Episode Transcription: 

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roxo media house
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welcome back to fortitude everybody JW brinton Brinton how you been man
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captains baby cap Tech Studio thank you captix I think Mike Thomas You’re Gonna Love this episode how you been Buddy
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we’ve been good good well due to popular demand our our cannabis 101 episode went
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so it went so crazily well uh we had a lot of good feedback we brought another guy in here a little different topic but
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along the same lines uh in front of us today brinton is Jim smeeding uh this
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guy’s well pedigree Jim thank you for joining us absolutely if you don’t mind me I’ll read a couple of things so
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people get get a sense of who you are and who you were but you’re a former executive director of the National
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Association of specialty pharmacy founder of the center for Farmer Pharma
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pharmaco economic studies University of Texas College of Pharmacy uh your
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Pharmacy degree from the University of Buffalo and an NBA from UT we won’t hold that against you yeah I was going to say
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you you horned frog people right uh you know original original founder of the
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international Society of Pharma economics and outcomes research which has more than 15 000 members currently
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and you’ve worked in all major with all major pharmaceutical companies a founder and president of the indication biosciences at an early age stage drug
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Discovery company yep phenomenal and uh last couple things real quickly research
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as a founder of can of Pharma RX and member of the board of directors for Allied Health and VP of Pharma and chief
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scientific officer yep so to put it Molly Britain he’s been there and done that and he knows a few things about
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this world do you know anything about pharmacology by chance yeah of course I
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mean pharmacists in general have some training in that area and is uh JW’s already pointed out I have a kind of a
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broad scope of pharmaceutical pharmaceutical development use of
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pharmaceuticals I was the chief pharmacist for the City of Austin Texas so it’d be like over here in Fort Worth
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uh you know it did whether it be uh John Peter or uh or Texas Health Resources
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big house here so uh managed a lot of that developed my own orientation
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towards a pharmaceutical industry in the late 80s and then some of my companies we’ve basically worked for you could I
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always tell people start at Abbott and finish at Seneca I’ve done work for them so pretty much a to z and
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um successful entrepreneurial activities in a lot of different areas as JW mentioned I have my own drug development
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company right now which uses CBD with the lipid lowering agents Lipitor or
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Crestor we’re working that forward and on Allied Health which is a cannabis based company out of Kelowna British
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Columbia we have a strong pension towards treating patients that suffer
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from post-traumatic stress disorder PTSD and along with that anecdotally some of
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the people are using our cannabis products that you know psilocybin mushrooms would really help
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us get over the hump and we’re already taking it in terms of Natural Health orientation and availability and kind of
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the gray Market in Canada but again no big surprise which is the reason brinton Jim sits in front of us today today’s
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episode we’re going to learn about psilocybin otherwise known as mushrooms yes
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how many Dead shows you’ve been to ah golly I’ve probably at least uh probably
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six or seven I believe again when you get busy in life it’s hard to get on the
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train all the time and make all those shows but uh uh certainly uh
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um enjoyed my experiences I was talking a little bit before we got started here about going to Woodstock
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99. he saw Hendrix
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we’re talking in 1969. tell us that story that was it
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please you like that story so again it’s it’s interesting to me I I’ve talked uh
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on occasions about various things I’ve given actually lectures on cannabis when
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it was first coming into legalization recreational use what have you and it’s hilarious to me because I’ll tell this
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story so I gave a lecture to 600 people out in Las Vegas that were there for
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some kind of a money investor show and they asked me to talk about can abyss and I said well I’m going to talk about
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what the realities are in terms of legalization what have you so you know everybody in Nevada is getting real
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cranked up because they say hey not only we’re going to get medical but sooner or later it’s going to get legal here so
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there’s a lot of happy people in the audience going yeah and I can tell you if you haven’t been to Vegas recently I
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would say Vegas is certainly the major capital city of the Cannabis industry
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these days I mean it’s totally legal recreational and oh yeah yeah in fact uh I went out to the MJ Biz conference
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which is the largest conference around that last year and there were 26
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000 registrants and they filled up every single space that you can fill up in
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terms of exhibit hall at the Las Vegas Convention Center so it’s obviously a huge business in Vegas It’s Not Unusual
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to have stores it’ll do upwards of 15 million dollars worth of sales a year so
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so you get the idea but the reason I’ve related did that is because
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the fellow who is the moderator at the show she said well you know I’ve been to a a love fish the fish and you know so
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when I got up and you know I said if that’s your only credential yeah I went to Woodstock I took the green acid I
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went to my first date with my wife was to a Grateful Dead concert so clearly I’m the expert in the audience here so
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yeah you know yeah enjoy the rest of the ride so again um I enjoy uh Discovery I think I’ve got
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a lot of credibility within the pharmaceutical business itself I understand the regulatory side of things
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I understand the scientific side and I also understand the economics and I think that all kind of plays into
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psilocybin we’re going to talk about but hallucinogens in general and how this Market has really come alive and I
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related a little bit earlier I also deal with the payer community in health care and I think everybody knows when you go
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to get a prescription the big question is how much is this going to cost me that’s based on your benefit and the
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benefit is of course deliberated and approved by medical professionals within
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insurance companies so the whole idea of uh how do you get care how do I receive
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care what’s going to get paid for what is it going to be paid for it’s based on a lot of science the development of
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standards of care and all kinds of things that kind of fall into but is the patient really getting benefit from what
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we’re paying for so value value in health care they’re fairly significant again JW mentioned I’m the founder I
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founded the center for pharmacoeconomic studies the University of Texas in Austin and I’m the third president and
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one of the founders of the international Society of pharmacoeconomics and outcomes research what you find out is
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no matter where you are in this globe no matter what country no matter what political orientation everybody wants to
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know what’s the value the dollars we spent in health care it’s really a measurement of quality over cost and
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quality meaning Effectiveness over the cost of it so all relevant to new
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medicines old medicines natural medicines like psychedelics psilocybin
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and you know fun to talk about today sure let’s refine our scope for today’s discussion if you don’t mind psilocybin
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magic mushrooms is written very eloquently pointed out in probably grooming is in his you know college
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closet well I I actually did buy a psilocybin grow kit when I was at the University of Washington and uh back I
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guess about 40 years ago and I actually grew little mushrooms and you bought the spores and stuff it was kind of a an
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interesting kind of uh home planting yeah JW is familiar with it because he
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got the fungus in between his toes we’ve got medicine yeah I deserve that I
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deserve it right back at you my friend Jim yeah let’s start off simply what is psilocybin and why is it Rel why is it
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something that we know as mushrooms what’s what’s the story with that well again uh there’s a lot of functional
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mushrooms uh psychoactive mushrooms uh that are available uh some people for
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example find benefit from lots of different fungi uh lion’s mane cordycep
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Etc saying there are you know in the Pacific Northwest there are like you
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know whole food orientations whatever you can go in and buy functional mushrooms psilocybin however was of
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course qualified a number of years ago as a schedule one medication which meant that it had no therapeutic benefit and I
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think that was really based on the fact that there’s probably politics beside behind it but nobody had really done the
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research so you had obviously Native Americans these are natural medicines utilizing these and obviously gaining
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some insights and benefits and uh religious rituals things along that
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line but we know that psilocybin acts at the serotonin uh receptors in the brain
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so it’s a serotonin Agonist which means that it mimics a serotonin in the brain
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and the receptor sites that psilocybin or its analog silacin which is the
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active ingredient psilocybin has some hallucinogenic benefit but it also has
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some stimulating benefits within the brain so I think understanding a little bit of the science behind why
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hallucinogens work why in all of them whether it’s be MDMA or ecstasy As We
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Know It hawasca uh ketamine they all work at the basically the same serotonin
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receptor sites in the brain so that’s kind of the key Target area so what is happening when it’s mimicking serotonin
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explain what serotonin may be briefly in there how it why is it doing what it does so at the receptor sites uh
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serotonin and we know if you think back to Prozac which was a serotonin
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selective serotonin uptake inhibitor so it’s an antidepressant and and it was a
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not an Agonist but an antagonist so it would basically work at the same
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receptor sites in the brain as psilocybin would uh and there’s some interesting studies going on right now
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with ssris a selective serotonin uptake Inhibitors
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and psilocybin or MDMA at the same time so it activates these sites in the brain
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and to go layman term here these are happy sites yeah these are things that
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stimulate imaginative thinking uh allow people perhaps they’re in a depressed or
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a treatment resistant a depression orientation to have some better thoughts
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happier thoughts and therefore psilocybin over the years of course
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became popular Simple Simon or whatever you wanted to call it we you know I
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myself have taken psilocybin and uh masculine and a couple other things you
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don’t seem depressed though Jim is there you know it’s interesting I don’t know whether it’s just my normal happy nature
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but I’m just not a depressive kind of guy but I suffer for people with mental
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health illnesses who do have these uh depressive uh types of maladies and you
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know we know that these are significant in fact in the U.S market alone it’s
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estimated that we spend 240 billion dollars a year on Mental Health Care and
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most of it I think one would suggest is reasonably ineffective yeah and we turn
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people into kind of zombie orientation we give them uh doses of things that
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don’t make them happy but seem to actually uh more or less make the them
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unfeeling or numb what have you and that’s certainly not what we want to do and I think psychotherapists and others
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in particular in the last though I’d say four to five years have started to realize that maybe what we’re talking
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about in the 60s was a valid medication orientation that we needed to move to and therefore I think that’s why we see
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the explosion and I mean explosion in companies and people now going back and
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reevaluating the opportunity use psilocybin MDMA and sooner or later
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we’ll see LSD and some other things as well utilized in a manner that we hope
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improves mental health and decreases some of the abuses today so some good
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well I’ll get so many questions but one is you talked about the SSRI yeah
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to like the simplest form what is that doing from the antidepressant standpoint
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versus like uh this psilocybin right like just if you’re explaining to a sure
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a real novice yeah a neuroplasticity all this stuff no no you’re going to get
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into but let me just say that what we know is that uh and this is probably
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more hypothesis and therefore it’s under phase studies with the FDA what have you is that
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psilocybin where it seems to interact most effectively that it almost acts to
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kind of rewire some of the broken circuits if you know again to try to make as simple as possible ssris Prozac
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and all of its other analogs what have you certainly also work and in some
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patients they work reasonably well but in some patients they do nothing in terms of so there’s a question about
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whether it’s really helping to rewire things or whether it’s just acting as an
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exogenous a something that is mimicking serotonin but not actually activating it
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and I think that that’s kind of the key is that these natural medicines that we’re looking at seem to have the
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benefit of actually stimulating what I’ll call again kind of a better
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circuitry better rewiring in the brain as opposed to just supplying something
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that we could naturally produce with the right orientation right yeah for someone
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who has never done mushrooms before sure what what are the what are they what’s what’s to be expected obviously it’s a
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dosing question as well but and what are the some of the side effects yeah one might get from so so again you know
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first of all let me say this that uh well I think hallucinogens part of the reason that in the 60s and on they were
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scheduled is because they’re being used recreationally and I don’t think you know it’s no different than recreational
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Cannabis or if I was sitting here and having a beer with you guys at a certain level it becomes a personal choice but I
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believe that the hallucinogenic side of this business and the way that this is going to go is it will be prescription
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it will be therefore uh have certain indications and it will require some
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prior knowledge and Care associated with caregivers as well as patient education and I think that’s kind of where where I
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want to go a little bit is that what happens when you take psilocybin well it is dose dependent so I the working on
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some micro dosed applications which most people say oh that’s just Placebo however there is some evidence contrary
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to that that there is some long-term benefit but a journey dose something
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that you will want to have some knowledge of what you’re entering into oftentimes some coaching and which is
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now required by some of the states that are decriminalizing or authorizing the use of psilocybin is that you know
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you’ve got to understand you’re probably going to lose uh your ego kind of
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orientation you’re going to have some kind of disassociation and to try to
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make that a happy disassociation as important as opposed to a paranoid one so feeling uncomfortable is not an
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unusual side effect a little anxiety going into it even though suicide will
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eventually be used as an anxiety drug right uh some understanding of how that
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discomfort can be managed the knowledge that you’re in a safe place with people that care for you and care about you the
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fact that this will not go on forever that this will be something that you will metabolize and move through and
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re-enter your normal process hopefully with a little bit of a better Outlook in
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terms of what’s being going on with in your life so I think you know understanding what you’re going into
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understanding that you’re taking a journey dose which I say it is about 25 milligram it’s orally active changes in
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the body to silicon and it’s absorbed into the brain serotonin a receptor
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sites Etc so you know I think that’s a reality that people need to have and I
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think the safety issue around it is exactly why if you take a look at Oregon
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Colorado will go the same way that basically you have to be in a caregiver Associated atmosphere and the caregivers
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will be regulated so it means that you will have to meet some minimum requirements it’s also interesting at
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the state level that for example in Oregon which of course was two years ago they’re finally getting it figured out
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it’s been a long time coming but municipalities can opt out of the
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program so if you really take a look at a map of Oregon and uh where mushroom therapy will be allowed it’s basically
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the big cities the university towns as you might imagine a lot of the smaller
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areas and stuff for various reasons and I think there’s a fair amount of bias again still as it would be with a
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marijuana what have you is that they’re opting out of the being involved so but
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at the same time I don’t know if people know this but mushrooms are decriminalized in
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Washington DC you can go and buy mushrooms you can’t say I’m here to buy
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mushrooms you have to say oh I’d like to see what the gifts are that I can receive for spending fifty dollars on a
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a plaque of Donald Trump or something and that’s how it works really in DC
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yeah that’s the same with cannabis it has to be gifted but you can buy a gift
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and then part of the reward is that you also receive in cannabis or mushrooms so
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it’s a kind of kind of interesting how we work around the interpretation of the
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laws I think most people don’t know about Texas yes the great state of Texas
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is actually very interested in the use of uh hallucinogens for mental health in
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fact they authorize the University of Texas we’ll go into hookah Barnes or anything but uh uh the University of Texas has a
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center for psychedelic research now John Hopkins University University of Wisconsin
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uh NYU in London uh the the UK I can’t remember
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but there’s a lot of global interest in hallucinogens seems to be following the
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the Cannabis movement maybe it’s obviously a few years behind but it seems to be catching steam year over
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year it actually is moving quicker in a certain lot of ways right JW and I think it’s because you got to think about
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again here we are we know that uh investment drives Innovation investment
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drives uh motivates people to do things so 50 publicly traded companies now in
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hallucinogenic medicine 40 private companies a lot of uh you know again
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research treatment centers Wellness what have you they’re all moving in into this area so that’s stimulating it the fact
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that we don’t have good answers for mental health what we currently use from a pharmaceutical perspective today is
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driving it and you know it’s it does have parallels to cannabis in terms of
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how it will roll out on a regulatory basis but the FDA will never ever and I’ve said
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this five years ago and I’ll say it again today will never really authorize
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full spectrum marijuana as being a drug they can’t it’s too complicated there’s
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uh 450 minor components 86 major components and you can’t study that
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effectively you can isolate psilocybin you can isolate MDMA so now you know
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exactly what you’re giving to a patient and what you’re treating you can run a randomized double-blinded control trials
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which are what they require to go through phase research for FDA approval so the FDA will never approve cannabis
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the FDA will certainly and you can take it to the bank that they will have
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approved hallucinogenic medicines of various sorts Somewhere over the next two to five years oh wow fascinating
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yeah and moving quickly right now uh investment in the hallucinogenic space
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right now 2021 3.1 billion 20 uh 28
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seven years uh predicted to be somewhere in the neighborhood of 8.5 billion
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dollars so it’s a big Market out there again you can take a look you can take a look at a
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number of studies that are going on out there and these are FDA approved studies the other things of interesting to note
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is first of all the DEA drug enforcement agency is actually increased the quotas
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that they will allow people to produce of materials for testing in in this
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particular Marketplace another it’s what I’ll call another buying sign sure uh Biden Harris has a a bills that will
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allow more research on uh controlled substance that are considered to be schedule one which is where psilocybin
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MDMA what have you so more interest there Nida the National Institutes of
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drug abuse who whenever you went to them with a cannabis trial that had a positive outcome they would not fund it
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they are funding studies right now for the use of uh lucinogens for uh tobacco
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cessation smoking so again you take a look at all the regulatory signs are
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there the scientific evidence is building that this is a much better way to approach this and you can pretty much
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again it I don’t have to be a a Houdini to suggest that uh there’s magic
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out there it’s going to happen yes sir why why is it because all the people who went to Woodstock are in power now what
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what’s the reason that I think there’s more Enlightenment about what again the
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negative side of it what hasn’t worked major antipsychotics antidepressants the
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cost of mental health in this country what have you uh suicide push-back
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stress disorder and so forth and I think there’s a realization that if there’s something that could scientifically be
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proven to be beneficial we ought to go after it so again it’s not necessary necessarily a liberal a republican a
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democratic a Libertarian issue I think that you know at certain point everybody
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coalesces that if there’s a discovery that makes sense and improves Patients health that we ought to consider it and
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when you again you take the look at the burden of mental health illness and the cost to society you got to say hell what
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we’ve been doing isn’t working I think we really ought to try it yeah I mean this is a serious is a serious question
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but not not in besides people’s closets where they’re growing these things for kids where do you find these type of
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mushrooms in the on the planet where do they grow well and what makes them magic these ones right yeah psilocybin so
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there’s a lot of different strains of psilocybin which of course helps uh you you I should say it causes you to have
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to do some standardization and some things like that there’s been some activity of you can synthesize and I can
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tell you some major companies former divisions of Johnson Johnson for example there’s a company called Pure assists
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empiricists is synthesizing all the cannabinoids in fact I’m going
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to be a customer there is buying CBD for my pharmaceutical grade product but they
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also have done the same with psilocybin so you can synthesize it you can grow it
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interesting enough the major growth and it’s a growth market place as well is in
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Jamaica does it grow naturally or does it have to be no no well it does grow naturally
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if when I was at the University of Washington after a particularly rainy a
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season what have you watching students crawling around in the grass on the mall
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looking for a little psilocyber mushrooms yes it does grow through cow manure well the commoner is certainly
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one of the substrates that works but it’s also as much uh um you know if you chop down a redwood
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tree and let it sit for about 10 years it kind of starts to degrade and that’s just perfect growing area for fungi in
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general I mean you see it when you go anywhere where there’s forests and rain at a certain point you’ll find fungus
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growing yeah somewhere so uh uh you know I think it’s interesting so where do you
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find it so one of the ways that Allied Health and I got interested in it is
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that there was a little company gray market up in Vancouver Island who is
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selling ground up psilocybin in small doses with a couple of other uh
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functional mushrooms lion’s mane and cordyceps as I said and they’re selling it and by talking
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about effective doses they were sound like you know I said 25 milligrams of effective dose
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2.5 milligram doses that they were selling people could buy
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10 capsules for 20 bucks and they’d chip it out and this is where we started
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getting reports from vets who were using our product as well as First Responders which that includes the law enforcement
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uh emergency medical technicians what have you that were suffering from uh
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traumatic stress associated with their jobs or the war or what have you
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they started reporting that you know the Cannabis helps Jim but quite honestly this mushroom stuff is really kind of
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I’ve stopped drinking as much I’m not taking pain medication I’m sleeping better so and so forth so you know it’s
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those kinds of reports that sometimes give you that empiric feeling
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that you ought to move forward and explore this a little more because there is something happening and it’s good
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yeah so so what so the paranoia you know we’re talking about all the benefits and
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stuff what happens when you get that one patient that just gets skit like they go
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crazy from it well again it’s interesting obviously there’s lots of thoughts schizophrenia is a very
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different disease than depression what have you and so there’s some concerns that people that have other major mental
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disorders it may not be beneficial I think that requires proper research and control what have you so you know
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paranoia I mean uh you know I remember driving down the road one night with my
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wife we picked up a hitchhiker and it was a New Year’s Eve and uh I think we
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had ingested a fair amount of cannabis as I remember and the guy gets them back and we’re driving down the the road and
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he’s like oh dude dude there’s a cop up there so I’m like you know do I get that
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joint on my pocket they are swallow it whatever so you know people can induce
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paranoia pretty easily when you’re in a what I’ll call a altered state yeah and
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a cannabis has the same capabilities where did that cop end up being a streetlight a good tree nope not you
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know needless to say I told that this may sound cruel or unusual but I pulled
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over at the next stops and I said it’s time for you to get out but uh whatever
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uh it’s just you know paranoia is easily induced in people yeah and so if you
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know you don’t say I’ve never experienced that every year at this show yeah why are the the police here certain
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people bringing out of me a little bit more than others yeah we’ve all heard the term Jim the bad trip having a bad
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trip what is what does that mean and what’s going on well this is part of it right well again if you take a look at
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it and it is part of it uh uh again you could sit like I said with uh fit 500
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000 people at Woodstock and you took the green acid and they just told you over the loudspeaker anybody who’s taking the
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green acid you may want to come to the health tent here and so I’m sitting with
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the four other people we’re all saying how do you feel how do you feel how do
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you feel and I’m of course saying I’m doing the coaching stuff saying I feel pretty good so I think we just kind of
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chill here guys you did and what happened we had a great afternoon we heard some amazing music uh we partied
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on it late into the night and the next day we woke up and said yeah what did I do yesterday I’m like
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really but anyway so so you know again I think paranoia is a controllable and a
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safe place with coaching and an understanding I would never ever suggest
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that somebody just go and take uh loosen the gem without some knowledge or
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understanding or again being in a comfortable place with for friends people that they understand and yeah
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I’ve said friends of mine freak out where they you know ate a brownie they
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had a little too much THC in it and and you know when they beg you to go to the hospital
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you could take them but at the end of the day it’s like we’re just going to sit here because a few hours from now
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you’re going to feel a lot better yeah and and then the other thing about that whole
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suspension of you know kind of lucinogenic uh Bliss what have you is again this ego and ID thing is important
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I mean if you go into it and you’re already uncomfortable and paranoid and
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what have you if you go into it like me where I’m stable comfortable uh secure
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what have you it’s probably going to be a slightly different experience and I’ve certainly had friends and stuff who’ve had
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prefer real bad trips but the bad trip was just something that we
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needed to kind of let nature take its uh its own time and move on through it is a
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bad trip just somebody freaking out like you said or is it like not be able to sleep for a long period so I don’t think
31:54
it’s it’s so much obviously again you’ve altered a bit of your serotonin and things like that I think it’s mostly
32:01
I’ll call an episodic anxiety Associated uh problem I mean again that as we know
32:09
this is one of the issues with recreational as opposed as opposed to control use of anything is that yeah you
32:15
take too much of something or you decide to supplement it with something else or you don’t know what you’re taking uh
32:22
yeah the wrong kind yeah you know I mean these are all the dangers and it’s why
32:27
really I think the benefit of some regulation and Regulatory Compliance and
32:33
some production related uh um controls of quality what have you and
32:38
I you know I hate to say this but you know six thousand seven thousand products are in the marketplace right
32:45
now that fcbd in them how much still good expiration date
32:52
uh what else is in there who knows kind of stuff it’s because the FDA has not
32:58
actually ever gotten into it once they finally do I would bet you right now fifty percent of the products that are
33:04
in market today will be uh uh analyzes mislabeled meaning it ain’t
33:11
what it says it really is in terms of amount uh things like that it’s it’s you know that’s the Natural Health side of
33:17
it and what everybody wants the opportunity and you know again I’m a pharmacist I understand all the good
33:24
thing about pharmaceutical companies and all the bad things about pharmaceutical companies so uh but the one thing that
33:32
they do is they do have their held to a standard to produce safe and effective products Natural Health Products it’s
33:41
the wild west out there and it’s it you know it’s it’s problematic from that
33:46
standpoint so while you can say well CBD is not going to kill you what have you I would agree with that you know the
33:52
lethal dose is uh you know you’d have to you know consume half a truckload of The Stuff Etc it doesn’t even exist
34:00
MDMA psilocybin LSD what have you there are
34:07
some limits in terms of what’s safe and to be
34:12
effective so you’d want some control over that in terms of some Assurance sure what are the reasons I reached out
34:19
to you so long ago to get this set up to talk I remember several years ago I like
34:24
to like to show 60 minutes and they had they showed us the story on a study where they did had 100 people lined up
34:30
in a controlled environment they gave them a measured dose of psilocybin they’d have somebody watch them and all
34:36
these things and then they’ll interview them after they fact and this is what got me thinking about all this but I
34:43
remember distinctly this woman going on there and she’s and she’s weeping Jim she’s crying in there and they’re like
34:49
she’s like I saw my deceased parents from 30 years ago where I had their most profound uh time of my life it’s in
34:58
during this episode and I remember asking my wife hey if somebody can guarantee you you’d have one of the most
35:04
profound moments of your life isn’t that worth trying and she ultimately said yes and she’s never done it but I it’s
35:11
incredible if you could tell somebody you could have this profound moment in your life you could revisit people maybe
35:16
you haven’t seen forever and well come out of it weeping because you have this experience like that’s that’s powerful
35:22
every idea and investment usually has a story behind and I can tell you right
35:28
now that many of the people that have gotten into this on a uh investment basis what have you they have a story
35:34
whether it’s about a loved one their son their child themselves
35:41
that they’ve gone through and they’ve had a good experience where they’ve improved the lives of their kids
35:46
whatever because of it they become I’ll call it the hallucinogenic
35:53
enthusiasts and they want other people to have that experience because it’s been a good experience for them so I
36:00
don’t find it unusual that if somebody kind of has what I’ll call a
36:05
breakthrough experience that they found beneficial hell of course they’re going to
36:11
recommend it to other people and they’re going to want to approach it so you know again I think we’re going to see
36:16
opportunities as we move forward here with more research and you know the list
36:21
is long of applications for hallucinogens in medicine obviously
36:28
treatment resistant depression major depression but there’s all kinds of
36:33
other things from fibromyalgia to I mean it goes on smoking cessation alcohol
36:39
dependency there’s a lot of studies and these are good studies these are FDA approved studies these people went
36:44
through investigation review boards they’ve been they’re designed the statistics of the study so you know in
36:51
the FDA uh uh pathway there’s four phases phase one through phase four phase three is uh
36:58
your pivotal trials that show the effectiveness what have you phase one is
37:03
usually a first in human studies just to show there’s some safety that’s the phase two are usually dose ranging as
37:10
well as continued safeties uh then phase three and then phase four are you found out that you not only have a product
37:16
that works but it might be good for something else so you want to test it further and see if it’s good for it but we’re going to see a huge amount and
37:22
there’s a you know uh the maps people I don’t know if you know what Maps is
37:28
multi-disciplinary uh uh Association for psychedelic studies
37:33
they’ve got some very good evidence now on some of the MDMA work that they’ve done and they’re all the way into phase
37:40
three and like I said you got you know everybody I mean High
37:46
ly respected uh um uh Health Providers University of Washington University of
37:53
Wisconsin Johns Hopkins NYU University of Texas whatever they’re
37:59
all formerly psychedelic centers they’re all participating in studies with these publicly traded companies because
38:05
they’re finding benefit so this is probably a stupid question but why did
38:11
the blacklight in these uh in the in the wavy colors bright colors become such a
38:16
part of that psychedelic culture I think I think that sensory perception
38:22
that there’s something going on right is you know it’s having again experienced
38:28
those things it’s the back Shelf at Spencer’s I mean you can’t not see it it’s well that’s what I was going to ask
38:34
can you take us on your like most insightful trip like something that made
38:39
you a Believer as you brought that up kind of a testimony on it well again most of the the ones that I did were
38:46
call recreational yeah because I was at concerts and things like that again been
38:51
you know they don’t have concerts like I used to go to yeah I mean you know live peace in Toronto gee oh yeah that’s uh
38:58
Yoko Ono and John Lennon with uh uh uh on stage oh yeah that’s Jim Morrison and
39:04
the doors up there and yeah a live piece in Toronto that one was
39:09
never seen Taylor Swift though have you I haven’t are you gonna give tickets to me yeah it’s quite quite a bit quite a
39:15
change yeah I mean you know Janet Joplin uh you know uh uh um I’ve seen all those
39:20
people uh uh you know and it’s exciting and uh it’s in a crowd that is there to
39:28
have a lovely time and you know sometimes fun can get out of hand we all
39:33
know that and we don’t want to be unsafe to anybody or others in particular but
39:39
you know to me they were always uh centrally
39:44
pleasurable experiences yeah uh the uh hallucinogenic side of it was
39:51
not something made me uncomfortable um the visuals The increased auditory
40:00
awareness I mean all your senses kind of tingle right when that’s happening so
40:05
it’s interesting too I mean uh I would mention again that I’m working
40:10
on a micro dose orientation which doesn’t require as much coaching and could be used on a more of a daily
40:16
functional basis and again there’s safety concerns about all these things what have you and they need to be well
40:23
vetted out but you know if uh you get up in the morning and a cup of coffee and a
40:30
little bit of psilocybin makes it a better day for you without any
40:35
noticeable side effects no hallucinogenic effects what have you
40:40
I think stimulating your serotonin Pathways is not a bad thing to do right
40:46
and these are there’s going to be more benefit you think ultimately than what they’ve done in antidepressants and
40:53
things oh I don’t think there’s any doubt in my mind that the side effect profile of naturally occurring medicines
41:00
is much less than some of the things that we’ve been able to synthesize and
41:05
develop another funny story because I’ve got a million of them so I was in China
41:12
I was in the yellow mountains and we’re on a tour of some sort and
41:18
gentlemen stand next to me obviously Chinese but he’s got a kind of a nice
41:23
green jacket on it says uh um Eli Lilly
41:28
Neuroscience whatever so I’m a pharmacist I know Eli I’ve worked for
41:34
him I’ve been to Indianapolis a few times I go over to him and I said so I I saw your Lily jacket I said uh what did
41:41
you do at Lily I’ve done a lot of business at Lily mostly on the commercial sales marketing support side
41:47
of it you know I’m a scientist I said oh really you see I just retired I said oh okay and I said so what’s the neuromus
41:54
Neuroscience Institute whatever he said oh you know that’s where we worked on like uh Prozac and stuff I said really
42:01
what he said well I’m actually the guy who discovered Prozac so uh kind of a a
42:07
funny story very very interesting very knowledgeable uh Chinese or origin
42:13
scientist who’s in his original Homeland kind of uh real mellow guy I’m guessing you know he was he was pretty much just
42:20
like one of these guys you’d say man I’d love to go have a beer with you and talk about how you figured this out so you
42:27
know stuff like that you think they figured some of this out based on some of the like are we doing a circle here where it’s an interesting question again
42:35
and the guys copied it synthesized it and then wait a minute then it got the
42:40
stigma or whatever you know how does Discovery happen and there’s so many Pathways again uh I mentioned that my uh
42:49
opportunity to combine cannabidiol with lipid lowering agents well
42:54
how do we get onto the fact that this might be make sense because most people say
43:00
how the hell does that work Jim well we happen to have some people that were having some problems back related muscle
43:07
related what have you and they had been to see traditional Physicians and the
43:13
physician said I don’t know what the hell’s wrong with you well they’d started taking a a a lipid lowering
43:19
agent uh uh HMG co-reductase inhibitor and what they found out is of course
43:27
that they’re having the muscle weaknesses and side effects that come along with it but for some reason none
43:33
of whether it’s because of the disconnection and Medicine in terms of information what have you but nobody
43:39
could come up with a solution we sent this guy some CBD it wasn’t legal at the time but that didn’t matter we sent them
43:46
some CBD a day later he was out back running walking and called up and said
43:53
what the hell did you guys just do we said well we sent you some CBD we told you to kind of put three drops under
43:59
your tongue and you know wait a while and if you don’t feel better tomorrow try four drops
44:05
and that’s when we said huh I wonder if a combination of CBD and so we went out
44:12
we did all the patent work that you need to do uh discovered there was a green field area there and we have uh two
44:20
major patents and we’ll have a lot of follow-on patents to utilize CBD as kind
44:25
of an augmentation to what we currently consider to be Western medicine related so you know it’s you know sometimes it’s
44:34
uh in the lab yeah and you notice it you know a rat responded positively to this
44:41
stimulation whatever and sometimes you’re with natural medicines you’re looking at somebody going huh I wonder
44:48
if that’d work and when it does you say that must work and so if you take a look you know you’ll see uh uh research from
44:56
states that have uh authorized the use of cannabis for uh medical purposes what
45:03
have you you’ll find out that ninety percent of the people who on their survey say oh I take it for pain management yeah I would say it probably
45:10
must be working for pain management and I don’t think it’s a placebo effect so so again I think Discovery is uh
45:19
interesting uh the fact that it happens we all benefit from them you know I’m
45:24
73. look at me I mean you know if my father died when he was 65 and uh you
45:31
know uh I’m sure some of the benefit is obviously good genetics and good diet
45:36
but I think that there’s certain amount of uh you know how many people would be sitting here today if we didn’t have a
45:43
mRNA uh uh for covid right yeah so on on
45:49
that Discovery path yeah how many people ate the wrong mushroom before they found this one and you know
45:54
I’ve heard that some die from you know you could die from them well obviously yeah but you think about the discovery
46:01
of that or like all the plants in the world and the guys somewhere in our ancient uh first uh
46:09
Native uh uh uh they’ve figured out there were some natural medicines that
46:15
worked and they worked effectively whether it be peyote or whatever and uh they’ve you know incorporated into their
46:22
mental health regimen and uh you know uh I think uh that was a good thing for all
46:28
of us so yeah I bet it was like hey Jim you want to come around the fire tonight we’re going to get JW to try to uh eat
46:34
this certain kind of mushroom let’s go into this see if he does let’s go into the sweat lodge and yeah don’t get the
46:41
exploding rocks though I’ve heard about that happening in sweat lodges you know yeah you touched on it briefly at the
46:46
beginning but the future of of psilocybin yeah it’s going going this tremendous movement it right now because
46:52
of the a lot of reasons you just spoke about what how in your mind where does psilocybin fit in in our world in say
46:59
five ten years is it a on the Shelf the grocery store is it always yeah you know I I
47:06
well it will be decriminalized I don’t think that uh I should say
47:12
regulatory tendencies in this country would suggest that if you’re a grower
47:18
and people will grow it uh that if you’re a dispenser and people will
47:23
dispense it that it will be regulated now so I think that will happen uh I don’t think you’re going to get
47:30
insurance companies to pay for it in fact they know you won’t unless it’s FDA approved product because they just don’t
47:37
I mean the first criteria for any insurance company is to have the
47:43
evidence that it’s safe and effective and the only way that they’ll do that is through the FDA so uh doesn’t mean that
47:50
natural medicines don’t work again well I would suggest that the
47:56
formulation that we’ve put under a provisional patent for Allied uses some
48:02
functional mushrooms in it it’s has what uh many people in the industry call a
48:07
stacking orientation where you take x amount of psilocybin with x amount of lion’s mane cordyceps niacin is a
48:16
nitrocurine vitamin but it helps in terms of flushing the product into the
48:22
extremities so the kind of the microcirculatory orientation so there’s there’s we’re going to see more of that
48:29
kind of stuff done the problem with combination products is quite honestly you can’t find what the FDA requires in
48:36
terms of uh certified GMP good manufacturing process raw materials that
48:41
you have to have to do the kind of testing so you know the regulatory hurdles are there but I do think that
48:48
the popular interest and the evidence is going to be such that so psilocybin will
48:54
come back and assume a role in terms of mental health again recreationally again
49:01
I I’ve done it that way but I certainly couldn’t suggest that people just wholesale go out and do that be without
49:09
the appropriate knowledge I think the coaching I think we’re going to see more therapy centers you’re going to see you
49:16
know the wellness treatment centers and stuff they’re doing ketamine right now and ketamine was approved by the FDA
49:23
three years ago in a nasal spray for treatment resistant depression and I
49:28
think that if they want to approved it if there wasn’t some evidence that it’s working it’s incredible how many people
49:34
did you did you say hi to people in this country are estimated with the data to use psilocybin boy I you know I’m not
49:41
real clear on that JW I mean I I know that again what the burden of illness is
49:47
but I don’t really know how many people are recreationally or
49:53
for medicinal purposes uh accessing psilocybin psilocybin can be accessed I
49:59
mean you know right uh Canada is a great example Health Canada put a uh uh
50:06
exemption in place so that if a physician will go through the hurdles for a patient the patient can actually
50:12
receive a psilocybin under Health Canada’s auspices of course Health
50:18
Canada also authorized for diagnosed vets with post-traumatic stress disorder
50:23
a certain allotment of cannabis that they’ll buy on a monthly basis so we’re not quite that advanced but uh that
50:30
being said I think a lot of This research and a lot of psilocybin uses
50:37
happens in Canada in fact the University of Alberta I would say is kind of uh the
50:43
academic center for a psilocybin and they’re mostly getting their mushrooms
50:48
out of Jamaica there’s a very big uh grow and types of areas there they have
50:54
like like Farms there they’re like real professionals yeah well in fact they have them out in uh uh British Columbia
51:01
if the the guy who started Lululemon he and his son are heavily invested into
51:08
and his son is the CEO of a company that’s growing suicide but wow yeah so you know it’s happening we have
51:15
thoroughly enjoyed this is enlightening stuff is there a um what’s my question is it I mean is
51:21
there anything we’re not thinking to ask you about this you know again I think I went through some of the science the
51:26
regulation the actual utilization uh kind of some of the economics in terms of uh how this goes some interests I
51:33
mean some people are concerned that uh you go through two or three good journey doses with guidance of uh uh uh
51:41
psilocybin or MDMA use what have you and you’re feeling well enough that
51:47
kind of the gravy train stops there so so unfortunately I would bet that it’s
51:52
going to be expensive when it comes to Market it’s going to be highly controlled uh and uh you know I think we’ll adopt
52:00
and adjust to it but with many other things sometimes it drives people to a great Market whatever because it’s costs
52:07
are sure are prohibitive to somebody oh I’m sure it’s already I think it is already happening I’ve seen some
52:13
documentaries on people doing Ayahuasca or whatever and like uh you know some guy Shaq with a couple of beds there and
52:20
trained professionals and stuff sure and I think people are wanting to believe that this is you know this stuff and so
52:28
I almost invite regulation on this kind of stuff for that very reason you know
52:33
uh because because passing those hurdles is really important I think when you’re
52:39
getting into you’re getting in some dark targets at the same time access to health is important to everybody and so
52:45
right and not making sure that people are blocking that right now right I mean uh if uh you if your insurance won’t pay
52:52
for it is there something else uh you know we have patient Assistance programs for all kinds of medicines and stuff the
52:58
number of one cause of bankruptcy in this country is oncology drugs that uh
53:04
patients can’t afford so I’d hate to see it go that way because I do think there is benefit but again you know time will
53:12
tell unfortunately or fortunately depending on how you look at some of these companies are basically become
53:17
patent trolls oh yeah so I’ve got 400 patents out there from the color the lights in the room to the color of the
53:24
carpet things like that that are kind of blocking techniques sure uh I understand
53:29
certainly the need to have IP around investment for protection’s sake but at a certain point it’s a little kind of
53:36
out of control too right well thank you for the time Jim yeah thank you hello I’ll ask one and I’ll get what my
53:43
partner asked the final one but you you went to Woodstock what was your favorite band
53:48
I think it was Joe Cocker oh how cool that must have been I mean that was quite a performance uh was that the
53:54
afternoon of eating the green acid like was that that evening like where was that in there thank you let me explain
54:00
some events rolling backwards I’m 73 is now 1968. I don’t have a clue anymore
54:07
quite honestly yeah but uh I had a heck of an interesting time it was obviously
54:13
a unique time in America a unique time I think in our culture and I think in a lot of ways some of the stuff we’re
54:19
talking about does have a lot of cultural oh involvement as well in terms of yeah
54:25
yes sir yeah so we always ask every guest at the end and I bet you have some doozies of answers here non-familial and
54:34
I would I would invite almost uh we could add as a category hallucinogenic
54:39
if we wanted to open those doors but the best day of your life best day of my
54:47
life without Fame no family stuff though right yeah yeah I can’t say I’m married because everybody knows you know that
54:52
that would be one yeah yeah I like getting laid but uh
55:00
let me think about it that’s a first but yeah um
55:06
golly I’m gonna have to reflect now which is you know the best day of my life uh it
55:15
doesn’t always just kind of I think it was probably when I realized that I had
55:20
passed an exam and I was actually going to actually become a pharmacist because I had failed that same course year
55:26
before but uh uh who knows uh I’ve got so many good days in my life honestly I
55:32
feel I’m like one of the Happy Blessed people on the planet and trying to pick out the best without familial kinds of
55:40
issues and stuff like that which are always you know very memorable and good but yeah yeah
55:48
you kind of answered that’s yeah that’s great passing that test for sure yeah I want to thank uh Wayne westfail and
55:55
Nancy Westfield who I call Mom for introducing me to you years ago so thank you Mom and Wayne thank you cap Tech
56:02
spanking Mike Thomas this last show you’ll probably cut us off when this is aired but we’ve enjoyed this gym this
56:07
has been very educational thank you very much cap tax Bank must be into appropriate investors I was going to
56:14
invest in anything today I’d take a look at one of the only two local banks here in Fort Worth so if you want to talk and
56:21
the guy will call you back middle of the night if you have a problem we’ve tested it but we’re not suggesting any Investments we’re not SEC regulated so
56:28
please yeah I didn’t disclose any company
56:37
enjoyed it [Music]
56:48
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