0:00

America's public enemy Number one

0:03

in the United States is drug

0:05

abuse. In order

0:07

to fight and defeat this enemy, it is

0:09

necessary to wage a

0:12

new all out of mention. What

0:16

if the cure for a lifetime of PTSD

0:19

is really just a party drug from the nineteen eighties.

0:22

Welcome to Prognosis, a podcast

0:24

about health, medical technology, and

0:26

the mind blowing innovation now under way

0:29

in some of the least expected places. I'm

0:31

your host, Michelle fay Cortes. Today

0:35

we're taking a look at where illegal drugs need

0:37

cutting edge therapy. Psychedelic

0:41

drugs weren't always taboo. In the fifties

0:43

and sixties. The medical world was actually

0:45

really excited about them. Researchers

0:48

studied LSD in psilocybin or

0:50

magic mushrooms as a way to treat conditions

0:52

like depression and even addiction. Before

0:55

nineteen sixty five, more than a thousand studies

0:57

involving psychedelics were published. Many

1:00

people thought they were breakthroughs, providing

1:02

the first hope for treating mental health conditions

1:05

when little else worked. But

1:08

then psychedelics became the drug of choice for the

1:10

counterculture and the government cracked

1:12

down. In Congress

1:15

passed the Controlled Substances Act, criminalizing

1:17

the use of psychedelic drugs and all

1:19

that scientific research into their therapeutic

1:22

potential. It ground to a halt.

1:26

In recent years, the rules are relaxed a little.

1:29

Both the Food and Drug Administration and the

1:31

Drug Enforcement Agency are again

1:33

allowing researchers to conduct studies on psychedelic

1:35

drugs therapies. Some have been really

1:38

promising, but they don't come cheap. So

1:43

how do you bank roll a psychedelics revolution?

1:45

A revolution that brings to mind Stoner's in

1:48

taid more than patients and hospital

1:50

gowns. One man thinks he

1:52

knows here

1:54

are Bloomberg's Christin Brown and Sarah McBride

1:57

to take you on a trip. A

2:05

few weeks ago, Sarah and I were cruising

2:07

across the Nevada Desert in a rented van

2:10

on our way to Burning Man. We

2:20

weren't headed there on vacation. We were

2:22

giving a ride to Rick Doblin. He's

2:25

the CEO of a nonprofit called

2:27

the Multidisciplinary Association

2:30

for Psychedelic Studies. Most

2:32

people just call it MAPS. And

2:35

Burning Man, of course, is the annual party

2:37

of the Nevada Desert. Thousands of people

2:40

show up at this dust Bowl each year to parade

2:42

around in crazy costumes, dance,

2:44

enjoy the art, and yes, do drugs.

2:47

But the party scene wasn't the only

2:50

thing bringing Rick to Burning Man. Rick

2:52

is a man on a mission to legalize some of

2:55

those drugs as medicines. But

2:58

so your goal is of intually not just

3:01

medical decision of qui well, this legalization

3:03

of psychedelics in general and mainstreaming

3:06

of the opportunity for people they have healing experiences,

3:08

spiritual experiences right under medical

3:11

or not necessarily

3:14

under medical supervision, under religious supervision,

3:16

but also a fundamental human right to

3:18

explore your own consciousness. Rick is a

3:21

champion for the healing powers of drugs broadly

3:23

known as psychedelics that includes

3:25

LSD, mushrooms, and depending

3:28

on who you talk to, m D m A

3:30

also known as ecstasy. Like

3:32

Michelle mentioned, those drugs are all illegal.

3:35

Rick is hoping that with persuasive enough scientific

3:37

research that will change. But

3:40

nothing will change unless studies show

3:42

those drugs hold healing power, and

3:45

paying for those studies takes serious

3:47

bank. That is what brings

3:49

Rick to Burning Man. People

3:55

often describe Rick as this sort of cheerleader

3:57

for psychedelics. He was in full smooth

4:00

mode even before we arrived at the

4:02

Burning Man gates. Everyone knows

4:04

him. On the way, he stopped

4:07

at a rest stop and bumped into lots

4:09

of people who wanted to catch up.

4:12

He that

4:24

was Floora Bellini, a spiritual adviser

4:27

to entrepreneurs. When we run into

4:29

her, she is a hot tip for Rick. She

4:32

wants to introduce him to some people who might

4:34

have money for maps. She throws

4:36

out names like Guy la Liberte, who

4:38

co founded Cirque to Slay, and

4:41

Garrett camp, Uber's co founder.

4:44

She and Rick agreed to try to reconnect

4:46

when they got to the Playa. That's what the

4:48

regulars like to call Burning Man. But first

4:51

we have to get in and ask people

4:53

who have never been burning roll around dirt.

4:57

Oh let's not tell them we've never been them

4:59

because I don't and they asked us. We'll

5:02

just let you talk.

5:04

Yeah, I see someone rolling around in the dirt

5:07

right now? Yeah? Why are they?

5:09

Why is it like a hazing thing? Yeah,

5:12

I'm not, Yes,

5:15

I have refused. A few minutes later,

5:17

I had changed my tune burns.

5:21

Actually, this is my first Are you going to make me roll

5:23

around in the dirt? Hey? Okay,

5:27

I'll get off all right. I

5:34

was looking it on the way now wearing

5:36

my weights. That

5:40

was me coming to grips with my new

5:42

burning man milia. That's

5:44

something Rick is pretty good at. He just adapts

5:47

to whatever environment he's in, and

5:50

it makes him a great fundraiser, perfect

5:52

because mainstreaming psychedelics

5:55

is massively pricey. Rick's biggest

5:57

challenge right now is getting the green light from

5:59

the Food and Drug Administration. He's

6:02

just kicked off the final stage of that approval

6:04

process, what's known as Phase three clinical

6:07

trials. That means hundreds of people

6:09

are testing a drug under close medical supervision.

6:12

Rick chose's focus carefully people

6:14

with post traumatic stress disorder like

6:17

veterans, so a hundred people

6:19

with PTSD will get treated with either m

6:21

d m A or placebo, and doctors

6:23

will monitor their progress closely. Those

6:26

Phase three tests alone costs twenty

6:28

six million dollars, and a

6:30

nonprofit bringing a drug to market is rare.

6:33

The only other one was Are You four eight six,

6:35

an abortion drug approved in two thousand. It

6:38

was also controversial. That brings

6:40

us back to why Rick is something of a folk hero

6:42

in certain circles, especially among

6:45

people who hope psychedelics will one day

6:47

win wide acceptance, and not just

6:49

for PTSD treatment. And

6:51

if you need money for something controversial, we're

6:53

better to look for it than a burning Man. Burning

7:01

Man has become a beacon for rich technorati.

7:04

After all, tickets alone cost

7:06

as much as dollars. Rick

7:09

was already a long time Burner when

7:11

he saw the potential wealthy

7:14

tech people were coming. More and more people were

7:16

coming from tech from the Bay Area. UM,

7:19

it was a great opportunity to hang out and talk to people.

7:22

So Rick doesn't hit people up for cash

7:24

right at Burning Man. He gets to know

7:26

them and when it's all over, then he asks

7:29

them to donate to MAPS, his nonprofit.

7:31

Many of his big donors are people he's met

7:34

at Burning Man, or they're connected to people

7:36

he's met there. The festival has

7:38

become such an important place to cultivate

7:40

donors. He listed in the MAPS

7:43

annual report. His

7:45

entire board of directors goes to Burning Man.

7:47

That's six out of six. One guy

7:49

on his board, David Brauner, runs

7:52

the soap company Dr Brauner's. David

7:54

also hosts a camp at Burning Man and

7:57

sets aside an air conditioned crash

7:59

pad there for Rick not that

8:01

Rick sleeps much a burning Man. He's much

8:03

too busy schmoozing. Rick

8:08

has some pretty surprising donors. Richard

8:11

Rockefeller, a great grandson of the

8:13

famous oil baron, gave him money. Joby

8:16

Pritzker, from the Chicago family

8:18

behind Hyatt Hotels, sits on his board.

8:21

Rebecca Mercer, the Trump megabacker,

8:23

gave Maps a million dollars earlier

8:25

this year. And a chunk of

8:27

Rick's cash even comes from an air to

8:29

the Precious Moments figurines, you

8:31

know, those little porcelain Chaska's. But

8:35

more and more he wants to tap into the

8:37

set of young millionaires and billionaires

8:39

that Silicon Valley is minting. Sometimes

8:42

that calls for discretion. I

8:44

asked him if there was anyone in particular

8:46

on his ongoing wish list, anyone

8:49

he's trying to bring on board to donate to Maps.

8:52

Are there some that you have your eye on that

8:54

you think you just

8:56

cultivate them a little bit more, perhaps

8:58

they'll support maps finance chime. Yeah,

9:03

and would we

9:05

know some of their names? But

9:12

I don't. I don't think visiting them will. Hell. Burning

9:15

Man doesn't deliver just on the money front.

9:18

Rick gets to know a lot of people on the research

9:20

side too. Tons of

9:22

scientists had to burning Man. One

9:25

afternoon, I went to a talk on the neuroscience

9:28

of psychedelics. It was given

9:30

by a researcher at the University of California,

9:32

Berkeley, and it was packed.

9:35

Rick taps into that burning Man community

9:38

to help a lot of movers and shakers in the

9:40

field connect with each other. For example,

9:42

one night, we were riding across the playa on

9:44

a two story tall brass dragon art

9:47

car. That's when Rick finally

9:49

got the chance to introduce two key players

9:51

in the movement, the Dutch military's

9:53

head psychiatrist and a doctor from Arizona.

9:56

Oh God, there is right there yet, Eric,

10:00

I was great. I felt that I need

10:02

to say, h oh,

10:06

thank you. I mean, that's fine. To

10:10

be clear. That's a high ranking doctor

10:12

from the Dutch government on a work trip to

10:14

burning Man. The night before, he

10:16

told us he had gotten stranded on the far end

10:18

of the play at and watched the sun rise.

10:21

When he wasn't riding around on the art car,

10:24

Rick was baking around looking for big

10:26

wigs who could help his cause. He

10:28

never quite reconnected with his friend

10:30

Floor, the one who promised introductions

10:33

to the Cirque des founder and the Ubert

10:35

co founder. We know because

10:37

we spent a whole night biking around the Plia

10:39

with Rick looking for them. He struck

10:41

out at one party where he was hoping to run

10:44

into Sergey Brenn, the Google co founder,

10:47

He wasn't there. Instead,

10:49

Rick got to talk with Grover Norquist, the

10:51

anti tax crusader, for around

10:53

twenty minutes. He also hubbed

10:55

up with Darren Aronofsky, the director

10:58

of the movie Black Swan. Rick

11:00

strategy is to kind of just go with the flow

11:02

and hope that the chaos of Burning Man delivers

11:05

him to someone with deep pockets and an interest

11:07

in psychedelic drugs. This particularly

11:10

here. You know, I don't have

11:13

a list of people that I know

11:15

where they're camping and I want to go see them.

11:17

So that's how you've approached in the past.

11:20

Yeah, sometimes I have that set up. This

11:22

year, I don't. So this year is more like serendipity.

11:24

And we thought he'd

11:26

be upset by all the missed connections, but

11:29

Rick always focuses on the positive, even

11:31

when he just missed the co founder of Circus

11:34

by a few minutes. He says it's fate,

11:36

he'll have another opportunity for that introduction.

11:39

Instead, he relishes the small

11:42

victories, like getting part of his

11:44

organization listed on a flyer each

11:46

visitor receives when they arrive at

11:48

Burning Man. Oh my god,

11:52

Oh wow, that's awesome. Oh

11:56

wonderful is

12:00

eight? That was just

12:02

after we'd rolled into Burning Man. The

12:04

flyer mentioned the Zendo Project, part

12:06

of maps that helps people on bad trips

12:08

at festivals. It was listed up high

12:10

on the flyer above the fold.

12:15

This is about the information. This is so

12:17

good. This is the kind of thing that you're gonna want to keep with you.

12:20

The guy's enthusiastic a hundred

12:22

percent in that came through the first

12:24

time we met Rick at a conference in San

12:26

Francisco, he asked us if we minded

12:28

doing our interview while he picked

12:30

up a little weed. Rick lives in Massachusetts,

12:33

where apparently the selection just isn't

12:35

as good. He asked the saleswoman at the dispensary

12:38

for the pottiest pot, and

12:42

then he showed us how he planned to sneak his

12:44

two hundred and twenty nine dollars worth

12:46

of lemon tie test airport security

12:49

when he flew back east Later that night. Really,

12:54

Rick's entire adult life has been intertwined

12:57

with the legal status of psychedelic drugs.

13:01

Well, the first time that I ever tried

13:04

psychedelics was at

13:07

college, and

13:09

it was in my freshman year of college,

13:12

and it was LSD, and

13:15

I was profoundly

13:19

impacted by the

13:21

sort of flow of thoughts and

13:23

feelings. This was in the early nineteen

13:25

seventies. M d m A wasn't

13:28

yet part of the college drug scene, but LSD

13:30

and mushrooms were. By the nine

13:33

eighties, m DMA became more popular.

13:35

Rick was thinking he wanted to become a therapist

13:37

and use m d m A to heal people.

13:41

But then m

13:43

DMA became illegal to so

13:45

Rick, who was thirty but still working

13:48

on his undergrad degree, sued the government.

13:50

He lost, but found his lifelong

13:53

calling. Rick realized

13:55

that bringing m d m A back was going

13:57

to be a political battle, so

13:59

years after starting MAPS, he ended

14:02

up getting a PhD from Harvard in

14:04

public policy, not psychology.

14:07

He toiled in obscurity for decades,

14:09

but finally his cause has gained

14:12

traction. Lots of scientists are

14:14

studying m d m A and PTSD, some

14:17

of them get funding for MAPS in

14:20

one especially compelling study published

14:22

this year, twenty six veterans and first

14:24

responders with PTSD got therapy

14:26

along with m d m A. After

14:28

just two sessions, they no longer met

14:31

the medical definition of PTSD.

14:34

So we think one is when it

14:36

will become m d m A sisted

14:38

psychotherapy will be a legal treatment available

14:40

by prescription, So that's

14:42

roughly three years

14:45

from now. But that's not just Rick's

14:47

opinion. Here's Gooul Dolan, a neuroscientist

14:50

at Johns Hopkins University who studies

14:52

psychedelic drugs. The clinical

14:54

trials of m d m A for PTSD

14:58

are remarkable and the

15:00

responses are like nothing

15:03

we've ever seen before, right, I mean, fs

15:05

arise don't work out well, therapy

15:08

doesn't work out well. You know, no ner

15:10

a psychiatric drugs basically has

15:13

those has had those kinds of responses.

15:15

Gool's most recent study was kind of amazing,

15:18

and it grabbed a nice big headline in the New York

15:20

Times. Her researchers gave m DUMA

15:23

to octopuses, which are usually really

15:25

kind of owners, and octopus has

15:27

basically started hugging each other, or,

15:29

as Gool put it, they definitely become

15:32

more pro social on m d M A.

15:35

A lot of Gool's research, like the Octopus

15:37

study, focuses on figuring out how psychedelics

15:40

work. There's a lot we don't know, but

15:42

it seems that the real power of the drugs is

15:44

putting people in a state of mind where they're more receptive

15:47

to things like suggestion or empathy.

15:50

In a sense, what the drugs really do

15:52

is help people heal themselves.

15:55

That's one of the things that makes them tricky

15:57

drugs for pharmaceutical companies to pursue.

16:00

Most of the research surrounding psychedelics involves

16:03

using them to make typical talk therapy more

16:05

effective, rather than using them

16:07

on their own. Not to mention then,

16:09

in studies, the drugs seemed to do their job

16:12

after only a few doses, rather

16:14

than a potential lifetime income stream

16:16

of a prescription pill, and patents

16:18

have expired on M d M A, so it wouldn't

16:21

really make them much money anyway,

16:25

but researchers are still making incredible

16:28

discoveries. Johns Hopkins

16:30

is a major hub of psychedelic research. Back

16:34

they did a small pilot study of smokers

16:37

after going through one psychedelic session.

16:39

A whopping eight of the volunteers

16:42

had kicked their habits. Six months later, after

16:45

a year, sixty seven were

16:47

still non smokers, and

16:49

it could also help alcoholics. When Gul

16:52

was a medical school, she spent some time staying

16:54

why AA meetings are effective. Her

16:56

research has suggested psychedelics might

16:58

make them work even better. You

17:01

know, I think you could make

17:04

a case that if you gave

17:06

M D M a at um,

17:09

you know, one of these these alcoholics

17:12

anonymous meetings instead of coffee

17:14

and cigarette that, you know, the

17:16

efficacy of those interventions might

17:19

be bigger. The space has really

17:21

grown in recent years. Another

17:23

nonprofit, the U. S Oona Institute, will

17:25

soon sponsor its own trials for psilocybin,

17:28

and there is at least one corporate venture in the

17:30

space, Compass Pathways. They're

17:33

planning their own Phase three trials in Europe

17:35

and North America for treatment resistant

17:37

depression. Cool thinks that funders

17:39

and regulators are becoming more open minded

17:41

to a future of psychedelic medicines because

17:43

so many of the medicines that we have today aren't

17:46

really working. I mean, I can imagine

17:48

all kinds of scenarios that you

17:51

might want to use. This from

17:56

Rick's point of view, PTSD is

17:59

the best scenario for winning the approval

18:01

of regulators in the public too. Both

18:04

of the drugs that proved to treat it, Paxel

18:07

and zolof are considered pretty

18:09

ineffective, but studies

18:12

show that m d M A is very effective.

18:15

Once MAPS paves the way for m d

18:17

M as medicine, Rick thinks

18:19

it will be easier to legalize psychedelics

18:22

all out. The

18:25

PTSD trials will take at least three years,

18:28

but access could come even sooner under

18:30

what's known as compassionate use programs,

18:33

in which patients can gain access to experimental

18:35

therapies before trials are complete. Therapists

18:38

we talked to you said the results can be really amazing.

18:42

One therapist who worked on MAPS earlier

18:44

trials said that m DMA helped heal

18:46

a woman with PTSD who had previously

18:48

gone to more than fifteen hundred therapy

18:50

sessions for now. People

18:53

sometimes seek out treatment outside

18:55

mainstream medicine among a network

18:57

of underground psychedelic therapists.

19:00

Some of that even goes on at Burning Man.

19:03

Rick spent much of his last few days there

19:05

counseling a veteran suffering from PTSD.

19:08

Rick could tell the man needed help. It

19:10

was somebody that seemed on the

19:13

verge of, you know, massive

19:15

mental breakdown. Was was in

19:17

a massive mental breakdown when

19:20

we met, crying and talking

19:22

about how there was no point. Nothing else

19:24

had worked PTSD for decades.

19:27

You know. It was just such a powerful

19:29

appeal for help. And

19:31

the fact that it was both a veteran and

19:34

a retired police officer. The same person

19:36

who had been a veteran and also a police officer

19:38

now was retired. It just

19:40

made me think that this is the ideal

19:42

kind of person we're trying to show. If we're trying to mainstream

19:45

psychedelics. You

19:47

know, what's more mainstream than a veteran and

19:49

a police officer. Along with

19:51

the counseling, Rick treated the vet with m

19:53

d m A. This wasn't the full treatment

19:55

that MAPS is undertaking and its Phase three trials.

19:58

The Phase three treatments are our of therapy

20:00

with three M d m A sessions one month

20:02

apart, but Rick gave the flavor

20:05

of it. It was very inspiring because

20:07

there was a point where this person was

20:10

able to breathe more fully than in many,

20:12

many years. It started

20:15

a process that I think provided

20:18

hope, you know, it's not again a

20:20

one dosed miracle cure, but

20:23

to see someone start

20:26

in a puddle of tears and feeling like

20:29

all the options had been exhausted

20:31

and there was no reason to live anymore. To

20:33

having hope and interest

20:36

in another um

20:38

therapy sessions was profoundly

20:41

inspiring. And also the fact

20:43

that it was someone who had been a police officer for

20:45

fifteen years and before that, veteran

20:48

in the Navy for a very long

20:51

time. Rick says the vet is

20:53

doing better and looking into getting more

20:55

therapy. In one sense, legalizing

20:57

m DMA for medical youth or otherwise

21:00

would just be a recognition of something that is

21:02

already true. Medicine

21:04

isn't something that just treats illness.

21:07

I think it's very difficult to figure out

21:09

which uses count as medical

21:12

and which uses don't. Uh,

21:14

and it's become more and more difficult

21:18

as medicine itself has become

21:20

more consumer oriented. That's

21:22

Matt Lambkin, a law professor at the University

21:24

of Tulsa. Lamb Can points out

21:27

that while the approval and regulation of a drug

21:29

often hinges on it having medical purpose, we

21:31

also prescribe a lot of drugs to people

21:34

without any medical condition at all.

21:36

So what do we mean by

21:39

a medical use um.

21:41

It's intuitively appealing to think,

21:43

well, what we mean is treating some kind

21:45

of illness, But

21:48

if you take just a second to think about it, medicine

21:50

does lots and lots of things besides just

21:52

treating illnesses, and

21:55

always has right contraception,

21:58

abortion, the are

22:01

medical interventions that are usually

22:03

not provided to treat any illness.

22:06

Lambkin can also see a future not too

22:08

far away where m d m A is illegal

22:10

medicine. So a lot of things that seemed

22:13

unlikely to me a while ago with respected

22:15

drug policy. UM

22:17

I mean, I never imagined that we would be where we are today

22:20

in terms of uh marijuana

22:23

across the States. It was sort of inconceivable

22:25

twenty years ago. The FDA does

22:27

have a track record of following the science wherever

22:30

it goes. That means that m d

22:32

m A could soon be widely prescribed.

22:35

One thing that could easily get in the way of

22:37

that, though, is money to keep

22:39

pushing the science forward. Rick knows

22:41

he has an uphill battle ahead, but

22:43

for him that's no obstacle. I've

22:47

had to really learn how to be happy

22:50

with trying rather than succeeding.

23:11

And that's it for this week's prognosis. Thanks

23:13

for listening. Do you have

23:15

a story about healthcare in the US or around

23:17

the world. We want to hear from you. You

23:20

can email me at m Cortes at Bloomberg

23:22

dot net or find me on Twitter at

23:25

Fay Cortes. If you were a

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fan of this episode, please take a minute

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to rate and review us. It helps new listeners

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find the show. This

23:34

episode was produced by Lindsay Cradowell. The

23:36

story editor was Mark Chauffit. Thanks

23:39

also to Drew Armstrong and Liz Smith.

23:42

Francesco leviashead of Bloomberg Podcasts.

23:44

We'll see you next week.