0:01

Before. He gets started. A warning for anyone

0:03

with kids in the room will be talking

0:05

about recreational drug use. There's. Also, some

0:07

like cursing in this episode. Okay, let's

0:09

start the shell. Back.

0:17

When I was in my twenties if my

0:19

friends and I took mushrooms the psychedelic kind.

0:22

We'd. Be at a Grateful Dead concert or

0:24

at the beach or some other fun

0:26

venue. But in Oregon these days, there's

0:28

another way to take a strange trip.

0:31

And. It's run by. The. State

0:33

government. It's called Organ

0:35

Zealous. I've been services so people

0:38

can go to these service centers

0:40

as I call them. Basically a

0:42

facility where a train to person

0:45

will sit with you over the

0:47

course of a six to eight

0:49

hour trip. You can have your

0:52

psilocybin adventure and then you have

0:54

a d brief meeting with them

0:56

after words to talk about what

0:59

happened. That's Jane See, who she

1:01

recently wrote about the emerging legal

1:03

psychedelic industry. For the Atlantic, these different

1:05

centres all have slightly different vibes. I

1:08

think for the most part they try

1:10

to make them feel really owe me

1:12

uncomfortable. So you aren't just feeling like you're

1:14

in a doctor's office during certain was. So

1:16

it's a place you go to. When

1:19

you wanna shrill

1:22

exactly and the.

1:24

Interests of than an hour. Oregon is

1:26

that anyone can go. Basically, you want

1:28

to have a short term. There's a

1:30

legal the state legal way to do

1:32

that in Oregon. Organ.

1:39

Decriminalize Drugs Back And Twenty twenty.

1:42

Back. In the day, the idea

1:44

of state sanctioned psychedelic trips seemed

1:46

to borrow some hippy terminology pretty

1:48

far out. But. With weed now

1:51

legal and so many states, the calls to

1:53

do the same for psychedelic are growing louder.

1:58

There's. just one problem According

2:00

to Jane, almost no one is happy with

2:02

the way weed was legalized. While

2:04

some states have made it easier than

2:06

ever to purchase cannabis for recreational use,

2:09

the industry behind it is not

2:11

exactly thriving. It's rife with

2:13

inequities and soaring costs. And

2:16

the legal psychedelics industry seems to be

2:18

going down the same road. I

2:21

think a lot of people feel like this is

2:23

feeling familiar to them. With

2:25

cannabis, we had, you know, in the 70s, states

2:28

starting to consider lowering

2:30

their punishments

2:33

for possession of

2:35

marijuana, starting to decriminalize

2:38

marijuana. Then in the 90s,

2:41

you started getting medical programs.

2:44

In the 2010s, you started seeing recreational

2:46

programs. And with psychedelics,

2:48

it's kind of interesting because there are

2:51

so many states that are doing all

2:53

of those things at once. So rather

2:55

than having like, you know, a

2:57

wave of decrim, a wave of medical

3:00

marijuana, a wave of recreational, it

3:03

feels like with psychedelics, it's just going

3:05

on all fronts right now. So

3:08

would you say that the legalization

3:10

process with psychedelics is going better so

3:12

far than it did with marijuana or

3:14

is it just going faster? It

3:17

might just be going faster. It does

3:20

seem like a lot of the folks who are working on psychedelics

3:22

also worked on cannabis. And

3:24

from talking to those folks, it seems like

3:26

people are really thinking about, well, what went

3:28

well with cannabis? What didn't go well with

3:30

cannabis? And how do we learn

3:32

from that? So

3:37

today on the show, psychedelics are

3:39

getting legalized. We've

3:41

been here before with cannabis. Can

3:44

we do better this time around? I'm

3:46

Emily Peck filling in for Lizzie O'Leary and

3:48

you're listening to What Next TBD, a show

3:50

about tech, power and how the future

3:52

will be determined. Stick around. Before

4:09

we sort of dig into what's happening now, can we

4:11

just go back in time a little bit and

4:14

you can kind of give listeners a sense

4:16

for how legalization kind of began? You

4:19

mentioned it started in the

4:21

70s with some decriminalization efforts.

4:25

Yeah, so some folks might

4:27

have heard of the Controlled

4:29

Substances Act, which was passed

4:31

in the 70s under Nixon

4:34

that essentially classified different

4:36

drugs. And so

4:38

marijuana, as well as psychedelics,

4:40

were classified as Schedule I drugs, meaning

4:43

that they had high potential

4:45

for abuse and no medically accepted

4:48

use. And so

4:50

as students that passed,

4:52

basically, there were states like

4:54

California that were already looking

4:57

to try and pass their

4:59

own decriminalization efforts so that

5:01

they could at

5:04

least have access to it in the state or

5:06

have lower penalties for it that kind

5:08

of went against federal law. And

5:12

in the 90s, I think especially

5:14

with HIV AIDS in the

5:16

conversation, there were a lot of

5:18

efforts to make medical marijuana

5:21

available to people. And that

5:23

spread steadily over the next couple of decades. And

5:25

then really, it was the 2010s that

5:27

we saw the first states trying

5:29

to roll out recreational programs. Right

5:33

now, 24 states have legalized cannabis for

5:35

recreational use and even more allow it

5:37

for medical use. But weed is still

5:39

illegal at the federal level. And

5:42

this patchwork situation creates a lot

5:44

of confusion. That's kind

5:46

of an issue with the state by

5:48

state approach is that it's state

5:50

by state. So everyone's got to do their

5:52

own thing. And it's really hard to know what's Going

5:55

on, even for people who are paying

5:58

attention. I Think people are confused. That

6:00

is a of legality. Because.

6:03

A lot of folks, you know if they have.

6:05

A Source. Of

6:07

receiving. Marijuana. They.

6:10

Are. Pretty. Likely to stay the

6:12

course because that's a sign of the path of least.

6:14

Resistance and. Both. Unless

6:16

you're kind of a policy one. Don't.

6:18

Always know exactly what is legal in their

6:21

state. The. For you

6:23

could just get we'd at a

6:25

store. Buying cannabis like any illegal

6:27

activity was risky, even dangerous. A

6:30

lot of people were locked up

6:32

imprisoned. Because. Of this job. Now

6:35

in some states buying lead his

6:37

leg. picking up a six pack

6:39

accessible, safe, and easier than ever.

6:42

And. You don't feel like a criminal doing

6:44

it. So. As stan. What's

6:47

the problem with legalization? Sure,

6:50

There are some people who might be happy with

6:52

it or who might be. Decided that they can

6:54

buy weed, but if you're looking at the. As

6:56

for roll out of the program as

6:59

a whole, it definitely has equity problems.

7:01

For one, some of the more recent

7:03

Sats are unfortunately from twenty second Hand

7:05

showed that a lot of the folks

7:08

who were disproportionately most affected by were

7:10

on drugs. With that the glades, my

7:12

folks. Are Latin I suppose? There.

7:15

are like single digit. Owners

7:17

of cannabis businesses of the

7:19

people of those races. People

7:22

are concerned that says piecemeal, state

7:24

by state process has time for

7:27

you do the matter and that.

7:29

It. Does. Not really

7:32

motivates the federal government to

7:34

do anything that might create

7:37

a more unified system of

7:39

and where do some of

7:41

that confusion? Of and

7:44

also I think a lot of folks

7:46

are ah. I see

7:48

just. Disappointed. That

7:50

there isn't really any medical

7:52

research currently selling. Anything

7:55

about how cannabis can be

7:57

used as treatment. even

8:00

though there are medical marijuana programs

8:02

available, the actual evidence

8:05

is still scant just because people

8:07

aren't putting the money in. And

8:10

I think that there's some

8:12

concern that we're dashing the opportunity

8:14

to actually study this drug more. The

8:18

business of legal weed is not a thriving

8:20

one. In states where recreational

8:22

cannabis is allowed, big corporations

8:24

dominate the industry, while smaller entrepreneurs

8:27

struggle to break through a high

8:29

cost of entry. And

8:31

since weed is still illegal at the federal

8:34

level, banks often won't work

8:36

with people in the industry, effectively locking

8:38

these businesses out of the traditional financial

8:40

system. This leads to

8:42

varying costs for both the businesses and

8:45

the consumers. For instance,

8:47

in Oregon, often there are huge

8:49

surpluses, which is really great

8:51

for the consumer in that you can buy super

8:53

cheap weeds, but it's not so great for

8:55

the growers because they just have an excess of

8:58

product across the state and they have to sell

9:00

it more cheaply than maybe they would want to.

9:02

And I know that in other states, the

9:05

prices are high enough that folks are

9:07

just turning to the black

9:09

market or the underground because

9:12

it's like they have their weed guy and

9:14

their weed guy has been

9:16

pretty consistent and don't have to deal with

9:18

the overhead of running a business and

9:20

state regulations. And so I guess

9:22

one other thing on the lack

9:25

of federal buy-in that is

9:27

an issue for the state

9:30

cannabis businesses is that

9:32

because selling marijuana is still

9:35

federally illegal, these

9:37

folks who have cannabis businesses can't

9:40

write off usual business expenses.

9:43

And so folks are concerned

9:45

that that is going to further

9:48

reduce who can really even get into this business and

9:50

afford to stay in it. I mean,

9:52

a lot of these inequities are, they

9:54

just sound so familiar. They're like the

9:56

kind of things that you encounter

9:58

in most businesses. right? Like

10:01

people of color, black people, Hispanic

10:03

people, have more

10:05

hurdles to owning businesses, things

10:08

like that. It's kind of an interesting

10:10

thing going from the black

10:12

market to a more regulated market. You

10:14

get like new, corporate-y

10:18

type problems. Totally. Yeah.

10:20

And then there are folks

10:22

who kind of hate the corporate side of

10:25

it too, right? And I think this kind

10:27

of plays into this basis of not

10:29

everyone is happy. I think folks

10:31

feel weird

10:33

that you can

10:36

go into like a really slick

10:38

little store and pay maybe

10:40

more than you did before for

10:43

weed. And I mean, I guess

10:45

also the same thing is happening for psychedelics in

10:47

that folks are really

10:49

split on how they feel about all

10:51

these various avenues for accessing it.

10:54

But I mean, some folks, they say, I

10:57

don't want to go to a service center.

10:59

Like being watched during a trip sounds

11:01

like the least one thing imaginable. And

11:03

so, you know, some folks just want

11:07

heat trim where they are like, I just want

11:09

to grow my mushrooms in peace and do them

11:11

in peace by myself. But then, you know, you've

11:14

got regulators, folks at the state level, folks at

11:16

the federal level too, who are like, yeah,

11:19

like, sure. But there are real

11:21

safety issues with just letting people

11:24

do that potentially. It depends

11:26

on the drug, depends on how much you take, of course,

11:29

always been a problem. But,

11:31

you know, I've talked to folks who

11:33

have lost kids from, you

11:35

know, not having proper harm

11:38

reduction or education about this type of stuff.

11:40

And I mean, I think earlier

11:42

in my life, I might have been like, well, you know,

11:44

like so many of us just basically

11:47

fucked around and found out. But

11:49

I don't know that that's necessarily

11:51

the best way to go about it either. So it's

11:54

a really tricky problem in that folks have all

11:56

sorts of different opinions about it. And it's

11:58

a real careful balance of. how much

12:00

regulation and what kind, and

12:03

no one's gonna be perfectly happy in the

12:05

end, but trying to figure out the right

12:07

thing to do is tricky. When

12:12

we come back, how the push for legal psychedelics

12:15

could be different. 2020

12:25

was a big year for drugs.

12:28

In Oregon, voters overwhelmingly approved a

12:30

ballot measure to decriminalize the possession

12:33

of small amounts of hard drugs,

12:35

including fentanyl, heroin, cocaine, meth,

12:38

and psychedelics. The

12:40

measure included new investments in addiction

12:42

treatment and support services, and

12:44

was heralded by drug reform advocates. But

12:47

three and a half years later, public sentiment

12:49

has started to shift against the legislation. The

12:52

Oregon legislature recently introduced a

12:54

bill that would essentially undo

12:56

the decriminalization from 2020. But

12:59

Jane thinks that psychedelics aren't the focus here.

13:02

It feels somewhat unlikely that

13:04

psychedelics are going to be what

13:06

get prosecuted in this situation. It

13:08

really feels like that's maybe more

13:10

a way that

13:13

the state wants to reclaim some

13:15

ability to prosecute people for fentanyl use

13:17

and try and get ahold of that drug

13:19

problem. And I mean, I think with psychedelics,

13:21

it's always kind of been the case that who

13:24

actually gets prosecuted, who

13:26

actually faces consequence for use

13:29

or possession is very

13:31

dependent on socioeconomic status and

13:33

race and lots of other

13:35

things. So I

13:37

don't know that we can expect to be a

13:39

huge amount of change there, but it does feel

13:42

like an interesting contradiction that in

13:44

a state where you have a full

13:46

up and running silo-sizing services program,

13:49

you might also technically have

13:51

it be a criminal offense

13:53

to use silo-sizing again. So

13:55

it seems like just hearing you kind

13:57

of parse this out bit

14:00

complicated. It seems like we're headed down

14:02

the same road with psychedelics as

14:05

we were with cannabis. A

14:08

little bit. And I mean, I think it's

14:10

interesting because we've been with

14:13

psychedelics in this big hype bubble.

14:15

People for many years were really

14:18

excited about the potential for psychedelics.

14:20

Just a lot of

14:22

excitement about the possible medical use

14:24

of it as therapeutic stuff, just

14:27

the possibility that it could become

14:30

more widely available for recreational

14:32

use. And I think we are

14:35

really hitting the point where that hype

14:37

bubble might be bursting a little bit and

14:39

folks are starting to think about what

14:42

that functionally looks like in your community. If

14:45

we're ready for that as a society, it

14:47

still has a lot of stigma to overcome.

14:49

And I think people sometimes, especially

14:52

folks who are kind of involved in that

14:55

world, forget that there are still

14:57

plenty of people who are quite

15:00

uncomfortable with that kind of

15:02

open drug use. I

15:04

was listening to an interview where an

15:06

Indigenous man was talking about how

15:09

psychedelics have been used

15:11

for hundreds of years among his

15:13

people. And it's weird to think of

15:15

them becoming run by the government

15:19

and corporatized. Is there

15:21

a way to address these concerns in

15:23

legalization? Are people talking about

15:25

it or thinking about it? People

15:27

are talking about it and thinking about it for sure.

15:30

Whether anything is functionally changing

15:32

is an open question. And I

15:35

think that is a really important

15:37

conversation to have. I

15:39

think that, yeah, a

15:42

lot of people are really uncomfortable with the

15:44

idea that you could

15:47

only access it through medical means, for

15:49

instance. There are some folks who, like

15:51

you mentioned, Indigenous people who have been

15:54

using some of these substances for

15:56

some time in memorial as

15:58

part of the of ceremonies and

16:01

those folks in some

16:03

cases, might

16:07

have access through like

16:09

religious exemption. So for instance, like the

16:11

native American church allowed

16:14

to access peyote, but it's

16:16

tricky. I mean, there's also the

16:19

question of even just folks who have been working

16:21

in the underground for decades. So,

16:24

we talked about this Oregon Psilocybin program

16:27

that state regulated program

16:30

sets up rules

16:32

for what facilitators have

16:34

to do to go

16:37

through training, to be able to sit with people

16:39

during their trips. And in

16:42

some cases, you know, like folks who have been doing this

16:44

for decades are like, yeah, I already know all this stuff.

16:46

Like do I really have to pay

16:48

for like a several thousand dollar training

16:50

and then pay for like a several

16:52

thousand dollar license in order to do

16:54

what I'm already doing, but

16:57

just in a legal way through the legal

16:59

program. It seems like on the

17:01

one hand going state by state with legalization

17:04

is a way to sort of incubate a

17:06

lot of different ideas and like, it's a

17:08

great like trial and error process. Do

17:12

you think that's right? Like, is that the

17:14

best way to be cautious and deliberate

17:18

about legalization? Yeah,

17:21

I mean, I don't know that there's any

17:23

other way to do it, honestly, like either

17:25

way, it feels like there are some people

17:27

who are charging ahead who are like, you

17:29

know, let's throw stuff at the wall and

17:31

see what sticks and if it breaks, then we'll

17:33

fix it. And then there

17:35

are other people who are like, that is

17:37

unacceptable. We need to think through every

17:40

possible scenario and make sure this is really

17:42

safe and ready to roll out first.

17:45

One area where psychedelics differ from cannabis

17:47

is in medical use. While

17:49

there are a few specific medical programs

17:51

for cannabis, there's little evidence of how

17:53

it can be used as a treatment,

17:56

but the pharmaceutical industry sees psychedelics

17:58

as the potential. treatment for serious

18:00

mental health issues. Recently,

18:03

the FDA accepted a new

18:05

drug application from a company

18:07

called Lycotherapeutics for MDMA to

18:09

treat people with post-traumatic stress

18:11

disorder. This application that

18:13

was put in, I

18:15

think right at the end of last year, the

18:18

FDA went back to them

18:20

and said, we're going to fast track your

18:23

application and we'll tell you by August

18:25

whether or not we agree that

18:27

you should get FDA approval for

18:30

MDMA to treat PCSDs

18:32

specifically. MDMA, which some

18:34

people might know as MALI

18:36

or ecstasy back in the day, it

18:40

is a psychedelic that is

18:43

kind of neck and neck with psilocybin, I think,

18:45

in terms of people's

18:47

excitement and the amount of research that

18:49

has been done on whether it

18:51

might be able to treat mental health issues. But

18:54

yeah, it feels like if that FDA

18:57

approval for MDMA happens, that

19:00

is going to really force

19:02

some federal changes potentially.

19:04

So some folks have wondered

19:07

whether that means that

19:10

what are all of MDMA

19:12

is going to be rescheduled

19:14

from schedule one to a

19:17

lesser restriction. Some folks

19:19

think that it might

19:21

not be all of

19:23

MDMA that gets rescheduled. It might only be

19:25

the specific type that

19:27

was put forth by this company.

19:30

But if MDMA,

19:33

even just the kind that the

19:35

application was put in for, is

19:37

rescheduled, I do think that that

19:39

kind of opens the door for

19:42

other folks to say, well, clearly,

19:45

if the definition of schedule one is that

19:47

it has no medically accepted use,

19:49

then the government's ruling on this feels

19:51

like it is at odds with its

19:53

own previous ruling. So

19:56

what are we going to do about that? Does the

19:58

drug have to have a therapy? therapeutic use

20:00

to be decriminalized. I mean, cannabis started

20:03

out people saying, you know, it actually

20:05

has medical, you know, medical purpose. And

20:07

now you hear again with psychedelics, like,

20:10

can use it to treat PTSD, we

20:12

can use it to treat anxiety. And

20:14

that's all for the good. Like, I'm

20:17

all for treating those things. However, we

20:19

can. But I mean, can

20:22

we just legalize psychedelics because they're

20:24

fun and relatively

20:26

harmless? If you're asking me,

20:28

I think that is a good enough reason. And

20:30

I mean, there are definitely advocates and

20:33

folks who have been working in the

20:35

space for a long time who think

20:37

that people should have access to any kind

20:39

of drug they want. And that,

20:41

in fact, if that

20:43

is the case, there are

20:45

more chances to test those drugs and

20:47

to make sure that they're safe and

20:50

regulated, so that people hopefully are

20:52

not, you know, doing things

20:54

with drugs and dying. However,

20:58

not everyone thinks that way.

21:00

And I think that, honestly,

21:02

the medical or

21:05

therapeutic angle fits better

21:07

with people. I think it feels

21:09

more convincing to some corners of

21:11

the world where people are a

21:13

little reticent to endorse drug use

21:15

of any kind, especially drugs that

21:17

have for decades been

21:19

demonized as, you know,

21:21

brain scrambling or I mean,

21:24

I'm just thinking of that, like, Rachel Lee Cook

21:28

ad that I saw as a kid that compared

21:31

her brain to a scrambled egg if you

21:33

did drugs. This is your

21:35

brain. This

21:38

is drugs.

21:42

This is

21:44

your brain on drugs. So I think there's

21:46

a lot of stigma to contend with and making

21:50

the argument that these drugs might be

21:52

able to help people who are in

21:54

real pain, who don't

21:56

have great treatments for their elements

21:58

otherwise. I think except folks are

22:00

like, why not give this a shot? Well,

22:08

Jane, thank you so much. Thanks for

22:10

having me. Jane

22:13

C. Hugh is a journalist and the author

22:15

of the newsletter, The Microdose. And

22:17

that's it for our show today. What Next

22:19

TBD is produced by Evan Campbell, Anna Phillips,

22:22

and Patrick Ford. Our show

22:24

is edited by Paige Osborne. Alicia

22:26

Montgomery is vice president of audio for

22:28

SAIT. TBD is paid of a

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larger What Next family. And if you're a fan of

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the show, I have a request for you. Become

22:35

a SAIT Plus member. Just head

22:37

on over to sait.com/whatnextplus to sign

22:39

up. We'll be back next

22:42

week with more episodes. I'm Emily

22:44

Peck, and you can catch me every Saturday

22:46

on SAIT Money. Thanks for listening.