort of a a partizan approach%l to the war on drugs where conservatives have tended to be far their approach in terms of lating and prohibiting certain certain drugs. whereas, you know,sly been on the forefront

of a for legal cannabis, for instance on psychedelic on particularly i think there's a really strange bedfellows phenomenon and much of it i think is based on the fact that many veterans are gravitating toward these therapies and have become some of the leading advocates for expanding access. so i think that's created an environment policy and politics standpoint where people who would otherwise never agree on anything and certainly, you know, wouldn't agree on policy on any other issue, find a way to agree that. there's value here that know there should be sort of forward looking policy making in space and may make it, you know, easier thing to start chipping at. then, you know something legalization? definitely.say it already seems to have moved ahead of the cannabis train, so to speak. i'm curious what you think about, you know, we've got the the mdma assisted therapy

application before the fda because. so many veterans have ptsd. it could stand to really help them if it but a lot veterans that i hear from that you write about in going on these retreats and not getting mdma at all, getting ayahuasca or ibogaine or, some of these other arguable more intenseou make what do you make of that? we're of lumped a little bit, all of these psychedelics i'm curious if you can pass out a little bit foryeah apologies. yeah i, i mean, i think mdma if there's a model for how to build this in a clinical setting and how to track patient outcome, but fo future, you know, it's going to be pretty becaut' a diagnoses and. there will be t know just price point. so i think we're going to continue to see people and veterans in particular you know

get these experiences and these therapies wherever they're accessible there there is this one clinic a who's been doing this for treated of special fo sort shadowy world which, you know friends friends started hearing about this and all of dden there was a huge waiting list. and, you know, you you couldn't le in the door quickly enough. ando that, you know, the efficacy of this right now exists in a little bit of an echo chamber of the experiences that people share among peers, but science is really in its infancy. if the science, for instance that ibogaine as a treatment for traumatic brain injury, which many veterans are starting to use and believe very strongly in the efficacy of a dmt psychedeliderivedu9 from the

sonoran sonoran desert toadcalled four or five amino tmt. you know, it'sw, draws a huge number of veterans and also people with this also is very, very thin like how this works. and for what kind of people it works is. something that we understandry little. so i think if and when we kind of get through the regulatory hurdle, getting mdma in a line, i think a lot of the research rt trickling to these compounds. you know is spending a considerable amount of ibogaine as that they would be for substance use disorder. and, you know, unfortunately research moves slowly. researchers have to be very deliberate and these clinical trials are very complitecarry out because you really reliably have a placebo effect or comparison. but i do think like if things remain on track in terms of the research and especiall t continue to prioritize addiction and for mental health interventions. you know, five years from now we may be in a very differentom a

regulatory, regulatory standpoint, and there may far mo appetite from politicians and policymakers to create expansive settings these i think the question is whethethings that are now happening in unstructured settings in the west might get too wild and might you start seeing of enough scandals and enough cautionary tales to take wind out of the sails of what's haenheresearch and scientific setting? mm hmm. i hate answer questions like these, but i do love to ask what's the worst case scenario five years from now for for some, these psychedelic psychedelic therapies. um i mean, some of the things g, i think, is, you know if some of these communities that are now you know retreats under the auspices some these communities, you know, become notorious for predatory

practices, you know being sexually or financially. and those narratives take hold then, you know, i think people will start being a lot more wary of psychedelic links writ large. you know to that the periods of disruptive thinking and more malleable don't lead people to healthier lives, but could, you know, sort of manipulate or, or shift people behaviors for thinking that is detrimental to their health you know, i think that also would pump the b i would, i would i mean specifically on that is, you know if in some of these psychedelic communities, you start to see growing sort of trend lines toward, you know entire vaccine thinking or, conspiratorial thinking about politics and, and you kind of see people being know sort of

reprogramed or manipulated in directions that don't end up being healthy for themselves or for their communities and for large. then i think we'll also start getting, you sort of you know there will inevitably more skepticism about how we should be thinking about these now think the mistake some people make is underlying assumption that psychoactive drugs and pecifically are inherently benign and healing. and you know, it's tempting to hold that vie're somebody who's suffering. if you're really depressed. but i think the key to whether or not this leads to change that is truly therapeutic and truly beneficial depends very heavily on the setting in which you experience this and kind of the support and after the fact. and i think there's really been building building the the kind of day

after models that will make it more likely that people will walk away from these experiences feeling a lot better and that that immediatetherapeutic effect then becomes sustainable beyond the and the physical of thes that's a really interesting point you make about the tential for people who are out of the medical system in some way to sort adopt fringe views like. i hadn't thought of really that parallel between the vaccine cohort and maybe some people who seek in a worst case scenario might, seek psychedelic outside of the medical system.that's super interesting. yeah. i also like i mean, when you this theme, you know many people understandably come to psychedelics feeling that the mental health care system them but oftentimes think some of the therapists in this become so rigid about views and guidance on mainstream medicine that it almost like forces people pull away from

seeking helpl settings. and i think that too problematic like clearly ssri is don't help everybody but you know for many people they're a game changer. they're very effective medicines. so i do worry a little bit about how black and theversations are in the space about ways that i think lead people astray and cantical of things like vaccines. ly when some of the treatments for these mental health conditions like vptsd are, you know notoriously not thatabsolutely so something i do want to ask is i have to say the book is a bit on times in you go pretty you're forthcoming about using like you tal're going to what did your editors think of you psychedelics over the course of a year i know you're on book av still, yeah. this was definitely an undertaking and i was, you know

honestly a little bit surprised that i got permission and runway to pursue this but think you know when i presented this idea kyto editor who at the time was the new yorkevelopment office. she saw value what i wanted to do. she thought tho would be careful and responsible in but also i think we agreed that in to tell a really powerful story and a credible story. it was important to be transparent about my own in the so this definitely think you know, required a lot of conversation but it something that i you know i don't this ever done before but i was lucky to have you know, a very smart and careful editors through of the tricky pieces of.this from a reporting and a writing and far the feedback has been very encouraging. you know, i think of the discovered just in the last week since the book been out, is in life, you know, colleagues, other

journalists, youacquaintances have their own psychedelic experience sources. and how many people are in the psychedelics closet? so, you know, in5 felt i had an importance story to tell. i felt that my background and skills allowed me to effectively on this issue from many angles. but i also, i think wanted to kind of signal that we would all benefit being a little more transparent and candid about our own mental health journeys and our own relationship with drug use. so in writing this book, i think i'm kind of inviting people to join me out of the psychedelics clos constructive and more honest conversation about something that we've stro about in the past. yeah that's that's supe something that you a tricky thing that you pull off in the book in a to, you know, some of the assets that you brought to that reporting that you being able to toe the line between being a true believer who is still to ask critical

questions. and i am so curious how, you do yeah. there's anything you can share about how you've managed to hold o time and do so pretty effectively like i' interested to know, i mean, i'm a true believer in this, you know, of in the fact that these compounds can induce really profound changes of mind and mood. you know i think that to me is clear self-evident in my experience. and what i watched in others i' believer in the idea that these inherently benign or therapeutic. i think it all depends on the guardrails. but i think i approached my work in this space with a lot of curious city, but also a lot of humility about the things i didn't understand. i was clear that i didn't to shyro inconvenient things i found about the space and, i don't consid5k sort of a champion at war, you know an advocate in e psychedelic space? you know, i think i somebody who an observer who

wasedgeable but also, you know, brings, i think, a healthy dose of skepticism to everything that's happening. well, thank you so much. this is is all the time we have. are wrapping here. i just want to congratulate you again, the book. it was a pleasure to read. a real pleasure to talk with you today. thank you so much. i really appreciate really smart questions. and i'veare author, travis readers

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