April 4, 2025 • 50 mins
Psychedelic whole plant medicines have been used for thousands of years, yet there is very little modern research surrounding them. Despite this, various plants have been used to heal and transform our mental states, and according to some beliefs, as a way to open the heart and spirit, and even treat mental and physical illnesses. In this episode, Dr. Dave Rabin is sitting down with Stephanie Wang, CEO of KA! Empathogenics, to explore the history, uses, and potential mental health benefits of Kanna. Kanna is a fully legal and biochemically fascinating plant originating in South Africa. Together, they discuss the potential to enhance resilience, elevate mood, and promote emotional healing. How does it compare to MDMA? What can we learn from traditional plant wisdom? Join us as we dive into the evolving science and culture of psychedelics, revealing new pathways to well-being.
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/stephaniewang5d
- Web: https://kaempathogenics.com/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/DrDavidRabin
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/drdavidrabin
- Web: https://www.drdave.io/
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
The Psychedelic Reports.
Speaker 2 (00:03):
Psychedelic drugs have played their part in America's long strange
trip toward an understanding of mind.
Speaker 3 (00:09):
All during drugs The Psychedelic News.
Speaker 1 (00:11):
Leading physicians, scientists, and experts share their wisdom about psychedelic
medicines and healing.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
Fifty years ago, psychedelic drugs were at the center of
America's counterculture. The brightest minds in psychedelic medicine the Psychedelic Report.
We use the kedemy assisted psychotherapy model that happens to
have psychedelic effects that were not predicted when the drug
was first developed. From researchers to investors.
Speaker 3 (00:35):
I think the biggest mistake we pat as the culture
is the war of drugs.
Speaker 2 (00:38):
So physicians to shamans and non private pioneers psychedelic drugs.
Speaker 3 (00:43):
Recent research suggests some of them could have legitimate uses.
Speaker 2 (00:47):
The Psychedelic Needs bring you diverse perspectives from the front
lines of this exciting movement, The Psychedelic Report. The Psychedelic
Report was brought to you by Apoll Neuroscience and produced
by Future Medicine Media. Welcome to the Psychedelic Report, your
single source of truth for the Psychedelic News.
Speaker 1 (01:11):
I'm your host, doctor Dave Raven.
Speaker 2 (01:14):
I'm a neuroscientist and psychiatrist trained in ketemine assisted psychotherapy
as well as MBMA assisted therapy. Hello, and welcome back
to the Psychedelic Report. I'm your host, doctor Dave Raven.
Today we returned to a conversation around whole plant medicine.
For nearly one hundred years, there has been a fierce
(01:34):
debate in the scientific community about which is more beneficial
an isolated compound or the whole plant formulation that exists
in nature, or are they the same. The FDA has
firmly taken the approach of single molecule medicine, focusing on
isolating a single molecule and providing efficacy for that molecule,
(01:55):
with virtually no infrastructure to support FDA clearance of whole
plant drug formulations. In fact, to my knowledge, there are
no FDA cleared whole plant formulation drugs.
Speaker 1 (02:06):
Available to date.
Speaker 2 (02:07):
However, whole plant medicine has a lot of perceived advantages
to the single molecule medicine approach, notably the entourage effect,
which is the effect of having the hundreds of other
plant alkaloids that exist in nature and natural extracts of
the plant included in the medicine have some evidence to
(02:28):
support that the inclusion of these additional alkaloids and plant
molecules decrease side effects, decrease tolerance, and improve overall treatment
responses to the medicine. A study published in the Nature
Journal Molecular Psychiatry in February twenty twenty four by Or
Shahar and team from Hebrew University in Jerusalem, entitled effect
(02:50):
of chemically synthesized psilocybin and psychedelic mushroom extract on molecular
and metabolic profiles in mouse brain has demonstrated the benefits
of this entourage effect in a mouse model. Their study
demonstrated that whole plant extract from psilocybin mushrooms was significantly
more effective than synthetic psilocybin alone at promoting and prolonging
(03:13):
markers of synaptic plasticity otherwise known as how the brain
learns and forms new networks, and reducing markers of oxidative
stress in the brain. This is particularly interesting given the
rise of synthetic zill cybin use in clinical trials around
the world. For starters, whole sell cybin mushrooms are much
(03:34):
cheaper and simpler to produce and scale to treat mental
illness than synthetic psilocybin, which requires a substantial pharmaceutical laboratory operation.
Studies like this have wide reaching impact on the way
we think about future clinical trials of psilocybin and what
the best way to use psilocybin and psilocybin containing plants
(03:57):
for treatment of mental illness is like depression. Furthermore, there
are now many whole plant medicines commercially available, with more
on the way, including Kana, a natural empathogen with psychological
effects described as similar to MDMA. However, unlike MDMA, Kana
is fully legal and available for purchase in any state
(04:17):
at a reasonable price, accessible to most consumers. To discuss
this with me today is Stephanie Wang. Stephanie is passionate
about the power of plant and conscious transformation. She's the
founder and CEO of KA Empathogenics, with a mission to
restore full spectrum aliveness for all beings. KA offers one
hundred percent plant based and pathogenic supplements featuring Kana, a
(04:40):
heart opening succulent from South Africa that is clinically proven
to activate an immediate sense of grounded energy, helping people
feel more alive, capable, and connected as they navigate everyday stress. Previously,
Stephanie was the president of the Alchemists Kitchen and director
of Evolver Holding's Corp, a conscious lifestyle company. A native
(05:03):
of Hong Kong, Stephanie began her career in corporate finance
on Wall Street and was a number one ranked equity
analyst in the retail sector with HSBC Securities. Now, she
devotes her life to making safe, whole plant medicine more
available to the world. Stephanie, thank you so much for
taking the time to join me today. It's such a
pleasure to have you.
Speaker 3 (05:23):
I'm so excited and honored to be here. Doctor Dave.
Speaker 2 (05:25):
Well, we've been talking about your product together and talking
about your your work in the plant medicine space for
quite a while and how to bring plant medicine to
the community at large in.
Speaker 1 (05:40):
A bigger way. And I love the work you're.
Speaker 2 (05:42):
Doing and would love to maybe start out with you
telling us a little bit about yourself and how you
got into the space.
Speaker 3 (05:49):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (05:49):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (05:50):
So I've always been super passionate about personal transformation, health
and wellness, but especially you know, raising consciousness in the world,
and you know, was looking for ways to do that
in a practical sense right in my profession. And about
twelve years ago is the first time. And I did
a lot of sort of healing work before that, I
(06:13):
explored a lot of different modalities, and twelve years ago
is the first time I ever experienced any kind of
plant medicine. And in this case, you know, my first
ceremony was not sort of the usual psilocybin or ayahuasca,
was actually with kana and it was an incredible experience.
I had honestly never felt such a sense of profound acceptance,
(06:35):
belonging in love and just being there. It was impossible
to have a negative thought, and yet I was totally
in my body. It was not a psychedelic experience, however,
it was very much a psychoactive experience. And so even
though like I would still say that there was a
nondual consciousness happening, because it's just a perception in a
(06:57):
different way. And it's interesting because from a shnomonic standpoint,
when people talk about conu, which just skilleting towards to osim,
they call it heart medicine because unlike let's say, I
ask yourself sabin, which is spirit medicine and takes you
out of the body. Conna really brings you back into
the body through the heart, So it makes you actually
super present to what you're feeling, to emotions maybe you're suppressing,
(07:21):
but also really opening your heart because it is an
empathogen and helping you connect with you know, nature, with yourself,
with everyone around you. And that was such a profound
experience that it really inspired me. I knew at that
moment that I was like, Okay, how do I bring
this to more people outside of ceremony, right, how do I,
you know, make it accessible? And I think what's a
(07:45):
really great aspect of conna is that it's legal. It's
a legal mpathogen, and yet it is totally psychedelic adjacent.
It is definitely something that is incredibly powerful as a
healing tool to journ with and also to take as
a daily supplement. So what I discovered after that experience,
(08:07):
which is really profound and spiritual, was I started to
really do the research on what this plant actually does
to the body, to our brains right and the rest
of the body. And it was incredible because from that
I realized, my God, this is a natural serotonin reuptake
inhibitor and a serotonin releasing agent, and it also activates
(08:30):
receptors for GABA, for opioids, for colostokinin, for melotonin. So
it has this almost surprisingly, almost unbelievable way of how
it works with the body because it has thirty five
known alkaloids, of which only three have been really deeply studied,
and it has this ability to calm stress, lift mood,
(08:51):
provides sort of sustained ground and energy, and also be
a beautiful heart opener as well as supports deep and
focus and also endurance. So you know, all of that
was incredible, and I also learned a lot about the
history of Kano and Kana is a succulent plant that
comes from South Africa and it's been used by the
(09:15):
indigenous people there, the pushman and the koi for thousands
of years, so there's a long history of human use
and how we collaborate with this plant. And they would
take it when they went on multi day hunts because
of its ability to help them stay common focused and
also provide them like you know, help improve the stamina
and also endurance. So it's just it's just a fascinating
(09:36):
plant that the more I learned about it, the more
excited I was about bringing into the world.
Speaker 1 (09:42):
That's great to hear.
Speaker 2 (09:43):
And I actually didn't know that much about Conna before
we met, and I'd love to dive deeper into it
for our audience. What was the name the biological name
of ConA again that you.
Speaker 3 (09:51):
Said, Letium tortuosum.
Speaker 2 (09:53):
Leting tortuosi, stilytium like skeleton, oh, stlytium.
Speaker 3 (09:59):
With a C C L E T I U M.
And you know when you look at the plant, you
will see that in and by the way it grows
in Southern Africa and Namibia and it literally has you know,
during certain times of the year, looks like it looks skeletal.
Looks skeletal, right, it looks like it's just dried up.
But actually the way the environmental stresses work with this
(10:23):
plant is the more it's stressed, actually, the more potent
the plant becomes, the more alkaloids it produces. So it's
really interesting. It's an interesting analogy to how this plant
supports us in our and building resilience to stress. And
it's beautiful because it's also an adaptogen. Kana is adaptogenic,
(10:43):
so it's not toxic. To the body. You can take
it consistently, and it has this ability to regulate the
nervous system over time to help us build resilience emotional
and mental.
Speaker 2 (10:54):
It's interesting there's also seems to be a very highly
dose dependent.
Speaker 1 (10:58):
Effect where you can have these you know, when you
take it daily.
Speaker 2 (11:02):
At lower doses, you can have more gentle experiences that
you know, where you're highly present and functional within your
day to day life, and then you can have these tremendous, bigger,
heart opening experiences in ceremony that are much more significant
in the moment, it seems, and we see that also
with some other psychedelic medicines, and I think it's interesting
(11:25):
to and plant medicines in particular. I think it's interesting
too that you did not refer to your first experience
in ceremony was kind of psychedelic, because part of the
way we think about the word psychedelic on this show,
and kind of the way we're reframing psychedelic experiences for
the community so that they can understand better, is that
(11:48):
psychedelic medicines and the word psychedelic really means to reveal
the mind. And so I think that from hearing about
your experience with this plant in ceremony, your first variance
that kind of inspired you to take this plant and
then bring it to the world in a safe way
and educate the world about the world at large about
(12:09):
this plant and its origins and how it can be
used to improve health and well being and particularly you know,
mental health and self connection and that kind of thing.
I would say that there was a lot revealed to
you from that experience that makes kind of, you know,
fully psychedelic in the way that you're learning about yourself.
And then we're able to take information that you learned
(12:32):
out of ceremony and back into the world, which is
really fascinating. And yet in the world, the modern science
world and the way we think about other psychedelic agents,
you know, like MDMA for instances, often considered a non
psychedelic psychedelic, but of course it also people who take
MDMA have similar experiences when they take it at peak doses,
(12:54):
feeling very very present, very heart opening, and very much
able to access different parts of themselves that they bring
back to the world. And it reminds me of just
because of the timing in terms of how we think
about psychedelics and how that term is evolving.
Speaker 1 (13:12):
I just saw a I.
Speaker 2 (13:14):
Think it was Albert Hoffman's anniversary of Albert Hoffin's birthday recently,
the scientist Swiss scientists who discovered LSD early twentieth century,
and one of the quotes that I saw of him
in an interview talking about his first experiences with LSD
was he described it in the exact same way that
you just described kana, which was this extremely potent that
(13:37):
we know of. You know, LSD as one of the
most potent psychedelic agents and one of the first modern
psychedelic agents to ever be discovered. And one of the
first things that he described when he talks about his
experience is the heart opening nature of it, feeling, you know,
extraordinarily connected to himself and the world around him in
ways that he did not feel before, and just the
(14:00):
expansiveness of.
Speaker 1 (14:01):
That connection in and of itself.
Speaker 2 (14:03):
And then everything else about the psychedelic experiences I'll see
kind of a secondary in his report, But the first
things that he talked about were the same first things
you talked about with kanda and ceremony, and so I
just find that really fascinating that these plants like kana
have been used for so many centuries and generations to
naturally induce some of these states, and that we often
(14:26):
in our society don't think about them as psychedelic, whereas
you know, in a lot of for all intensive purposes,
they are fully in that way because they're changing our mindset.
Speaker 3 (14:37):
Wow. Wow, you know, I love that the way that
you framed it, you know, and the word psychedelic to be,
you know, revealing the mind because absolutely, I mean by
that definition, for sure, kinda is psychedelic. And I really
like framing it that way because it's not so much
focused on the compounds or what it's doing necessarily as
much as how it's actually benefiting us, right, And that's
(15:00):
the point otherwise why I mean you, I mean, I
guess people can do cyclics for entertainment, but I feel
like then they're missing a big part of what's there
for us to discover and to help us heal and thrive.
I mean, you're a MDM amazing expert, you know, so
I actually wonder, like have you know, because people have
(15:20):
compared of course Conna as Nature's MDMA, and you see
that meme going around a lot, and I always like
to distinguish the two. But I wanted to hear, like,
how you think of it, how you think of context
of MDMA.
Speaker 2 (15:34):
I feel like it has similar experiences in terms of
you know, if we just think about the you know,
what you described in your first experience, and obviously the
dose matters, right, So the kind of dose that I think, uh,
and this is something I love to talk to you about,
and I think a great segue from here is is
kind of what different kinds of CONNA experiences can be
(15:57):
like with different doses, maybe even getting into what is
a ceremony with conon light compared to taking the medicine
in your day to day life, if you were taking
it at home in a standard Western American's life. Because
this environment, and it's another thing we talk about a
lot on this show, is how the environment in which
(16:18):
you administer or consume a plant medicine or psychedelic medicine
has a tremendous impact on the way that that medicine
impacts us, right, And so I think that there's two
components to that. And we know that people who take MBMA,
for instance, at a rave or a big party around
a bunch of strangers, have a very different experience than
(16:41):
those who take it in a ceremonial or therapeutic context
with two therapists in the MAPS protocol. Right, it's like
a very different experience. One is very much about being
open and connecting with others and the other one is
about going deep inside and connecting with yourself, much more
similar to I would say that the kind of experience
that you described, which I have never experienced a kind
(17:03):
of ceremony, but the kind of experience you described for
your first experience seems much more similar to what we
talk about when we bring somebody into the fold for
you know, a therapeutic clinical MBMA therapy administration, like in
the research trials with MAPS for PTSD or other conditions.
But I would love to learn from you about the
(17:25):
differences in the indigenous use of kanda, because I actually
know very little about it, but it fascinates me because
this plant has been around on the earth for so
long and not unlike other plants we do see, like
when I talk to people who grow cannabis or people
who grow certain you know, organic vegetables, or especially with
grapes for wine.
Speaker 1 (17:46):
You know, we see this movement going back to the.
Speaker 2 (17:48):
Old World way of growing grapes, which is like dry
farm gardening right where you know the grapes are intentionally
stressed in the growing process with limited water and complex
nutrient dense soils, but with limited access to nutrients, that
actually allows the fruit of the grapes to become much
more complex and much more dense alkaloid content, and have
(18:12):
much more interesting flavors and that kind of thing which
separates a lot of the tremendous and amazing wines in
the world from those that are just the regular stuff
you would buy at your local grocery store, which all
tastes the same.
Speaker 1 (18:24):
And so clearly that concept of stressing a.
Speaker 2 (18:28):
Plant that has to then overcome challenges of growth can
make a more complex psychedelic agent or plant partner that
we work with. And this is no different for condin
it seems, than it is for making a good wine
and growing nice grapes. But it's very interesting that that
(18:49):
I think has become a much more common way of
thinking about growing and working with plants in our environment.
That stress is important, and it's a nice metaphor for
human existence, right where if we don't face stress, we're
not challenged to grow and become stronger, better versions of ourselves.
If we face stress and safe, healthy environments, then we
actually grow and become stronger, better versions of ourselves because
(19:10):
we're forced to learn and overcome and adapt to the stress,
which increases our ability to adapt and to be resilient. Right,
you're listening to the Psychedelic Report, So yeah, So I
think it's just fascinating that you already started and mentioning
all of that stuff because it's so relevant to the
way that humans grow. And you know, we have a
(19:30):
saying as above so below, I think we're a lot
more similar to the plants than we let on. But
I would love to hear about what is the difference
in the dosing, for instance, of kind of in the
ceremonial setting versus the settings that people are typically using
it in now that it's available, And if you could
go into some of the history about the plant medicine
(19:51):
ceremonial experiences of this in indigenous cultures, that'd be really
interesting as well.
Speaker 3 (19:56):
Absolutely well, first of all, I just want to say,
you know that metaphor of how you know, if we look,
there's so many plant allies out there that just are
literally all around us, and humans evolved with plants, right,
we forget that sometimes, but it's a great reminder just
now what you said about the metaphor of us being
stressed and you know, back can. I mean, it depends
(20:17):
how far you want to go, but like if you
have sort of a little bit of stress and do consistently,
we do become more resilient, and the same with kana
for sure. And it's just a great reminder of our
connection to the natural world. I just kind of want
to double tap on that because I think that in
that itself is part of the healing, our remembrance of
(20:38):
how we are part of the natural world as opposed
to apart from it. So I wanted to address actually
everything you mentioned, which was all really relevant.
Speaker 2 (20:48):
And just to add that word that I forgot to mention,
that word to describe this phenomenon that's so important that
you just came back to, of how stress helps us
grow healthy amounts of stress and safe environments helps us grow,
just like it helps plants grow better. Is called hormesis,
which is a term that refers to straining the body
(21:09):
help in a safe way, like saun A cold plunge
is one example of a hormetic stress that helps us
to overcome challenge and safe environments to grow and become stronger,
which is something that impacts all animals and plants on
the earth to help us grow. It's a normal growth
pressure that trains adaptation.
Speaker 1 (21:27):
So back to you, No, I.
Speaker 3 (21:29):
Love that, So yeah, just addressing everything you just raise.
But I would like to actually just have a quick
comparison between MME and Conna. Yes, we'll have, because again
that meme has gone out so many times about kind
of being nature's MDMA. So I would say definitely the
similarities is that heart opening feeling, you know, feeling more connected,
(21:50):
feeling more oneness, but very different because MDMA is it
has amphetamines, kinda does not. So the experience is much
more pronounced as much or pronounced with MDA certainly than
with kana, which is more subtle.
Speaker 2 (22:03):
And longer lasting. Right, I think with the MDMA typically
lasts four to six hours, or.
Speaker 3 (22:10):
I think if you're looking for what I'll get into,
if you're looking for a ceremonial experience, No, I think
that kana will last at least three to four hours.
But so yes, you know, but it really depends on
which I'll get into the dosage and the potency of
what you're actually ingesting. But yeah, and then of course
MDM is synthetic, KNA is for nature, So there's that
(22:31):
as well. And I think one big difference which I
do want to emphasize is, you know, if you cannot
really consistently take MDA every single I mean, I guess
you know, people try to do that, but it's it's
ultimately not so healthy certainly can be very damaging to
your to your brain. So there's that aspect. But Kana's
(22:52):
perspective and that is really distinguishes itself and it actually
kind of helps in a way to reset your brain.
It helps it's a optogenic, you know I mentioned before,
it helps to regulate the nervous system to make it
more resilient towards sress. And that makes it super unique.
Right from a dosage standpoint, I would say, like, let's
(23:12):
say a micro dose, and I'm talking about kind of
extract now, which I want to be very clear, it's
not the herb or the bulk plant kind of extract
anywhere between. Like I don't know, two to ten milligrams
could be considered a microdose, and if you're super sensitive,
you feel it, but most people really at that low
dose don't. They don't really, it doesn't really register and
(23:35):
anywhere from like a daily dose of what we recommend.
And before I even say this, I just want to
be very clear, you have to really be careful where
you're sourcing your kana extract from as well, because every
type of kind of extract will have a different alkaloid composition.
And people generally look at mezambriine and the content of
(23:56):
a mezmbriine, So that's one measure, but there are other
alkalois SHO look at as well, such as mesobruno, and
so you know, you can have the same amount of extract,
but one can be a lot more potent because it
has a higher alcaloid content, So that's another That's another
thing with the daily dose that we recommend is really
anywhere from twenty to thirty thirty five milligrams a day.
(24:18):
So for example, our ConA chews are like thirty milligrams
thirty miligrams per tuth and you know, our recommended dose
with the tincture is the same. But always, of course,
this depends on each individual. You're going to have a
different reaction to a different way that your body actually
processes this plant. And I would also add and say
(24:39):
that if you have a lot of inflammation in your body,
the serotonin that's produced from the kana will first go
to lower the inflammation and istamine before you really start
to feel a lift. And anybody who has had let's
say history of taking emphetamine cells like adderall for example,
they might need, we will very likely need a much
higher dose in the beginning so that they can reset
(25:00):
and then come back down to you know, more regular
normal dose, so a ceremonial dose. So it's interesting because
if you go online, ceremonial dose they say is anywhere
from five hundred milligrams and above, which is a lot actually,
so really again depends on the type of ConA extract,
the kana that you're taking in I would say, for example,
(25:22):
for our ConA, it's really anywhere from ninety milligrams to
three hundreds. Already like a lot. So sorry to be
so I'm trying not to be vague, but I'm also
trying to give a lot of detail for to educate people,
to make them understand that you know, there's there's you
just have to really look at the details of what
you're purchasing or what you're you know what you're buying,
(25:44):
and and so in terms of ceremonial experience, right, that
was your other question.
Speaker 2 (25:51):
And just to wrap on dosing, it sounds the you
said the ninety to five hundred milligrams is of the
ninety to three hundre it is of the extracted.
Speaker 3 (26:01):
Yeah, that's what I would say for our extract. That's
that that's the amount. Depending on other extracts, they might
you might go higher. But there's kind of a general
safety guideline, which is it's generally safe to take six
miligrams per kilogram of body weight for an average adult.
So that's about four hundred and twenty milligrams for an
(26:22):
average adult. Beyond that, you'll probably experience a lot of
nausea and other side effects, but it's not it's generally
considered safe. There's no toxicity to deliver. Yes, you might
feel really nauseata, you might throw up, you know, but
you won't go into your body will react in a
way at least this is what I understand, in a
(26:42):
way that you're not going to get end up in
the hospital. Now, if you are already taking let's say
an SSRI or something like that, you want to be
very careful because you want to you don't want to
double down and take on a and anssry because you're
going to have too much serotonin in your body, which
could have you go. So there's so there's a lot
of things that, as with all psychedelics, you've got to
(27:04):
look at the interactions, contraindications and just be careful that way.
But I would say that compared to a lot of
other psychedelics out there, kana is definitely towards the safer
side of the spectrum of plants.
Speaker 2 (27:18):
Yeah, I think that that is consistent with my understanding
as well. It sounds like a lot at ceremonial dose
is a lot of a lot of the adverse reactions
that people have are with kind of high high doses
are very similar to the kinds of.
Speaker 1 (27:31):
Experiences people have with any plant medicine.
Speaker 2 (27:33):
The ceremonial dose, whether you're talking about sempedro or peyote
or ayahuasca. There's you know, the nausea and kind of
the sensory disturbances and feeling overwhelmed and that kind of thing.
And I think in general, being as a good point
of caution, you brought up that because it is a
serraitinergic psychedelic, and much of its mechanism of action that
(27:55):
similar to other plant medicines and molecules like MDMA that
act heavily on the serotonin system. We tend not to
recommend taking high doses of these kinds of molecules and
plants extracts when you're also taking an SSRI that prevents
the normal re uptake of serotonin and clearance.
Speaker 1 (28:16):
From your brain.
Speaker 2 (28:17):
So word of caution to anyone who might be interested
in this molecule or this plant who is taking those medicines.
But that being said, overall fairly safe plant, which is
which is really great.
Speaker 3 (28:29):
Right, And I will add to that because sometimes you know,
people were like, you know, I don't want to take
mystr I want to ty trate down and I want
to take Conna instead, and what's you know, So we
always say it's like, look, talk to your qualified healthcare
provider right sent as yourself, right doctor Jape, And it's
and we actually work with therapists and doctors and clinicians
to help their patients ty trate down off of SSRIs
(28:53):
and help them and help them do that with KAW
and with ConA. So it's been really interesting because you know,
this is sort of real, live data that's coming out
and not everybody knows con it's still generally quite new,
and so just to see the results that I've been
hearing from doctors has been amazing. It's just really helps
with some of the withdrawal symptoms. It helps with you know,
(29:14):
balancing mood, and you know, that's how I've seen Again,
just to repeat, I'm certainly not a doctor, we're not doctors.
We're not providing any medical advice. You're a doctor, doctor Dave.
But that's what I've seen other doctors do with success.
So I just thought that was also really exciting that
I wanted to share.
Speaker 1 (29:31):
Yeah, it's great.
Speaker 2 (29:32):
I mean I have not had experience with that, but
I think, you know, learning about kind of over the years,
I think it's interesting to think about it from the
perspective of having more plant based medicines in our toolbox
that can help people transition to SSRI or other you know,
(29:53):
Western antidepressant alternatives, because there are you know, SSRIs have
great utility for certain people, but long term they can
cause a lot of side effects that are undesirable, and
a lot of people nowadays are recognizing that and trying
to come off of them or transition to you know,
a non SSRI dependent lifestyle for obvious reasons, and you know,
(30:17):
the side effects of those drugs being a major reason.
And so a major part of my career has actually
been helping people to live more pharmaceutical free lifestyles and
consider plant based alternatives, technology based alternatives, because a lot
of whole plant medicine, and we talk about this a lot,
and I actually have a show that will come out
(30:38):
or that that actually just came out with Jeremy Narby,
who is one of the most famous anthropologists who studies
plant medicine in use in the indigenous cultures in South America,
specifically looking at the indigenous and ceremonial use of tobacco
and ayahuasca, and you know, just thinking, you know, I
think it's fascinating to talk about the way that these
(31:00):
plants are used indigenous settings traditionally for thousands of years,
and how different the experience is when they're used for
the purpose of medicine or the purpose of healing, whereas
in our culture, you know, just thinking about tobacco, for instance,
we don't look at tobacco as a medicinal plant. It's
it has basically zero medicinal qualities in Western culture because
(31:22):
of the way that it's used, but in tribal culture
in South America, in many tribal cultures, it is the
first medicine plant that anybody works with and learns to
work with for healing.
Speaker 1 (31:33):
And so again, you know, it's really.
Speaker 2 (31:35):
Just about having more tools in our toolbox as clinicians
that we can start to understand, Hey, maybe there are
places where the in the healing experience that we're providing
to our patients where plants may have a bigger role
to play and we should be exploring them. You know,
I hesitate to say, don't you know, we don't have
all the answers yet for which plants and what doses,
(31:57):
and there needs to be a lot more research into
these two tools. But there are a lot of tools
that are available in the plant world that we haven't
explored yet. And I think that's really exciting for modern
psychiatry totally.
Speaker 3 (32:10):
And good for you, doctor Dave that you're doing the
work that you're doing because it's really needed, you know,
and it just gives people, like you said, just so
many more options, especially when people don't want to be
taking pharmaceuticals forever and ever. So I think this is
huge and big reason why this academic movement has gone
through its renaissance. You know, but yeah, I mean talking
(32:30):
about indigenous uses. What's really interesting is when I and
I went, I literally was just in not just but
just February and March. I was in South Africa, Namibia
purposely actually finding the elders and the medicine people who
still knew this plant because a lot of that wisdom
has been lost. If you speak younger Indigenous, but they
(32:55):
don't really know kana anymore, but the elders do. And
it was surprisingly to dificult to find some of these people,
and but it was it was a wonderful opportunity. I
got to spend time with them in the bush. It
was it was amazing. And you know how the indigenous
cultures used to work with conna is. The whole family
would take it. It wasn't just for stressed out people. It
(33:16):
wasn't just like only going for hunting. It was such
a core part of their community. So they would actually
share it with you know, men, women, kids, babies, even
women or mothers who had a you know, a colic
baby who would just wouldn' stop crying. They would literally
put a tiny bit of the conna into the breast
milk and feed it to them. So and it also
(33:37):
helped pregnant women, Indigenous women with their pains, even with
their nausea. Like there's you know, been a lot of
use that way. And in terms of ceremony, they would
do these trans dances. It's a way for them to
commune with the divine and with their ancestors, and they
would definitely take kana for that to connect and it's beautiful.
(34:00):
So the transdance is a big part of their culture
as well. But they also from what I under said,
they also traded kanna. They also it was definitely part
of their medicinal tradition because it helped so much with
chronic stress and pain, and it's you know, ConA is
very anti inflammatory as well, which makes it powerful in
so many, so many ways. And you know, one of
(34:24):
the things that I think people may or may not
know about conna that's a little bit unique also that
because of how it activates receptors for class to climb in,
it actually helps to kind of reduce any kind of
hedonic craving. So by hidonic craving, I mean any excessive
cravings for It could be anything. It doesn't have to
be for drugs. It could be for to salt that sugar.
(34:44):
It could be for porn, it could be for anything
like that. It's just the way that it works in
the medio fore brain. It's amazing actually, So I mean
I can tell you personally, I just you know, when
I'm taking ka like I just don't reach for whatever,
the whole bag of potato chips, just of one out.
I'm good, you know. And so it's it's really interesting.
And there have been some studies that are just very
(35:08):
early stage studies about kanna and addiction that are really
interesting and how I think with I think they did
a study, like a very preliminary study I think about
heroin addiction and conna and also menephetamine addiction something like that.
But again we're at the super early stage of that.
But it's just it's fascinating. It really invites further inquiry
(35:31):
because of that.
Speaker 2 (35:34):
You're listening to the Psychedelic Report. I find that really
interesting that you brought up the impact on cravings, because
as an addiction psychiatrist, I think you know, we spend
a lot of time talking about the addicted behavior itself
and how that drives change of thought process and decision
(35:55):
making and that kind of thing, you know, particularly surrounding
the active use of a substance or the continued use
of an addictive substance. And it's not necessarily of course,
as you mentioned right, this isn't just about drugs. It's
about sugar, it's about fat, it's about addictive behavior, impulsive
behavior in general we might talk about as avoidance of
(36:16):
discomfort by trying to soothe ourselves with something or some
behavior that is not internal.
Speaker 1 (36:22):
To the body.
Speaker 2 (36:23):
You know. I think cravings in particular are fascinating because
we have been writing about this a lot lately, but
we don't think about necessarily how much cravings and the
act of craving in between uses of medicine or uses
of a substance or sugar, even like an addictive food,
actually impact and drive our decision making and our actions.
Speaker 1 (36:45):
Right, And I think.
Speaker 2 (36:46):
People, anybody who has had a habit of eating sugar
or consuming sugar when you're stressed out, going back to childhood,
knows very well that when there are many times throughout
the day and sometimes at night where you crave sugar
and you're not sure why, and then you ingest it.
(37:06):
And it's the in between the times where you ingest it, where.
Speaker 1 (37:12):
That idea of oh, I want to eat.
Speaker 2 (37:15):
Something sweet right now, or I want to you know,
put sugar in my body or something with sugar in
my body to feel better is actually taking up a
huge amount of our mental resources right all the time
between the use of it, much of that time we
are thinking about when can I get that next? Right,
And that concept of craving is incredibly not you know,
(37:38):
not just interesting from neuroscience and behavioral neuroscience perspective, but
it's interesting from a brain resource perspective, right, Like how
much time are we spending thinking about when we're going
to get this thing next rather than just being present
with what we're doing in the moment right, or how
to navigate our stress in the moment without thinking about
(38:00):
when we're going to next get our fixed for whatever
it is, you know, sugar in this case, for this example.
But I think it's fascinating that we don't have a
lot of good tools that are safe that actually help
to mitigate craving in medicine and particularly an addiction medicine,
and so just the concept that a plant like kinda
(38:20):
could be helpful in navigating that for a lot of
our patients with not just things like sugar or food,
but also for highly addictive substances really highlights it as
a fascinating plant that deserves more exploration.
Speaker 3 (38:37):
Absolutely, and in fact, in traditional medicine in South Africa,
it's used for treating an alcohol aboose and they even
have in Afrikaans they call it. I mean, I'm doing
a terrible job pronouncing it, but like on drunk, which
means our dry drink.
Speaker 2 (38:53):
Oh wow.
Speaker 3 (38:54):
Yeah. So it's fascinating as an alcohol alternative because that's
how you know, traditionally, that's how they treat alcoholism. And
what's fascinating is we've been for example, with our tincture
in particular, because you can just drop it into any
kind of non alcoholic drink. We've been sharing that with
our audience and people have been writing back and saying,
(39:15):
you know what, it's true, like I don't reach for
my I mean I could, but I don't really have
that ooh unsatiable need to like reach for my glass
of wine anymore, like every evening. But I feel good
about It's not like I feel deprived. And this was
like so powerful that those that kind of feedback is
amazing because here you have, you know, something that could
be it will still give you a mood lift, right,
(39:37):
And this is this is the thing when you were
talking about context, and we always love like using the
tincture out social socializing because it helps to lower social
anxiety and it makes you more emotionally open and available
and you just connect better, you're chattier, right, And you
know that in that sense, it's a real aid in
social situations. And we've seen that we've gotten so much
(39:59):
feedback about that as well. So there's just like you said,
there's a lot more to discover. But also back to
what you were asking earlier about context, what's interesting with
conna on a let's say, on a ceremonial dose. I
have found that initially for most people, you know, people
(40:21):
really go inwards first. There's that connecting with self, you know,
and feeling everything that needs to come up or insights
and that you might be downloading. And then by about
hour three or four they really feel the energy boost
and then it becomes like wanting to dance, you know,
(40:41):
wanting to connect, wanting to hug, wanting to like you know,
in a in a cuddle puddle. But really it's energizing
absolutely right, because as I mentioned before, that's what the
indigeners would use for when they go on multi day hunts.
And because kana is also a pde for inhibitor, it
helps the body resource more energy. So it's just there's
(41:01):
so many amazing aspects to this wonderful sacred plant that
I honestly couldn't and I'm still discovering a lot of this.
And I think another thing in terms of context that
I will say, because I mentioned earlier, that kind of
first goes to lower inflammation. That's what we always recommend
people to take it consistently for at least thirty days
(41:22):
because with that you you really it's helping your body anyway, right,
because it's super anti inflammatory. But for you to feel
the full benefits of this plant, it helps to consistently
take it long term.
Speaker 1 (41:34):
This is at the microdose microdose.
Speaker 3 (41:37):
Not ceremonial does no microdose or you know, dose level,
which is like you know, like I said, twenty five
to thirty five pilograms. What's interesting about kanna also is
there is a reverse tolerance effect because it has this
sort of anti addictive nature to it. And you know,
I'm not probably explaining it in a super scientific way
(41:59):
at the moment, but that's you know, that's what it does.
If you continuously take it, you'll find that you need
less and less. You just don't need as much, and
that's normal, and that's great because you're not reaching for
the thing that you think is helping you and then
you become addicted to that. Right, So that is also
an incredible aspect about this plant.
Speaker 2 (42:20):
Yeah, that's a that's a fascinating phenomenon that you brought
up that I think is important to note, which is
the difference between we call it sometimes reverse tolerance, but
it's it's the opposite of tolerance, and that's why we
call it that, But it's really your body doesn't doesn't
become sort of numb to it and need more and
more every time you use it to get to the
same level your body becomes. And there are some other
(42:43):
plants that do this as well, where your body becomes
sensitive to it over time, rather than I think, what's
what we're the way we're describing reverse tolerance these days
to help explain it to people, because I think reverse
tolerance doesn't really help people understand what's happening. It's really
more of like a learning effect. So the body learns
(43:04):
to reattain a certain level of balance with a molecule
like kinda around where it's learning to be in a
different state. And then once you are in that state
of higher balance than the body recognizes that state, it
likes that state, and it has an easy it's more
prone to be able to get there more easily with
(43:25):
less augmentation effectively from the plant, which is really interesting.
And we see this particularly when these plants are used
in ceremony or or highly intentionally even without ceremony with it.
What you might call your personal ceremony is intention right,
is like, what is I'm not just taking this to
numb myself or distract myself from my problems, but I'm
(43:48):
taking this plant to teach me about myself, right, or
to connect more deeply with myself.
Speaker 1 (43:55):
And I think that.
Speaker 2 (43:57):
Is really important for people to underst stand, not just
from a ConA perspective, but from an addiction medicine perspective,
is that the way we engage with substances and plants
is really important.
Speaker 1 (44:10):
Right.
Speaker 2 (44:10):
The mindset that we come into these experiences with what
many of the psychedelic pioneers called the set, and setting
is really critical to what we get out of the plants.
And if we're whatever substance or activity you're engaging in,
if you're doing it to nob or distract yourself from
pain or discomfort, then you will be more likely to
(44:31):
develop tolerance to that substance. At the same time, if
you're using it to re engage.
Speaker 1 (44:37):
Right.
Speaker 2 (44:38):
Whereas you know, going back to what you brought up
from your first experience ceremonially with Kinda at the very
beginning of our conversation, talk about how much more self
connected you felt, how much more heart open, how present
you felt with this plant, which was really enlightening and
new for you to experience. That piece is the piece
(45:01):
we need to take with us, right, That's the piece
that we want to make sure that we are actively pursuing.
When we think about, like why am I putting the
substance in my body? It's to be more It's to
open my heart. It's to be more present and connected
with myself. It's to show more gratitude to myself, to
love myself and it's those kinds of intentions that result
in not escape from reality, but deeper engagement with reality
(45:25):
that I think is the psychological component of facilitating you know,
what you call reverse tolerance or the learning effect, because
you're learning to connect with yourself better with the help
of the plant as a tool.
Speaker 1 (45:38):
Does that make sense?
Speaker 3 (45:39):
He said it so beautifully, doctor Dave. I couldn't have
said it better. It's it's it's beautiful and so important.
Intention is everything, you know, the energy we bring into
building a relationship with whatever it is that you're working with.
And people kind of you know, maybe find it unusual
to talk about having a relationship with plants, but that's
when we're working with these kinds of medicines. That's that's
(46:01):
really encouraged because with that intention, you are engaging another
live substance and plant in this case, and you're recruiting
it in a sense, to be a part of your
your process, your journey, your healing, and that's really really powerful,
and you're in doing that, you're actually empowering yourself and
that's that's a huge part of any healing process. And
(46:25):
you know, I also wanted to share something that really
struck me when I was in South Africa and I
was speaking to one of the one of the elders,
and or this wasn't the storty. This was an elder.
This was a medicine man who had been working with
Connor for a long time. And he said, you know,
Conna is like your friend. What's so interesting is it
doesn't take you over, unlike a lot of other psychedelics.
(46:49):
So it's just there right, and you can choose to
hang out with your friend and watch a movie, or
you can have a deep conversation with your friend. It
really depends on how you want to work with and
it is such a beautiful plant in that it is
very responsive and also because it's adaptogenic, it responds to
how you want to work and collaborate with it. It's
(47:10):
fantastic that way. So the intention component is huge. And
another beautiful aspect about KNA is that it's subtle and
it's it holds space for you, so it doesn't hit
you over the head. It's there right, and the more
you kind of open to it, it opens to you.
It creates a safe space within yourself to allow any
(47:32):
kind of suppressed emotions or feelings that maybe you didn't
want to look at that to allow to come up
and be processed. And I think that that's you know,
and that's part of integration, right, that's part of integrating
all of our past experiences into our daily life. And
in that sense, it's just an incredible ally.
Speaker 2 (47:49):
Yeah, I love the way you said that, and you know,
and I think just because we're coming up on time,
I wanted to make sure to mention you talked about
your product co which is a wonderful product. I think
so my knowledge, it's one of the first, if not
the first, commercially available, high quality versions of Kana that
can be accessed in the general community as a legal
(48:11):
KNA experience that you can just purchase right without any
kind of blockers or you know, legal gateways to it.
It's a wonderful product. I've personally really enjoyed it, and
I think that it provides all the experiences that you've described,
and it's a really wonderful plant medicine collaborator for people
(48:32):
to work with and very safe and you know, for
anybody who's listening, I highly recommend checking it out. Could
you just before we wrap, just let everybody know a
little bit about it and where they can get it.
And I heard you have a special offer for people
who are listening.
Speaker 1 (48:45):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (48:46):
Sure. So the company is Compathogenics and you can find
us online. Our website is OHMCA dot com, which is
oh m y ka dot com, or you can find
us on Instagram or Facebook and our handle is co
dot m Pathogenics And yes, we have you know, we
offer daily supplements which by the way, besides Conna, there
(49:08):
are other synergistic plants that are part of the formulations.
They were very scientifically, you know, sort of researched and formulated.
So and we also pride ourselves from not using any
kind of chemical artificial sweeteners or not JMO. You know,
we try our best and that there really isn't anything
sort of bad for you in the sense that we
(49:28):
don't use sugar, we don't use caffeine, we don't even
use preservatives and which is which is really unheard of.
And yeah, I mean we we were definitely one of
the very first companies brands I would say that launched
three years ago and was it almost three years ago?
And yeah, I welcome anyone to you know, would love
for people to check us out and follow us. Yes,
(49:51):
And I wanted to also offer your community Doctor Dave
a discount code. So the discount code is t p
R for the Psychedelic Report and it's a ten percent
discount code.
Speaker 2 (50:04):
Thank you so much for that, and we'll make sure
to include that in the show notes and a link
to CA for everybody who's interested.
Speaker 1 (50:10):
And I just want to thank you for taking the
time to join me today. This is a really great conversation.
Speaker 3 (50:15):
Thanks so much, doctor David. It was incredible.
Speaker 1 (50:18):
Thanks for listening to The Psychedelic Report.
Speaker 2 (50:23):
Visit us at the Psychedelic Report dot com. This show
is recorded weekly on Clubhouse with a live audience. The
Psychedelic Report was brought to you by a poly neuroscience
and produced by Future Medicine Media. While I am a doctor,
I'm not your doctor. So please don't take anything you
(50:43):
hear on The Psychedelic Report as personal medical advice because
we don't know you. If you have questions about anything
you hear on this show, please consult with your doctor.
The Psychedelic Reports.
Speaker 2 (00:03):
Psychedelic drugs have played their part in America's long strange
trip toward an understanding of mind.
Speaker 3 (00:09):
All during drugs The Psychedelic News.
Speaker 1 (00:11):
Leading physicians, scientists, and experts share their wisdom about psychedelic
medicines and healing.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
Fifty years ago, psychedelic drugs were at the center of
America's counterculture. The brightest minds in psychedelic medicine the Psychedelic Report.
We use the kedemy assisted psychotherapy model that happens to
have psychedelic effects that were not predicted when the drug
was first developed. From researchers to investors.
Speaker 3 (00:35):
I think the biggest mistake we pat as the culture
is the war of drugs.
Speaker 2 (00:38):
So physicians to shamans and non private pioneers psychedelic drugs.
Speaker 3 (00:43):
Recent research suggests some of them could have legitimate uses.
Speaker 2 (00:47):
The Psychedelic Needs bring you diverse perspectives from the front
lines of this exciting movement, The Psychedelic Report. The Psychedelic
Report was brought to you by Apoll Neuroscience and produced
by Future Medicine Media. Welcome to the Psychedelic Report, your
single source of truth for the Psychedelic News.
Speaker 1 (01:11):
I'm your host, doctor Dave Raven.
Speaker 2 (01:14):
I'm a neuroscientist and psychiatrist trained in ketemine assisted psychotherapy
as well as MBMA assisted therapy. Hello, and welcome back
to the Psychedelic Report. I'm your host, doctor Dave Raven.
Today we returned to a conversation around whole plant medicine.
For nearly one hundred years, there has been a fierce
(01:34):
debate in the scientific community about which is more beneficial
an isolated compound or the whole plant formulation that exists
in nature, or are they the same. The FDA has
firmly taken the approach of single molecule medicine, focusing on
isolating a single molecule and providing efficacy for that molecule,
(01:55):
with virtually no infrastructure to support FDA clearance of whole
plant drug formulations. In fact, to my knowledge, there are
no FDA cleared whole plant formulation drugs.
Speaker 1 (02:06):
Available to date.
Speaker 2 (02:07):
However, whole plant medicine has a lot of perceived advantages
to the single molecule medicine approach, notably the entourage effect,
which is the effect of having the hundreds of other
plant alkaloids that exist in nature and natural extracts of
the plant included in the medicine have some evidence to
(02:28):
support that the inclusion of these additional alkaloids and plant
molecules decrease side effects, decrease tolerance, and improve overall treatment
responses to the medicine. A study published in the Nature
Journal Molecular Psychiatry in February twenty twenty four by Or
Shahar and team from Hebrew University in Jerusalem, entitled effect
(02:50):
of chemically synthesized psilocybin and psychedelic mushroom extract on molecular
and metabolic profiles in mouse brain has demonstrated the benefits
of this entourage effect in a mouse model. Their study
demonstrated that whole plant extract from psilocybin mushrooms was significantly
more effective than synthetic psilocybin alone at promoting and prolonging
(03:13):
markers of synaptic plasticity otherwise known as how the brain
learns and forms new networks, and reducing markers of oxidative
stress in the brain. This is particularly interesting given the
rise of synthetic zill cybin use in clinical trials around
the world. For starters, whole sell cybin mushrooms are much
(03:34):
cheaper and simpler to produce and scale to treat mental
illness than synthetic psilocybin, which requires a substantial pharmaceutical laboratory operation.
Studies like this have wide reaching impact on the way
we think about future clinical trials of psilocybin and what
the best way to use psilocybin and psilocybin containing plants
(03:57):
for treatment of mental illness is like depression. Furthermore, there
are now many whole plant medicines commercially available, with more
on the way, including Kana, a natural empathogen with psychological
effects described as similar to MDMA. However, unlike MDMA, Kana
is fully legal and available for purchase in any state
(04:17):
at a reasonable price, accessible to most consumers. To discuss
this with me today is Stephanie Wang. Stephanie is passionate
about the power of plant and conscious transformation. She's the
founder and CEO of KA Empathogenics, with a mission to
restore full spectrum aliveness for all beings. KA offers one
hundred percent plant based and pathogenic supplements featuring Kana, a
(04:40):
heart opening succulent from South Africa that is clinically proven
to activate an immediate sense of grounded energy, helping people
feel more alive, capable, and connected as they navigate everyday stress. Previously,
Stephanie was the president of the Alchemists Kitchen and director
of Evolver Holding's Corp, a conscious lifestyle company. A native
(05:03):
of Hong Kong, Stephanie began her career in corporate finance
on Wall Street and was a number one ranked equity
analyst in the retail sector with HSBC Securities. Now, she
devotes her life to making safe, whole plant medicine more
available to the world. Stephanie, thank you so much for
taking the time to join me today. It's such a
pleasure to have you.
Speaker 3 (05:23):
I'm so excited and honored to be here. Doctor Dave.
Speaker 2 (05:25):
Well, we've been talking about your product together and talking
about your your work in the plant medicine space for
quite a while and how to bring plant medicine to
the community at large in.
Speaker 1 (05:40):
A bigger way. And I love the work you're.
Speaker 2 (05:42):
Doing and would love to maybe start out with you
telling us a little bit about yourself and how you
got into the space.
Speaker 3 (05:49):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (05:49):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (05:50):
So I've always been super passionate about personal transformation, health
and wellness, but especially you know, raising consciousness in the world,
and you know, was looking for ways to do that
in a practical sense right in my profession. And about
twelve years ago is the first time. And I did
a lot of sort of healing work before that, I
(06:13):
explored a lot of different modalities, and twelve years ago
is the first time I ever experienced any kind of
plant medicine. And in this case, you know, my first
ceremony was not sort of the usual psilocybin or ayahuasca,
was actually with kana and it was an incredible experience.
I had honestly never felt such a sense of profound acceptance,
(06:35):
belonging in love and just being there. It was impossible
to have a negative thought, and yet I was totally
in my body. It was not a psychedelic experience, however,
it was very much a psychoactive experience. And so even
though like I would still say that there was a
nondual consciousness happening, because it's just a perception in a
(06:57):
different way. And it's interesting because from a shnomonic standpoint,
when people talk about conu, which just skilleting towards to osim,
they call it heart medicine because unlike let's say, I
ask yourself sabin, which is spirit medicine and takes you
out of the body. Conna really brings you back into
the body through the heart, So it makes you actually
super present to what you're feeling, to emotions maybe you're suppressing,
(07:21):
but also really opening your heart because it is an
empathogen and helping you connect with you know, nature, with yourself,
with everyone around you. And that was such a profound
experience that it really inspired me. I knew at that
moment that I was like, Okay, how do I bring
this to more people outside of ceremony, right, how do I,
you know, make it accessible? And I think what's a
(07:45):
really great aspect of conna is that it's legal. It's
a legal mpathogen, and yet it is totally psychedelic adjacent.
It is definitely something that is incredibly powerful as a
healing tool to journ with and also to take as
a daily supplement. So what I discovered after that experience,
(08:07):
which is really profound and spiritual, was I started to
really do the research on what this plant actually does
to the body, to our brains right and the rest
of the body. And it was incredible because from that
I realized, my God, this is a natural serotonin reuptake
inhibitor and a serotonin releasing agent, and it also activates
(08:30):
receptors for GABA, for opioids, for colostokinin, for melotonin. So
it has this almost surprisingly, almost unbelievable way of how
it works with the body because it has thirty five
known alkaloids, of which only three have been really deeply studied,
and it has this ability to calm stress, lift mood,
(08:51):
provides sort of sustained ground and energy, and also be
a beautiful heart opener as well as supports deep and
focus and also endurance. So you know, all of that
was incredible, and I also learned a lot about the
history of Kano and Kana is a succulent plant that
comes from South Africa and it's been used by the
(09:15):
indigenous people there, the pushman and the koi for thousands
of years, so there's a long history of human use
and how we collaborate with this plant. And they would
take it when they went on multi day hunts because
of its ability to help them stay common focused and
also provide them like you know, help improve the stamina
and also endurance. So it's just it's just a fascinating
(09:36):
plant that the more I learned about it, the more
excited I was about bringing into the world.
Speaker 1 (09:42):
That's great to hear.
Speaker 2 (09:43):
And I actually didn't know that much about Conna before
we met, and I'd love to dive deeper into it
for our audience. What was the name the biological name
of ConA again that you.
Speaker 3 (09:51):
Said, Letium tortuosum.
Speaker 2 (09:53):
Leting tortuosi, stilytium like skeleton, oh, stlytium.
Speaker 3 (09:59):
With a C C L E T I U M.
And you know when you look at the plant, you
will see that in and by the way it grows
in Southern Africa and Namibia and it literally has you know,
during certain times of the year, looks like it looks skeletal.
Looks skeletal, right, it looks like it's just dried up.
But actually the way the environmental stresses work with this
(10:23):
plant is the more it's stressed, actually, the more potent
the plant becomes, the more alkaloids it produces. So it's
really interesting. It's an interesting analogy to how this plant
supports us in our and building resilience to stress. And
it's beautiful because it's also an adaptogen. Kana is adaptogenic,
(10:43):
so it's not toxic. To the body. You can take
it consistently, and it has this ability to regulate the
nervous system over time to help us build resilience emotional
and mental.
Speaker 2 (10:54):
It's interesting there's also seems to be a very highly
dose dependent.
Speaker 1 (10:58):
Effect where you can have these you know, when you
take it daily.
Speaker 2 (11:02):
At lower doses, you can have more gentle experiences that
you know, where you're highly present and functional within your
day to day life, and then you can have these tremendous, bigger,
heart opening experiences in ceremony that are much more significant
in the moment, it seems, and we see that also
with some other psychedelic medicines, and I think it's interesting
(11:25):
to and plant medicines in particular. I think it's interesting
too that you did not refer to your first experience
in ceremony was kind of psychedelic, because part of the
way we think about the word psychedelic on this show,
and kind of the way we're reframing psychedelic experiences for
the community so that they can understand better, is that
(11:48):
psychedelic medicines and the word psychedelic really means to reveal
the mind. And so I think that from hearing about
your experience with this plant in ceremony, your first variance
that kind of inspired you to take this plant and
then bring it to the world in a safe way
and educate the world about the world at large about
(12:09):
this plant and its origins and how it can be
used to improve health and well being and particularly you know,
mental health and self connection and that kind of thing.
I would say that there was a lot revealed to
you from that experience that makes kind of, you know,
fully psychedelic in the way that you're learning about yourself.
And then we're able to take information that you learned
(12:32):
out of ceremony and back into the world, which is
really fascinating. And yet in the world, the modern science
world and the way we think about other psychedelic agents,
you know, like MDMA for instances, often considered a non
psychedelic psychedelic, but of course it also people who take
MDMA have similar experiences when they take it at peak doses,
(12:54):
feeling very very present, very heart opening, and very much
able to access different parts of themselves that they bring
back to the world. And it reminds me of just
because of the timing in terms of how we think
about psychedelics and how that term is evolving.
Speaker 1 (13:12):
I just saw a I.
Speaker 2 (13:14):
Think it was Albert Hoffman's anniversary of Albert Hoffin's birthday recently,
the scientist Swiss scientists who discovered LSD early twentieth century,
and one of the quotes that I saw of him
in an interview talking about his first experiences with LSD
was he described it in the exact same way that
you just described kana, which was this extremely potent that
(13:37):
we know of. You know, LSD as one of the
most potent psychedelic agents and one of the first modern
psychedelic agents to ever be discovered. And one of the
first things that he described when he talks about his
experience is the heart opening nature of it, feeling, you know,
extraordinarily connected to himself and the world around him in
ways that he did not feel before, and just the
(14:00):
expansiveness of.
Speaker 1 (14:01):
That connection in and of itself.
Speaker 2 (14:03):
And then everything else about the psychedelic experiences I'll see
kind of a secondary in his report, But the first
things that he talked about were the same first things
you talked about with kanda and ceremony, and so I
just find that really fascinating that these plants like kana
have been used for so many centuries and generations to
naturally induce some of these states, and that we often
(14:26):
in our society don't think about them as psychedelic, whereas
you know, in a lot of for all intensive purposes,
they are fully in that way because they're changing our mindset.
Speaker 3 (14:37):
Wow. Wow, you know, I love that the way that
you framed it, you know, and the word psychedelic to be,
you know, revealing the mind because absolutely, I mean by
that definition, for sure, kinda is psychedelic. And I really
like framing it that way because it's not so much
focused on the compounds or what it's doing necessarily as
much as how it's actually benefiting us, right, And that's
(15:00):
the point otherwise why I mean you, I mean, I
guess people can do cyclics for entertainment, but I feel
like then they're missing a big part of what's there
for us to discover and to help us heal and thrive.
I mean, you're a MDM amazing expert, you know, so
I actually wonder, like have you know, because people have
(15:20):
compared of course Conna as Nature's MDMA, and you see
that meme going around a lot, and I always like
to distinguish the two. But I wanted to hear, like,
how you think of it, how you think of context
of MDMA.
Speaker 2 (15:34):
I feel like it has similar experiences in terms of
you know, if we just think about the you know,
what you described in your first experience, and obviously the
dose matters, right, So the kind of dose that I think, uh,
and this is something I love to talk to you about,
and I think a great segue from here is is
kind of what different kinds of CONNA experiences can be
(15:57):
like with different doses, maybe even getting into what is
a ceremony with conon light compared to taking the medicine
in your day to day life, if you were taking
it at home in a standard Western American's life. Because
this environment, and it's another thing we talk about a
lot on this show, is how the environment in which
(16:18):
you administer or consume a plant medicine or psychedelic medicine
has a tremendous impact on the way that that medicine
impacts us, right, And so I think that there's two
components to that. And we know that people who take MBMA,
for instance, at a rave or a big party around
a bunch of strangers, have a very different experience than
(16:41):
those who take it in a ceremonial or therapeutic context
with two therapists in the MAPS protocol. Right, it's like
a very different experience. One is very much about being
open and connecting with others and the other one is
about going deep inside and connecting with yourself, much more
similar to I would say that the kind of experience
that you described, which I have never experienced a kind
(17:03):
of ceremony, but the kind of experience you described for
your first experience seems much more similar to what we
talk about when we bring somebody into the fold for
you know, a therapeutic clinical MBMA therapy administration, like in
the research trials with MAPS for PTSD or other conditions.
But I would love to learn from you about the
(17:25):
differences in the indigenous use of kanda, because I actually
know very little about it, but it fascinates me because
this plant has been around on the earth for so
long and not unlike other plants we do see, like
when I talk to people who grow cannabis or people
who grow certain you know, organic vegetables, or especially with
grapes for wine.
Speaker 1 (17:46):
You know, we see this movement going back to the.
Speaker 2 (17:48):
Old World way of growing grapes, which is like dry
farm gardening right where you know the grapes are intentionally
stressed in the growing process with limited water and complex
nutrient dense soils, but with limited access to nutrients, that
actually allows the fruit of the grapes to become much
more complex and much more dense alkaloid content, and have
(18:12):
much more interesting flavors and that kind of thing which
separates a lot of the tremendous and amazing wines in
the world from those that are just the regular stuff
you would buy at your local grocery store, which all
tastes the same.
Speaker 1 (18:24):
And so clearly that concept of stressing a.
Speaker 2 (18:28):
Plant that has to then overcome challenges of growth can
make a more complex psychedelic agent or plant partner that
we work with. And this is no different for condin
it seems, than it is for making a good wine
and growing nice grapes. But it's very interesting that that
(18:49):
I think has become a much more common way of
thinking about growing and working with plants in our environment.
That stress is important, and it's a nice metaphor for
human existence, right where if we don't face stress, we're
not challenged to grow and become stronger, better versions of ourselves.
If we face stress and safe, healthy environments, then we
actually grow and become stronger, better versions of ourselves because
(19:10):
we're forced to learn and overcome and adapt to the stress,
which increases our ability to adapt and to be resilient. Right,
you're listening to the Psychedelic Report, So yeah, So I
think it's just fascinating that you already started and mentioning
all of that stuff because it's so relevant to the
way that humans grow. And you know, we have a
(19:30):
saying as above so below, I think we're a lot
more similar to the plants than we let on. But
I would love to hear about what is the difference
in the dosing, for instance, of kind of in the
ceremonial setting versus the settings that people are typically using
it in now that it's available, And if you could
go into some of the history about the plant medicine
(19:51):
ceremonial experiences of this in indigenous cultures, that'd be really
interesting as well.
Speaker 3 (19:56):
Absolutely well, first of all, I just want to say,
you know that metaphor of how you know, if we look,
there's so many plant allies out there that just are
literally all around us, and humans evolved with plants, right,
we forget that sometimes, but it's a great reminder just
now what you said about the metaphor of us being
stressed and you know, back can. I mean, it depends
(20:17):
how far you want to go, but like if you
have sort of a little bit of stress and do consistently,
we do become more resilient, and the same with kana
for sure. And it's just a great reminder of our
connection to the natural world. I just kind of want
to double tap on that because I think that in
that itself is part of the healing, our remembrance of
(20:38):
how we are part of the natural world as opposed
to apart from it. So I wanted to address actually
everything you mentioned, which was all really relevant.
Speaker 2 (20:48):
And just to add that word that I forgot to mention,
that word to describe this phenomenon that's so important that
you just came back to, of how stress helps us
grow healthy amounts of stress and safe environments helps us grow,
just like it helps plants grow better. Is called hormesis,
which is a term that refers to straining the body
(21:09):
help in a safe way, like saun A cold plunge
is one example of a hormetic stress that helps us
to overcome challenge and safe environments to grow and become stronger,
which is something that impacts all animals and plants on
the earth to help us grow. It's a normal growth
pressure that trains adaptation.
Speaker 1 (21:27):
So back to you, No, I.
Speaker 3 (21:29):
Love that, So yeah, just addressing everything you just raise.
But I would like to actually just have a quick
comparison between MME and Conna. Yes, we'll have, because again
that meme has gone out so many times about kind
of being nature's MDMA. So I would say definitely the
similarities is that heart opening feeling, you know, feeling more connected,
(21:50):
feeling more oneness, but very different because MDMA is it
has amphetamines, kinda does not. So the experience is much
more pronounced as much or pronounced with MDA certainly than
with kana, which is more subtle.
Speaker 2 (22:03):
And longer lasting. Right, I think with the MDMA typically
lasts four to six hours, or.
Speaker 3 (22:10):
I think if you're looking for what I'll get into,
if you're looking for a ceremonial experience, No, I think
that kana will last at least three to four hours.
But so yes, you know, but it really depends on
which I'll get into the dosage and the potency of
what you're actually ingesting. But yeah, and then of course
MDM is synthetic, KNA is for nature, So there's that
(22:31):
as well. And I think one big difference which I
do want to emphasize is, you know, if you cannot
really consistently take MDA every single I mean, I guess
you know, people try to do that, but it's it's
ultimately not so healthy certainly can be very damaging to
your to your brain. So there's that aspect. But Kana's
(22:52):
perspective and that is really distinguishes itself and it actually
kind of helps in a way to reset your brain.
It helps it's a optogenic, you know I mentioned before,
it helps to regulate the nervous system to make it
more resilient towards sress. And that makes it super unique.
Right from a dosage standpoint, I would say, like, let's
(23:12):
say a micro dose, and I'm talking about kind of
extract now, which I want to be very clear, it's
not the herb or the bulk plant kind of extract
anywhere between. Like I don't know, two to ten milligrams
could be considered a microdose, and if you're super sensitive,
you feel it, but most people really at that low
dose don't. They don't really, it doesn't really register and
(23:35):
anywhere from like a daily dose of what we recommend.
And before I even say this, I just want to
be very clear, you have to really be careful where
you're sourcing your kana extract from as well, because every
type of kind of extract will have a different alkaloid composition.
And people generally look at mezambriine and the content of
(23:56):
a mezmbriine, So that's one measure, but there are other
alkalois SHO look at as well, such as mesobruno, and
so you know, you can have the same amount of extract,
but one can be a lot more potent because it
has a higher alcaloid content, So that's another That's another
thing with the daily dose that we recommend is really
anywhere from twenty to thirty thirty five milligrams a day.
(24:18):
So for example, our ConA chews are like thirty milligrams
thirty miligrams per tuth and you know, our recommended dose
with the tincture is the same. But always, of course,
this depends on each individual. You're going to have a
different reaction to a different way that your body actually
processes this plant. And I would also add and say
(24:39):
that if you have a lot of inflammation in your body,
the serotonin that's produced from the kana will first go
to lower the inflammation and istamine before you really start
to feel a lift. And anybody who has had let's
say history of taking emphetamine cells like adderall for example,
they might need, we will very likely need a much
higher dose in the beginning so that they can reset
(25:00):
and then come back down to you know, more regular
normal dose, so a ceremonial dose. So it's interesting because
if you go online, ceremonial dose they say is anywhere
from five hundred milligrams and above, which is a lot actually,
so really again depends on the type of ConA extract,
the kana that you're taking in I would say, for example,
(25:22):
for our ConA, it's really anywhere from ninety milligrams to
three hundreds. Already like a lot. So sorry to be
so I'm trying not to be vague, but I'm also
trying to give a lot of detail for to educate people,
to make them understand that you know, there's there's you
just have to really look at the details of what
you're purchasing or what you're you know what you're buying,
(25:44):
and and so in terms of ceremonial experience, right, that
was your other question.
Speaker 2 (25:51):
And just to wrap on dosing, it sounds the you
said the ninety to five hundred milligrams is of the
ninety to three hundre it is of the extracted.
Speaker 3 (26:01):
Yeah, that's what I would say for our extract. That's
that that's the amount. Depending on other extracts, they might
you might go higher. But there's kind of a general
safety guideline, which is it's generally safe to take six
miligrams per kilogram of body weight for an average adult.
So that's about four hundred and twenty milligrams for an
(26:22):
average adult. Beyond that, you'll probably experience a lot of
nausea and other side effects, but it's not it's generally
considered safe. There's no toxicity to deliver. Yes, you might
feel really nauseata, you might throw up, you know, but
you won't go into your body will react in a
way at least this is what I understand, in a
(26:42):
way that you're not going to get end up in
the hospital. Now, if you are already taking let's say
an SSRI or something like that, you want to be
very careful because you want to you don't want to
double down and take on a and anssry because you're
going to have too much serotonin in your body, which
could have you go. So there's so there's a lot
of things that, as with all psychedelics, you've got to
(27:04):
look at the interactions, contraindications and just be careful that way.
But I would say that compared to a lot of
other psychedelics out there, kana is definitely towards the safer
side of the spectrum of plants.
Speaker 2 (27:18):
Yeah, I think that that is consistent with my understanding
as well. It sounds like a lot at ceremonial dose
is a lot of a lot of the adverse reactions
that people have are with kind of high high doses
are very similar to the kinds of.
Speaker 1 (27:31):
Experiences people have with any plant medicine.
Speaker 2 (27:33):
The ceremonial dose, whether you're talking about sempedro or peyote
or ayahuasca. There's you know, the nausea and kind of
the sensory disturbances and feeling overwhelmed and that kind of thing.
And I think in general, being as a good point
of caution, you brought up that because it is a
serraitinergic psychedelic, and much of its mechanism of action that
(27:55):
similar to other plant medicines and molecules like MDMA that
act heavily on the serotonin system. We tend not to
recommend taking high doses of these kinds of molecules and
plants extracts when you're also taking an SSRI that prevents
the normal re uptake of serotonin and clearance.
Speaker 1 (28:16):
From your brain.
Speaker 2 (28:17):
So word of caution to anyone who might be interested
in this molecule or this plant who is taking those medicines.
But that being said, overall fairly safe plant, which is
which is really great.
Speaker 3 (28:29):
Right, And I will add to that because sometimes you know,
people were like, you know, I don't want to take
mystr I want to ty trate down and I want
to take Conna instead, and what's you know, So we
always say it's like, look, talk to your qualified healthcare
provider right sent as yourself, right doctor Jape, And it's
and we actually work with therapists and doctors and clinicians
to help their patients ty trate down off of SSRIs
(28:53):
and help them and help them do that with KAW
and with ConA. So it's been really interesting because you know,
this is sort of real, live data that's coming out
and not everybody knows con it's still generally quite new,
and so just to see the results that I've been
hearing from doctors has been amazing. It's just really helps
with some of the withdrawal symptoms. It helps with you know,
(29:14):
balancing mood, and you know, that's how I've seen Again,
just to repeat, I'm certainly not a doctor, we're not doctors.
We're not providing any medical advice. You're a doctor, doctor Dave.
But that's what I've seen other doctors do with success.
So I just thought that was also really exciting that
I wanted to share.
Speaker 1 (29:31):
Yeah, it's great.
Speaker 2 (29:32):
I mean I have not had experience with that, but
I think, you know, learning about kind of over the years,
I think it's interesting to think about it from the
perspective of having more plant based medicines in our toolbox
that can help people transition to SSRI or other you know,
(29:53):
Western antidepressant alternatives, because there are you know, SSRIs have
great utility for certain people, but long term they can
cause a lot of side effects that are undesirable, and
a lot of people nowadays are recognizing that and trying
to come off of them or transition to you know,
a non SSRI dependent lifestyle for obvious reasons, and you know,
(30:17):
the side effects of those drugs being a major reason.
And so a major part of my career has actually
been helping people to live more pharmaceutical free lifestyles and
consider plant based alternatives, technology based alternatives, because a lot
of whole plant medicine, and we talk about this a lot,
and I actually have a show that will come out
(30:38):
or that that actually just came out with Jeremy Narby,
who is one of the most famous anthropologists who studies
plant medicine in use in the indigenous cultures in South America,
specifically looking at the indigenous and ceremonial use of tobacco
and ayahuasca, and you know, just thinking, you know, I
think it's fascinating to talk about the way that these
(31:00):
plants are used indigenous settings traditionally for thousands of years,
and how different the experience is when they're used for
the purpose of medicine or the purpose of healing, whereas
in our culture, you know, just thinking about tobacco, for instance,
we don't look at tobacco as a medicinal plant. It's
it has basically zero medicinal qualities in Western culture because
(31:22):
of the way that it's used, but in tribal culture
in South America, in many tribal cultures, it is the
first medicine plant that anybody works with and learns to
work with for healing.
Speaker 1 (31:33):
And so again, you know, it's really.
Speaker 2 (31:35):
Just about having more tools in our toolbox as clinicians
that we can start to understand, Hey, maybe there are
places where the in the healing experience that we're providing
to our patients where plants may have a bigger role
to play and we should be exploring them. You know,
I hesitate to say, don't you know, we don't have
all the answers yet for which plants and what doses,
(31:57):
and there needs to be a lot more research into
these two tools. But there are a lot of tools
that are available in the plant world that we haven't
explored yet. And I think that's really exciting for modern
psychiatry totally.
Speaker 3 (32:10):
And good for you, doctor Dave that you're doing the
work that you're doing because it's really needed, you know,
and it just gives people, like you said, just so
many more options, especially when people don't want to be
taking pharmaceuticals forever and ever. So I think this is
huge and big reason why this academic movement has gone
through its renaissance. You know, but yeah, I mean talking
(32:30):
about indigenous uses. What's really interesting is when I and
I went, I literally was just in not just but
just February and March. I was in South Africa, Namibia
purposely actually finding the elders and the medicine people who
still knew this plant because a lot of that wisdom
has been lost. If you speak younger Indigenous, but they
(32:55):
don't really know kana anymore, but the elders do. And
it was surprisingly to dificult to find some of these people,
and but it was it was a wonderful opportunity. I
got to spend time with them in the bush. It
was it was amazing. And you know how the indigenous
cultures used to work with conna is. The whole family
would take it. It wasn't just for stressed out people. It
(33:16):
wasn't just like only going for hunting. It was such
a core part of their community. So they would actually
share it with you know, men, women, kids, babies, even
women or mothers who had a you know, a colic
baby who would just wouldn' stop crying. They would literally
put a tiny bit of the conna into the breast
milk and feed it to them. So and it also
(33:37):
helped pregnant women, Indigenous women with their pains, even with
their nausea. Like there's you know, been a lot of
use that way. And in terms of ceremony, they would
do these trans dances. It's a way for them to
commune with the divine and with their ancestors, and they
would definitely take kana for that to connect and it's beautiful.
(34:00):
So the transdance is a big part of their culture
as well. But they also from what I under said,
they also traded kanna. They also it was definitely part
of their medicinal tradition because it helped so much with
chronic stress and pain, and it's you know, ConA is
very anti inflammatory as well, which makes it powerful in
so many, so many ways. And you know, one of
(34:24):
the things that I think people may or may not
know about conna that's a little bit unique also that
because of how it activates receptors for class to climb in,
it actually helps to kind of reduce any kind of
hedonic craving. So by hidonic craving, I mean any excessive
cravings for It could be anything. It doesn't have to
be for drugs. It could be for to salt that sugar.
(34:44):
It could be for porn, it could be for anything
like that. It's just the way that it works in
the medio fore brain. It's amazing actually, So I mean
I can tell you personally, I just you know, when
I'm taking ka like I just don't reach for whatever,
the whole bag of potato chips, just of one out.
I'm good, you know. And so it's it's really interesting.
And there have been some studies that are just very
(35:08):
early stage studies about kanna and addiction that are really
interesting and how I think with I think they did
a study, like a very preliminary study I think about
heroin addiction and conna and also menephetamine addiction something like that.
But again we're at the super early stage of that.
But it's just it's fascinating. It really invites further inquiry
(35:31):
because of that.
Speaker 2 (35:34):
You're listening to the Psychedelic Report. I find that really
interesting that you brought up the impact on cravings, because
as an addiction psychiatrist, I think you know, we spend
a lot of time talking about the addicted behavior itself
and how that drives change of thought process and decision
(35:55):
making and that kind of thing, you know, particularly surrounding
the active use of a substance or the continued use
of an addictive substance. And it's not necessarily of course,
as you mentioned right, this isn't just about drugs. It's
about sugar, it's about fat, it's about addictive behavior, impulsive
behavior in general we might talk about as avoidance of
(36:16):
discomfort by trying to soothe ourselves with something or some
behavior that is not internal.
Speaker 1 (36:22):
To the body.
Speaker 2 (36:23):
You know. I think cravings in particular are fascinating because
we have been writing about this a lot lately, but
we don't think about necessarily how much cravings and the
act of craving in between uses of medicine or uses
of a substance or sugar, even like an addictive food,
actually impact and drive our decision making and our actions.
Speaker 1 (36:45):
Right, And I think.
Speaker 2 (36:46):
People, anybody who has had a habit of eating sugar
or consuming sugar when you're stressed out, going back to childhood,
knows very well that when there are many times throughout
the day and sometimes at night where you crave sugar
and you're not sure why, and then you ingest it.
(37:06):
And it's the in between the times where you ingest it, where.
Speaker 1 (37:12):
That idea of oh, I want to eat.
Speaker 2 (37:15):
Something sweet right now, or I want to you know,
put sugar in my body or something with sugar in
my body to feel better is actually taking up a
huge amount of our mental resources right all the time
between the use of it, much of that time we
are thinking about when can I get that next? Right,
And that concept of craving is incredibly not you know,
(37:38):
not just interesting from neuroscience and behavioral neuroscience perspective, but
it's interesting from a brain resource perspective, right, Like how
much time are we spending thinking about when we're going
to get this thing next rather than just being present
with what we're doing in the moment right, or how
to navigate our stress in the moment without thinking about
(38:00):
when we're going to next get our fixed for whatever
it is, you know, sugar in this case, for this example.
But I think it's fascinating that we don't have a
lot of good tools that are safe that actually help
to mitigate craving in medicine and particularly an addiction medicine,
and so just the concept that a plant like kinda
(38:20):
could be helpful in navigating that for a lot of
our patients with not just things like sugar or food,
but also for highly addictive substances really highlights it as
a fascinating plant that deserves more exploration.
Speaker 3 (38:37):
Absolutely, and in fact, in traditional medicine in South Africa,
it's used for treating an alcohol aboose and they even
have in Afrikaans they call it. I mean, I'm doing
a terrible job pronouncing it, but like on drunk, which
means our dry drink.
Speaker 2 (38:53):
Oh wow.
Speaker 3 (38:54):
Yeah. So it's fascinating as an alcohol alternative because that's
how you know, traditionally, that's how they treat alcoholism. And
what's fascinating is we've been for example, with our tincture
in particular, because you can just drop it into any
kind of non alcoholic drink. We've been sharing that with
our audience and people have been writing back and saying,
(39:15):
you know what, it's true, like I don't reach for
my I mean I could, but I don't really have
that ooh unsatiable need to like reach for my glass
of wine anymore, like every evening. But I feel good
about It's not like I feel deprived. And this was
like so powerful that those that kind of feedback is
amazing because here you have, you know, something that could
be it will still give you a mood lift, right,
(39:37):
And this is this is the thing when you were
talking about context, and we always love like using the
tincture out social socializing because it helps to lower social
anxiety and it makes you more emotionally open and available
and you just connect better, you're chattier, right, And you
know that in that sense, it's a real aid in
social situations. And we've seen that we've gotten so much
(39:59):
feedback about that as well. So there's just like you said,
there's a lot more to discover. But also back to
what you were asking earlier about context, what's interesting with
conna on a let's say, on a ceremonial dose. I
have found that initially for most people, you know, people
(40:21):
really go inwards first. There's that connecting with self, you know,
and feeling everything that needs to come up or insights
and that you might be downloading. And then by about
hour three or four they really feel the energy boost
and then it becomes like wanting to dance, you know,
(40:41):
wanting to connect, wanting to hug, wanting to like you know,
in a in a cuddle puddle. But really it's energizing
absolutely right, because as I mentioned before, that's what the
indigeners would use for when they go on multi day hunts.
And because kana is also a pde for inhibitor, it
helps the body resource more energy. So it's just there's
(41:01):
so many amazing aspects to this wonderful sacred plant that
I honestly couldn't and I'm still discovering a lot of this.
And I think another thing in terms of context that
I will say, because I mentioned earlier, that kind of
first goes to lower inflammation. That's what we always recommend
people to take it consistently for at least thirty days
(41:22):
because with that you you really it's helping your body anyway, right,
because it's super anti inflammatory. But for you to feel
the full benefits of this plant, it helps to consistently
take it long term.
Speaker 1 (41:34):
This is at the microdose microdose.
Speaker 3 (41:37):
Not ceremonial does no microdose or you know, dose level,
which is like you know, like I said, twenty five
to thirty five pilograms. What's interesting about kanna also is
there is a reverse tolerance effect because it has this
sort of anti addictive nature to it. And you know,
I'm not probably explaining it in a super scientific way
(41:59):
at the moment, but that's you know, that's what it does.
If you continuously take it, you'll find that you need
less and less. You just don't need as much, and
that's normal, and that's great because you're not reaching for
the thing that you think is helping you and then
you become addicted to that. Right, So that is also
an incredible aspect about this plant.
Speaker 2 (42:20):
Yeah, that's a that's a fascinating phenomenon that you brought
up that I think is important to note, which is
the difference between we call it sometimes reverse tolerance, but
it's it's the opposite of tolerance, and that's why we
call it that, But it's really your body doesn't doesn't
become sort of numb to it and need more and
more every time you use it to get to the
same level your body becomes. And there are some other
(42:43):
plants that do this as well, where your body becomes
sensitive to it over time, rather than I think, what's
what we're the way we're describing reverse tolerance these days
to help explain it to people, because I think reverse
tolerance doesn't really help people understand what's happening. It's really
more of like a learning effect. So the body learns
(43:04):
to reattain a certain level of balance with a molecule
like kinda around where it's learning to be in a
different state. And then once you are in that state
of higher balance than the body recognizes that state, it
likes that state, and it has an easy it's more
prone to be able to get there more easily with
(43:25):
less augmentation effectively from the plant, which is really interesting.
And we see this particularly when these plants are used
in ceremony or or highly intentionally even without ceremony with it.
What you might call your personal ceremony is intention right,
is like, what is I'm not just taking this to
numb myself or distract myself from my problems, but I'm
(43:48):
taking this plant to teach me about myself, right, or
to connect more deeply with myself.
Speaker 1 (43:55):
And I think that.
Speaker 2 (43:57):
Is really important for people to underst stand, not just
from a ConA perspective, but from an addiction medicine perspective,
is that the way we engage with substances and plants
is really important.
Speaker 1 (44:10):
Right.
Speaker 2 (44:10):
The mindset that we come into these experiences with what
many of the psychedelic pioneers called the set, and setting
is really critical to what we get out of the plants.
And if we're whatever substance or activity you're engaging in,
if you're doing it to nob or distract yourself from
pain or discomfort, then you will be more likely to
(44:31):
develop tolerance to that substance. At the same time, if
you're using it to re engage.
Speaker 1 (44:37):
Right.
Speaker 2 (44:38):
Whereas you know, going back to what you brought up
from your first experience ceremonially with Kinda at the very
beginning of our conversation, talk about how much more self
connected you felt, how much more heart open, how present
you felt with this plant, which was really enlightening and
new for you to experience. That piece is the piece
(45:01):
we need to take with us, right, That's the piece
that we want to make sure that we are actively pursuing.
When we think about, like why am I putting the
substance in my body? It's to be more It's to
open my heart. It's to be more present and connected
with myself. It's to show more gratitude to myself, to
love myself and it's those kinds of intentions that result
in not escape from reality, but deeper engagement with reality
(45:25):
that I think is the psychological component of facilitating you know,
what you call reverse tolerance or the learning effect, because
you're learning to connect with yourself better with the help
of the plant as a tool.
Speaker 1 (45:38):
Does that make sense?
Speaker 3 (45:39):
He said it so beautifully, doctor Dave. I couldn't have
said it better. It's it's it's beautiful and so important.
Intention is everything, you know, the energy we bring into
building a relationship with whatever it is that you're working with.
And people kind of you know, maybe find it unusual
to talk about having a relationship with plants, but that's
when we're working with these kinds of medicines. That's that's
(46:01):
really encouraged because with that intention, you are engaging another
live substance and plant in this case, and you're recruiting
it in a sense, to be a part of your
your process, your journey, your healing, and that's really really powerful,
and you're in doing that, you're actually empowering yourself and
that's that's a huge part of any healing process. And
(46:25):
you know, I also wanted to share something that really
struck me when I was in South Africa and I
was speaking to one of the one of the elders,
and or this wasn't the storty. This was an elder.
This was a medicine man who had been working with
Connor for a long time. And he said, you know,
Conna is like your friend. What's so interesting is it
doesn't take you over, unlike a lot of other psychedelics.
(46:49):
So it's just there right, and you can choose to
hang out with your friend and watch a movie, or
you can have a deep conversation with your friend. It
really depends on how you want to work with and
it is such a beautiful plant in that it is
very responsive and also because it's adaptogenic, it responds to
how you want to work and collaborate with it. It's
(47:10):
fantastic that way. So the intention component is huge. And
another beautiful aspect about KNA is that it's subtle and
it's it holds space for you, so it doesn't hit
you over the head. It's there right, and the more
you kind of open to it, it opens to you.
It creates a safe space within yourself to allow any
(47:32):
kind of suppressed emotions or feelings that maybe you didn't
want to look at that to allow to come up
and be processed. And I think that that's you know,
and that's part of integration, right, that's part of integrating
all of our past experiences into our daily life. And
in that sense, it's just an incredible ally.
Speaker 2 (47:49):
Yeah, I love the way you said that, and you know,
and I think just because we're coming up on time,
I wanted to make sure to mention you talked about
your product co which is a wonderful product. I think
so my knowledge, it's one of the first, if not
the first, commercially available, high quality versions of Kana that
can be accessed in the general community as a legal
(48:11):
KNA experience that you can just purchase right without any
kind of blockers or you know, legal gateways to it.
It's a wonderful product. I've personally really enjoyed it, and
I think that it provides all the experiences that you've described,
and it's a really wonderful plant medicine collaborator for people
(48:32):
to work with and very safe and you know, for
anybody who's listening, I highly recommend checking it out. Could
you just before we wrap, just let everybody know a
little bit about it and where they can get it.
And I heard you have a special offer for people
who are listening.
Speaker 1 (48:45):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (48:46):
Sure. So the company is Compathogenics and you can find
us online. Our website is OHMCA dot com, which is
oh m y ka dot com, or you can find
us on Instagram or Facebook and our handle is co
dot m Pathogenics And yes, we have you know, we
offer daily supplements which by the way, besides Conna, there
(49:08):
are other synergistic plants that are part of the formulations.
They were very scientifically, you know, sort of researched and formulated.
So and we also pride ourselves from not using any
kind of chemical artificial sweeteners or not JMO. You know,
we try our best and that there really isn't anything
sort of bad for you in the sense that we
(49:28):
don't use sugar, we don't use caffeine, we don't even
use preservatives and which is which is really unheard of.
And yeah, I mean we we were definitely one of
the very first companies brands I would say that launched
three years ago and was it almost three years ago?
And yeah, I welcome anyone to you know, would love
for people to check us out and follow us. Yes,
(49:51):
And I wanted to also offer your community Doctor Dave
a discount code. So the discount code is t p
R for the Psychedelic Report and it's a ten percent
discount code.
Speaker 2 (50:04):
Thank you so much for that, and we'll make sure
to include that in the show notes and a link
to CA for everybody who's interested.
Speaker 1 (50:10):
And I just want to thank you for taking the
time to join me today. This is a really great conversation.
Speaker 3 (50:15):
Thanks so much, doctor David. It was incredible.
Speaker 1 (50:18):
Thanks for listening to The Psychedelic Report.
Speaker 2 (50:23):
Visit us at the Psychedelic Report dot com. This show
is recorded weekly on Clubhouse with a live audience. The
Psychedelic Report was brought to you by a poly neuroscience
and produced by Future Medicine Media. While I am a doctor,
I'm not your doctor. So please don't take anything you
(50:43):
hear on The Psychedelic Report as personal medical advice because
we don't know you. If you have questions about anything
you hear on this show, please consult with your doctor.
Popular Podcasts
NFL Daily with Gregg Rosenthal
Gregg Rosenthal and a rotating crew of elite NFL Media co-hosts, including Patrick Claybon, Colleen Wolfe, Steve Wyche, Nick Shook and Jourdan Rodrigue of The Athletic get you caught up daily on all the NFL news and analysis you need to be smarter and funnier than your friends.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com