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0:29

today. Hello,

0:33

everyone. My name is Jamie Lang, and

0:35

this is Great Company. Well,

0:41

hello there, dear friend. Hi there. How are

0:43

you? I'm well yourself. Yeah,

0:46

I feel good. Do you?

0:48

Feel I feel feel really, I

0:51

feel good. Why do you feel so

0:53

good? I don't know. I just feel good. Good time of year. May.

0:56

Summer is coming. May is the greatest time

0:58

of year because my dad's birthday's in May.

1:01

That's a weird reasoning why it's the best time of year.

1:03

Don't know why I like it. I like my dad's birthday being in

1:05

May. I just think May is, May was that time at school when

1:08

it was like you could see the end. But it's

1:10

exams. Yeah, but it was

1:13

fun. It was summer. Do you know what? It's bank holiday.

1:15

There's been about 400 bank

1:18

holidays. Still not enough. Do you really think

1:20

so? It's been so many. I mean, you

1:22

need another Jubilee, a royal death.

1:24

Dare I say it? I

1:27

didn't say that. Also, I feel

1:30

like this is the time when we're recording this because people

1:32

could be listening to it. Another times is

1:34

that it's a time when we start thinking about festivals and

1:36

going out and people are drinking maybe a bit more. They're

1:38

having a bit more fun. They're having some nights out, all

1:40

those kind of things. And that's why

1:43

this episode of day is a perfect

1:45

little drop. That is a lovely segue. But first

1:47

of all, what's your name? Hello, everyone.

1:50

If you don't know me already, my name

1:52

is Jamie Lang and I'm host of

1:55

this podcast. And you are the producer,

1:57

your Jemima. You do all of

1:59

the magic. that no one really sees. But

2:02

they do hear it. But they do hear it. Well, they do kind

2:04

of see it and hear it. You are,

2:06

we are the, what are you?

2:09

You're the... We're the dream

2:11

team. We're the dream team. You're the

2:13

fruit bowl to the fruit. You're the fruit?

2:16

I'd probably be the fruit. And the guest is the sauce?

2:19

No, that doesn't really work. That's a horrible analogy.

2:21

Yeah, that's not a good one. Should we just

2:24

talk about our guest? Well, I'm trying to think

2:26

of analogy. You

2:28

are the nail

2:31

in the wood. What are you? The

2:33

wood. What's the hammer? The guest? What's

2:36

the guest? I don't know. I think... Why

2:39

don't we just stop that? Okay, let's just...

2:42

Let's talk about our guest. Our guest

2:44

is so exciting. Today's

2:46

guest is Dr.

2:49

Rayan Zaffar. He's

2:51

the first person to have a PhD

2:53

in psychedelics in the UK. I'm so

2:55

excited. I mean, look, whether

2:58

or not you believe in psychedelics or

3:01

believe in that drugs

3:04

are bad or good, then there's lots of arguments for

3:06

both sides in lots of different ways. It's

3:08

a very interesting topic, especially at this time. Look,

3:11

taking drugs recreationally is not a good

3:13

idea. Oh, it's illegal. It's firstly illegal.

3:17

But secondly, for lots of reasons, it's a terrible idea. And

3:20

I think before we start this episode,

3:22

I want to really make that clear,

3:25

that my personal belief is

3:27

that drug taking on

3:30

a recreational level is dangerous, lots

3:32

of different things. However, Dr.

3:34

Rayan has a PhD in this, and

3:37

I imagine we're going to talk a lot about how

3:40

prescription drugs may

3:43

help your physical health maybe, maybe your mental

3:45

health, and lots of different things. And

3:47

when we talk of psychedelics, we talk of

3:49

mushrooms, and we talk of acid, LSD, those

3:51

type of things. But also,

3:54

I'm going to ask questions about

3:56

cocaine, about MDMA, about ketamine, which

3:58

ketamine is now used for... prescription

4:00

to help with

4:02

depression. Yeah so it's really important to

4:05

note that this conversation is all about, well

4:07

what we're going to be asking Dr. Rayan

4:09

is about medical use

4:12

of psychedelics so prescribed by

4:14

a doctor and I

4:16

think by the sounds from my production

4:18

call it's no longer a

4:20

fringe science it is something that we will probably

4:22

see in our lifetimes where these

4:25

psychedelic drugs will be prescribed by doctors and

4:27

it's called divergence when something

4:30

is prescribed only by

4:32

doctors it's not legal like being

4:35

legal in hospitals does not mean

4:37

legal recreationally. Wow. It has

4:39

a massive cultural impact

4:42

becoming something that is legally accepted

4:45

by a doctor and

4:47

medicine. There's a belief that

4:50

MDMA used for prescription is going to be

4:52

made legal. Yeah so

4:54

in Australia it already is

4:56

legal and in

4:59

the next year probably legal in the

5:01

States and he

5:03

I mean we'll find out but on my call

5:05

he was saying could be as soon as

5:07

two years in the NHS prescribed by the

5:09

NHS. Wow and I just want to find out how

5:12

bad alcohol is for us. I am beyond excited to

5:14

be chatting about this. Really eye-opening of

5:16

all the production calls I've ever done this

5:19

was the one which like actually

5:21

blew my mind so I can't wait

5:23

for your mind to be blown. Okay well listen

5:25

this beginning then so before we begin also if

5:28

you haven't followed or subscribe to the show we

5:30

would absolutely love it if you could do it

5:32

does so many things for us so thank you

5:34

so much and thank you for coming

5:36

back and sharing this episode as well we

5:39

really really appreciate it because we just love

5:41

doing it don't we? We really do. Okay

5:43

here we go please enjoy the episode with

5:45

a great company with Dr. Rayan Safar. that

6:00

these are the most promising innovation

6:02

in mental health ever in the

6:04

history of civilization. Hi,

6:07

I'm Dr. Ayn Zafar and I'm a great company.

6:11

Rian, firstly, I am

6:14

beyond excited for this.

6:17

I am so excited and all

6:19

the team is in here because everyone is

6:22

so excited because it's one of these conversations

6:24

that for some

6:26

reason when we talk about drugs and

6:29

we talk about psychedelics and different things,

6:32

it's always done under hush tone

6:34

for some reason. And

6:37

so to have this conversation with you,

6:39

I feel very excited. Can you explain

6:41

to the listener who you are and

6:43

exactly what you do? Yeah,

6:46

so I'm Rian Zafar, I

6:48

guess. I'm a doctor

6:50

of a very niche area,

6:52

psychedelic scientist and

6:55

neuropsychopharmacologist. So I basically

6:57

spent four years working

6:59

with the ex-government's chief

7:01

drug advisor, exploring

7:04

the impact of drugs, psychedelics on the

7:06

brain and how they can be used

7:08

to help individuals with really severe mental

7:11

health conditions like depression, addiction.

7:13

And a lot of my research really focuses on

7:16

kind of basically reframing the

7:18

narrative around psychedelics and other drugs

7:20

and how they actually can be

7:23

used beneficially, clinically in

7:25

order to really help individuals

7:27

to overcome their problems. And

7:30

four years ago, five years ago when I

7:32

started, it was very much like a fringe

7:34

science. It was an area that

7:37

even in the scientific world, medical world, people just say,

7:39

oh, what are these weird hippie scientists

7:41

doing in the corner? But in

7:44

the last two to three years, it's become

7:46

part of the mainstream. And I guess maybe

7:48

that's why we're here today talking

7:50

about it. So it's been quite

7:52

a journey for me to kind of go

7:54

through the science and do my research and

7:56

continue to do that. And then now, more

7:59

on that. and I'm speaking about it to the

8:01

public and it's been,

8:03

yeah, it's been quite the trip. I

8:07

like that. I like that. I mean,

8:09

okay, I have

8:11

so many questions and you've got four days,

8:14

right? We can just sit here for a

8:16

minute because that's literally, I honestly have so

8:18

many questions. Why did you decide to study

8:20

this out of

8:22

everything? Why this? Yeah, so

8:25

to be honest, I've actually never spoken about

8:27

this on a public platform very

8:29

openly, but the kind

8:32

of initial motivation was really personal

8:34

for me. So when

8:36

I was, when I was 11, I was

8:38

like moving to a secondary school, like out

8:40

of area from where I was kind of

8:42

brought up. And in

8:44

that move, I kind of really didn't feel

8:47

like I was part of the school, felt

8:49

quite lonely. And I developed quite

8:51

a lot of mental health related problems

8:53

in that time. Like I actually, like

8:55

sadly ended up having an eating disorder

8:57

as a result, the kind of cope with that, that stress.

9:00

And that was sort of when I was 12. So I

9:02

was really young. I was like

9:04

super confused about what was going

9:07

on with me, why I was behaving

9:09

and acting this way. And it

9:12

got to a point where I had to be taken

9:14

out of school and had like quite intensive treatment in

9:17

like this inpatient psychiatric ward. And

9:20

that wasn't really my first understanding of mental

9:22

health psychiatry. And

9:24

like, essentially like my

9:27

brain, like doing things that I

9:29

necessarily didn't want, but I couldn't really

9:31

stop. I was

9:34

lucky enough to be able to, you know, be treated and

9:36

come out of it. And that

9:39

kind of like pivotal moment made

9:41

me realize that I want

9:43

to kind of dedicate my life to

9:45

the field of mental health in

9:47

some way kind of contributing and

9:50

giving back for, you

9:52

know, the other people that might not be so fortunate

9:54

to recover. Yeah. So sort of pivoted

9:56

towards really looking into the brain and

9:58

the mind and. My actual

10:00

boss today, Professor David Nutt, who's kind of

10:03

a luminary in this field, he came

10:05

to my school when we were 16 and

10:07

he showed the first scans of

10:09

LSD on the brain and

10:12

I was in the assembly like what

10:14

a life have you seen this? Well my friend's like

10:16

yeah that's cool, I was like this is the next

10:18

level. Firstly,

10:20

thank you for sharing that because I think eating

10:24

disorders are very

10:27

tricky to talk about especially coming from

10:30

men, I think.

10:32

Yeah, there's not many. It's really

10:34

hard and I remember when I

10:36

was 18 years old, I

10:38

think I've said this before, but

10:41

I was about 18 years old, I was 18 years

10:43

old and I damaged my knee playing rugby and

10:46

I damaged my ACL ligament and my

10:48

whole blueprint was I wanted to be

10:50

a rugby player and that was

10:53

taken away from me in this freak rugby accident

10:55

so I couldn't play again and

10:58

I turned to drinking and so

11:00

I started to suppress whatever I

11:02

was feeling with alcohol and maybe

11:05

perhaps I was sort of maybe binge eating without

11:07

realising I just didn't understand much like you when

11:09

you were young you didn't understand your brain and

11:12

I remember my mum said to me you look quite

11:14

stocky at the moment and I went I like stocky

11:16

anyway I was on holiday and we

11:18

had those disposable cameras. A

11:20

photo was taken me, we got them developed and

11:22

I got the photos, I remember looking at the

11:24

photos and suddenly seeing a picture of me topless

11:26

on the beach and feeling immediate shame and

11:29

it was so strange and something took over my brain

11:31

and I had a sort of issue for a year I

11:34

would say with food and like

11:37

you, I still didn't understand why that happened

11:40

and this sense of control

11:42

came all over this sense of

11:44

food so I really understand. Yeah,

11:46

it's like it's really weird when you're

11:48

in that position and you've

11:52

got these like thoughts that are just

11:54

coming up to your conscious

11:56

self and you can't really control them you

12:00

feel awful and they make you act on things

12:02

and you're there and you kind

12:04

of know, I mean, even maybe if you

12:06

were a bit stalker, you probably weren't that

12:08

big. But like your brain just changes the

12:10

way that you perceive yourself and

12:12

plays tricks on itself. And it's, yeah,

12:15

it's so destabilizing. It's completely when you

12:17

were sitting in that class at 16

12:19

years old, and you saw the

12:22

professor put on the screen what LSD

12:24

does to the brain. What

12:26

did you see? What did it tell you?

12:29

What does it make you realize in

12:31

that class? So at that

12:33

time in 2016, we didn't and nobody knew about the potential

12:38

effects of psychosomental health that hadn't been

12:40

proven yet. So this was the first

12:43

study in this lab that David

12:45

Nutts set up. And basically what they

12:47

found, nobody had really understood what LSD did in

12:49

the brain. And they

12:51

essentially found that instead of kind

12:53

of turning the brain on, that

12:55

you'd imagine with all these hallucinations,

12:57

it actually turned the control center

13:00

of the brain off. So

13:02

the part of your brain, which kind of

13:04

controls your identity, like use Jamie, me as

13:06

Rayyan, like I was kind

13:08

of sitting in this room or daily

13:10

thoughts, our feelings, it turned the volume

13:13

down on that part of the brain.

13:15

And that was really interesting. But

13:18

that part of the brain that it

13:20

turned down, we later

13:22

found out was hyperactive

13:24

in mental health disorders,

13:26

like depression and addiction.

13:28

So essentially turned off the

13:31

kind of locus of the brain involved with

13:33

mental health disorders. And that

13:35

first study is the one

13:38

that then catalyzed the

13:40

research that we can talk about in a bit.

13:42

So it was really pivotal moment for

13:44

science and for mental health, LSD

13:46

brain imaging study. So

13:49

let me understand this. So LSD turns

13:51

off that sort of loud part of

13:53

your brain. Yeah. That is making

13:56

you have those cravings towards

14:00

whatever it is, maybe it's an addiction to a scamming

14:02

album, all those good things. How does it do that?

14:04

How does it turn it off? Or why

14:06

does it turn it off? Well,

14:09

the why we don't really

14:12

know because LSD was found

14:14

sort of serendipitously by this

14:16

chemist. But what we know is

14:18

that it kind of works in the system, the

14:20

default modes network in the brain. It's what you

14:22

do, it's your brain at rest, it's your default

14:24

way of thinking. And

14:26

through the way that LSD and other psychedelic

14:29

drugs like magic mushrooms, they all work on

14:31

the same receptor in the brain on a

14:33

serotonin system which is related to mood. And

14:36

they kind of latch onto this receptor in the

14:38

brain. And this causes the

14:40

way that the brain networks kind of

14:43

function to change. So essentially

14:45

what it does, and we don't

14:47

know why, but it does do

14:50

this reliably across magic mushrooms, LSD,

14:52

DMT, what we call classic psychedelics,

14:54

is turning down the volume in

14:56

that kind of default mode area.

14:58

And through turning down that part of the

15:00

brain, which is your kind

15:03

of control center, it allows

15:05

parts of the brain that don't usually speak

15:07

to each other to begin to talk. And

15:09

you see this increasing connection across

15:11

the brain. So that might

15:14

be able to explain why people have kind of a

15:16

loss of ego. So you kind of lose

15:18

yourself because your control centers are off,

15:20

so you kind of drop out. And

15:23

then the increasing connectivity between all

15:25

these different parts of the brain,

15:27

we think might facilitate new ways

15:30

of thinking and new

15:32

ways of rationalizing perhaps your mental

15:34

health, why you might

15:36

be feeling sad. It kind of

15:38

disrupts those negative thought cycles that

15:40

might be underlying depression or addiction

15:43

or eating disorders. And it

15:45

allows you to really kind of step out of

15:47

your mental health issue for

15:49

six hours, and then really begin

15:51

to think of new ways to

15:53

frame your thinking and your behavior.

15:57

That's insanely exciting because... Because

16:00

I have definitely had, and I've been open,

16:02

I've had real bouts of anxiety in the

16:05

past, right? Where, because of the heightened anxiety

16:07

that I had due to lots of different

16:09

things, I had low mood

16:12

and just wasn't feeling great. And all

16:14

you want are those moments of

16:16

relief. You just

16:18

want them, right? Because you want to set, because

16:20

all you're doing in those moments, and people listening

16:22

to this right now, who are struggling and going

16:25

through whatever they're going through, every

16:27

part of their living day is focused on

16:29

the negative feeling the whole time. And you

16:31

can't escape it. Yeah, it's so ruminative. Like,

16:33

whole lot of cycles round and round. And

16:36

so you're saying that these

16:38

psychedelics give you that moment

16:41

of escape. Yeah, they disrupt those pathways

16:43

and allow you, allow your

16:45

mind to kind of bubble up. You're unconscious,

16:48

you trauma, it allows everything to be released.

16:51

And then in that time, you can

16:53

then work with it internally and with

16:55

support. A difference between psychedelics

16:57

is they act on those systems within about 20

16:59

minutes within the brain. Drugs

17:02

like antidepressants take about two

17:04

to six weeks to kind

17:06

of disrupt those thought patterns.

17:09

So not only is this,

17:11

but we think these are the most rapid acting

17:14

antidepressants we've ever known. Yeah,

17:16

it is. Are you serious? Yeah,

17:18

I'm, yeah, this

17:20

is like really scientifically-backed. There's

17:23

no other drug in psychiatry

17:25

with therapy that's able to

17:27

rapidly disrupt these negative thought

17:30

cycles and reduce depression scores.

17:32

So we did the

17:34

first study of magic mushroom therapy and

17:36

depression. 20 patients with

17:38

treatment-resistant depression, which means they didn't

17:40

respond to two or more antidepressants.

17:42

So really, really ill. They

17:46

were given two medium

17:48

to high doses of psychedelic-assisted

17:50

therapy, which is what

17:53

does so can understand that as well? Yeah, yeah. So

17:56

the way that it works with the psychedelic-assisted therapy is

17:58

there's a lot of research on these three

18:00

stages. You have stage one

18:02

which is preparation and

18:04

that involves a therapist or a guide,

18:06

a trained clinician, sits down with the

18:09

patient before they take the

18:11

kind of the medicine day and

18:13

you talk through what they're going to

18:15

experience, you set intentions, you

18:17

work through kind of maybe some causes

18:19

they may think have been involved in

18:21

their depression addiction, whatever mental health condition.

18:24

You then have phase two which is

18:26

the medicine day and

18:28

in that day they come to the

18:30

hospital at Amersmith Hospital where we do our

18:32

dosing and they're given

18:34

a large dose of

18:37

psilocybin in capsules and they line

18:39

the bed in this nice room

18:41

with plants and they're given headphones

18:44

with music and eye mask and two therapists

18:46

by their side and

18:48

then they have this five to six hour

18:50

journey where they're tripping and

18:52

they're supported if they get a

18:54

challenging experience, therapist there on hand

18:58

and then the following day is

19:00

phase three and following on from

19:02

that it's integration. It's about making

19:05

stories and narratives from the trip

19:08

that might make you understand better

19:10

yourself and might help you to

19:12

better understand why you were ill and

19:15

might also give you new coping mechanisms

19:17

for the future to stay well. So

19:20

it's about using those hallucinations and visualisations

19:22

and building it into a framework to

19:24

take you forward in your life so

19:27

that you can stay well.

19:30

So you had these 20 patients with

19:33

resisted depression which means as

19:35

you said that nothing

19:37

was helping them. Nothing works.

19:39

They had tried antidepressants, they tried

19:42

antidepressants, talking therapies so they failed

19:44

on two to three conventional therapies

19:47

and at this point they had no

19:49

hope. I mean most of these individuals

19:51

can't leave the bed or the home.

19:53

They are really severely affected. In

19:56

fact actually in the world there's

19:58

about 100 million people who. don't

20:00

respond to antidepressants and have this

20:02

category. In fact, only

20:05

about 30% of people really do

20:07

respond to antidepressants. So there's a

20:10

large fraction of patients of depression

20:12

that aren't getting any

20:15

beneficial effect for treatments currently. So of

20:18

those 20, within

20:21

one week, 19 out of

20:23

20 of them run into

20:25

what we call remission. So that's

20:27

classified as no longer having depression

20:29

within one week. So 95% of

20:31

them were classified within one

20:33

week as having no depression after

20:35

two magic mushroom days. What?

20:42

Yeah. This was magic mushrooms.

20:45

The magic mushrooms, yeah. Psilocybin.

20:47

Is it like rewiring

20:49

your brain? Is that what happens?

20:51

Well, yes. So this concept

20:54

we're really excited about now. And

20:56

we're trying to understand like whether it can

20:58

cause these like long term rewiring changes and

21:00

we're beginning to see the kind of fruits

21:03

of that. So when I

21:05

said before, it kind of helps you to unlearn

21:07

bad habits or bad thoughts. After

21:10

the session, your brain kind

21:12

of opens up into a very hyperplastic

21:14

state. And it can be molded into

21:16

new pathways that are kind of

21:18

more adaptive and help you to be more resilient

21:20

and help you to get better And

21:23

that process is called neuroplasticity. It's

21:27

called flexibility. It allows you to

21:30

reframe. So the drug will just open up the brain

21:32

a little bit and then allow you to

21:34

kind of remold it into more better

21:36

ways of thinking and being. What

21:39

are your thoughts on antidepressants? Do you agree with them? I

21:42

think they're super important for

21:44

people. I'm

21:46

definitely not someone in medical research

21:48

that defies it

21:50

in face as psychedelics. I know many

21:53

patients who have and needed antidepressants

21:56

and it's helped them and

21:58

because the alternative I think. is

22:01

suicide. And that can't

22:03

be the option. You

22:06

have to be able to stop an individual and

22:08

even though it might not be able to 100%

22:10

get the cause, even if it's

22:13

just a band-aid maybe or a stopgap, that's

22:15

better, I think, than somebody doing

22:17

anything awful to themselves. So

22:20

I'm massively for it. Unfortunately,

22:22

I think the issue is some

22:24

of the side effects, a lot

22:26

of patients that we work with and

22:29

generally report this numbing of emotion.

22:31

And the other

22:35

thing is that also they're only

22:37

working about 35% of patients, depression, so

22:39

there's a lot of placebo

22:41

as well. Placebo,

22:44

yeah, placebo does

22:46

work better than placebo only

22:49

fractionally, but placebo is also

22:51

effective. There

22:58

is so much to break down and I want

23:00

to try delicately because there is still the stigma

23:03

against drugs. And we've got to get into

23:05

that for sure. So this is what I

23:07

really need to understand. So why

23:09

do we, and this

23:11

is, you said when you were 12 years old you were

23:14

going to understand, why do we get

23:17

depression? Why do we get anxiety? Why

23:19

do we get mental health? Why is

23:21

that happening to us? Why is this

23:23

plague like a lava through villages and

23:25

towns and cities across the

23:28

world? Why is it happening? Yeah. And

23:30

on the way here, I wanted

23:32

to just kind of read a stat about mental health diagnosis.

23:34

All of this I love. By

23:37

the age of 75, one

23:39

in two people will have a diagnosis of

23:41

a mental health condition in their lifetime. If

23:44

it gives a group of population, will it

23:46

want to have a diagnosis? Why?

23:50

So there are many

23:52

factors, but if

23:54

we think about it from the way that we develop, so

23:57

when we're babies, our brains are sort of...

24:00

the most pure in a way,

24:02

you know, we're entamed by our

24:04

environment, our society, things around

24:06

us. As we

24:09

go through development, our brains

24:11

become more responsive to our

24:13

environments. Often,

24:15

and unfortunately, some individuals

24:17

experience trauma when

24:19

they're younger. So that's one

24:22

way that when you're quite young, and your brain

24:24

is kind of figuring out the world, if

24:26

a traumatic experience happens, usually

24:29

that child remembers it,

24:31

and their brain pathways remember

24:33

that as a very scary

24:35

and frightful experience. And

24:37

the brain kind of holds on to

24:40

it as a way to cope on for

24:42

future survival, so that they

24:44

don't end up developing further issues. Now

24:47

that can be beneficial in the short

24:49

run. But after a

24:52

while, if those thoughts become ingrained in the

24:54

neural networks, as we get older, our brains

24:56

kind of become a little bit more clever,

24:58

they kind of only really hold on to

25:00

the pathways that are important for you know,

25:02

your survival. But if that

25:05

formative early life childhood trauma sets

25:07

into the brain, it's

25:09

almost cemented there. And

25:12

many patients with addiction with trauma with

25:15

eating disorders often report that they've had,

25:17

you know, early life crisis, and their

25:19

brains have essentially held on to that

25:21

trauma somewhat. And into

25:23

adulthood, because it's so kind of deeply

25:25

ingrained into their psyche, their thinking patterns,

25:27

as you mentioned, that have been very

25:30

negative about themselves have become so ingrained,

25:32

it's like kind of, you know, if

25:34

you, you know, when you do

25:36

something daily, you get really good at it, you

25:38

know, it's the same with also bad thought

25:40

patterns, negative thinking, the more if you're thinking

25:42

100 times a day that I'm a really

25:44

bad person, or you know, that I'm worthless,

25:46

you know, that thought pattern becomes almost automatic.

25:50

So the more that it's ingrained in

25:52

your system, the harder it is to

25:54

escape. And that's why mental health disorders

25:56

are so pervasive, and why they're so

25:58

hard to treat. Because a lot

26:00

of individuals suffer for a very

26:03

long time before getting treatment. They're

26:05

very ineffective treatments. So

26:07

that's kind of the brain models. So

26:09

you get kind of stuck neurologically, when

26:11

you look at child and adolescents, and

26:14

their brains actually, you see that they

26:16

have a shrinking of their brain, a

26:18

shrinking of the frontal part of the

26:20

brain. It's involved in logic

26:22

reasoning, it's involved in like cognition.

26:24

So you see these kind of

26:27

changes in brain structure directly related

26:29

to trauma. So the brains just

26:31

aren't as functional because of what's happened to

26:33

them. But beyond

26:35

that, the world we live in today

26:37

is pretty shit. Like

26:39

we have growing economic

26:42

crises, we have geopolitical

26:44

conflicts happening everywhere. There's a cost

26:46

of living crisis going on. The

26:49

impact of COVID, we actually saw a doubling

26:51

of the rate of depression within

26:53

the space of years. So 25% of

26:55

our children are clinically depressed at the

26:57

moment, like diagnostically, whereas 25%. Yeah,

27:00

whereas it was 11% before COVID. What?

27:02

Yes. One in four people. Yeah, one

27:04

in four people with a diagnosed depression.

27:07

And I think one in six people

27:09

are having some kind of therapy, talking

27:12

on medication. So we have this

27:14

mental health crisis, as a

27:16

result, I think, of the societies we live

27:18

in, of childhood traumas.

27:21

And the impact

27:23

that that has in the way that we

27:25

kind of hold on to it is really

27:27

within this brain system. So it's within the

27:30

way that the longer that we

27:32

leave mental health and treated, because we are

27:34

not very good at treating mental health for

27:36

the reasons I suggested, there's just not very

27:38

effective treatments. NHS can't

27:41

provide for it at the moment

27:43

because of spiraling costs means that

27:45

people are not only unwell, but

27:47

they're getting sicker. So every single

27:50

mental health ward across the

27:52

country, all the doctors and psychiatrists I work

27:54

with, and patients I see is that the

27:57

severity of patients coming in

27:59

is increasing. year on year. So

28:01

it's like fighting an uphill battle between

28:03

people in the UK and it's all

28:06

over the world. When

28:08

you say a diagnosis, what do you mean by that? Yeah.

28:12

So, I... Diagnosis

28:14

is a tricky one because what

28:17

psychiatrists and clinicians talk about

28:19

is like a category like

28:21

this person fits this checklist

28:24

and they're depressed or this person fits

28:26

this checklist, they've got anxiety. The

28:28

reality is that those diagnostic

28:30

criteria were kind of made

28:32

a very long time ago and not

28:34

with really much... I don't think they

28:37

really fit the average person. I

28:39

mean, anyone that I speak to

28:41

and anyone that has had mental health problems knows

28:43

that, you know, they don't just have like depression,

28:45

they might have anxiety, they might have some other

28:47

issues. And so, diagnoses

28:49

are helpful because they help individuals to

28:52

come into the mental health care system

28:54

and get treated. So that's the value

28:56

of it. But what it does is

28:58

it starts categorizing people and

29:00

by categorizing them, you kind of take

29:02

away the ability to treat them well

29:05

because there's so many subtypes that we

29:07

know now of depression, of addiction, like

29:09

not one person's experience of mental health

29:11

is the same and that's because we

29:13

all have unique brains. And

29:16

actually going back to how mental health arises, if

29:19

you have these traumatic experiences, your brain puts

29:21

more energy into remembering how to stay

29:23

safe and therefore holds on to the

29:25

depression as like maybe perhaps coping mechanism

29:28

and then you pay attention to less

29:30

in your environment. That's why a lot

29:32

of people with depression and all these

29:35

other illnesses say that

29:37

they feel very closed off from society, they just,

29:39

you know, nothing sparks them.

29:41

They just end up the whole time. But

29:44

you talk about this one and two by the

29:46

time I was 75, right? You know, and that's

29:49

my thing is this is that not

29:51

every, you're talking about trauma and this is

29:53

just, again, I'm being your people here, we're

29:55

talking about trauma, but not everyone is going

29:57

through the same trauma or, or, or, heightened

30:00

trauma. Maybe people aren't going through trauma, but one in two,

30:02

50%. That feels like

30:04

a huge amount. So there's got to

30:06

be something else going on. Yeah. So

30:09

not everyone experiences trauma either, but what

30:11

everyone does experience is stress, is

30:14

grief, is loss of a partner, financial

30:17

difficulties, you

30:19

know, problems with friendships.

30:22

There's loads of lifestyle things that

30:25

happen to individuals that

30:27

can trigger mental health

30:29

conditions as well. So the people

30:33

that have trauma, that's a certain kind

30:35

of category of patients that

30:37

have these mental health disorders. The

30:39

others is the kind of wider

30:41

population and we're

30:44

a product of our own society

30:46

and the interaction that humans

30:49

have with other humans is not always

30:51

controlled. And therefore the impact

30:53

that other humans have in your life can

30:55

either be beneficial or negative. And actually the

30:58

diagnostic category for any mental health disorder is

31:00

persistent low mood for depression from

31:02

two or more weeks. So you

31:04

can imagine, you know, there's lots of, I've

31:07

been upset for more than two weeks at times in

31:09

my life and not felt well.

31:11

So yeah, there's a lot of variability

31:14

and there's a lot of stress that we're

31:16

living in, in these times. So I think

31:19

that's probably also contributing to that one in

31:21

two figure. But if you're in

31:23

that situation and you know, having done

31:25

or doing your PhD and

31:27

you understanding this area and being very involved

31:29

in mental health, have

31:31

you yourself sort of practice what you preach? Have

31:33

you tried psychedelics? Have you

31:35

gone down that road yourself to see the

31:38

effects that it has on you? Yeah.

31:42

So in certain areas

31:44

of the world, psychedelic use is

31:46

legal. So about two years

31:48

ago, I was in Central

31:50

America. I actually went there

31:52

to do field research. So a lot of the work

31:54

that we do in our lab is

31:56

very clinical and hospital based, but Masertech

31:59

tried. have been using

32:01

psychedelic medicine for thousands of years.

32:03

They've shepherded these medicine spiritual practices

32:05

and medicinal practices. And I wanted

32:07

to go into the jungle and

32:10

really understand the ceremony, the

32:13

reasons why it worked and how it

32:15

worked. So I sat with some shamans

32:17

and curanderas in the jungle

32:20

and then I did a magic mushroom ceremony with

32:22

them. And it was kind of a

32:24

time in my life and my PhD where I was

32:27

super stressed out. I had so much work to do.

32:30

I can't say I've ever been that calm

32:33

after that experience for at least like a year. Even

32:35

to this day, it was two years ago. It just

32:38

completely like got rid of that stress. And also

32:40

the stress from after my granddad passed away was

32:42

still a bit lingering. And I

32:45

don't, I don't like I had this anxiety. I

32:47

just don't have anxiety anymore, which is I

32:50

find so interesting. There was

32:52

just this like feeling of peace,

32:55

like complete peace. I felt it in

32:57

my body cerebrally.

33:00

And then I was like, like, I

33:02

finally like, I'm here, I

33:05

found peace. And that kind

33:07

of powerfully I can still feel it and remember

33:09

it. And so whenever I'm, you know, really stressed

33:11

or like, you know, there's a lot going on,

33:13

I kind of just think back to

33:15

like how I felt in that moment, how my body felt

33:17

and do a bit of meditation. And it really takes me

33:19

back to that grounding that

33:22

psychedelic experience offered me. And

33:25

so yeah, I mean, it's been it's been impactful

33:27

for me for sure, on a personal level. The

33:29

thing with that, though, is very spiritual, and you're

33:31

a scientist. Yeah. So how do you explain that?

33:35

Interesting. So

33:37

I didn't think science

33:39

and spirituality are actually

33:41

that far apart. If

33:44

you'd asked like philosophers, like Hippocrates,

33:46

he's like the father of medicine.

33:49

He was very much aligned with the philosophers

33:51

and the spiritualists at the time. And I

33:53

think when you are a scientist of the

33:55

brain and the mind, you

33:58

kind of have a responsibility to be open. So

34:00

science is not necessarily about

34:03

finding an answer, it's just

34:05

asking more questions. In

34:07

the same way spirituality is

34:10

about seeking for the eternal truth,

34:12

but individuals that are

34:14

spiritual, it's not about arriving at

34:16

destination, it's a practice. So

34:19

in the same way that I'm kind of like on

34:21

this practice of learning knowledge and trying to expand my

34:24

ability to be open and aware, I think

34:26

people that are spiritual also do that. When

34:30

I first started science, I was completely,

34:32

I was an atheist, I

34:35

didn't believe in spirituality

34:38

at all, I was very closed

34:40

off. And the more I learn

34:42

about science, the less I'm

34:44

sure of in a way. That seems

34:46

like a complete contradiction because everyone leans

34:49

when they go towards spirituality, they always

34:51

go, well, science doesn't back it up,

34:53

so therefore I don't believe that. But

34:55

you were saying there's opposite in this

34:57

sense. Yeah, so to me, science is

34:59

really just more about when I find,

35:01

say for example, let's take some patients

35:03

of mine that I'm going to be doing

35:05

a study with society for gambling addiction in

35:08

the next year, and that's

35:10

never been done before. And

35:12

I spent four years trying to find some kind

35:14

of parts of the brain that might be involved

35:16

with gambling addiction, and I was very much aware,

35:19

and we found parts that were dysfunctional.

35:22

So as soon as I found that, I was like,

35:24

okay, next question, okay, can this specific drug work

35:27

in this part of the brain to help make

35:29

people feel better? So that's what my next bit

35:31

of research will be. And once I

35:33

find the results of that, there's going to

35:36

be 10 more questions that open up. And

35:38

like, as results come in, you kind of

35:40

change your theories about the world

35:42

and the mind and the brain. So it's, yeah,

35:44

I think the public perception of science is that,

35:46

you know, we know it all. Actually,

35:49

we're all on this journey to

35:51

find out. If

35:55

I was going to talk to my mum, right, who is much

35:57

older, I would she would hate me to say her name.

35:59

age, which she is older, she

36:03

would say to

36:05

me, her version would be like, well,

36:08

the reason why addiction is happening, all these

36:10

things, because the accessibility to drugs. And

36:13

so many people are just doing drugs, and that's

36:15

the problem, and drugs are the issue. It's the

36:17

drugs, drugs are the issue. What would you say

36:20

to that? Well, I

36:22

think, I mean, I

36:25

didn't think that actually was actually true. No,

36:27

yeah. And nor do I. Yeah, yeah. If we

36:29

look back to, so drugs became illegal in the

36:31

1970s. 1971 is when drugs became illegal, so

36:36

they weren't always illegal. Drugs like

36:38

heroin, LSD, psilocybin, MDMA, all of

36:41

these things, they were legal before

36:43

that time. And then Richard

36:45

Nixon decided in the 1970s to

36:49

make drugs illegal, for one very

36:51

clear reason. Essentially, at that

36:53

time, the US were involved with the war

36:55

in Vietnam. And there

36:57

were many protests going on in the 60s,

37:00

the campaign for nuclear disarmament,

37:02

there was civil liberty movements

37:04

related to women's rights, LGBTQ

37:06

rights, anti-war protests.

37:10

The government could not

37:12

incarcerate people protesting against

37:14

the war in a

37:16

so-called democracy. A lot

37:18

of these protesters were using drugs

37:21

like LSD and psilocybin, the

37:23

shroom boom of the 60s. And that was

37:25

making them pacifist because they showed

37:28

by nature, making more open and

37:30

making more able to understand the other

37:32

person's ideology. People do not want to

37:34

be conscripted to go to war. So

37:37

what the Nixon government decided to

37:39

do was by banning these drugs,

37:41

they could then incarcerate the

37:43

hippies and the people that

37:46

were dissenting them for their foreign policy agenda.

37:48

And then therefore they could continue

37:51

with their policy. So the banning

37:53

of drugs was based on no

37:55

medicinal or scientific ground. And

37:57

it has been proven since then that there has been

38:00

There's been leak reports from the

38:02

CIA and there's been no evidence

38:04

to suggest that these drugs should

38:06

be banned. Now in the 1970s

38:08

in the UK, when

38:10

drugs were illegal like heroin, we had 1,000

38:12

heroin users in the whole of the UK.

38:15

Today in the UK there are 250,000 heroin addicts and about 5,000

38:18

dying per year. That

38:23

is despite drugs being illegal. So

38:25

the illegality of drugs over the

38:27

last 50 years has not changed

38:30

anything in terms of problems associated

38:32

with drugs. Making drugs illegal

38:35

has only exacerbated the harms.

38:37

People have gone to the underground. Drugs

38:40

like fentanyl have appeared which are smaller,

38:42

easier to transport and smuggle around the

38:44

world and 100 times more powerful. Drugs

38:47

like cannabis have become stronger because

38:49

individuals and dealers want to make

38:51

it more addictive so they can

38:54

get more money. The

38:56

drugs have gone into the black market

38:58

which is unregulated which causes an unforeseen

39:00

amount of crime. So

39:03

the illegality of drugs as a

39:05

general concept has actually led to

39:07

the current drug crisis that

39:09

we're now seeing around the world and crime

39:12

and the destruction of lives. It's not drugs.

39:15

It's how drugs are managed. How

39:20

do you counter that? What would you

39:22

then, if you had the

39:25

ability to make a change, what would you say that we have

39:27

to do to make a change? I'm

39:30

a massive proponent for decriminalisation

39:32

and having regulated supplies. So

39:34

there's a lot of data

39:36

and evidence that suggests

39:38

that this is actually really effective

39:41

tools. So Portugal decriminalised drugs about

39:43

20 years ago. And

39:45

what they've seen since then is a

39:47

reduction in individuals using heroin and having

39:50

heroin-assisted deaths. Addiction rates have come down.

39:52

There's been a reduction in crime. But

39:54

for the countries in the world that

39:56

are following suit now, so Germany have

39:58

just legalised cannabis. and they're

40:01

like two weeks ago and they're likely to

40:03

get an economy around that. In

40:05

Canada and large parts of the

40:07

US now, cannabis is widely available,

40:10

magic mushrooms are available in states.

40:12

So this decriminalization, that's the legalization

40:14

movement and we're seeing data of

40:17

use, it doesn't massively increase the use.

40:19

People use drugs anyway, whether or not

40:21

they're legal, people are using them. So

40:24

by bringing it into a regulated market,

40:26

to ensure that they're safer and

40:28

that you can kind of make sure that they're not

40:30

contaminated with all these dangerous drugs that are

40:32

available. And you have

40:35

some kind of level of public

40:37

health safety that comes with

40:39

it and responsibility from the government. We can't just

40:41

continue to have a stiff upper lip on this

40:43

and not like people aren't doing drugs because

40:46

attitude is leading to all these

40:48

deaths that we're seeing. I'm

40:50

going to challenge you there because you

40:52

were talking about alcoholism and how that's

40:54

killing so many people, right? That's legal

40:57

for people in the industry, for over 18

40:59

year olds we can drink it and that's

41:01

only rising. So then my

41:04

one would argue to you, you'd say, well we

41:06

legalize drugs, it's only going to go up

41:08

and become like alcohol where we can just buy it over a

41:10

counter and then that becomes a problem. Yeah,

41:13

so what I'd say to that is

41:15

that alcohol is a drug

41:17

for a start. It works exactly on

41:20

the brain systems that other drugs work on.

41:22

I think we've had this false dichotomy that

41:25

we've almost been lied to, like tobacco

41:27

is a drug, alcohol is a drug. So

41:29

I classify that in the problems related

41:31

to drugs. Alcohol has just been

41:34

regulated freely because of historic precedent.

41:36

It's just been allowed because it's

41:38

one of the oldest drugs you've

41:40

ever had. And with

41:42

alcohol use actually interestingly, there's

41:45

been some moves that the government have done to try

41:47

to tackle it. The deaths that came out were because

41:49

of lockdown, but we're seeing in

41:51

like 16 to 30 year olds particularly,

41:54

they are drinking far less alcohol than

41:56

they used to. And that's because

41:58

there's been a lot of public health. messaging

42:00

around the dangers of alcohol.

42:02

Alcohol actually is one

42:04

of the most dangerous drugs to the brain and

42:06

the body that we know of. It's the most

42:08

neurotoxic drug. Give me some stats. Yeah,

42:11

so I mean, we do brain scans

42:13

and we did this study 12 years

42:16

ago where we got 40 experts around the

42:19

world to rank 16 different

42:21

drugs, including alcohol and

42:23

tobacco, from most harmful to

42:25

least harmful. And

42:27

we categorised it on harm to

42:29

self. So that includes, you know,

42:32

the brain effects, the body effects,

42:34

disability, death, all of these kinds

42:36

of factors, harm to society. And

42:39

we pulled all of the results and we gave them

42:41

a score out of 100. Alcohol

42:44

came on top 72 out of 100.

42:47

Magic mushrooms and MDMA

42:50

came out at 10 out of 100. This was

42:54

not just British data. This

42:56

was repeated by the European

42:59

Brain Council. Experts

43:01

in Australia have also replicated this

43:03

now and it's consistently showing that

43:05

alcohol is the most disruptive drug

43:07

in our society today. So

43:10

why? Because what it makes you aggressive,

43:12

it makes what? For what reasons? So

43:15

the issues with alcohol are

43:17

quite manifold across so many. It's the leading

43:19

cause of

43:22

disability and

43:24

illness. So alcohol contributes a lot,

43:26

about 5% of all

43:28

diseases in the world.

43:30

So cancer, cardio, respiratory

43:32

diseases, lung, liver. Countries

43:35

5% of all diseases. It's really high in

43:37

the list of

43:39

what we call the global burden of disease. The

43:42

rates of liver cirrhosis are

43:44

amongst the highest in Europe that they've

43:46

ever been. So these are kind of

43:49

the physical effects of alcohol. Then

43:51

beyond alcohol, you have all

43:54

of the effects that it

43:56

has on our socio-economics. So policing, domestic

43:59

violence. abuse,

44:03

all of these kinds of factors

44:05

play into the reasoning why NHS,

44:08

the NHS on a Friday and Saturday is

44:10

full of drunk people and

44:12

the amount of resources put in to

44:14

dealing with that, whereas it could be

44:16

being dealt with, you know, people at

44:18

end stage, you know, life or people

44:20

with, you know, very severe conditions. Alcohol

44:24

in and of itself is the most widely

44:26

used drug as well in the whole world.

44:29

And so because it's the most widely used drug as

44:31

well, it's pervasive. I think most people

44:33

in Britain probably know one person that leads with

44:35

an alcohol problem. I think it's

44:37

and that's that in and of itself

44:39

demonstrates the severity of the issue we

44:42

have. What does alcohol do to the

44:44

brain? So to

44:46

begin, the reason why we

44:48

love it, or some people love it is

44:50

it releases this neurotransmitter called

44:53

GABA. So GABA is like

44:55

the calming agent of

44:57

the brain. So you have like your first

44:59

drink, and I drink alcohol, I'm

45:01

not like anti alcohol, by the way, but you

45:04

have your first drink and this GABA gets released and you're

45:06

like relaxed and it kind of shuts off the front part

45:09

of the brain, which is like nagging you all

45:11

day. After a while, you release a

45:13

bit more dopamine and that becomes a bit more moreish

45:15

and like you kind of motivated. So you

45:18

know, I said that drugs, act on the dopamine

45:20

system, so does alcohol. But

45:22

after a while, once you start increasing

45:25

it, as you increase that GABA,

45:27

your body will go into sedation because it

45:29

starts to shut down the brain inhibits

45:31

it too much. It's over relaxed. So

45:33

it kind of reduces the way that

45:36

the brain excitation works. And

45:38

that leads to coma, if you get to

45:40

two high blood concentrations, and even finally death.

45:43

So that's when people die from alcohol

45:45

poisoning, because they've shut off the brain

45:47

systems involved with heartbeat and breathing. Oh

45:52

my God, the sorry,

45:55

it's just it's just it's insane. benefits

46:00

to alcohol whatsoever? If you were going to say

46:02

as a scientist sitting there, are there any benefits

46:04

at all to alcohol? So

46:07

there was a lot of kind

46:09

of debate about the value of alcohol

46:11

from the French. The French really wanted

46:13

to kind of push for it. And

46:17

so there were these massive studies done in kind

46:19

of like the late 90s. And

46:21

there was some inkling that maybe red

46:23

wine, one glass a day

46:25

would be beneficial for heart effects. And

46:28

so we interrogated that data a little

46:30

bit more to understand whether that was

46:32

true. And it turns

46:35

out that it

46:37

wasn't true. And that there

46:39

is a very specific portion of the

46:42

population. And it's a very specific

46:44

amount. It's kind of interesting. So 70 mils of

46:46

red wine a day, if you're

46:48

a woman between 60 and 69,

46:51

may be able to reduce the impact

46:54

of heart effects. That's the only small

46:56

part of society that

46:58

might have a benefit for the rest of society. There

47:00

is no benefit. Even any

47:02

amount of alcohol will have a

47:04

detrimental effect. So why are we drinking it? Because

47:07

it's part of our culture. We're British. Oh

47:10

my God. This is what's going on. I was

47:12

looking at some of the stats that you'd sent

47:15

to. So we

47:17

drink too much in the UK. We know that. You know,

47:19

when we see especially euros are coming up, the

47:22

England fans are always the ones who

47:24

are abroad and getting drunk and falling

47:26

into fountains and not

47:30

showing that, you know, we'd

47:32

make it look bad a little bit. I

47:35

heard that we are

47:37

the biggest consumer of

47:39

ketamine. London is the

47:43

largest consumer of cocaine in any city in Europe

47:45

at 29%. Can you give me these stats? I

47:48

think it's in the world actually. So

47:50

we did this wastewater analysis and

47:53

you basically measured it. What is a wastewater

47:55

analysis? these

48:00

sticks that measure the amount of substances

48:02

or whatever in these rivers. And you

48:04

can actually measure levels of

48:06

like the breakdown product of cocaine, because you

48:09

essentially wee and piss and then that goes

48:11

into the river. And that's actually

48:13

a completely different conversation because of the

48:15

wastewater. But, um, yeah, they

48:17

found that basically in London, we

48:20

have very stable, but

48:23

the highest level and concentration of the breakdown

48:25

product of cocaine in our rivers versus any

48:27

other city in the world. Twofold

48:30

more than New York. Um,

48:33

yeah. So yeah,

48:35

Londoners really love

48:38

that cocaine. But cocaine,

48:40

cocaine is, cocaine is not

48:42

good. It's just, yeah, that's, that's one

48:44

drug that there is no clinical evident

48:46

apart from in dentistry.

48:49

It's been used in dentistry to reduce pain.

48:51

Um, but aside

48:53

from that, there is, yeah,

48:55

cocaine, like alcohol, um, I

48:58

categorize some of those drugs that have

49:00

like, you know, quite negative consequences. So

49:02

when we're drinking water in the UK from,

49:04

I was in London from our tap. Yeah.

49:06

We're consuming cocaine. I know. I didn't think

49:09

that was one of the stupid questions. There

49:11

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49:48

today. When

49:55

you find on with addiction, especially gambling,

49:57

I always think is, um, a really.

50:00

scary addiction because with drugs alcohol,

50:02

you can kind of tell family

50:04

members, friends who are having an issue with

50:07

it, right? You can see their demeanor change,

50:09

maybe they look unwell, they

50:12

are, you know, lots of things change. With a gambling

50:14

addiction, it's very secret. And really,

50:16

upsettingly, you don't really realize until the

50:18

last minute with gambling addictions because, you

50:20

know, the money is gone or whatever

50:23

happens or they're too much in debt

50:25

and it's just awful. And, you know,

50:27

people have, families have been destroyed

50:30

because of gambling addiction. And it's one of the things

50:32

that we don't really talk about as much for some

50:34

reason. Yeah. And it's a very, I

50:36

think it's a very British problem as well. Why?

50:38

So I guess in the

50:42

UK, things like horse racing and betting

50:44

has been really a part of our

50:46

fabric of our culture for a long

50:48

time. And I

50:51

actually think gambling was kind of developed

50:53

by the British. So

50:55

it was part of our kind of cultural

50:57

past. And, you know,

51:00

we see it now in like the

51:02

rise of sports betting, football teams

51:04

being sponsored by gambling

51:06

companies. It's kind of been a market which

51:08

has been left unregulated. In fact,

51:10

the highest paid woman in the UK,

51:12

the highest paid CEO, anyone in the

51:14

UK is CEO of Batfrag. She earned 365 million

51:17

a year. So

51:19

it is wild

51:22

that, you know, these

51:24

organizations can really

51:26

profit off completely incinerating

51:28

the health of many people. In

51:31

fact, I read a statistic that

51:33

actually the majority, I think, over

51:35

70% of the revenue that gambling

51:37

companies make is from 5 to

51:40

10% of gamblers. And it's those

51:42

5 to 10% of gamblers, I'm pretty sure the

51:44

ones that have problem gambling, there's

51:46

probably about 1.4 million people you could

51:49

poll recently predicted in the UK that

51:51

have problem gambling. It's a

51:54

significant portion of our

51:56

society that are struggling. are

52:00

profiting off people who are in...

52:02

Unwell. Unwell, yeah. What

52:05

happens to your brain when you have an addiction,

52:07

typically a gambling deal, what does it do to

52:09

the brain? Yeah.

52:13

So when you do

52:15

a gambling behaviour, say you win £1,000 and you put

52:17

£5 in, what happens

52:22

immediately is you have a surge of

52:24

this neurotransmitter, it's called dopamine. You

52:27

may have heard of it and it's

52:29

basically our motivation molecule. It's reward and

52:32

then it's motivation. So when you have

52:34

the first win, you release

52:36

this dopamine and that's very rewarding

52:39

and your brain remembers that very well

52:41

because it's like, wow, this felt good.

52:44

And the reason why we release dopamine is for

52:46

our survival. We release it when we eat

52:48

food, we release it when we have sex.

52:51

It's very much there to kind of gravitate

52:53

as towards things that will help us survive

52:55

and reproduce. But behaviours like

52:57

gambling or drugs, they

53:00

hijack this system and

53:02

they cause the release of dopamine above and beyond

53:04

what food and sex could give you. But

53:06

your brain doesn't know the difference. So

53:08

your brain thinks that that is

53:11

then important for your survival. So

53:13

the more you engage in those behaviours,

53:16

your brain pathway, your dopamine pathways in

53:18

the brain, they start kind of latching

53:20

onto that as a kind of reward.

53:24

Over time, it shifts

53:26

from reward to even

53:28

looking at it, you start getting

53:30

that dopamine here. So people

53:33

with addiction often say like, if

53:36

they've got an alcohol addiction, just seeing a pint

53:38

will start to trigger their brain systems and

53:41

they'll want to have a pint

53:43

almost automatically. And we call that

53:45

something called Q-reactivity. I

53:48

did one of the earlier studies with

53:50

gamblers trying to look at a thing

53:52

called Q-reactivity. And he

53:55

actually did it on Paul Merson. I don't know

53:57

if you know him. The Arsenal for X Arsenal

53:59

footballer. Yeah. He lost 8 million in

54:01

gambling. Yes, so he did a documentary where he,

54:03

for the BBC with us, where he came in

54:06

and we put him in this MRI scanner, which

54:08

is a fancy brain imaging scanner, and

54:11

we showed him different video

54:13

clips of gambling videos, of

54:15

food, people

54:17

socialising, some nature. And

54:19

the only thing that his brain responded

54:22

to was gambling videos. It

54:24

lit up like fire. What?

54:27

Yeah. His

54:29

brain didn't respond to the natural

54:31

rewards like food, like social nature

54:34

stuff. His brain wasn't interested in

54:36

that. And he said that he hadn't gambled for a

54:38

year. So that brain imaging

54:40

study, now we've done it in 20 other participants

54:42

in gambling disorder. I'm going to publish your results

54:44

very soon. We found that

54:46

the brains of individuals with

54:48

gambling disorder had this hyperactivity

54:50

to just even looking at

54:53

gambling related videos. So that

54:55

proves to me that even

54:57

marketing gambling adverts

55:01

is dangerous enough for individuals to

55:03

get hooked because it engages

55:05

all their brain systems. And

55:08

so it was one of

55:11

the most fundamental pieces of science I think

55:13

I've ever done, is how

55:15

the power of behaviour alone

55:17

can fundamentally change your brain

55:20

and what you're attracted to and

55:22

your reward system. And

55:25

it's kind of scary as well at the same time that

55:27

it can do that. When

55:30

you see this in someone's brain where the

55:32

natural dopamine that we should be having, whether

55:34

it's socialising or nature or going for a

55:36

swim or food, all those kind of things,

55:39

when you're not, what has happened to someone's

55:41

brain there? And who is more

55:43

susceptible to that? Because you're

55:45

not getting dopamine with those things. And

55:48

is it because you've had so many

55:50

dopamine hits in your life that those

55:52

surface level ones don't do the best

55:54

job for you? Because I definitely, just

55:56

speaking from a personal point of view,

55:59

I did a reality show. for many years. I watch

56:01

you on it. Okay, he's fine. God.

56:03

I thought he wouldn't have, but anyway,

56:05

I did it. So I did this,

56:08

Reagio main challenge for many years. And

56:10

so my 20s

56:13

was constantly full of dopamine,

56:15

doing a show, likes on

56:17

social media, going to

56:20

awards shows, getting awards, sex,

56:23

ba ba, alcohol, do do do, all

56:25

the time. And then what

56:27

I found is, is that it's, I was

56:29

having these constant dopamine hits all the time,

56:32

that when I turned 27 and

56:36

I was burnt out, I went

56:38

through depersonalization, which was

56:41

horrendous, which for anyone who doesn't know what

56:43

depersonalization is, it's basically in short term, it's

56:46

where your body, your brain goes

56:48

into autopilot and it protects you.

56:50

And you basically see yourself from an outside

56:52

body view. I thought that I was outside

56:54

of my own body for six months and

56:57

it was a horrendous experience. And

56:59

I realized I had to start taking

57:01

care of my body. However, when

57:03

I stopped all of that, the cravings

57:06

and all the, the, the alcohol and

57:08

the sleeping around and all those sorts

57:10

of things, I felt very bored. And

57:13

I suppose that's, is it because it's too much

57:15

dopamine and then you can't, you feel, do you

57:18

know where I'm going? Yeah, yeah. So the

57:20

working theory is that over

57:22

time when you kind of interact with

57:25

these high dopaminergic activities, what

57:27

happens is you down regulate that system,

57:29

you burn that system out quite frankly.

57:31

So we see a reduction in dopamine

57:33

stores in the brain, you

57:35

will see reduction in endorphin stores, there

57:38

are different kinds of like kind of

57:40

pleasure molecule. So you see this dampening

57:42

down and individuals as a theory that

57:44

you kind of become a bit hypodopaminergic

57:47

and therefore only these high thrills

57:49

get you excited. And then the more you push

57:52

on the high thrills, the lower over time it

57:54

goes. So that's where the cycle

57:56

of decline start. And for you, I guess

57:58

you're lucky enough. to kind

58:00

of stop with that. I mean,

58:02

it sounds horrendous and really

58:05

awful, but in addiction,

58:07

what happens is people continue to

58:09

go on that decline and

58:11

then they take more drugs to feel

58:14

normal and better. So after

58:16

a while, it's not even about pleasure.

58:19

It's about trying to maintain like

58:21

a state or stop withdrawal or stop

58:24

the body from physically feeling sick. And

58:27

it's in that cycle that patients are really

58:29

kind of the end stage of addiction. And

58:32

that's a horrible place to

58:35

be and because there's nothing you can do to feel

58:37

good. At that point. Is

58:40

addiction, whether it's alcohol

58:43

or gambling, it's a disease then? Yeah,

58:45

it's a medical condition, it's a disease.

58:48

And I think for

58:51

a while, there's been a lot of stigma around

58:53

what addiction is. I think the word has been

58:55

used and appropriated a lot of

58:57

the time by many individuals,

58:59

by popular culture, by

59:01

society, by the media. But

59:04

there are, what addiction really means

59:07

is compulsive use

59:09

of a drug, substance or behavior,

59:13

despite negative consequences to

59:16

familial, social, or relational

59:18

functioning with

59:20

an inability to stop. So

59:23

in the UK alone, we

59:26

know that there's probably about

59:28

three to five million individuals suffering

59:31

with addiction. Actually,

59:35

within the space of these two hours that we're

59:37

talking now, about eight people will

59:39

die from alcohol addiction on every

59:42

15 to 20 minutes. So

59:45

it's one of these, in

59:47

fact, the government released a report last week,

59:51

last year 10,000 individuals died from

59:53

alcohol. And that's the

59:55

highest it's ever been since records began. The

59:59

problems of addiction. are beyond just

1:00:01

alcohol. Opiate addiction is on

1:00:04

the rise in the US. 100,000 people are dying

1:00:06

a year from fentanyl, gambling

1:00:09

addiction, suicide rates are some of

1:00:11

the highest of almost all psychiatric

1:00:14

conditions. Yeah,

1:00:17

addiction is a real medical illness

1:00:19

with real consequences, not just for the

1:00:22

individual, for family, for society. Cost

1:00:24

the government around 19 billion pounds

1:00:28

a year, the effects of addiction.

1:00:31

And I think the worst thing

1:00:33

about this condition is actually against

1:00:35

depression about 50% of patients actually receive

1:00:38

treatment. In addiction, it's less than

1:00:40

10%. So there

1:00:42

is literally barely

1:00:44

anything that majority of patients can do

1:00:47

because we don't have effective treatments in addiction.

1:00:50

Many of them don't work. Most patients relapse over 60%

1:00:53

of them. And the government have got

1:00:56

rehab centers by 50% in the

1:00:58

last 10 years. So we're

1:01:00

really... It's getting worse over time.

1:01:04

I mean, that's horrendous. I mean, it's just,

1:01:07

I just, it bothers

1:01:09

me a lot. Well, you know, we're

1:01:11

talking about taking drugs recreationally, right? Yeah.

1:01:13

And the harmful size and the negatives.

1:01:15

Let's talk about the positives because, you

1:01:17

know, you mentioned MDMA.

1:01:19

Yeah. And

1:01:22

Professor... David Nutt.

1:01:24

Professor David Nutt went into

1:01:26

parliament, wasn't it? And he

1:01:30

sort of famously said that taking ecstasy

1:01:32

is safer than riding a horse. Correct.

1:01:34

And he was exiled. Yeah,

1:01:37

he was. He was sacked. And

1:01:40

I think that statement is

1:01:42

bold, but so true. There's

1:01:45

been a lot of... I mean,

1:01:47

what you want to do is bring the debate. I

1:01:50

like the debate we're having that we just had about

1:01:52

alcohol versus other drugs. For a very

1:01:54

long time, because of the

1:01:56

banning of drugs in the 1970s, people

1:01:58

have just automatically issued... drugs

1:02:01

like MDMA and psychedelics are bad.

1:02:03

They're put into this category called

1:02:05

Schedule 1. Schedule 1 is the

1:02:07

highest ranking of illegality of drugs.

1:02:10

If you're in Schedule 1 it means

1:02:12

that there's high addictive potential and no

1:02:15

medical benefits. Just by

1:02:17

contrast, in Schedule 2 you have cocaine

1:02:19

and heroin which is categorized

1:02:21

as less harmful in

1:02:23

the United Nations and World Health Organization laws

1:02:25

and the British law. So psychedelics

1:02:27

in MDMA more harmful, cocaine

1:02:29

and heroin less harmful. So

1:02:31

he as the chief drugs chief

1:02:34

advisor for drugs for the government was like

1:02:36

if I'm chairing this committee that you've elected

1:02:38

me to to give scientific

1:02:41

policy evidence I need to

1:02:43

make you realize that the laws that you

1:02:45

have are incorrect and

1:02:47

more importantly they stifle research.

1:02:50

David basically said let's

1:02:52

have an honest and rational debate about

1:02:55

drugs. Horse riding kills

1:02:57

about 10,000 people a

1:02:59

year versus around maximum 20 people

1:03:01

a year in the UK died

1:03:03

from ecstasy if that.

1:03:06

20 maximum 20 but

1:03:09

the way that these deaths,

1:03:11

there's a really interesting study done by

1:03:13

the MRC Global Health Unit, they basically

1:03:15

looked at coroner's reports

1:03:18

of all deaths related to drugs and

1:03:20

if you die from paracetamol 1 in 200s

1:03:22

reported in the newspapers, 1 in 100 for

1:03:25

alcohol 1

1:03:27

in about 5 for methamphetamine but every

1:03:30

ecstasy death is reported

1:03:32

in the media and so the

1:03:34

media's narrative has distorted public perception

1:03:37

about the harms of ecstasy

1:03:39

and then political perceptions and

1:03:42

he said and we know we know that not

1:03:44

many people are dying from ecstasy because we see

1:03:46

the coroner's reports. So he said

1:03:48

let's have a rational debate about this

1:03:50

potential molecule that could be therapeutic and

1:03:52

beneficial let's try to get it out

1:03:54

of schedule. Moving it to schedule 2

1:03:56

doesn't make it freely available just helps

1:03:58

research and find like myself

1:04:01

to be able to do this

1:04:03

research and on August the

1:04:05

12th this year in the US after maybe 30

1:04:08

years of research MDMA

1:04:10

may get licensed as a treatment for

1:04:12

PTSD. So this is

1:04:16

off the back of crowdfunding an organization

1:04:18

called MAPS and they've

1:04:21

done these phase three clinical trials

1:04:23

which are these big trials comparing

1:04:25

MDMA to placebo for people with

1:04:28

very severe and complex

1:04:30

PTSD veterans and individuals who've

1:04:32

had trauma like rape and

1:04:34

sexual abuse. 70%

1:04:37

of them went into remission after

1:04:39

three MDMA assisted psychotherapy sessions. So

1:04:41

70% of them qualified is

1:04:43

no longer having PTSD. PTSD is

1:04:45

a chronic disease. When you get PTSD it's

1:04:48

so difficult to escape it constant state

1:04:50

of fear. 70% of them no longer.

1:04:53

Just quickly when you say something is chronic what do you mean

1:04:55

by that? So that sort of

1:04:57

means like it's kind of there to stay

1:04:59

for like a lifetime. So things like diabetes

1:05:02

for example or what we call like chronic

1:05:04

disorders like when you get them they

1:05:07

generally tend to leave and

1:05:10

what we when we think about mental

1:05:12

health as well because there's really non-effective

1:05:14

treatments a lot of them are considered

1:05:16

chronic but actually for the first time

1:05:19

ever in psychiatry we're able to

1:05:21

now maybe start reframing it

1:05:23

and not calling them chronic disorders because

1:05:25

we're seeing patients recover and for

1:05:27

a long time. How

1:05:31

long do you think until the

1:05:34

government in the UK start taking something

1:05:36

like psychedelics or MDMA

1:05:38

seriously and start legalising

1:05:40

it or properly using it for

1:05:44

everyone? Yeah well

1:05:46

I'm pretty convinced some of the government ministers

1:05:48

have taken them and they

1:05:51

like to take drugs and then they like to ban

1:05:54

them but in

1:05:56

terms of the regulation they often... So

1:06:00

we're making some advance. So in PMQs

1:06:04

this year, an MP Charlotte Nichols

1:06:06

Warrington, who we work with,

1:06:08

she heads up this thing called the Center

1:06:10

for Evidence-Based Drug Policy. And

1:06:13

she basically asked questions, where she's seen that, and

1:06:15

she said, when will you

1:06:17

start rescheduling, so the site I've been from

1:06:19

schedule one, schedule two, to allow research to

1:06:22

be more widely available. And

1:06:24

he said that this ACMD council

1:06:26

are gonna write a report later

1:06:28

this year, which gives policy recommendations

1:06:30

on how we can start changing

1:06:32

policy to enable this research to speed

1:06:34

up and the implementation. The

1:06:38

issue that's always been in our country

1:06:40

is that drugs have always sat in

1:06:42

the home office. And

1:06:44

the home office is very much

1:06:46

involved in saying no. That's

1:06:49

what they do, they just say no. And it's

1:06:51

all about policing. But drugs is

1:06:53

a health issue. And I think

1:06:55

drug policy, and this sort of, so should be moved

1:06:58

to the Department of Health. And

1:07:00

in the Department of Health, we'd have more

1:07:02

proactive changes to allow this to be integrated

1:07:04

into the NHS, to deal

1:07:06

with the public health issues that we spoke about

1:07:08

today. And these kind of questions

1:07:10

are slowly warming up. Because

1:07:12

essentially, whether or not the government like

1:07:14

it, there's clinical trials happening right now.

1:07:17

And as I mentioned, the one

1:07:19

with MDMA, PTSD, the sign up will be in

1:07:22

August. And if that passes

1:07:24

approval, it's likely that next year in

1:07:26

the UK, there could be potential for

1:07:28

that being a treatment here. So it's

1:07:31

not really a political decision, whether or

1:07:33

not these drugs become available

1:07:35

medicinally. They will. It's

1:07:38

really a matter of time. The question

1:07:40

about the political involvement is about

1:07:42

decriminalization and recreational access to the

1:07:45

drugs. And I think that

1:07:47

question will come several years

1:07:49

after the medicinal influx

1:07:52

of these drugs comes into mental

1:07:54

health care. Within this decade, I

1:07:56

think we're going to see a lot of change. You know,

1:07:58

out of all of this, what I've been... take

1:08:00

right is actually

1:08:02

there's sort of something fundamentally wrong with the world

1:08:05

at the moment. Yeah.

1:08:08

And we can, what is amazing is that

1:08:10

you're saying that people who have chronic mental

1:08:12

health, there is perhaps an answer

1:08:14

coming and it's going to help and there's

1:08:16

studies that are showing that. But

1:08:18

actually the world is in a really tricky place.

1:08:20

Yeah. Trauma is everywhere. And

1:08:23

we are being fed what

1:08:27

it seems to be sort of lies

1:08:29

as in we're being fed things that are actually

1:08:31

harming us. And as a generation,

1:08:34

we're becoming sick and we're becoming

1:08:36

disconnected. And we

1:08:39

can use psychedelics or MDMA

1:08:41

to help us or we can use antidepressants. But

1:08:43

at the end, the core of what the issue

1:08:45

is, is not really being fixed. And

1:08:47

that makes me feel a bit sad. So

1:08:50

we were built for community

1:08:54

like mammals as creatures are

1:08:56

meant to live in packs

1:08:58

of like 30 to 50. Really

1:09:00

that's sort of what our brains can

1:09:02

deal with. Like

1:09:05

the advancements of like modern civilization

1:09:07

have seceded our brains ability to

1:09:09

adapt living in these big metropolises

1:09:12

like London. I think

1:09:14

the rise in mental health, a lot of

1:09:16

scholars will say repeat this is that the

1:09:19

mental health is as a result of

1:09:21

technology advancing too quick that

1:09:23

our brains haven't caught up because we're

1:09:25

still kind of in the hunt to gather a brain where

1:09:28

we're living in communities and

1:09:31

loneliness is on the rise. I

1:09:34

think psychedelics, that's like one

1:09:36

way of looking at it and antidepressants. But

1:09:38

I think you're actually say right, Jamie, I

1:09:40

think connection is the cure. Always

1:09:43

is. That is at

1:09:46

the root. And if

1:09:48

you have strong friends, family and that takes

1:09:50

work as well. And I don't

1:09:52

want to make it sound like it's an easy thing

1:09:54

to even have those communities because some people aren't able

1:09:57

to for whatever reason, but connection,

1:09:59

if you do. just try to seek

1:10:01

out and form strong bonds and connections

1:10:03

that you're comfortable with. I

1:10:05

think that will be the biggest predictor of

1:10:08

your mental health. And

1:10:10

I completely the reason why I wanted to do this

1:10:12

podcast is because it was about connection. I

1:10:14

think I said I said it in our very introduction

1:10:17

to this whole show, I think as a nation,

1:10:19

we have become so connected, we become disconnected. And

1:10:22

that's what's causing this loneliness in this mental

1:10:24

health tsunami as you put

1:10:27

and it's upsetting. Yeah, yeah, it's

1:10:29

completely and we need

1:10:31

to become more connected. This has honestly been

1:10:34

I cannot tell you how fascinating this has been. This

1:10:36

has been amazing. We

1:10:39

like to end the show with eight questions. We've had a little

1:10:42

twist on your one. What's the saying

1:10:44

or phrase you would like people to take away

1:10:46

from this interview? There's a phrase by Einstein, insanity

1:10:49

is doing the same thing

1:10:51

and expecting different results. I

1:10:54

think we've been doing the same

1:10:56

thing with drug policy, we've treated

1:10:58

mental health 50 years and we

1:11:00

still expect things to change. I think

1:11:03

that's insanity. What's

1:11:06

the best compliment you've ever received for the work

1:11:08

you're doing? Wow.

1:11:13

For me, I think if

1:11:15

you go back to Paul, Merson,

1:11:17

it was in my first year of my

1:11:19

PhD where we had these documentary cameras

1:11:21

running in and we showed

1:11:23

him the picture of his brain and

1:11:25

he looked at it and then he

1:11:28

looked at me and one of my boss's

1:11:30

dog, David Rizzo, and he said, does

1:11:33

this prove to me that I'm

1:11:35

not a bad person, that I'm

1:11:37

sick and unwell? That

1:11:40

to me kind of validated that at least

1:11:42

some work that I've done, it wasn't a

1:11:44

direct compliment, but it was like, I've

1:11:46

done something to make

1:11:49

him reframe how he

1:11:51

feels about himself and his gambling addiction.

1:11:54

That work that I did, it felt

1:11:56

like it had impacted his life. If

1:11:58

I can do that, And

1:12:00

that's to me the biggest compliment because that's really what

1:12:03

I want to do. My

1:12:05

producer Jemima just wrote that made me cry. Sorry,

1:12:08

that was so beautiful. It

1:12:10

was. I cried when he... Why

1:12:12

did that make you cry? Yeah.

1:12:15

For something that's like... I don't know why that made me so much...

1:12:17

I'm quite home-aired of today. And

1:12:19

then I was like, yeah, you know what? Yeah. It's

1:12:21

just horrible. It's just horrible. It's

1:12:24

just horrible. It's just horrible. It's just horrible.

1:12:26

It's just horrible. It's just horrible. It's

1:12:29

just horrible to think that people with mental

1:12:32

health problems think that they're bad people. And

1:12:34

if we can go some way to try

1:12:36

and like reduce that stigma and

1:12:38

take the blame away from them, then that's... For

1:12:41

me, that's the biggest thing that I can do at

1:12:43

least with some of the work I do. You're making

1:12:45

me cry. What

1:12:48

scares you most about what you do? I

1:12:52

mean, it's a massive responsibility to

1:12:55

be giving these drugged

1:12:58

people with some mental health problems.

1:13:00

And I think the messaging around it

1:13:02

is also massive responsibility. I'm scared. I'm

1:13:05

scared of letting people down. I'm

1:13:07

scared of expectation. Like what if it doesn't work

1:13:10

for some of my patients? What then? Yeah,

1:13:12

it's twofold. It's like I don't want to let people down and

1:13:15

raise their hopes. And I also am

1:13:19

worried about like, you know, it's just a responsibility

1:13:21

and I have to make sure I'm careful what

1:13:23

I do. When

1:13:25

was the last time you cried and why? I

1:13:28

was in South Africa actually in

1:13:31

February. I went away with some

1:13:34

friends just to kind of do some working

1:13:36

from that. And we were in Cape Town and

1:13:39

we'd just come back from like a nice

1:13:41

weekend festival. I

1:13:43

was just outside like

1:13:45

our apartment and there was like

1:13:47

some homeless individuals who were using

1:13:49

heroin outside. And

1:13:54

I usually I mean, because I work with these

1:13:56

patients, like if they say something to me, I

1:13:58

usually just kind of. let

1:14:00

them speak to me. I'm not really like, I don't

1:14:03

think they're bad people. They're just struggling.

1:14:05

So I went up to, well,

1:14:07

they came up to me and I was just like,

1:14:09

oh, let's just chat like how things going. And

1:14:12

then I kind of left and walked

1:14:14

away and went back into this kind

1:14:16

of nice apartment and I just kind

1:14:18

of contrasted like my life. And

1:14:21

I was like, I'm so lucky to be

1:14:23

here with like connection and my friends and

1:14:26

security. And on the

1:14:28

other side, outside this apartment, there's this

1:14:30

group of people struggling. Like, it's just

1:14:32

not fair. And

1:14:35

I just, I felt like lucky and privileged, but

1:14:37

I also discussed it that that's the way the

1:14:39

world is and that there's people,

1:14:42

there are always going to be people less

1:14:44

fortunate and more fortunate than you, but it

1:14:46

was just really, it's maybe

1:14:48

really sad. Wow. That's amazing.

1:14:51

Yeah. What's something

1:14:53

you can't let go of? I

1:14:57

actually like reality TV. Do you? Yeah.

1:14:59

I can't let go of reality TV.

1:15:01

I think it's a nice, it's a

1:15:03

nice switch off. My wife loves it.

1:15:05

Honestly, she's obsessed. She can't let go

1:15:08

of that either. What's something

1:15:10

that people are most embarrassed to admit about

1:15:12

psychedelics? I think using them.

1:15:15

I think people are pretty hush hush. What's

1:15:18

your biggest turn off? My

1:15:21

biggest, right. Okay. My biggest turn off, if

1:15:24

we're going to link it to my work is when people

1:15:27

have lots of opinions and

1:15:30

they don't really have like any facts to back

1:15:32

it up. Like, although it might come across like

1:15:34

I've kind of given a lot of opinion maybe

1:15:36

today, it's actually, I've

1:15:38

kind of just kind of relate facts

1:15:41

and kind of just want people to kind of

1:15:44

take from that what they will. So

1:15:46

I feel like sometimes I've been

1:15:48

in conversations, especially around drugs, where

1:15:51

like opinion just breeds ignorance

1:15:53

and people are just not willing to hear anything

1:15:56

else. So that really, really annoys me. What's

1:15:58

your biggest turn on? I

1:16:01

really like music and this is like a

1:16:03

massive side step but I think there's nothing

1:16:05

better than just like being

1:16:07

with your friends, listening to

1:16:09

great music, feeling connected, nothing

1:16:11

feels more pure and sacred and holy

1:16:13

than like being in a rave and

1:16:15

enjoying the music hugging your friends, telling

1:16:17

you that you love them. What

1:16:21

are you most proud of in your career so far? I

1:16:24

feel like I want to like kind of start

1:16:26

this by saying like I'm standing on the shoulders

1:16:28

of giants like my boss really

1:16:30

opened the platform and so

1:16:33

a lot of my kind of credit goes to him and he

1:16:36

knocked down doors to get

1:16:38

this stuff going like a big inspiration. But

1:16:42

my there's like two things that

1:16:44

I've done which I think I'm pretty

1:16:46

proud about. I mean not

1:16:48

really spoken about it in this talk but one

1:16:51

of my earliest pieces of work was a charity called Drug

1:16:53

Science who are amazing and I work

1:16:55

with kids with severe epilepsy who

1:16:58

were using medical cannabis to

1:17:00

treat their epilepsy and actually it was

1:17:03

illegal at the time and in 2018

1:17:05

the government changed the law and I

1:17:07

tracked 20 of the first patients in

1:17:10

the UK after children who were using

1:17:12

it and looked at how their seizures

1:17:14

changed and I went to the House of Lords and

1:17:17

who was signed up for that committee and

1:17:19

presented this data and

1:17:22

basically said look this is more

1:17:24

effective than these anti-epileptic drugs and as

1:17:26

cannabis oil is literally making these kids

1:17:28

go back to school it's

1:17:30

reducing their seizures by over 85%. This

1:17:33

is a tree of medicine that was like it

1:17:35

was one of my earliest I was like 24-25 at the time I

1:17:38

was like what am I doing? This is beyond

1:17:41

my time to be doing this. So

1:17:44

I was proud to be involved in that

1:17:46

because that's like an area like it's children

1:17:49

and children's health I cared about that

1:17:51

a lot and that does still

1:17:53

need a bit more work for area but

1:17:56

then the other bit was this year we

1:17:58

got funding. It's actually the

1:18:01

first funding the government had given for

1:18:03

a psychedelic trial and it's so exciting

1:18:05

for gambling addiction. So we were

1:18:08

just so excited and we did one inherent addiction as

1:18:11

well and we were so excited that after

1:18:13

four or five years of knocking on the

1:18:15

government's door and saying please give us money

1:18:17

like we don't just want my

1:18:19

philanthropist to give us money, we want to

1:18:21

be able to be funded and recognized as

1:18:23

being scientifically credible. And yes,

1:18:26

so we won the grants and so that

1:18:28

was a team effort and over the next

1:18:30

two years we're going to be doing that

1:18:32

work. So very exciting. Well done. That's amazing.

1:18:35

Okay, for a bonus one, because you haven't done it all

1:18:37

episode in the final one, are you ready for this?

1:18:39

Oh gosh. What's your favorite swear word? Fuck.

1:18:44

I just think it's just like, it gets you

1:18:46

in like, you know, you just need to

1:18:49

say what's yours? Holy fuck, I like that.

1:18:51

Yeah, it's just get to the pool. I quite

1:18:53

like shit. Shit. I quite like shit. Yeah, shit

1:18:55

can be used kind of like a little bit

1:18:57

more, but focus just like you feel it and

1:19:00

it's like embodies it.

1:19:02

Man, thank you so much for

1:19:05

coming on Grey Company. It's been amazing.

1:19:07

It's been wonderful. Thank you so much.

1:19:09

Cheers. Thanks for having me. Mind

1:19:15

blown. Mind, didn't I tell you? Wow.

1:19:18

That is, to be honest, one of

1:19:20

the most interesting episodes. We have our

1:19:22

famous guests, the Elizabeth

1:19:25

Days, the Paloma Faiths, right?

1:19:29

And then we have our experts, Dr. Frederica

1:19:31

Amati and now Dr. Ray Ansofar. These

1:19:34

ones blow my mind because we

1:19:36

are going through this age now, which is where we

1:19:38

just want to know things about our health and about

1:19:40

our minds and about so many different things. And that

1:19:42

was unbelievably cool. Yeah. It's so hopeful. I

1:19:44

mean, I got really emotional at the

1:19:46

end. Yeah, you did. It's so hopeful.

1:19:48

I just like, yeah. And

1:19:51

it's something I just knew nothing about. I

1:19:54

just didn't know so many things about the fact

1:19:56

of the depression and how having

1:19:58

chronic depression and then. being prescribed

1:20:00

psychedelics to help it and there was a 95%

1:20:02

increase in their mental health

1:20:05

for happiness. Crazy numbers

1:20:07

that we're seeing and it look, I

1:20:10

do want to point out once

1:20:13

again that we are never encouraging

1:20:15

anyone to take drugs recreationally. If

1:20:18

you are wanting to learn more about

1:20:20

it, then you can go and read

1:20:22

up. We'll leave loads of links in

1:20:24

the show description and you can talk

1:20:26

to doctors about these different things. And

1:20:28

you know, you heard about the scary things

1:20:30

about cocaine and things like that. So whenever you're doing

1:20:32

it, there'd be a bit careful. Yeah. That's what I

1:20:34

want to say. Be careful 100%. That was

1:20:37

a fantastic episode. I loved it. It

1:20:40

was brilliant. Really mind-blowing. Okay

1:20:42

guys, remember if you haven't followed our podcast

1:20:44

yet, please do. And if you love this

1:20:46

episode, please share it with your friends, your

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1:20:54

social media at Great Company Podcast. We're on

1:20:56

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1:20:58

the show description. And as always, we're going

1:21:00

to see you next Wednesday for another episode.

1:21:02

We can't wait. We cannot

1:21:05

wait. Goodbye. Bye. Hey

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