 I'm the dark, knuckle-dragging, right-wing Republican Farmer Governor of the state of Texas. Former Republican Texas Governor and Trump administration energy secretary Rick Perry was the most surprising speaker at the 2023 Psychedelic Science Conference held in Denver this June. Some of you are out there going, what in the hell is that dude doing on this day? Organized by the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies, a group that has been pushing for FDA approval of MDMA-assisted therapy since the late 1980s, the conference was attended by a reported 13,000 people. Perry sat down with reason to explain why he believes psychedelics should be legal medicine for veterans and others suffering from PTSD, how to allow more immigrants to come to America lawfully, and why, if he were ever to take a psychedelic drug, it would be Ibogaine, a notoriously powerful substance made from the bark of an African tree. Rick Perry, thanks for talking reason. You are speaking at a psychedelic conference. What is so important about psychedelics that it brought you a conservative Republican to speak to people who, as you said in your opening remarks, probably were wondering why you were there? Yeah. When I got introduced to this approximately five years ago, it was through a young man who worked with me at the Department of Energy. At that point in my life, I was the secretary of energy. He was seeing some of his colleagues in the special operations world. This was a former Navy SEAL who, interestingly, today is a United States congressman who is very vocal, very supportive of the use of psychedelics for post-traumatic stress. He is the one that started working with me on this, me getting comfortable that Rick Perry and psychedelics in the same sentence was even close to a reality. His twin brother, Marcus Latrell, who was the author of Lone Survivor, the book, and then the movie was made about his experiences, that brother lived with us at the governor's mansion for two plus years as we were, my wife and I were learning about post-traumatic stress and how poor our government was in dealing with this, frankly. We were trying to find solutions to help heal this young man. All of that collectively through the years brought me to a comfort level that I'm a results-oriented guy. The process is the process, I get it, but what's the results? What I've seen over the last four years in particular, studying this, talking to myriad of young men in this case, there have been young women that have gone to Mexico as well. I've just not had conversations with any of those, but these young men who have put their lives on the line for us, who have been impacted through all the different types of trauma that come with being a war fighter, that this treatment, this medicine works. I've also educated myself about the history of this and why psychedelics got taken away from the research world, from the citizens at large, from the standpoint of being a medicine that could work. It started to make a lot of sense to me that these are medicines that were taken away for political purposes back in the early 70s and that we need to reintegrate, study them, do the appropriate things, but the potential here is stunningly positive. When you just look, and I'll give you one peak at Dr. Rachel Yehuda, PhD, who's working at the VA in New York. I think she has two studies behind them, phase three, that are showing just amazing results. Treatment with MDMA, two weeks treatment with MDMA treatment, so three treatments in a month period of time. They have classic symptoms, anxiety, depression, sleeplessness, suicidal thoughts, one or all of those. 75% of those individuals who are treated, 75% of those who are treated have zero symptoms after six months. I mean, that's stunning numbers. So my point is, and I got asked this early in my engagement with this, it's kind of like I helped pass in the Texas Legislature as a former governor. I think it was House Bill 1802 that allowed for clinical trials on psilocybin in the state of Texas, veteran focused, and we passed it as the law in the state of Texas today, a very conservative Republican dominated legislature and state. And we're seeing great results now in that arena. So having those results in hand, why wouldn't we do this? Do you think this will sell well, not simply to Republicans but conservatives, the fact that when we're talking about dealing with trauma, with PTSD and things like that, psychedelics, which going back to somebody like Ronald Reagan as governor of California was like, we got to stop hippies who are taking LSD. Do you think people in your political tribe will be able to kind of grasp the message that you're sending? This is an education process. And the short answer is yes, I do, because I'm not for legalization of drugs. I tell people, listen, we need to go a little more pedestrian here. Government has fouled this up substantially in the past. Let's not give them a reason to mess this up again. Let's go thoughtfully at an appropriate pace as fast as we can. But the idea that we're going to stand up and say, you know what, this is great stuff. Let's just legalize it. Everybody is, you know, go, you know, go find your happy place. That's not a good plan. You're breaking my heart. I know, I know. Rick Doblin and I, I mean, I love Rick Doblin like a brother. This is where we do disagree on strategy. I don't think we disagree on end results, which is to get these compounds into as many places as we can with the right. Here, this is pretty simple for me. Proper diagnosis, proper dosage, proper guidance through the experience with the medicine. And then the proper follow-up, follow-up is incredibly important. Could you, as a limited government conservative, can you talk a little bit about why it was wrong that the government, you know, at every level, but especially the federal level, interpose itself between, you know, medical care and patients? Good question. My father-in-law was a physician. And in 1970, thereabouts, he told his then 14-year-old daughter as she was helping him in his clinic. Honey, the first dollar we take from the government is our first step towards socialized medicine. And I would suggest to you, he was correct. You know, I've spent pretty much a lifetime in government. And government needs to be limited. It needs to be restrained at almost every opportunity that you can. And we haven't been very successful with that in our country. So it's one of the reasons I still fear that if we go too fast on this before the public is fully educated and fully supportive of the use of psychedelics to treat the trauma that's out there in our world, that we could end up potentially worse than we were in the early 70s. Now, my hope is- Have you used psychedelics? No, never. What about weed? Nope. Anything like that? No, I'm your classic. I mean, 60s, I grew up in a small community where it wasn't available. It wasn't there. Then I went to an all-male military school in the late 60s, early 70s. I went straight into the United States Air Force where, you know, the idea- I mean, we were tested for drugs on a regular basis. And it's kind of like, you know, I would never put my career in jeopardy and went on about life. Do you think this is the type of issue- you know, we live in an intensely polarized, you know, world right now, particularly between Republicans and Democrats, conservatives and liberals or progressives. Is this the type of issue that people will find common cause on? You know, it's interesting- was this having this conversation with some of the participants here today at this juncture now? And again, I think this is all about the education process, getting people comfortable with the facts, getting people comfortable with the results. But at the federal level, this is more supported by the Republicans. And here's one of the reasons I think that. And I'm in a little bit of a silo because I'm from Texas and I pay attention to the Texas congressional delegation. And there is a substantial number of former military special ops, Dan Crenshaw, Morgan Lentrell, Wesley Hunt. You know, Jake L. Z. was a F-18 pilot who deployed with the SEAL teams, Tony Gonzalez, cyber expert. I mean, we've got a lot of military August Fluger who is a- I think he was an A-10 pilot. Those individuals have seen this firsthand. They know the trauma that has been inflicted on these individuals. And they've also seen the results of the use of psychedelics in treating this trauma. So I think there's a bigger group of Republicans. But what I try to tell people- this isn't partisan at all. Let's take our labels away on this one. This is about humankind. This is about taking care of individuals. This is about saving lives. This is about giving people their lives back. And that's not a Democrat or Republican issue. But I'm not Pollyanna here. I understand that politics always sticks its ugly little head into things. Do you think after psychedelic therapy, psychedelic assisted therapy is shown to work for veterans with PTSD, other people with trauma, and things move towards legalization or decriminalization, would you be comfortable doing psychedelics at some point in your life? You know, I tell folks, I said that's- so there's an early stage study going on Ibogaine at this particular point in time. It appears at this early juncture that that one treatment of that medicine can not just reset the brain, but literally some psychedelic values, turning back the clock if you will, anti-aging of the brain, increased executive functions. And I'm quite interested in that as a 73-year-old healthy man that- you know, so there's a naturally occurring substance that properly dosed, properly diagnosed, properly guided through, properly followed up with that can make my executive thought process better, that can literally turn back the clock, so to speak. And as a personal note, I was concussed substantial a number of times as a young man growing up. Just I grew up on a ranch, grew up on a farm, grew up playing six-man football, and there were a number of times that I was concussed, and I'm talking about serious concussions where you're out for over a minute or two, I mean literally laying there. So we know now that that long-term cumulative trauma on the brain may be one of the reasons that I've always been chasing the sleep at night. Moby-Dick of my life has been to get a night's sleep. You think that might have some to do with it? Well, certainly could. Can you just comment on what a world of wonders it must be? Like if 13-year-old you or 23-year-old you is saying, okay, not only, you know, a popular lieutenant governor, governor of Texas, and I'm going to be talking about we need to get psychedelics out into the medicine cabinet of America? Yeah, I mean literally five years ago, if you told me that my name in psychedelics was going to be in the same sentence, I would have looked a bit a scant at you. Do you, this is a little bit off topic, you know, one of the things that I think Texas, you know, where I've lived was actually great on was immigration. Texas is a state that takes in people from all over the world, you know, particularly the relationship with Mexico and Texas is incredible. It's a real sticking point for the contemporary Republican party. There isn't anybody there who is willing to say, you know what, we need more immigrants and we need more legal immigration. Is that going to change? And is that something we need to dose the Republican party with psychedelics? Interesting idea. If you'll recall, I ran for president in 2011, 2012. And as I tell people, if you also recall in August of 2011, I literally went to the top of the polls. And I tell people it was three of the most exhilarating hours of my life. That's about how long I stayed up there. But I laid out a plan for immigration. And I'll give you the quick cliff notes version here, because I still think it makes a lot of sense, particularly with the last 10 years and what's happened. You have everyone in this country go to their embassy or to their consulate and you register. We take your biometric data so we know who you are. And we give you a card that allows you to be legally in this country. You're a legal alien. I'm not afraid of that terminology. That's not a negative. You're a legal alien. You're here. Here's who I am. I've come here. Didn't necessarily come here legally, but I'm here. Every year, you go down, swipe your card. And if you paid your taxes, you kept your nose clean, you have stayed within the parameters of the laws of the state you live in, you're good to stay for another year. Now, if you want to become a citizen of the United States, there's the line right over there. You go get in the line, go through the process to become a citizen. But as long as you stay working within the laws of the state, you're good to stay here from now on. And I got really criticized because people said, oh, that's amnesty. Well, it wasn't amnesty. It was a way to know who the people are. And we would have, during that period of time, building the wall. I don't have a problem with building a wall. And because we want to be able to allow people to come in, follow the process. But if you get sent back, because you broke the laws, for whatever reason, you lost your right to be in this country. And you get exported, so to speak. You get deported. You're not just going to cross the border and come back in. So there's a real punishment there. And people are going to work hard to stay in the United States, work hard to be living to the laws of our states and our country. So I don't know why we can't sit down and have that kind of logical conversation again about that relatively simple way to register people and to keep the workforce that we need in this state without having all of the illegal challenges and problems, whether it's the human trafficking, the sexual trafficking that's going on, the fentanyl problem that we got. It seemed like it would make a lot more sense to me. Thank you very much, Governor Ray Perry. Thank you. Thank you, brother.