Latest / INSPIRE STORY / #0136_ STORY INSPIRE: When One Choice Changes Everything - Rick Perry _ W. Bryan Hubbard

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#0136_ STORY INSPIRE: When One Choice Changes Everything - Rick Perry _ W. Bryan Hubbard · INSPIRE STORY

0:04
Speaker 1: The Joe Rogan Experience. Train by day, Joe Rogan podcast by.
0:08
Speaker 2: Night, all day.
0:12
Speaker 3: Gentlemen, great to see you. Yeah, put them on, slap
0:14
them on. What's happening? Good to see you gentlemen again.
0:19
Speaker 2: Taking off.
0:19
Speaker 1: Good to see you as well.
0:21
Speaker 2: One more time.
0:22
Speaker 3: Yeah, one more time.
0:23
Speaker 4: Yeah.
0:24
Speaker 3: So, what is the latest? Give me the latest. Where
0:28
are we at?
0:29
Speaker 2: Why don't you take it, Brian?
0:30
Speaker 3: You just kind of.
0:32
Speaker 2: You are the... You're the most current on where we are,
0:36
what's going on. Man, there has been a lot of
0:38
stuff happen in the 15 months since we were here.
0:42
I mean, like, stunning amount of stuff. So let's not
0:44
waste any time. Tell them where we're at.
0:46
Speaker 1: All right. Well, the last time we came to visit
0:49
with you, I believe, was on December the 27th of 2024.
0:53
We were just on the front end of having organized
0:57
30 committed Texans. whose own families had had experiences related
1:02
to trauma, addiction, alcoholism, and the wounds of war, who,
1:07
after hearing a plan that was developed for the state
1:09
of Kentucky to bring Ibogaine to the American people as
1:12
an FDA-approved medication and breakthrough treatment for addiction and trauma,
1:17
committed themselves to using their time, their talent, and their
1:22
network to achieve what had never been done before, and
1:26
that was to convince an individual state to undertake drug
1:29
development to create a therapeutic medical breakthrough for public health
1:34
crises within its borders that are representative of the national reality.
1:39
After you released the interview with us on January 2, 2025,
1:44
we pursued a five-and-a-half-month blistering campaign to convince 188 blank-slate
1:54
Texas legislators to fund the the single largest psychedelic research
2:00
and medical development project in history, that being the $ 50
2:03
million Texas Advocate Initiative. We had the assistance of some
2:09
in-state allies, one of which was Texans for Greater Mental Health,
2:12
led by a dear friend and brother of mine, Logan Davidson,
2:16
who was my right hand, going to meet with legislators
2:19
continuously while I set up shop at a hotel here
2:22
in Halston and lived here just about part-times. wearing the
2:26
shoe leather off, sweating, and making sure that everybody who
2:30
needed to be introduced, educated, and motivated to get behind
2:33
this would do so. At the end of this five
2:36
and a half months, we secured the votes of yes
2:41
of 181 out of 188 legislators between the Texas House
2:46
of Representatives and State Senate. There was one individual who
2:51
we had to persuade at the 11th hour to get
2:54
behind this project. On May the 14th, 2025, just 36
3:00
hours before the Texas budget was finalized, this bill that
3:04
would create the first unified FDA drug development trial with
3:07
Ibogaine in U.S. history was not funded. I woke up
3:12
that morning, and I believe very much in keeping your
3:16
prayers in the closet, as Jesus taught, and not getting
3:19
out there parading about it. But on that morning... I
3:22
got a call and it was, hey, we're getting to
3:25
the 11th hour. We don't have money to secure this.
3:28
It may not make it. We've done everything that we can.
3:32
And I just, I literally got down on my hands
3:34
and knees and said, God, please let this happen. And
3:38
if it cannot happen, help me understand why. Three hours later,
3:43
I got a telephone call asking if I could go
3:45
and meet with the Texas House Speaker and Lieutenant Governor
3:48
Dan Patrick. I went at 4.30 in the afternoon on
3:52
May the 14th and spent an hour with these two
3:54
gentlemen going back and forth about what this project was,
3:57
why it was so existentially necessary for Texas and the country.
4:02
And on Friday morning, May the 16th at 10 a.m.,
4:05
we got a text message from Lieutenant Governor Patrick confirming
4:09
that he would approve and fully fund the Texas Sign-Begin Initiative.
4:13
As we walk in here today, literally, just 10 minutes
4:17
before we walked into your studio, I can confirm that
4:23
the great state of Texas is going to fully fund
4:28
the Texas Ibogaine Initiative, originally intended to be a public-private partnership,
4:33
but now has decided on its own to commit a
4:37
full $ 100 million to launch the development of Ibogaine all
4:43
the way through the FDA's drug development process for the
4:46
benefit of the American people. To do so on its own,
4:50
without any drug development partner, and to do it for
4:55
the good of humanity.
4:57
Speaker 3: That's phenomenal. So what did you have to say to
4:59
Dan Patrick to convince him of this? And kudos to
5:02
him for doing this.
5:03
Speaker 1: Well, I had some very wonderful advocates who preceded my meetings.
5:09
Speaker 3: Was he skeptical?
5:10
Speaker 1: Oh, he was completely disengaged from the process, highly skeptical
5:14
as we learned through intermediaries. But we had two wonderful
5:19
brothers on mission who happened to be twins, Marcus and
5:23
Morgan Luttrell.
5:25
Speaker 3: I know Marcus very well.
5:26
Speaker 1: Marcus and Morgan Luttrell reached out to the lieutenant governor.
5:29
They spoke to him very movingly and personally about their
5:33
own experiences with Ibogaine, what it had done not just
5:36
to save their lives. but what it was doing to
5:39
save the lives of warfighters who had come to the
5:42
end of being able to live. And as they explained
5:46
to him what it did for them and what it
5:48
has done for their brothers and sisters-at-arms who've returned to war,
5:52
to broken government systems that can do nothing to cure
5:57
what ails them at their core, he was persuaded to
6:00
have an open-minded conversation. And through that conversation on May
6:05
the 14th, we essentially went through what Science suggests all
6:10
the powers of the most sophisticated molecule on the planet
6:14
to resolve physiological substance dependence and thereby create psychology within
6:18
the human being whereby they believe they have ownership of
6:21
themselves and their future and that that future will be
6:24
one defined by choice rather than compulsion. And the most
6:28
powerful aspect of the Ibogaine argument, not just for the
6:31
Lieutenant Governor and House Speaker, but for most of these
6:34
legislators who voted yes, is that the experience endorsed by
6:38
many that Ibogaine confirms without question the reality of our
6:45
individual human divinity. And that is the greatest truth conveyed
6:50
by this fabulous plant.
6:52
Speaker 3: Well put. And I don't think it's just Ibogaine that
6:55
confirms that. I think you could say the same about
6:57
many other psychedelic drugs that are unjustly maligned and treated
7:03
as if they're an escape from reality. Uh, But in
7:06
the interest of this being a standalone podcast for people
7:10
who don't know what Ibogaine is and don't understand the
7:13
efficacy of it and how unbelievably effective it is, especially
7:18
treating addiction, could you please just go over that?
7:21
Speaker 1: Yes, sir. So Ibogaine is an alkaloid that is derived
7:26
from the Iboga shrub. The Iboga shrub originates in the
7:31
central Congo basin. Its native country is modern-day Gabon. It
7:36
is the mother country of the Iboga shrub, which has
7:38
been used for centuries in the spiritual and cultural traditions
7:43
of the Buwiti, a group of spiritualists who include the
7:48
Pygmies as well as the Bantu tribes that lived there
7:52
in Gabon. In the early 60s, it was discovered that
7:56
Ibogaine and Iboga had a significant interruption effect on opioid addiction.
8:03
There was an individual who had... been addicted to heroin
8:06
for a number of years. They took Ibogaine, and not
8:10
only did they not experience any withdrawal when they stopped
8:13
taking heroin, they stopped having any desire to use any
8:17
drug whatsoever. This touched off 60 years of open-label field
8:23
studies that are mountains high and decades wide that firmly
8:28
established that Ibogaine has a unique and singular interruption capacity
8:35
on physiological substance dependency, whether that's opioids, alcohol, methamphetamine, cocaine,
8:42
or tobacco. Recent evidence also suggests that it has a
8:46
significant interruption effect on compulsive behaviors, anything that kind of
8:51
impacts that brain's dopamine system and produces a rush.
8:54
Speaker 3: Particularly gambling. Yes, sir.
8:56
Speaker 1: Now, in 2018, U.S. Special Forces special operators started going
9:02
to Mexico for treatment of symptoms of traumatic brain injury
9:05
expressed through treatment-resistant depression, anxiety, and suicidality. Many of these
9:12
veterans had gone through the VA system. They had been
9:15
given an unbelievable amount of synthetic pharmacology that, in their
9:20
end effect, essentially anesthetizes the soul and slowly euthanizes the body.
9:27
And they were at the end. So as they were
9:29
going to Mexico and would get Ibogaine treatment, they came
9:32
back with these just unbelievably, just powerful recovery results that
9:40
seemed too good to be true. So there were some
9:44
scientists at Stanford University that were funded by a philanthropist
9:48
who wanted to understand what was going on. And so
9:50
what we have come to learn through a Stanford research
9:53
study on traumatic brain injury for vets is that Ibogaine
9:57
has remarkable neuro capacities on the brain that are unheard
10:03
of in the annals of Western science. And while information
10:08
is still very small in amount and preliminary, there are
10:13
individuals who have had Ibogaine treatment for not just traumatic
10:17
brain injury, but for multiple sclerosis. Lyme disease, Parkinson's disease,
10:24
post-surgical complications related to the removal of brain tumor who
10:27
endorse a restoration of functionality and an ability to live
10:32
that are otherworldly. And as we recognize that the opportunities
10:37
to improve the human condition at scale are multi-lifetime and appearing,
10:42
we believe that we have found one of those. And
10:46
If we're going to do justice to the human species,
10:49
it is incumbent upon us to take what appears to
10:52
be a promising therapeutic improvement and deliver it with speed
10:58
through the U.S. medical systems. And that's what Governor Perry
11:01
and I have founded Americans for Ibogaine to do. Just that.
11:05
Achieve the moonshot of our time. And that is to
11:07
bring Ibogaine medicine to the American people as quickly as possible.
11:12
Speaker 3: Well said. And thank you again. Because if it wasn't
11:18
for your involvement in this, I think a lot of
11:21
people would be far more skeptical. You being a former
11:25
distinguished governor of the state who is a republican, generally speaking,
11:29
most people think of republicans being anti-psychedelics and that this
11:34
whole thing is just a bunch of people trying to
11:36
escape reality and poison their mind and tune out of
11:41
society and become losers. That's the general consensus of people.
11:45
that are just, for lack of a better term, ignorant
11:50
of the effects of these substances. They don't understand it.
11:53
But if it wasn't for you, your open-mindedness, your willingness
12:00
to engage in this and try to understand it and
12:03
to speak to these veterans, I don't think people would
12:05
be taken into seriously. So thank you.
12:08
Speaker 2: Well, and thank you. As I've watched you over the
12:13
last 15 months– It seemed like every six weeks or so,
12:18
you would have a guest on here and you'd be
12:19
talking about Ibogaine in particular and what is the progress
12:24
that we're making.
12:25
Speaker 3: What comes up so often.
12:27
Speaker 2: Well, and it should. It should. It should because this
12:31
truly– I mean this is not what I came into
12:34
the world for. This is not what I came to
12:36
politics for. This is what– I got led to this
12:40
through that relationship with Marcus and And in turn, Morgan
12:44
Luttrell and seeing those two boys literally, particularly Marcus, on
12:49
the doorstep of committing suicide. When he came to live
12:52
with us at the governor's mansion in 2007, we had
12:55
met the year before just by the grace of God.
12:58
And I told him, I said, if you're ever through Austin,
13:00
come by and see me. Knowing that the chances of
13:04
that would be pretty slim. He knocked on that guard
13:08
door in May of 07. And so the governor said,
13:11
if I was ever through here, come by and see him.
13:14
Speaker 1: They called.
13:15
Speaker 2: I let him in for dinner. And my wife, who's
13:18
a nurse, she recognized this young man who was really troubled,
13:23
addicted to opioids, masking it with alcohol, really sick. And
13:29
for the next two and a half years, he lived
13:32
with us at the governor's residence.
13:34
Speaker 4: Wow.
13:34
Speaker 2: And that started this long journey, literally. with him and
13:43
trying to find ways to heal him. We sent him
13:46
to a host of different places, Carrick Brain Center in Dallas.
13:48
We sent him to what's called now Axios, Athletes Performance
13:54
in those days, but a great rehab facility down in
13:57
the panhandle of Florida. And they helped him conquer or
14:04
helped him manage the opioid addiction. I will suggest to
14:07
you until he was treated with Ibogaine, which did clean
14:13
that completely away from him some years later. But the
14:18
point is, he really struggled. And he has become like
14:25
our son. As a matter of fact, I talked to
14:27
him this morning. He said, be sure and tell Joe
14:29
Howdy for me. He just thinks the world of you
14:31
as well. I talked to his brother the day before.
14:35
They understand how powerful this compound is from the standpoint
14:40
of treating post-traumatic stress, traumatic brain injury, addictions. I mean, this,
14:48
and as I became convinced, one of the things that
14:54
I will say that I've been, I've been open to change,
14:59
just like criminal justice reform. In the early 2000s, I
15:02
was kind of like, lock their ass up, throw the
15:04
key under the jail. You know, you break the law
15:06
in the state of Texas, here's how we treat you.
15:10
Speaker 3: And I had a.
15:12
Speaker 2: District judge in Fort Worth, John Cruz, a Democrat district
15:16
judge who I knew and had been friends with. He said, Governor,
15:21
we got a program here that allows these individuals who
15:25
have broken the law. You know, they maybe, you know,
15:29
got caught with an illegal substance or what have you.
15:33
And rather than sending them to jail, sending them to
15:37
the penitentiary where they become professional criminals, we give them
15:43
a second chance. We put them in a rehab program.
15:46
We put them in a treatment center. We put them
15:47
in a boot camp. Give them these options rather than
15:52
sending them to prison where they're going to become professional
15:56
criminals and the recidivism rate is going to continue on.
16:02
Speaker 1: I'm kind of like, nope.
16:03
Speaker 2: I'm tough on crime. That's what us Republicans do. But
16:09
it really got me thinking. I mean, I am curious
16:12
minded about concepts and ideas. So that brought me to
16:18
having conversations. And, you know, long story short, that single
16:23
conversation led to Texas leading the nation with criminal justice reform.
16:32
Texas Public Policy Foundation that now Secretary of Agriculture Brooke
16:37
Rollins was operating in the mid to late 2000s. They
16:44
came on board, saw this, supported it. We passed it
16:48
through a very Republican, very conservative legislature, and Texas led
16:55
the nation in criminal justice reform, saved us Billions of dollars.
16:59
We stopped building prisons. We stopped sending people to prison
17:03
where they were becoming professional criminals. So that template, if
17:09
you will, was what we took to Donald Trump in 2018.
17:14
And he was just like me initially. I'm tough on crime.
17:22
But he was open. He was curious. Brooke Rollins, interestingly,
17:27
had come up and was his domestic policy advisor at
17:31
that time. And she made the pitch and he was open.
17:35
And that conversation led to him being open to federal
17:40
criminal justice reform. And today, there are people who, I mean,
17:47
you may have different ideas about President Trump and what
17:51
have you. I know that's the case. But on this
17:53
issue of criminal justice reform, This man was curious. He
17:56
was open-minded. And he's made a real difference in people's
18:01
lives following the Texas model. The reason I share that
18:06
with you as an example, that's where I was on
18:11
these compounds, these drugs, these psychedelics. I mean, I grew
18:16
up in the 60s. Timothy O'Leary, using LSD, marijuana, any
18:22
of that kind of stuff. I mean, it was anathema
18:24
to me. absolutely. And totally, I don't want to have
18:28
anything to do with this is crazy stuff. You get
18:31
in trouble, they'll throw you in jail. You'll jump off
18:34
of buildings. I mean, you write every story that you
18:37
can imagine, uh, that people, and then think about from
18:43
the sixties forward, how, you know, I went into the
18:46
air force. They, you know, we, we took drug tests
18:51
at least monthly. Um, So the idea of being involved
18:56
with a drug was just totally and absolutely not on
19:00
my radar screen. These are bad things. And we're reinforced
19:04
in the 80s with Mrs.
19:06
Speaker 3: Reagan.
19:07
Speaker 2: Just say no to drugs. Here's your brain on drugs.
19:10
I mean, we have been browbeat as a society for
19:14
60 years. And when you add to it what Nixon did,
19:18
President Nixon did in the late 60s, early 70s with
19:20
his– War on drugs. He hated hippies. He hated blacks.
19:29
And one of the ways you could go after them
19:31
was to go make these compounds Schedule I, which he did.
19:35
Schedule I says there is no medical purpose for it,
19:39
and it is highly addictive. Ibogaine fits neither of those.
19:44
Ibogaine is not an addictive compound by any sense of
19:48
the imagination.
19:48
Speaker 3: It's also absolutely not. a recreational compound. At all. It's
19:52
not something that someone's going to do at a party.
19:54
Speaker 2: We are proving without a doubt to the Texas legislature,
19:58
to legislatures across this country, in Mississippi, in Tennessee, in Arizona,
20:03
West Virginia, that it does have a medical purpose, that
20:07
there are some extraordinary things that can happen for their
20:10
citizens who have PTSD, who have sexual trauma, who have addictions.
20:17
I mean, saving lives by the thousands, hundreds of thousands,
20:23
I will suggest to you when this is approved across
20:25
the country and we see it as a relatively easily
20:31
studied and accessed by medical care compound. So, That story
20:39
of seeing these two young men who have given everything, literally,
20:49
up to willing to give their lives, and a lot
20:52
of their friends did, for our freedoms and our liberties
20:56
in this country. And for us to say to them, oh, sorry,
21:00
you can't have access to this because, you know, they're
21:03
President Trump. Nixon said this is bad stuff back 60
21:08
years ago. And it was taken off the shelf as
21:10
a Schedule I drug, put over here. And for 60 years,
21:15
Americans have suffered through so many different.
21:21
Speaker 3: Eras.
21:23
Speaker 2: The late 90s, when the Sackler family and Purdue Pharma
21:28
comes along. And we literally... I think one of the
21:32
most demonic things I've seen in my public life is
21:35
this family who used oxycodone and sold it to America
21:43
as this be all to end all. And then our
21:46
federal government in the mid 2000s, we didn't know how
21:50
to deal with these young men who would be put
21:52
in these horrible conditions and positions of being at war.
22:00
Time after time after time, rotation after rotation, tempos that
22:05
we'd never seen before in the history of mankind, I'll
22:07
suggest to you. I mean, Joe.
22:09
Speaker 4: We were at war for 20 years, 20 years during
22:13
that period of time. There's special operators that were deployed eight, nine,
22:18
10 times. And then they come home and the governor
22:22
gives them a sack of opioids and that makes them
22:26
feel crappy and they mask it with alcohol and we
22:29
sit around and go, why did Bobby kill himself? Well,
22:36
because the government failed in its great responsibility to take
22:40
care of these young men and women, in my opinion.
22:43
Speaker 2: So we owe it to them. As a matter of fact,
22:47
a dear friend of mine who just passed away within
22:50
the last two days, he had worked with me for, gosh,
22:57
30 years. And when he first saw that I was
23:05
getting involved with this psychedelic drug, this Ibogaine compound. And
23:14
we were having a conversation. He said, you need to
23:16
be really careful with that. You know, you've got a
23:18
great reputation. You spent 40 years building that reputation up.
23:21
He said, you don't want to throw it away on
23:23
some cockamamie idea here. And I told him, I said, well,
23:28
I don't think I'm doing that. I've studied this pretty intently.
23:33
I've talked to a host of different people. And I said,
23:40
so I'm comfortable about the science here that I'm seeing
23:44
and what have you. And I think it's worth going
23:48
forward with. But I said, Ray, their lives are not
23:55
worth more than my reputation. And that's what kind of
23:59
continues to drive me. There are people that still I say,
24:03
why are you doing this? Because I believe in it.
24:05
I mean, I believe it to the point, Joe, that
24:08
I'm willing to risk my reputation.
24:11
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slash J-R-E. That's BetterHelp.com slash J-R-E. I don't think you're
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risking your reputation at all.
25:35
Speaker 2: I think that's foolish thinking.
25:38
Speaker 3: I think it's people that don't understand the times. This
25:43
is a different world. We're living in a world of
25:46
information now, and you can't go by these false narratives
25:49
that were adopted in the 1970s.
25:52
Speaker 2: And we're winning. I mean, I'm telling you what Americans
25:55
for Ibogaine has done. And, you know, we started out,
25:57
I tell people, I said, you talk about a small
25:59
group of people. I think there were six of us.
26:01
He's the CEO. I'm the chairman. We got Dr. Rulon,
26:05
who's the secretary, and Claire Stapleton, the communications person, and
26:10
then Marcus and Melanie Luttrell. Marcus's wife, are the other
26:16
two members of our little board. And we were this
26:19
small little group kind of going along and doing what
26:21
we were doing. We were successful in the Texas legislature
26:24
and what have you. But it's exploded now. We have ambassadors,
26:31
Americans for Ibogaine ambassadors all over the United States now.
26:37
People have seen what we've been able to do in Texas.
26:42
Mississippi followed suit. They've sent their governor a piece of legislation.
26:46
I want you to talk about that.
26:47
Speaker 1: We're going to do the roll call here.
26:49
Speaker 2: Yeah, and share with Joe and his audience just the
26:53
great progress that's being made. And quite frankly, I think
27:00
about Michael Dell when he was selling computers out of
27:03
the trunk of his car back in the late 80s
27:06
and then his college dormitory. AFI kind of found itself
27:10
like that just a few months ago. And I'm not
27:15
trying to say that, you know, we're Dell Computer today,
27:18
but we are growing at such a leaps and bounds and,
27:23
you know, and having the resources that we need to
27:25
be able to put our people in various places. I mean,
27:28
he's the travels all you were in Cabo. I want
27:31
you to tell him about the group that you met
27:33
with Cabo. And I mean, just 200 of these extraordinary
27:37
people down there. He travels all over the country. And,
27:40
you know, we have to have the resources to. to
27:42
be able to do that. So I hope the folks
27:47
that are listening go to Americans for Ibogaine. You know
27:51
how to tell them how to do that and help
27:53
this organization because this is what I'm going to do
27:56
the rest of my life. I'm 76 years old, and
28:01
this is what I hope the Lord gives me a
28:03
lot of years to make a difference because I know
28:06
for a fact that what we're doing today, what you're
28:09
helping us with, is making a difference. And if we
28:13
can get these clinical trials to the conclusion, and thank
28:17
you to the Lieutenant Governor and to the Speaker for
28:20
what they committed to today. I mean, to know that
28:23
we're going to be able to go forward now with
28:25
these clinical trials, to show the world exactly what we know,
28:30
but so that the naysayers out there, the skeptic, can
28:35
look at that and go, you know what? You can
28:38
get 85% of the people who are hooked on opioids
28:43
clean in 72 hours.
28:45
Speaker 1: Isn't that amazing?
28:46
Speaker 2: I mean, that's such a stunning thing to me. Dr.
28:49
Gull Dolan, we were at South by Southwest a week
28:53
and a half ago. She was sitting on the stage.
28:56
She's an MD, PhD, was at Johns Hopkins. She's over
28:58
at Cal Berkeley now. And she gave a little primer,
29:05
if you will, on.
29:07
Speaker 1: The.
29:10
Speaker 2: Different psychedelics, there's a critical period that the mind opens
29:13
up and you're able to go in and, if you will,
29:18
the medicine treats the mind, I think, from my Aggie,
29:21
you know, non-pharmaceutical, non-scientific mind here, but to go in
29:27
and repair, reset the brain. The technical word is neuroplasticity.
29:34
But ketamine... has a critical period. I think she said
29:42
48 to 72 hours. Psilocybin has a critical period from
29:50
14 to 28 days. I think I'm pretty close on these.
29:58
But ibogaine, the critical period. the time when that neuroplasticity
30:03
is active and the brain can be trained, healed, reset
30:09
is from 90 to 120 days. And then with the addiction, opioids,
30:17
which I happen to think is one of the most
30:18
addictive substances that's out there. I mean, this is some
30:22
horrible stuff. You know, this very current event with Tiger
30:28
Woods and Tiger's accident. You know, he had Oxycontin in his,
30:33
you know, I'm not judging here, but I'm just kind
30:35
of saying that may, when I was ran for president
30:40
in 2011, I'd had major back surgery in July. I
30:44
announced that I was running for president in August. I
30:46
had six weeks to try to get over that major
30:49
back surgery. And I had a terrible condition called a
30:54
neurological hyperfusion in my right leg. I've never had a
30:57
pain like that. Felt like a blow torch going down
31:00
my right leg. And they gave me Oxycontin. Uh, and
31:04
I was taking that to cover up the pain. I
31:06
was taking Ambien to go to sleep at night and
31:08
I was taking some stuff called ProVigil to get back
31:11
up in the morning and be focused. I laugh about
31:15
it now. Um, I'm surprised I did as well as
31:19
I did in that presidential effort in 2011. Hell, forgetting
31:23
that one thing, that third thing in that debate. Hell,
31:27
I'm surprised I could remember any of them. Knowing what
31:30
I know now about OxyContin and the incredibly nasty, addictive
31:37
nature that it has. I mean, this stuff is just poison.
31:42
And Ibogaine in 48 to 72 hours after one dose,
31:53
one oral application of this compound, and that addiction is gone.
32:02
Not only is that addiction gone, Joe, but Stanford has
32:07
done functional MRIs on an addicted opioid brain. and then
32:17
treatment with Ibogaine, and they have shown that brain from
32:22
the addicted look that those experts, those post-docs that look
32:29
at this, to a normal brain, a normal brain scan
32:35
in 72 hours. If you were to go through the
32:40
normal process of healing yourself of opioid addiction through an
32:48
abstinence program, it would take you 18 months. And there
32:52
are very few, I'm going to say single digit people
32:54
that are successful in being able to do that. But
32:57
think about that. We got a compound here that has
33:00
the ability to heal people of opioid addiction in 48.
33:07
Speaker 1: To 72 hours.
33:07
Speaker 2: And, and And we're not doing everything that we can
33:15
in our power to make that available? I mean, what
33:18
the hell is wrong with us? How bad you got
33:20
to hate people to not make that available?
33:23
Speaker 3: And with two doses, it's even more spectacular.
33:27
Speaker 2: 98%.
33:28
Speaker 3: That is amazing. 98%. That is truly amazing. There's nothing
33:33
even remotely like it with standard practice addiction therapy. Nothing.
33:39
Speaker 1: Nothing. You know, he mentioned the Americans for Ibogaine. We
33:43
have ambassadors. And Joe, what you really helped us do
33:47
on January 2nd of 25 was create a movement. Our
33:53
organization is the custodian of that movement. We are a
33:56
public policy and advocacy organization. And Governor Perry mentions keeping
34:01
me on the road. Wherever there are state leaders, citizens
34:05
of conviction and influence, whether that is California, whether it's
34:10
Massachusetts or whether it's Alabama, we exist to plant the
34:13
seed of a scientific understanding of a public policy framework
34:19
and of a spiritual understanding of the significance of what
34:22
we have in our hands here, an opportunity to improve
34:25
the human condition at scale. And while we have talked
34:28
tightly about Ibogaine's impact on substance dependency and upon the
34:38
The universal human condition and the way in which individuals
34:42
who have tried every way to overcome various forms of
34:47
trauma and debility find as the last step a redemptive
34:53
restoration through Ibogaine treatment. It is not for everybody. It
34:58
should not be a first resort. It is an exceptionally
35:02
powerful medication that comes with a series of side effects
35:06
that are highly unpleasant, as you previously mentioned. One of
35:10
the selling points, ironically, in the Texas legislature was to say,
35:15
if your idea of a good time is being in
35:17
a state of semi-paralysis for 12 to 16 hours and
35:21
throwing up continuously through the process, you're going to have
35:24
a real good time. And if there is the equivalent
35:28
of being brought to the judgment throne of God on
35:30
this side of life, it is an Ibogaine experience. That
35:34
seemed to motivate a lot of support, especially for those
35:37
who subscribe to puritanical notions of punishment for wrongdoing. That's
35:41
not what I'm here to advocate, but certainly it is
35:44
not fun. But what we know is that, for instance,
35:50
we have two fashion model twins whose father sexually abused
35:55
them for a decade. And the results of that horrific
36:01
experience that they shared produced all kinds of psychological maladies
36:07
that included an eating disorder for one, persistent neuroses in
36:11
the other. They tried every form of talk therapy. They
36:15
tried every psychotherapy modality known to try to overcome that.
36:19
And it was Ibogaine that restored their lives and their
36:22
capacity to enjoy the life that God has given them.
36:27
We have first responders who are emerging in numbers. one
36:31
who is a firefighter from Oklahoma who was demoted because
36:35
of decades of alcoholism. His life has been restored by Ibogaine,
36:38
and he's back working full time. We have a gentleman
36:42
who was a Charlottesville police officer who was hit in
36:46
the face with a brick during the riots that occurred
36:49
in Charlottesville. His life was restored by a single Ibogaine treatment,
36:53
and he has attained a level of functionality that he
36:56
didn't think was possible, nor his doctors. We have a...
37:00
a gentleman who was a pilot who unfortunately did a
37:04
bomb and run on a village and killed a number
37:07
of innocent people. He learned about this, and this sent
37:09
him into a spiral, as many warfighters who are exposed
37:13
to moral injury do. Ibogaine has restored this gentleman's life.
37:18
We have a gentleman by the name of Robert Gallery,
37:21
a former NFL player who exhibited all the signs of
37:25
CTE in his post-retirement years. He was ready to kill
37:30
himself so that he wouldn't harm his own family. It
37:33
was Ibogaine that restored his life. There have been other
37:36
NFL players who are as yet unnamed. Some, incidentally, that
37:40
have been in the paper who have gone for Ibogaine
37:42
treatment to address similar symptoms. Players in the NHL, players
37:47
in other contact sports that include soccer and rugby and
37:51
the United Kingdom where there is an emerging cohort of
37:54
professional athletes who have reached out to us to say,
37:57
we want the United Kingdom for Ibogaine.
38:00
Speaker 3: I would love to get you guys connected with the UFC.
38:03
Speaker 1: We would love to be connected to the UFC.
38:05
Speaker 3: Because that is obviously an issue with professional fighters.
38:09
Speaker 2: So Hughes, Matt Hughes, and Matt had, I met Matt
38:15
through Marcus, gosh, in like 2008 or so. And we
38:20
went out for a fight. And then subsequently, Matt had,
38:26
I think, a car accident. of which he really had a.
38:29
Speaker 3: He was hit by a train.
38:30
Speaker 2: Yeah, just an incredible traumatic brain injury. And I just
38:38
want to have that conversation with him. And I'm sure
38:41
you have great relationships with those. We know for a
38:45
fact that cumulative impacts on the brain are what lead
38:54
to CTE. I mean, that's... I don't think that's even
38:58
a question of, here's how it happens. These multiple concussions
39:03
have cumulative effect on the brain. And at some point
39:06
in time, that CTE has a long-time effect. And this
39:15
medicine has the ability to remove that trauma, to reset
39:25
that brain, to heal that brain. I don't know how
39:28
it works, Joe, but that's the reason these clinical trials
39:31
are going to be so important as we're going forward.
39:34
And I can't tell you, I'm ecstatic that the lieutenant
39:39
governor and the speaker today announced their full Texas support
39:46
behind these clinical trials. we're fixing to become the epicenter
39:51
for a movement that literally can change the world. And
39:54
I know that sounds kind of a little bit over
39:56
the top. But if we have within our grasp here
40:03
a compound that can heal our loved ones who have
40:07
an addiction, be it a substance addiction or be it
40:11
a non-substance addiction, if we have the ability to heal
40:15
people who have been traumatically impacted by concussions, if we
40:20
have the ability to address PTSD in all the different
40:25
forms that it comes, I mean, the hope that that
40:28
can give to the society that we live in, and
40:32
I'm not talking about just the United States. You think
40:35
about what's going on in Israel, in Ukraine, in the
40:39
Middle East today, and the trauma that people are facing.
40:44
I mean, this truly can be an extraordinary gift to
40:47
the world. And, you know, listen, I think it's really interesting.
40:52
You ask a leading question about how did I come
41:00
to this position of being able to be supportive as
41:05
I am. And when I think about my growing up,
41:11
and I grew up in a very conservative Christian family.
41:16
And I think one of the challenges we still have
41:19
in our society is that the conservative Christian faith is like,
41:29
stay away from that stuff. I mean, that's bad. Do not,
41:34
under any circumstances, don't be going there. It's demonic. And
41:41
There's a book that's about to be published. I think
41:45
the first week in April, so we're approaching it. There's
41:48
an author by the name of Wendy Reese, R-E-E-S. Wendy
41:54
with an I, W-E-N-D-I-R-E-E-S. And she, not unlike the two twins,
42:03
was sexually assaulted by her own father.
42:07
Speaker 1: He was a pastor of a church.
42:09
Speaker 2: Joe, I'm telling you, brother. I can't dream up in
42:15
my worst nightmare a more evil thing than a father
42:19
that would sexually assault their daughter. And she dealt with
42:26
it with Ibogaine and has come to the conclusion that
42:31
her great gift to give to the world out there
42:33
is to write this book called A Christian's Guide to Psychedelics. Now,
42:39
if you think that won't catch some people's attention when
42:41
they're going through the bookstore and they go, a Christian's
42:44
Guide to Psychedelic? Holy mackerel. But this is a book
42:50
about her experience, but it's also a book that I
42:55
would suggest that every believing Christian go pick it up
42:59
and read it because it talks about chapter and verse
43:03
and gives you scripture in about where God talks about
43:06
these compounds, about these things that he's given the world.
43:09
He means them for good, all of them for good.
43:13
Speaker 3: Are you aware of the scholars in Israel that are
43:17
proposing that Moses, seeing the burning bush, was the acacia tree? Yeah,
43:24
there's an acacia tree. The acacia tree, which is very
43:26
common in the Middle East, is rich in dimethyltryptamine. And
43:32
they believe that what they're trying to relay in this
43:35
story was that Moses encountered God through the burning of
43:41
this bush. So the burning of this bush releasing the
43:45
psychedelic compound dimethyltryptamine allowed Moses to bring back the Ten Commandments.
43:53
Speaker 1: You know, thank you for mentioning that. I have been
43:57
following scholarship around the use and the recognition that there's
44:01
a lot of psychedelic allegory in Holy Scripture. That, I think,
44:06
is the favorite, where that burning bush reveals the great
44:11
I am. And when Moses says, who are you? I
44:14
am who I am. And the beauty about Ibogaine and
44:17
the other plant medicines are their capacity to reveal the
44:21
I am that was emitted. is within each of us
44:24
and that I am as our eternal creator who absolutely
44:27
has engineered and placed these plants on this earth so
44:31
that we can be affirmed in what our true identity
44:35
and ultimate destiny is and praise God for it.
44:38
Speaker 3: And then there's also the sacred mushroom in the cross,
44:41
the John Marko Allegro book, where he was one of
44:45
the ordained ministers that was, his task was to decode
44:50
the Dead Sea Scrolls. And he wrote this book that
44:54
details what he believes is the use of psychedelic drugs
44:58
in ancient Christianity.
45:03
Speaker 2: Hard for me to argue with.
45:04
Speaker 3: I mean I just think our modern perception of it,
45:08
which is very tainted by what happened during the Nixon
45:12
administration where they were trying to squash the hippie movement,
45:15
the anti-war movement and the civil rights movement. And that's
45:18
why they demonized these drugs and these compounds. And that's
45:21
why they put them in this category of having no
45:24
medicinal use, which is clearly not accurate. It doesn't mean
45:28
that they should just be given to everyone and everyone
45:31
should do them with no restrictions and no regulations. It
45:34
just means we should understand that they have a long
45:39
history of human use and have spectacular results on all
45:43
sorts of things that our society is suffering from greatly.
45:48
And to just pretend that that's not the case. based
45:51
on what happened in the 1970s, is just insane. It
45:55
doesn't make any sense.
45:58
Speaker 1: I would suggest that one of the greatest lessons learned
46:00
by Americans who are age 50 and younger, those of
46:05
us who I call the bicentennial children, is that the
46:08
most morally depraved criminal in America today is power. And
46:14
the power of the human hand when it is wielded
46:16
in its most abusive context will always seek to deny
46:20
any access to individual human divinity and the liberty and
46:25
autonomy that is conferred upon each of us as children
46:28
of God. And insofar as we find ourselves at the
46:31
precipice of what I believe is the emergence of a
46:35
broad-based spiritual movement where all of us modernists within the
46:39
empiricism of modern American society, are able to see through
46:43
the fog of all of our wealth and gadgetry and
46:45
recognize we are in the midst of profound spiritual famine
46:52
in the United States. You, I know, and forgive me
46:55
for referencing age, remember back in the mid-80s where we
47:02
saw all these horrific images of starvation and dissension, distention,
47:09
and fly-covered death from mass famine in Ethiopia and Sudan,
47:15
where millions of people starved to death because the malevolence
47:21
of power forbade the delivery of any relief sent by
47:25
the outside world. When we look at what's right in
47:30
front of us in the United States today, there is
47:34
no denying that we are in the midst of a
47:39
terrible spiritual famine. And the malevolence of American power is
47:45
feasting on our starvation. This is an emancipation movement for
47:51
the mind, body, and soul of every human being in
47:55
this country and across the globe who is lethally estranged
48:01
from their own spirituality. The Abigain Mission is a mission
48:05
to foment dramatic medical breakthroughs across a host of conditions
48:11
that have no effective therapeutic answers. But above and beyond that,
48:16
it is about the affirmation of the spiritual essence of
48:20
life that can unify us as a species in a
48:24
way that is necessary if we're going to navigate these
48:27
changes over the next 20 years. Governor Perry mentioned this
48:30
wonderful invitation that I received to go to what was
48:34
called the Earth One Summit. Now, Joe, I come out
48:40
a hillbilly hauler of Virginia. And it's a– I do.
48:46
Speaker 2: I introduce him from time to time. I said, look,
48:49
this guy, he looks like and he sounds like a
48:54
hillbilly from eastern Kentucky in the Appalachian Mountains. And I said,
49:00
he is. But I said, he's one of the most
49:03
brilliant people I've ever met in my life. And one
49:06
of the most extraordinary orators I've ever had in my life.
49:09
So anyway, I wanted to. I love you, brother. But
49:12
you are a hillbilly.
49:15
Speaker 1: I'm much more comfortable with that than all that other
49:17
stuff you said.
49:19
Speaker 3: But.
49:20
Speaker 1: You know, when you come out of scratch nothing sometimes,
49:22
there are certain sophistications that you lack. And I'm no
49:26
exception to that. So there was this Earth One Summit.
49:29
It was 200 thought leaders from across the world who
49:32
came to basically discuss the future. And I was very
49:36
honored to have received an invitation to come and attend
49:40
the gathering to speak about what Governor Perry and I
49:43
are working on through Americans for Ibogaine. And they presented
49:46
me with the honor of being the closing keynote speaker
49:50
for the gathering. And as I listened over the course
49:55
of four days, I heard individuals who included Kimball and
50:00
Christiana Musk. And I've read interviews by Elon Musk speaking
50:04
about the advent of AI and the capacity to of
50:09
AI to solve the central dilemma that we as humans
50:13
have had since we emerged from the caves, and that's
50:15
the dilemma of scarcity. So as I was there listening
50:19
to folks speak about being on the edge of a
50:24
time when we can automate the means of production and
50:30
essentially create an unlimited amount of abundance for every person
50:34
on this planet, I couldn't help But think about where
50:40
we are right now as compared to where these individuals
50:44
see us being in 20 years. You cannot create and
50:50
deploy this kind of God-like technology, which has the capacity
50:57
to produce unlimited abundance, potentially usher in the age of Aquarius,
51:04
and drop it in. to these Frankenstein monstrosity government systems
51:10
that we currently have that are enthroned upon the helplessness
51:15
of powerless people, that perpetuate problems that they are supposed
51:19
to solve, and that monetize sustained human misery. So long
51:25
as government makes its buck over keeping its foot on
51:29
the necks of the American people, we are looking at
51:32
a future that much more resembles Mad Max then we
51:35
are Star Trek. And if we are going to create
51:38
the degree of social cohesion that is necessary to hold
51:41
these systems accountable and to create a system that can
51:46
truly usher in that age of unlimited abundance to improve
51:51
the human condition for all, it begins with a spiritual
51:54
reawakening that I began first and foremost and the rest
51:58
of the psychedelics concede and foment within American society. To
52:02
that end, And then I'll be quiet for the next
52:04
little bit.
52:05
Speaker 2: No, you're good, man. We love listening to you.
52:08
Speaker 1: There is a six-part docuseries that will come out next
52:12
year called Psychedelics And. And it is a series of
52:17
interviews with a cross-section of leaders across the United States
52:22
where they speak about their own quest for meaning. and
52:27
how psychedelics has helped them understand that we are more
52:31
than just these material beings that get up and go
52:34
to work every day and are a productive economic unit,
52:36
go home and repeat, that there is a much higher
52:39
sense of purpose that we are here to serve and
52:42
that the plants themselves have the capacity to enlighten us
52:46
at scale in a way that's absolutely necessary if we're
52:49
going to make that age of abundance happen as those
52:52
visionaries articulate and dream for.
52:56
Speaker 3: What I think is fascinating about the age that we're
52:58
living in is that change comes very slowly. But it
53:03
comes much faster when you have the kind of access
53:06
to information that people have today. And I don't think
53:08
this conversation was possible 20 years ago.
53:11
Speaker 1: No way.
53:12
Speaker 3: And that's kind of amazing. No way. It's kind of amazing.
53:15
And I don't think that there was a format for
53:17
this conversation 20 years ago. This format has occurred because
53:22
of the age of information, because of the internet. And
53:25
because there's no gatekeepers anymore. And because people have the
53:29
choice to decide what they want to consume, what they
53:32
want to listen to. And to be able to be
53:37
a part of that, to me, is an incredible privilege.
53:40
And to be able to have you guys on and
53:42
to have this conversation and to recognize that the reason
53:46
why this is possible is because, for lack of a
53:50
better term, the world's waking up.
53:52
Speaker 1: Yes, sir.
53:53
Speaker 3: It's just taking more time than we would like. But
53:56
the world is waking up. And change happens. It just happens.
54:02
People have to change their opinions and that's very difficult
54:07
because a lot of people identify with their opinions. Their
54:11
opinions become a part of their ideology. And it's just
54:15
very difficult to get people to change their ideology. They
54:19
identify with this. It is them. And I've always tried
54:24
to tell people the way I try to approach things.
54:27
You are not your ideas. You are not your opinions.
54:31
These are just thoughts. And if you identify with them,
54:34
you are trapped in them and you will be held
54:38
hostage by them. You will try to defend them even
54:40
if they don't make sense. You will try to ignore
54:43
evidence that points you in a direction that's contrary to
54:45
what your current belief system is. Don't be your opinions.
54:49
Don't be your ideas. Just sit in them. Be consistent.
54:54
Be honest. Have ethics and morals that you adhere to.
54:58
But the ideas are just ideas. And if you're wrong,
55:02
you should be proud to say wrong. It's a sign
55:06
of growth. It's a sign of intelligence. And it's a
55:09
sign of you being an honest human being who cares
55:12
about the truth, not about being right. Because there's too
55:16
many people in this world that they don't really have conversations.
55:19
They have ideological sparring matches where they're just involved in
55:25
these little intellectual tugs of war where they're just trying
55:29
to be right. And this is not the time for that.
55:34
It's just– So.
55:37
Speaker 2: My going from hard no on criminal justice reform to
55:45
literally a leader on criminal justice reform in the mid-2000s,
55:51
my going from hard no on any psychedelic drugs that
55:56
could be used in any way to now being what
56:00
I humorously refer to as the Johnny Appleseed of Ibogaine
56:07
is to your point. You know, be open. Be willing
56:14
to say you were wrong. I know my wife would
56:16
like to hear me do that more often. But Hey,
56:21
if you don't mind, I want to take a minute
56:24
and talk about how far this movement has come. And
56:31
Brian talked about Americans for Ibogaine and our ambassadors all
56:34
across the country and the growth that we've seen in this.
56:38
And I want to give you one example of to
56:40
your point that five years ago, if you had had
56:45
an institution that had its own reputation dealing with brain
56:49
health and brain science and those kind of things, they
56:53
would have just kind of moved you off to the
56:55
side and said, you know, no thanks. But the Center
57:00
for Brain Health in Dallas, this is an extraordinary institution
57:06
that's connected to the University of Texas Dallas. As a
57:08
matter of fact, it's just next door to UT Southwestern,
57:11
which is one of the great medical facilities in the world,
57:14
UT Southwestern. And Dr. Sandy Chapman heads up the Center
57:21
for Brain Health. And they've done some great work. We
57:25
went up and presented to her, I don't know, probably
57:29
60 to 90 days ago. And there was another organization.
57:35
Speaker 1: Called Forward– Forward Intent.
57:40
Speaker 2: Forward Intent. Forward Intent. Just a beautiful young man and
57:44
his wife– Alex Duran and his wife, who have funded
57:51
an effort. And what they're doing with their resources, they're sending,
57:58
I think, 250 individuals down to Mexico to both, I think,
58:03
a facility called Transcend and to Ambio. And Ambio is
58:10
that facility that I've been to, Brian's been to, Marcus
58:14
and Morgan Luttrell have been to– I think probably 2,000
58:18
more fighters have been down to Ambio now. Vets, underwrites them.
58:24
And just as an aside, this has blown up so big.
58:30
And I'm talking about the Ibogaine effort, the education of Ibogaine,
58:34
people– there's some hope out there. And people are rushing
58:39
to find where they can go to– treat the addiction
58:43
that their loved one hands or deal with their PTSD
58:45
and what have you. And, and Ambio is just covered up.
58:50
And I'm sure, you know, the other facilities are as
58:54
well down there. The, the, the organization Vets, which is
58:58
really where I came into this, I think Amber and
59:01
Marcus Capone, they don't have, they don't have any openings anymore.
59:06
I mean, they are completely covered up in, But I mean,
59:10
that's a good challenge. I'm glad we have that challenge.
59:13
But my point is, you've got an institution in Dallas, Texas,
59:19
that just like the state is getting the signal, it's
59:24
okay to be out there talking about this. It's okay
59:27
to to be a leader. It's okay to get out
59:29
there and lead the charge. And I want to read
59:32
to you what Dr. Chapman, because I asked her, I said,
59:37
do you mind if I talk about what you all
59:39
are doing? And she said, absolutely. And she said, Governor,
59:42
great to talk with you yesterday. Here are some comments
59:45
to guide you in how to discuss our existing collaboration.
59:50
I'm excited to announce that we have begun a partnership
59:53
with the Center for Brain Health, University of Texas at Dallas.
59:57
Americans for Ibogaine and Forward Intent to create the largest
1:00:03
research study of Ibogaine to date focused on understanding its
1:00:09
impact on the brain among the veteran community.
1:00:12
Speaker 1: Dr.
1:00:13
Speaker 2: Francesca Philby, an expert in cognitive and translational neuroscience, especially
1:00:19
the use of neuroimaging to study brain behavior relationships, will
1:00:23
lead the research. Our mission together is to move beyond
1:00:27
the question of, does Ibogaine help? And instead, answer the
1:00:31
more practical questions veterans and clinicians need. Number one, who
1:00:36
benefits and why? How long do the benefits last? Which
1:00:41
aspects of daily life functioning, i.e., cognition, sleep, substance use,
1:00:46
and overall well-being, improve or worsen following treatment? And how
1:00:52
are these changes associated with brain The three-year study will
1:00:58
follow those treated with Ibogaine over the course of 18 months,
1:01:02
which will allow us to create the first understanding of
1:01:05
the sustained impacts of Ibogaine on the brain across various
1:01:10
treatment regimes. We'll be diving more into this topic on
1:01:15
November the 19th at the Center for Brain Health's Brain
1:01:18
Health Presents speaker series to share more. By bringing world-class
1:01:24
scientific rigor to this space, we aren't just studying a substance.
1:01:29
We're creating a foundation of knowledge that will expand safe,
1:01:34
informed access for those who need it most. That is
1:01:40
what Americans for Ibogaine is really all about. Making that
1:01:45
type of penetration, having that type of success, seeing what
1:01:51
Brian and the other folks have created here in the
1:01:56
state of Texas, I'm going to tell you something, brother.
1:01:58
There is nothing that I've been involved with in my
1:02:07
life that gives me more pleasure than to see what
1:02:12
we're doing and knowing that there's a father out there
1:02:22
mother out there whose child is going to be saved.
1:02:30
Speaker 1: You mentioned dogma. People are, in particular in American society,
1:02:37
there is a quest for identity. There is a quest
1:02:40
for belonging. So much of what we see on social
1:02:43
media and in broadcast media that is rage and anger
1:02:47
and disaffection is tremendous loneliness and a tremendous lack of
1:02:53
of belonging to something and a tremendous amount of trauma
1:02:57
related to never having had anything that resembles unconditional affection
1:03:02
within the context of a safe and stable familial relationship.
1:03:07
That's at scale within the United States. And the degree
1:03:11
to which dogma can thwart evolution is 100% right on.
1:03:15
And I just use my own self as an example.
1:03:21
I was a child of Reagan's America. I can remember
1:03:24
I was about five years old when he and President
1:03:27
Carter had their first presidential debate in 1980. President Reagan
1:03:31
was like the mother goose to the gosling. He just
1:03:35
imprinted on me. And whereas other young boys had pictures
1:03:40
of Joe Montana and Michael Jordan and Michael Jackson all
1:03:44
over their rooms, mine was wallpapered with Ronald Reagan. I
1:03:47
was the president of the Teenage Republicans in high school.
1:03:51
I wrote him fan letters all the time. He actually
1:03:54
replied to one and I put it in a frame
1:03:57
in my room. It was written on my birthday. I
1:04:00
was president of the College Republicans at George Mason University.
1:04:03
And I mean, I aim to be the king of
1:04:06
conservative Republican conformity. That was my whole mission in life.
1:04:11
And I used to joke that when people said, well,
1:04:15
how did you get to this? And what do you
1:04:17
think about the fact that you're talking about it and
1:04:18
you're so zealous in your advocacy? I would kind of
1:04:21
make a half statement and say, well, if 25-year-old me
1:04:25
could come and see 50-year-old me, he would look and say,
1:04:29
what in the world happened to you? And I would
1:04:31
kind of yuck and yuck and laugh about it. Well,
1:04:34
here's the answer. If 25-year-old me could come back and
1:04:39
look at 50-year-old me and say, what happened to you?
1:04:41
50-year-old me would look right back and say, you happened
1:04:46
to me. You happened to me. your youthful sense of certainty,
1:04:53
your belief that you had it all figured out, your
1:04:56
belief that you had no further greater evolution to achieve, sir.
1:05:00
You and your insolence of youth, you happened to me.
1:05:05
One of the things that I have so enjoyed learning
1:05:09
about Governor Perry as he and I have built relationship,
1:05:12
the first time I really started following him was when
1:05:15
he ran for president in 2012, and I believe that
1:05:18
Had he not had that back surgery, we would not
1:05:21
have had a second Obama term. He would have won
1:05:23
that race, and I think he would have won it handily.
1:05:27
It's been remarkable to listen to this gentleman who has
1:05:30
been so firmly identified with the conservative wing of the
1:05:33
Republican Party be so willing to be curious and to
1:05:37
have that human value of curiosity and a willingness to
1:05:42
hear and a willingness to know and a willingness to
1:05:44
entertain that Perhaps everything that he had been taught about
1:05:47
this particular subject was not correct. Curiosity is a prime
1:05:53
human value. And if you allow dogma to shut off
1:05:57
your curiosity, you have hobbled yourself. And I think it
1:06:00
was Muhammad Ali who said, if a 50-year-old man thinks
1:06:06
the exact same way as a 20-year-old man, as he
1:06:09
did when he was 20, he's wasted 30 years of
1:06:11
his life. And that is dead on right.
1:06:14
Speaker 3: Dead on, Ryan. Yeah, I could attest to that. Curiosity
1:06:18
is my number one attribute. It's the thing that's led
1:06:21
me in life and everything I've ever done is just
1:06:25
being open-minded and curious. I'm very fortunate is that I
1:06:27
didn't think I had things figured out when I was
1:06:29
20 at all. I was sure that I was a moron.
1:06:35
I was good at one thing, kicking people. That's it.
1:06:38
And then from then, I realized that there's a lot
1:06:43
to learn and that As much as I learned about
1:06:45
martial arts, I could apply that sort of open-minded discipline
1:06:51
because you have to be open-minded to be good at
1:06:56
martial arts because you have to be able to listen.
1:06:58
You can't think you already know. You cannot. You won't
1:07:01
grow and you won't get better. You have to be
1:07:04
listening to coaches. You have to be listening to instructors.
1:07:07
You have to be listening to your teammates. You have
1:07:10
to listen to everybody. If you don't listen, if you
1:07:12
have– don't tell me. Those people don't go anywhere and
1:07:16
I learned that very early on. It's very fortunate that
1:07:19
I found that path because I've applied that to virtually
1:07:22
everything that I've ever done in life instead of having
1:07:25
this belief that I have things figured out. I mean
1:07:28
I've certainly like been more sure than I should have
1:07:31
been at many times in my life but always willing
1:07:35
to stop and go, maybe I'm wrong. And if it
1:07:40
wasn't for this podcast, it would have never gotten to
1:07:43
where it is because– I've fortunately been able to talk
1:07:47
to brilliant people. And I grew up in– I lived
1:07:52
in California for 26 years. Before that, I lived in
1:07:58
Boston and New York. I thought of people– the southern
1:08:03
accent in particular, right? Then this is a standard thing
1:08:07
that a lot of people on the coast have. You
1:08:10
hear people talk with a southern accent. You think they're dumb.
1:08:14
And it's a, it's a terrible stereotype that actually came
1:08:19
out because of hookworm parasites. I'm sure you're aware of
1:08:22
that story.
1:08:23
Speaker 1: And I'm not, you're not okay.
1:08:26
Speaker 3: The stereotype of the lazy, dumb minded Southerner came out
1:08:32
of the fact that a large percentage of people in
1:08:35
the South had contracted hookworms from walking around barefoot and
1:08:41
hookworm parasites. will rob you of your intellectual capacity. They
1:08:47
greatly diminish your ability to think and exhaust you. You
1:08:53
get slower and, you know, in quotes, lazier, but you're
1:08:57
really just infected with a parasite. And it's an enormous
1:09:01
percentage of the population in the 1900s were infected with hookworm.
1:09:07
And in the south in particular. Hot climates. And this
1:09:11
is where this stereotype came from. When someone like you
1:09:15
speaks with such insane recall, like your recall is bananas.
1:09:19
Like your recall of dates and names and times and–
1:09:22
I have a pretty good recall. It's nothing like yours.
1:09:25
It's extraordinary. And I love when I meet someone who's
1:09:28
brilliant who still has a southern accent.
1:09:31
Speaker 2: Because it's like– Like I said.
1:09:33
Speaker 3: Yeah.
1:09:34
Speaker 2: Forget all your stereotypes.
1:09:36
Speaker 3: Let them all go, baby, because they're not real. It's
1:09:38
not real. None of that is real. Individuals vary wildly.
1:09:43
And I've met brilliant people from coastal cities and I've
1:09:48
met fucking morons that talk like a person that you
1:09:53
would assume would be a highly educated, intelligent person. But
1:09:56
they're closed-minded and foolish in their ways. And having had
1:10:02
this ability to have all these different conversations with different people,
1:10:06
it's just like every time I have another conversation, it
1:10:08
just expands my understanding just a little more and a
1:10:10
little more and a little more and a little more.
1:10:13
And I love it. And it's all out of curiosity.
1:10:15
And I'm very happy that I've been able to make
1:10:18
that curiosity infectious.
1:10:21
Speaker 1: My favorite cities, and I know we're getting off the
1:10:23
beaten path here a little bit.
1:10:25
Speaker 3: I love to get off the beaten path.
1:10:26
Speaker 1: It's my favorite thing to do. My favorite cities in
1:10:29
America are those that you can go to and not
1:10:32
feel like you're in the country. Miami is fabulous.
1:10:37
Speaker 3: It's a wild place. You should have a passport to
1:10:39
go to Miami.
1:10:41
Speaker 1: It is fabulous. And I remember the first time I
1:10:44
went to New York City one time when I was
1:10:46
about five years old, the only thing I could remember
1:10:48
was the Empire State Building and some dude with purple
1:10:50
hair sticking his tongue out at me. The next time
1:10:54
was in 2019. And I'd always had kind of that
1:10:58
stereotypical southerner's attitude, a bunch of, you know, haughty, rude,
1:11:04
mean-acted Yankee people living in an obnoxious locale that would
1:11:10
just be hell on earth to have to endure. So
1:11:12
I had the opportunity to go and spend a day
1:11:15
there and rolled into Grand Central Station on the railway from,
1:11:20
I think it was New Haven, Connecticut. And just to
1:11:24
watch the dimensions of the architecture as we rolled into
1:11:27
the city. Crazy. The expansion of scale of this place.
1:11:31
How old were you? Well, let's see. I was about
1:11:33
to turn 44. I think I could hear the Beverly
1:11:37
Hillbillies music playing in my head when I was going
1:11:39
down through there. So we get off at Grand Central Station,
1:11:44
and I mean, I walked all through that. I walked
1:11:48
from Grand Central Station all the way down to the
1:11:52
tip of where the World Trade Center was. It was
1:11:57
New York City is a monumental human accomplishment. When you
1:12:02
can have the entire world within 300 square miles, and
1:12:05
it is a a living affirmation of everything the United
1:12:12
States is supposed to be as the last best hope
1:12:15
of humankind on earth, just to be in that place.
1:12:18
Anytime I've gone back since, I mean, the minute that
1:12:22
I go to get the Uber at LaGuardia airport and
1:12:25
I see that skyline, I mean, my heart just starts racing, racing, racing.
1:12:29
I would have never thought that I would just fall
1:12:31
in love with New York city, but it is fabulous.
1:12:33
San Francisco is the same way. Just, There are so
1:12:37
many wonderful places in the United States where you wouldn't
1:12:41
think that somebody necessarily who sounded like me would endorse.
1:12:45
But one of the best things that I have done
1:12:49
is stop watching television news. The last time I watched
1:12:53
television news was after the first Obama press conference in
1:12:57
January of 2009, and I cut it off.
1:13:00
Speaker 3: Wow.
1:13:01
Speaker 1: Aside from presidential debates and election returns, I've never turned
1:13:04
it back on. I shouldn't tell this. The number of
1:13:09
times I've left my front door wide open, the garage
1:13:12
door open in my neighborhood, and nothing has happened is remarkable.
1:13:17
This country, in terms of her people, is as much
1:13:22
like it was back in 1950 as it has ever been.
1:13:27
The complexion is a little different. We've got a lot
1:13:31
more diversity now than we've ever had. But once you
1:13:35
take that blinder of mass media mayhem and all this
1:13:39
fabricated division that is purposely put out there to keep
1:13:42
us divided.
1:13:43
Speaker 3: To keep us tuning in.
1:13:45
Speaker 1: Tuning in and segregated.
1:13:47
Speaker 3: Yeah.
1:13:49
Speaker 1: Once you take yourself out of it and you just
1:13:51
start having a conversation, next time someone gets into an
1:13:54
Uber with someone who doesn't have English as a sacred language,
1:13:58
strike up a conversation. Ask them, how did you come
1:14:01
to the United States? What brought you here? And your
1:14:05
heart is going to fill with just the unbelievable amount
1:14:10
of pride and love to hear those accents from the
1:14:15
Middle East and from Africa speak about this country in
1:14:20
ways that take us right back to 1776. It's a
1:14:23
fabulous place. And I'm able to say so much of
1:14:27
this because of what the plants have helped clarify. by
1:14:33
way of that universal human divinity that we all share,
1:14:36
that this country is the cradle to protect and to honor,
1:14:40
which is what makes this mission so incredibly important. And
1:14:44
I do want to, oh, I'm sorry.
1:14:45
Speaker 3: No, go ahead, please.
1:14:46
Speaker 1: There's two people that I left off of our ambassador
1:14:48
program that I think are really showstoppers I'm going to mention.
1:14:52
One is a gentleman by the name of Rear Admiral
1:14:55
Jim Hancock. This gentleman received Ibogaine treatment for his wounds
1:15:00
of war He was the Navy Medical Corps chief and
1:15:05
was the medical officer for the United States Marine Corps.
1:15:09
One of our other ambassadors is a gentleman by the
1:15:11
name of General Glenn Curtis. He served in both Gulf Wars.
1:15:15
He served in Afghanistan. His most recent stint of service
1:15:19
was as the commanding general for the Louisiana National Guard.
1:15:22
And he is one of our prime spokespeople for legislation
1:15:25
that's pending in Louisiana right now to join Texas as
1:15:28
a partner in this Ibogaine trial.
1:15:30
Speaker 3: That's fantastic.
1:15:32
Speaker 1: Please say what you were going to because I'm curious.
1:15:34
Speaker 3: I don't even remember.
1:15:36
Speaker 2: Well, I remember what I wanted to talk about. And
1:15:39
I want to get us back on the track that
1:15:43
we were talking about. Brian's done a great job to
1:15:49
discuss the spiritual aspect of the medicine and what I mean.
1:15:53
That's incredibly important. Don't get me wrong on that at all.
1:15:56
But what brought me personally to the medicine, obviously my
1:16:05
relationship with Marcus and Morgan and what have you. And
1:16:08
then as I studied it, I'm like, if you're really
1:16:12
going to be a legitimate spokesperson for this, if you're
1:16:17
going to, you know, put your reputation out there, you
1:16:22
need to be treated. You need to go through the treatment.
1:16:26
And I'm going to get to you at the end
1:16:30
of this conversation, but I want to set this up.
1:16:32
Speaker 1: If I may.
1:16:33
Speaker 2: And in 2023, if my memory serves me correct, this
1:16:38
is the same time that Nolan Williams was heading up
1:16:41
the 30 veteran study that Stanford was going to oversee,
1:16:46
kind of the early days, if you will, of some
1:16:50
clinical trial type effort to have the data, to have
1:16:55
the background, some early day efforts to start educating the
1:17:00
public about that is how I do this. They had
1:17:03
30 vets. I think they were between the ages of
1:17:05
like 22 and 42. They all had moderate to severe PTSD.
1:17:15
They were some of them addicted to alcohol. You know,
1:17:23
they were pretty classic veteran population that had some real challenges.
1:17:31
They were sent to Stanford, and they did baseline functional MRIs.
1:17:39
And then they were sent down to Ambio, just south
1:17:43
of Tijuana, where they were given the treatment. And then
1:17:50
that last, I think, about a four-day treatment protocol You
1:17:55
go down, work your way in. Tuesday, you get in preparation.
1:18:03
Tuesday evening, you get the compound. Wednesday is a recovery day. Thursday,
1:18:09
there's a 5-MeO-DMT treatment. And then you go home. They
1:18:16
went back to Stanford after five days, after the treatment,
1:18:22
and had follow-up MRIs. I think they had an MRI
1:18:25
at 30 days and then a functional MRI at six months.
1:18:31
So there was a good piece of data there to
1:18:35
look at. Just stunningly good results. And the results, I
1:18:43
think there was 87 of them who, now better than
1:18:49
two years later, but that have zero PTSD. The addictions
1:18:55
were at that level of reduction that we talked about
1:18:58
in the high 80 percentiles. I mean, we've seen all
1:19:03
of this data before. This is nothing new. But the
1:19:06
reason I share that with you is that I basically
1:19:11
went down and followed the same protocol. I wasn't part
1:19:16
of the clinical trial, and I only wanted to be
1:19:19
treated with Ibogaine. I did not want to take the 5-MeO-DMT.
1:19:22
So what I was looking at, and I was interested
1:19:25
in this from the brain regenerative side of it. I
1:19:28
had about as bucolic a life as you've ever had.
1:19:31
I never had anybody mistreat me of anything that you
1:19:35
could even get close to calling traumatic.
1:19:38
Speaker 3: Effect.
1:19:38
Speaker 2: I had no trauma in my life. I grew up
1:19:41
on a dry land cotton farm, you know, 60 miles
1:19:44
from Abilene, Texas, 16 miles from closest place that had
1:19:47
a post office in a part of Texas that was
1:19:50
just a lovely, wonderful, loving place. My mom and dad
1:19:53
loved me and I knew it. And, you know, my
1:19:56
scout master and my principal and my superintendent in my
1:20:00
Sunday school class, who, by the way, were all the
1:20:02
same person. And he drove the bus and was a
1:20:05
football coach. But I had a as non-traumatic growing up
1:20:13
period as you can imagine. So I was concussed, severely concussed,
1:20:23
three times. Twice in athletic events, and I'm talking about
1:20:27
knocked out completely for over one minute. And those are
1:20:33
severe concussions. Two times athletic events, one time unloading horses.
1:20:38
Knocked completely out. So what I know now is that
1:20:44
as I got to pilot training and I started noticing
1:20:48
that I was having trouble sleeping and that this thing
1:20:53
that I understood later in life was anxiety had crept
1:20:57
into my life. So I had, I'm going to put
1:21:01
it in the mile category, anxiety and I went into
1:21:11
a very odd line of work in politics to have
1:21:14
those two kind of things. And I masked them rather well.
1:21:20
Most people didn't know I had that. My wife did.
1:21:22
But other than that, even my senior staff in my
1:21:27
offices through the year, agriculture commissioner, lieutenant governor, governor, they
1:21:31
did not know that I had this challenge of maybe
1:21:35
sleeping– three and a half, four hours a night, being
1:21:41
anxious at times to the point of being never dysfunctional.
1:21:48
From my perspective, probably some people out there in the
1:21:51
political world said, hell, Perry, you were dysfunctional the whole
1:21:53
damn time.
1:21:54
Speaker 1: What are you talking about?
1:21:55
Speaker 2: Anyway, beside the point. I had the treatment. I had
1:22:02
the I had the brain scan going in. I had
1:22:07
the brain scan a week later, and I had the
1:22:09
brain scan at six months. The first brain scan, they said, look,
1:22:20
your brain looks pretty good for a 73-year-old guy. He said,
1:22:23
you know, you're actually in pretty good shape. You don't
1:22:26
have a lot of atrophy. You got some mild atrophy,
1:22:30
but your brain looks pretty good. The week after scan
1:22:39
showed a 27% increase in the prefrontal cortex of my brain.
1:22:46
That's where your focus, your concentration, your emotions reside. I
1:22:51
had a 27% increase in that prefrontal cortex activity. My
1:23:00
six-month scan I have a dear friend who's a neurosurgeon
1:23:07
from Tyler, Dr. Charlie Gordon, who is a 40-plus year neurosurgeon,
1:23:19
spine expert, looked at lots of brain scans. A respectful
1:23:25
skeptic of this. When I told him I was going
1:23:28
to be treated with this compound called Ibogaine, this psychoactive compound,
1:23:35
He was recoiled a little bit. He was like, you
1:23:39
need to be really careful with that. He has now
1:23:46
gone from being respectful, skeptic, to looking at the data
1:23:51
from the clinical trial that was done at Stanford, talking
1:23:55
to a fairly good number of the veterans that went
1:24:00
through that trial, talking to Dr. Williams, talking to other
1:24:03
specialists at the at Stanford. And he has gone from
1:24:06
respectful skeptic to a full-on believer in this medicine. I mean,
1:24:14
an absolute supporter that this medicine does what it says
1:24:20
it does. It heals people of addictions. It heals from PTSD.
1:24:27
This medicine does what it does. And we're driving back
1:24:30
from the airport that day after the six-month scan He
1:24:35
had looked at it as it came off of the machine.
1:24:39
And he said, Governor, I'm not going to blow smoke
1:24:43
up your dress. Your atrophy is gone. He said, I
1:24:51
have no idea why this has happened. But he said,
1:24:55
the difference between your initial baseline scan and six months later,
1:25:03
clearly the atrophy in your brain is gone. He said,
1:25:08
your brain looks like a 40 year old. Now, the
1:25:12
reason I share that story with you is because number one,
1:25:17
that's partly what drives me about this is that there
1:25:22
is a regenerative aspect of this medicine that we don't
1:25:25
really understand yet. And if it does what we think
1:25:30
it's going to do, and that's the reason these clinical
1:25:32
trials are just so stunningly important. That's the reason what
1:25:35
the the Center for Brain Health and what they're going
1:25:38
to be doing and the data they're going to be collecting.
1:25:41
I'm convinced of what this data is going to show.
1:25:44
But for all of those individuals out there who don't
1:25:49
have substance abuse problems, who weren't traumatized as a child,
1:25:53
but who have been concussed, and we know that that
1:25:57
damage is out there and that the cumulative side, Robert Gallery,
1:26:04
that great, professional football player who had really bad CTE.
1:26:10
And he will tell you today this medicine saved his life.
1:26:13
My question for you, Joe Rogan, is how many times
1:26:19
do you think you've been concussed in life?
1:26:27
Speaker 1: I don't know.
1:26:29
Speaker 3: I have no idea.
1:26:31
Speaker 2: Dozens?
1:26:32
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'd have to go back and think about times
1:26:38
most of it was from sparring or a few from
1:26:41
fights but if.
1:26:44
Speaker 2: We think about that if there is this cumulative.
1:26:47
Speaker 3: Effect yeah are you how old are you now.
1:26:52
Speaker 2: 58 would Joe Rogan be willing to say you know
1:26:57
what I've seen enough I believe that this medicine does
1:27:03
what you say it will do and for a person
1:27:07
like me that it could be incredibly helpful to my
1:27:17
my long term plan of living a long and healthy
1:27:21
and engaged life that Joe Rogan would go and be
1:27:26
treated with Ibogaine.
1:27:27
Speaker 3: Yeah I would definitely I would definitely do it I'm
1:27:30
very fascinated by it cool I mean I've never heard
1:27:32
anybody say I wish I didn't do.
1:27:33
Speaker 1: It hey He mentioned his brain scans post-treatment. A couple
1:27:40
of weeks ago, while I was at that One Earth gathering,
1:27:44
I met a lady whom I will call Lonnie, and
1:27:47
she had just returned from a navigating treatment in November
1:27:49
of 25. She related an early life of just ungodly
1:27:57
physical abuse by her father, who was addicted to OxyContin.
1:28:01
You know, we began this conversation about the realities of
1:28:04
the opioid epidemic in America. While death is the most
1:28:08
terminal outcome, it's measured down about 700,000 Americans. There is
1:28:12
a much broader web of hardcore travesty that exists around
1:28:18
each of those death outcomes. And Lonnie experienced that. She
1:28:24
had multiple concussions from her own father. Like many individuals
1:28:28
who experience trauma of this nature, she developed her own
1:28:31
drug addiction. She was in and out of jail. She
1:28:34
was homeless at a different point in time. She managed
1:28:37
to get recovered. She had a separate traumatic brain injury
1:28:40
that was fairly severe in 2018. And then she was
1:28:45
diagnosed with what I believe is called young-onset Parkinson's, Parkinson's
1:28:51
diagnosis that is pre-age 50. Her Parkinson's had progressed to
1:28:56
the point to where she could not write because of
1:28:59
the tremulousness in her hands. So when I saw her
1:29:03
two weeks ago and she introduced herself, she had all
1:29:08
of the appearance and affect of a perfectly healthy human being.
1:29:12
It was only after we sat down and she explained
1:29:14
what her experience had been and where she was at
1:29:17
now that the Ibogaine disclosure was made. Her hand was
1:29:22
just as calm as mine. And she said that it
1:29:25
had been essentially three months and that she had been
1:29:29
able to resume a normal life and that her mind
1:29:32
felt restored. Now, based on the responses we got after
1:29:35
our first interview with you, I want to be very
1:29:37
careful here. This is truly the edge of science. And
1:29:43
there is much unknown about the variety of Parkinson's that
1:29:47
this can treat. There's some suggestion that it is better
1:29:52
for those who have a genetic predisposition for the disease,
1:29:56
that it is for those who contract Parkinson's as the
1:29:59
result of environmental exposure. Ibogaine does not appear to have
1:30:02
any impact on Parkinson's developed as a result of exposure
1:30:07
to environmental toxin. The stage of the disease at which
1:30:10
you catch it also appears to make a big difference.
1:30:13
Speaker 2: The earlier, the better.
1:30:15
Speaker 1: It has also been asserted that Ibogaine does not cure Parkinson's.
1:30:19
What it does is slows disease progressions and creates for
1:30:23
some a broad window of opportunity for the restoration of
1:30:27
function that can dramatically improve the quality of life. Now,
1:30:31
I'm just given a number of qualifiers about its impact
1:30:35
and efficacy on one individual, but think about what we
1:30:38
just said here. This is a woman who was diagnosed
1:30:41
with young-onset Parkinson's. She had lost the ability to write
1:30:45
because of the tremulousness in her hands. She's four months
1:30:48
out from her treatment, and she's been able to resume
1:30:50
her full normal life with a complete restoration of function.
1:30:54
If we could get a COVID vaccine out in nine months,
1:31:00
there is no reason why, with the focused effort of
1:31:04
Texas and the other states we'll discuss here momentarily, that
1:31:07
we cannot achieve the moonshot of our time within three
1:31:11
years or less, and that is the completion of an
1:31:15
Ibogaine medication that can be fully integrated into the U.S.
1:31:20
healthcare system and made just as universally available as every
1:31:25
ineffective opioid-based treatment that we currently deploy through the medical
1:31:29
system at a cost of $ 700, 000 per patient, sponsored by Indivior,
1:31:36
which is one of the chief pharmaceutical developers of everything
1:31:39
that we have that fails 75% of the time. Yeah,
1:31:42
I mean.
1:31:47
Speaker 3: If we could do it, it would be pretty extraordinary.
1:31:50
And if it is done, I really do believe that
1:31:54
it would have a complete changing of society. When people
1:31:58
have no hope and there's nothing, and then all of
1:32:00
a sudden there's something that comes along that you do
1:32:02
it once and it's an 85% effective rate. And you
1:32:05
do it twice and it's in the high 90s. I mean, change.
1:32:10
How many people are out there struggling with something? Whether
1:32:13
it's alcoholism, whether it's obesity, whether it's That's another thing.
1:32:18
There's people that are calming themselves with food, right? And
1:32:22
it's masking.
1:32:23
Speaker 2: That's probably a sugar addiction, don't you think? I mean
1:32:27
from the standpoint.
1:32:27
Speaker 3: Of– It is. But for a lot of people, there's
1:32:30
something else. For some people, it's sexual abuse when they're
1:32:34
younger and they eat.
1:32:36
Speaker 2: It's– Interesting.
1:32:38
Speaker 3: It's an addiction. Yeah. And it's not just a physical addiction.
1:32:42
It's a psychological addiction. I brought up gambling because I
1:32:45
know a lot of people that are addicted to gambling.
1:32:46
Speaker 2: Pornography.
1:32:47
Speaker 3: Yeah, pornography.
1:32:49
Speaker 4: Sure.
1:32:49
Speaker 3: There's a lot of things.
1:32:51
Speaker 1: The non-succession models we mentioned are ones who had developed
1:32:54
those eating disorders, one of which was a compulsive eater
1:32:57
as a result of that childhood sexual abuse. And Ibogaine
1:33:01
was the treatment of last resort, not the first option.
1:33:04
And their own recovery story, which can be found on
1:33:07
the Americans for Abagain website, is truly extraordinary. And speaking
1:33:11
of extraordinary, when we came in here to push Texas,
1:33:16
our belief was and still is and is now playing
1:33:20
out at scale that if Texas did this, it would
1:33:24
be joined by a number of other states who are
1:33:27
no longer willing to sit and wait on an inefficient
1:33:32
program often incompetent, and also incompetently corrupt federal bureaucracy that
1:33:40
will not move in response to the genuine needs of
1:33:43
the American people at the pace that it needs to.
1:33:46
There are a variety of well-intentioned reformers within the current administration,
1:33:52
Secretary Kennedy, Secretary Collins, and others who have voiced their
1:33:58
support for the advancement of plant medicine as breakthrough treatments
1:34:01
primarily for U.S. warfighters, but also for other members of
1:34:05
our society for whom these medications could help. We believe
1:34:10
that these individuals are stymied by two realities. The first
1:34:14
reality is the Byzantine complexity of the federal bureaucracy, the
1:34:19
degree to which it has been compromised by the institutional
1:34:22
capture of much of its functioning by companies that make
1:34:27
money on keeping problems alive. We think they're probably also
1:34:31
stymied by perhaps some other political cross-currents within the administration
1:34:36
that view psychedelics with skepticism and that are therefore willing
1:34:40
to be indiscriminate in their resistance to the advancement of
1:34:43
any of them, when in fact the advancement of this
1:34:47
one is of existential critical importance as a breakthrough treatment
1:34:51
for millions of Americans who need it now. And so
1:34:55
to that end, Americans for Ibogaine following the Texas success
1:35:00
of convened a gathering of 200 people in Aspen, Colorado
1:35:05
in November of last year. These individuals were invited, appointed,
1:35:09
and elected state officials from 22 individual states and aligned
1:35:13
citizens of influence who would be willing, as the Texans
1:35:16
were here, to get behind efforts in state legislatures to
1:35:20
create a partnership with Texas that by end result will
1:35:25
form the unstoppable external force through the states that can
1:35:30
crash through the federal wall using not just their resources,
1:35:33
but their political influence to execute one unified FDA drug
1:35:37
development trial and to force the federal government to be
1:35:40
responsive to everything that is required to ensure it is successful.
1:35:45
So as we sit here today, we have been working
1:35:48
with elected officials in Alabama, Georgia, Idaho, Maryland, Michigan, New Hampshire,
1:35:57
South Carolina, Vermont, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Florida, South Dakota, and California,
1:36:04
each of whom have legislators who are willing to introduce
1:36:07
and to pursue bills to join their states into Texas
1:36:10
as this trial. Governor Perry and I spoke to the
1:36:13
American Legislative Exchange Council as keynote speakers on December 5th
1:36:17
of last year. This is an umbrella think tank organization
1:36:21
for center-right, mostly Republican legislatures from across the country. In
1:36:26
its entire existence, ALEC has taken two positions when it
1:36:31
comes on the war on drugs. More prison, more penalties,
1:36:35
more prison, more penalties. Add if and add them. After
1:36:40
we spoke about the necessity of Ibogaine's medical integration into
1:36:44
the United States and the capacity of the states to
1:36:47
force this reality into being, Alec issued a formal position
1:36:51
statement as well as model legislation endorsing what we call
1:36:55
the American Ibogaine Initiative to bring the states all together
1:36:59
to make this happen with one unified voice. And so now,
1:37:04
as we sit here with you today, in the state
1:37:07
of Tennessee, there are two bills, one each in the
1:37:11
state House and the state Senate, that are making its
1:37:13
way through that legislature to join Texas. Before we walked
1:37:16
in here this morning, The Tennessee Senate Finance Committee voted
1:37:20
11 to nothing to move Tennessee's bill forward to the
1:37:23
full state Senate for consideration and what will, I believe,
1:37:26
be passage. And I would like to give a shout
1:37:28
out to a special sister by the name of Ricky Harris,
1:37:31
who has led that Tennessee campaign. Right now, there are
1:37:34
two bills in the Missouri legislature, House Bill 2817 and
1:37:38
Senate Bill 1581, which are receiving good, considerate, deliberative comments.
1:37:44
thought by legislators there, but frankly need a little motivation.
1:37:48
So if you're in Missouri and you want to see
1:37:50
Ibogaine medicine for your family member, for your community, for
1:37:53
your state, you call into the Missouri legislature and say,
1:37:56
move the Ibogaine bill forward to join Missouri with Texas.
1:38:00
Speaker 3: Oklahoma.
1:38:01
Speaker 1: The Oklahoma House of Representatives has passed its Ibogaine bill.
1:38:05
It is now pending in its Senate. In Louisiana, Senate
1:38:08
Bill 43 has been introduced to join that state to Texas.
1:38:12
And in what I can only describe, as full circle justice.
1:38:17
The Kentucky Senate passed Senate Bill 77 by a margin
1:38:21
of 35 to 2 to join Kentucky where this all
1:38:25
began with Texas as a state partner in this Ibogaine
1:38:28
drug development trial. It is now sitting in the Kentucky
1:38:31
House of Representatives. So you, if you are at home,
1:38:35
please call the Kentucky House of Representatives and ask them
1:38:39
to pass the Kentucky Ibogaine initiative so the state will
1:38:42
not be left out. Now, here are some just Unbelievable
1:38:49
words are going to come out of my mouth. The
1:38:52
state of West Virginia, their House of Delegates by a
1:38:55
vote of 96 to nothing, and their state Senate unanimously
1:39:00
passed their Ibogaine bill to join Texas, and it has
1:39:03
now been sent to their governor for signature. And the
1:39:07
one that is the most poignant and moving for all
1:39:10
the obvious reasons, the state of Mississippi, the crucible for
1:39:17
the triumph of of uniquely American hope over horror, and
1:39:23
of the leadership of Representative Sam Creekmore. Its State House
1:39:27
of Representatives passed by a margin of 111 to 1,
1:39:32
and its State Senate passed by a margin of 51
1:39:35
to 1. The Mississippi Ibogaine Initiative, which will tie the
1:39:39
state of Mississippi with a $ 5 million appropriation from its
1:39:42
opioid fund to Texas to develop the most powerful psychedelic
1:39:47
on the planet has a breakthrough treatment for trauma and
1:39:50
addiction for the people of Mississippi. That's incredible. It is
1:39:54
going to be signed, actually has been legally signed by
1:39:58
Governor Reeves, Governor Tate Reeves, and Governor Perry and I
1:40:03
have asked for a special signing ceremony with Representative Creekmore,
1:40:08
his legislative leaders there, to stand in Jackson, Mississippi and
1:40:12
see that signed into law as a matter of ceremonial formality.
1:40:16
What a wonderfully redemptive opportunity that we have here to shepherd.
1:40:22
And we hope and pray that our organization can be
1:40:24
sufficiently resourced and sufficiently engaged over the next three years
1:40:29
so that we can see this process to conclusion. I'll
1:40:31
mention a couple of others since we're talking about the
1:40:34
capacity to make this a broad-based humanitarian mission that improves
1:40:38
the human condition. Just Friday, before traveling down here on Sunday,
1:40:44
I received a letter from the government of Gabon. naming
1:40:47
Americans for Ibogaine as its official partner for the advancement
1:40:51
of Iboga medicine globally. Gabon has 2.3 million people. It's
1:40:56
got 100,000 square miles of territory that's the modern Garden
1:40:59
of Eden. I've had the opportunity to take a trip
1:41:02
there from, and I mean trip as in the geographic sense,
1:41:06
not the Iboga trip, though I hope that that will
1:41:11
be on the agenda in the ceremonial way sometime within
1:41:14
the next year. We traveled there from January 6th to
1:41:17
January 20th. And if someone would have said, when you
1:41:21
go to Gabon, you're going to have one of the
1:41:23
most down-home experiences you've ever had in my life, it
1:41:26
would have blown my mind. But it was a fabulous journey,
1:41:30
one in which they were jubilant about our ability to
1:41:34
demonstrate that what they call the sacred wood, in fact,
1:41:38
is one of the most scientifically advanced substances that has
1:41:41
perhaps ever been discovered. And we're honored that the government
1:41:45
would choose us as their partner to move this forward.
1:41:48
On Monday, after a conference call with Chief Gary Batten,
1:41:56
I can confirm that the Choctaw Nation will seek to
1:42:00
join Texas in the expansion of this Ibogaine drug development
1:42:04
trial onto their sovereign territory as the third largest Native
1:42:09
American tribe in the country. On April the 7th, I
1:42:13
will be traveling to Durant, Oklahoma, for what is being
1:42:16
called the Intertribal Council Meeting of what they describe as
1:42:20
the Five Civilized Tribes. That's their name, not mine. This
1:42:23
is a gathering of the leadership of the Choctaw, the Chickasaw,
1:42:28
the Cherokee, the Muskegee, and the Seminole. We expect a
1:42:34
passage of a resolution that I will be there to
1:42:37
lobby for. where the five civilized tribes will declare their
1:42:41
solidarity with Americans for Ibogaine for the integration of this
1:42:46
divine emancipator into the U.S. healthcare system as expeditiously as
1:42:50
possible and make all of their resources available to explore
1:42:54
the extent to which we can operationalize Ibogaine medicine as
1:42:58
quickly as possible. And it's my hope and aspiration that
1:43:02
we will see all of Native America join this effort
1:43:05
Before the end of this year.
1:43:07
Speaker 3: Can I stop you there? Would that make it so
1:43:09
that they would be able to immediately establish retreats there?
1:43:13
So similar to the way they have casinos? Because they
1:43:16
don't have the same sort of regulations that some states do.
1:43:21
Speaker 1: Tribal sovereignty is an area of the law with which
1:43:24
I am not familiar. I would not be able to
1:43:27
speak to the degree to which they could autonomously open
1:43:30
a clinic. The most immediate issue would be related to
1:43:33
the creation of a supply chain because you have traveled
1:43:37
through interstate commerce in the U.S. states, which are theoretically restricted. However,
1:43:42
there is one spectacular opportunity not just to expedite the
1:43:46
creation of Ibogaine treatment access for Native America, but for
1:43:50
all of America. And this gets into... federal right to
1:43:55
try legislation authored by former U.S. Senator Kyrsten Sinema and
1:43:59
signed by the president during his first administration in 2018.
1:44:06
What federal right to try legislation or the law provides
1:44:10
is that once any medication makes its way through phase
1:44:17
one safety testing within the FDA's process, then anyone who
1:44:22
with a life-threatening condition for which that medication is being developed,
1:44:26
can request treatment with that medication and obtain it from
1:44:31
a willing prescriber. What does that mean? That means that
1:44:37
as soon as Texas or as soon as one of
1:44:41
the Native tribes effectively completes a Phase I safety study
1:44:46
under the language of the law, anyone who has a
1:44:51
life-threatening condition for which this medication is being developed, first
1:44:55
and foremost, opioid dependency, can go and request and get
1:44:59
the treatment. We have one complication. Presently, the Drug Enforcement Administration,
1:45:07
in keeping with the practice of many government agencies that
1:45:10
use their arbitrary authority to interpret law, has asserted that
1:45:15
federal right to try does not apply to Schedule I substances.
1:45:21
This means that based on not the language of the law,
1:45:26
but on DEA's interpretation preference of that law, once Ibogaine
1:45:32
clears through Phase I, it would be disqualified for access
1:45:36
under federal right to try because the DEA says that
1:45:39
if Schedule I substances were intended to be included, they
1:45:44
would have been specifically listed in the legislation. When Kyrsten Sinema,
1:45:49
the author of the bill, explained to them that the
1:45:52
language is unambiguous and it says any medication, their response
1:45:58
was insolence and a refusal to honor what the statute
1:46:03
actually says, which is one of these numerous examples of
1:46:06
the use of fictitious legal realities to do violence to
1:46:10
legitimate reality. The DEA needs to be told to relent.
1:46:15
on its misinterpretation and extrajudicial interpretation of federal right to
1:46:21
try to interpret it as written so that once any
1:46:25
phase one study on Ibogaine is completed, delivery can be
1:46:29
effectuated through the medical system immediately.
1:46:32
Speaker 2: And I might add one of the challenges that I've
1:46:36
seen over my 40 years of being involved in government
1:46:39
is that bureaucrats, the easiest way And the safest answer
1:46:45
for a bureaucrat is no. And I think that's part
1:46:49
of what we're running into in D.C.
1:46:52
Speaker 1: With the DEA.
1:46:54
Speaker 2: One of the issues that I certainly hope and pray
1:46:59
as we go through the summer and as we see
1:47:01
what's happened in Texas and Mississippi and these other states,
1:47:05
that we'll have the opportunity to sit down with President
1:47:09
Trump and to just share with him what we're doing,
1:47:12
what we're seeing across the country, and that we could
1:47:18
potentially have a conversation about the rescheduling of Ibogaine from
1:47:23
one to three. Two or three. You know, just get
1:47:27
it out of that schedule one, which there's no reason
1:47:31
in the world, and you've talked about this many times, Joe,
1:47:34
that Ibogaine is on schedule one. It does have medical purposes.
1:47:38
I mean, it's very clear it does. And secondly, it
1:47:41
is not addictive. So the idea on its face that
1:47:45
Ibogaine is shown as this Schedule I compound is just
1:47:51
a fallacy.
1:47:52
Speaker 3: Well, the Schedule I, the sweeping Schedule I Act of
1:47:54
1970 is just nuts. They just threw a bunch of
1:47:57
stuff in there, many of the things that aren't even psychoactive.
1:48:01
A question, the iboga tree, can it be grown in
1:48:04
the United States? Theoretically. Is it climate dependent?
1:48:11
Speaker 1: It's climate dependent. It's soil dependent. It is considered an
1:48:16
entourage plant whereby it absorbs. essentially the essence, not just
1:48:25
of the soil around it, but of the other botanicals.
1:48:29
One of the things we learned in Gabon is that
1:48:32
much like we have great varietals in California for all
1:48:35
the different kinds of wine that they produce, There are
1:48:38
different varieties of the iboga shrub. How it grows in
1:48:41
the north of the country is very different than how
1:48:43
it grows in the south.
1:48:44
Speaker 3: In terms of the amount of compound that's in it
1:48:46
or the type of compound that's in it?
1:48:49
Speaker 1: The potency, the strength, the nature of its effect on
1:48:54
the person, the way that it kind of facilitates the
1:49:00
spiritual journey. There's some of it that will kind of
1:49:02
have a dark angle. There's some of it that has
1:49:04
more of a light angle. we are just really scratching
1:49:09
the surface of knowledge as to all the ways in
1:49:12
which it can vary based on how it grows naturally.
1:49:17
One of the most fascinating things that we learned there,
1:49:19
and this is going to give you chills. We visited
1:49:23
a five-hectare, they use the metric system, we visited a
1:49:27
five-hectare iboga plantation right in the center of Libreville that
1:49:32
is run by one of their former prime ministers. It's
1:49:35
an experimental farm to kind of understand how it grows,
1:49:41
the optimal ways in which to grow it, and what
1:49:43
different outcomes are. So as we were walking along, we
1:49:48
came to these two small bushes. It takes for about
1:49:50
10 years to come to maturation. We come along this
1:49:54
pathway and they were two shrubs, identical, growing just a
1:49:58
couple of feet apart from each other. And they pointed
1:50:01
those out and said, now what does that look like
1:50:03
to you? And I said, well, those are iboga shrubs.
1:50:05
And they smiled and they said, well, It would appear
1:50:08
so because they are identical. They said, but in nature,
1:50:14
when you find an iboga shrub, you're going to have
1:50:17
to be very careful to determine which one's which because
1:50:20
in nature it looks like they grow in pairs. One
1:50:24
is the real deal. The other is its poison imposter.
1:50:29
Speaker 3: Oh.
1:50:30
Speaker 1: And they grow together.
1:50:32
Speaker 3: And they look identical? They look identical.
1:50:33
Speaker 1: They look identical.
1:50:34
Speaker 3: How do you differentiate?
1:50:35
Speaker 1: It's not until they get fully grown into their 10th year.
1:50:40
One bears fruit, which is the real deal, and the
1:50:43
other does not.
1:50:44
Speaker 3: Wow.
1:50:45
Speaker 1: Now, how does that do you for the physical communication
1:50:50
of a mystical spiritual reality?
1:50:53
Speaker 3: So it takes 10 years for it to come to
1:50:55
fruition to the point where it could be useful? No.
1:50:58
But you could use it before then, but you don't
1:51:01
know whether you're getting the real deal or you're just
1:51:03
killing yourself.
1:51:03
Speaker 1: When you see them grow in pairs, that's correct. So
1:51:07
there's one group of people who know how to differentiate.
1:51:11
One of the things that we learned is that there
1:51:13
is a healthy underground international market for the bark. Just
1:51:17
like we use vitamin B complex or we use valerian
1:51:21
root to help us go to sleep, people in Gabon
1:51:24
will use the iboga bark for Mental acuity and just
1:51:29
like drinking a cup of coffee. I mean, to get
1:51:30
the psychoactive effect, you have to eat like five big,
1:51:35
huge heaping plates of this stuff over the course of time.
1:51:39
It's so bitter, it will burn your mouth. I mean,
1:51:41
it's an Olympian ordeal. This is the bark. Yes, sir.
1:51:44
It's an Olympian ordeal to consume the amount of bark
1:51:48
that's necessary to get that mystical effect. And you're sicker
1:51:51
than a dog the whole time you're doing it. But
1:51:53
apparently piracy in the country for the shrub is fairly prominent.
1:51:58
And they explain that what poachers will do is that
1:52:01
they will take the poison imposter and basically like the
1:52:05
street supply where you put pollutants in with cocaine or
1:52:08
whatever here. They put that imposter bark in with the
1:52:11
real because you cannot visually differentiate. The Ambongo pygmy... who
1:52:17
we had the privilege of meeting, who hosted us for
1:52:20
an overnight ceremony of blessing and protection that was just phenomenal.
1:52:24
They apparently can just taste the bark, even when it's
1:52:29
mixed together, and they can tell if it's adulterated with
1:52:31
the imposter.
1:52:32
Speaker 3: Wow.
1:52:34
Speaker 1: But to know that.
1:52:35
Speaker 3: Those are like sommeliers of Ibogaine. Yes.
1:52:39
Speaker 1: That's a great way to put it, an Ibogaine sommelier.
1:52:43
Might have to go over and get tutored.
1:52:45
Speaker 3: Yeah, I wonder what that process is like. Boy. Well,
1:52:50
it seems to me that with the incredible effectiveness of
1:52:56
this compound and it being adopted by all these states,
1:53:00
it almost seems inevitable that change is coming.
1:53:03
Speaker 1: Well, here's what we need to make change happen.
1:53:07
Speaker 3: We need the DEA to get on board.
1:53:09
Speaker 1: Well, we need the DEA to get on board, but
1:53:11
we need one man to get on board. and that
1:53:14
man is the President of the United States. We're here
1:53:17
to recognize America in her 250th year. 25 of those 250,
1:53:23
now 10% of time, has been spent at war. And
1:53:29
there are conditions unique to war that only this medication
1:53:34
can responsibly address in a way that nothing else can.
1:53:39
If there is an opportunity, to improve the human condition
1:53:44
at scale, particularly for those who are even right now
1:53:48
being marched in to go and fight yet another war.
1:53:52
Taking executive action that would direct Ibogaine to be moved
1:53:57
to Schedule II, that the provisions of the Halt Fentanyl
1:54:01
Act be applied to the Texas Multistate Ibogaine Drug Development Trial,
1:54:07
that the DEA be directed to interpret federal right to
1:54:10
try so as to not exclude Schedule I medications that
1:54:14
are in drug development and that it be appropriately interpreted
1:54:17
so that any medication that makes it through Phase I
1:54:21
can be accessed by a person with a life-threatening condition,
1:54:25
and then directing that federal scientific research agencies, whether they
1:54:29
be within Health and Human Services or the Pentagon, come
1:54:33
alongside the states in direct partnership to fund and foster
1:54:37
the accelerated pharmacological development of Ibogaine so that this medication
1:54:42
can make its way all the way through the FDA's
1:54:45
process with their supportive guidance within three years or less.
1:54:50
It is the moonshot of our time. And if there's
1:54:53
a humanitarian legacy to be left for the ages by
1:54:57
a president who very much wishes to have a legacy
1:55:01
that is well reflected upon by posterity, this is one
1:55:05
of the most monumental opportunities he has. to help folks
1:55:10
at scale in a way that no president perhaps has before.
1:55:14
We're at an inflection point in history, not just for
1:55:17
this country, but globally.
1:55:19
Speaker 3: Well, I certainly hope that this message reaches the president,
1:55:23
and I will try to make sure that it does.
1:55:25
Speaker 1: Thank you, sir.
1:55:27
Speaker 3: I mean, I think in terms of the amount of
1:55:30
people that it can help and the crisis that our
1:55:32
country is enduring with opiate addiction, with PTSD, with all
1:55:36
sorts of trauma, with CTE, from sports, from car accidents,
1:55:41
and what have you. I mean, this is... It's astonishing
1:55:47
that this is even a struggle. When you consider the
1:55:50
effectiveness of this, it's astonishing that we have to plead
1:55:54
and that you have to put in so much work,
1:55:56
and kudos to you for doing that, and kudos to
1:55:59
Dan Patrick for this recent adoption of it here in Texas. And,
1:56:05
I mean... I just can only hope that momentum is
1:56:09
on the side that's correct and that this is implemented
1:56:14
through the entire country and that people wake up and
1:56:16
realize like we can help people and everyone at this
1:56:20
point in time because of the opioid crisis, everyone is
1:56:22
touched by this. Everyone has a family member. Everyone knows someone,
1:56:26
a friend, a neighbor, everyone. Everyone knows someone who has
1:56:29
been hit by this. I have friends that have no
1:56:32
problems with anything else and they had an injury. And
1:56:36
got hooked on opiates and had a terrible time kicking it.
1:56:40
Speaker 2: Opioids are– I'll use the word demonic. I just– I
1:56:45
don't know any other way to describe it. It's a
1:56:47
good word. It robs people of their life. And to
1:56:52
have seen– back in Kentucky where this all started in
1:56:56
my opinion, in your work there, and to have the
1:57:02
success that we're seeing now in Kentucky– And having it
1:57:05
blocked historically when you were there at the Opioid Abatement
1:57:10
Commission and the current governor being a part of that blockade,
1:57:15
if you will, former employee of the Sackler family. And
1:57:20
today to have the opportunity, you know, for the Kentucky
1:57:26
people of Kentucky to finally get the opportunity to make
1:57:32
right what they got so tragically impacted by back in
1:57:38
the late 90s and the 2000s. I just, I mean,
1:57:42
it gives me great hope, not just for this country,
1:57:46
but for the side of righteousness that this happens in
1:57:51
a big and a powerful way.
1:57:52
Speaker 3: Here, here.
1:57:54
Speaker 1: He mentions the Kentucky experience. Before we rolled out the
1:57:58
Abigail Initiative there and stood up the Opioid Commission, I
1:58:04
thought our first job was to go and to hear
1:58:06
from the people of the state. We were getting a
1:58:08
billion dollars in settlement funds. This money was coming to
1:58:11
us because thousands of their family members had died. So
1:58:15
recognizing that confidence in government is at an all-time low,
1:58:19
I thought it was important to go out and say, hey,
1:58:21
here's who we are. Here's the job we've been given.
1:58:23
Here's the resource we have. Tell us what need you
1:58:27
have in your community that we can look to fund
1:58:30
This is something that needs to be accessible to grassroots organizations.
1:58:35
It needs to be accountable to you as people. And
1:58:37
we need to make sure we're transparent with how we
1:58:39
use this money. But our first job is to listen. Well,
1:58:42
over the course of 20 town halls across the state,
1:58:44
Tuesday evenings from 6 p.m. until we wrapped up, what
1:58:48
began as a 15-minute technocratic presentation of what this state
1:58:52
commission does turned into these mass... catharsis events where hundreds
1:59:03
of people thousands over the course of those 20 town
1:59:05
halls poured out the depths of their grief right at
1:59:08
our feet and after they did the sum total of
1:59:12
their response to us was we don't think that you
1:59:17
have the competence or the integrity to do anything that's
1:59:23
going to make a meaningful difference in this life in
1:59:26
our lives And we don't expect one cent of this
1:59:29
money is going to make the least bit of difference
1:59:31
for us. At one of these town halls, I heard
1:59:34
about a young woman by the name of Tamara. And
1:59:39
the woman who told Tamara's story was a volunteer at
1:59:43
a clinic for the survivors of child sexual abuse. This
1:59:46
particular clinic made sure that children received appropriate medical treatment,
1:59:51
that they received proper therapeutic counseling, uh, and that they
1:59:55
were placed in family circumstances where they could perhaps have
1:59:59
a chance to have a decent life. So this volunteer
2:00:02
told about meeting a young woman by the name of
2:00:04
Tamara when Tamara was 10 years old, had been horrifically
2:00:07
sexually abused by a family member. Tamara had to have
2:00:11
a series of reconstructive surgeries because of how awful it was.
2:00:16
And she said that she worked with Tamara for about
2:00:19
two or three years and that she went to her
2:00:22
adopted family and She hadn't been heard from since, and
2:00:26
that she assumed that that was despite how awful her
2:00:29
circumstances were when she came through the door, that she
2:00:32
managed to get well and go on and have a
2:00:35
relatively functional and happy life, as happy as one can
2:00:39
to be a survivor of those circumstances. This same woman
2:00:44
said that about 10 years later, she was volunteering at
2:00:48
the Perry County Kentucky Detention Center in the county seat
2:00:52
of Hazard. And that she was offering mindfulness and yoga
2:00:56
classes to inmates there just as a volunteer. And she
2:01:01
said she went in one evening to teach her class.
2:01:05
And that she saw this young woman sitting in the
2:01:07
corner after herself kind of withdrawn. She didn't want to
2:01:09
come participate in any of the yoga exercises or anything.
2:01:12
And that she was looking at her. And she said,
2:01:15
you know, even though she was an adult, she looked
2:01:17
kind of like what this young woman appeared, Tamara, when
2:01:20
she was 10 years old. She said, so I walked
2:01:23
up to her and knelt down beside her and I said,
2:01:27
is your name Tamara? And she said that young woman
2:01:30
looked up at her and recognized and eyes brightened. She said, yes,
2:01:34
how'd you know? She said, I'm the volunteer who worked
2:01:38
with you when you came to our clinic when you
2:01:39
were 10. What are you doing in here? And Tamara explained.
2:01:45
that because of the surgeries that she had performed to
2:01:49
be reconstructed, they had given her opioids. And that what
2:01:54
began to treat her physical pain, she continued to rely
2:01:58
upon to treat her tremendous spiritual and emotional pain. And
2:02:05
she had gotten busted by an oxy on the street
2:02:09
by a deputy with the Perry County Sheriff's Department and
2:02:13
put in jail. You think about what I just said
2:02:16
about how this young woman's life got started off. And
2:02:19
the response of power to her was a prison. This
2:02:24
is why what we're doing is so necessary. And Governor
2:02:27
Perry mentions one other reality that's important. Some of your
2:02:33
viewers may have seen a Politico article published on Sunday
2:02:39
about a presidential aspirant by the name of Andy Beshear,
2:02:45
who is the current Kentucky governor. Andy Beshear was the
2:02:51
Attorney General of Kentucky before he was governor. He is
2:02:57
the son of his father, Steve Beshear, who was governor
2:03:01
for eight years between 2007 and 2015. Andy's greatest accomplishment
2:03:09
is being his father's son. because he has never accomplished
2:03:13
anything outside of his father's lap. The legislature in Kentucky
2:03:19
has been controlled by Republican supermajorities over the entirety of
2:03:23
his term, and everything for which he claims credit actually
2:03:27
belongs to them by way of accomplishment. There are a
2:03:31
few things for which he can claim credit. One is
2:03:35
shutting down the state of Kentucky harder than Gavin Newsom
2:03:39
shut down the state of California. which resulted in the
2:03:42
educational hobbling of an entire generation of Kentucky children who
2:03:47
were already well behind national average standards on both reading
2:03:53
and math. You could go to a liquor store or
2:03:56
a strip club for months in Kentucky before you could
2:03:59
send your child to a public school. Andy Beshear is
2:04:02
responsible for that. He shut down the state's entire economy,
2:04:08
He had an antiquated unemployment benefits system that he instructed
2:04:13
the director of to make sure that his contributors and
2:04:17
his family members were placed into the front of the
2:04:20
line while regular everyday people at home got a busy
2:04:24
signal for months on end and had no financial lifeline
2:04:28
while his family and friends got valet treatment. When this
2:04:32
was discovered, he scapegoated the director of the unemployment system
2:04:38
for following his own instructions, a guy by the name
2:04:40
of Muncie McNamara. And Mr. McNamara took his own life.
2:04:46
But the most egregious reality about Andy Beshear and his
2:04:51
father pertains to the fact that they were both law
2:04:55
partners at the law firm that represented Purdue Pharma against
2:05:01
the people of Kentucky and the litigation over OxyContin while
2:05:06
they were law partners there. Andy Beshear and his daddy
2:05:11
drew law partner paychecks off Purdue Pharma client bills while
2:05:17
they were there. And the people of Kentucky should have
2:05:20
received a billion dollars, but instead received a measly $ 24
2:05:25
million payout from Purdue Pharma because Andy and his daddy's
2:05:30
law firm malpracticed that case. The public record will establish
2:05:35
that as part of the Purdue Pharma settlement, 17 million
2:05:40
documents were destroyed. The case was put under seal. And
2:05:44
as a condition of the settlement, their law firm was
2:05:47
allowed to cure their malpractice of the case, which resulted
2:05:51
in a $ 24 million settlement within days of Andy Beshear
2:05:55
becoming the attorney general. That's right, the attorney general. I
2:06:00
said I've been a Republican all my life, and I have.
2:06:03
My family's been Republican going back to the Civil War.
2:06:07
I don't care if it's Gavin Newsom, Kamala Harris, Pete Buttigieg,
2:06:13
that Illinois governor, Governor Pritzker, any national Democrat who needs
2:06:20
my time, my effort, whatever I can offer by way
2:06:25
of volunteer resources to make sure that Andy Beshear never
2:06:30
sniffs the sewer grate of the White House, they've got it.
2:06:34
In this Politico article, Andy talks about in much the
2:06:38
same way as other performative public piety purveyors, that his
2:06:44
life is guided by the golden rule and the good Samaritan.
2:06:49
He likes to wear his Sunday school and deacon affiliations
2:06:52
on his sleeve as so many other performative public piety
2:06:56
figures do. If he were actually going to preach the
2:07:01
part of the Bible that he has lived in, He
2:07:03
would talk more about Judas and the 40 pieces of
2:07:06
silver than he would any golden rule and a good Samaritan.
2:07:11
And I just want to make sure that the people
2:07:13
of home and the people of America know who this
2:07:16
man is. As the national media takes up Kentucky media's
2:07:20
grotesque narrative about his decency and tries to lie him
2:07:24
into the White House. Thank you for letting me say that.
2:07:27
It's been a long time coming.
2:07:29
Speaker 3: I understand. Um, Anything else before we wrap this up?
2:07:34
You think we covered it all?
2:07:35
Speaker 2: I think we hit it good. Thank you, Joe.
2:07:38
Speaker 3: Thank you.
2:07:38
Speaker 2: You have been a really big supporter of this effort.
2:07:43
Speaker 3: Well, I think it's just incredible. I mean, I can't
2:07:46
believe it's happening. You know, I'd always kind of given
2:07:48
up hope that people would wake up to the powerful
2:07:53
potential that a lot of these compounds have to change
2:07:56
people's lives.
2:07:57
Speaker 1: Yeah.
2:07:58
Speaker 2: Well, I'm sure there were, uh, some teachers of mine
2:08:01
back in, uh, the 1950s that, uh, the idea that
2:08:06
that little bar headed kid, uh, that is, you know, obviously, uh,
2:08:11
not paying a lot of attention could somehow or another
2:08:15
end up being the governor of the great state of Texas. And, um,
2:08:20
And there's probably a long, long list of those, as
2:08:23
a matter of fact. And I'm sure there are some
2:08:25
people over the course of the last 15 years as
2:08:30
I matriculated up through the political process that said, you know,
2:08:35
the idea that this guy is going to be standing up,
2:08:39
putting his reputation on the line for something like psychedelics
2:08:41
is that that ain't going to happen. But it goes
2:08:45
back to your point about be curious, be courageous. And
2:08:50
make a difference.
2:08:51
Speaker 3: All right.
2:08:51
Speaker 2: And you're doing it, Joe Rogan. Thank you, man.
2:08:53
Speaker 3: Thank you. Thank you too, Brian.
2:08:56
Speaker 1: Thank you. And do you mind if I share one
2:08:59
last thing?
2:08:59
Speaker 3: Sure.
2:09:01
Speaker 1: And because it is the 250th anniversary of the country,
2:09:05
this comes from the heart. You know, the bicentennial children
2:09:10
have had the blessing of being the grandchildren of that
2:09:12
greatest generation that overcame the Great Depression, defeated Nazism, killed
2:09:17
Jim Crow, and crushed totalitarian communism. That greatest generation lived, suffered, bled,
2:09:25
and died to leave us the shining city on the hill.
2:09:29
Over the past 50 years, the bicentennial children, or those
2:09:34
who are known as Generation X, have experienced the mass
2:09:37
extinction of family and community. We are the first generational
2:09:43
cohort of mass refugees from obliterated biological families who had
2:09:48
to seek and build new families of choice based on
2:09:51
the salvation bond of unconditional affection, rejected only the superficial,
2:09:58
socialized separatisms of the skin suits into which we have
2:10:01
been born. Over the past 30 years, we have watched truth, justice,
2:10:08
and the American way be overrun by institutional deceit, white-collar criminality,
2:10:16
in the thieving tyrant's will, an odious alignment of official
2:10:21
depravity which has produced the opioid epidemic, the gravest engineered
2:10:26
humanitarian catastrophe to play out within our borders since the
2:10:30
end of the 19th century, and an epidemic which has
2:10:32
disfigured this country. The 2008 financial crisis, which forcibly dispossessed
2:10:40
millions of us from the American dream, including 52% of
2:10:44
African-American homeowners, and sent us the bill for the cost
2:10:48
of our dispossession, a bill that everyone under the age
2:10:52
of 40 continues to pay through their lack of economic mobility.
2:10:56
And finally, and most deplorably, 25 years of unremittant warfare,
2:11:01
which has taken exponentially more service member lives here at
2:11:04
home by suicide than have been lost at battlefields abroad.
2:11:08
Over the last 10 years, 1.5 million Americans have died
2:11:14
from drug overdose, alcohol-related disease, and suicide, a figure that
2:11:19
exceeds the total number of war casualties going all the
2:11:23
way back to 1776. We've got 102 counties with life
2:11:28
expectancies less than that of North Korea. 18% of respondents
2:11:33
to a recent Pew Research Center poll said that they
2:11:36
believe the federal government has the capacity to do the
2:11:38
right thing. a figure that hasn't been above 30% since 2007.
2:11:44
Eighty percent of respondents to an October 2025 Wall Street
2:11:48
Journal poll have said that the American dream is dead.
2:11:53
Power has answered these unconscionable realities with a maelstrom of
2:11:57
bureaucratic absurdity, impudent incompetence, and predatory corruption. all with the
2:12:05
blessing of the law which has used its power to bind, torture,
2:12:09
and kill the truth. In the decades prior to July 14, 1789,
2:12:16
the French government had ruthlessly imposed its burdens, abusively imposed
2:12:27
its costs, and ravenously consumed the future of its people.
2:12:34
The arrogance of the aristocracy ultimately answered to the desperate
2:12:39
determination of the peasantry and its guillotine blade. We are
2:12:46
here to pursue one of the greatest humanitarian missions ever
2:12:50
undertaken to serve and exalt the primacy of the human soul.
2:12:56
As we sit here right now, there are millions of
2:12:58
Americans who have no sense of greater purpose or of
2:13:04
even why they are alive, who mourn to see the
2:13:07
sunrise when it comes up and through their windows. And
2:13:10
what they need to know is that they are indeed divine.
2:13:15
There's only one thing that is known to produce iron,
2:13:18
and that's the supernova of a star. The iron in
2:13:21
our blood originated in a supernova eons ago. Every human
2:13:28
being has stardust running through their blood. And the movement
2:13:33
that Governor Perry and I are leading is one that
2:13:36
aims to recognize the reality of that human divinity. We
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are desperate and we are determined and we will crawl
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the last mile to deliver good titans unto the meek,
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to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the
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captives and the opening of the prison to them that
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are bound. Glory, glory, hallelujah. The truth is marching on.
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And thank you, sir, for letting us proclaim it right
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here on your platform, the Walter Cronkite of our age.
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Speaker 3: That was a beautiful way to end it. Thank you.
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Thank you, gentlemen. Bye for now.