Is THIS the Real Reason Psychedelics Are Illegal?

magic mushrooms could hold a cure for depression we can't call magic mushrooms anymore my step sounds very depressed here's some magic mushrooms take this seriously doctor medical trials have shown that psychedelics are at least as good as big pharma drugs when it comes to handling depression why then do they remain illegal 50 years ago psychedelic drugs were at the center of america's counterculture it's no coincidence that those drugs were at the center of a counter culture because they affect the way that you perceive reality i've had some experience with psychedelics and though i would never publicly endorse any illegal activity at all my personal recollection of using those controlled substances is it all the way that i saw myself and my ego now obviously i took it in a rather reckless and untutored unguided way but i can see and recall even now as a man in recovery from drug addiction that those kind of experiences under the correct tutelage could be used to guide me away from certain patterns and behaviors and micro dosing which is what is suggested might have a positive impact on depression and anxiety could alter the way that you see reality and the way that you see reality for your personal and empirical purposes is reality today the dea restricts psychedelics as schedule 1 drugs with no currently accepted medical use and a high potential for abuse it's interesting to watch even the transition between like that famous woodstock looking footage of people lounging around all happy and dopey and the prejudices and cultural baggage that carries over to these heavily emblematic icons u.s justice department and the strips of information here on the news we're dealing with how to curate and corral cultural space how reality operates my personal belief is that many substances have been controlled precisely because they alter the way that people see reality the only way you can control a society and make no mistake the word government is a synonym for control is if you manage people's perceptions if you start introducing agents that mean that people see reality differently have different priorities have personal epiphanies about the nature of love family their priorities their willingness to subjugate their personal selves to an economic system that may not necessarily reward them then it's very difficult to control and govern and manage a society it's no coincidence that wisdom traditions have long cherished plant medicines as a potential portal to other realms and dimensions of reality and remember if you think that that kind of language sounds a bit wacky and crazy other dimensions of reality the alternative is yet more preposterous that you and i as individual human beings have the exact amount of senses to the exact degree that they can ever be used and the exact amount of intelligence and consciousness to encompass all potential realities that's more absurd everything you can see everything you can measure and touch that's all there is well so it's not possible that in the limitlessness of space there are sensory instruments that could detect levels of reality that are inaccessible to us now and even more significantly that beyond the sensory and material world there are layers of reality that are too subtle for us to even detect we know already that different animals have a different experience of reality to us we know that there are subtle forms of energy at play and it's likely that psilocybin and other psychedelics allow us to access experiences frequencies vibrations realities that are otherwise inaccessible and the fact that that has a positive effect on our mental health is hardly surprising but pierce chapin believes they saved her life it was very profound it was very refreshing for more than a decade pearce struggled with severe depression then a nurse practitioner sent her to a revolutionary treatment at johns hopkins university med center in baltimore using psilocybin a key ingredient in hallucinogenic drugs within hours she felt relief i was really happy i was seeing things a lot differently for the first time in a long time isn't that incredible and isn't it also too continually surprising that what's required for a subject to enter into the mainstream debate are these kind of peculiar gatekeepers to be appeased it has to go through these kind of trials and this has to be done now i'm not like some mad loon goon hippie new age twit that says why don't we all just wander off into the meadows and trust our luck humanity has already been through that experiment and it's bought us here but what i suppose i'm suggesting is that our economic systems are so deeply inculcated and the imperatives of those systems are so blindly obeyed that we ignore vast swathes of reality of our nature of potential solutions in order to maintain systems that can't necessarily serve us because they are about the service of hierarchical elites rather than addressing the problems of a diverse and varied and disparate population i.e like this individual she has a little bit of a go with the old psilocybin and with hours depression drops away what possible reason is there then to not continue this exploration and to prioritize the well-being and health of individuals like this one and all the other countless individuals suffering from mental health problems which by the way a scholar such as mark fisher would say should be regarded as a social issue rather than an individual issue because it's caused by social conditions i.e in times of economic crisis or social crisis you see a rise in mental health problems it's always treated like it's an individual problem because if you started to address it as a social problem what would you have to change society rather than the individual we are on with revelations like the ufo stuff coming out from the pentagon and this kind of thing entering the mainstream debate we're at a kind of pivotal moment where we could say why don't we put these new revelations in a into the current machine that materializes rationalizes commodifies everything or could we in this time of crisis after this time of hibernation lockdown breakdown start looking at genuine alternatives new ways of treating individuals new ways of treating the collective this is one of a number of recent trials reviving some of the most controversial psychiatric research of the 1950s and 60s after receiving a small dose of lsd they're confused and undisciplined after receiving a small dose of lsd they're beginning to question whether or not being in the army was a good choice for them as individuals other attitudes that might or are your willingness to cooperate with systems that don't directly benefit you and perhaps have never been intended to directly benefit you more likely to subjugate and control you so whilst i'm not endorsing the recreational juice of any substances and me as a man in recovery for me all mind ordering substances are off the agenda one day at a time permanently i can see that there is a huge need not only with regard to mental health but with our perception generally for change a change of perception a change in the way we see reality around 40 000 patients worldwide were treated with psychedelics for everything from alcoholism to schizophrenia that all stopped when governments around the world began to ban recreational drugs and like why do they ban recreational drugs you have to ask yourself this question does the government have as its number one priority your health and safety or does the government have as its number one priority control just look at the last 20 years or 50 years or 100 years of history and look at the kind of decisions that have been made and look at how you can see those decisions playing out in reality now is the government about the protection of a population or the control of a population you can ask similar questions about big business is their intention to provide services for their customers that improve their lives or is their priority to increase profits sometimes there's an overlap in those interests hey if we provide a product that improves the quality of life we'll benefit but that is not the priority is it the latest results are eye-opening hopkins has treated 360 patients for most just one or two sessions lifts their depression for months on end just one or two pills may be able to replace daily medications for months or years on end hold on a minute so they can have one or two pills that grow naturally on the planet or we could manufacture a worth of drugs which one makes more economic sense we're trying to provide a setting that is supportive that's warm that's nurturing where the patient can feel safe and supported and and free and able to open up really dr robin carhart harris he came on under the skin you should subscribe to that on luminary if you don't already he has been doing experiments and these are some things that i think are interesting when you conventionally treat depression and like full disclosure i've taken medication before for anxiety depression bipolar i've been diagnosed as all those things at different times in my life and i've taken some of the drugs that are in this list that are described as ssris like prozac citalopram forgive the uh pronunciation eschitolapram and sertraline i don't know any of those right so prozac are the drugs doctors will reach for first when treating depression and anxiety they are thought to work on the brain's stress system muting responses which can take the edge off making painful emotions easier to bear but they don't necessarily help people feel great and for some the drugs blunt all emotions both positive and negative on the other hand psilocybin seems to work on receptors in the brain associated with reordering the way we think about things after psychedelic therapy participants reported feeling recalibrated reset like they haven't for years and enjoying life they get more at the root cause of suffering rather than plastering over or muting their systems so the pharmaceutical model often involves muting repressing controlling symptoms where the let's call it the natural plant-based psychedelic pathway involves the exploration of networks synaptic networks and the creation of new connections it's obvious isn't it even from the perspective of an observer that one set of cultural values is continually deployed by systems such as ours the repression of the symptoms quiet please this kind of mentality is prevalent but the exploration and awakening there's consequences for that because if you awaken people you might awaken them to the possibility that they're not living their lives in the best possible way and that they could be better served by a society that had different priorities so these are the results from the study so far you can see one week post-treatment you can see that virtually every patient shows some decrease in their depressive symptoms it's maddie i'll jump through all these hoops and do all these grafts look i'll show you there look if you follow to this point at this point then you realize that you're actually not separate from god look that your consciousness itself is god realizing itself through physical form look and love you can just see there is the answer hold on a minute you just drawn a dick in some balls sorry about that i've taken quite a lot of acid the researchers believe that psilocybin increases the connectivity of parts of the brain it's speculated that in depression the brain gets stuck into repetitive negative patterns of thinking so if we can introduce a kind of flexibility into the mind and into the brain then perhaps that could help us shift an individual out of that rut that they've become stuck in you can see can't you a correlative between those two graphs the psilocybin image and the placebo image consider society is made up of comparable connections that we are all connected to one another that we forego potential connections because of our conditioning we forego mental explorations because of our conditioning we don't just wander up to people and present them with flowers and tell them that we love them unless we're crazy you know like that we have been ordered into sort of conformist little passageways of potential existence and most people aren't happy with that anymore i'm very well aware that people watch these videos feeling inhibited prohibited trapped by life that they can't be who they really are because of economic pressures because the way they've been treated because of a reality that's been prescribed to us that is incomplete and bears the hallmarks of a culture that is not your friend but is your jailer professor david nutt is calling for a change in rules i like to imagine that instead of that being an image like projected there behind that woman is there someone behind a screen who's producing this new show going ah [ __ ] hell i didn't i said don't mention david nut so that research can begin into whether magic mushrooms could hold a cure for depression we can't call magic mushrooms anymore my step sounds very depressed here's some magic mushrooms take this seriously doctor the problem is that because this drug is called a controlled drug you need a special license to hold it to manufacture it to use it these licenses cost quite a bit of money they take a year to get it's weird isn't it because like contro all of the legislation around these substances is in itself a kind of an illusion the law is like a magical spell that's been drawn out that's illegal now we we can't do that now obviously there are many many laws that seem to be the application through legislature of common sense don't hurt people don't kill people don't take people stuff yeah we all get that but controlling people's substances acting as a gatekeeper to people's consciousness and their experience of reality it's always struck me as a kind of an absurd process and i know david nutt believes the same thing i've had the privilege of interviewing him before i question when a substance is controlled is it for your benefit or is it for their benefit you were a drug czar advisor to the government and uh you were effectively fired in 2009 because of controversial comments that you made where you said that lsd and ecstasy were actually less harmful than alcohol so perhaps you've come up against this sort of i don't know i guess a barrier before in the sense that people are skeptical because magic mushrooms are can be a very damaging drug it becomes clear under scrutiny that alcohol is permitted because it is a deadening drug that deadens your aspirations other than a brief moment where you might think you're really really odd or something and drugs like psilocybin increase this sense of wonder and power and curiosity and mystery you don't need to investigate the machinery of the state and the relationship of the corporate state with big business to see that the way that legislation is organized is not for the benefit of your individual freedom but for the expedience of their mutual agenda so if it's beneficial for loads of people to take psilocybin in order to heal depression and anxiety and to experience an awakening into the true nature of reality but it's not profitable or it might cause people to be inquisitive about the way that power is organized then it's pretty clear the way the legislative pendulum will swing hopefully now a time when we can have broad and open conversations about individual and collective freedom we will have a chance to reorganize culture to reorganize opinion and to voice express explicitly the kind of societies that we would like to live in and organize and to recognize that ultimately power lies with the majority but requires us to act collectively commensurately collegiately with one another against elite powers that seek to control us through myriad means well i don't think magic mushrooms are damaged there's no no one's ever died of magic mushrooms and eight thousand people a year die of alcohol in this country poor old david nut he's absolutely knackered he's been having this conversation for 20 years look i'm just telling you but clearly magic mushrooms aren't as bad for you as alcohol look there's the alcohol def there's the magic mushrooms yeah but not as many people are taking magic mushrooms it's really clear that tobacco is bad for you alcohol is bad for you sugar's bad for you all the processed foods we eat or all causing us cancer no one's doing anything like that because it's in alignment with the interests of the powerful poor old professor david asked it for interview after interview going look i'm telling you magic mushrooms aren't bad for you yes but i will repeat your surname is not yes yes i suppose it is yes but i guess i mean again it goes down to the lsd and ecstasy argument i mean it is still a class a drug that's how it's been classified clean up born class a drugs hello i'm a class a drug that's applied externally this drug is class a it's not innate or inherent within the thing they are class a drugs they shouldn't be class a drugs and they shouldn't be controlled the way they are because what we're doing is trying to stop young people using them and we're failing but we are stopping scientists researching them and therefore we're stopping the possibility of new treatments emerging it's almost like people don't want to explore drugs that may not be profitable and it would be difficult to patent in favor of the less effective but easily patented and profitable drugs that are currently available i suppose you yourself would have to make a decision about what you think the agenda of big pharma in alliance with the state is does history suggest these are your chums and buddies over there advisor or do you have a more cynical outlook i wouldn't seek to influence you either way all i want for you is the maximum amount of freedom and connection within my own limitations i hope you've enjoyed this video if you do please like subscribe comment i read the comments damn you no i like them they're mostly really nice thanks i appreciate them yeah i know there's loads of things to think about subscribe to my mailing list over at russellbrand.com let's stay connected why don't we start to cultivate the kind of culture and reality that we would like to see realised and we can do that first of all through synaptic connections together you

Channel: Russell Brand

Views: 1,896,567

Keywords: Russell Brand, Brand Russell, BrandThe, Russell Brand video, Russell Brand news, Russell Brand politics, News, Brand, politics, Russell, psilocybin, psychedelics, depression, Dr Robin Carhart-Harris, antidepressants, anxiety, antidepressant, microdosing, big pharma, pharmaceutical, magic mushrooms, illegal

Id: y6Ea-Di9DsI

Length: 18min 47sec (1127 seconds)

Published: Sun May 02 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/AeonDisc]

The psychedelic community is growing by the day. As the stigma is lifted, more and more people will share stories about how psychedelic substances have made an impact on their lives.

[u/boogsey]

Great video, thanks for sharing.

When Russell says "we begin to question things like our willingness to cooperate with systems that don't directly benefit us" really strike home.

[u/ChronicMasterBlazer]

I love Russell. What a wordsmith

[u/Ok_Fee_4473]

Wow, that was a great video

[u/Phoebe-Weatherfield]

Wow Russell Brand asking the big questions, he’s great! And Dr. Robin Carhart-Harris is an adviser for Compass Pathways!

[u/MrQazi3]

Truth

[u/YumYumSweet]

Great video

[u/brain-gardener]

Free-thinking is dangerous.. to some.

[u/Agreeable_Hipocracy]

So good!