library / Terence McKenna / On Radi Orbit 05-01-06

On Radi Orbit 05-01-06

Terence McKenna / audio 2:56:34 ~191 MB opus 152 kb/s

This episode of Radio Orbit features Dr. Dennis McKenna and Richard Glenn Boyer, director of the Center for Cognitive Liberty and Ethics, exploring what cognitive liberty means as a fundamental human right. They discuss psychedelic plants, landmark cases protecting religious practice with ayahuasca, and the technologies that threaten human autonomy and freedom of thought. McKenna and Boyer argue that cognitive liberty underlies all other freedoms and that protecting it requires both legal action and long-term cultural work with plants and knowledge.

transcriptmachine-transcribed, unedited

I'm Mike Hagan.

We'll be back in a minute with Dr. Dennis McKenna, Richard Glenn Boyer.

The music of ISM all night.

Stick around.

It's going to be awesome.

Now that's the way to begin a radio show.

All right, I'm Mike Hagan.

This is Radio Orbit.

You're listening to it.

It's KOP on Columbia, 89.5 FM.

And that was the music of ISM.

The song was called Beside the Sun.

It's from their new release on STM Records.

It's called Monkey Underneath.

We'll hear more from ISM and their aptly titled disc throughout the show tonight.

And what a show it's going to be.

Aside from the rhythms of ISM, we've got Dr. Dennis McKenna live from his home in somewhere around Minneapolis, St. Paul.

Richard Glenn Boyer from his place in California.

A little more about that in just a minute.

But just first let me do a quick thanks to Ken Stedman for spending some time with us last week.

To Lizzie West and the White Buffalo.

Wonderful music live last week with them.

And more from them in a month or two for sure.

And thanks certainly to Debbie Johnson.

Wonderful stuff.

Free Range Radio Theater.

Every Monday, an hour before this program setting us up just right.

Okay.

All right.

So let's get right to business here.

We're going to be trying out a couple of new things tonight.

So here's what's going on.

We've got Dennis and Richard on the phone with us.

We've got a studio full of a diverse group of individuals loaded with questions.

We've got live chat going on at the website.

So yeah, hop on the web and click over to MikeHagan.com.

You'll find info about our guests tonight, links to their sites, links over to our chat room

and the forum where folks are already discussing this stuff.

As I was writing my little intro here, I wasn't sure if we were going to be able to announce this or not,

but we are streaming live right now on the web.

First time ever.

Radio Orbit live on the web.

If you're anywhere in the world right now and you've got access to the web, get on it.

Go over to www.cosmicwavesradio.com.

Thanks to the wonderful guys over there, Carrie and Paul, everybody else over there.

My friend Charlie here at the station who made this possible.

We just got it going tonight.

I mean literally just under the wire here.

So I'm really pleased.

And I didn't even announce it on the website because we didn't know if it was going to happen or not.

But it's up on the forum now if you want to find the link.

But just cosmicwavesradio.com and you'll see it easily from there.

Okay?

All right.

So we'll do the usual first hour stuff later and we'll get right to our guests.

All right?

Our first guest tonight, he's a good friend of the program.

He's a man doing tremendously important work for the better part of four decades now.

His name is Dr. Dennis McKenna.

He should be no stranger to listeners of this program.

We welcome him back to the show.

And as if that weren't enough, we've got Richard Glenn Boyer with us as well.

Richard is a senior fellow in law and policy at the Center for Cognitive Liberty and Ethics.

And he also serves as a director for that organization.

Richard has demonstrated a lifelong commitment to freedom of thought and information flow.

He's an accomplished attorney.

He's been admitted to practice in the United States Supreme Court.

It's actually a really interesting story.

We'll talk to Richard about it and filed the first ever freedom of thought brief before the Supreme Court in 2002, just a few years ago.

A synopsis of a lot of this stuff can be found on the website.

I've got links to all this stuff up.

So you can find out much more about both Dennis and Richard by going to MikeHagan.com and getting curious, clicking around a little bit.

And so without further delay, Richard, welcome to Radio Orbit.

Dennis, welcome back.

Thanks.

Great to be here.

All right.

Good to be here.

Thank you, as always.

Okay.

Well, gosh, an exciting night for us here.

And I couldn't think of a better way to introduce this program to the World Wide Web live.

Of course, people listen to the show through the archives for a long time, but this is the first time we've been live, you guys.

And I'm so pleased that Dennis, you, and Richard could be the ones to share it with us.

Great.

Let's hope it works.

Yeah, let's see.

Yeah, I know.

Yeah, it's like we're swimming in the dark right now.

All right, a couple things out of the way real fast.

The website's Dennis, www.hefter.org, H-E-F-F-T-E-R.

You can also go to Arrowhead.com or Arrowhead.org, I guess it is.

Arrowhead.org.

Yeah, .org, and there's an interesting page there with a lot of information and links about Dennis and his brother.

Richard's website, www.cognitiveliberty.org.

And Richard also has a website at convictionfree.com.

That's his law firm.

So, all right, before we get too busy here, Dennis, the first thing, we spoke a few weeks ago, and I've got a few e-mails with questions.

Everyone was pretty pleased to hear that you had safely secured some of your botanical specimens from South America back here.

And I know these things are kind of slow, but at any rate, people are interested in if there's any news on that front and sort of what's the latest at Hefter.

Oh, well, as far as the Amazon project, yeah, we were able to get all of our samples out from South America.

We're finally getting things hammered out with the Peruvian government as far as permissions to export these things.

So we've done that, and now we're sort of in the lab phase of things, and it's kind of slowed down.

But basically, we have to work through this 130 samples or so and, you know, make extra screening in the neuroreceptor screens.

My colleague, collaborator on the grant is Dr. Brian Ross.

And just looking for something special?

Looking for novel molecular structures that hit a certain range of receptors that we're interested in.

Okay.

All right.

So more about that, people.

There's a paper that actually I put up, Dennis, that you wrote a while back from the Peruvian conference in Iquitos that's called The Future of Ayahuasca.

And that's up on the website.

And, of course, if you go to Hefter, I'm not sure exactly what's there, Dennis, but I'm sure there's certainly some things that they can check out.

Yeah, there's a lot of information about Hefter there.

Hefter is, as your listeners probably know, it's a nonprofit organization, basically geeks, people like myself, Dave Nichols, Charles Grobe,

other either neuroscientists or psychiatrists or, in my case, ethnopharmacologists.

And, basically, it's a similar organization to MAPS, which is the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies.

We're just, as a result, much less poorly, much more poorly funded.

But our focus is on clinical research with psychedelics, trying to get these things used for various types of...

Okay.

So, with that taken care of, Richard, thanks for being patient there.

And Dennis has been on the program a couple of times, and the listeners are pretty familiar with his work, I think.

But you are a little bit more new to the program.

So, perhaps a little bit of background, the Center for Cognitive Liberty, an interesting title, of course, for those unfamiliar.

What it is, we'll have to define cognitive liberty, even, I think, maybe where we might start.

But tell us a little bit about you and the website and the mission for the Center for Cognitive Liberty and Ethics.

Okay.

Well, first, thanks.

But the Center for Cognitive Liberty and Ethics is formed in the beginning of the year 2000 to try and look at the way that it evolved or what we think is going to happen

and what we're placing our bets on and helping to usher along is an evolution of human rights,

which will come to move beyond the rights that have been associated with the body and recognize that there are...

This is very ripe right now, besides psychedelics and hard technology...

Brain fingerprinting, this whole thing.

Brain fingerprinting and then a whole bunch of pharmaceutical-type drugs, everything from SSR.

A lot of developments for Cognitive Liberty and Ethics was designed and continues to...

How long have you guys been in operation?

...of the dot-com boom, and a lot of the people who had made lots of money at that time really liked this idea

and were excited about it and funded it in a grandiose ideas of how easy it would be to fundraise in the world.

You know, the PayPal thing's not working out for me so well, you know?

Yeah, well, you know, I probably decided that's just not my bailiwick.

And so now we only do projects that the funding kind of comes very easily because I don't like going around and so forth.

Dennis, how were you introduced to Richard and his work?

Well, I'm not sure exactly.

We've been sort of traveling in the same circles for a long time.

It was probably one of those infamous Friday night dinners or one of those kinds of things.

Quote-unquote dinners.

Right, right.

Well, no, they weren't dinners.

Excellent, by the way.

But I've known of his work for some time, at least since 2000.

And I have great admiration for what he's doing because I think, you know,

his notion of cognitive liberty, he's really cut to the chase here in a sense.

The war on drugs and that whole issue is really just a small subset of the issues that he's trying to address,

which basically comes down to, you know, freedom of thought.

There is always this dynamic tension between, you know, that the government or the authorities,

whether it's the government or religious ecclesiastical authorities or some combination of these,

you know, has vested interests in controlling people's behavior and especially what people are,

they are basically being brought to bear to influence how people.

You know, but what is diffusing and in some ways quite worrisome because there's, you know,

a distinct possibility that, you know, they can exert influence beyond just,

and Richard has identified this problem and is standing up basically for the freedom to,

you wouldn't think that you'd have to, but apparently we do in this day and age.

So, you know, he's taken the lead on this.

That's very important work.

Well, Richard, let me ask you a question about that.

You know, we talk about human rights all the time,

and I think about in this country, you know, the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.

You know, we name it that, and we have certain rights that are afforded us.

It's the right to practice religion, the right to the freedom of speech,

the right to, you know, freedom to assemble, all these things,

to ask for redress of our grievances, which doesn't work out very well, actually.

But where does it talk about freedom of thought?

Well, that, of course, is the problem is that it doesn't.

It's kind of the zero amendment.

It's the amendment that wasn't mentioned partly because I think it was kind of unthinkable

that there would be some way to really tinker with somebody's thoughts directly

or the government would take such a step to stop people from doing that themselves.

And so it wasn't ever written into the Constitution,

but it's there because it's every time you look at any of, not all,

but because we have this marketplace of ideas and we want,

you can undercut the first amendment quite easily rather than targeting speech,

killer thought, whether it's by, you know.

So the idea of cognitive liberty, a kind of un-

it's not mentioned in the context of privacy or the right to unreasonable searches.

Right, the fourth amendment comes closer.

Fourth amendment.

These are rights that underlies and the basic principles fit

and would speak to the same.

Right, I mean, the whole idea of freedom of speech, for example,

I mean, it seems sort of intuitive, but really not.

But, I mean, of course, you have to be able to have the thought.

Well, that was the whole thing in order to make the speech.

By controlling language.

It wasn't about, you know, an old double job.

Amazing.

Now, you're sort of on the other side of, not really on the other side of the issue,

but you're involved in development and research of some of the things

that Richard is talking about here.

Now, how does this fit in with the work that you're doing?

You mean the drugs just treat schizophrenia?

Yes, the stuff that you're working on with the grant from Hefter.

Well, sure.

I mean, I don't think that you can arrest these technologies.

You know, pharmaceutical technologies are going to be developed.

You know, other types of neural technologies are going to be developed.

I was just reading something before I came down here in the Otney Reader

about some of these brain implant machines that they're now using.

Originally, they were used to try to be adapted to things like obsessive-compulsive disorder.

That's amazing.

You know, I think the key thing here, all of these technologies are going to be available.

There's really no way that we could...

Technology in and of itself is not, you know, evil or good.

Right, the wisdom behind it.

And I think the key thing here is the issue of coercion.

You know, if a person has, say, schizophrenia or obsessive-compulsive disorder

and perceives that as a problem and wants to be, you know, wants to be treated,

if it's their choice, it's when government steps in and says,

it's not your choice.

We're going to...

And Richard has argued, I think, a couple of cases in this respect.

You know, there was one previous case, which I'm sure you can tell us about,

you know, in which a person basically stopped taking their medications

and as a result was psychotic, and because they were psychotic,

couldn't be tried for it.

And the government's...

So that's true.

So that they could then...

You know, it's the same issue that comes up with abortion.

You know, nobody is forced to get an abortion.

But what the government wants to do is to take the element of choice away.

They want to, you know, speak into this issue of privacy.

It's all about control.

And they, you know, the uterus.

A woman should...

And it's very much the same issue.

It's all about, you know, how these technologies are going to be applied.

I mean, I think it's great that we have neuroimaging technologies now

that can examine brain states in fairly fine resolution.

We can use them on Tibetan monks.

Maybe we can understand a little more about what mystical states of mind are

and psychedelic states of mind and that sort of thing.

But, you know, when you come to the point where, for example,

you can't step on an airplane without undergoing a brain scan,

then I think we have to be very careful.

And we're not there yet, but give it five years.

Interesting.

Yeah, there's actually...

I'm on the web right now, you guys,

and I'm looking at a story that I found a couple weeks ago,

and it had to do with this organization that calls themselves Terasem,

the Terasem Movement.

But, Richard, this is something that I thought might interest you.

But check this out.

It says,

The Terasem Movement has posted online streaming videos of a moot court hearing

on the petition of a conscious computer to be treated as a legal person.

A moot court hearing is a legal role-playing exercise conducted by real lawyers and judges

in preparation for anticipated actual judiciatory proceedings.

So there's also a technological side of this whole thing, too,

that we haven't even talked about yet.

Actually, yeah, the Terasem people are really interesting.

I'm going to be out there.

It's going to be interesting.

I think that it is moving ahead in a way that it will generate some see-making at some point.

The kind of the problem that I see,

and which I lose sleep over sometimes when I get really neurotic about it,

is that the legal system is psychedelics are with the novelty of technology.

It's just the opposite.

If we're coming into something that's a direction that's a wise policy,

and God knows we need to do that.

If we had formulated wise policy, for example,

I mean, we knew what the issues were.

We knew what the problems were going to be.

But we didn't deal with it.

And now we're in a heap of shit.

Am I allowed to say that?

Ah, heck yeah.

Why not?

You know, we're only talking to the whole world, Dennis, so.

But, you know, you know what I mean?

Tension, sort of, between the need to proceed cautiously with things like cloning.

For example, all these neurotechnologies, psychopharmacology, you know, and with respect to psychopharmacology, I would say, you know, it's not the illegal drugs that we need to be worried about.

It's the corporate drugs. And because those are the tools that the control society can use to essentially control what people can think, very much in the sort of Brave New World thing.

A gram is better than a dam. That was the motto. And so, you know, we need to wisely regulate these things.

But I think we've we've shown time and again that outright prohibition doesn't work. I mean, it certainly doesn't work with drugs.

Yeah. Well, Dennis, it seems like that the point that that I get from both of you in this first segment here is that there are both there are two sides to all of these things, whether it's technological or pharmacological.

There they can be used for great benefit, perhaps. In other words, maybe there's reason to be really excited about some of the stuff.

But at the same time, there's the there's the other polarity of it.

They can they can be used for great benefit or for great harm. And it depends on who's who's using them, you know, and for what purposes.

And given, you know, the current political climates and and what is going on, it's worrisome because, you know, if if you if you could have a belief in a, you know, compassionate, wise,

wise, you know, compassionate, wise leaders that could be trusted to use these things in a wise way, then we wouldn't worry.

But in fact, it's quite the opposite. You know, you can pretty much assume that, you know, that the uses to which these technologies are going to be put will probably not be for the greater good.

They'll probably be for the consolidation of of power in the in the hierarchies that already possess it.

This is the scary part. All right. You guys will look. That's a that's a chance to take a break.

OK, so we're going to play play a piece of music here. We'll come back.

And Richard, I want to talk a little bit more about we'll continue along the same line.

Maybe you can talk about some of the legal cases that you've run across that that are dealing with these exact issues.

Maybe some of the ones that we're doing well in. In other words, I'd like to talk about the UDV case at the Supreme Court.

To me, that was a stunner. And and and then maybe, you know, I don't know, just some successes and failures.

Maybe you can tell us a little bit about that when we come back. All right. I'd be happy to.

OK, great. All right, everybody. This is Mike. You're listening to Radio Orbit.

It's KOP in Columbia. And my guests are Dr. Dennis McKenna and Richard Glenn Boyer.

Information about them can be found on my Web site, www.mikehagan.com.

If you want to listen to this program live on the Web, you can do that, too, at www.cosmicwavesradio.com.

And it'll be simple. You'll see it right up on top there. OK.

All right. So another piece of music here from my new friends.

The band is called Ism. The CD is called Monkey Underneath.

And this is called Wake Up and Write It Down. We'll be back in just a few minutes.

What do you have to do? That's right. That's Ism.

Again, wake up, write it down.

If you want to find information about that band, they're at www.ismmusic.com.

All right. There you have it.

As I said, this is Mike. You're listening to Radio Orbit.

It's about 1145. Now, 1143 on Monday evening.

It's the 1st of May. It's May Day.

And we're live with Dr. Dennis McKenna and Richard Glenn Boyer from the Center for Cognitive Liberty and Ethics.

And, Richard, I'd like to ask you real quick, if you could just sort of give us an update,

like we talked about before the break, about some of the cases that you've run across.

And then everyone here was screaming at me at the break for me to shut my mouth

and to let them ask you guys some questions.

And so I think we're going to start doing that right after we hear that from you, okay?

What about the UDV case? Maybe we could start with that.

I thought that was an interesting one.

Well, that's one that is, you know, there was a victory in,

and that's in no small part due to Dennis' work and his colleagues at the Hefter Institute and elsewhere.

That's a case that involves – maybe Dennis should talk about what's involved in the church,

and then I can talk about the legal side of it.

That would be great.

Okay, well, the UDV, which is short for the União do Vegetal, I'm not sure I'm saying it right,

it's a Brazilian sect, I guess you could call it, about 10,000 members that uses ayahuasca,

which is the Amazonian hallucinogenic beverage that's very important basically throughout the Amazon basin.

But a few years ago, a few decades ago, I should say, there were several syncretic churches that were formed

in Brazil that use it in a very nontraditional way, in a shamanic, psychedelic.

They use it much more like a sacrament, similar to the way the Native American church uses the UDV

really since the early 70s, and then there's another daimae that's been around since the 30s.

And they use this thing as a sacrament.

Where do they get the leaves and the vines, Dennis?

Well, they grow very much in a sacramental way.

And then in 1993 or thereabouts, they incorporated a chapter in the United States called a church.

It's fine.

They were practicing religion.

And then in the summer of 1999, if I recall, they were at the DEA, and the sacrament was seized, about 50.

Correct me if I'm wrong on this, but I don't believe anyone was charged.

They just seized it, and they said, well, you know, you might be charged with a controlled substance.

The crux of that is that, of these plants...

Which happens to occur in all of our brains, by the way.

That's right.

And everywhere else, it's in thousands of plants.

Right.

Hundreds that we know of, and probably thousands more.

It was the UDV that actually sued the government under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, as it turned out,

and basically said, you know, you have no right to interfere.

And that started this legal proceeding that...

So that's the sort of...

Richard could tell you much better than I about it.

Please do, Richard.

It also just changes the underlying way that...

Right, not a lot of money involved in it for anyone.

I don't know if there's any money.

It's just to speak to anybody else.

They're harming themselves.

These guys are taking a drug that's very dangerous.

And I think it was, by and large, Dennis' work in this, which he has been doing for, I don't know how...

Three, four.

More like four.

Four decades on ayahuasca that people knew about this.

But B, there's political implications for him, as a scientist, to be working on something like...

Pushed on through and did this work.

There was actually some studies and evidence that there wasn't any clear evidence.

This was actually causing them any harm or actually doing them any good physically.

Maybe I could speak to that a little bit, Richard.

Yeah, I'm not taking credit on this, but we had a track record with the UDV because in 1993,

I was invited to a conference in Sao Paulo in 1991, to which we were invited.

They had a scientific agenda.

They were actually also had a political agenda because at the time, they were negotiating with

the Brazilian regulatory agencies, an agency called CONFIN, which is kind of a combination

of the DEA and the FDA.

They handle, in Brazil, both illegal drugs and the medicinal drugs.

And they were trying to convince CONFIN that it was okay, that it wasn't a health problem

or a drug abuse problem.

So they needed some outside investigators, preferably some Americans, to come in and do a biomedical

study.

So they were basically willing to throw the whole thing open to us and let us come in

and do whatever we wanted to do.

Do EEG, do blood samples, do psychological screening, psychiatric evaluations, and all this stuff.

So we did that and published that.

There's been a number of papers that have come out, but the bottom line was that there was no

evidence that the drug was harmful.

All of our subjects had been in the UDV at least 10 years, which means that they'd been

taking ayahuasca on average, or WASCA as they call it, on average once every two weeks.

We did psychological testing and we found they actually performed better than the control

group on tests for verbal recall and memory and cognitive functions and personality traits

and all this stuff.

No evidence of physical harm.

So there was, in a sense, it wasn't a clinical study, it was an observational study, but there

was this body of data that showed that it was probably in the context in which they used

it.

A lot of these people who had joined the UDV were pretty dysfunctional when they joined

alcoholism, drug abuse, all this kind of common in Brazilian society, I guess any society,

but turned everybody around.

I mean, they were so straight-laced, they didn't even use tobacco.

So they all felt very good for them to separate that variable from the context in which it's

used.

But anyway, that was, we were able to, or we, I was on the sidelines in this case.

I was an advisor behind the scenes, but we were able to sort of...

Dennis, was there any historical evidence brought forward?

In other words, the long-term use of these things via shamanism and those sort of traditions?

Well, I mean, that body of data is, but we didn't use that much in the case because we

had the data for the...

And the way they use it is so different than the shamanic use.

You know, it's almost like, I mean, they are the same drug, but the context of their use

is so different.

It's very much like the Native American church.

Okay.

All right.

Richard, really quickly, what's it mean?

What's the decision mean?

Oh, that's a good question.

It depends.

For people who use things, well, anybody who's not in the UDV, it means that...

Join the UDV.

Well, yeah, this is a narrow decision decided on its facts, and so it really protects those

people, and there's no way to...

Primarily because...

I wonder, though, Richard, something that I've wondered about now, the Santo Dime to come

along and say, we're a legitimate religion.

We've been around even longer than the UDV, and we have even more members in Brazil.

What they don't have in the States, there are a lot of Dime, you know, cults or a lot of

members of the Dime in the States, in different parts of the States, but they don't seem to

have quite the same order UDV does.

Yeah, well, I agree.

I think that they would be the next in line.

I mean, you know, there was the...

I agree that now the Santo Dime to the progression where the Court does, it's definition.

Wow.

Why the Religious Freedom Restoration Act was actually passed?

Exactly.

So the argument from somewhere I think is...

People shouldn't, from what you're saying is, found an ad hoc religion.

It's not going to get you anywhere if you, you know, suddenly find the first church of

methadrine or something.

That's exactly right.

It's a tough, it's a really a tough thing because the whole, there isn't, theoretically

under the principles of our laws, our freedom of religion isn't supposed to depend on whether

you're a member of a thousand-year-old religion and these people are entitled to their protections.

But in this area, when you bring up drugs and religion, it's a touchy, it's a really

touchy area, my theory is that it's partly because, and when you, when you look at the

way the laws are, the theory of the law, the law is about, it's an exoteric system in which

the truth is determined by going out and consulting a book.

You go out and read the codes, you read the Constitution.

That's identical in its methodology to the Bible.

That may be one thing that helped the UDP in this case because they are,

definitely, a highly structured, hierarchical, top-down organization.

They have a doctrine, they have books, they have a certain, you know, thing you have to

do to be a member in good standing.

You have to study the doctrine and if you want to advance in the organization, you have to

go through levels.

Just like any other, any formal religion.

I mean, they are a formal religion under every sense of the word.

The, the, I think that's what courts have done over the last, that fight against the

drug, not as a religion.

They'll say, this isn't a religion.

What this is, is your personal philosophy.

And so they, so I think the UDV, there wasn't any doubt.

Nobody could contest.

All right, you guys, look, let me do a quick ID here.

It's KOPN Columbia, 89.5 FM.

My name is Mike Hagan.

You're listening to Radio Orbit.

My guests are Dr. Dennis McKenna and Richard Glenn Boyer.

And you can find information about all of us on the web at www.mikehagan.com.

And let's continue.

You guys, we've got a whole bunch of people chomping at the bit here.

And I'm going to switch gears a little bit and bring in some of our guests in the studio

here.

Right now, we've got a young man whose name is Jesse.

And so, Jesse, I'm going to introduce you to Dr. Dennis and to Richard.

Ah, yes, yes.

And Dennis, thank you very, very much for, for gracing us with your presence.

Glad to be here.

Wherever here is.

It's everywhere.

It's everywhere tonight, Dennis.

Right.

So it is.

And I was recruited by Mike to ask some pertinent questions.

And earlier this evening, I was actually watching network TV.

I won't say which network.

But there's this constant parade of ads from pharmaceutical companies, one after the other,

trying to sell you on drugs to treat anything, from chronic constipation to acid reflux to

PMS, anything.

To man problems.

Treating the symptoms and not the root of the problem itself.

Now, maybe you guys can clarify this.

I have heard, and I'm sorry I haven't done more research on this topic, but ayahuasca

has, correct me if I'm wrong, been used quite successfully and adopted by, I believe, the

Venezuelan government and a couple other places to treat chronic alcoholism and opium and heroin

addiction with quite a huge success rate.

Well, yes and no.

I think it's Peru.

Peru.

There's not a lot of ayahuasca going on, but in Peru is sort of a hotbed of the shamanic

use.

And there are a couple of clinics in Peru that are using ayahuasca to treat alcoholism and

cocaine addiction and that sort of thing.

A place called Takewasi, run by a physician named Jacques Mabit, a French guy, is kind of at

the cutting edge of all that work.

I think.

You've got to go in there.

I think it's kind of a bit of a struggle.

I think it's a bit of a challenge.

And then there are some of the things I'm doing.

I think it's going to be the best to do.

So yeah, it's interesting.

And then there are some of the things that I've been talking about, there are some of the

things that I've been talking about.

That's going to be the best to do.

If you look at, you know, in our UDV study, if you look at these folks that we studied, these 15 men,

they all, we did structured psychiatric interviews with them,

and they all basically told the same story, which was that they were either alcoholics or drug addicts or both.

And when they joined the UDV, their initial experiences were quite terrifying, but they basically turned them around.

And they sort of saw where their lives were going, and they determined to change, and they did so successfully.

And what's lacking here, in a way, is that, you know, these are real-world situations.

We didn't do a clinical trial, and it wasn't a clinical trial, in the sense that clinical trials are done here.

For a long time, I've argued that we really need to do a clinical trial.

We need to, you know, jump through all these regulatory hoops.

Are there any concrete numbers on what the success rate is with this sort of therapy and this sort of treatment?

Not that I'm aware of.

I mean, that's the thing.

That's what's lacking.

There aren't concrete numbers.

There are no well-controlled trials.

And so what there is is rumor and anecdote and, you know, not to be dismissed.

I think that it probably is very good, you know, in the right context for doing that.

But what is lacking is any kind of, you know, definitive clinical study that mainstream medicine would accept.

And, you know, for a long time, I was advocating that we should do this, that, you know, we should try and get a clinical study going in the United States specifically to treat alcoholism because that seemed like the most obvious, you know, first application.

I've sort of come away from that notion, actually.

We talked about that last time you were on the air, didn't we?

Yeah, yeah.

Well, I mean, maybe it's partly a result of beating my head against the wall for five years and getting nowhere with the government.

In order to initiate a clinical trial in this country, you have to do what's with an experimental drug.

You have to file an IND, what's called an investigational new drug application, and you have to meet certain criteria.

Well, the fact that ayahuasca is, number one, a controlled substance, which they really don't like to...

Is it a Schedule I right now?

Well, DMT is.

DMT.

Is that analogous?

Is that for the N1?

DMT is in it.

That's the activity.

Oh, okay.

And the question of whether the plants are illegal because DMT is in one of the plants is up for grabs.

I maintain they're not.

They never have been, but I'm sure others would disagree with me.

You know, but we, you know, I mean, the thing is, it's a scheduled substance, and it's a botanical preparation.

And those are kind of the two things that the FDA really hates to deal with.

They don't like botanical drugs, and they certainly don't like botanical drugs containing controlled substances.

So the bar is really high to get an IND approved.

Both Dennis and Richard, this is relevant here.

There's a note that just came across on the chat room, and a gentleman says,

Richard Boyer, could you please comment on if we could bring a case against the U.S. government

about the molecule dimethyltryptamine in every human's brain?

In other words, you know, even the judges are carrying, you know?

Yeah, that's...

Fascinating idea.

That's something that I've kind of thought around the edges about and haven't focused too much on.

The way that the laws...

It's kind of a tricky thing, because right now there are laws of possession of certain drugs,

and there are also laws that outlaw the use of certain drugs,

and there are laws that outlaw being under the influence party.

Everybody is.

Everyone is.

Oh, my gosh.

How crazy is this world?

But there are little...

We apply to...

We couldn't get it, huh?

... drugs aren't just medicines, but only use, and if you can't...

Change, I think it is changing, probably the pharmaceutical industry...

They perceive the line between remediation or amelioration...

Why do they want to...

They're only cussed to diagnose with some illness, but in fact, if they can do...

The other 90%.

The other 90% of us, then, hey...

If there's a buck to be made, you can be sure that the law will be changed.

Of course.

I mean, it's already happened.

Yeah.

I mean, I think Viagra and these sorts of good examples...

I mean, you can't tell me that 40% of the male population of the country has erectile drugs.

So this is a lifestyle drug.

Wow.

I mean, it's purely and simply a lifestyle drug, and the pharmaceutical industry has become very

creative at...

Making up diseases.

Yes.

They will invent a drug, and then the syndrome that the drug treats is soon to follow.

And I think that pretext is only going to be one of the interesting...

I got that, I think, you guys.

It's...

What is it, 1215?

Oh, my God.

Oh, man.

Yeah.

So that's definitely applications for these things.

You know, they're very...

Or just look at SSRIs.

I mean, SSRIs originally were pretty much for depression.

Dennis, for the people who don't know what the acronym is.

The depressants, the so-called selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors.

Okay.

Originally, they were brought out to treat depression, but now they're being...

Obsessive-compulsive disorders, sometimes even smoking.

All right, you guys.

It is quarter after 12.

We're going to take another break.

We'll come back.

We've got a question from Bob.

We've got Kyle, but we'll go age before beauty.

And then...

But Mandy, who's the lovely young lady in here with us, if she's ready to talk, we'll bring

her in as well.

So anyway, Dennis and Richard, thanks, you guys.

Stick around.

We'll have some more music here that'll keep you awake, okay?

All right.

All right, you guys.

As I said, this is Mike.

You're listening to Radio Orbit.

It's KOP on Columbia.

We're streaming live at CosmicWavesRadio.com.

You can also check all of us out on the web at MikeHagan.com.

Dennis and Richard, all of their information can be accessed through my site.

And as well as this band that you're going to hear right now, they're called Ism.

And I like them.

I ran into them about a week and a half ago at the Blue Fugue.

And they sent me their CD.

And this is the title track from this new recording.

It's called Monkey Underneath.

And listen to this.

Great song.

Great stuff.

Great message.

And good stuff for this evening's conversation.

This is Mike.

You're listening to Radio Orbit.

Check out Ism on the web at ISMMusic.com.

And one more time for us at MikeHagan.com.

One more time.

That's Ism.

And this is Mike Hagan.

You're listening to Radio Orbit.

My guests are Richard Glenn Bohr and Dr. Dennis McKenna.

We're having an interesting conversation about drug laws and pharmacology and technology.

And let's get back to it here.

So, guys, first, thanks for sticking around with us.

Still hanging.

All right.

I know.

All right.

Dennis, you're no old geezer.

You told me you're an old geezer.

And you're no old geezer.

You'll be up all night, I think.

Older than you.

Well, you know.

Everyone else here is younger than me.

Actually, no.

We got people older than you here, too.

We got Bob who's going to talk next.

All right.

We're all talking age.

How old are you, Bob?

69.

Oh, hold on.

I should turn on your damn microphone.

All right.

There you go.

I'm almost 70.

Almost 70.

So, Bob Bolt.

Okay.

And you're still awake.

That's good.

Oh, yeah.

I'm revving.

Got the coffee going.

All right, Bob.

You got a question for Richard or Dennis?

Yeah.

Actually, this is a little more for Richard.

I'm curious as to how optimistic you are about our chance of actually affecting change socially,

politically, for cognitive liberty.

If so, where do we, you know, the people, where do we fit into this?

What kind of political activity?

Where do we direct our efforts or something?

Yeah.

In terms of activism.

That's a great question.

And actually, my thinking on it at any given moment, I think it's going to happen in the

next instant.

And then there's time of liberty.

And you can do.

Maybe that the change in this area, on one hand, I think it's going to come about gradually.

Something may bump this system.

You know, that's somebody figured out a way.

This is just a lot of these other drugs are somebody was...

I'm sure they are.

That idea, it's not a lot of these issues have things.

You know, we're talking in some sense about people's right to form alliances.

I would say that's my answer.

I mean, it's interesting while, you know, this whole, with the UTV and the Supreme Court,

at the same time, people are free to...

DMT is in all kinds of plants.

Beta carmelins are in all kinds of plants.

I mean, that technology, the idea of, you know, introducing the gene for, say, DMT into

a common grass, I mean, the common grass is already out there.

There's, you know, thousands of...

Potentially, there are hundreds of plants that contain DMT that we know about.

And that's only because people have bothered to look.

So, in fact, there are probably thousands.

And that's one of the ways that we can fight back, I think.

I mean, I think it's interesting, we can enlist the plants almost as allies in this fight for

cognitive liberty.

That's right, Dennis.

You know, we're free...

And it's almost like a slow kind of bioterrorism, you know, although I don't like the term

terrorism because we're not terrorizing anybody.

We're not killing anybody, unlike the dominator government.

But, you know, we can fight back that way.

We don't have to create huge infrastructures and cartels for manufacturing and distribution

of pharmaceutical drugs.

We can simply, over generations, you know, propagate plants, exchange plants, give them

to your friends, give seeds away, you know, transmit the knowledge of how to prepare these

things and how to use them in a, you know, in a good, life-affirming way.

And I think gradually you can reach out to hearts and minds and you can actually change

societies that way.

But it's a slow process.

You know, it works itself out over generations, not in a few years.

You know, Dennis, you said to me one time in an email when I was frustrated about a decision

that had been made in a court actually in England with regard to the psilocybin with

stroferiocubensis.

Right.

And you said, well, Mike, they've got all the media and they've got the guns and they've

got the power and the money, but we've got the plans.

We've got the plans.

And that makes all the difference.

He's damn right it does.

And so, all right, Bob, I think, has a follow-up here.

Just another thing that makes me very optimistic about it is the concept of the Internet, which

has given a whole power to sort of micro, you know, micro demographics, I guess you would

say it, where there's a real attempt now to control the Internet and to, you know.

They ain't controlling us, baby.

We're doing it right now.

But the way they did with broadcasting, you know, they really destroyed broadcasting in

many respects, I mean, like KOPN is a little island of, you know, of sanity in this whole

sea of commercialism.

But the Internet, I think it resists the temptation or it resists the power structure to desire

to control it.

Because as soon as they find some way to control it, people sort of evolve around it.

It's like a wonderful virus or something.

It's like a brain.

It's like a neural network.

Yeah, and what Dennis said about the, you know, developing these alternative networks

for distribution and for understanding and that sort of thing, this is kind of stuff

that can get slipping under the radar of the attempts to control it.

So that's a very optimistic thing.

I'm happy to have heard that.

Yeah, it is.

It's an optimistic view.

But it's also a view that calls for patience, I think.

You have to take the long term.

I mean, people have always had these alliances with plants.

That goes back as far as you care to look back, you know, and governments come and go, laws

come and go, civilizations rise and fall.

But people maintain their relationship with nature.

You know, the thing that worries me a little bit is that, you know, the entrenched power structures

have become so powerful and so destructive, we now actually have to worry about the destruction

of me.

If they get that going, well, we won't have to worry about much of anything.

All right, Dennis, thanks.

Okay, let's see.

Kyle over here in the corner, my friend Kyle.

Kyle Cook.

I'm just a curious.

Whoa, whoa, whoa.

Hold on.

I did it again.

I've got to turn the mic on there.

Hello.

All right, there we go.

This is Kyle and Dennis and Richard.

First of all, I'd like to thank you guys for being with us.

I'm only 21 years of age, so I'm kind of ill-informed compared to everyone else.

But, you know, you've got to start somewhere.

My first kind of unanswerable question is, you're talking about the dominating government,

and we have been a lot.

And I think we can agree that most of the people who make the decisions as far as what

we can and can't do are the same ones who agree that God created this entire earth that

we live on, our universe.

And my first question is, did God make a mistake putting all these things all over the planet

for us to find?

Okay.

And my second question is, how successful would the war on drugs be if we called it the war

on nature?

But kind of a real question for either one of you.

No more rhetorical questions.

I've got to bring it all down to earth for a second here, because these are the things

that come into my brain.

But anyways, as far as pharmaceutical companies and lobbyists go, how much money gets poured

into campaigns from these pharmaceutical companies, and how does that influence decisions

on what is legal and illegal?

And if that does influence to a greater degree, why is lobbying legal?

Richard.

You're welcome, Dennis.

Yeah.

No, I've had my say.

Weigh in on that one.

I don't know the numbers, but there's no question that what the numbers are.

Who knows?

Huge.

Yeah, there's no question about that.

That's why I think that if the so-called battle is framed and only framed as, that's a tough

fight.

Oh, man.

If, though, the pharmaceutical companies come to see some interests that are in parallel

with the plant people, then we've got, you know, a battering ram that's going to come

through the door.

But, you know, those are kind of questions where, like you said, when you spoke to them,

they can't really, I certainly can't answer them.

And the war on drugs is, as you mentioned, a war on nature, not just nature, but human nature.

Right.

Again, back to cognitive liberty, Richard.

And so this is what the government's been very successful about is, you know, when they

talk about the war on drugs, people don't question that rhetoric and instead lap it up

when, in fact, it's similar to saying that the war on censure, that banning books and

the attempt to suppress ideas in print, that was not a war on paper and ink.

And nobody would have fallen for that.

People would have said, bullshit, that's a war on trying to stop me from reading other

thoughts and getting different ideas that the government, for some reason, is afraid

of.

And I think it's the same thing with the so-called war on drugs.

That's a misnomer.

It's a complete red herring that gets people focused on these little pills and plants and

powders when what's really at stake here is what form of consciousness are you permitted

to have and who is going to say what's right and what's wrong and, in a way, kind of build

like a Berlin wall that's inside your mind and you cannot go to beyond it.

Right.

And I think that that's, you know, that's what we're, what is being faced here and getting

people, I think, to kind of back up or walk beyond the way that the government has framed

this and using, you know, millions of dollars.

They've been able to do this very successfully.

But I think that the Internet is a hope and in small ways this kind of knowledge of these

plants and what their potentials are and ways to use them has a remarkable staying power

and it's been.

passed from human to human over

over eon

and like Dennis says I think that

clearly in the long run

it has to

if it doesn't win then

it's darkness and doom

but you know how long

that will take is

kind of what the battle is about I think

I mean I think we can take heart

in fact

in the fact that the war on drugs

is a miserable

failure

you know as some wag said

the war on drugs

is over and drugs won

Dennis you know

one of the funniest things

that was responded about the last time you were

on the air with Stephen Buhner was

you made this amazing comment about how

essentially we are bags of drugs

we're just these enzymes

we're made of drugs

and as we've been talking about tonight

many of them exist in our own metabolism

etc etc that are considered

illegal for you know

for silly political reasons or whatever

but it's it becomes outrageous

right well I don't know

I mean I think it's part of the

disinformation

strategy

of the dominators

that they

sort of demonize

these completely

I mean it's absurd

to make a war on drugs

you're not making a war on drugs

wars are not waged

on drugs

any more than wars

are waged

against terror

you know

the whole concept

is absurd

there's no such thing

as a war on terror

terror is a tactic

you can't wipe it out

any more than you can

you know wipe out

the entire spectrum

of species

there's always a tendency

to set up the

to demonize

the

you know drugs

terror

whatever

wars

are made on people

and

the war on drugs

is largely a war

against

our own citizens

you know

the war on terror

a war

of terror

in a sense

I mean not the terrorists

I'm not defending terrorists

but terrorists

are people that

have a beef

for one reason or another

legitimate or not

and they choose

that tactic

because

the recourse is open

and I don't think

that the government's

really interested

in this solution

they're interested

in perpetuating

what some have called

the military

industrial complex

congressional

complex

yeah

you know

it's all about

entrenched power

wanting to preserve

sloganeering

and this

you know

this war on drugs

but again

it's this use of language

that is so

manipulative

right

all right

look

it's called propaganda

that's right

it's propaganda

it's an old

it's an old story

all right

look

here's one

from the web

you guys

Richard

please ask Richard

about the current

state of subliminal

mind control

being used

in various media

i.e. motion pictures

music

commercial advertising

etc

I am sure

after all these years

it has now been

made a science

well I've looked

into that

a little bit

there was

something back

I think it was

there was an actual

attempt to use

subliminal advertising

to sway

a presidential election

and there's evidence

to this

I think it was in

2000 election

when the republicans

ran

that

at one point

it flashed

the word democrat

or rat

or something

yeah

the word rats

clearly in there

in a subliminal

time

frame

the republicans

tried to say

that that was

it's hard to believe

that advertising

I think

I don't know

a whole lot

about

there is a whole

field now

that's going on

called neuromarketing

where universities

in fact

are allocating

some of

imaging technology

examine the way

that

this actually

in the last

presidential election

stuff

and it's

one of those

areas where

I don't like

to talk about

it too much

without having

plenty of time

to put in

little nuances

because you can

sound like

a complete

kook

if you

talk about

some of

these things

but it's

neuroimaging

technology

is a good

example of

here you've

got a

technology

that's built

to be

put by

people

they make

a decision

and then

they follow

that decision

up with

behavior

it has

the potential

to be

put to

an ethical

compass

here

the fact

that we're

talking about

it is good

Richard you

remind me

of this

there's a

woman

whose name

is Juliet

Shore

and she's

a professor

at either

Boston College

or University

of Boston

or something

anyway

but she's

written a

book

that's called

Born to

Buy

The Commercialization

of Children

and it's

amazing

and I have

a two and a

half year old

son so I'm

sort of interested

in this stuff

and I was

blown away

this is a

woman who

came out of

sort of

an insider

position

from

a large

corporation

as a

marketing

executive

and my

god

what she

reports

I tell you

what

if you have

children

it'll make

you shake

like Dennis

says there's

one technology

that I think

is incredible

and exciting

and nothing

but cool

in the abstract

and that's

hypersonic

sound

it's a

way of

transmitting

sound

which is

kind of

like an

audio

laser beam

in a way

but really

really tight

so that

you can

stand

three feet

outside of

this beam

and you

hear nothing

but you

walk into

and it's

high fidelity

very clear

in your head

music

or whatever

it is

what companies

are doing

now

I'm told

that in

toking

popping

open

and glug

glug

and

it's just

in this

zone

or something

in front

of the

machine

yeah

exactly

right

it's only

in like

about

the

three feet

in front

of this

machine

but there's

warning sign

it comes

right into

your head

and it's

been you

project

something

target

somebody

who's

in the

middle

of the

crowd

and tell

them

you know

these

would

and

there's

also

security

which is

being able

to have

the autonomy

over

with the

drug

as long

I mean

the key

thing is

as long

as it

doesn't

hurt

anyone

else

you

should

allowed

that

but

you

know

I've

often

wondered

I'm

beginning

wonder

you know

maybe

Richard

myself

people

outmoded

ideas

and

a hundred

years

from

that

dinosaur

completely

wired

total

telepathic

communication

at all

times

and

the

notion

idea

that will

swept

away

I have

no doubt

that's

going to be

the case

and I think

about that

all the

time

the reason

still

listen

to the

constitution

and so

if I'm

constitutionalist

and

look

you guys

it is

about

13 minutes

before

one o'clock

so here's

the question

you're

going to

bail out

at the

top of

the hour

then I

won't

take a

break

here

and

we'll

talk

for

minutes

you'd

stick

around

even

for

few

minutes

maybe

until

quarter

after

we'll

take

break

here

and

then

we can

come

back

and

let's

see

this is

number

eight

this is

a song

that is

called

no more

fitting

I think

no more

this is

ism

and

you can

find out

information

from them

as well

Dr.

Dennis

and

Richard

Glenn

Boyer

on my

website

www.mikehagen.com

back in just

a minute

with them

and more

of your

questions

this is

Mike Hagen

you're

listening to

Radio

Orbit

guests

are

Dr.

Dennis

McKenna

and

Richard

Glenn

Boyer

and

they've

been

generous

enough

with their

time

to spend

going on

two hours

here with

so we're

going to

get right

back

here

to them

and

we have

another

question

from

Bob

who's

the

studio

with

here

and

I've

got

couple

the

web

well

Bob

what

you

have

for

the

it's

kind

we're

talking

about

two

different