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On the Psychoactive podcast, Ethan Nadelman, the founder of the Drug Policy Alliance, sits down with various experts to talk about all things drugs. People who love them, people who hate them, people who trust them – they all get a chance to say their piece. On this episode, Ethan talks with Dr. Andrew Weil, an internationally famous practitioner of integrated medicine. He blends conventional and alternative medicines to treat patients for everything from depression to unhealthy dietary habits to cancer. But before that, he was writing books about psychoactive drugs and conducting studies on the effects of marijuana and LSD. He and Ethan talk about the role psychoactive drugs have to play in healing and medicine, why Andrew thinks there are no such thing as “good” or “bad” drugs, why he avoids coffee, and so much more.
Andrew’s main takeaway about drugs is that we’re very good at demonizing substances in our culture that are used to very good effect in other cultures. For example, the coca leaf was chewed by natives without any addictive issues; Europeans saw it as satanic and tried to force them to stop. But once they realized the natives worked more when they chewed it, they decided to study it, eventually getting cocaine out of it and causing a wave of addiction. They tried to “blame the plant,” but the problem happened when we were trying to prevent natives from using their own sacred plant. Similarly, there’s no evidence that hemp grows in the wild; it’s only been reported cropping up around human settlements. It’s a plant “that wants to serve humanity,” Andrew says, providing everything from textiles to intoxicants, but because of our backward feeling about the plant, we’ve allowed multi-billion dollar industries in textiles and edibles slip away to China and Canada.
More than that, he feels there’s an actual evolutionary connection to intoxicants. It’s clear throughout human history that we feel a need to alter our consciousness, either through various plants with psychedelic properties or by doing things like skydiving or fasting. We recognize that it can be useful in showing us possibilities we didn’t know were there before. It’s only prejudice and cultural differences that dictate what drugs we find acceptable and which ones we don’t. For Andrew, there are no “good” or “bad” drugs – just good and bad relationships with drugs. If they’re used properly, mind-altering drugs can be incredibly useful for happiness, for healing, and for harmony. He gets into many more fascinating insights; why not “turn on, tune in, and drop out” with this episode of Psychocactive.
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