The Drug Science Podcast

Theresa Marteau is a British health psychologist, professor, and director of the Behaviour and Health Research Unit at the University of Cambridge. Her initial research concerned communicating risk information and found out that people usually don’t change their behaviours despite receiving any form of information about preventable diseases like type 2 diabetes or certain types of cancer. Hence, she decided to redirect her focus on the non-conscious rather than conscious processes that could improve people’s health behaviours e.g. reducing glass size to reduce alcohol consumption. Through that research, she’s demonstrated that it is the change in government policies or population-level interventions - putting nudge theory into practice - that present a potential for the improvement in our population’s health. For these notable findings and contributions she was appointed Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire in the 2017 Queen's Birthday Honours List.

Nudge theory

Social psychology

Milgram experiment

Obedience to Authority: An Experimental View by Stanley Milgram

Spatial, temporal, and demographic patterns in prevalence of smoking tobacco use and attributable disease burden in 204 countries and territories, 1990–2019: a systematic analysis from the Global Burden of Disease Study 2019

Impact of bottle size on in-home consumption of wine: feasibility and acceptability randomised cross-over study

Shopper lab

Impact of minimum unit pricing on alcohol purchases in Scotland and Wales: controlled interrupted time series analyses

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Today’s episode features Dr Peter Gasser, the president of the Swiss Medical Society for Psycholytic Therapy.

Professor Nutt and Dr Gasser talk about the rather unusual and innovative attitude to psychedelic research in Switzerland. 

How can Britain learn from the Swiss? What are the drug policies in the Albert Hofmann’s - the discoverer of LSD - country?

Dr Peter Gasser is a Swiss psychiatrist and psychotherapist and the President of the Swiss Medical Society for Psycholytic Therapy since 1997. After LSD was criminalized worldwide he was the first person to conduct research on psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy. Additionally, he holds a permission for and provides treatment using MDMA and LSD.

MDMA

LSD

Swiss Medical Society for Psycholytic Therapy

International Symposium on the Occasion of the 100th Birthday of Albert Hofmann

Albert Hofmann

Psilocybin

Post-traumatic stress disorder

MAPS - Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies

War on drugs - US political campaign 

The Psychedelic Renaissance

Pilot study on LSD-Assisted Psychotherapy for Anxiety Associated With Life-threatening Diseases

End of life anxiety 

Obsessive-compulsive disorder

Cluster headache

Psycholytic therapy with MDMA and LSD in Switzerland - MAPS article 

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This week on the Drug Science podcast, Professor Deborah Mash tells us about Ibogaine. A hallucinogenic compound derived from the roots of a West African shrub, sometimes used as a treatment for heroin or cocaine addiction.

Professor Mash found herself trying to reverse the damage that cocaine had caused on the streets of Miami, Florida. To explore new and novel therapies, she took a flight to Amsterdam to examine whether a West African shrub could be cure to cocaine and heroin dependency.  Since that fateful trip, she’s been at the forefront of Ibogaine and Noribogaine research in the US. Now, she’s bringing that research to the UK for a landmark Ibogaine study in Manchester, England. Could Ibogaine be one of the most clinically significant advances in addiction medicine of the 21st century? 

Deborah Mash is one of the world's foremost experts on the hallucinogenic drug ibogaine. She is the CEO and Founder of DemeRx Inc., a clinical-stage drug development company advancing ibogaine and its active metabolite noribogaine for the treatment of opioid use disorder. DemeRx has partnered with ATAI Life Sciences -- a global biotech platform with a special focus on psychedelic medicine -- to develop ibogaine for those suffering from opioid use disorder. Building on the extensive human data available around ibogaine, DemeRx and ATAI will submit Clinical Trial Applications for a Phase II study in opioid-dependent patients. This joint venture will also develop screening procedures, dosing guidelines, and best practices for opioid withdrawal management to ensure patient safety.

Enrol to the MAC Ibogaine Clinical trial 

DemeRx

Miami’s drug war 

Brain Endowment Bank

National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA)

Cocaethylene

Drug Free America 

Howard Lotsof

Noribogaine

Rick Doblin 

Cerebellar Toxicity 

Buprenorphine 

U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA)

Psilocybin

MAC Manchester

Alexander Shulgin  

Allopregnanolone (Brexanolone)

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In this episode of the Drug Science Podcast, world-renowned author Michael Pollan and Prof David Nutt discuss gardening.

Of course, this being the Drug Science podcast, there’s no mention of sunflowers or strawberries. Instead, these two icons of psychopharmacology discuss the cultivation and everything else you might want to know about psychoactive plants with a particular focus on Opium, Caffeine and Mescaline.

Michael Pollan, a contributing writer to The New York Times Magazine since 1987, Professor of Journalism at UC Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism and Director of the Knight Program in Science and Environmental Journalism, is one of the nation’s most influential writers and scientific and environmental investigative journalists. His many award-winning, best-selling books include: The Botany of Desire; The Omnivore’s Dilemma; In Defense of Food; and, most recently, How to Change Your Mind.

Who is Michael Pollan? 

Michael Pollan, a contributing writer to The New York Times Magazine since 1987, Professor of Journalism at UC Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism and Director of the Knight Program in Science and Environmental Journalism, is one of the nation’s most influential writers and scientific and environmental investigative journalists. His many award-winning, best-selling books include: The Botany of Desire; The Omnivore’s Dilemma; In Defense of Food; and, most recently, How to Change Your Mind.

Michael Pollan’s latest book -> This is your mind on plants

How to change your mind 

Opium 

Caffeine 

Mescaline

Jim Hogshire

Papaver Somniferum

Harper’s magazine

John ‘Rick’ MacArthur

Purdue Pharma Oxycontin

Bentley compounds 

Bees and Caffeine

Roland Griffiths Caffeine research

The enlightenment coffeehouses 

Voltaire

Denis Diderot

Honoré de Balzac

Roland Griffiths

Peyote 

Aldous Huxley The Doors of Perception  

American Indian Religious Freedom Act of 1978

San Pedro

Muscimol

Ibotenic Acid 

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This week’s episode features Doctor Sheila Vakharia and Professor Alex Stevens, together with Professor Nutt they will be talking about decriminalization and drug policies in the US and the UK. Has both countries’ drug policies arisen from colonialism and social class hierarchy? What are the consequences of the policies that can be witnessed today? Are there any reasons for drug criminalisation? 

Sheila P Vakharia, PhD is Deputy Director of the Department of Research and Academic Engagement for the Drug Policy Alliance, a US organisation advocating for decriminalisation of drug use. Prior to joining DPA, Dr. Vakharia was an Assistant Professor of Social Work at Long Island University, and had also worked as a clinical social worker in both abstinence-only and harm reduction settings. Her research interests include harm reduction therapy, drug policy reform, drug user stigma, overdose prevention, and social work education. She is currently on the Board of Directors of HAMS Harm Reduction Network and Filter magazine. She has written op-eds for the Philadelphia Inquirer on the overdose crisis and NY Daily News on drug-induced homicide laws and stimulants.

Professor Alex Stevens has worked on issues of drugs, crime and health in the voluntary sector, as an academic researcher and as an adviser to the UK government. He has published extensively on these issues, with a focus on the sociology of drugs and crime, on risk behaviours by young people, on the use of evidence in policy and on quasi-compulsory drug treatment. His published works include a book on ‘Drugs, Crime and Public Health‘, studies of decriminalisation of drugs in Portugal, of the right to use drugs, on gangs and on the ethnography of policy making.

Professor Stevens’ interest in drugs and crime dates back to his time working with UK charity Prisoners Abroad, which provides advice and information to British prisoners held in foreign prisons, and as European project manager and coordinator of the European Network of Drug and HIV/AIDS Services in Prison for Cranstoun Drugs Services.

Drug Policy Alliance

War on drugs

Cannabis

Harm reduction

Decriminalization in Oregon

Crack house statute legal definition

An article about what this statute actually means 

HIV crisis in the 1980s

Opium Wars

Pharmacy Act 1868

Opioids

Doctor shopping

Heroin

Metamphetamine

Fentanyl

Methadone

Buprenorphine

Uprooting the Drug War

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Michael Mithoefer, MD is a Clinical Investigator and acting Medical Director of MAPS Public Benefit Corporation. Together with his wife Annie, they completed the first phase 2 clinical trial of MDMA-assisted psychotherapy for PTSD in 2009 and a subsequent study of MDMA-assisted psychotherapy for PTSD in military veterans, firefighters and police officers. They are now supervising therapists in the ongoing MAPS Phase 3 trials of MDMA-assisted Psychotheapy for PTSD, leading training in MDMA- assisted psychotherapy for therapists interested in working on clinical trials, and providing FDA-approved MDMA sessions for research therapists. 

Michael is Clinical Assistant Professor of Psychiatry at the Medical University of South Carolina, is a Grof certified Holotropic Breathwork Practitioner, has been a Certified Internal Family Systems Therapist, and has been board certified in Psychiatry, Emergency Medicine and Internal Medicine. 

Annie is a registered nurse as well as a Grof-certified Holotropic Breathwork Practitioner, is trained in Hakomi Therapy, and has 25 years experience working with trauma patients, with an emphasis on experiential approaches to therapy.

Tune in to this episode to find out about their pioneer work with MDMA and their most recent research!

MDMA-assisted psychotherapy

MDMA

Psychedelics

Stanislav Grof

Breathwork

EMDR

Neurofeedback

Francine Shapiro

FDA

Rick Doblin

MAPS

IRB 

DEA

CAPS-5 - Clinician Administered PTSD Scale

Exposure therapy

Cognitive-behavioral conjoint therapy

Candice Monson

Amygdala

Relax beliefs under psychedelics (REBUS)

PTSD

EMA - European Medicines Agency

Psilocybin

Ayahuasca

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Today’s episode features Ollie Ollerton, a former UK Special Forces soldier and directing staff (DS) of Channel 4’s SAS: Who Dares Wins. Mr Ollerton has always been involved in the social cause, serving in the army as well as supporting multiple charities. Thanks to the publicity from SAS: Who Dares Wins he has been, among others, raising awareness of the mental health of soldiers. By the means of supporting Heroic Hearts charity he also advocates for the use of psychedelics such as ayahuasca for the treatment of PTSD which often affects his serving colleagues. Ollie also authored multiple books in which he tells the story of his career and mental journey of overcoming PTSD himself. 

Upon Ollie’s return to the UK in 2014 after 13 years overseas he started developing a concept to allow his training and experience to benefit others. BREAK-POINT provides leadership and development courses to the public and corporate sector also supporting veterans suffering the effects of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, PTSD.

Ollie is a trained PRISM practitioner, a character assessment tool based on neuroscience that assists him and his team to provide the most engaging and rewarding corporate events focusing on mindset, teamwork and leadership. Along with another member of the SAS team, Ollie and Foxy have launched an app called the BATTLE READY 360 programme that focuses on mindset, nutrition and exercise. Ollie’s second book BATTLE READY launched in April 2020 straight into The Times Best Seller Top Ten, following the amazing success of BREAK-POINT in May 2019 which was a Times Number One Best Seller.

Heroic Hearts retreat for veterans

Heroic hearts

Ollie Instagram 

United Kingdom Special Forces

SAS: Who Dares Wins

Battlebox

PTSD

Ayahuasca

Break point

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Friederike Meckel is a German psychotherapist who also trained as a medical doctor. Her career involved multiple techniques in psychotherapy including Holotropic Breathwork, hypnotherapy and family constellation work.

Most notably however, regarding the subject of our podcasts, by the means of setting a private underground practice in Zurich, Switzerland she developed her own way of psychotherapy using psychoactive substances. In this week’s episode, she describes the very innovative approaches to her work focusing on patient’s deeper understanding of themselves. Make sure to listen in if you want to find out more!

Underground MDMA-, LSD- and 2-CB-assisted individual and group psychotherapy in Zurich: Outcomes, implications and commentary - Article by Friederike Meckel Fischer and Ben Sessa

Depth psychology 

Holotropic breathwork

Hypnotherapy

Systemic therapy

Transpersonal therapy

Behaviour therapy

Family constellations

MDMA

LSD

Psilocybin

2C-B

DMT

Dr Joe Dispenza

Mindfulness

Therapy with Substance: Psycholytic Psychotherapy in the Twenty-First Century - book by Friederike Meckel Fischer

Stanislav Grof

Peter Gasser

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Julia Buxton is British Academy Global Professor. Her research focuses on illicit drug markets and the impact of counter narcotics policies on development, gender equality and security. In her career she’s led projects and worked with multiple universities around the world including the Central European University in Budapest. Outside of Europe, she has geographical expertise on Latin America and is a specialist on Venezuela. 

Now, back in England, she’s working on The Global Drug Survey project, inquiring about the drug policy preferences of drug users themselves. With this innovative approach she’s joining the conversation on drugs on the political scene in the UK. 

Tune into this week’s episode to find out about how drug policies that are older than the Internet, Thatcherism and HIV treatment contribute to inequalities arising between different countries and genders.

Shownotes:

Opioids

Cannabis

Open Society Foundations

Jonathan Soros

UN Sustainable Development Goals

Viktor Orban

Populism

Syrian refugee crisis in Hungary

Nativism

The Impact of Global Drug Policy on Women: Shifting the Needle - book by Julia Buxton 

Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD)

Ingrid Walker

Judith Aldridge

Darknet

“Do Darknet Drug Markets Make the Bad Guys Less Bad?” Aldridge Asks 

Keir Starmer

Nicola Sturgeon

Heroin 

Cocaine

Greenwich biosciences 

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Richard ‘Rick’ Doblin is the founder and director of Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS) - a non-profit research organisation established in 1986. 

Somewhere between getting an undergraduate degree in psychology and a doctorate in public policy, Rick, having had discovered psychedelics, began his fight against unjustified criminalisation of psychedelic drugs. 

Rick’s main goal has been making MDMA a FDA-approved medicine, tune in to this week’s episode to find out about his progress!

MAPS latest MDMA study in Nature Medicine

Drug Science live podcast recording with Professor David Nutt! 

Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS)

MDMA

Cuban Missile Crisis, Vietnam War 

Carl Jung

LSD

Mescaline

John Lilly 

Programming & Metaprogramming in the Human Biocomputer: Theory & Experiments

Realms of the Human Unconscious: Observations from LSD Research by Stanislav Grof

Isolation tank

Stanislav Grof

Primal therapy

New Genesis: Shaping a global spirituality by Robert Muller

Laura Huxley

Island by Aldous Huxley

DMT

Psilocybin

Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)

Ayahuasca

Spinal tap

Dissociative identity disorder

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Together with Professor David Nutt they will be talking about the beauty behind psychoactive substances as well as the, equally interesting, stories from Lady Feilding’s life journey.

Drug Science live podcast recording with Professor David Nutt! 

If you want to find out how to travel to Ceylon for 25 pounds do have a listen!

Amanda Feilding is the Founder and Executive Director of the Beckley Foundation, and is widely recognised as a leading force behind the current Psychedelic Renaissance. By establishing key Research Programmes at some of the world’s most prestigious institutions (including Imperial College London, Maastricht University, Sant Pau in Barcelona, IDOR and UFRN in Brazil), she has propelled the field forward over the last 20+ years, conducting landmark studies, such as the world’s first psilocybin for treatment-resistant depression study (on which Compass Pathways based their business), the world’s first LSD, MDMA and DMT brain imaging studies, plus the initiation and collaboration with Johns Hopkins on the first study using psilocybin-assisted psychotherapy to overcome nicotine addiction. She has also co-authored over 80 research papers.

Since its inception in 1998, the Beckley Foundation has been at the forefront of exploratory research into psychedelics and cannabis, and evidence-based global drug policies. Through a series of pivotal international seminars at the House of Lords (starting in 2000) with leading figures from around the world in different fields, from science to politics, plus over 60 much-cited books, reports and papers, and numerous meetings with thought-leaders, academics, and policy-makers at the UN and governments around the world, Amanda has ensured that the Beckley Foundation has been at the forefront of global drug policy reform, particularly in the field of cannabis and the psychedelics. 

Through her work with the Beckley Foundation, Amanda is bridging the gap between science and policy, creating a positive feedback loop, with the aim of building and harnessing our knowledge of the benefits of currently prohibited compounds to optimise human health, wellbeing and potential.

Drug Science live podcast recording with Professor David Nutt!
Cannabis

LSD

Timothy Leary

Bart Hughes

Psychedelic Microdosing 

LSD’s impact on brain interconnectivity 

Beckley Foundation

Mdma

Joseph “Joey” Mellen

Albert Hofmann

Sir Colin Blakemore

Psilocybin

The Beckley/Imperial Psychedelic Research Programme 

The effects of psilocybin and MDMA on between-network resting state functional connectivity in healthy volunteers

Alexander “Sasha” Shulgin

Ayahuasca

Default mode network

Brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF)

Neuroplasticity

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This week’s episode features Carl Hart, professor of neuroscience and psychology at Columbia University in New York.

Professor Nutt and Professor Hart discuss drug addiction and its political context in the US. Are drug policies racist? Were they made to help or to harm? What does the declaration of independence has to do with drug criminalization? 

Coming from an impoverished area in Miami, Florida professor Hart used to believe drugs are the reason for problems he observed in his neighbourhood and hence gained specific interest for addictions in his scientific career. Now, however he is debunking drug addiction himself and acknowledging structural injustices both in drug policies as well as the jurisdictional system in the US as a whole. Besides being featured in the movie “The House I Live In” on the War on Drugs campaign, he’s given talks for TEDMED, Talks@Google, The Reason Foundation, The Nobel Conference and many others.

Professor Hart has also authored books in which he criticizes the criminalization of drugs and advocates the positive effect of recreational drug use. In this week’s episode we’re going to find out about his most recent one - “Drug use for grownups - chasing liberty in the land of fear.”

Shownotes:

Cocaine self-administration study in rats

Nicotine self-administration in rats study 

The dopamine theory of addiction review 

Dopamine

Serotonin

Norepinephrine 

Julis Axelrod  

Nicotine

Extinction burst

High Price - book by professor Carl Hart

House I live in 

Crack cocaine

Ecstasy

Drug use for grown-ups: chasing liberty in the land of fear - book by professor Carl Hart

Oregon drug decriminalization 

Peyote

Opioids

Psychedelics

Marihuana/ Cannabis

Map of US states which legalised the use of marihuana 

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Robin Heads the Psychedelic Research Group within the Centre for Psychiatry at Imperial College London, where he has designed several functional brain imaging studies with psilocybin, LSD, MDMA  and DMT, plus a clinical trial of psilocybin for treatment resistant depression. He has over 50 published papers in peer-reviewed scientific journals; two of which were ranked in the top 100 most impactful academic articles of 2016. Robin’s research has featured in major national and international media and he has given a popular TEDx talk.

Does MDMA impact sleep?

What does the brain look like under the influence of LSD?

How do psychedelics change the quality of brain activity? 

Can psilocybin be used to treat depression? 

Psilocybin vs Escitalopram for Major Depressive Disorder  

Stanislav Grof LSD Psychotherapy

Robin’s first paper – Waves of the Unconscious 

Amanda Feilding

Robin’s PhD 

Drugs live – Channel 4

Psilocybin 

LSD 

MDMA

DMT

Psychedelic resting states 

The entropic brain

Homological scaffolds of brain functional networks

The Stoned Ape theory 

DMT Neural Correlates of the DMT experience 

Psilocybin for Treatment-Resistant Depression 

Serotonin and brain function: a tale of two receptors

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This week’s episode features Dr Gabor Maté, a Hungarian-Canadian physician who’s main interests include childhood development and trauma, and their impact on lifelong physical and mental health. 

Professor Nutt and Dr Maté talk about the inseparable nature of our body and mind. 

How do they affect each other? 

How can psychedelics offer therapeutic potential to both mental and physical conditions? 

Dr Gabor Maté was born in Hungary and emigrated to Canada as a young child. Following years of clinical practice, now retired, he travels around the world to speak about how life experiences shape our physical and mental health. 

In his books including the most recent “In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts: Close Encounters with Addiction” he explores the relationship between “early adversity” i.e. stress, childhood neglect or abuse and susceptibility to addictions, autoimmune diseases, cancer and many others. He is also widely recognised for his perspectives on attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. 

Additionally, after being a part of an Ayahuasca retreat program Dr Gabor Maté advocates the therapeutic potential of this and other psychedelic substances in the treatment of a variety of mental and physical conditions.

Gabor Mate’s website 

In the Realm of Hungry Ghost 

The six realms of Buddhist cosmology 

Vancouver harm reduction program 

Ayahuasca 

Psilocybin 

Psilocybin and depression: Psilocybin for treatment-resistant depression: fMRI-measured brain mechanisms by Robin Carhart-Harris et al., 2017 

Ayahuasca retreat with Dr. Gabor Maté and Richard Condon 

Scleroderma patient article:Ayahuasca Let Me Walk Again 

United Nation’s Convention on Psychotropic Substances, 1971 

When the Body Says No: The Cost of Hidden Stress 

Stress and the risk of multiple sclerosis 

Childhood Trauma in Multiple Sclerosis 

Psychedelics for psychological and existential distress in palliative and cancer care

Become a Drug Science Community member

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Peter Krykant previously used intravenous drugs whilst living homeless in Birmingham. His lived experience has shown him the benefits of drug consumption rooms; to prevent the spread of bloodborne diseases and protect people who use drugs from accidental overdose.

Seven weeks ago, Peter set up the first UK drug consumption room which attracted the attention of the BBC and the local police force. Scotland's Lord Advocate and the Chief Constable of Police Scotland has made it clear that such activities violate national law. However, the local police force has not intervened with Peter’s operation.

Peter is advocating to expand these services to multiple localities with the inclusion of trained medical professionals at each site. This intervention offers a unique insight to gather observational data on UK intravenous drug use. It could be the stepping stone needed to tackle the increasing number of UK drug-related deaths.

Peter Krykant twitter

Birmingham rough sleepers’ team

Methadone

Diazepam

Drug Death summit 27th Feb Scotland 2020

Copenhagen Drug Consumption Room

Naloxone

CrowdFunder page

Site 2 – Gazebo

Scotland's Lord Advocate and the Chief Constable of Police Scotland

Heroin assisted-treatment

Methadone programmes

Ronnie Cowan

Alison Thewliss

ChangeGrowLive

Safe Consumption Glasgow

Become a Drug Science Community Member: https://www.donate.drugscience.org.uk/

Twitter: @ProfDavidNutt @Drug_Science

A Fascinate Productions podcast for Drug Science

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After discovering that there was very little literature review regarding the impact of psychedelics on the philosophy of the mind, philosopher Peter Sjöstedt-Hughes started to research how these drugs have impacted western philosophy. On this episode of the podcast, Peter examines the cultural history of the philosophy of psychedelics and how they’ve shaped philosophers’ perceptions of consciousness and reality.

Dr Peter Sjöstedt-H is an Anglo-Scandinavian philosopher of mind who specializes in the thought of Whitehead, Nietzsche, and Spinoza, and in fields pertaining to panpsychism and altered states of mind. Following his degree in Continental Philosophy at the University of Warwick, he became a Philosophy lecturer in London for six years and after which he pursued his PhD (on ‘Pansentient Monism’, examined by Galen Strawson and Joel Krueger) at the University of Exeter – where he is now a research fellow and associate lecturer. Peter is the author of Noumenautics, the TEDx Talker on ‘psychedelics and consciousness‘.

Are altered states of consciousness mere hallucinations or indicative of fundamental truths of reality? 

William James

Philosophy of psychedelics conference

Exploring Frameworks for Exceptional Experience

Humphry Davy

Nitrous Oxide

Arthur Heffter

Thomas De Quincey

Outsight project

Epiphonemalism 

René Descartes

Psychedelics heightened appreciation of nature

Eliminative materialism

David Luke podcast

Andrew Gallimore - Alien Information Theory

Carl Hart – psychedelic exceptionalism

Albert Hoffman

Bertrand Russell - Mysticism and logic

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Twitter: @ProfDavidNutt @Drug_Science

A Fascinate Productions podcast for Drug Science

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Psychologist Dr David Luke, is a Senior Lecturer studying states of transpersonal consciousness. It is well known that psychedelic drugs can induce altered states of consciousness but is this approach too heavy handed to derive benefit from a transpersonal experience? Activities such as yoga, meditation and sensory deprivation can induce this altered state of consciousness but how can we apply what we have learnt from psychedelic neuropsychopharmacology to evaluate these non-drug induced states? Can religious or spiritual experiences influence an individual’s perception of reality?

Dr David Luke is Senior Lecturer in Psychology at the University of Greenwich. His research focuses on transpersonal experiences, anomalous phenomena and altered states of consciousness, especially via psychedelics, having published more than 100 academic papers in this area, including ten books, most recently Psychedelic Mysteries of the Feminine (2019). When he is not running clinical drug trials with LSD, doing DMT field experiments or observing apparent weather control with Mexican shamans he directs the Ecology, Cosmos and Consciousness salon and is a co-founder and director and the current chair of Breaking Convention: International Conference on Psychedelic Consciousness.

William James  

James Fadiman

Stanislav Grof

Anechoic chamber

Holotropic Breathwork

Carbogen Inhalation Therapy

Synesthesia

Breaking Convention

Extinction Rebellion

Global Drug Survey

Aphantasia

Become a Drug Science Community Member: https://www.donate.drugscience.org.uk/

Twitter: @ProfDavidNutt @Drug_Science

A Fascinate Productions podcast for Drug Science

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In 1971, the war on drugs went international when the UN Convention on Psychotropic Substances was signed into international law. This Convention broadened the scope of previous UN drug legislation, facilitating the prohibition of almost any drug imaginable at the time.

However, in the past 50 years, various countries across the world have been rejecting this narrative and even the UN itself has agreed that the war on drugs has been a failure. Drugs are here to stay and it was foolish to think that they could be removed from society. An influential cog in this new approach to drug policy are a group called - Transform. Transform take a pragmatic and evidence-based approach to drug policy. Lobbying for harm reduction and alternatives to prohibition.

Steve Rolles is Senior Policy Analyst for Transform Drug Policy Foundation, a UK based think tank and charity focused on drug policy and law reform. Lead author on a range of Transform publications including 2009’s ‘After the War on Drugs: Blueprint for Regulation’, Steve has been a regular contributor to the public debate on drug policy and law for over 15 years; in the media, at UK and international events, and at various UN and Government forums around the world. Steve was recently an adviser for the Uruguayan Government in developing their new cannabis regulation model, and was also lead drafter and technical coordinator for the recent ‘Taking control: Pathways to Drug Polices that Work’ report from the Global Commission on Drug Policy. Previously Steve worked for Oxfam and the Medical Research Council, having studied for his Geography BSc at Bristol University and Development Studies MSc at Manchester University.

Transform

Danny Kushlick

Mexico Unido Contra Delincuencia

Portugal decriminalisation

Cannabis legalisation in Canada

Cannabis legalisation in Uruguay

Altered States report

William Hague advocating for cannabis reform

Global Commission on Drug Policy

Lib Dem cannabis report

UN common position on drugs

UN task team report on the past 10 years of drug policy

Latin America cocaine war

Luxembourg cannabis reform

Become a Drug Science Community Member: https://www.donate.drugscience.org.uk/

Twitter: @ProfDavidNutt @Drug_Science

A Fascinate Productions podcast for Drug Science

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Mobeen Azhar has been a journalist for 17 years investigating the societal harms related to the ‘war on drugs’. Upon returning to his hometown of Huddersfield, Mobeen started to uncover grizzly story behind the roadside execution of Yassar Yaqub.

Described in court as a 28-year-old office clerk, Yassar Yaqub was shot dead by police on an M62 slip road on a cold and wet January evening in 2017. Celebrated by his family as a loving son and beloved father, his death lead to protests on the streets of West Yorkshire and in the wake of the Black Lives Matter movement a ‘Justice 4 Yassar’ campaign was born. But with rumours of drug empires, money laundering and high-performance cars, just days into his reporting of the case, Mobeen realises that there is a much bigger story in town. With violence on the streets and a town that is terrified to talk, Mobeen attempts to find out where the truth really lies in a journey that forces him to face some ugly truths about his community and hometown.

 Hometown

 Justice for Yassar

 Neil Woods

Become a Drug Science Community Member: https://www.donate.drugscience.org.uk/

Twitter: @ProfDavidNutt @Drug_Science

A Fascinate Productions podcast for Drug Science

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A special treat this week as the two titans of psychopharmacology discuss the medicinal chemistry of psychedelics. Dr Nichols is the Founding President of the Heffter Research Institute, an organisation designed to promote research of the highest scientific quality with psychedelics in order to contribute to a greater understanding of the mind leading to the improvement of the human condition, and to alleviate suffering.

Professor Nutt and Dr Nichols answer some burning questions of psychedelic science such as:

What will come to market first, LSD, Psilocybin or MDMA?

Could microdosing be dangerous?

Is there such a thing as DMT tolerance?

David E. Nichols, is currently an Adjunct Professor in the Eshelman School of Pharmacy at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC. He is a Distinguished Professor Emeritus at the Purdue University College of Pharmacy, and was the Robert C. and Charlotte P. Anderson Chair in Pharmacology, where he carried out teaching and research for 38 years prior to his retirement in 2012. A major focus of his research was on substances known as hallucinogens, known more popularly as psychedelics. Widely published in the scientific literature and internationally recognized for his research on centrally active drugs, he has studied all of the major classes of psychedelic agents, including LSD and other lysergic acid derivatives, psilocybin and the tryptamines, and phenethylamines related to mescaline. Among scientists, he is recognized as one of the foremost international experts on the medicinal chemistry of psychedelics.

Shulgin

Mescaline

MDMA

LSD

Psilocybin

Entactogen vs Empathogen

Drugs Enforcement Agency

Salvia

Heffter Research Institute

Arthur Heffter

Psilocybin for depression trial

Psilocybin for OCD Yale study

Psilocybin-assisted Group Therapy for Demoralization in Long-term AIDS Survivors

N,N-dimethyltryptamine and the pineal gland: Separating fact from myth

A Model for the Application of Target-Controlled Intravenous Infusion for a Prolonged Immersive DMT Psychedelic Experience

Fen-phen Weightloss drug

Synthesis and Biological Evaluation of Tryptamines Found in Hallucinogenic Mushrooms: Norbaeocystin, Baeocystin, Norpsilocin, and Aeruginascin

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