November 19, 2018 • 23 mins
In episode three of Prognosis, Kristen V. Brown and Sarah McBride take a trip to Burning Man. They're there to follow Rick Doblin, who has become something of a folk hero for those who believe MDMA—Ecstasy—could be a viable clinical treatment for things like PTSD. But to help push an illegal drug into the mainstream, it takes lots of cash. And to find money for an unconventional treatment, what better place than Burning Man?
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
America's public enemy Number one in the United States is
drug abuse. In order to fight and defeat this enemy,
it is necessary to wage a new all out of mention.
What if the cure for a lifetime of PTSD is
really just a party drug from the nineteen eighties. Welcome
(00:22):
to Prognosis, a podcast about health, medical technology, and the
mind blowing innovation now under way in some of the
least expected places. I'm your host, Michelle fay Cortes. Today
we're taking a look at where illegal drugs need cutting
edge therapy. Psychedelic drugs weren't always taboo. In the fifties
(00:43):
and sixties. The medical world was actually really excited about them.
Researchers studied LSD in psilocybin or magic mushrooms as a
way to treat conditions like depression and even addiction. Before
nineteen sixty five, more than a thousand studies involving psychedelics
were published. Many people thought they were breakthroughs, providing the
first hope for treating mental health conditions when little else worked.
(01:08):
But then psychedelics became the drug of choice for the
counterculture and the government cracked down. In Congress passed the
Controlled Substances Act, criminalizing the use of psychedelic drugs and
all that scientific research into their therapeutic potential. It ground
to a halt. In recent years, the rules are relaxed
(01:28):
a little. Both the Food and Drug Administration and the
Drug Enforcement Agency are again allowing researchers to conduct studies
on psychedelic drugs therapies. Some have been really promising, but
they don't come cheap. So how do you bank roll
a psychedelics revolution? A revolution that brings to mind Stoner's
in taid more than patients and hospital gowns. One man
(01:51):
thinks he knows here are Bloomberg's Christin Brown and Sarah
McBride to take you on a trip. A few weeks ago,
Sarah and I were cruising across the Nevada Desert in
a rented van on our way to Burning Man. We
(02:20):
weren't headed there on vacation. We were giving a ride
to Rick Doblin. He's the CEO of a nonprofit called
the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies. Most people just call
it MAPS. And Burning Man, of course, is the annual
party of the Nevada Desert. Thousands of people show up
at this dust Bowl each year to parade around in
(02:42):
crazy costumes, dance, enjoy the art, and yes, do drugs.
But the party scene wasn't the only thing bringing Rick
to Burning Man. Rick is a man on a mission
to legalize some of those drugs as medicines. But so
your goal is of intually not just medical decision of
qui well, this legalization of psychedelics in general and mainstreaming
(03:06):
of the opportunity for people they have healing experiences, spiritual
experiences right under medical or not necessarily under medical supervision,
under religious supervision, but also a fundamental human right to
explore your own consciousness. Rick is a champion for the
healing powers of drugs broadly known as psychedelics that includes LSD, mushrooms,
(03:27):
and depending on who you talk to, m D m
A also known as ecstasy. Like Michelle mentioned, those drugs
are all illegal. Rick is hoping that with persuasive enough
scientific research that will change. But nothing will change unless
studies show those drugs hold healing power, and paying for
those studies takes serious bank. That is what brings Rick
(03:50):
to Burning Man. People often describe Rick as this sort
of cheerleader for psychedelics. He was in full smooth mode
even before we arrived at the Burning Man gates. Everyone
knows him. On the way, he stopped at a rest
stop and bumped into lots of people who wanted to
(04:10):
catch up. He that was Floora Bellini, a spiritual adviser
to entrepreneurs. When we run into her, she is a
(04:30):
hot tip for Rick. She wants to introduce him to
some people who might have money for maps. She throws
out names like Guy la Liberte, who co founded Cirque
to Slay, and Garrett camp, Uber's co founder. She and
Rick agreed to try to reconnect when they got to
the Playa. That's what the regulars like to call Burning Man.
But first we have to get in and ask people
(04:53):
who have never been burning roll around dirt. Oh let's
not tell them we've never been them because I don't
and they asked us. We'll just let you talk. Yeah,
I see someone rolling around in the dirt right now? Yeah?
Why are they? Why is it like a hazing thing? Yeah,
I'm not, Yes, I have refused. A few minutes later,
(05:17):
I had changed my tune burns. Actually, this is my
first Are you going to make me roll around in
the dirt? Hey? Okay, I'll get off all right. I
was looking it on the way now wearing my weights.
(05:40):
That was me coming to grips with my new burning
man milia. That's something Rick is pretty good at. He
just adapts to whatever environment he's in, and it makes
him a great fundraiser, perfect because mainstreaming psychedelics is massively pricey.
Rick's biggest challenge right now is getting the green light
from the Food and Drug Administration. He's just kicked off
(06:03):
the final stage of that approval process, what's known as
Phase three clinical trials. That means hundreds of people are
testing a drug under close medical supervision. Rick chose's focus
carefully people with post traumatic stress disorder like veterans, so
a hundred people with PTSD will get treated with either
m d m A or placebo, and doctors will monitor
(06:24):
their progress closely. Those Phase three tests alone costs twenty
six million dollars, and a nonprofit bringing a drug to
market is rare. The only other one was Are You
four eight six, an abortion drug approved in two thousand.
It was also controversial. That brings us back to why
Rick is something of a folk hero in certain circles,
especially among people who hope psychedelics will one day win
(06:47):
wide acceptance, and not just for PTSD treatment. And if
you need money for something controversial, we're better to look
for it than a burning Man. Burning Man has become
a beacon for rich technorati. After all, tickets alone cost
as much as dollars. Rick was already a long time
(07:10):
Burner when he saw the potential wealthy tech people were coming.
More and more people were coming from tech from the
Bay Area. UM, it was a great opportunity to hang
out and talk to people. So Rick doesn't hit people
up for cash right at Burning Man. He gets to
know them and when it's all over, then he asks
them to donate to MAPS, his nonprofit. Many of his
(07:32):
big donors are people he's met at Burning Man, or
they're connected to people he's met there. The festival has
become such an important place to cultivate donors. He listed
in the MAPS annual report. His entire board of directors
goes to Burning Man. That's six out of six. One
guy on his board, David Brauner, runs the soap company
(07:53):
Dr Brauner's. David also hosts a camp at Burning Man
and sets aside an air conditioned crash pad there for
Rick not that Rick sleeps much a burning Man. He's
much too busy schmoozing. Rick has some pretty surprising donors.
Richard Rockefeller, a great grandson of the famous oil baron,
(08:14):
gave him money. Joby Pritzker, from the Chicago family behind
Hyatt Hotels, sits on his board. Rebecca Mercer, the Trump megabacker,
gave Maps a million dollars earlier this year. And a
chunk of Rick's cash even comes from an air to
the Precious Moments figurines, you know, those little porcelain Chaska's.
(08:34):
But more and more he wants to tap into the
set of young millionaires and billionaires that Silicon Valley is minting.
Sometimes that calls for discretion. I asked him if there
was anyone in particular on his ongoing wish list, anyone
he's trying to bring on board to donate to Maps.
Are there some that you have your eye on that
you think you just cultivate them a little bit more,
(08:58):
perhaps they'll support maps finance chime. Yeah, and would we
know some of their names? But I don't. I don't
think visiting them will. Hell. Burning Man doesn't deliver just
on the money front. Rick gets to know a lot
(09:19):
of people on the research side too. Tons of scientists
had to burning Man. One afternoon, I went to a
talk on the neuroscience of psychedelics. It was given by
a researcher at the University of California, Berkeley, and it
was packed. Rick taps into that burning Man community to
help a lot of movers and shakers in the field
(09:40):
connect with each other. For example, one night, we were
riding across the playa on a two story tall brass
dragon art car. That's when Rick finally got the chance
to introduce two key players in the movement, the Dutch
military's head psychiatrist and a doctor from Arizona. Oh God,
there is right there yet, Eric, I was great. I
(10:01):
felt that I need to say, h oh, thank you.
I mean, that's fine. To be clear. That's a high
ranking doctor from the Dutch government on a work trip
to burning Man. The night before, he told us he
had gotten stranded on the far end of the play
at and watched the sun rise. When he wasn't riding
(10:22):
around on the art car, Rick was baking around looking
for big wigs who could help his cause. He never
quite reconnected with his friend Floor, the one who promised
introductions to the Cirque des founder and the Ubert co founder.
We know because we spent a whole night biking around
the Plia with Rick looking for them. He struck out
at one party where he was hoping to run into
(10:44):
Sergey Brenn, the Google co founder, He wasn't there. Instead,
Rick got to talk with Grover Norquist, the anti tax crusader,
for around twenty minutes. He also hubbed up with Darren Aronofsky,
the director of the movie Black Swan. Rick strategy is
to kind of just go with the flow and hope
that the chaos of Burning Man delivers him to someone
(11:06):
with deep pockets and an interest in psychedelic drugs. This
particularly here. You know, I don't have a list of
people that I know where they're camping and I want
to go see them. So that's how you've approached in
the past. Yeah, sometimes I have that set up. This year,
I don't. So this year is more like serendipity. And
(11:26):
we thought he'd be upset by all the missed connections,
but Rick always focuses on the positive, even when he
just missed the co founder of Circus by a few minutes.
He says it's fate, he'll have another opportunity for that introduction. Instead,
he relishes the small victories, like getting part of his
organization listed on a flyer each visitor receives when they
(11:48):
arrive at Burning Man. Oh my god, Oh wow, that's awesome.
Oh wonderful is eight? That was just after we'd rolled
into Burning Man. The flyer mentioned the Zendo Project, part
of maps that helps people on bad trips at festivals.
(12:09):
It was listed up high on the flyer above the fold.
This is about the information. This is so good. This
is the kind of thing that you're gonna want to
keep with you. The guy's enthusiastic a hundred percent in
that came through the first time we met Rick at
a conference in San Francisco, he asked us if we
minded doing our interview while he picked up a little weed.
(12:32):
Rick lives in Massachusetts, where apparently the selection just isn't
as good. He asked the saleswoman at the dispensary for
the pottiest pot, and then he showed us how he
planned to sneak his two hundred and twenty nine dollars
worth of lemon tie test airport security when he flew
back east Later that night. Really, Rick's entire adult life
(12:55):
has been intertwined with the legal status of psychedelic drugs. Well,
the first time that I ever tried psychedelics was at college,
and it was in my freshman year of college, and
it was LSD, and I was profoundly impacted by the
(13:21):
sort of flow of thoughts and feelings. This was in
the early nineteen seventies. M d m A wasn't yet
part of the college drug scene, but LSD and mushrooms were.
By the nine eighties, m DMA became more popular. Rick
was thinking he wanted to become a therapist and use
m d m A to heal people. But then m
(13:43):
DMA became illegal to so Rick, who was thirty but
still working on his undergrad degree, sued the government. He lost,
but found his lifelong calling. Rick realized that bringing m
d m A back was going to be a political battle,
so years after starting MAPS, he ended up getting a
PhD from Harvard in public policy, not psychology. He toiled
(14:07):
in obscurity for decades, but finally his cause has gained traction.
Lots of scientists are studying m d m A and PTSD,
some of them get funding for MAPS in one especially
compelling study published this year, twenty six veterans and first
responders with PTSD got therapy along with m d m A.
(14:28):
After just two sessions, they no longer met the medical
definition of PTSD. So we think one is when it
will become m d m A sisted psychotherapy will be
a legal treatment available by prescription, So that's roughly three
years from now. But that's not just Rick's opinion. Here's
Gooul Dolan, a neuroscientist at Johns Hopkins University who studies
(14:52):
psychedelic drugs. The clinical trials of m d m A
for PTSD are remarkable and the responses are like nothing
we've ever seen before, right, I mean, fs arise don't
work out well, therapy doesn't work out well. You know,
no ner a psychiatric drugs basically has those has had
(15:14):
those kinds of responses. Gool's most recent study was kind
of amazing, and it grabbed a nice big headline in
the New York Times. Her researchers gave m DUMA to octopuses,
which are usually really kind of owners, and octopus has
basically started hugging each other, or, as Gool put it,
they definitely become more pro social on m d M A.
(15:35):
A lot of Gool's research, like the Octopus study, focuses
on figuring out how psychedelics work. There's a lot we
don't know, but it seems that the real power of
the drugs is putting people in a state of mind
where they're more receptive to things like suggestion or empathy.
In a sense, what the drugs really do is help
people heal themselves. That's one of the things that makes
(15:57):
them tricky drugs for pharmaceutical companies to pursue. Most of
the research surrounding psychedelics involves using them to make typical
talk therapy more effective, rather than using them on their own.
Not to mention then, in studies, the drugs seemed to
do their job after only a few doses, rather than
a potential lifetime income stream of a prescription pill, and
(16:18):
patents have expired on M d M A, so it
wouldn't really make them much money anyway, but researchers are
still making incredible discoveries. Johns Hopkins is a major hub
of psychedelic research. Back they did a small pilot study
of smokers after going through one psychedelic session. A whopping
(16:40):
eight of the volunteers had kicked their habits. Six months later,
after a year, sixty seven were still non smokers, and
it could also help alcoholics. When Gul was a medical school,
she spent some time staying why AA meetings are effective.
Her research has suggested psychedelics might make them work even better.
(17:01):
You know, I think you could make a case that
if you gave M D M a at um, you know,
one of these these alcoholics anonymous meetings instead of coffee
and cigarette that, you know, the efficacy of those interventions
might be bigger. The space has really grown in recent years.
(17:23):
Another nonprofit, the U. S Oona Institute, will soon sponsor
its own trials for psilocybin, and there is at least
one corporate venture in the space, Compass Pathways. They're planning
their own Phase three trials in Europe and North America
for treatment resistant depression. Cool thinks that funders and regulators
are becoming more open minded to a future of psychedelic
medicines because so many of the medicines that we have
(17:45):
today aren't really working. I mean, I can imagine all
kinds of scenarios that you might want to use. This
from Rick's point of view, PTSD is the best scenario
for winning the approval of regulators in the public too.
Both of the drugs that proved to treat it, Paxel
(18:07):
and zolof are considered pretty ineffective, but studies show that
m d M A is very effective. Once MAPS paves
the way for m d M as medicine, Rick thinks
it will be easier to legalize psychedelics all out. The
PTSD trials will take at least three years, but access
(18:29):
could come even sooner under what's known as compassionate use programs,
in which patients can gain access to experimental therapies before
trials are complete. Therapists we talked to you said the
results can be really amazing. One therapist who worked on
MAPS earlier trials said that m DMA helped heal a
woman with PTSD who had previously gone to more than
(18:49):
fifteen hundred therapy sessions for now. People sometimes seek out
treatment outside mainstream medicine among a network of underground psychedelic therapists.
Some of that even goes on at Burning Man. Rick
spent much of his last few days there counseling a
veteran suffering from PTSD. Rick could tell the man needed help.
(19:10):
It was somebody that seemed on the verge of, you know,
massive mental breakdown. Was was in a massive mental breakdown
when we met, crying and talking about how there was
no point. Nothing else had worked PTSD for decades. You know.
It was just such a powerful appeal for help. And
(19:31):
the fact that it was both a veteran and a
retired police officer. The same person who had been a
veteran and also a police officer now was retired. It
just made me think that this is the ideal kind
of person we're trying to show. If we're trying to
mainstream psychedelics. You know, what's more mainstream than a veteran
and a police officer. Along with the counseling, Rick treated
(19:52):
the vet with m d m A. This wasn't the
full treatment that MAPS is undertaking and its Phase three trials.
The Phase three treatments are our of therapy with three
M d m A sessions one month apart, but Rick
gave the flavor of it. It was very inspiring because
there was a point where this person was able to
breathe more fully than in many, many years. It started
(20:15):
a process that I think provided hope, you know, it's
not again a one dosed miracle cure, but to see
someone start in a puddle of tears and feeling like
all the options had been exhausted and there was no
reason to live anymore. To having hope and interest in
(20:36):
another um therapy sessions was profoundly inspiring. And also the
fact that it was someone who had been a police
officer for fifteen years and before that, veteran in the
Navy for a very long time. Rick says the vet
is doing better and looking into getting more therapy. In
one sense, legalizing m DMA for medical youth or otherwise
(21:00):
would just be a recognition of something that is already true.
Medicine isn't something that just treats illness. I think it's
very difficult to figure out which uses count as medical
and which uses don't. Uh, and it's become more and
more difficult as medicine itself has become more consumer oriented.
(21:22):
That's Matt Lambkin, a law professor at the University of Tulsa.
Lamb Can points out that while the approval and regulation
of a drug often hinges on it having medical purpose,
we also prescribe a lot of drugs to people without
any medical condition at all. So what do we mean
by a medical use um. It's intuitively appealing to think, well,
(21:44):
what we mean is treating some kind of illness, But
if you take just a second to think about it,
medicine does lots and lots of things besides just treating illnesses,
and always has right contraception, abortion, the are medical interventions
that are usually not provided to treat any illness. Lambkin
(22:06):
can also see a future not too far away where
m d m A is illegal medicine. So a lot
of things that seemed unlikely to me a while ago
with respected drug policy. UM I mean, I never imagined
that we would be where we are today in terms
of uh marijuana across the States. It was sort of
inconceivable twenty years ago. The FDA does have a track
(22:28):
record of following the science wherever it goes. That means
that m d m A could soon be widely prescribed.
One thing that could easily get in the way of that, though,
is money to keep pushing the science forward. Rick knows
he has an uphill battle ahead, but for him that's
no obstacle. I've had to really learn how to be
(22:49):
happy with trying rather than succeeding. And that's it for
(23:11):
this week's prognosis. Thanks for listening. Do you have a
story about healthcare in the US or around the world.
We want to hear from you. You can email me
at m Cortes at Bloomberg dot net or find me
on Twitter at Fay Cortes. If you were a fan
of this episode, please take a minute to rate and
review us. It helps new listeners find the show. This
(23:34):
episode was produced by Lindsay Cradowell. The story editor was
Mark Chauffit. Thanks also to Drew Armstrong and Liz Smith.
Francesco leviashead of Bloomberg Podcasts. We'll see you next week.
America's public enemy Number one in the United States is
drug abuse. In order to fight and defeat this enemy,
it is necessary to wage a new all out of mention.
What if the cure for a lifetime of PTSD is
really just a party drug from the nineteen eighties. Welcome
(00:22):
to Prognosis, a podcast about health, medical technology, and the
mind blowing innovation now under way in some of the
least expected places. I'm your host, Michelle fay Cortes. Today
we're taking a look at where illegal drugs need cutting
edge therapy. Psychedelic drugs weren't always taboo. In the fifties
(00:43):
and sixties. The medical world was actually really excited about them.
Researchers studied LSD in psilocybin or magic mushrooms as a
way to treat conditions like depression and even addiction. Before
nineteen sixty five, more than a thousand studies involving psychedelics
were published. Many people thought they were breakthroughs, providing the
first hope for treating mental health conditions when little else worked.
(01:08):
But then psychedelics became the drug of choice for the
counterculture and the government cracked down. In Congress passed the
Controlled Substances Act, criminalizing the use of psychedelic drugs and
all that scientific research into their therapeutic potential. It ground
to a halt. In recent years, the rules are relaxed
(01:28):
a little. Both the Food and Drug Administration and the
Drug Enforcement Agency are again allowing researchers to conduct studies
on psychedelic drugs therapies. Some have been really promising, but
they don't come cheap. So how do you bank roll
a psychedelics revolution? A revolution that brings to mind Stoner's
in taid more than patients and hospital gowns. One man
(01:51):
thinks he knows here are Bloomberg's Christin Brown and Sarah
McBride to take you on a trip. A few weeks ago,
Sarah and I were cruising across the Nevada Desert in
a rented van on our way to Burning Man. We
(02:20):
weren't headed there on vacation. We were giving a ride
to Rick Doblin. He's the CEO of a nonprofit called
the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies. Most people just call
it MAPS. And Burning Man, of course, is the annual
party of the Nevada Desert. Thousands of people show up
at this dust Bowl each year to parade around in
(02:42):
crazy costumes, dance, enjoy the art, and yes, do drugs.
But the party scene wasn't the only thing bringing Rick
to Burning Man. Rick is a man on a mission
to legalize some of those drugs as medicines. But so
your goal is of intually not just medical decision of
qui well, this legalization of psychedelics in general and mainstreaming
(03:06):
of the opportunity for people they have healing experiences, spiritual
experiences right under medical or not necessarily under medical supervision,
under religious supervision, but also a fundamental human right to
explore your own consciousness. Rick is a champion for the
healing powers of drugs broadly known as psychedelics that includes LSD, mushrooms,
(03:27):
and depending on who you talk to, m D m
A also known as ecstasy. Like Michelle mentioned, those drugs
are all illegal. Rick is hoping that with persuasive enough
scientific research that will change. But nothing will change unless
studies show those drugs hold healing power, and paying for
those studies takes serious bank. That is what brings Rick
(03:50):
to Burning Man. People often describe Rick as this sort
of cheerleader for psychedelics. He was in full smooth mode
even before we arrived at the Burning Man gates. Everyone
knows him. On the way, he stopped at a rest
stop and bumped into lots of people who wanted to
(04:10):
catch up. He that was Floora Bellini, a spiritual adviser
to entrepreneurs. When we run into her, she is a
(04:30):
hot tip for Rick. She wants to introduce him to
some people who might have money for maps. She throws
out names like Guy la Liberte, who co founded Cirque
to Slay, and Garrett camp, Uber's co founder. She and
Rick agreed to try to reconnect when they got to
the Playa. That's what the regulars like to call Burning Man.
But first we have to get in and ask people
(04:53):
who have never been burning roll around dirt. Oh let's
not tell them we've never been them because I don't
and they asked us. We'll just let you talk. Yeah,
I see someone rolling around in the dirt right now? Yeah?
Why are they? Why is it like a hazing thing? Yeah,
I'm not, Yes, I have refused. A few minutes later,
(05:17):
I had changed my tune burns. Actually, this is my
first Are you going to make me roll around in
the dirt? Hey? Okay, I'll get off all right. I
was looking it on the way now wearing my weights.
(05:40):
That was me coming to grips with my new burning
man milia. That's something Rick is pretty good at. He
just adapts to whatever environment he's in, and it makes
him a great fundraiser, perfect because mainstreaming psychedelics is massively pricey.
Rick's biggest challenge right now is getting the green light
from the Food and Drug Administration. He's just kicked off
(06:03):
the final stage of that approval process, what's known as
Phase three clinical trials. That means hundreds of people are
testing a drug under close medical supervision. Rick chose's focus
carefully people with post traumatic stress disorder like veterans, so
a hundred people with PTSD will get treated with either
m d m A or placebo, and doctors will monitor
(06:24):
their progress closely. Those Phase three tests alone costs twenty
six million dollars, and a nonprofit bringing a drug to
market is rare. The only other one was Are You
four eight six, an abortion drug approved in two thousand.
It was also controversial. That brings us back to why
Rick is something of a folk hero in certain circles,
especially among people who hope psychedelics will one day win
(06:47):
wide acceptance, and not just for PTSD treatment. And if
you need money for something controversial, we're better to look
for it than a burning Man. Burning Man has become
a beacon for rich technorati. After all, tickets alone cost
as much as dollars. Rick was already a long time
(07:10):
Burner when he saw the potential wealthy tech people were coming.
More and more people were coming from tech from the
Bay Area. UM, it was a great opportunity to hang
out and talk to people. So Rick doesn't hit people
up for cash right at Burning Man. He gets to
know them and when it's all over, then he asks
them to donate to MAPS, his nonprofit. Many of his
(07:32):
big donors are people he's met at Burning Man, or
they're connected to people he's met there. The festival has
become such an important place to cultivate donors. He listed
in the MAPS annual report. His entire board of directors
goes to Burning Man. That's six out of six. One
guy on his board, David Brauner, runs the soap company
(07:53):
Dr Brauner's. David also hosts a camp at Burning Man
and sets aside an air conditioned crash pad there for
Rick not that Rick sleeps much a burning Man. He's
much too busy schmoozing. Rick has some pretty surprising donors.
Richard Rockefeller, a great grandson of the famous oil baron,
(08:14):
gave him money. Joby Pritzker, from the Chicago family behind
Hyatt Hotels, sits on his board. Rebecca Mercer, the Trump megabacker,
gave Maps a million dollars earlier this year. And a
chunk of Rick's cash even comes from an air to
the Precious Moments figurines, you know, those little porcelain Chaska's.
(08:34):
But more and more he wants to tap into the
set of young millionaires and billionaires that Silicon Valley is minting.
Sometimes that calls for discretion. I asked him if there
was anyone in particular on his ongoing wish list, anyone
he's trying to bring on board to donate to Maps.
Are there some that you have your eye on that
you think you just cultivate them a little bit more,
(08:58):
perhaps they'll support maps finance chime. Yeah, and would we
know some of their names? But I don't. I don't
think visiting them will. Hell. Burning Man doesn't deliver just
on the money front. Rick gets to know a lot
(09:19):
of people on the research side too. Tons of scientists
had to burning Man. One afternoon, I went to a
talk on the neuroscience of psychedelics. It was given by
a researcher at the University of California, Berkeley, and it
was packed. Rick taps into that burning Man community to
help a lot of movers and shakers in the field
(09:40):
connect with each other. For example, one night, we were
riding across the playa on a two story tall brass
dragon art car. That's when Rick finally got the chance
to introduce two key players in the movement, the Dutch
military's head psychiatrist and a doctor from Arizona. Oh God,
there is right there yet, Eric, I was great. I
(10:01):
felt that I need to say, h oh, thank you.
I mean, that's fine. To be clear. That's a high
ranking doctor from the Dutch government on a work trip
to burning Man. The night before, he told us he
had gotten stranded on the far end of the play
at and watched the sun rise. When he wasn't riding
(10:22):
around on the art car, Rick was baking around looking
for big wigs who could help his cause. He never
quite reconnected with his friend Floor, the one who promised
introductions to the Cirque des founder and the Ubert co founder.
We know because we spent a whole night biking around
the Plia with Rick looking for them. He struck out
at one party where he was hoping to run into
(10:44):
Sergey Brenn, the Google co founder, He wasn't there. Instead,
Rick got to talk with Grover Norquist, the anti tax crusader,
for around twenty minutes. He also hubbed up with Darren Aronofsky,
the director of the movie Black Swan. Rick strategy is
to kind of just go with the flow and hope
that the chaos of Burning Man delivers him to someone
(11:06):
with deep pockets and an interest in psychedelic drugs. This
particularly here. You know, I don't have a list of
people that I know where they're camping and I want
to go see them. So that's how you've approached in
the past. Yeah, sometimes I have that set up. This year,
I don't. So this year is more like serendipity. And
(11:26):
we thought he'd be upset by all the missed connections,
but Rick always focuses on the positive, even when he
just missed the co founder of Circus by a few minutes.
He says it's fate, he'll have another opportunity for that introduction. Instead,
he relishes the small victories, like getting part of his
organization listed on a flyer each visitor receives when they
(11:48):
arrive at Burning Man. Oh my god, Oh wow, that's awesome.
Oh wonderful is eight? That was just after we'd rolled
into Burning Man. The flyer mentioned the Zendo Project, part
of maps that helps people on bad trips at festivals.
(12:09):
It was listed up high on the flyer above the fold.
This is about the information. This is so good. This
is the kind of thing that you're gonna want to
keep with you. The guy's enthusiastic a hundred percent in
that came through the first time we met Rick at
a conference in San Francisco, he asked us if we
minded doing our interview while he picked up a little weed.
(12:32):
Rick lives in Massachusetts, where apparently the selection just isn't
as good. He asked the saleswoman at the dispensary for
the pottiest pot, and then he showed us how he
planned to sneak his two hundred and twenty nine dollars
worth of lemon tie test airport security when he flew
back east Later that night. Really, Rick's entire adult life
(12:55):
has been intertwined with the legal status of psychedelic drugs. Well,
the first time that I ever tried psychedelics was at college,
and it was in my freshman year of college, and
it was LSD, and I was profoundly impacted by the
(13:21):
sort of flow of thoughts and feelings. This was in
the early nineteen seventies. M d m A wasn't yet
part of the college drug scene, but LSD and mushrooms were.
By the nine eighties, m DMA became more popular. Rick
was thinking he wanted to become a therapist and use
m d m A to heal people. But then m
(13:43):
DMA became illegal to so Rick, who was thirty but
still working on his undergrad degree, sued the government. He lost,
but found his lifelong calling. Rick realized that bringing m
d m A back was going to be a political battle,
so years after starting MAPS, he ended up getting a
PhD from Harvard in public policy, not psychology. He toiled
(14:07):
in obscurity for decades, but finally his cause has gained traction.
Lots of scientists are studying m d m A and PTSD,
some of them get funding for MAPS in one especially
compelling study published this year, twenty six veterans and first
responders with PTSD got therapy along with m d m A.
(14:28):
After just two sessions, they no longer met the medical
definition of PTSD. So we think one is when it
will become m d m A sisted psychotherapy will be
a legal treatment available by prescription, So that's roughly three
years from now. But that's not just Rick's opinion. Here's
Gooul Dolan, a neuroscientist at Johns Hopkins University who studies
(14:52):
psychedelic drugs. The clinical trials of m d m A
for PTSD are remarkable and the responses are like nothing
we've ever seen before, right, I mean, fs arise don't
work out well, therapy doesn't work out well. You know,
no ner a psychiatric drugs basically has those has had
(15:14):
those kinds of responses. Gool's most recent study was kind
of amazing, and it grabbed a nice big headline in
the New York Times. Her researchers gave m DUMA to octopuses,
which are usually really kind of owners, and octopus has
basically started hugging each other, or, as Gool put it,
they definitely become more pro social on m d M A.
(15:35):
A lot of Gool's research, like the Octopus study, focuses
on figuring out how psychedelics work. There's a lot we
don't know, but it seems that the real power of
the drugs is putting people in a state of mind
where they're more receptive to things like suggestion or empathy.
In a sense, what the drugs really do is help
people heal themselves. That's one of the things that makes
(15:57):
them tricky drugs for pharmaceutical companies to pursue. Most of
the research surrounding psychedelics involves using them to make typical
talk therapy more effective, rather than using them on their own.
Not to mention then, in studies, the drugs seemed to
do their job after only a few doses, rather than
a potential lifetime income stream of a prescription pill, and
(16:18):
patents have expired on M d M A, so it
wouldn't really make them much money anyway, but researchers are
still making incredible discoveries. Johns Hopkins is a major hub
of psychedelic research. Back they did a small pilot study
of smokers after going through one psychedelic session. A whopping
(16:40):
eight of the volunteers had kicked their habits. Six months later,
after a year, sixty seven were still non smokers, and
it could also help alcoholics. When Gul was a medical school,
she spent some time staying why AA meetings are effective.
Her research has suggested psychedelics might make them work even better.
(17:01):
You know, I think you could make a case that
if you gave M D M a at um, you know,
one of these these alcoholics anonymous meetings instead of coffee
and cigarette that, you know, the efficacy of those interventions
might be bigger. The space has really grown in recent years.
(17:23):
Another nonprofit, the U. S Oona Institute, will soon sponsor
its own trials for psilocybin, and there is at least
one corporate venture in the space, Compass Pathways. They're planning
their own Phase three trials in Europe and North America
for treatment resistant depression. Cool thinks that funders and regulators
are becoming more open minded to a future of psychedelic
medicines because so many of the medicines that we have
(17:45):
today aren't really working. I mean, I can imagine all
kinds of scenarios that you might want to use. This
from Rick's point of view, PTSD is the best scenario
for winning the approval of regulators in the public too.
Both of the drugs that proved to treat it, Paxel
(18:07):
and zolof are considered pretty ineffective, but studies show that
m d M A is very effective. Once MAPS paves
the way for m d M as medicine, Rick thinks
it will be easier to legalize psychedelics all out. The
PTSD trials will take at least three years, but access
(18:29):
could come even sooner under what's known as compassionate use programs,
in which patients can gain access to experimental therapies before
trials are complete. Therapists we talked to you said the
results can be really amazing. One therapist who worked on
MAPS earlier trials said that m DMA helped heal a
woman with PTSD who had previously gone to more than
(18:49):
fifteen hundred therapy sessions for now. People sometimes seek out
treatment outside mainstream medicine among a network of underground psychedelic therapists.
Some of that even goes on at Burning Man. Rick
spent much of his last few days there counseling a
veteran suffering from PTSD. Rick could tell the man needed help.
(19:10):
It was somebody that seemed on the verge of, you know,
massive mental breakdown. Was was in a massive mental breakdown
when we met, crying and talking about how there was
no point. Nothing else had worked PTSD for decades. You know.
It was just such a powerful appeal for help. And
(19:31):
the fact that it was both a veteran and a
retired police officer. The same person who had been a
veteran and also a police officer now was retired. It
just made me think that this is the ideal kind
of person we're trying to show. If we're trying to
mainstream psychedelics. You know, what's more mainstream than a veteran
and a police officer. Along with the counseling, Rick treated
(19:52):
the vet with m d m A. This wasn't the
full treatment that MAPS is undertaking and its Phase three trials.
The Phase three treatments are our of therapy with three
M d m A sessions one month apart, but Rick
gave the flavor of it. It was very inspiring because
there was a point where this person was able to
breathe more fully than in many, many years. It started
(20:15):
a process that I think provided hope, you know, it's
not again a one dosed miracle cure, but to see
someone start in a puddle of tears and feeling like
all the options had been exhausted and there was no
reason to live anymore. To having hope and interest in
(20:36):
another um therapy sessions was profoundly inspiring. And also the
fact that it was someone who had been a police
officer for fifteen years and before that, veteran in the
Navy for a very long time. Rick says the vet
is doing better and looking into getting more therapy. In
one sense, legalizing m DMA for medical youth or otherwise
(21:00):
would just be a recognition of something that is already true.
Medicine isn't something that just treats illness. I think it's
very difficult to figure out which uses count as medical
and which uses don't. Uh, and it's become more and
more difficult as medicine itself has become more consumer oriented.
(21:22):
That's Matt Lambkin, a law professor at the University of Tulsa.
Lamb Can points out that while the approval and regulation
of a drug often hinges on it having medical purpose,
we also prescribe a lot of drugs to people without
any medical condition at all. So what do we mean
by a medical use um. It's intuitively appealing to think, well,
(21:44):
what we mean is treating some kind of illness, But
if you take just a second to think about it,
medicine does lots and lots of things besides just treating illnesses,
and always has right contraception, abortion, the are medical interventions
that are usually not provided to treat any illness. Lambkin
(22:06):
can also see a future not too far away where
m d m A is illegal medicine. So a lot
of things that seemed unlikely to me a while ago
with respected drug policy. UM I mean, I never imagined
that we would be where we are today in terms
of uh marijuana across the States. It was sort of
inconceivable twenty years ago. The FDA does have a track
(22:28):
record of following the science wherever it goes. That means
that m d m A could soon be widely prescribed.
One thing that could easily get in the way of that, though,
is money to keep pushing the science forward. Rick knows
he has an uphill battle ahead, but for him that's
no obstacle. I've had to really learn how to be
(22:49):
happy with trying rather than succeeding. And that's it for
(23:11):
this week's prognosis. Thanks for listening. Do you have a
story about healthcare in the US or around the world.
We want to hear from you. You can email me
at m Cortes at Bloomberg dot net or find me
on Twitter at Fay Cortes. If you were a fan
of this episode, please take a minute to rate and
review us. It helps new listeners find the show. This
(23:34):
episode was produced by Lindsay Cradowell. The story editor was
Mark Chauffit. Thanks also to Drew Armstrong and Liz Smith.
Francesco leviashead of Bloomberg Podcasts. We'll see you next week.
Host
Jason Gale
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