Speaker 1: It's Night Side with Dan Ray on WBS Costin's Radio.
Speaker 2: All right, welcome back everyone. As we get into the ninth,
Speaker 2: the nine o'clock hour here on a Friday ninth, continue
Speaker 2: to remind you, because it sticks in my mind it
Speaker 2: is November first, and of course this is the weekend
Speaker 2: when the clocks are moved backs. We get an additional
Speaker 2: hour of sleep theoretically. But please, as we learned last
Speaker 2: hour with Mark shield Drop of Triple A, be a
Speaker 2: little careful coming home on your evening commute on Friday
Speaker 2: night because there's many more accidents, not necessarily huge accidents,
Speaker 2: but you don't need the aggravation, that is for sure. Now,
Speaker 2: before we get to our two guests, we're going to
Speaker 2: have a conversation. It's not a debate, it's a conversation
Speaker 2: and discussion with my two guests talking about question four,
Speaker 2: which is the legalization of psychedelics. We have one more
Speaker 2: pier of tickets to give you if you are calling
Speaker 2: number ten. So I'm going to open up the contest
Speaker 2: line just for a couple of minutes and you need
Speaker 2: you can start now. The number that you want to
Speaker 2: call is six, one, seven, nine, three, one, ten, thirty uh.
Speaker 2: You if you are caller number ten and Noah is
Speaker 2: simply going to tell you caller one caller too, there's
Speaker 2: no long conversation until he gets to call her ten.
Speaker 2: You will win two tickets to see to see next
Speaker 2: Thursday Night, Celtic Thunder at the Premier Theater at Foxwood's
Speaker 2: on November seventh. Now, if you don't think that you
Speaker 2: can use these tickets, or you're not sure you can
Speaker 2: get there, please don't deprive them for someone else. This
Speaker 2: you will set off on a musical journey with the
Speaker 2: Irish music sensations. Celtic Thunder Live. Complete show info and
Speaker 2: tickets are available at Foxwoods dot com. Now again, all
Speaker 2: you have to do is be calling number ten. And
Speaker 2: by the way, if you are calling one, two, three, four,
Speaker 2: well whatever, call right back. Okay, it's like a game
Speaker 2: of musical chairs. We're not tracking phone calls. So all
Speaker 2: Noah's going to tell you is your call us six,
Speaker 2: your call us seven, and we'll get you. We'll get
Speaker 2: you to call a ten and as soon as he
Speaker 2: gets a winner, he will let me know in my
Speaker 2: ear through my headphone and then you can stop calling.
Speaker 2: So again, we've had five pairs of tickets. This is
Speaker 2: the last pair of tickets here to see to see
Speaker 2: and here Celtic Thunder, which I'm told is a great
Speaker 2: show next Thursday night the Premier Theater at Foxwood's the
Speaker 2: number six, one, seven, nine, three, one, ten thirty and
Speaker 2: all you have to do is to be called number
Speaker 2: ten two tickets and again if you don't win the
Speaker 2: tickets and not use them, okay, this is a this
Speaker 2: is we have a winner, so that takes care of
Speaker 2: the calls. If you're calling now, Noah has a winner,
Speaker 2: and he will get that information and we will get
Speaker 2: those tickets to you. Noah will need all sorts of
Speaker 2: information name, address, phone number, and your email so we
Speaker 2: can get those tickets to If you're calling now, Noah
Speaker 2: already has a winner, so sorry. Hopefully we'll have some
Speaker 2: other prizes which we can get to you at some point,
Speaker 2: but we'll call off. Call the call the phone phone
Speaker 2: calls off. I believe that I have my two guests
Speaker 2: here for tonight's conversation, and it is intended to be
Speaker 2: a conversation. For those of you who are familiar. There
Speaker 2: are five ballot questions here in Massachusetts. One of them
Speaker 2: is a question number four and question number four deals
Speaker 2: with the legalization of psychedelics, which is a question that
Speaker 2: there are a couple of states oregone in Colorado where
Speaker 2: there is some level of legalization and regulation of certain
Speaker 2: so called natural psychedelic substances. I have two guests. One
Speaker 2: has been with me before, Doctor Nassir Gomi. Doc Gomi,
Speaker 2: welcome back tonight's side. Always good to have you with us.
Speaker 2: Just by way of introduction, you're you are with Tough's
Speaker 2: Medical School, if I'm not mistaken, and you were a
Speaker 2: professor in psychiatry. Correct, yes, doctor Gomi. Are you there? Noah,
Speaker 2: I'm not hearing from doctor Gomi. Could you make sure
Speaker 2: that his his microphone is open please. In the meantime,
Speaker 2: I will also introduce Emily one shock. I'm hoping that
Speaker 2: Emily can hear me. Emily, can you hear me?
Speaker 3: I can hear you?
Speaker 2: Well, that's that's what we're fit. We're halfway there already.
Speaker 4: This is great, okay, And I can hear doctor Gomi.
Speaker 2: So yes, I can hear you now, Doctor Gomi. I
Speaker 2: was trying to reach you before. I don't know if
Speaker 2: if your microphone was muted, but we have you now.
Speaker 2: As I introduced you earlier. You are a professor of
Speaker 2: psychiatry at Tough's Medical Correct.
Speaker 5: Yes, I'm director of the mood disorders program also at
Speaker 5: self Medical Center.
Speaker 2: All right, thank you for that embellishment on the introduction.
Speaker 2: And Emily, you are a proponent of the legalization of psychedelics.
Speaker 2: What is your background. I've never had a chance to
Speaker 2: speak with you before. I had CJ. Leconte on earlier
Speaker 2: this week, who is a military veteran and graduate of
Speaker 2: West Point as I understand that you also are a
Speaker 2: military veteran.
Speaker 4: Correct, Yes, I am. Yeah, I'm the grassroots campaign director
Speaker 4: for Yes on four, a Navy veteran, and I grew
Speaker 4: up in Wefield, so you know this is my turf.
Speaker 2: All right, fair enough, since since you're the proponent of
Speaker 2: this question, and again I want this to be a discussion.
Speaker 2: It's not a debate, so it's not I will keep
Speaker 2: it fair. But it's not one of these situations where
Speaker 2: you have one minute and thirty seconds to respond. So
Speaker 2: why would this be good either from your perspective or
Speaker 2: better yet, from the perspective of the com wealth if
Speaker 2: these psychedelics were legalized in some form of fashion here
Speaker 2: in Massachusetts.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Absolutely. So you know what this question does. It sets
Speaker 4: up a two prong approach. Right, we have the regulated
Speaker 4: framework where it's at of healing centers, and it sets
Speaker 4: up the decriminalization piece of it. There's no retail sales.
Speaker 4: And what I really like to say to people in
Speaker 4: Massachusetts is this is already being led in Massachusetts from
Speaker 4: research by mgh and Dana Farber and so many others.
Speaker 4: And the reason I do this work is because natural
Speaker 4: psychedelic therapy helped me really profoundly after I got out
Speaker 4: of the Navy. Right when I commissioned to the Navy,
Speaker 4: I had lost my little brother to gun violence. I
Speaker 4: was the first female Navy steel candidate, and I had
Speaker 4: a lot of you know, difficult times on active duty.
Speaker 4: And when I finished up, I had PTSD depression anxiety.
Speaker 4: I went to the VA in Bedford. I went through
Speaker 4: all the traditional modalities that were available to me, and
Speaker 4: I wasn't getting any better. And you know, I think
Speaker 4: C Day How had a similar story.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 4: We both went to the resources we had and we
Speaker 4: got released through them, and we weren't finding it and
Speaker 4: we had you know, both of us turned to these
Speaker 4: alternatives like so many other people to you know, find
Speaker 4: the release and get our lives back.
Speaker 2: So how did you access how did you access the
Speaker 2: alternatives if they at this point are not legalized in Massachusetts.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I was really fortunate to get a scholarship from
Speaker 4: the Hope Projects, which sponsors female veterans to go abroad
Speaker 4: to these things. So I flew down to Jamaica two
Speaker 4: years ago and went on a psilocybin retreat.
Speaker 2: Okay, now are you on continuing treatments or did you
Speaker 2: have how many treatments? How many experiences? Did you have
Speaker 2: more than one or how many?
Speaker 4: So I had that initial treatment in Jamaica, I went
Speaker 4: back one more time because I had become close with
Speaker 4: the women I had met there and I still do therapy.
Speaker 4: But that changed the trajectory of like my time and
Speaker 4: mental health care. Like I had been in therapy at
Speaker 4: that point since my brother had died and I wasn't improving,
Speaker 4: and I kept things kept getting darker.
Speaker 2: You've had you've had, just so I get this clarified.
Speaker 2: You've had two treatments, yes, two treatments, and do you
Speaker 2: feel that that you're okay and that that you be
Speaker 2: able to now as a consequence, of those treatments go forward,
Speaker 2: or do you feel that that at some point in
Speaker 2: the not too distant future you might need a third treatment?
Speaker 4: You know, I was really able to deal with the
Speaker 4: darker things I was carrying with those two treatments, and
Speaker 4: it gave me, you know, kind of like my lease
Speaker 4: on life back, which was pretty profound.
Speaker 2: Okay, So so you're you're okay at this point. Okay, fine,
Speaker 2: let me get doctor Gami in here. Doctor Gomi, I
Speaker 2: know from our previous conversation you were very skeptical of this.
Speaker 2: You were on the other side of the case here.
Speaker 2: You've just heard Emily's experience. What what what makes you
Speaker 2: so concerned about the legalization? What is it that you
Speaker 2: are objecting to?
Speaker 5: Well, let me just begin by saying I'm also a
Speaker 5: president of the Massachusetts Psychiatric Society, which represents the majority
Speaker 5: of psychiatrists in the state, and we oppose this ballot question,
Speaker 5: as does the American Psychiatric Association, as forty thousand psychiatrists
Speaker 5: in the country. They oppose it, and that these drugs
Speaker 5: are hallucinogens, which means that they cause hallucinations and delusions,
Speaker 5: and that in itself is harmful. The only question is
Speaker 5: whether they can be helpful to some extent to outweigh
Speaker 5: the harms they have known harms. The harms are well known,
Speaker 5: and as physicians and psychiatrists, we want to let people
Speaker 5: know about that because we see the cases of people
Speaker 5: who are harmed to We all describe in a minute
Speaker 5: the benefits are possible but not known yet, and I
Speaker 5: agree with Emily that there should be research, as she says,
Speaker 5: but that's not a reason to legalize the medicin the drugs.
Speaker 5: It's actually a reason not to legalize them because we
Speaker 5: don't know that they are actually helpful enough to outweigh
Speaker 5: their harms. For instance, if we have a new cancer
Speaker 5: drug possibility, we don't say, okay, let's legalize this new
Speaker 5: cancer drug and let everyone have it in their spare
Speaker 5: bedroom as in this spill. We just study it until
Speaker 5: we know it's proven with research, and then doctors give
Speaker 5: it to patients safely in clinics and hospitals, which is
Speaker 5: our position. You know, Emily presented her case, and she
Speaker 5: has other veteran colleagues who have had good experiences. But
Speaker 5: we doctors see just as many cases for each case
Speaker 5: that's good, we have a bad one and I have
Speaker 5: not just one, but many I see in my clinical practice.
Speaker 5: We see these cases in the silence of our clinics,
Speaker 5: where there's privacy and confidentiality. These patients who do badly
Speaker 5: are not come in on your radio show. They're not
Speaker 5: becoming employees of political action committees. But I'll give you
Speaker 5: an example. I had a young woman with mild depression
Speaker 5: in her early twenties who took ayahuasca, which has one
Speaker 5: of the substances in ballid question is called dmt dimethyl
Speaker 5: trip to me that's in there. She had mild depression,
Speaker 5: but after taking this hallucinogen, she got a whole lot worse,
Speaker 5: with more severe depression, developed severe delusions, hallucinations, was hospitalized
Speaker 5: for six months, developed what we call catatonia, which means
Speaker 5: she stopped eating, drinking, or talking or moving and had
Speaker 5: to get a feeding tube and almost died and got
Speaker 5: better with electro convulsive treatment. We had to go to
Speaker 5: that extreme and make her better. I can give you
Speaker 5: other examples of people. One another person who got addicted
Speaker 5: to hallucinogens as her main drug of addiction and then
Speaker 5: got suicidal. So there are good cases and there are
Speaker 5: bad cases, and that's exactly why doctors in offices need
Speaker 5: to weigh the risks and benefits so that the patients
Speaker 5: who could benefit will benefit, but the ones who will
Speaker 5: get harmed don't get harmed, and also that the general
Speaker 5: public doesn't get harmed, which we can talk about.
Speaker 2: Okay, we're going to pause there. I have got to
Speaker 2: take a break. I guess we're talking about question four
Speaker 2: for the those who have joined us. Is the limited
Speaker 2: is listed as a question for the limited legalization and
Speaker 2: regulation of certain natural psychedelic substances. We're talking with two guests.
Speaker 2: You just heard from doctor Nasirgami, who is a professor
Speaker 2: of psychiatry at Tufts University. He's also involved with a
Speaker 2: number of groups. And also you heard from Emily one Shuck,
Speaker 2: a Navy veteran, and thank you for your service. Emily
Speaker 2: who as a consequence of some occurrences in her personal
Speaker 2: life as well as the loss of a brother and
Speaker 2: also what she experienced while in the military, she has
Speaker 2: gone through this and she's a big advocate of it.
Speaker 2: We'll continue our conversation and then we're going to take
Speaker 2: phone calls. So if any of you want to ask questions,
Speaker 2: I prefer questions as opposed to both of these folks
Speaker 2: are highly credentialed in terms of their experiences, professional and otherwise,
Speaker 2: questions are would be much more appreciated, uh, at least
Speaker 2: for the ballance of this hour. And the number is
Speaker 2: always a six, one, seven, two, five, four, ten thirty
Speaker 2: or six one, seven, nine three one thirty. Be right
Speaker 2: back on Nightside with more conversation about ballot question number
Speaker 2: four here in Massachusetts.
Speaker 1: Night Side with Dan Ray on WBZ Boston's news radio.
Speaker 1: Now back to Dan Ray live from the Window World
Speaker 1: nights Side Studios on WBZ News Radio.
Speaker 2: So we're talking about question four on the Massachusetts ballot.
Speaker 2: Last time. We will touch this before Tuesday. So if
Speaker 2: you haven't voted, you have a question, feel free you
Speaker 2: have the numbers. My guests here are Emily, who is
Speaker 2: a Just to keep it simple here, I'm going to
Speaker 2: use Emily's first name. Her entire name is Emily one Shock.
Speaker 2: But Emily is a Navy veteran who went to Jamaica
Speaker 2: for two treatments with these drugs. And she is a
Speaker 2: proponent and doctor Gami, who is a professor of psychia
Speaker 2: and is also representing the points of view of Massachusetts
Speaker 2: psychiatrists as well as psychiatrists around the country. So let
Speaker 2: me ask an open question here to both of you,
Speaker 2: and I'm trying to find out if this possibility. Obviously,
Speaker 2: both of you see this very differently, although I think
Speaker 2: there's some acknowledgment by doctor Gomi that some people have
Speaker 2: benefited from it. I'm going to ask doctor Gomi to
Speaker 2: respond first, and Emily you second, and that is, would
Speaker 2: it be reasonable to say, Okay, why can't there be
Speaker 2: some opportunity for individuals who find themselves in extreme circumstances
Speaker 2: like Emily found herself in where she's willing to fly
Speaker 2: to Jamaica and get a couple of treatments where she
Speaker 2: could work with a psychiatrist here in Massachusetts and maybe,
Speaker 2: under some circumstances, be able to be treated here in Massachusetts.
Speaker 2: Let me start with you, doctor Gomi. Would that be
Speaker 2: impossible to do under federal current federal drug laws and
Speaker 2: drug laws in Massachusetts, there's no option available for sort
Speaker 2: of like, let's let's give this a trial on a
Speaker 2: very limited basis if a psychiatrist said this might be beneficial
Speaker 2: to my.
Speaker 5: No, it's totally doable as long as it's effective, you know,
Speaker 5: you just have to do the research to show that
Speaker 5: it works. The venture capitalists who stand to make billions
Speaker 5: from eventually getting commercialization, which would be their next step
Speaker 5: if this if this question passes, they've spent five to
Speaker 5: ten million dollars just in Massachusetts this past year to
Speaker 5: get this on the ballot and advertise it. They could
Speaker 5: have spent that money to do one or two randomized
Speaker 5: clinical trials which would show benefit, and the FDA has
Speaker 5: put these psilocybin in one of these substances on a
Speaker 5: fast track. I know, I worked for the pharmaceutical company
Speaker 5: for four years in drug discovery, and we spent that
Speaker 5: amount of money and got a randomized trial done within
Speaker 5: a year with e ketamine like drug, which is exactly
Speaker 5: a psychedelic type drug. It could be done and then
Speaker 5: we would know if they worked and then we could
Speaker 5: give it to people. But instead they're trying to just
Speaker 5: advertise their way to the market. And perhaps it's because
Speaker 5: if you do the research, you have to also be
Speaker 5: willing to accept the possibility that they would not work
Speaker 5: or they're not effective. So since we know these drugs
Speaker 5: cost hallucinations, they can make people psychotic, they land people
Speaker 5: in emergency rooms fifty percent more than not. We need
Speaker 5: to know that there's some benefit to outweigh that harm,
Speaker 5: and if there is, then yes, we could give it
Speaker 5: to people, and we would give it to people. But
Speaker 5: there's no other drug in medicine, you know, again, in cancer,
Speaker 5: cardiovascro disease, we don't just say here's an unproven drug.
Speaker 5: Let me just pass a law to give it to somebody. Well,
Speaker 5: we try to give it to people when they work,
Speaker 5: and we'd be willing to quite do that. That's our position.
Speaker 2: Look, let me get Emily's reaction. Emily, I know that
Speaker 2: this has been a big ballid initiative, and obviously it's
Speaker 2: going to be on the ballot on Tuesday. No matter what,
Speaker 2: would have it been more reasonable to accept the proposal
Speaker 2: that I suggested that somehow, some way we have you know,
Speaker 2: not that everybody can go into any doctor's office and say, hey, doc,
Speaker 2: write me that script, but have certain doctors who people
Speaker 2: could go to, like yourself, and as opposed to have
Speaker 2: a youth to have gone to a foreign country to
Speaker 2: get this treatment. Would have it been better to have
Speaker 2: started down that track? Why what was that track? Did
Speaker 2: you try to get down that track?
Speaker 4: So that's a great question. You know, the reason this
Speaker 4: is on the ballot is really about access, because there's
Speaker 4: a couple of bills that came through the House legislature
Speaker 4: that you know, they didn't get anywhere. And the most
Speaker 4: efficient method of getting this to the people who need
Speaker 4: it is going to be as a ballot initiative. And
Speaker 4: I want to touch on a few things in there.
Speaker 4: We have a lot of psychiatrists that support us. We
Speaker 4: have the psychiatrists that are doing research here in Massachusetts.
Speaker 4: We have some really prominent psychiatrists from across the country
Speaker 4: that support us, and there is a lot of research
Speaker 4: done on these substances, and you know, we have a
Speaker 4: lot of evidence that they work and that they really
Speaker 4: help a lot of people. And you know, I don't
Speaker 4: want to come off to saying they're not without risk,
Speaker 4: because they are. But that's why, you know, the model
Speaker 4: of the ballot question sets up is so structured and
Speaker 4: is so rigorous, you know, to help people get these
Speaker 4: treatments that they need. And you know, and I just
Speaker 4: want to kind of touch on like there's a lot
Speaker 4: of fear mongering that doctor Gami is doing the a lot.
Speaker 2: Emily, do me a favor I don't want any attacks here.
Speaker 2: I really don't, because I think that both of you
Speaker 2: are coming to this conversation with clean hands, and I
Speaker 2: want to be really strict. You know that if you
Speaker 2: disagree with something, but when you characterize him as doing
Speaker 2: fear money, that's fear mongering. That's an not ominum attack.
Speaker 2: And I don't I don't want either of you to
Speaker 2: engage in that sort of thing.
Speaker 5: So if you would just what she said.
Speaker 2: Well, let me do this, let me see if she
Speaker 2: wants to rephrase it, and then I'll get you to
Speaker 2: respond to that. Okay, but I do you want to
Speaker 2: change that? And just yeah, I mean it's just it's
Speaker 2: not fair.
Speaker 4: Go ahead, short, sure thing. So I want to touch
Speaker 4: on I think, you know about the money that he mentioned,
Speaker 4: and I think it's taken a lot of effort on
Speaker 4: you know, the team that's behind this, Like that money
Speaker 4: is there because this is a huge education campaign, right,
Speaker 4: and the people that are backing this, they're doing it
Speaker 4: because they care, because they've had family members that have
Speaker 4: been let down by the mental health system. Like there's
Speaker 4: a lot of care and a lot of thought going
Speaker 4: into this, and it's really about you know, creating another option,
Speaker 4: because we're living in a time when I think people
Speaker 4: need other options that are feeling quite hopeless. And you
Speaker 4: know the reason that myself and the team and the
Speaker 4: donors and everyone cares about this is because you know,
Speaker 4: we're trying to do something different to help people and
Speaker 4: lead with curiosity.
Speaker 2: Okay, enough, doctor me.
Speaker 5: If you wanted to respond to the yeah, I mean,
Speaker 5: I think we know it's a tough time and a
Speaker 5: lot of people that are suffering, and we all support
Speaker 5: getting treatment for PTSD, including with these substances if they work.
Speaker 5: But let me just say it's not the most efficient
Speaker 5: way to get access. The same political action committee that's
Speaker 5: spending all this money did so in Colorado two years
Speaker 5: ago in an orderedon a couple years before that. In
Speaker 5: those six seven years of spending probably now twenty to
Speaker 5: thirty million, they easily could have proven one or two
Speaker 5: of these substance being effective. And it's not fear mongering,
Speaker 5: it's truth telling in the face of misleading information. When
Speaker 5: you say there's a lot of evidence that these drugs work.
Speaker 5: None of these five substances, let me emphasize this, none
Speaker 5: of these five has even been studied in PTSD, much
Speaker 5: less proven. One drug that has been studied was MDMA,
Speaker 5: and that's not one of these five studied drugs that
Speaker 5: was reported to be effective in about ninety percent of people,
Speaker 5: which people often cite. What they don't tell you is
Speaker 5: that seventy percent of placebo patients also got better with
Speaker 5: psychotherapy in that study, and the study was not approved
Speaker 5: by the FDA because of data manipulation as well as
Speaker 5: ethical violations by the researchers, which is why one of
Speaker 5: the journals retracted it. So that's for PTSD for depression.
Speaker 5: Psilocybin has been shown that it is not more effective
Speaker 5: than the standard aid depressants that we have now, which
Speaker 5: were much safer at high doses and at low doses,
Speaker 5: which is actually the kind that in this bill you're
Speaker 5: allowed to grow in your bedroom as home growth. These substances,
Speaker 5: it's not really about mental health, it's just about recreation.
Speaker 5: But the low doses that you're allowed to grow at
Speaker 5: home have been shown to be equivalent to placebo in
Speaker 5: a recent meta analysis. So there's not a lot of
Speaker 5: evidence if they work. There's a lot of evidence that
Speaker 5: you they don't work. They're not better than what we have,
Speaker 5: but they're more harmful or they haven't even been studied.
Speaker 5: So I don't think that's an accurate presentation of the
Speaker 5: science and the fact it's wishful thinking. We hope the
Speaker 5: wishes are true, but we can't be giving everybody seven
Speaker 5: million people in the state access to these drugs, including
Speaker 5: their children and teenagers in the spare bedroom, just based
Speaker 5: on the wishful thinking.
Speaker 2: Emily, let me ask you a question, and friends of
Speaker 2: mine and self have sort of analogized this to medical marijuana,
Speaker 2: and and I want to give you a chance to
Speaker 2: respond to this, and I hope you you can. You
Speaker 2: can assuage some people's apprehensions. When medical marijuana first came
Speaker 2: here in Massachusetts, a lot of people were saying, look,
Speaker 2: this is only for people who really need medical marijuana.
Speaker 2: Why why do we want to deny people a drug
Speaker 2: that will help keep them more comfortable? And you know,
Speaker 2: that's the old nose under the camel's nose, under the
Speaker 2: tent argument that shortly after medical marijuana, then marijuana as
Speaker 2: a recreational drug was approved. So I think that there
Speaker 2: are some people who might say, gee, I'm sympathetic to
Speaker 2: what Emily and CJ have gone through, and I asked
Speaker 2: this of CJ the other night. How can you assure
Speaker 2: people that even if this, this Batlet initiative passed, it's
Speaker 2: not just the first up down the road toward a
Speaker 2: more widespread availability of psychedelics as opposed to limiting it
Speaker 2: just to people like yourself or CJ who could benefit
Speaker 2: from it. How do you respond to that argument.
Speaker 4: Yeah, so, yeah, that's a good question. I've heard, you know,
Speaker 4: people generally compare this to cannabis, which I understand, and
Speaker 4: I think the biggest difference for me, right is the
Speaker 4: profile of these substances. Psychedelic experiences are you can be
Speaker 4: an engineer, are very challenging, and you know, people come
Speaker 4: to them looking for healing and growth, and these experiences
Speaker 4: are you know, not things you necessarily want to do
Speaker 4: all the time, which is why they work in a
Speaker 4: therapeutic model, right, and they help you process really difficult things,
Speaker 4: and you know, I it's just such a different profile.
Speaker 4: And I think the other piece of this that I
Speaker 4: want to, you know, just be open about is a
Speaker 4: lot of people are currently using these right, and I
Speaker 4: think the important that we acknowledge that, and that's a
Speaker 4: big part of the reason this has to happen is
Speaker 4: because the best thing we can do for public health
Speaker 4: and safety is be able to talk about it, be
Speaker 4: able to have vetted information about it. And you know,
Speaker 4: the further in the dark we keep it, you know, frankly,
Speaker 4: the last safe people will be.
Speaker 2: Well, that's obviously, that's what we're trying to do tonight.
Speaker 2: And again, I got to take a break. It's okay,
Speaker 2: doctor Gama. I got to take a break. What a
Speaker 2: news break. And then I'll give you a chance to
Speaker 2: quickly respond to that point. And then we'll get to
Speaker 2: phone calls, which I think will be the most important.
Speaker 2: The only lines that are open right now is six one, seven, nine, three,
Speaker 2: ten thirty. If you're dialing two five four ten thirty,
Speaker 2: you're going to get a busy signal six one seven
Speaker 2: nine three one ten thirty. Back with my guest. We're
Speaker 2: talking about Question four, which is a initiative question here
Speaker 2: in Massachusetts dealing with the legalization and regulation of psychedelics.
Speaker 2: Emily one Chuck, a Navy veteran who has benefited, according
Speaker 2: to her representations, from treatments with these substances, and had
Speaker 2: to go off short at Jamaica and doctor Nasir Gami
Speaker 2: who's a psychiatrist and a professor of psych psychiatry a
Speaker 2: Toughts University. We'll be back with questions and more conversation. Again,
Speaker 2: I appreciate both of the guests being as polite and
Speaker 2: respectful as possible. I think that's the only way anasts
Speaker 2: make progress on these complicated issues. Back at this after
Speaker 2: this On Nightside.
Speaker 1: It's Night Side with Dan on Boston's news radio. It's
Speaker 1: Night Side with Dan Ray on Way Boston's news radio.
Speaker 2: We're talking about Question four, the Massachusetts ballid initiative. Everybody
Speaker 2: get a chance to vote on five ballot initiatives will
Speaker 2: cover them all, and this is one that I think
Speaker 2: is probably, according to the polls, the one that is
Speaker 2: probably closest right now. The limited legalization regulation of certain
Speaker 2: natural psychedelic substances. I asked Emily, who's our guest, Emily
Speaker 2: one chock Navy veteran who has experienced the these psychedelic
Speaker 2: substances twice on a trips to Jamaica she took and
Speaker 2: when she says she benefited greatly from them. And asked
Speaker 2: her about whether or not this is just a one
Speaker 2: step in the direction of full legalization, not just medical
Speaker 2: and analogize it to medical marijuana. Doctor Gami, you wanted
Speaker 2: to respond to what Emily had to say, I could
Speaker 2: make it a quick response. I'd appreciate it because I
Speaker 2: got packed lines. Go right ahead, doctor sure.
Speaker 5: This will be my last colum before you go to callers.
Speaker 5: She mentioned that people are using it, so we should
Speaker 5: let more people use it, which I think is this
Speaker 5: questionable logic. And let me say that everything I'm going
Speaker 5: to say, listeners can go to the Massachusetts Psychiatry Psychiatric
Speaker 5: Society website and we have links there on a resources
Speaker 5: page to all of the scientific studies for all of
Speaker 5: the percentages I'm giving you. The problem is that you know,
Speaker 5: we support giving it to the patients and who need it.
Speaker 5: But if you legalize it, to grow it in your
Speaker 5: home and give it recreationally, as this spound question has it,
Speaker 5: you expose the entire population to it, which makes it
Speaker 5: raises public health issues, which I have a degree in. There.
Speaker 5: You have problems with car accidents and hospitalizations. So with
Speaker 5: car accidents, there's an accident every four minutes in the state.
Speaker 5: One hundred people die daily from car accidents in the country.
Speaker 5: People often cite veterans dying suicide by fifty people a day. Well,
Speaker 5: that's obviously a problem, but one hundred people also die
Speaker 5: from car accidents. That's why the Massachusetts State Police and
Speaker 5: the Boston Police Association opposed this question. And we know
Speaker 5: that regular hallucinogen users who admit that they drive under
Speaker 5: the influence and these drugs call it just a second
Speaker 5: visual hallucinations and distortions. Separately, there is data now from
Speaker 5: California that hallucinogen users have a fifty percent increased rate
Speaker 5: of emergency room visits and hospitalizations versus only one percent
Speaker 5: with cannabis and alcohol. So these are known harms which
Speaker 5: are going to be extended to the entire population. And
Speaker 5: that's why the Massachusetts College of Emergency Physicians also opposes
Speaker 5: this bollent question.
Speaker 2: Okay, Emily, you wanted to add something, if you.
Speaker 4: Could do it, wrap it up, yep. So you know,
Speaker 4: these substances have already been decriminalized in Colorado for a
Speaker 4: year in the Department of Transportation and then Colorado Hospital
Speaker 4: Association show no uptick in any of the things doctor
Speaker 4: Gami is talking about, right, and that is a state
Speaker 4: that his past legislation that is almost identical to what
Speaker 4: we're doing here, right, So we already have a ground
Speaker 4: that we've seen this happen on. And there's eight cities
Speaker 4: in towns in Massachusetts that have already done this decriminalized. Right,
Speaker 4: so this is already going on around us. And if
Speaker 4: what doctor gamis saying, you know, this was worst case scenario,
Speaker 4: we would already see it here.
Speaker 5: I can respond to that. Please, well, I'll let him
Speaker 5: you've done when you're finished. Because decriminalization is not the
Speaker 5: same thing as legalization. We support decriminalization, which is just
Speaker 5: the legislature or a talent passing a law that people
Speaker 5: won't get criminal punishment for these substances. Support that legalization
Speaker 5: means you're growing in your spare bedroom, your teenager has
Speaker 5: access to it, and nobody supports that. It's very different
Speaker 5: than just saying that that there's no criminal path punishment.
Speaker 5: The Colorado data is just one year the California data
Speaker 5: or the opposite. So and Colorado and Oregon have actually
Speaker 5: not been reporting data from the treatment centers that they've
Speaker 5: set up in terms of the effects of these drugs.
Speaker 2: In Yeah, the only thing that I know about Colorado,
Speaker 2: and I've been trying to find Emily information on on
Speaker 2: on marijuana accidents and problems out there in Colorado seems
Speaker 2: to be hesitant to release that information. I think part
Speaker 2: of it is that there's no way that they can
Speaker 2: detect and if they can detect drunk drivers obviously with
Speaker 2: breathalyzers and blood alcohol content tests, but they are not
Speaker 2: able to actually look at someone and make a determination
Speaker 2: if they're actually stone. But let me do this. Let
Speaker 2: me We got a bunch of calls wedding folks, So
Speaker 2: if it's okay, let's I'm going to ask people to
Speaker 2: direct questions, and I'm going to ask for quick responses
Speaker 2: if possible. I think we've we've laid out the questions.
Speaker 2: Both of you have laid out your positions really effectively.
Speaker 2: Let me go first off to Danielle in Charlestown. Danielle,
Speaker 2: I prefer a question as opposed to a speech. Go
Speaker 2: right ahead, Danielle.
Speaker 6: Sure, Hi, Yeah, thanks so much for having me so
Speaker 6: uh my question, Uh well, Emily, I really like to
Speaker 6: hear a little bit more about you know, how you
Speaker 6: felt before and after uh using this therapy and also
Speaker 6: how does one get this?
Speaker 1: Is this? You know, do you go to a.
Speaker 6: Store to buy this?
Speaker 7: Yeah?
Speaker 4: Thank you so much. So, I you know, before I
Speaker 4: went to Jamaica, I was having like all kinds of
Speaker 4: physical manifestations of anxiety and depression, and I was unable
Speaker 4: to enjoy like any part of my life because of
Speaker 4: what I was dealing with. And the thing the experience
Speaker 4: there helped me process a lot of emotions that I
Speaker 4: otherwise couldn't have touched and I could, you know, go
Speaker 4: into a more detail, but essentially it like accelerated therapy
Speaker 4: for me by probably like a decade. And just to
Speaker 4: hit on you know, like how you can access this here.
Speaker 4: It's not a store, right, you'd go to a therapy center.
Speaker 4: You would do you know, an extensive intake with a
Speaker 4: trained and licensed facilitator. You would go and have a
Speaker 4: supervised session. You would be you know, you'd have to
Speaker 4: have a plan, someone have to come drive you home,
Speaker 4: and then you have all these integration sessions afterwards to
Speaker 4: help you work through what came up.
Speaker 2: So and that's assuming that this this legend.
Speaker 4: Yes, you can't do that right now?
Speaker 5: Can I speak to the trained license facilitator claim.
Speaker 2: Go right ahead, quick comment if you were so.
Speaker 5: As we've family and I have debated this three times
Speaker 5: and you're not saying exactly what the ballot question says,
Speaker 5: which is that it requires that these so called facilitators
Speaker 5: not be limited to being medical professionals and mental health
Speaker 5: professionals in order gone they are high school graduates, and
Speaker 5: in this ballid question, they're only required to take the
Speaker 5: equivalent of about a one month of training on hallucinogens.
Speaker 5: I've had four years of medical school, four years of
Speaker 5: psychija residency, thirty years of practice treating over ten thousand patients. There.
Speaker 5: You will not have medical and mental health professionals at
Speaker 5: these facilities, but are rather high school graduates for the
Speaker 5: one month course.
Speaker 6: So what are the requirements here if this passes?
Speaker 4: So if this passes, that'll be decided during the two
Speaker 4: year rulemaking process. Right, They'll be overseen by the commission,
Speaker 4: the advisory board that this bill sets up. And what
Speaker 4: we're seeing in Colorado is a baseline that requires one
Speaker 4: hundred and fifty hours of classroom. I think it's like
Speaker 4: fifty hours of practicum and then another fifty hours of
Speaker 4: like overseeing fractus.
Speaker 5: Right, which is grossly inadequate. I mean, we've have tens
Speaker 5: of thousands of hours for the average position around this
Speaker 5: is practicing medicine without a license.
Speaker 4: Basically, I'm not sure if you've ever witnessed the psilocybin session,
Speaker 4: but generally what happens is, you know, the you've predicipent
Speaker 4: in just the medicine and then lies down with an
Speaker 4: iphold and generally the cries for four to eight hours.
Speaker 4: And that is you know, and then has helped processing
Speaker 4: what's gone on after that, And it's very different than
Speaker 4: medical model.
Speaker 5: Well, the problem, Emily is that you have to select
Speaker 5: that participant. And if you have, if you're one of
Speaker 5: five percent of the population hundreds of thousand of people
Speaker 5: in the state who have bipolar illness or severe depression,
Speaker 5: you're more prone to having well screening and orgon to
Speaker 5: ask someone whether they've ever taken lithium before. A high
Speaker 5: school graduate can't tell whether someone has bipolar illness or not.
Speaker 5: That's difficult for the average position. Furthermore, one of these
Speaker 5: five rugs, one of these five drugs causes party.
Speaker 2: Go go right ahead, down, doctor, I'm sorry, don't turn
Speaker 2: don't turnings microphone down? Please?
Speaker 5: No, I'm sorry. Did you hear me?
Speaker 2: No? I missed that. I'm not sure if you spell
Speaker 2: one of the just finish that thought.
Speaker 5: Okay, okay, one of the five subfaces also causes heart
Speaker 5: attacks cardiac arrest, which is obviously not something a high
Speaker 5: school graduate would be prepared for.
Speaker 2: Okay, let me pause here, and let's take a break,
Speaker 2: and we will try to get to at least a
Speaker 2: couple more callers. Right after the break, Danielle and Chiles
Speaker 2: Non thank you for your call. We'll be back on
Speaker 2: night Side with a final segment talking about question four.
Speaker 2: And I think that these two guests have stated their
Speaker 2: positions pretty clearly and should help all of you be
Speaker 2: able to make up your mind whether you're a yes
Speaker 2: or no one for coming back on Nightside.
Speaker 1: Night Side with Dan Ray on WBZ, Boston's news Radio.
Speaker 1: Now back to Dan ray line from the Window World
Speaker 1: Nightside Studios on WBZ News Radio.
Speaker 2: All right, let's keep rolling here. I'm gonna I'm gonna
Speaker 2: ask again the questions. If you could just direct the
Speaker 2: question and then if we could get I wanted to
Speaker 2: try to get as many calls and as we can.
Speaker 2: I have full lines, folks, So work with me here
Speaker 2: if you will. James, James, you are next on nights
Speaker 2: I go ahead, James, your question for either doctor Gomi
Speaker 2: or Emily one shock.
Speaker 7: All right, Dan, thanks for taking my call. Just a
Speaker 7: generic question. Seems there's a bit of a veteran focus,
Speaker 7: and we know veterans kind of have a suchen abuse problem,
Speaker 7: so with this add to it, and there's also a
Speaker 7: veteran suicide issue, is there any research around this helping
Speaker 7: or actually increasing suicides for either of the proponents or opponents?
Speaker 2: Okay, doctor Gomi, let me let doctor Gomi start with
Speaker 2: this one, and then Emily, I'm going to ask you
Speaker 2: both to be as quick as you can if possible,
Speaker 2: on this Doctor Gomi.
Speaker 5: Yes, okay, So briefly, none of these five substances has
Speaker 5: been proven to prevent suicide, so the claim that they
Speaker 5: will help suicide again is a possibility but not known.
Speaker 5: We need to stay with science, not science fiction. Darding addiction,
Speaker 5: the Gavin Foundation, which is a major substance abuse treatment
Speaker 5: group in the state, opposes to this position this palate question,
Speaker 5: and many addictions psychiatrists are concerned just because these subtances
Speaker 5: are natural doesn't mean they're safe. Opium is natural too,
Speaker 5: and obviously unhi addictive, and again a lot of people
Speaker 5: say these drugs don't have physiological withdrawal symptoms, but neither
Speaker 5: does cocaine, and yet it's still addictive. Addiction is a
Speaker 5: psychological abuse, a situation, and people do have that problem
Speaker 5: with these substances. Actually, hallucinogen users about seventy percent of
Speaker 5: them use cocaine, fifty percent use opiates, versus only seven
Speaker 5: percent of non hallucin gen users using cocaine opiates. So
Speaker 5: there is an association of these drugs. Even though people
Speaker 5: have talked about maybe they might be helpful for addictions,
Speaker 5: the actual evidence so far, again we're going by the
Speaker 5: known harms, is that most people who use these subtances
Speaker 5: also use other substances of abuse, and in one study
Speaker 5: there was a fivefold increased rate of heroin abuse in
Speaker 5: people who use hallucinogens. Again, all those links website, let me.
Speaker 2: Get Emily in here. Real question. Well, it's a chance
Speaker 2: at the cite websites too, by the way, go ahead, Emily.
Speaker 3: Yep.
Speaker 4: So no, this has been really big for the veteran community,
Speaker 4: and there are just to bring up there ur clinical
Speaker 4: studies with psilocybin and PTSD, and you know, I've seen
Speaker 4: this personally helped so many veterans. That's there's a reason
Speaker 4: that the VA is studying this and putting resources towards it.
Speaker 4: There's a reason that many leading institutions and researchers are
Speaker 4: focusing on veterans and doing this and a lot of these,
Speaker 4: you know, all a lot of these substances have tremendous
Speaker 4: potential to help with substance abuse, right, you know, like specifically,
Speaker 4: people go to these when they are struggling and have
Speaker 4: run out of other options. I know people personally within
Speaker 4: the state that have turned to these as you know,
Speaker 4: a last resort when dealing with opiate addiction and have
Speaker 4: had tremendous relief. So you know, there's there's a McLean
Speaker 4: psychiatrist that just wrote an op ed that really saying
Speaker 4: these are non addictive. You can find it on Psychedelic Alpha.
Speaker 4: There's there's a lot of folks doing a lot of
Speaker 4: really profound research in this because they see it help people.
Speaker 4: And so you know, to your to what you're saying
Speaker 4: about veterans, like you know, in my eyes and the
Speaker 4: eyes of the campaign and the supporters, like this is
Speaker 4: the best thing we can do because what we currently
Speaker 4: have just isn't doing the job.
Speaker 5: All right, Thank you, Emily, can I say one brief thing,
Speaker 5: just one factual comment.
Speaker 2: You've got to be real, there.
Speaker 5: Are there's not a single clinical study of psilocybin and
Speaker 5: PTSD and human beings. Yet people are talking about it,
Speaker 5: but nothing's been done or published.
Speaker 2: Okay, James, thank you for your call. I'm going to
Speaker 2: try to get one call in. Uh. Jack, you have
Speaker 2: about a minute. We're flat out at time. You can
Speaker 2: ask a quick question. I'm going to ask for especially
Speaker 2: quick responses ahead.
Speaker 3: It was best to Emily I vote to you know
Speaker 3: for your position.
Speaker 1: Uh.
Speaker 3: But and I did have a good trip when I
Speaker 3: used tell us do it? But how would you make
Speaker 3: sure that people don't have bad trips? So to speak?
Speaker 2: Good question, Jack, Good question, Emilye. I need to really
Speaker 2: quick answer. I'm crunched on time. Thank you, Jock.
Speaker 4: I'll be very quick. So what I say, you know,
Speaker 4: with a bad trip, there's difficult trips, and a bad
Speaker 4: trip is usually when you don't have support and you're
Speaker 4: not in the right set and you don't have the
Speaker 4: right setting. And how you prevent that right is like
Speaker 4: the information is having the right people around you. It's
Speaker 4: having care if you need it, and knowing who to
Speaker 4: reach out to for help. So my, you know the
Speaker 4: thing I could say that is public resource information and
Speaker 4: a lot of education.
Speaker 2: Okay, collecting if you want to respond to that.
Speaker 5: Comment, yeah, my comment will be brief. That's exactly the
Speaker 5: reason why we need to have psychiatrist, physicians and mental
Speaker 5: health professionals selecting the people that should get these substances.
Speaker 5: So that's how you avoid bad trips, and that's not
Speaker 5: what would happen with this ballad question.
Speaker 2: Okay, it's been a great conversation. Thank you Jack for
Speaker 2: your brief question. I really do appreciate the callers in
Speaker 2: the line. I'm sorry I took the callers who called first.
Speaker 2: For the callers in the line, I'd love to get
Speaker 2: from both of you a website that people who haven't
Speaker 2: voted and haven't made up their mind on this. Emily,
Speaker 2: I'll start with you. Where can people go? Give me
Speaker 2: a website that they would be that they can get
Speaker 2: the information that you would like them to see before
Speaker 2: they vote.
Speaker 4: Emmy fromntalhealth dot org.
Speaker 2: Very for mental health dot org. Emily, thank you very much,
Speaker 2: doctor Gami. Where could people go, uh to get the
Speaker 2: information you would like them to see if they don't
Speaker 2: have a chance to listen to this.
Speaker 5: The Massachusetts psychiatri Society is a volunteer society. We have
Speaker 5: a position paper on our website, and I said, as
Speaker 5: I said, links to scientific studies. It's probably easiest just
Speaker 5: to Google search the name Massachusetts Psychiatric Society will pop up.
Speaker 5: But the official website for the no opposition to this
Speaker 5: ballot question is the Coalition for Safe Communities, and I
Speaker 5: just looked up their website at SAFECOMMUNITIESMA dot com.
Speaker 2: Okay, to both of you, I thank you. It's obviously
Speaker 2: it's an emotional issue. I thank both of you for
Speaker 2: complying with my requests. I think it was edifying and
Speaker 2: I wish you both best of luck on Tuesday. For
Speaker 2: those who didn't get through, what you can do over
Speaker 2: the weekend if you'd like is listen to this. I'm
Speaker 2: hoping that Noel will get all of our hours posted
Speaker 2: tonight at nightside on Demand dot com so you can
Speaker 2: listen to this hour. Emily, both you and doctor Gami.
Speaker 2: Thank you both very much, and you folks are able
Speaker 2: to pull this down. This will hopefully be posted sometime
Speaker 2: by early tomorrow morning meeting six o'clock in the morning
Speaker 2: by our overnight staff, and you can pull it down
Speaker 2: and put it up on your websites and share the information.
Speaker 2: And I want to thank both of you for conducting
Speaker 2: yourselves as professionally and as polite as you did tonight.
Speaker 2: Thank you so much both, Thanks for having
Speaker 4: Us appreciate it.