Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to the True Life Podcast. I hope everybody's having a beautiful day. I hope the sun is shining. I hope the birds are singing. And I hope the wind is at your back. I have with me returning guest, the one and only Gareth Moxie. It's an honor and a privilege to reintroduce him back to our show today. A luminary in the field of entheogen provision and harm reduction advocacy, Based in Vancouver, British Columbia, Gareth stands at the forefront of psychedelic therapy, armed with a profound commitment to education, healing, and transformation. His journey is one of relentless dedication and growth. Trained as a psychedelic therapist at the prestigious Synthesis Institute, he has become a beacon of hope for many. Specializing in the application of ibogaine for addiction detoxification, particularly for opiate addiction. His expertise extends to the realms of 5-MeO-DMT and psilocybin, substances he employs to facilitate deep psycho-spiritual exploration. With decades of experience and rigorous training, including certifications from the Orinda Institute and the 5 Education Program at Tendava Retreats in Mexico, Gareth is a master at guiding individuals through transformative journeys of self-discovery and spiritual awakening. His work transcends the clinical. It is deeply rooted in advocacy and awareness raising within the psychedelic community. Gareth has been instrumental in documentary projects like Dosed, which illuminate the profound healing potential of psychedelic medicine. Beyond his psychedelic therapy work, Gareth is also a passionate advocate for medical cannabis, producing high-grade cannabis oil tailored to the specific needs of his clients. His extensive knowledge of cultivation and extraction techniques ensures the highest quality medicinal products. Gareth, thank you so much for being here today. I hope the world is treating you well, and I'm looking forward to an amazing conversation. How are you? I'm doing well. Thank you for having me back. Thank you for that wonderful introduction. Yeah, it's my pleasure. I'm really thankful to get to talk to you. And I feel like our first conversation went by so quickly that we only got to touch on the surface area. And I just wanted to have you back and get into some of the things we were talking about. And for those that are just tuning in right now, you and I were having a really fascinating pre-chat. about ibogaine I thought we could just we kind of launch right there a little there's some things people don't know about it you're working extensively with it and you've been doing it for quite some time and maybe I could just I could just drop that right there in front of you and let you run with it yeah um so ibogaine I'm going into my 13th year now of of working with ibogaine um And, um, when I first started working with it, I was kind of trained in the more traditional way of working with Ibogaine, which is kind of people come in, they do a test dose of a hundred milligrams. So people check then if there's any been any, um, adverse reactions or, um, And if everything's fine, there's been no allergic reactions or anything, then we just dump a whole lot more into somebody, and that would be the flood dose. You know, it could be anywhere up to about 36 hours before anybody has any sleep. And that was some years ago now. And the whole situation has changed. When I first started getting into this game, it was all heroin. And now there isn't any heroin, you know. or not here anyhow. Um, I know that there is in Europe and stuff. They haven't really been hit with the whole fentanyl crisis like we have on the, you know, in Canada and the U S so, um, the game has kind of changed a little bit. Um, fentanyl now is a, is a very ferocious, um, opioid, uh, much stronger than, than something like heroin. And, um, And due to the drug war, we are finding on ourselves in the situation of now the narcotic supply has been tainted with fentanyl and other fentanyl analogs. And now there's even other analogs that are coming in which are even stronger than fentanyl. So it's a very bad situation. And it's been brought about because a lot of this fentanyl can be mailed to the States or to Canada. And that's how we first started experiencing it was, I think, in 2008, was it? No, hang on. No, so 2012, they took... um, the oxy cotton off the market or the oxy 80, um, and then replaced it with the oxy Neo, which, um, is still an oxy 80 tablet, but you can't get at the oxy code on, um, very easily, um, inside to, you know, people used to, um, crush them up and snort them or inject them and stuff and with this the the oxy 80 there's a coating that goes around the outside which then made that very difficult to do so of course the black market is going to step in immediately and started making these um oxy 80 knockoffs which are actually fentanyl one milligram of fentanyl or something like that in each pill and so that was Of course, if you ban something, then it's going to be replaced by something else. Now, that has made the whole situation much, much worse. Fentanyl has a much shorter half-life than heroin. So that means that the effects of it don't last anywhere near as long. And so it means that people are going into withdrawal very quickly. So that means that they have to reuse or re-up. on a constant basis. Um, so, you know, if a drug war was put into place to keep people safe, then it's failed miserably. I'm fiercely anti-drug war because I mean, you know, people are like, well, if there wasn't a drug war, then it would be a free for all. It already is a free for all, you know, um, there's heroin or sorry, uh, narcotics on most street corners or a lot of street corners of big cities. And it already is that kind of free for all. I mean, our overdose, uh, deaths now, um, I think in BC we get like eight a day. Wow. A day just in BC. Um, and, and foreign in Vancouver. And those are the people that, that actually, you know, pass away many of them being in, you know, a Starbucks bathroom or something like that. So, So the drug war has actually made things much, much worse, and it's in the hands of criminals. And it doesn't look like it's gonna be getting any better, which is affecting people worldwide. Now things have changed a little bit, um, for us here in Vancouver, it used to be people would get onto, um, suboxone or methadone. Um, but now we're just trying to keep people alive here. And so, um, some of the, uh, we've got rapid access addiction clinics where people can go and get put on to, they can get, um, hydro morph, which is a strong narcotic, um, and also time release morphine. So if people are coming to us and they're using street drugs here in Vancouver, then we can't really work with them with the street drug situation. But if they can go to the Rapid Access Addiction Clinic, then people can get on an alternative opioid supply. And then we can start moving towards possibly doing a treatment with people. You know, but the whole situation has changed much, you know, compared to how it used to be. People used to be able to show up on the door, you know, on heroin and we could work with them, but now things are a lot different. You know, that the drug supply has been very badly tainted with fentanyl. And if that wasn't bad enough, um, over COVID, um, uh, illicit, uh, benzodiazepines started, um, getting into the street supply as well, which makes overdose so much more. likely to happen when you're mixing benzodiazepines with opiates. And then Ibogaine doesn't work for benzodiazepines as well. So our pool of people that we can work with has just gotten smaller and smaller. We find ourselves now working with not so many people that are using street drugs, but more housewives that have become addicted to Oxycontin or Percocet or something like that, or some other kind of opioid that might be prescribed by the doctor. We do work with some people that are using street drugs, but they've got to be able to jump through our hoops before we can start working with them. And then also apart from that, there's gotta be a, a good, um, uh, treatment plan. You know, we don't just treat people if they're just gonna be, you know, like Ibogaine should be used as, um, as a tool. And it's not just, it's always been kind of banded around as a, as a bit of a magic pill. And I, and I'm not trying to downplay it's it's efficacy because there is nothing else, um, for addiction like, um, Ibogaine, but, uh, yeah, it's just, it's become complicated, a lot more complicated. And it's important that people use it as a tool within a plan, a bigger picture plan that, you know, that they're going to use for their recovery. Not just like, oh, I'm, you know, I'm living on the streets. My family's going to pay for a treatment and then life's going to be rosy afterwards because that's not really how it works. You know, the whole Ibogaine thing is a process. And yeah, having some support is crucial for that process. So yeah, things are definitely a bit more complicated. Our client at the moment is going to InScape. And our last client is at InScape at the moment. And InScape is a recovery place down in Mexico. Right. Yeah, more of a holistic approach. And they also do plant medicine there, which could help people, you know, be on the right track before they leave and then go back into... their lives, how, how that's going to look, but the more support you can have around these kinds of treatments, the better, you know, Yeah, it seems interesting the way in which the drug war, the actual drugs coming in have changed the landscape of addiction. And it seems to me that what you were doing is you have had to change your methodology and treatment. When we first began the conversation, you were talking about an individual who's on a program, and sometimes it's six days, sometimes it's more days, and it's getting the medicine into them. And I'm wondering if you could share sort of your methodology with people so they can understand what something of that is like. Yeah. Um, well we've got somebody in at the moment and he, he actually managed to come off of, he was on a lot of different drugs and antidepressants and stuff before he came in. He's somebody that's been in and out of treatment a lot of times. So he actually, uh, he was on, um, some replacement therapy and, but was also had been using crack and crystal meth. He, um, managed to, uh, go and detox in the country, um, in Virginia. And, um, so he wasn't actively using any drugs when he came in that didn't really change too much on the way that we're going to work with him. Um, he came in and we gave him, um, a smaller dose. So as I can see how the medicine is working with him, um, how that's gonna affect his physiology. Um, the blood pressure and heart rate can, can drop as many as 20 points when we're working in higher dose Ibogaine. So I get a bit of an insight as to how his body's going to receive the medicine. And also as a bit of a primer for his body to have a bit of that medicine run through him. So when I'm doing a higher dose, the body's not going, what is this? Get it out. You know, there can be a lot of purging with Ibogaine, but that's normally due to motion, motion sickness. So, and the body, you know, having a little bit of it run through it before. Um, so it's not kind of rejecting it in some way. Um, and so then the next day we, my, my nurse came and, um, flew over from Vancouver Island and then we went into, we started the procedure of a flood dose, which was up to about, I think, um, 12 milligrams per kilogram or something like that. Yeah. Roughly around there. And, um, So that's an experience for him. He didn't sleep that night. It goes round into the next day. Um, that's a bit of a gray day for people when they have taken a higher dose. Yeah. Um, they feel a little bit blah and, but he got some sleep that next night. And then the next day we just start up with Ibogaine again. And I've seen, um, just over the years, the amount of Ibogaine you get into people makes a huge difference. So he's with us for another six days or something like that. And he will be taking Ibogaine another four of those days. So was it Sunday he took Ibogaine and Monday and today and tomorrow I think he's got off. Yeah. So basically he's taking a lot of Ibogaine while he's with us. Yeah. And that's working more on a saturation model instead of just the flood dose model. So he'll, you know, he's, he's laid out downstairs at the moment. Now he's had higher doses, higher dose go through him. These are smaller doses. He doesn't need to be monitored in quite the same way. So he's got some meditation music on downstairs. He's got his eye mask on. And he's fallen asleep, actually. Which for some people is unusual. But we will be doing this now until he leaves on Monday. So we'll be doing this up until Friday or Saturday. And then we'll work with him with 5MEO DMT at the very end. And that kind of ties everything together. There's a synergy that happens with Ibogaine and 5-MeO DMT, which is, you know, why a lot of places in Mexico are also working with 5-MeO. So that can bring in DMT. working with the Ibogaine can be, uh, a little dark, um, shadow material might arise. Um, it's just not easy taking this medicine, but I explained to people, the more that they take, the better they're gonna feel on the other side. And I've seen that, you know, and, and, um, problem that they're having in in mexico at the moment because people's doses are so high with the fentanyl so when people are actually going through with these flood doses and stuff um they might feel good for the first little bit but if they don't have enough ibogaine in their system they're not going to feel good in a couple of weeks and we just had this with somebody that was going to come work with us and um he got attached to this high dose flood dose thing. It's going to do it all for him. And then normally when we're working with opiates as well, we do a lot of low dose and repeated dosing. So as we're saturating somebody's body, so as they don't find themselves in that situation, a couple of weeks later, starting to drag their feet. So this, this young guy, he'd gone to Mexico to one of these more, established places that have a very good PR team and stuff. And they'd even posted, you know, on their website, you know, look at so-and-so, he was on dope last week and now he's all great. That didn't last. And now he's back in Canada and been put on some other medication because he's experiencing some post-acute withdrawal syndrome. So this is a problem that the Ibogaine world is experiencing. And I feel that the previous model that everybody worked on, and they worked on that model because that's how Howard Lotsoff discovered it in 1962. And then a lot of us that provide we were, you know, drug addicted ourselves. And so then we did it that way. Therefore it must be done that way. And that's just the kind of, you know, a thing that's, that's kind of, we found ourselves in the Ibogaine world, but I was just talking to somebody the other day. He's, he's been doing, you know, working in that more traditional way down in Mexico. And he's just saying, we're not just getting, we're just not getting the same results that we used to get. And my answer to that is, yeah, you just got to keep them for another week and keep on giving them Ibogaine. Because then there's more nor Ibogaine in the system that's floating around. That's what's working. Not just the flood dose. Maybe you could break that down for people. How do they get the nor Ibogaine in their body? What's that process? It metabolizes. So Ibogaine metabolizes in the system into nor Ibogaine. And then that's what floats around in the system afterwards and kind of leaks out into the body and brain. Is there a half-life on that? How long does that stay in the body, do we know? A long time. Well, I'm not exactly sure of that. I know that myself and what I see with people is that what I like to get out of people is like a three-month period. And I find that if you get lots and lots of Ibogaine into people, then that's the kind of timeline that you're looking at, you know? And that the neuroplasticity, you know, which often takes up to three months anyhow for that, you know, for new pathways to form. And so particularly with the Ibogaine, you know, if you've got a lot into somebody, and of course they're going back to a good supportive situation, then that's kind of what we get from people. We, I, I no longer have people moaning about not having enough five again on board, you know? And, um, so, and pretty much we, we used to do that anyhow. We used to do spend a lot of time. People would come for at least 10 days. And then since I started doing, um, inner realms, it's at least two weeks for an opiate detox anyhow. Um, So yes, it's about repetitive Ibogaine, Ibogaine, Ibogaine. And a lot of places I spoke to a guy the other day, he was in Mexico for four days for his flood dose. And that was it four days. He was at that place and then they kicked him out. Now have he, you know, had a little Percocet problem, then that, that might have been sufficient, probably would have been sufficient, you know, but he didn't, he had, um, he had a fentanyl problem and then he was able to find enough Oxycontin to, um, it was cost him a lot and there was an awful lot of Oxycontin, but he managed to stay on Oxycontin for a while before going down. But then they, you know, they did this quick treatment with him and they went home and then he said after 10 days of not sleeping, um, he went out and got some Oxy. So now he's back on, you know, he's, he's opiate dependent again. And that's really just because he just didn't receive enough by the game. Yeah. So it's changing the game, you know, and, and, and it's the drug war, you know, this stuff, we haven't come across it yet, but like trank and stuff, which is going in a lot more on the East coast, you know, there's these different animal tranquilizers that are ending up in the dope and yeah, which has given people kinds of, open sores and you know so it's just and people didn't want those drugs they wanted heroin right right and heroin's much easier to deal with and but not as profitable to drug dealers and as long as we live in a capitalist society you can't keep hard drugs out of high security prisons How are you supposed to keep hard drugs off the streets? And the authorities are addicted to prohibition. Sure. Private prisons, all of it. It's all part of it. It's just a huge mess. So the society's response to this, and the drug war basically is humanity's self-inflicted open wound. So we're dealing with it in the wrong ways. And it's costing a fortune as well. If you think about somebody in runaway addiction that's out on the street, what's that costing in theft, sexually transmitted diseases? The list goes on and on. Hospital visits, incarceration. Somebody could be out there for 20 years. Right. You know, cost in society an awful amount. We've been going through this thing. We decriminalize drugs up here as well in B.C. Now there's a backlash against that. And nobody is concerned about people using drugs at home. But what they don't like to see is the homeless people using drugs in public. You know, that's upsetting them. Well, give them a fucking hope. You don't want to see people using drugs in public. And that's the reason why they're using drugs in public. It's because they don't have a hope. So they're always trying to take their tents away from them and closing down their tent cities and stuff. And it's like the new population to hate on. When I see there's these different YouTube channels and stuff which are just poverty porn, really. And some guy walks around downtown filming people doing drugs and being in a very vulnerable position. Well, that's clicks. And that's money for his YouTube channel. And when I see the comments that people put in, it's just shocking to me how it's just the new people to hate on. you know what I mean yeah it's it's it's on some level I think mental illness is contagious in a way in that when someone has a problem and we don't help them fix it like it weighs on us like we become sort of disabled in a way to deal with that situation. Like everybody's like, most people I know have been around a situation. Like my niece overdosed on fentanyl. Like I've, I've, I've, I've seen the, you know, tears of disaster flowing down my sister's face and understand what it's like to lose people. And like, that is contagious. It doesn't end with someone dying because now the entire family's injured. And some people deal with that by blaming the, other people out there and but it's it's all of our problems like every one of us it's it's it's part of us that's dying and you can see it in the streets and I don't know how to deal with it and the authorities just try to blanket it over or worse yet they turn it into some sort of a some sort of a um conveyor belt for profit you know they profit off the idea of addiction hey here's this here's this new company that's going to help but they're just going to soak the money out of it and not really give anybody any help it's yeah it's a disaster man yeah Yeah, not much is being done up here as well. I mean, it was supposed to have been, you know, the profits from the cannabis industry was a lot of that was supposed to being funneled into people in recovery. And, you know, we do have safe supply up here, which some people are trying to get rid of, which is just going to be a death sentence to some people. But that's the levels of compassion. And then, you know, the right are always saying, oh, you're just in... The right are saying, oh, by having a safe injection place, encouraging drug use. No, people are going to be doing that anyhow. We're just trying to keep societies safer, you know, from disease and keep people alive because people are going to be doing that. Nobody's ever died in insight, you know, which is Vancouver's... a safe injection place. We have other ones, but they're not federally recognized the same way that Insight is. Nobody's ever died there. You know, and yet people are dying. We're losing eight people a day across the province. And yet the right seem to say, oh, you're encouraging drug use. No, I'm not. I'm just trying to keep people alive. And we've got overdose prevention sites dotted all around in the downtown east side in alleyways and stuff like that. Because if there's a queue to get into Insight, the safe injection place, well, somebody's going to go out in the alley because they're just trying to get well. And that's where people are dying. It's both heartbreaking and heartwarming to see some of the success stories and the failures of individuals' battles in there. But it does seem to me to be like a symptom of the sickness of our society. Are you aware of any sort of like... programs that you see that are addressing the bigger issues. Maybe it's the wealth inequality, or do you have any thoughts on what could be the major symptom that's one of the symptoms that's causing this breakdown? Um, I think wealth inequality is a big one, you know, because it's very difficult for now for just anybody on a low income to, to be housed, you know? And then, so if you've got the slightest bit of a drug problem, boom, Housing is one of the first things that goes, you know, and that's that we're experiencing a huge housing crisis here anyhow, you know, and that's people that aren't drug addicted. You know, we've got tent camps and RV camps and stuff. And it's not just happening here. It's happening everywhere. Yep. You know, so I think that's a big driver. And then, of course, then if you don't have security of a home, well, I'd be using drugs as well. Yeah. So and as a society, we don't really seem to give a shit. Yeah. Generally speaking, people are putting the rents up because that's what's happening. The rents are going up, you know. So it's, it's not, not a good situation and I don't really see it getting any better very quickly either. You know, they don't seem to be doing a whole lot of public housing here or anything, or if they are, then they're very late in getting stuff together. So yeah, that's one of the, one of the bigger problems. And then, um, the, the, the tainted drug supply, you know? So. Yeah. It's mind blowing to me. You know, if I, and it makes me think of the idea of relationships, the way we treat ourselves in our, in our own mental dialogue or our inner dialogue. Sometimes that, you know, I, I realize what it's like to have a series of negative patterns repeat in my mind and know what that does to me and my family and my relationships. And it seems that that is something that echoes outwards into society where we take those negative thought patterns and we just apply them to people that are less than for some reason, whatever reason we make up in our mind, okay, these are the people I'm gonna just dump all my hate on because I can't do it to my family, you know? But on the topic of relationships, I think that's maybe one reason we're seeing things like ibogaine and this sort of turn towards conscious awareness make big changes is that these altered states of consciousness reshape our perception of relationships. And it helps us. So the question I have for you is how do, in your opinion, how do altered states of consciousness reshape our perception of relationships and the way we connect on a soul level? Good question. Yes, thank you. I guess it depends on which substances, you know. Well, you know, I guess with the psychedelics, it takes us away from our normal 2.0 kind of thought, way of thinking, and can really shake things up for some people, you know. I was supposed to have become a dairy farm manager or something or other, and then I took psilocybin, a large dose of psilocybin, and that clearly wasn't going to happen anymore. So, you know, maybe it affects us in a way of thinking about our relationships and what have you. Also, depending which substances, you know, I think the whole MDMA thing, Um, you know, obviously young people want to take MDMA because they're connecting with each other on ways that they never did before, you know? So, and yeah, so I guess, you know, in a lot of ways that maybe might make people, um, think more about their relationships with others, um, feel of the importance of it. I feel that, you know, a lot of people are very disconnected these days with our phones and social media and stuff. And even some ways we're connected through that. Like I'm connected to a whole bunch of friends that I was involved with, you know, years ago because there's that connectedness. But, you know, people are kind of stuck on these things. Yeah. Phones. And so there's a disconnection there, you know. I dunno, but I think that we yearn for that, um, for that kind of connection and community tasks, but we don't have so much of it anymore. It would seem, I dunno, we're a little bit older. So, you know, we grew up in, in a time of, um, not having our phones and things. So I'm, I'm quite happy to be as old as I am and to have, um, had to use my own mind as a youngster for entertainment, you know, which when I, when I think about how we did things as kids and now how kids do things today, I mean, it's, it's quite different. Yeah. So yeah, I'm, I'm not sure. I mean, I, you know, the human spirit yearns for connection. That's well said. And I, and I think that, um, sometimes, uh, you know, the, the, these, uh, medicines can bring us together in community. You know, I, I, I feel that, um, you know, when, if people are going to ayahuasca circles, it's not just about the ayahuasca, it's also about the community that, that they're, um, that they're being a part of, you know, um, Or in recovery, you know, that connection thing is important because, you know, I think one of the biggest things, takeaways that people get from recovery movements is the connectedness. Yeah. You know, that's kind of what I got out of going to the rooms to AA was, you know, not being isolated. at home or when I was using, you know, and that's where people end up in total isolation normally when they're engaged with substance. You know, it's getting away from that and getting back to community and relationship. I do. I hear sometimes people say that, you know, Getting to hear someone's story from their lips that is near identical to your story is this an incredible way in which you realize you're bigger than yourself, that you're part of a community, that you're not alone for the first time. Like maybe that's where some of that community comes along. Maybe for, for guys our age, it was playing wiffle ball out on the street until the lights came on, you know, or, you know, but for some people who may not have had that, you know, you, the isolation factor that's happening right now, people are siloed in their houses. They, they went through COVID, which was very isolating for a lot of people. You have the internet, that isolation can be a real banger, man. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. And, you know, we're not supposed to live like that. No. You know, throughout our history, our human history, we've pretty much always been, you know, with our tribe, you know, our community in some way, form, whether that be the church or, you know. Yeah. There's always some kind of community. so yeah yeah there's a lot more isolation now individual isolation yeah the individualism that that people are experiencing um but that that whole isolation around that you know modern technology as well you know I see it um yeah in our relationships you know yeah Sometimes my partner and I, you know, we might be in different rooms sending each other memes from Instagram, you know, or cute dog stuff, you know, puppy stuff. Yeah. You know. It's interesting. So we're communicating, but individually we're sitting in front of our death scroll devices, you know, and not, you know, really being part of something. Yeah, it's interesting. And then kids are being born into that. And it's like, you know, it's almost, they're born with a device in their hand. Yeah. Yeah. And they know how to use these devices, you know, back to front. And if ever I have a problem on my, on my phone, I just hand it to a younger person and say, can you fix this? And they go, yeah, right. Split second. Yeah. I think that that also speaks to the idea of isolation between generations. If you, if, I'm almost 50 and I know that my daughter knows more about certain types of technology than I do. Like she's going to a cool school where they're learning how to create different things and different apps and stuff like this. And it's mind blowing to think about the chasm between her and I's idea about technology. And then if you factor in a boomer versus like a zoomer, like that's a giant chasm and that's isolating in itself. There's no longer the elders able to pass down information that a young person really finds worthwhile. That can lead to some anger down the road, I think. Yeah. Or what is AI going to do? AI could put an end to a lot of people's professions. Yeah. I think it has to. What's going to happen then? People don't have a way of making an income. It's going to change the job situation. Sure. Yeah. I think it's a tale of two cities. It was the best of times. It was the worst of times. Right. Well, let's not try and get too deep into it. let me bring it back to clint kyle he's got a question here first off clint the psychedelic christian podcast great podcast clint thanks for hanging out with us he says that I recognize that such situations are often case and individual dependent but do you have any advice regarding the balance of compassion and tough love for those trying to help loved ones struggling with addiction opiate addiction in particular That's a, that's a hard one. Um, I don't find tough love to really be love somehow. I mean, it's, you know, a way of dealing with a situation where, you know, you're going to cut somebody off or something like that. Um, that's a difficult one because yeah, it is on an individual basis. Right. It's difficult to support people, um, in some regards. Um, when they're in full blown, um, opioid addiction. Um, but of course the more support that we can give within reason, you know, then, then we should, but again, it's a very difficult situation. You know, I, I don't particularly know how to answer that one. I just, you know, I, I just haven't found tough love to really, you know, it doesn't really cut it and it's, um, yeah. It's not really love in some ways. It's just kind of that, yeah. I think we're seeing less and less of that these days because I think people realize it's not really helping too much. But I do understand that the situation can be very difficult for family members and stuff when somebody's in opioid addiction because it affects everybody. It's not just the person that's going through it. Yeah. I think we could define that. I think we could define tough love if we defined it better on some level. It's sort of a big idea, but it seems to me the foundation of tough love is someone who has enough belief in the person they're trying to care about that they can figure it out. And it's almost ingrained in our society when you look at the hero's journey or the prodigal son or a lot of these myths where like, listen, you can do it. Or the rebellious teenager. Oh yeah, you think you know? Go show me then. So this idea, and maybe it's the rugged individualism that we talk about sometimes. But I think it just depends on how we define it. Because there are success stories about it. But on some level, I think maybe we... We run into the problem of language because how much of support is enabling? Those are two different things, but they seem to kind of run together a little bit. What's your thoughts on that? Sure. No, I understand. Yeah. And you're right. You don't want to enable somebody, but at the same time, you don't want to shut the door on them for their basic needs. Right. But it can also be a very difficult situation. Somebody that's in... truly out of control, um, opioid, uh, addiction, you know, that can be a very scary thing and burns families down to the ground, you know? So, yeah, that's it. Yeah. Yeah. Boundaries. Yeah. Of course having good boundaries, But again, it's an individual thing, you know, from one person to the other. And I really don't have a good answer for that one, I'm afraid. Yeah, it's a good question, Clint. Thanks for bringing it in there. Have you found in your travels that... There are a lot of similarities with addiction, or are there cultural sort of traps that people fall into that bring them into addiction? Yeah, cultural ones, sure. Like, you know, alcohol in Europe. You know, like in the UK, alcohol is kind of a cultural obligation. Right. And I think, you know, in Russia, I think alcohol use disorder is the number one killer of men over 45 or something like that, liver disease, you know, which has been promoted by the state. Wow. You know, I think they probably have a monopoly on, because it's a communist country, they have a monopoly on the alcohol that's killing their population. it's crazy it is crazy and then that's a cultural thing that's just been passed down and yeah well you know addiction I think cigarettes and um alcohol kill way more people than um drugs do so you know and that's a cultural thing isn't it it is a cultural thing yeah yeah definitely There seems to be a thread, though, that whoever controls the drugs that fuel a society tend to be the people in charge. You know, like... Well, that's where the money lies, isn't it? In drugs and oil and war. Right, right. You know, and... There's some money in illicit drugs, but not really compared to pharmaceutical. Do you know what I mean? Yeah. Look at Purdue. And OxyContin is still... The Sackler family alone. Yeah. OxyContin is still $80 or a dollar a milligram, I believe. So an Oxy20 costs $20. An Oxy80, if you can get hold of one, costs $80. Okay. And so that's a dollar a milligram. That's much more than any illicit drugs. Gold for that matter. Yeah. Yeah. It's kind of crazy. Yeah. And then, you know, there's so many people on pharmaceuticals now. And why is that? A lot of people are on antidepressants. Huge amount of number of people are on antidepressants. Is that people are depressed or they're anxious, you know, Maybe they're a victim to an incredibly successful marketing campaign. Yeah, there's that. There's that. Right? I don't think they can advertise antidepressants here in Canada. We don't watch TV anyhow, but I seem to remember in the States. States and New Zealand, I think. I remember seeing the ads and thinking, holy shit. you know, they don't seem to work for people. Um, they might, um, uh, work a little bit for a short period of time for a certain percentage of the population. And then they're very difficult to get off of afterwards, you know, can cause all kinds of problems. And then they cause all kinds of problems when people are on them as well. Um, you know, weight gain, sexual dysfunction, all of that kind of stuff, but they dish it out. Like, you know, smarties I've, I've had, um, doctors trying to put me on, um, various antidepressants for ADHD. I won't take those. I'm hopeful that. It seems to me on some level... That's what this sort of wave of plant medicine means to me is this idea that we can awaken to a new fuel, a new way to see ourselves, a new opportunity to heal ourselves. And each one... has now the opportunity to go and help out the next person. When you make it to the top, reach around and help the next one up. Because all of us seem to have faced something in our life, and if we can confront that thing that we faced, figure it out, and then just tell someone, then we become the bridge to helping them on some level, instead of turning to the alcohol or the whatever. Sure. Well, I think that's happening slowly. Me too. But the thing with the psychedelics is the people doing the work. you know, otherwise it's, you know, it's back to, it's just another peak experience that we've had. And, you know, I was given all of these great insights, but I didn't really implement them afterwards. So therefore I'm going to go back to this peak experience in another three months and have another one. And, um, get a lot of really good downloads and information and not implement them either. So that's something we see quite a bit in, in the psychedelic world, you know? Yeah. So of course, you know, but that's, And I think more and more people are getting wise to the fact that, you know, oh yeah, I should probably integrate this experience better than I have been. There's been more emphasis in the last few years about people actually doing the work, you know? Yeah. I mean, occasionally, you know, people will have a psychedelic experience and knock it out of the park and just seem to change their lives effortlessly. But for the most of us, it's like you're given some information and then you have to act on that afterwards, you know? And that's kind of where the work comes in. And yeah, my Rome wasn't built in a day. So yeah, I see that there are, there are, there is quite a lot of that going on in the psychedelic community is that people repeatedly go back for peak experiences and they don't integrate them properly. And then they're just going back for peak experiences, which in some respects is a little bit like going to watch a really cool movie. Yeah. Yeah. So, Time to go to the cinema again. Hopefully after watching that movie enough, you can quote it though. You know what I mean? And then like, at least then, like you start pretending, Oh, I remember John wick over here. He did this one. It seeps into your life a little bit. Maybe. Yeah. But he started doing those cool moves. Cause he started doing meditation. Do you see this particular wave as a building block? We probably couldn't have had this wave unless we had the last wave. Is that something that you see? It's interesting to see where it's going to go. Where is it going to go from here? AI might have huge implications. Do you know what I mean? AI might be creating new drugs for us that we, you know, that we wouldn't have been able to come up with on our own. So it's interesting to see how this will unfold. And yeah, it's an odd place. Cause there was this huge, like, you know, there was suddenly all of this money for investment for psychedelics and that lasted not very long. And now there isn't any money for it. Do you know what I mean? So it was a bit of a flash in the pan, but, um, you know, and I don't know how far we've gotten as well. Cause at the moment, really the only thing that's available has been ketamine. Yeah. Do you know what I mean? Which is a dissociative, um, psychic anesthetic. Yeah. you know, that just got used off on cross label. So, you know, there's a little bit more going on, I guess, with psilocybin and psilocybin managed to make, um, uh, some moves because nobody from the medical world knew what it was. You know, if they tried to do that with LSD, it wouldn't have happened. Yeah. Um, you know, things are moving as well. Like we've got a lot of mushroom dispensaries now in Vancouver and in other places, mushrooms and online and stuff. So again, that's not really coming from the medical establishment. That's coming from the, coming from the underground. Yeah. So, and Like five years ago, we were thinking, oh yeah, this new wave is happening, you know? And I remember some of the conversations that when I was doing my synthesis course, some of the conversations that were happening and everybody thinking that, you know, that it was going to be, adapted by the mainstream society where it wasn't really. I mean, like the two Dost movies, talking to the filmmakers, they're always like, you know what, we could have made more if we'd made two movies about literally anything other than psychedelics. You know, because it's still kind of a niche thing. A lot of us that are involved We're involved anyhow. We've just been given a little bit more certain amount of respectability maybe or something or other. So, yeah, it's interesting to see where this will go and how much we'll build upon on top of this. I still think that there's still quite a bit of stigma. Yeah. You know, attached to psychedelics and the powers that be have done a very good job of that. You know, still people say that LSD will change your chromosomes or some bullshit like that. So, yeah, I mean, things are moving along. But then the FDA just shut down. Lycos, yep, MDMA. Yeah, they just shut them down for moving forward. And in some respects, I could see some of their reasoning for that. So, but... Yeah. Things aren't moving as fast as we would like them to move and they never do. Yeah. So, so I'm hopeful. I would really like to see that, you know, in some years to come, um, that people, you know, if they need an Ibogaine treatment, they would be able to get one, you know, through, because you, It will cost the state or society as a whole less money to treat people with Ibogaine than it will be just to let them out and about running around in addiction. But how much money is available for our mental health or just health in general? Look at the system you've got in the States. Ours is a little bit better because we've got socialized medicine. Um, but still, yeah, it's bleak. Yeah. Yeah. It's, it's, it's, yeah, it's taken its time. Um, some, um, a friend of mine is working with somebody with the MDMA, um, soon or has just done, uh, through, um, We have a system in Canada where people can access. It's a special access program. And so somebody has just accessed that through MDMA, through a special access program in Canada. But people are still... somebody was given special access for depression with psilocybin the other day. And apparently that was a bit of a game changer. They had been given it to people with end of life. Yeah. So, so now that you don't have to be dying in order to try, they're fucking ridiculous. Um, and, and then we've got all of these mushroom, mushroom dispensaries downtown, you know? So, and that's how, uh, how, um, the, Cannabis was legalized in Canada. Health Canada said, oh, okay, we're going to give you permission to use cannabis. We're not going to tell you where to get it from, but we're going to go ahead and say you can use it. The Health Canada came up with some medical cannabis, which is just garbage, and nobody would ever use it. So that wasn't viable. So they're doing the same now. Like, oh, yeah, we'll give you permission to use MDMA. We don't know where the fuck you're going to get it from. But you go ahead and do that with your nurse practitioner friend. And the same with the psilocybin. Yeah. Yeah, it's interesting times. And I do see a lot of people in institution like higher learning starting to embrace it on some level like you're beginning to see a lot more acceptance of people writing papers about ideas and if that is some sort of a green shoot I you know I know that abigail calder is out there and luigi s espaciano and dr sebastian schultz like there's so many people out there that are beginning to you gain some traction with some of the ideas that they're putting out there. And I think that that could spawn the next generation. You know, if we open the door a little bit, someone may be curious and poke their head through and start. Well, there's trials going on. Yes. My friend is working on some trials in the UK and there was an Ibogaine trial, a 5-MeO trial. Yeah. So there's stuff going on, you know, I don't think there's quite the money that there was a couple of years ago. Everybody's not getting excited about it in the same way that they were. It also gets very expensive when you get pharmaceutical companies involved in trials and things like that. I think it costs like a billion bucks to bring a drug to market. It's just a lot of money. You're talking about a cure? For things like something like Ibogaine, it's going to be a long time before that happens. For a start, people aren't really concerned really about people with drug problems. Yeah. Good point. Ibogaine is more likely to come about through Parkinson's and stuff like that. I feel which, you know, people are, we could be more likely to want to see the development of a drug for something like Parkinson's instead of a development of a drug for people with a Maybe dementia. I think Beckley or Adam Tapp had a really good article on about 5-MeO-DMT and dementia. All of a sudden, that could open the door right back up when you start talking about longevity. Yeah, but if it's connecting with the divine, I don't know if the shareholders are going to... Oh my God, we've got to throw our money on that one. Yeah. Yeah, that's interesting how there seems to be... you know, an odd relationship between almost an adversarial relationship between spirituality and medicine. Like there was this wedge that was driven in there. Like, we're not going to talk about this. Okay. You can have medicine, but you can't have that. That seems to be like, you know, pushing on each other a little bit. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, that's the medical system. You know, it doesn't really recognize that. Yeah. But that might be the reason why you're depressed. Yeah, imagine that. But they can't define that stuff. You can't manage what you can't manage. And that's another problem with psychedelics is that they don't like this. They like to keep things in a box like this and don't like it when it goes boom like that because they can't write data about that. They can't. Do you know what I mean? Yeah. How do you create a supply chain around that? How do you, how do you, what do you mean we're wrong? All this stuff we said was wrong. What do you mean? Shut that down now. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So yeah. Interesting. I think it's inevitable. And that is what gives me hope is that, you know, when we see Christians in Arkansas beginning to open the door to psychedelics in their church, like that to me is like, look at this. Look at this coming in over here. Well, that happened with Santo Daime, right? Yeah. And that was Judge Roberts. Okay. Who was a Bush appointee that allowed that to happen. Mm-hmm. Yes. I mean, that is. And then, you know, I would want to see that. I wouldn't want all of these compounds to be just taken over by the medical establishment. Right. You know, because that hasn't been. And then suddenly they come marching along. Oh, now we found use for these. Yes. Therefore, they are ours. And everybody, if they want to take these, has to come through a doctor and, you know. Right. Which would be a bit of a disaster. Um, and so I don't want to see that the medical, uh, or the psychedelic scene kind of being hijacked by the medical establishment, you know? So how is it going to work out otherwise? You know, it's an interesting, it's an interesting situation, you know, how, how they'll, um, maybe allow the holistic use of these medicines in some areas. Because I mean, that's what John Roberts did is he allowed Santo Daime to be using that in their religious, you know, religious freedom is the reasons for that, you know. So there should be something along the same lines. But how to do that? I don't know. We're trying to replace this archaic, harmful drug war that most people pay no attention to anyhow. I certainly never have. And so what's it going to be replaced with? And what's the general public going to allow it to be replaced with? We have all these mushroom dispensaries downtown now. And some years ago, before we had any bricks and mortar mushroom dispensaries, Dana Larson, a longtime activist in Vancouver for cannabis and now psychedelics, said that he had an online dispensary. And he said somewhere publicly that he was going to have a bricks and mortar store downtown. And so one of the... City councillors got wind of this and then wanted to have a big meeting where she would be able to ban mushroom dispensaries downtown because she could see that there was going to be one on every street corner, kind of like we had it with cannabis before it was legalized. Now, in order to do that ban, you have to have a public meeting. And so about 100 people went down there saying all of the pros for psilocybin. And the city council meeting was shot down six in favor of dispensaries, two against. Well, that was some years ago. And now the city council has changed a little bit. And they said at that time that they would be happy to be working with VPD to roll out the successful storefronts for mushrooms. But mushrooms are still schedule one in Canada. And so, and now, you know, this is six or seven years later now, I think. And now we have like 15 or more each week. There's more dispensaries and yet they won't, they won't give them a business license. So here's the problem you can see right now. It's like the city is saying, okay, well, we're not going to shut these places down. But in the meantime, we're just going to ignore them. Yeah. Which does nothing towards, you know, bringing things a little bit closer to, being regulated. They'd said some years ago that they were going to do all they could with BPD to make sure that they could regulate these things. And the same thing happened with cannabis for years. The dispensaries were unregulated and then they legalized cannabis, pushed out most of the people that were involved in cannabis and made it a culture over the years illegally, but still made it a culture. And it's kind of, you know, Are they trying to do the same thing? What's going on? Meanwhile, as we get mushroom dispensaries proliferate in Vancouver, well, then they're going to start opening it up in other places. And I think they are in Toronto and stuff. And so in the meantime, the powers that be don't want to... They know that this isn't the time to be arresting people and bringing them into court because that would just be a waste of public money. Yeah. But they're still not doing anything. Do you know what I mean? Yeah. So what is the drug war going to be replaced with? And that's kind of interesting. I think that's some green shoots. When we look at that model, it kind of reminds me of Gandhi's method of first they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, and then you win. On some level, if we look at cannabis, we can say that on some level, it's been difficult to monetize it in the way that Wall Street wanted to. That seems like a win to me. you know like that seems like a win like yeah you can't really get your arms around it can you and then here comes here comes mycelium and growing sort of like the mushroom a little bit starts right here find some people over here pops up the fruit over there fruit over here and I'm noticing a lot of young individuals like I'm not really going to drink anymore I don't want to get wasted it's like I'd rather like sit around my friends and like contemplate the philosophical underpinnings of power you know and like that seems to me to be like a win And so maybe the drug war is replaced with irrelevancy. Like, wow, you know, I'm hopeful. And that's, that's very good. Maybe that's pie in the sky, but I can see those green shoots happening. And maybe that's contagious in some ways. I'm hopeful anyways. Is that too? Yeah. Yeah. Well, you know, I read it. I read an article the other day that said that in the States on a certain day, like last month or something, more people consume cannabis than alcohol. Yeah. That's a win. That's a plant with an agenda. Yeah. I agree. So we're seeing in, yeah, I guess, you know, well, and that's why we had, um, uh, decrim drug decriminalization. One of the reasons why we had drug decriminalization here, I think the main reason is that you just can't arrest their way out of this situation, you know? Yeah. Um, But, you know, even with that, and so, you know, Dana, he's got three locations in Vancouver, and one of them is a coca leaf cafe, so you can go and order a coca leaf cafe instead of coffee, you know? Yeah. But he's also selling LSD and DMT, 5-MeO DMT pens, which is really sticking his neck out there in some respects, but not really. I mean, that's the reason why they don't want to drag him into court because there's all of these mushroom dispensaries. Mushrooms can get you just as altered as LSD or DMT. He's selling a lot of microdosing kits as well, 4-ACO, DMT, 1P, LSD. So he's like a one-stop psychedelic shop. If you're selling mushrooms, why shouldn't you be able to sell the other psychedelics? It's apples and pears at this point. What they did with him is they arrested him the other day and threw him in jail for eight hours, took all of his stock in his three stores, and then let him out without charging him. They should know that he's not going to submit to those kind of intimidation practices. So he just went up and restocked his three stores and opened them up again. That's so awesome. They won't, they won't drag me to court. I'm pretty sure because it will put their drug laws on trial. Yeah. You know, and with the kind of support he would get in Vancouver as well. I, I, you know, they did the same thing with oil in Britain. There was an activist who, who publicly gave oil to a woman who needed it for her child for seizures. And this was done publicly in somewhere, an important place in London and in front of the press. And as soon as he handed it over, the authorities handcuffed him and charged him. But no, sorry, they arrested him, took him down to the station, but until this day, they still haven't charged him. Again, because it's putting their drug laws on trial. But since that kind of display of public disobedience, now there is medical cannabis in the UK. Not in the ways we'd probably want to see it, but people do have access. in some cases. We're in a very strange time at the moment. It is. Transitional, I think. When I look in the US, I see a lot of the Psychedelic Lawyers Guild and there's all these professional agencies coming up around this. When I think about that, I think about the way language is changing. People who find themselves in an altered state of awareness through Beth work or psychedelics, they often find themselves bumping up against the ineffable or they find themselves seeing themselves in a different way. But ultimately, I think it comes back to this idea of language. And what if we tie this all together with some of the kids doing projects about the effects of psychedelics on the brain? And instead of beginning to see, plant medicine or psychedelics or these compounds, what if we were able to change their, their qualification or their classification to exogenous neurotransmitters? You know, now all of a sudden we're getting into the realm of like, Oh, this is a neurotransmitter. I see. How can that be illegal? So on some level, it could be a semantic sort of realization. Oh, we've got to change the language here. And I'm sure that there's stops there, but I think there's something there, right? Yeah, I think entheogen helped with that. Yes, agreed. But it's not... It's not a silver bullet. It still leaves it a little bit ambiguous, doesn't it? Right. Yeah. So, yeah. And again, the establishment can't really say, oh, God within. What does that mean exactly? Yeah, no, you're right. I think more of a term like that would be beneficial. If we look at things a little bit more scientifically. You know, because it's coming out of the realm of, you know, indigenous and hippie use now. Yeah. You know, which would both be kind of frowned upon by the powers that be, you know. But yeah, no, I think you're I think you're right. And there's going to be a lot of little baby steps. Yes. Yes. To where we would like to be with this situation, you know. And if we look at the models of cannabis, like we've gone from, oh, my uncle scored this white widow to I like the terpene profile. There's a real maturity process there that allows people to – that kind of language allows you to use in a different way. You have to have the – The linguistic pathway in order to thoroughly understand the environment, right? I can't tell you about the trail unless I tell you, oh, you go at the four-mile marker, there's a yellow ribbon, and there's like a sequoia tree right there. That's where you're going to make your left at. We need that same sort of language for the psychedelic environment. I think it's happening. Just in this conversation alone, I think we've covered some fascinating topics that can give people something to chew on in some way. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, but interesting times, you know, like where is it going to go? And they seem to be having a harder time in the States. Like I think Australia has now legalized medical use of MDMA. Yeah. Which is stepping up before the U.S., and how long can you deny positive results I mean there's people that do it their whole life I get it you know I've done it for a big part of my life you know but at some level society has to start seeing like you know what my they're still dragging their feet like the whole thing with the you know with the fda and mdma like fuck I mean it's the it's the the um Veterans. Yeah. And, you know, because that seems to me that would be the easy way in to deal with the veterans. Or frontline workers. Yeah. With, you know, paramedics and the cops and what have you. I would have thought that that would have been the easy way in with that population. But still, no. So... It's time as well, you know, because things have changed over, you know, this last period of time. And so, you know, just I was last time I was at my dentist's office, I was looking up watching the screen and they were talking about ketamine. You know, so, yeah. I love it. I got on. Here's another question that comes in from my, from my incredible audience to all my audience. Thank you for putting some questions over here and hanging out with us today. And this was actually has to do with language. What is the role of language and interpret interpreting and integrating the profound insights gained from the altered states of consciousness? Oh, a difficult one. That's a very individual thing. Of course. Because integration is a very individual thing from person to person. And then a lot of the stuff that we might experience might be ineffable. You know? Yeah. Especially when we're working with things like 5MEO. You can't even... you can't describe that you can't put that into words you know that's why ineffable comes up so often you know so what was the question again it was the role of language in interpreting and integrating the insights gained I guess that's kind of integration like yeah is there symbols in there or yeah well it's kind of in some ways what you're doing um in integrating is metabolizing Oh, I like that. Yeah. You know, you're metabolizing the experience. And often that's done in ways that can't really be put into words exactly. I think it's more of a heartfelt or felt, you know, in some ways. I'm just thinking more of 5ML because that's so profound. Yeah. And, and, And trying to integrate that experience, integrate and putting language to something that can't really, you know, I mean, we use words like oceanic boundlessness and stuff like that to make pathetic attempts of trying to describe what that experience can be, you know. Maybe that's part of the healing is trying to think of a word that can describe the experience, right? Like that sounds like you're desperately trying to form a new pathway. You know, like maybe that's part of the work is that contemplation. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, and sitting with that. Yeah. Afterwards, instead of being distracted on our phones. Yeah, yeah. That's a great point. That's the... The neural net instead of the internet. Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And that takes away from people's integration. Our busy lives and these things. Yep. Yeah, I agree. What else do I got here? But the more that somebody could do to metabolize the experience. I like that. Yeah. Yeah. What are some techniques and some ways in which you have found to help people metabolize? Well, the first ones, I guess, the first thing that we do with people, I encourage people to journal after a 5-MeO DMT experience or with their Ibogaine experience. Journaling can be good, but not everybody's into that. You know, um, guys aren't particularly good at journaling. I'm useless at it. Um, so, um, art, um, but immediately what we do is, um, nature, you know, after a session, um, that's the first thing that we normally do. after somebody's had a period of time that they might want to do some journaling and stuff, we, we generally have a bite to eat cause people have been fasting. And then the first thing that we do is we go to the forest. And so I, we, we feel that nature is a big part of that integration. Um, but there's lots of different techniques that people can do for integration, you know, in some ways that, um, you know, integration is like a Polaroid snapshot that somebody takes and it takes a while for that to develop. You know, you remember when we used to get Polaroid, we used to wave them around in the air and then slowly that picture develops. Yeah. And so, so there's a lot of things that people can do along the way to help that, that picture developing, you know, a lot of other techniques, mindfulness, but nature and being in nature is, and not on your phone because that's when material can come up into people's field of consciousness. There's too many things in our world these days that, that, uh, takes us away from that. You know, so, so before doing medicine work, we encourage people to, to disconnect as much as they can. And then afterwards as well, and, and take time before re-entry, It will be encouraged with people come and do work with us for Ibogaine, if it's for drug detox. So we encourage them to go off to do some kind of aftercare like inscape or something like that. Um, what if people were coming for, um, five MEO, then we would encourage them to take three to seven days off afterwards and to be able to sit with the experience and not be on their phones and, you know, spend time with themselves you know so we encourage people to get an airbnb if that can be something that people can do um or you know create some kind of something before they step back into the real world that's the period of time that you you have to to take that huge experience um and try to metabolize it before going back into into life. And that's often where a lot of the work is, you know, of real work is of being able to give yourself that time to not be distracted, you know, to spend some time journaling, doing some art. Yeah. Or working with a therapist as well, an integration specialist, um, We generally hook our people up with integration specialists. Is there a process for that? Do you match certain individuals with certain therapists? Yeah, we've got a general idea of who might, that might fit well for people and then introduce them that way. Yeah. We've got a few people in our back pockets. Yeah. Yeah. Which could be an even longer process, you know, like all of our Ibogaine people connect with my friend from the Ibogaine counseling services, Anders, Anders Beattie. So there might be a lot of sessions afterwards, you know, depending everybody's process is different depending, you know, what they've been coming from, who they are, what's been going on in their lives. Some people need more support afterwards than other people do. So it's quite an individual kind of basis. But we still encourage people to put as much as they can into an integration process afterwards instead of like, oh, I'm just going to come and take this drug. Like I say, which can be just like peak experiences that people return to. On a regular basis, as opposed to not gleaning as much as they could out of their psychedelic experience. And that's doing the work afterwards. Gareth, do you ever get the feeling that sometimes maybe the plant medicine works by finding an individual that's been through experiences, teaching them, and then... they teach someone else, you know, maybe that, maybe that's just the way health works on some level. Like we have turned the instrument into an institution of health. And I look, I'm, I'm for doctors and health and people have accidents. It's such a, it's a wonderful thing, but on some level, it just seems that maybe there's a lot of other modalities where like what you're doing, like maybe that is just an alternative form of healthcare that people are They say the teacher shows up when you need them. Maybe you are the teacher that shows up for a lot of people. Do you think that could just be the way it works? Well, I feel that what's happening is that when people engage with the medicine, what we're really doing is showing them a door and helping them walk through it. Because we don't do the medicine ourselves. That's what the other ones that are doing the argument. They're the ones that are going through that full re release experience. Right. So in some ways I, you know, it's kind of like the medicine through help with others is really helping people to heal themselves in a certain way. And then that, that knowledge can be passed on to the next person and can also aid like you know, um, people that we work with, um, talk to the people that we are going to be working with, you know, and explain to them how that process worked for them, you know, what was good and what wasn't, or, you know, the pitfalls or, you know, especially when we're working in addiction, you know, that can be, uh, and so people do need support, um, coming through that. But ultimately at the end of the day, it's, um, you know, there can be a lot of advice given and stuff, but everybody's process is a little bit different, you know, and people recover in their own ways at their own, at their own speed as well. So, um, and with working with Ibogaine as well, a lot of people have been trying to get out of addiction for a long time. And so, and this kind of is in some ways, um, giving them a roadmap, right. If you will. know with the aid of the medicines yeah plant medicine and other help along the way but it's a kind of an individual path that people are walking so yeah it's interesting what about the idea that have you ever sometimes I think about the idea that Maybe addiction is a sort of malady on the way to becoming a better species, and enough of us have to go through it. There's this thing that happens when one of us does something, someone else learns. No one could run a four-minute mile until one guy did it. But then more people did it. Now more people can do it. Maybe addiction is a thing that we have to go through as a species in order to get to the next level. And we're in the midst of it here. And people are learning. They're getting better at it. We're finding ways. And maybe it becomes a malady of the past on some level. Do you ever see it on that cosmic level? I'm not sure. You know, it's all part of the... human experience because like we're all addicted to a certain yeah totally you know like as a species we're addicted to oil yep you know we know that it's having a severe detriment to us as a species and yet we're still engaged in it and and some people are actively fighting against alternatives I don't know. I don't think we come into this world to experience wholesomeness and love and all of that connectedness. I think that it's something that you work towards because I was horribly disconnected and drug addicted at one point in my life and I'm not now. It's that journey of coming back to wholesomeness which has its own rewards. So I'm not too sure about that one. It seems to affect us on a lot of different levels and some very, very detrimental. So I don't know. We're comfort-seeking creatures. Yeah. so that's that's a bit of a problem and we've become quite addicted to our comfort you know compared to how we used to live but again to to our species detriment or to our children's detriment you know um so I don't know it's a it's a it's a tricky one that like if I i if I had to do the whole thing again, I would probably still do it the way I did it because of the importance that it was to me. You know, I wouldn't be able to do what I do now if I hadn't gone through that. Yeah. So, and I wouldn't be the person that I am now if I hadn't gone through that, you know, and have the same compassion for people and stuff because of experiencing that ourselves. So, And as horrible as it was as I was going through it, you know, and I didn't really get out of addiction until I was 35. But again, like, you know, I wouldn't be who I am now without that. So, you know, yeah, it's an interesting time. And society has gone through bad times of addiction as well you know um I think that they clamped down on opiates very heavily at one stage is because there were so many people addicted to opiates you used to be able to get heroin at the at this corner store yeah you know those made produced by buyer you know so and then alcohol has been a big part of our human history you know and in in britain uh you know with the ginned and everything you know a lot of poor people were very addicted to gin it's always been something that's been there for the and you know drinking beer is always a very working class yeah um thing which was you know just helps people with being fucking working class yeah totally at the Maybe some of our addictions might be less detrimental as we wise up a little bit as a species. Maybe AI will be producing drugs for us that won't have so many detrimental effects in the future. So I don't know. It's difficult to say. As long as we are pleasure-seeking creatures, which we are, and I think it's always going to be a problem for us. And we learn the hard way on an individual basis. But as a society, as a whole, I don't know. Things are getting better when we say that in some respects, when more people consume cannabis than they did alcohol in the US last month or something or other. So we're seeing a little bit of a shift there. Yeah. I think the addiction is a lot more in our face now since crack and crystal meth and fentanyl. It's a much more visible thing, which therefore is making people in society a lot more aware of it. Addiction's always been a problem, but I think it was not something that was seen as much. We've always had a... A drug problem in the downtown east side there, but now it's really out of hand. But part of that is all of the money that people have made on housing, which has made housing like this commodity that a lot of people can't have. Yeah. I live in Hawaii and I see these, there are so many new towers going up and I, you know, I just, it blows my mind to see how much building is going on and how many homeless people there are. And then you start realizing, oh, you know housing is the new art market it's a phenomenal way to wash money you know when you have sovereign wealth funds just buying like 50 million dollar condos they're gonna sit empty if you're like oh I see what this is just a and it's probably all drug money you know it's so crazy to see the connection miami was built that way yeah yeah that's how it was built up with cocaine money Right. And a lot of money, the building that happened here was also foreign investment. Yeah. Well, now they brought in some laws about owning property that you can't just own it and just rent it. Right. You can, but you have to pay a tax on that. Right. Which they're going to do, you know, spend on housing. I don't know. I know, it's almost like, you know, we're consuming ourselves in this, you know, drive for growth. Yeah. The Ouroboros. Yeah. And so, yeah, the housing situation, the drug situation, you know. Yeah, in some respects, you know, as you look at it from the outside, it could be, you know, viewed as the downfall of the West, you know, in some respects. So things are certainly changing, that's for certain. Yeah. As a society as a whole. Do you think values are changing? Well, it seems to be, people seem to be more money orientated, you know. Or maybe they've always just been like that. But there seems to be a lot more inequality and people don't really want to pay taxes for, or a certain percentage of, or it seems like the super wealthy are not being taxed in the ways that they used to be. And so as to the detriment of everybody else, like when you're a billionaire, how many more billions do you need? You need all of them. that's ridiculous right and so and but now they're not getting taxed in the same ways that they used to therefore society doesn't have the same kind of money you know but there seems to be a you know, a drive against, um, social benefits and, and things like that, you know, or they call it communism or, you know, so I don't know. I, I feel that, um, we will look more and more like South America every day. You know, I, I went to Columbia a long time ago when I was, when I was young, like 12 and, and the inequality seemed to be very glaring and, And it seems to be something that we're seeing more and more of now. Like you say, these towers are going up. In Vancouver, there's more Lamborghinis and Maseratis than there ever were, but there's more people on the street. And they contain it in a certain area in Vancouver because the rest of Vancouver doesn't want to see that. Yeah, it's there's a there's really Marshall McLuhan in his book talked about digital feudalism. And we've spoken quite a bit about the phone and the way in which technology is making people addicted to the consumer ideologies versus technology. And it does seem like there's a war between consumerism and creativeness. And maybe the natural state of capital is to coalesce at the top. You know, when you start looking at third world countries or you look at most, even in the West now, like you just see two classes. We're moving from a class system back to a caste system. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, like I said, it's looking more and more like Brazil. Yeah. You've got the super wealthy and the super poor. And in, um, seems like the middle class has been kind of taken out. Yeah. I think purposely, you know, well, it seems to have been happening since I left school, which is, you know, the, the Reagan and Thatcher era, neoliberalism. And, um, you know, a lot of, um, uh, the medical system has changed. A lot of, um, people now that are out on the streets would have been, in some kind of institution. They've been institutionalized in some way or form. And now instead of nurses taking, looking out for those people, they're just out on the streets. It's mental health issues, which we're not, we just don't care about anymore. And then the drugs, which have, you know, which are now cheaper and more available than they ever have been. yeah so their system it just doesn't seems to be failing you know so yeah so in that in that way it seems society has just gotten meaner you know and like if people have the ability to make it to the top then you know they they want to do that faster and want to have more it's all about more more more we idolize you know wealthy people forbes magazine and stuff like that's just bullshit I just kind of know But, you know, that's just kind of a society that we live in. Yeah. We idolize this, you know, we idolize success. People like Trump and stuff, you know, or, you know, half the population of the country does. You know, there's a good quote that said, in a society that is sick, the most well-adjusted people are probably the sickest. That's the position we find ourselves in. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Awesome. Gareth, the conversation, I love it, man. It's so fun to get to talk to you. And I really respect what you're doing. I'm super thankful for the work that you've done. And I think you have a really unique way of helping people find out how to become the best versions of themselves. And I'm always excited to learn about that. And I just want to say thanks on behalf of me. And I know a lot of the people in my audience are thankful for that, man. Thank you. Yeah, well, thank you for that. But they're the ones that come and do the hard work. Yeah, it's true. That's true. That's true. They have to have the courage to do it. I always try and emphasize that. People say, oh, thanks for helping me. And I'm like, well, it's not really a helping situation. We're giving you the opportunity to help yourself. Because they're the ones that come and do all the hard work. But we've created a place where we can set the stage for that. Once I found a way that I could do that, then you just want to pass that on and make sure that people do have that opportunity. It's a bit difficult being here in the way that we are. But because we're in Vancouver, we can still operate. And in some in some ways due to the kind of level of civil disobedience that goes on around here. You know, it started with cannabis and there's a lot of people doing plant medicine work here. There's a lot of therapists doing, work they've been trained through therosil and stuff so so there's a lot of people stepping out and doing the work and and um because we're on the west coast of um the americas that's where people have been doing it forever yeah we're just kind of carrying on with a bit of a tradition really here I think so I like it opportunity it's a great way to help people yeah thank you I appreciate it thanks yeah where can people find you and what do you got coming up what are you excited about Well, oddly enough, somebody reached out to me earlier on and said that they're looking for people to help bring the game to a band on the streets. So I had a conversation with somebody this morning about that. And that might be where Ibogaine gets its recognition. you know, some weird place like Afghanistan. So interesting things coming up. I've just come back from Mexico. I was just down there helping at a 5MEO DMT retreat. That's something that we're trying to spend more time doing, working with that molecule. But people can find us just through a search of Inner Realms, Inner Realms Center, all one word, innerrealmscenter.com. or yeah inner realms vancouver that then we can come up with a pretty easy easy google search so yeah we can be found that way awesome well ladies and gentlemen I hope you enjoyed the conversation as much as I did and I hope that you all have a beautiful day and I hope you take some time to maybe spend some time alone and think about what you want out of life and how to get it and how to nurture better relationships. Go down to the show notes, check out Gareth, and thanks for tuning in to the True Life Podcast. Gareth, hang on briefly afterwards, but to everybody who hung out with us today, thank you so much for being here. That's all we got. Aloha.