Speaker 1: It's Night Side with Dan Ray WBZ Constance Radio.
Speaker 2: Well, we have been trying this fall to get some
Speaker 2: conversation going on all of the ballot questions here in Massachusetts,
Speaker 2: and there are five of them. We'd We talked last
Speaker 2: night with the state auditor here in Massachusetts, Diana Desauglio,
Speaker 2: who wants the specific authority and ballot question one to
Speaker 2: audit the state legislature. We've talked about the potential elimination
Speaker 2: of mcast as a high high school graduation requirement. We
Speaker 2: have yet to talk about the unionization for transportation network drivers,
Speaker 2: and we have talked about minimum wage for tipped workers.
Speaker 2: We may get back to that, but tonight, for the
Speaker 2: first time, we're going to talk about what's called the
Speaker 2: limited legalization and regulation of certain natural psychedelic substances with us.
Speaker 2: We are honored to be joined by doctor Nasir me.
Speaker 2: He's a professor of psychiatry at the Toughts Medical School
Speaker 2: and he knows a lot more about this than I do.
Speaker 2: We will have someone on from the other side. I
Speaker 2: believe the the the advocates for this situation, but we're
Speaker 2: gonna We're gonna focus on with doctor Gami, why he
Speaker 2: feels this is not something that should be approved in Massachusetts.
Speaker 2: And so, first of all, doctor Gami, welcome tonight'side. Thank
Speaker 2: you so much for joining us.
Speaker 3: Hi Dan, thank you for having me.
Speaker 4: So, how give us a little bit of your background.
Speaker 2: You have a very impressive resume, both you know as
Speaker 2: a as a psychiatrist and also as an author. You
Speaker 2: the director of the mood Disorder Program and the psycho
Speaker 2: Pharmacological Consultation Clinic at Toughts Medical Center and as I said,
Speaker 2: at professor at Tufts University School of Medicine. You've done
Speaker 2: clinical work and research on depression, manic depressive illness, particularly
Speaker 2: in the in exploring the role of antidepressants in the
Speaker 2: treatment of bipolar disorder. And you've published over one hundred
Speaker 2: scientific articles and has written or edited eight books. So
Speaker 2: you're you're a busy guy. Tell us what the subject
Speaker 2: that he end is.
Speaker 4: You know, psychedelics.
Speaker 2: Most of us of a certain age when you hear
Speaker 2: the word psychedelic, you think, oh LSD or something. These
Speaker 2: are psycho psychedelic mushrooms or psychic is it more than mushrooms?
Speaker 2: But it's called psychedelic substances. What are we talking about?
Speaker 4: First?
Speaker 3: Of all right, so thank you for having me as
Speaker 3: And let me just add the reason that I'm really
Speaker 3: part of this debate is because I'm currently president of
Speaker 3: the Massachusetts Psychiatric Society, which is the state branch of
Speaker 3: the American Psychiatric Association, and we've come out formally opposed
Speaker 3: to this ballot question, and so as the president of
Speaker 3: the Society this year it's a one year service, I'm
Speaker 3: sort of the spokesperson for us on it. Besides what
Speaker 3: you said about my having this background in psychopharmacology meaning
Speaker 3: medication research in psychiatry, and thirty years of clinical experience
Speaker 3: treating psychiatric patients, especially with mood illnesses, depression, and bipolar illness.
Speaker 3: I'll estimate I've probably treated over ten thousand people, and
Speaker 3: I'm actively clinically treating people now too. But in addition
Speaker 3: to those roles as a doctor and a researcher, the
Speaker 3: reason I'm really talking these days is because I'm president
Speaker 3: of the main psychiatric society. So what we're talking about.
Speaker 3: Your question was, what are we talking about in terms
Speaker 3: of mushrooms. Mushrooms is a kind of a generic phrase
Speaker 3: to describe certain kinds of mushroom which come from a
Speaker 3: family that produces this drug which is called psilocybin PSI
Speaker 3: l o cybi n psilocybin, and that's actually the name
Speaker 3: of the mushroom family. It's called psilocyb. And these are
Speaker 3: culled psychedelics based on what got popularized in the nineteen
Speaker 3: fifties by a British novelist, Alvis Huxley. But actually in
Speaker 3: the scientific world the class has always been called hallucinogens,
Speaker 3: which is the name implies they all cause hallucinations, that's
Speaker 3: their main effect.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And some of the ads that I have seen
Speaker 2: on television, and i'd get to have someone on from
Speaker 2: the other side, they have some folks who say that
Speaker 2: they've used these and it helps them, and it's a
Speaker 2: very I guess it's a sympathetic if someone can use
Speaker 2: something and can help them, and I guess there's a
Speaker 2: real potential to harm people.
Speaker 4: With this as well.
Speaker 3: Correct, Absolutely so. The reason you're saying these ads on
Speaker 3: television only about the benefits or the pro side is
Speaker 3: and we can talk about this more in a while,
Speaker 3: is that they're highly funded by venture capitalists who have
Speaker 3: spent so far at least five million dollars to get
Speaker 3: this question on the ballot. If it wasn't for all
Speaker 3: the money they've spent on it, we wouldn't be sitting
Speaker 3: here talking about it. And of course they're not doing
Speaker 3: that out of the goodness of their heart, even though
Speaker 3: that's what they say, and the advocates will say they're
Speaker 3: doing that because the majority of them also own investments
Speaker 3: in psychedelic companies and stand to make billions of dollars
Speaker 3: once people get used to using these or want to
Speaker 3: use them.
Speaker 2: But the.
Speaker 3: Question that you that you raised is, you know, why
Speaker 3: are we what do we think about the fact that
Speaker 3: people say that they benefit from it, And the fact
Speaker 3: is maybe they are helpful, But the fact that someone
Speaker 3: says they benefit them from something doesn't prove that they're helpful.
Speaker 3: You know, for two thousand years in medicine, people had
Speaker 3: leading with leeches and people thought that was helpful. And
Speaker 3: we learned over time that you have to take people's
Speaker 3: opinions and test them with scientific research. And specifically, we
Speaker 3: do these studies where people get randomly assigned to two groups,
Speaker 3: the treatment group or not, and that's the only way
Speaker 3: you can really tell that treatment works. You have to
Speaker 3: have a comparison group, and it has to be random.
Speaker 4: So that.
Speaker 2: I think most of our audience understands that they're taking
Speaker 2: placebosh and usually.
Speaker 3: They get a placebo, which means a sugar pill. It's nothing.
Speaker 3: And so until you do that, you can't tell that
Speaker 3: the treatment makes people better, because a lot of times
Speaker 3: people get better because of that placebo effect, because they're
Speaker 3: really happy to take something or they believe in it,
Speaker 3: and that's definitely a major factor here. So you want
Speaker 3: to control for that, you want to correct for it,
Speaker 3: and until we do that, we won't really know that
Speaker 3: these things are effective. And there is some research along
Speaker 3: those lines, some of which suggests some benefit and some
Speaker 3: of which doesn't, which we can talk about.
Speaker 4: Okay, we're going to take a quick break.
Speaker 2: My guest is doctor Nassier Gami. As I mentioned, he
Speaker 2: is a professor of psychiatry at a tough medical school,
Speaker 2: a really impressive resume, and is dealing with has dealt
Speaker 2: with these issues. I will admit this is something that
Speaker 2: I'm not particularly familiar with, but I remember how marijuana
Speaker 2: became legalized in this state several years ago, and the
Speaker 2: initial impact, the initial suggestion was that people, some people
Speaker 2: would have a medical benefit, and it's just going to
Speaker 2: become available for people who needed medical treatment that included marijuana,
Speaker 2: and now we have marijuana sold literally through the state.
Speaker 2: So I wonder, and I'm going to ask doctor Gami
Speaker 2: if that's what one of his concerns is and how
Speaker 2: widespread this would be and how many people, once this
Speaker 2: stuff is out and about would say, well, I think
Speaker 2: I'm going to try that and could it could some
Speaker 2: harm be done? So we got a lot to talk about.
Speaker 2: If you know or if you have an opinion on this,
Speaker 2: you're more than welcome. If you have a question, you're
Speaker 2: more than welcome. It's one of the ballot questions, Question four.
Speaker 2: A vote, a yes vote would make it legal, and
Speaker 2: we'll explain exactly what what legalization means. And no vote
Speaker 2: would say no, it's not going to be legal. We'll
Speaker 2: get to all of that. The number six, one, seven, two, five,
Speaker 2: four to ten thirty six one seven, nine, three, one,
Speaker 2: ten thirty. We'll get to calls as soon as we can.
Speaker 2: We'll fill up those lines and we'll get going back
Speaker 2: on night Side.
Speaker 4: Run after this.
Speaker 1: Now back to Dan Ray live from the Window World
Speaker 1: night Side Studios. I'm DOWNBZ News Radio.
Speaker 2: We're talking about the legalization of psychedelic here in Massachusetts.
Speaker 2: My guest is doctor Nasser Gami, who is a professor
Speaker 2: doctor of Psychiatry at the Toughts Medical School, University of
Speaker 2: Toughs University Medical School. This is question number four from
Speaker 2: all of the polls that I have seen. This is
Speaker 2: probably at this point the closest poll of the five questions. Again,
Speaker 2: I think this is one that could go either way.
Speaker 2: Which is more important for us to all pay attention
Speaker 2: to it and this I just want to read this
Speaker 2: a little bit of the summary. The proposed law would
Speaker 2: allow persons age twenty one and older to grow, possess,
Speaker 2: and use certain natural psychedelic substances in certain circumstances. The
Speaker 2: psychedelic substances allowed would be two substances found in mushrooms,
Speaker 2: psilocybin and citizen, and three substances found in plants. I
Speaker 2: can't even well mescaline is one of them. The other
Speaker 2: two icon pronounced. These substances could be purchased at an
Speaker 2: approved location for use under the supervision of a license facilitator.
Speaker 2: That's interesting. What does that mean, doctor? We're not talking
Speaker 2: about marijuana. Where you go in and you purchase your
Speaker 2: marijuana and you take it home, right, you got There
Speaker 2: are going to be people who are licensed facilitators, so
Speaker 2: you're able to purchase this at an approved location for
Speaker 2: use under the supervision of a license facilitator.
Speaker 4: I'm a lawyer.
Speaker 2: I'm reading that and I'm seeing that word for use
Speaker 2: under the supervision.
Speaker 4: Tell us what that means.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So it's very misileating if you don't have it explained.
Speaker 3: So there's two aspects of the bill. The first is
Speaker 3: basically unregulated legalization. People can grow and distribute these five
Speaker 3: hallucinogens drugs and cost hallucinations which I prefer the psychedelics
Speaker 3: is a more sific name these five pollucinages. They can
Speaker 3: grow them in their spare bedroom twelve feet by twelve
Speaker 3: feet area or in a backyard, and they can distribute
Speaker 3: them to their friends and family and no one can
Speaker 3: stop them from doing so. They can't sell them, but
Speaker 3: they can do anything short of that. In fact, in Colorado,
Speaker 3: where there has been passed, there's a so called gray
Speaker 3: market where these are being sold even though they're not
Speaker 3: supposed to. And we can talk about how obviously people
Speaker 3: under age twenty one are going to get them. Teenagers
Speaker 3: and college students. But that's half the bill is letting
Speaker 3: people basically have all the hallucinogens they want in a
Speaker 3: twelve foot by twelve foot area that it's not a
Speaker 3: small amount. And in fact, one of them, mescaline has
Speaker 3: eighteen gram is how much you're allowed to have, which
Speaker 3: is thirty times more than the average dose. So these
Speaker 3: are not small amounts of some of these agents. At least,
Speaker 3: the other half of the bill sounds like it's more reasonable,
Speaker 3: like you have licensed facilitators in so call therapy centers.
Speaker 3: Them is these are going to be high school graduates
Speaker 3: who take a three month online course and then charge
Speaker 3: you one thousand dollars a session in these so called
Speaker 3: therapy centers. They are not medical doctors or medical professionals,
Speaker 3: and they are not mental health professionals because the way
Speaker 3: the law is written, it says that we cannot require
Speaker 3: that these people be medical professionals or mental health professionals,
Speaker 3: which means you have to let them be non professionals.
Speaker 3: And the fact is the medical professionals, the doctors, and
Speaker 3: the mental health professionals are not going to sign up
Speaker 3: to be so called licensed facilitators because these substances are
Speaker 3: illegal federally, and we cannot legally prescribe them even if
Speaker 3: the state passes this law. So it's going to be
Speaker 3: given by high school graduates who are not going to
Speaker 3: be sufficiently educated to figure out who should get these
Speaker 3: things and who shouldn't, nor can they handle the psychotic
Speaker 3: states of severe delusions and hallucinations which people call bad
Speaker 3: trips that are going to happen with these substances or
Speaker 3: the medical applications. One of the five, which is called
Speaker 3: iba gain, actually has cardiac arrhythmias on the as its effect,
Speaker 3: and it can it causes cardiac arrests or heart attacks
Speaker 3: as a known side effect. And these people are not
Speaker 3: going to be doctors who will know how to handle
Speaker 3: any of this.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that is one of the three substances listed, iyebill gain.
Speaker 2: I'm again, you didn't even want to try to pronounce
Speaker 2: the first one, din thy trip to mine or something.
Speaker 3: Dimeso or you can just call a d MT, which
Speaker 3: is the active ingredient in this plant called ayahuasca, which
Speaker 3: almost killed one of my patients, which I can tell
Speaker 3: you about it if you like it.
Speaker 2: Yo, that's some Let's grab a couple of phone phone
Speaker 2: calls here, we're going to keep going here. We've got
Speaker 2: some full lines. The only lines that are available is
Speaker 2: six one seven nine. I don't want Donna to have
Speaker 2: to hang on so long. Donna, you called early your
Speaker 2: thoughts on this and say hello to my guest here tonight.
Speaker 4: With us, Dr.
Speaker 5: Hi Hi, and thank you for inviting me back.
Speaker 6: Dan.
Speaker 5: So, yeah, So I know that Eliza Dushku was there
Speaker 5: was a Boston magazine article about her experience with this,
Speaker 5: and I know that hers was a positive one. She's
Speaker 5: from Watertown, by the way, which is where I'm from, Waham, Assachusetts.
Speaker 5: So my question is, I know that other people have
Speaker 5: taken them. You know, people I know personally have described
Speaker 5: their experiences, some good, some you know, maybe they were
Speaker 5: scared by. And then you hear, you know, the the
Speaker 5: possible legalization aspect, which I thought was going to give
Speaker 5: the opportunity to tell how to fine tune the dosages,
Speaker 5: et cetera. So, doctor Nasa, with regard to what you
Speaker 5: just said, it almost sounds like.
Speaker 4: There's this.
Speaker 5: Ambiguity about what is actually going to happen if question
Speaker 5: four happens.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I would say it's more than ambiguity. The question
Speaker 3: is really written in a way to exclude the medical community.
Speaker 3: But we were never consulted about this question.
Speaker 6: You know.
Speaker 3: We found out about it, you know, just a few
Speaker 3: months ago. And the attitude of a lot of the
Speaker 3: advocates is anti medical establishment. They say, the doctors aren't
Speaker 3: helping us, so let's all just get our hallucinogens on
Speaker 3: our own and use them ourselves. And then again, these
Speaker 3: therapy centers, they set it up so that it's not
Speaker 3: going to be legal for any medical professional to participate,
Speaker 3: and it's going to be given by high school level
Speaker 3: graduates or college graduates, but not people with psychiatrical medical expertise.
Speaker 3: And let me just say, in terms of the positive experiences,
Speaker 3: you know, as doctors, we see the negative experiences. We
Speaker 3: see a lot of patients who do badly, and they're
Speaker 3: not going out and talking about how badly they're doing
Speaker 3: in the media. And you know, they're not the people
Speaker 3: that the advocates will bring out because when you suffer,
Speaker 3: and you suffer tragically, usually you want to protect your
Speaker 3: privacy and your confidentiality. But we as the doctor see
Speaker 3: this a lot, so we're sort of speaking. I'm speaking
Speaker 3: for my patients who do badly with the sollucinogens, and
Speaker 3: I have many experiences with that, So yes, there are
Speaker 3: positive experiences, that's what you usually hear about, but there
Speaker 3: are many negative experiences, and because of privacy and confidentiality,
Speaker 3: you tend not to hear about that as much. And
Speaker 3: that's why, you know, we doctors are starting to talk
Speaker 3: about it a little more so that the public gets
Speaker 3: a full appreciation of the risks and the harms here
Speaker 3: and not just the possible benefits.
Speaker 2: Donna, it sounds to me this, Dan Ray Donna, sounds
Speaker 2: to me like you're much kind of an advocate for
Speaker 2: this for legalization, am I reading you correctly?
Speaker 5: Me personally, I can't do most drugs because I have
Speaker 5: weird autoimmune type issues that make it so that you
Speaker 5: can't even tell what would happen to me if I
Speaker 5: just took a sleeping pill and I was up for days.
Speaker 5: So I know people who could bafit from this. Now,
Speaker 5: having worked in a pharmacy at fifteen years old, I
Speaker 5: saw how a lot of people suffered with the mental
Speaker 5: illness aspect. You know, people on those you know drugs
Speaker 5: where they feel like zombies, et cetera. And what I
Speaker 5: read in the article that was written in Boston Magazine.
Speaker 5: Was essentially that she got this benefit that she wasn't
Speaker 5: able to get using any of the other avenues, including
Speaker 5: her own self medication aspects. So the one thing I
Speaker 5: liked about the article is that it appeared to be
Speaker 5: I don't It didn't seem like she was doing it
Speaker 5: on a regular basis. It almost like a one and done,
Speaker 5: like a reset. Maybe, Doctor Nassa, is that what can
Speaker 5: happen is.
Speaker 6: A reset order?
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's possibly. When you hear about benefits, it's often
Speaker 3: with PTSD post traumatic stress disorder. And what usually people
Speaker 3: say is that they take one dose or two doses
Speaker 3: and then they get psychotherapy with it, and they get
Speaker 3: a whole lot more benefit than they got with other
Speaker 3: medications or therapies. And it's true that the medications that
Speaker 3: we have are pretty limited in their benefit with PTSD.
Speaker 3: But it's also true that the psychedelics have not been proven,
Speaker 3: have not been studied compared to the treatments that we
Speaker 3: have to prove that they're better. They may be, they're
Speaker 3: just not proven. The one thing that's been studied is
Speaker 3: MDMA ecstasy, and it was better than placebo in a
Speaker 3: study that was we got a lot of attention a
Speaker 3: few months ago because it went to the FDA, but
Speaker 3: that's not one of the five substances that's going to
Speaker 3: be in this bill, so even if that works, that
Speaker 3: won't be helping people. And the FDA actually rejected it
Speaker 3: because of ethical problems where the psychedelic advocates who did
Speaker 3: the study were being even actually inappropriate with the patients
Speaker 3: at least one person. And also there was some data
Speaker 3: problems where some patients said that they did worse, but
Speaker 3: in the study they were claimed to have responded. So
Speaker 3: I think the jury is out on whether these things
Speaker 3: work for PTSD. But that's the one place where people
Speaker 3: have talked about it the most. I just want to add.
Speaker 3: The other place is depression, and there it's been studied
Speaker 3: more and some studies find that there's some benefit, but
Speaker 3: they always see and to be the same as our
Speaker 3: current antidepressants, which are much safer. So in depression at least,
Speaker 3: it's not the case that these drugs are a whole
Speaker 3: lot better than what we have. And you know, the
Speaker 3: claim that's made that this will solve the mental health
Speaker 3: crisis is not supported by that science and is really
Speaker 3: more like science fiction. Fantasy in my opinion.
Speaker 2: All right, doctor, thank you, Donna. I've got a news
Speaker 2: break at the bottom of the hour here which I
Speaker 2: have to take. I appreciate you calling in, and we'll
Speaker 2: be dealing with this subject again next week.
Speaker 4: I think it's Tuesday.
Speaker 2: Night, but I'll have to get you more information and
Speaker 2: maybe you can join us Tuesday night as well.
Speaker 5: Okay, I appreciate it.
Speaker 7: Take care of me, Thank you.
Speaker 2: We'll take quick news break, be back with my guest,
Speaker 2: doctor Nassir Gomi. He is a psychiatrist. He is a
Speaker 2: professor of psychiatry at Tufts Medical School, a great medical school,
Speaker 2: and we're talking about the legalization of psychedelics here in Massachusetts,
Speaker 2: as the ballot question reflects. Doctor Gami likes to refer
Speaker 2: to them as the as hallucinations, so I'll use both
Speaker 2: of those terms interchangeably. We'll be back on Nightside with
Speaker 2: more comments and questions and information on ballot question number four.
Speaker 2: Here on Nightside.
Speaker 1: You're on Nightside with Dan Ray on w b Z
Speaker 1: Boston's news radio.
Speaker 4: Thank you, Nicole.
Speaker 2: We're talking about question number four in the Massachusetts ballot
Speaker 2: this year. It deals with the potential legalization of psychedelics
Speaker 2: as the language that is used.
Speaker 4: In the question.
Speaker 2: My guest, doctor Nasaagami, refers them to more likes to
Speaker 2: use the phrase as a hallucigens. You know, when you
Speaker 2: think back to the nineteen sixties and things like that.
Speaker 2: It's a very close. According to the polls, this is
Speaker 2: one of those that's going to be probably the closest
Speaker 2: of all the questions on the ballot, at least that's
Speaker 2: what the Poles say. Let's see what the questions are
Speaker 2: as we continue with my guest, who again is a doctor,
Speaker 2: a professor at the Tough Medical School. He is a
Speaker 2: professor of psychiatry. There, let me go next to Steven Cambridge.
Speaker 4: Steve, you were.
Speaker 2: Next time Nightside. Thanks for calling in, doctor Gami. This
Speaker 2: is one of my best callers.
Speaker 8: Dan says that he sets me up. Thank you, Dan,
Speaker 8: You're very kind.
Speaker 4: What I believe, by the way, go right ahead.
Speaker 8: They were hallucinogens known as hallucinogens to a psychiatrist in
Speaker 8: Canada named Humphrey Osmond, who is the man who introduced
Speaker 8: them to Aldis Suxley coined the term psychedelic, right okay,
Speaker 8: and I have two points. I guess I would say
Speaker 8: one is you really would never be able to do
Speaker 8: a randomized test with these because it certainly wouldn't be
Speaker 8: a blind test because this subject would immediately know he
Speaker 8: was given, So you couldn't really do a good randomized
Speaker 8: test with these.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's a good point, and I think that's one
Speaker 3: of the problems that so those of us we are
Speaker 3: concerned about these agents feel is that the studies overestimate
Speaker 3: the benefit because people can tell you have visual hallucinations
Speaker 3: and distortions, and you hear voices, you can tell you're
Speaker 3: on this, and the placebo obviously doesn't do that. So
Speaker 3: when you don't when you can tell, then that always
Speaker 3: overestimates the benefit of the thing you're studying. So the
Speaker 3: real effects are lower than what people say in these studies.
Speaker 3: There is one analysis of a study where they tried
Speaker 3: to an analysis where they tried to correct for this
Speaker 3: by using the placebo effect for antidepressant trials and using
Speaker 3: that in the in the as a comparison in the
Speaker 3: hallucinogen trials. And when you do that, the supposed benefits
Speaker 3: of the flucinogens decreases a lot.
Speaker 8: They have been studying these drugs for about sixty years.
Speaker 8: I mean, since Timothy Leary and Richard Albert got national
Speaker 8: attention in this matter. Of course, the studies have been
Speaker 8: kind of sideline studies. But if they really had benefits,
Speaker 8: wouldn't we know about them by now?
Speaker 3: Yeah? I mean I think we would to some extent.
Speaker 3: The fact is that they, you know, went underground for
Speaker 3: a while, the advocates will say, and they weren't studied
Speaker 3: as much. But at least we know a lot about
Speaker 3: their harms from those sixty years. And one of the
Speaker 3: researchers was a big advocate for psychedelics at Johns Hopkins.
Speaker 3: Doctor Matthew Johnson has wroten this long substance abuse review
Speaker 3: that a lot of people cite in support of the hallucinogens.
Speaker 3: But even there, he says that with sixty years of evidence,
Speaker 3: we can confirm that these drugs are prone to abuse
Speaker 3: and that they should be controlled. The only question is
Speaker 3: how much control they should have. But we shouldn't fool
Speaker 3: ourselves to think that they're just completely safe, non addictive,
Speaker 3: and have no risk of abuse at all.
Speaker 8: Doctor I was around in the sixties to hear Timothy
Speaker 8: Leary and Albert and other people advocate for them, and
Speaker 8: I don't know. I don't think I've ever met anybody
Speaker 8: who I really thought benefited from taking them, and I
Speaker 8: have met people who, certainly, if they took too many
Speaker 8: of them, really men never recovered entirely.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, I agree with you. You know, there's
Speaker 3: research on now intensive use has increased in the last
Speaker 3: decade or two. When you look at there's a nationwide
Speaker 3: study about ten percent of the country has tried hallucinogens,
Speaker 3: and in those people, there's a fivefold higher rate of
Speaker 3: heroin abuse, and seventy percent of those folks have tried heroin,
Speaker 3: fifty percent have tried cocaine and opiates. In other words,
Speaker 3: the people that use these solucinogens are not just people
Speaker 3: who take a little bit and then don't do anything else.
Speaker 3: They tend to abuse other drugs. And that's why, you know,
Speaker 3: some people say they're not addictive, and they're wrong, I think,
Speaker 3: based on that kind of evidence. And they also mistake
Speaker 3: the question of not having physical withdrawal symptoms as a
Speaker 3: meaning you can't have addiction. But cocaine doesn't have physical
Speaker 3: withdrawal symptoms, but it's highly addictive. And then people say,
Speaker 3: well it's natural. Well, opium is natural, but it's highly addictive.
Speaker 3: So these are drugs. They can be abused and are
Speaker 3: abused by some people. And if we legalize it to
Speaker 3: the whole population, it won't be just ten percent, it
Speaker 3: will be thirty forty percent of the population using it,
Speaker 3: and we'll see that a good chunk of them will
Speaker 3: abuse it and become addicted to it, and it will
Speaker 3: harm them.
Speaker 8: What do you think with Michael Poland's advocacy in this regard,
Speaker 8: You know, I think that.
Speaker 3: I haven't followed it super carefully, to be honest, but
Speaker 3: I think that the claim that there's something super special
Speaker 3: about these hallucinogens that's going to change the world is
Speaker 3: a religion. It's not science, in my opinion. And when
Speaker 3: you look at the research, even all the research we've
Speaker 3: talked about is just short term benefit. You take the
Speaker 3: drug for a few weeks and you feel better. There's
Speaker 3: nothing that shows that in a year or longer, you've
Speaker 3: treated an underlying disease and you've cured somebody of anything.
Speaker 3: This is just I feel terrible now. This makes me
Speaker 3: feel better, you know. In some ways, that's like taking steroids,
Speaker 3: you know, which work for various psych medical conditions. Per
Speaker 3: short term, but they don't solve anything long term, and
Speaker 3: that could be different for pths. I'm open to someone
Speaker 3: doing the research for a year and showing me that
Speaker 3: if you took some of these agents for PTSD at
Speaker 3: one a year, they were a whole lot better than placebo.
Speaker 3: But no one's ever done that study, and no one's
Speaker 3: even just planning to do that study now. So I
Speaker 3: think it's way too premature to say let's grow this
Speaker 3: in all of our spare bedrooms now based on what
Speaker 3: we know.
Speaker 4: Now, Well, thank you ask a very quick question. I
Speaker 4: can jump INFC just a one question.
Speaker 2: You mentioned that that there's a few states with this
Speaker 2: stuff is actually currently legal.
Speaker 3: Correct, Yes, they're legal in Oregon and in Colorado last year. Basically,
Speaker 3: the same political action committee and the same venture capital
Speaker 3: millionaires who own investments in the biotech companies have paid
Speaker 3: for these other states for their ballot questions and for
Speaker 3: the advertising, and they're trying to buy the votes of
Speaker 3: the people of Massachusetts.
Speaker 4: Now, is there much statistically available?
Speaker 2: I don't know if how long these have been available
Speaker 2: or legalized in those two states. They talks that is
Speaker 2: there anything?
Speaker 3: What the advocates often will say is, oh, we haven't
Speaker 3: heard any bad problems from those two states. Well, the
Speaker 3: reason is that in Oregon they've set it up that
Speaker 3: they're not going to report any data until twenty twenty five,
Speaker 3: so we basically Colorado is even later than Oregon. So
Speaker 3: we basically have no official data from either state, and
Speaker 3: that's why you're not hearing much. But we do have research,
Speaker 3: you know, studies done on solutionogens all over the country
Speaker 3: and other states, you know, that show things like fifty
Speaker 3: percent increase in emergency room visits and people on hallucinogens
Speaker 3: in California, which is a double the rate that you
Speaker 3: see with alcohol and with other substances you see in Massachusetts.
Speaker 3: We've well in the country, there's another study which showed
Speaker 3: that ten percent of people that use hallucinogens at all
Speaker 3: drive with on them, and one third of people who
Speaker 3: use them regularly drive on So these are the kinds
Speaker 3: of things that put the public health at risk with
Speaker 3: car accidents and further overcrowding of our emergency rooms and hospitals.
Speaker 8: All right, thank you for a very interesting discussion.
Speaker 2: You never disappoint me, Steve. Thank you very much, great questions,
Speaker 2: great questions.
Speaker 4: Thank you to night. Good night.
Speaker 2: We're going to take a break, be back with a
Speaker 2: final segment. Doctor Now's here Gomi of Tough Medical School.
Speaker 2: I just think it's an interesting subject. We probably do
Speaker 2: a lot more of this between November fifth, because information
Speaker 2: needs to get out. Back on Night's side, we're going
Speaker 2: to try to get John, Rachel and Manny all in
Speaker 2: between now and ten o'clock.
Speaker 4: Be right back.
Speaker 1: Now, back to Dan ray Line from the Window World
Speaker 1: Night Side Studios on WBZ News Radio.
Speaker 2: Okay, back we go, Folks are going to ask you
Speaker 2: to formulate a question and try to be as concise
Speaker 2: as possible because we're limited in time here and I
Speaker 2: want to basically maximize the information we can get from
Speaker 2: doctor Gomi.
Speaker 4: Let me go to Rachel.
Speaker 2: Rachel joins us from Quincy, Massachusetts. Rachel, welcome, your next
Speaker 2: go right ahead.
Speaker 6: Rachel, Hey, Dan, thank you. So I keep hearing if
Speaker 6: you take the psychedelics in this conversation, Oh, it makes
Speaker 6: you feel better, It makes you feel better. But when
Speaker 6: you have somebody that's a psychosis, that's already hallucinating, and
Speaker 6: I know for a fact you can get this stuff,
Speaker 6: you know, online whatever, and they've been told that it's
Speaker 6: going to make you feel better. How is that going
Speaker 6: to make you feel better if you're already hallucinating?
Speaker 3: Yes, good point, Absolutely not these There are many people
Speaker 3: have bipolar illness, schizophrenia, or some versions of depression where
Speaker 3: they can have psychosis naturally, but also they may not
Speaker 3: have it naturally, but they're susceptible to it, And when
Speaker 3: they get these solutions gens, they get a whole lot worse.
Speaker 3: They get more psychotic, more delusions, hallucinations, they have mania,
Speaker 3: or they have more severe depression. Let me give you
Speaker 3: an example of a patient, one of my patients. She
Speaker 3: was in her early twenties. She got ayahuasca, which has
Speaker 3: the DMT that's one of the substances in the bill.
Speaker 3: She had a mild depression when she took it, and
Speaker 3: she developed a very severe, worse depression with a full
Speaker 3: blown psychotic state, delusions, hallucinations. She was hospitalized for six months,
Speaker 3: got catatonic, which means she couldn't eat, drink, sleep, or move,
Speaker 3: and she had to get a feeding tube. She almost died,
Speaker 3: and eventually, with electroshock treatments, which are obviously very serious treatments,
Speaker 3: she gradually got better. This is one of my patients,
Speaker 3: so that's an example of how someone with psychiatric illnesses,
Speaker 3: with mental illnesses can get worse on these medications. And
Speaker 3: it's funny because the advocates called for mental health options,
Speaker 3: but they're really ignoring people with mental illnesses.
Speaker 6: Right then trying to thank you, I know, I just
Speaker 6: want to add something. So what's happening is in whatever
Speaker 6: I do know somebody that bought something online and they
Speaker 6: started acting a lot different, but they think that it
Speaker 6: was you know, houpingly depression. But then they acted odd
Speaker 6: and almost high. And how do you take that away
Speaker 6: from them and say, no, it's not helping you.
Speaker 3: This is why we're going to have a bunch of
Speaker 3: psychiatric crises and emergency rooms filling up our hospitals and
Speaker 3: making it hard for people to get prompt medical care.
Speaker 3: That's another way it harms the public. But again, even
Speaker 3: these people, that's people with these conditions I described, it's
Speaker 3: five percent at least of the population. That's hundreds of
Speaker 3: thousands of people in the state that are going to
Speaker 3: be at high risk of being harmed by if these
Speaker 3: things are legalized.
Speaker 4: Great questions.
Speaker 2: Rachel, I got three other callers and want to try
Speaker 2: to get to thank you, so much, great job.
Speaker 4: Thanks job, good night. Let me go to Manny and Glouston.
Speaker 2: Man, you gotta be quick for me, go right ahead.
Speaker 7: Hi, thanks uh. I was calling about the strain that
Speaker 7: they call it. Like back in the I'm one of
Speaker 7: the old guys. In the seventies they sprayed Mexico with
Speaker 7: tarva quatt and a lot of us jumped off the
Speaker 7: bustin and then they started growing it and Patrick Ditches
Speaker 7: called hydriponn it. Now, in the old days, the magic
Speaker 7: mushrooms were done from Kyle chips, uh so whatever out
Speaker 7: in the field. What are they made out of nowadays?
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's a good question. I don't really know, to
Speaker 3: be honest.
Speaker 2: Fair enough, fair enough, Thanks Manny, good question, appreciate it.
Speaker 2: Let's keep rolling. You're going to go to John and Brainfick.
Speaker 9: John, Hi, Doc, Captain Heinsteight. How are you, folks. I'll
Speaker 9: try to make it quick. Two things. Number One, it
Speaker 9: seems like you guys came onto the scene late. I
Speaker 9: was wondering if you could. And that's my first question.
Speaker 9: Do you know why you guys came onto this late
Speaker 9: and didn't know about this? And the second question I
Speaker 9: have is.
Speaker 4: That John, John, what I sound like earlier.
Speaker 9: You said you didn't even know this was on the
Speaker 9: ballot or something.
Speaker 3: Right, you know this is true.
Speaker 9: A few months ago, the medical profession seems absent from
Speaker 9: the whole thing, and now they're trying to catch up.
Speaker 9: Am I right or wrong about that?
Speaker 3: It's totally true. So I became president of the Master's
Speaker 3: Psychicatidy in May, and that's when we first announced that
Speaker 3: that we were opposed to it, and the Massachusetts Medical
Speaker 3: Society agreed with us around then and they also reposed it.
Speaker 3: They represent twenty five thousand physicians, the majority in the state.
Speaker 3: By the way, the Masters of SAP State Troopers Association
Speaker 3: just recently came out finally opposed to it because of
Speaker 3: the high car accident risk. So you know what happens
Speaker 3: is that these these advocates, these political action committees that
Speaker 3: they have have been active for a decade. They gave
Speaker 3: you medical marijuana and recreational marijuana. Now they're moving on
Speaker 3: to hallucinogens. After this, they'll probably want recreational hallucinogens even
Speaker 3: more broadly. So they've been organized for over a decade.
Speaker 3: This is all they do. But we medical societies, well,
Speaker 3: we're just doctors. We're treating patients. We're all volunteers. We
Speaker 3: don't make get any money for any of this work,
Speaker 3: and so we just react when things happen. And we
Speaker 3: didn't know until a few months ago, and the fact
Speaker 3: that we're all volunteers is important. I think the.
Speaker 9: Other point I wanted to make was that they were
Speaker 9: on YouTube, I watching an how Along show about some
Speaker 9: very credible people, actresses, singers, talking about their experiences with them.
Speaker 9: Do you have any plans to counter something like that
Speaker 9: with an owl worth of all the nightmas that it happened,
Speaker 9: because I think those are the type things that could.
Speaker 9: And by the way, I want to thank you because
Speaker 9: I knew there was something up with this bill that
Speaker 9: I didn't want to vote for, but you guys made
Speaker 9: it clear. It's basically going to be a free for all.
Speaker 2: And uh, first of all, great great perspective. Thank you
Speaker 2: very much for pointing that out. I got to tell
Speaker 2: you the fact that the group would come on with
Speaker 2: a bunch of actors or actresses or singers or sword
Speaker 2: swallowers or clowns or whatever I'm going with the doctors.
Speaker 3: To be honest, I gotta tell you, we don't have
Speaker 3: any of that because we don't have you know, the
Speaker 3: mass like society doesn't have any money to spend on
Speaker 3: any of this. We're all just dues paying members and
Speaker 3: everything's volunteer. I mean, I think with there there's a
Speaker 3: larger group that's a coalition that's opposed to the question,
Speaker 3: that did not have any fundraising until recently, but I
Speaker 3: think they've raised a little bit now and you might
Speaker 3: see a commercial or two coming out soon.
Speaker 9: Well, thank you again, and John, thank you. Just get
Speaker 9: the message out. It's a free for all now.
Speaker 2: Captain Hindsight stop buy more often. It was a good call.
Speaker 2: Thank you very much. To the callers in the line,
Speaker 2: I apologize, but we're flat out of time. Uh.
Speaker 4: Doctor Gamy, Uh, you've.
Speaker 2: Been an extraordinary guest and you've helped me prep for
Speaker 2: next week. And when we hit the other side on
Speaker 2: we may invite you back at some point.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Dan, can I say one more thing before you
Speaker 3: go out? Right ahead, you're going to hear about decriminalization,
Speaker 3: and we support that, but you don't have to legalize
Speaker 3: it for everybody in the state to grow it in
Speaker 3: their spare bedroom, to not have laws that treated as
Speaker 3: a crime, So that that's really not necessary either, And
Speaker 3: I hope people get the message that there are a
Speaker 3: lot of harms here and very limited benefits and it's
Speaker 3: much better handled in the medical system with doctors prescribing
Speaker 3: it with careful supervision. And that's not what this ballot
Speaker 3: question is about. It harms the public health. It's actually
Speaker 3: about private wealth and recreational use. And that's why the
Speaker 3: majority of physicians oppose it.
Speaker 2: Private wealth over a private wealth over a public health.
Speaker 2: That's an interesting that could be a bumper strip doctor.
Speaker 4: We'll have you back. You were extraordinary. Thank you very much.
Speaker 3: Thank you very much.
Speaker 4: You're very welcome.
Speaker 2: We get back when we talk about the successes but
Speaker 2: the Israeli Army, the IDF has had in the last
Speaker 2: few weeks with Jeff Robbins, I believe this these successes
Speaker 2: might might pave the way for peace in the Middle East.
Speaker 4: We'll discuss it right after the ten o'clock news