#2347 - Paul Stamets

**Joe Rogan** (0:03)
The Joe Rogan Experience.

**Paul Stamets** (0:06)
Shrink by day, Joe Rogan Podcast by night, all day.

**Joe Rogan** (0:12)
Are we up?

**Jamie** (0:13)
Yeah.

**Joe Rogan** (0:14)
Put them headphones on, let's rock and roll, Paul. Good to see you, sir.

**Paul Stamets** (0:18)
Good to see you, Joe.

**Joe Rogan** (0:19)
What's happening? How are you doing? Book number eight, huh?

**Paul Stamets** (0:22)
Book number eight, yeah.

**Joe Rogan** (0:24)
Who would have known? There's so many books to be written on mushrooms.

**Paul Stamets** (0:27)
Well, this is state-of-the-art taxonomy. Silicide mushrooms are natural habitat. It covers 60 species all over the world. But it also shows not only historical use, which people are surprised. They've been used in India, in Europe, in South Africa. A new species was just found, Psilocybin malutii. But the Basuthu and Basuthu in the province have been using it obviously for hundreds of years. We know this because they have songs. So it's really interesting when indigenous people are using psilocybin mushrooms, and scientists quote, discover them, and give them a Latin binomial. But the psilocybin mushroom revolution is happening all over the world right now. I never expected it to be this big. And the RAND report came out this past year. Three percent of Americans tripped on psilocybin in 2023

**Joe Rogan** (1:14)
That's only three?

**Paul Stamets** (1:15)
Three percent, that's eight million. I know. Well, I would agree with you, because how many people would admit it, right?

**Joe Rogan** (1:21)
Right.

**Paul Stamets** (1:21)
Probably under-reporting, not over-reporting.

**Joe Rogan** (1:23)
Oh, for sure. Yeah, for sure.

**Paul Stamets** (1:25)
So it seems to be, I think, a revolution for the freedom of consciousness. And it's crossing all political boundaries, all religious boundaries.

**Joe Rogan** (1:33)
Well, it's happening here in Texas, for sure, because of the Ibogaine Initiative and what's happening with Governor Rick Perry, who was former Republican Governor of Texas, who was all in on this.

**Paul Stamets** (1:44)
He's a great guy. I've talked to him backstage a few times. And he's the type of person that I really admire, because even though we may have political differences or different cultural backgrounds, we're joined together with a common purpose of trying to help people.

**Joe Rogan** (2:02)
Yeah. Well, he's not ideologically captured. Like he realized that he was wrong, and then his position on this was based on ignorance. So he educated himself and completely turned around, did a 180, and now is an advocate. And it's helped a lot of people. I mean, it's tremendous benefit to veterans and people with PTSD, and coming back from the war. And it's one of the only things that's been shown to really get these people straight.

**Paul Stamets** (2:28)
That and psilocybin. And my heart really goes out, and this is sort of little left of center, so my friends will be surprised. But my heart goes out to law enforcement. Can you imagine stopping a car on a stormy night at two in the morning?
And the window comes down, and you have two seconds to make a decision? You do that hundreds of times. The likelihood of having one mistake is very high, and having one very bad day to find your life, for the rest of your life, is not right. Because then if you can't resolve those issues as a soldier, as a law enforcement, as a doctor who makes a mistake, if you can't get through that turmoil, that stress, the anger that then can emanate out from your anger at yourself to other people, then this is what Silas Ivan and Ibogaine and other psychedelics, I think, really do. They help people forgive themselves and become better people. And once you forgive yourself and become a better person, then everyone is excited about the fact that you've changed.

**Joe Rogan** (3:30)
Yeah, and imagine the world that we could be living in if this experience was available to so many of the people that are committing crimes. So many of these people, who have never had any kind of a psychedelic experience, have never really confronted their own reality in that way. How many of them would change their ways? I would imagine a great deal.

**Paul Stamets** (3:53)
You bring up a very important point that I've been thinking about a lot. We talk about using psychedelics and psilocybin and other substances for treating people who have trauma, mental illness, addiction issues. But what about the near normals?
All of us are somewhat on the spectrum, and we go back and forth depending on daily, monthly, yearly activities, events, etc. But what about prevention? If the return on investment is to reduce addiction and crime and all the other collateral damage that's associated with it, then it would save hundreds of billions of dollars, hundreds of billions of dollars. Psilocybin should be made free, I think, as a citizen's right to have access, and the government should pay for it. It would massively reduce our national debt, it would make our better society, but that's not going to happen, right? That's a dream.