 Hi there welcome welcome what a beautiful spread of faces we are on day three of our Celebration of Scotland's indigenous apothecary. Yes, it's a bit of a mouthful. It means plants of the lands My name is Anna Ross And myself along with Fiona Gilbertson and the other Scottish Psychedelic Research Group team Have put on this event the Scottish Psychedelic Research Group was set up a year and a half ago in recognition that there is no collaborative grassroots Research and sort of a knowledge exchange Community in Scotland as it stands as you're all aware Psychedelics is experiencing a so-called renaissance in around the world But what we felt when we were setting up the SPRG is that much of this renaissance was coming from the medical community And even when it is coming from the indigenous community it's getting streamlined into a medical way of thinking and a medical way of doing it and being psychedelic users ourselves and Understanding the power of this medicine We know that there are many many people within Scotland that are currently using these medicines and are acting as healers for their community On top of that there is also a growing number of people within the therapeutic community that are interested in this kind of medicine So what we were really wanting to create and what we seem to be creating Going forward is this Community voice so here in Scotland. We are in crisis not just a with mental health, but also In terms of substance misuse. I've got a few facts to share with you that are actually quite alarming so in 2021 there were more than 1,300 drug deaths in Scotland in 2021 there were more than 14,000 drug related hospital stays in Scotland in 2022 in a three month period there were more than 10,000 referrals for substance misuse and alcohol misuse and those were referrals in the community in 2021 there were 753 suicides in Scotland and these are all sobering statistics That are actually quite hard to stomach and we don't compare very well either to the home nations or elsewhere in Europe So it's timely now that We have new therapies on the horizon and that's what we're going to talk about today We're very lucky that there's been a huge Reinvestment in psychedelics and in psychedelic assisted psychotherapy We're seeing a huge resurgence in interest, which is very valuable to all of us Australia have jumped forward as the first country to Legalize some of the psychedelic medicines So what they did was it was the therapeutic goods administration reviewed all the clinical evidence and they have now Authorized from July 2023 the use of MDMA for PTSD and Psylocybin for treatment for resistant depression That would only be under the supervision of psychiatrists and they would remain controlled drugs But this is a huge step forward But we have such a great need in Scotland and we already have countries leading the way elsewhere I'm going to pass on to our first speaker who is professor Joe Neal who's from The University of Manchester. She's a professor of psychopharmacology Joe has a breadth of experience in drug discovery She is a trustee of heroic hearts UK. They fund trips to South America for military veterans so that they can go to Retreats that Well, they're ayahuasca retreats and the results they've had are absolutely stunning so Joe I'm going to hand over to you as I also said I've worked in drug discovery my whole career And that's coming up for 40 years nearly. No, it's very hard to imagine So and I Was an animal researcher for my sins and it was establishing animal models to test the efficacy of New psychiatric medicines for all sorts of disorders for addictions for trauma for panic for anxiety for schizophrenia for depression and In all that time We have come nowhere all that work that I did the brilliant molecules that pharma big and small came up with the brilliant Ideas and the targets that they were the brain targets that they were going for in all that time None of them reached the market reached Patients and none of them improved the quality of life for patients, which is what I always wanted to do so About six years ago. I decided to give all that up and to focus The rest of my career and all the effort I have and all the knowledge I've acquired on working on Psychedelic assisted therapy so and to book in any way that I can having joined drug science and joined heroic hearts Education is one of the things I can do and also lobbying the government to reschedule Psychedelics so they sit in schedule one of the misuse of drugs act and the UN convention The definition of a schedule one drug is that it's got no medicinal therapeutic benefit Which we all know is not true now and actually so many trials are proving that to be to be not true You can do the research You just apply to the home office to get a controlled drugs license which I have done and I have got one But it took me a year. It cost me about five thousand pounds So there's so much stigma around this area that if you're going to do any kind of research You need a lot more time and a lot more money. So the drug laws are Stopping people doing research and that's that's just an absolute disgrace The other thing is that the drugs that we have in psychiatry now are still based on the drugs that were discovered serendipitously in the 1950s the reason that I've I've Switched on to say it is that they work the clinical trials now are showing that they work remarkably well for for illnesses that it's very very hard for the psychiatrists To treat so severe depression treatment resistant depression where somebody has tried four or five of our currently available antidepressants and is still not responded post traumatic stress disorder a lot of people do not Respond to therapy and to the the SSRIs addictions. What do we have to really help people with addiction? Of course, these are ancient medicines. We're talking about silo cyber in the active ingredient of magic mushrooms DMT the active ingredient of of ayahuasca sorry from the Banas theory opus Vine That grows naturally in South America. These are naturally occurring plants aren't they Hoffman synthesized LSD in the lab in 1938 And he worked for sandals. So he worked for a big pharmaceutical company. They knew there was something important about this that it was Loads of value medicinally. They didn't know what for so they distributed it to anybody or the qualification to research this to psychotherapists to Psychiatrists and there was loads of work done in the 50s and the 60s until it got put into Schedule one class a drug by the Nixon administration Because we all know what psychedelics do. We know that they they reset the brain They you they reframe the way you interact with people Become more empathetic Interact better, you know your connection with nature and the Nixon administration were fighting a war in Vietnam and they didn't want People to feel like that, you know, they wanted people to fight this war for them And they've been there ever since that's 52 years ago The research in those days was so it's there were over a thousand papers published in those days and The research was really good LSD for pain for the existential anxiety and depression that occurs with a terminal diagnosis or a life-threatening diagnosis and for addictions So there's a lot of really good work done in those days So this psychedelic renaissance that we're seeing now and the results with MDMA and their phase three trial for treating PTSD, they're extraordinary 67% of people in Rick Doblin's phase three trial no longer met the criteria for PTSD That's absolutely extraordinary. Those are results that I've never seen in all the time. I've been doing this with all these new new chemical entities that we worked with The DMT trial for severe depression has just read out. I don't know if you've seen the press release. I'm sure you have You know, those results are extraordinary in that 50% of people were in remission 12 weeks after one dose of DMT. That's not to say that it works for everyone That's not to say that it's suitable for everybody. The four things I tell people About psychedelics is that they heal people Healing is not a word we use in psychiatry We manage symptoms by giving somebody a drug that they have to take every day So that means that you will have a large side effect burden This is a completely new paradigm in in treatment of lots of disorders one or two high doses With all the assisted therapy You're not having a drug that you have to take on the regs at all, maybe you need a top-up dose in a year six months That's extraordinary. We are starting to understand a bit about the science that they induce neuroplasticity And that's something that's that gives you this long-lasting benefit. So it is an extraordinarily exciting time To have a therapy that we can offer to some people where it is likely to help them And to heal them I am going to hand over very quickly to Dr. Murad Wahba, who has come up from Newcastle Murad has been involved in the clinical trials on Psyla-Cyburn and depression and he's going to elaborate on those for us. Thank you. I'm a psychiatrist I'm a senior trainee working in Newcastle I was lucky enough to work on one of the trials last year for treatment just in depression and Through this I've kind of come to know a little bit of the research that's coming out So you guys will know this this is a Liberty Cap It's one of several several species different families of mushrooms that contain psilocybin and Because they're in so many different families and people studying this thought that they might be transferred by something called horizontal gene transfer Which basically means it jumped between families because because it has an effect or it has a use for the different mushrooms So they think that the use is actually as an insect repellent Because of its psychoactive effects Of course in people it has a very very different effect You'll know that there are these mushroom stones or at least that's one of the theories that they are mushroom stones about 500 BC that suggests that people perhaps use them for the Divine connecting with the divine and connecting with something that's outside of them and then around 1957 Gordon Wasson a banker from the States went to Mexico met Maria Sabina Got brought the mushrooms back brought them to Albert Hoffman He synthesized those as well very clever man And then they were used for a long time until the 1970s and then research halted until about 2006 We're gonna talk a bit about mystical experiences because they're part of what we measure really or to try And measure because it's a really difficult thing to measure. But if we were to try and boil it down It has seven different aspects. So unity The sense of connectedness and then there's an what the quality a sense of knowing Sacredness a sense of something that is divine and sacred positive effect ineffability, which is of course the inability to describe it ego loss and the loss of space and time so So far it seems to be that the People who have this mystical experiences seem to have better outcomes than people who don't in the trials after 2006 they started looking at them a little bit more deeply and Basically looking at people who are about to die who are reaching the end of their life who had cancer who find it found it really quite difficult to Come to terms with their diagnosis found it quite difficult to come to terms with with their death And while the first study wasn't really that effective the second couple of studies that were a bit bigger showed a really Positive effect that long outlasted the effect of the drug on the body It's stayed so you know the effect of the drug is about six hours It's completely out of the body by 24 hours for these people It stayed for up to six six months and even longer at some points based on this or based on one of the Ideas down in London from Imperial College. They thought okay. Well psilocybin affects a certain part of the brain Maybe it works for depression. So they started looking at it for depression as well It was really very effective for people that have been treatment resistant for years And so they thought okay, let's try and recreate this in a larger trial Which is the one that I was ultimately involved with and the effects were really quite remarkable people who received the 25 milligram dose Got a lot better than people who had received the 1 milligram dose This is not just a statistically significant effect. This is also a clinically meaningful effect Because sometimes things can be statistically meaningful, but not really don't translate on the ground But this translates on the ground to a to a to an effect that's quite meaningful and it stayed for people with people for up to three months as well Same kind of stuff. So this is basically just been recreated over and over again with the it's always psilocybin But with either one or two different doses this one It came out exactly At least as good as a citalopram, which is one of the leading antidepressants There is a repeated positive effect of giving psilocybin either one or two times with psychological support And it's not just with depression, which is the interesting bit people with alcoholism. For example, there was a Larger study about 92 people the people received psilocybin Or about half had about half or even less as much heavy drinking days heavy drinking days were like days with four or five Drinks what could be happening Short answer. We don't know One of the hypotheses one of them is that if your brain is a prediction machine Which we think it might be it basically predicts the reality that you get so we get a lot of information from the world this information is Compared to the schema you have of the world and then you have a prediction of what's going on for some people this scheme has quite rigid and It distorts the way reality is perceived and For in illnesses like depression like substance misuse This rigidity can lead to these symptoms or that's the hypothesis One of them is that psilocybin and other psychedelics relax these schemas a bit So it allows people some space to revise these thoughts that they've got So yeah, why is this interesting because we've got a drug that the effects outlast the drug action They can tell us a lot about the brain how it works when you distort something So much and this effect is so Significantly different from your day-to-day consciousness. It can tell us a lot about what it is to be Human what it is to be conscious what it is to have an ego what it is to have a person There's a lot you can learn from this Well for lack of a better word disruption that happens in the brain due to the ingestion They can tell us a bit about time to depressants work and they might even change how we think about death mainly because of how significantly people react when they are about to to meet their death and How the acceptance of that can change after an experience having something like this that might change how we interact with it Is really is really quite something This is the amount of papers the number of papers that have been Published and look at the difference here from 20 you have 2017 2018 till now Shot up and this is just gonna keep going up. It's so hard to keep up now It's just moving really quickly. We're about to talk about the lived experience of psychedelics for mental health Rory is an ex-scotland rugby player and has been through an incredible journey following a Sequence of injuries and events that led to a deterioration in his mental health I will say no more, but I will pass over to Rory. I'd a just about a 10-year professional career played at the highest level of the game and Achieved a lot of glory played at two World Cups childhood dreams being achieved but on the other side of that there was a dark side a big price to be paid and That was the the effects of injuries and the demands of the game so in my 10 years as a professional player at 15 surgeries and I was on Pharmaceutical drugs every day opioids Anti-inflammatories and at later points in my career benzos huge cocktails of different chemicals and I also on top of that was knocked unconscious 12 times and Anyone who's looked into the effect of concussion knows that it can have a profound effect on Mental health so in at age of 29. I got a career-ending injury. This was 2012 and it was broken leg and Was a year later sacked for being injured and able to to heal and not long after Retiring from the game forced retirement I'd have more surgeries on the injury and I was put on an antibiotic because I got a surgical infection Immediately after the antibiotics my digestive health Collapsed so at this time in my life. I was navigating the big Emotional trauma of losing my my job my way of life The only thing that I'd ever really known so dedicate my life from childhood to to rugby to that sport But here was 29 years old discarded from the game Losing my my identity as a sports person losing all my friends my my rugby family here was navigating a very complicated situation emotional pain from the loss and Also the loss of my physical health. I lost four stone in four months because I was struggling to eat any food numerous other symptoms that were Popping up muscle spasms Sort of tachycardia like heart palpitations Chronic fatigue. I was in I was in a real bad way on a physical level and on emotional level and it didn't take me long to spiral down into a dark depression and Suicidal ideation and I was stuck in this state of You know pain for for a year and a half And I was in the the stage of thinking well this continues for much longer I'm gonna have to take my own life because this was it was just it felt unbearable Emotional and physical discomfort that I was going through Miracle came through and that was when I heard Aubrey Marcus's testimonial on the Joe Rogan podcast it's back in 2014 and He was speaking about his experience with the plant medicine Iboga You know speaking about it for about 30 minutes and when I listened to that I knew this was something that was really gonna help me I just knew this was the the intervention that I'd kind of been praying for and A couple of weeks later. I managed to get myself out to Costa Rica which wasn't easy at the time because I had a broken leg that also wouldn't heal So I was struggling to walk I ended up having in 10 days at three ceremonial doses of Iboga and I won't go into the details because it's You know, it's you know take the rest of the day just to go through one journey, but the result was a transformation of my overall outlook my Depression and suicidal ideation had switched off after One evening spent with this medicine and I was given a Blueprint for moving forward with my life and I could see a way through the challenges that I was facing Which I couldn't before I Felt completely blocked a felt trapped and after sitting with this medicine I could see a way forward hope returned from that point onward So I'd cultivate in life whereas focusing on natural medicines natural therapies to support my healing Breathwork meditation nutrition and then also very quickly after that experience I was introduced to a couple of Colombian brothers who served, ayahuasca and they invited me out to Colombia and I Ventured out with them spend time with them and they took me down into the putamaya region with the cofan the indigenous healers down there the titers down there and I went on this adventure of self-discovery working with ayahuasca deepening my healing deepening my understanding of my life and integrating the indigenous wisdom Which has been a absolute profound Part of my my healing journey is that the wisdom that the indigenous Tribes carry and I've you know huge amount of gratitude Spent so I spent a few weeks out in the deepest darkest part of the jungle like again that those downloads and over the next few years from 2015 to 2019 I ended up going to Peru as well spending time with the shippeebo Learning from their ways which again, I cannot like explain the profound effect this had on my myself awareness My outlook on life My understanding of the role of trauma how a lot of my defective dysfunctional behavior and the chaos in my life had been rooted in The trauma the difficult childhood experiences that I'd gone through So you know that was up until 2019 And since that point Onwards I've been really integrating that that wisdom these experiences with these life-saving medicines Into into my life where I have managed to through all the other practices of diet You know breath work nature immersion, you know all the all the good stuff reconnection to mother nature I have gone through a Radical shift in my physical healing and also a radical shift in my consciousness Where I am no longer haunted by the wounds of my my past I am able to navigate the challenges in my life with a lot more grace a lot more peace and I've really Managed to through working with these medicines and connecting with the indigenous as to cultivate a life of real joy and Connection my gratitude to these these medicines and also to the keepers of the medicines because we cannot ignore and it's amazing with the the the scientific research that is Being shown with the power of some of these medicines, but we can't ignore the the indigenous and their the wisdom that they carry from thousands of years of Working with these medicines and working with the in the what you know graph will call the transpersonal realms the unseen realms and so Yeah, huge amount of gratitude to these medicines and it's really beautiful time happening on planet earth And I'm really excited to see this movement happening in Scotland and community coming together at this time And so I think this is what's taking place today is pioneering huge thank you to Fiona and Anna and everyone else who has Contributed to the the last three days and and everything else that's been taking place here I really believe that the future is bright and this land needs Individuals like each one of you here. We need to spread the message and Because we know how much suffering there is in this in this land with the rate of suicide particularly, you know in with across the population, but you know 75% of Suicide to a man and I really you know the work that I do at my my health retreat Which I've set up with my partner Shannon is you know helping men heal connect to the heart connect to the wisdom their intuition and to try Change this Culture of neglect and damage that has been going on for for too long Thank you, Rory. That was a really valuable particularly reinforcing the message about how important it is going through the spiritual journey I think that is now going to be reinforced in a profound way by Pat who sat next to me I wanted to talk a little bit about plants actually rather than talk about me today I've heard A lot of the information that I've heard from you guys. I've been studying that myself for years like years mean It was the it was the studies that have been done on that graph from the 60s that eventually brought my body You know my mind brought my body to where to where I needed to be Psychopharmacology, I used to describe myself as a when I was a rock and roll a drug addict I used to describe myself as a psychopharmacologist. I heard it in the first Batman film with Christian Bale And thought I googled it and it was someone that studied the prolonged effects of drug use and I was like that's me So drunk in the pub. That's what I used to pretend. I was a psychopharmacologist Which is something actually that I kind of feel like I have a little bit of waiting now the studies that are being done By these clinicians, and I mean I don't mean these clinicians. I mean by clinicians I've watched a lot of the MD. I'm a therapy stuff, you know, and I find that quite The stress in that I can watch other people going through There's cameras in the room, you know, I find that quite distressing personally and The the molecules the the alkaloids that you're that you're using in these studies I've often been synthesized to within an inch of their life And what that means for me is that all of those healing alkaloids that have attached to those healing plants over thousands of years I'll work with a lot of them myself I had a friend recently that had an experience with psilocybin natalensis, you know, that's a nine-hour event There's the alkaloids and that are completely different. I can take two or three hours to come on. It's a completely different thing It takes a completely different energy of person working with it. You know, it's a really Magical mushroom But I'm an expert I would say on DMT. I don't have any schooling and I was too damaged To to to survive school, you know, I didn't go to school very much I used to hide in McDonald's with library selling at a pager used to sell hash and I tied in there reading books You know when I was meant to be at school the DMDMT This molecule that people are using and is attached to plants all over the world, you know, the Rory talked about the Shabebo tradition ayahuasca, you know, the Chakruna plant The Chakruna plant needs to be experienced in its full spectrum It needs to be experienced with those other alkaloids. It usually needs to be mixed with Bannostatus capi. It needs to be mixed with the with the alkaloids in there, the Harmolines and the harmolas. Those are what prolong the effect, you know That's why ayahuasca works a lot longer, you know because of the collection of alkaloids that I read and that somebody shared an article of an ayahuasca pill that some arsehole in a pharmacology places come up with Nausea-free. Nausea-free ayahuasca pill Completely not understanding that the nausea is part of the experience and that we're removing trauma from the gut It's a gut brain medicine. You fucking crazy people. What are you doing? Get away from these plants. These are plants And they all have individual spirit they all have an individual message and often Often the message on one of them is not the message you need to hear, you know They're different keys for different psyches for different traumas They open up people in different ways with different vibration different song different energy from the from the person That's holding the space, you know And and and there's not a clinician that has any idea about the spirit of the plants that they're administering They just don't have it They don't understand that the Integrity that these these these people have in these traditions that are that are still alive, you know They have the the connection of the spirit of these plants has connected with the spirit of the shaman They have a deep connection through spirit. They talk in a different language the language of sound and vibration It's an interactive experience, you know, it's an interactive experience and that is going to be completely missed If we keep going down this route and we don't start singing and chanting and getting together and doing all those things that our egos Don't want us to do this work has to be done in group. It has to we're only getting people When we're working individually with a client or we're individually with someone we're getting them ready for group And and there's no clinical study that's going to allow groups because they're too Variable just like the reason that they don't use full mushrooms or full spectrum Dnt because there's too much variation in it. So you're just not getting this With with this way and I understand that it's it's the way that we're going to have to go but we have to now at grassroots level understand that Unless we Get the voice of the drum into the session Then then this will just be lost like Gabba penting coming from fly agaric mushrooms like fentanyl coming from opium Like like, you know, quite crappy cannabinoids coming from a really magical plant You know, this is this is what we need. We need we need the sound of the drum beating bang loud loud start doing it now You know like yeah, and All of this information that you're presenting on these graphs has been done for 50 years It's just new stuff. We don't need any more of this. We don't need any more of this We need more drums We need more drums. That's actually how we heal We heal together in group with these medicines full spectrum full spectrum human You know I'll just leave it there. I only had a few minutes. Thanks Obviously speaking on behalf of plenty of people in the room there So I'd like to invite Karen up Karen is another person with a lived experience of the healing effects of psychedelics so Karen is the mother of Two sons and has had a very difficult journey Looking after her two sons who have had mental health issues on the back of drug use but also as recipients of treatment more I just suppose you call it treatment or confrontation with the police Hospitals and all the rest of it. So I'm going to hand over to Karen who has a very different perspective From both Rory and Pat Can I just tell you Jake just brought a shamanic drum recently Hook you up You're welcome Hello everybody We have been dealing with these Mental health addiction issues for over 10 years now guys I consider myself at this point a lived experience expert and I'm Here with my comrade in arms Sandra Holmes She founded Families campaign for change and We are a grassroots campaigning organization consistent Holy mothers who live all over Scotland and We are a gathering and we are learning we are connecting with lots of different people and when I got the opportunity To go to a retreat back in November. I Jumped at it because I realized that I had so much unprocessed trauma and I was not about to entrust the treatment of that trauma to the NHS I'm going to talk a bit more about the experience that I had on the retreat. It was So empowering so joyful When I look at that window and I see all the trees my first trip was all about trees It was all about reconnecting with myself. It was about reconnecting with my family. It was about reconnecting with the earth And I just sat in Commun with a tree for six hours and it was beautiful I cried I saw the most amazing colors fractals you name it and I felt peace In a way that I never had before ever So over the course of that weekend I did two trips and you know, we spent a lot of time kind of preparing for things and talking about stuff and integrating and then The second trip I lost My closest friend and anchor in 2018 Now she was a Senior nurse in the NHS because this is the thing I want to really connect with the fact that I know there's a lot of good people that work in the medical profession And I know they're being failed as much as the rest of us Because she had she was 49. She had An alcohol addiction which was brought on by her Trauma caused by the job that she did which she was never given any help to process two days after she died I got this tattoo as a heart because As soon as she died heart just kept appearing everywhere in my life everywhere in my life. So my second trip was about her and She was everywhere in that room that day There was a wall hanging that basically was these stars pinging out at me And it was basically just her saying I'm right beside you. I'm right here. I'm looking anywhere And she loved rainbows and right at the end of my trip Somewhere over the rainbow came on I came away through that weekend and I felt So many benefits from it my relationship With my youngest son was healed completely from all the trauma that we've been through over the last few years and my way of Seeing the world and dealing with the world it's just night and day and I'm so grateful to the community. I'm so grateful to the plants. I'm so grateful For the opportunity to be able to pass it on to other people as well because people Sandra in our community need this They need this So that's Thank you Karen. Oh, I think we're having a mother son. Okay, which is lovely That was a lovely account. Thank you. Karen. Do you reckon it would be possible to like research put research actually into the modalities Because like you're saying with all the sort of indigenous stuff We've sort of lost our indigenous practice of using these chemicals. We don't have a sort of I don't know sacred landscape to take them here like they were clearly, you know There's cave paintings all over everywhere and stuff carved and stuff that we imagine had something to do with them But we don't really have a kind of spiritual Like guidebook that's like sort of in our language So, yeah, you can go over to the jungle and stuff in its class, but it's not A forest up near in brunettes or something like that where it's like our land Do you think it would benefit from maybe? I don't know doing research into How the different modalities are different ways of taking it or different ceremony had around the chemical Would affect the outcome. I think it's really important that you raise the points you raised I'm going to get your question But I think that this I think the divide between pharma and non pharma I don't really think it exists in this room that much because I think I think there are two people trying just to speak different languages And I think to be able to to translate something that works in the community that relies on the scientific method We need to be able to speak the language of the scientific method and try and translate How it is from the indigenous groups to the scientific method Now things will be lost. Yes The milieu effect of the drugs will be lost. Absolutely. The group effects will be lost. Yes But as you say to zone in on what is helpful The only way to know how to study it right now is to try and correct for as many variables as possible This is just the way we know I think there are people that are studying what is happening in the amazon and what is happening in different retreats but They're observational studies by their nature Or by their nature as as with regards to what we know now in terms of this method They are not as rigorous as randomized controlled trials because they don't They don't Correct for a lot of different variables. I mean, I yeah, I completely agree with you And I agree with you pat about the the importance of using the whole plant And all the other components of the plant for cannabis For psilocybin, you know and for for all these plant medicines I think some And actually I have concerns about the synthetic version as well Drug science. We did a survey you gave survey about, you know, one of our worries is the stigma And the the acceptability the general public and of course, you know, the the policy makers And actually for that we were pleasantly surprised that public opinion Seems to be shifting at least this was a You know what two thousand people do these surveys And Most people wanted if they were going to do it themselves. They wanted to experience the full plant You know, they didn't want a synthetic version I think the other issue about Group therapy and and Rory and I both work with heroic hearts, okay, don't we? And those combat veterans They will do a group therapy and I I that's what they want and that Going I think also going into the jungle Is is something that that they appeals to them and and all the the spiritual and the The shamans and the music. I think that's a really really important aspect of their healing I think the issue is you know, how do we That costs a lot of money. I mean heroic hearts are are Raising money for these combat veterans But this is something that there's such a great need and so many people need need this healing and will respond So if we have to to make this more accessible it has to be Here and it has to be um Kind of has to be practical I think if we're bringing this into the NHS It just won't be It's just not cost-effective to do it individually. We'll have to do this in group therapy I think it should be and I think peer-led integration seems to work really well in the the imperial psilocybin trial So the patients kind of took this upon themselves and that's that's what I would want You know, I want to be with people who've had a similar experience I don't see why we can't do all that in the NHS in the entire history of our species And human beings have never ever ever suffered in silence They have never suffered like the way we're suffering just now, you know, often isolated in high-rise flats with no money No jobs. No, no, no, whatever. We're suffering in silence Many of us my mum was a sufferer in silence, you know and because of that fact It's actually impossible For us to metabolize a lot of our trauma unless there is witness to it Unless there is witness to that healing and that is why group work Is so important and and just and just from a sort of healing the planet way And you know regardless of how you make dmt or for aco dmt or for h o a m e t all of these things that the chemicals that are used because I make them the chemicals that are used to make them are Are horrendous for the environment? They are horrendous for the environment You know, they're really harmful to humans. I don't want to be putting medicinal plants anywhere near petrochemicals I just don't want to do that. That does not work. That does not work period for this planet And and you were talking about the makers of the medicines these makers of the make no loads of makers of medicines and they're not They're not operating in labs You know, there are people that are living in the jungle. There are people that are living in Mexico There's people nature's making wonderful medicine in this country. You should check them out You know that they grow everywhere. It's one of the most common mushrooms on this planet, you know One of the most common substances in in plant material on this planet is the dmt and psilocybin molecules I mean there are structural molecules in all life You know, and we're synthesizing them to within an inch of nothing nothing but nothing that's left Just this white spectrum on the light, you know, and and that's not where the healing is And the healing is in full spectrum community environments, you know, with full spectrum plants And I believe yeah, there is there is there is going to be a short period where That has to work in in unison with with with big pharma because we are in a world controlled By big pharma and similar organizations, you know, so there will have to be a transitionary period But moving forward our voices need to be at the forefront of everything that we're doing And I mean when I say our voices, I mean the human voice not the disconnected People who are running these companies that are trying to dictate how we're going to experience our god given right to heal You know, it's like no And so I fully I fully agree with you, but it's like it's dying. It will die Unless we'll die or or the the the pharmaceutical approach will die one of the two We will we will end up back sitting around the fire And it's as simple as that Just like in light of that kind of conversation there sort of the SPRG are really keen To sort of ultimately I mean the whole point of us setting up is to try and bridge this divide between what's happening in the medical community in the realization that there is a lot of um sort of wealth in regards to these Medicines and I use that term not lightly Because although it can have a lot of wealth for the individual, but there's also a lot of money involved in it Understanding that you know when we sort of try and implement this stuff in scotland it's how do we how do we sort of Bridge that gap between what you're talking about pat there, which is really the pure kind of um indigenous use But there are a lot of people who are unable to sort of get into that I mean that's what we want to do here is we want to we want to start to widen this concept of evidence because at the moment In order to fit into the nhs Or even just to fit into the medical model. It's really really constrained It's just like this horrendous linear cartesian way of imagining the body separate from the mind Ultimately, we want to go pure indigenous, but the reality is that if we want to get Neocatalistic governments to enact and and take this on board. We do need to Work within the framework. I want to know murad How do people get onto the compass? It's still not clear to me. I don't understand because it's like, okay In england people are getting psychedelic assisted therapy, but I don't understand the mechanisms and it'd be really interesting Just very briefly. I mean even if it's just oh, they sign up with their doctor But you know, it's it's a bit mind-blowing that there are official routes So, yeah, so they just sign up with their doctors No, no honestly that's that's pretty much it So what happens is generally people for the first study they needed to come through their gp So they generally what happened is people find it online and they would go to their gp And then their gp would get in touch with us or actually they would get in touch with us first We say actually we need you to come through the gp and then that's what they would do Question I want to ask is My dream is that I can Eventually go out every autumn Come in with nature Harvest a natural product Bring it back and use it in ceremony in a meaningful way with people around me I'd like to ask all of the board members How do they think we can get to that point? If you want to do that in the daytime, you know You have we have to change the laws. I mean the fact is these drugs Plants, you know, so in the states the decriminalized nature movement Has been very Very active and they have changed the laws in so many of the cities where they've decriminalized plants Apart from mescaline Because the peyote cactus is protected. So they've kind of avoided Deliberately left that out Why don't we do that here? We need at least to do this this is nature and You know, it was 70s it was nix and it was political none of the we know None of the drug laws are evidence-based, you know A war against people who use drugs. So That's what we need to do. But we need a powerful Lobby and I think that is you And they they got together and they marched and they they campaigned People like anyone's child the transform very like your organization. You were talking about Families who've lost family member to drugs Campaigning hard to change the laws I think that's that's what you do It's you it's all down to To the power of of people And explaining it's about explaining it to people people don't really Some people don't really understand the importance of Plants of course as it obviously so I just think it's everybody and you tell everybody and you never we never give up I've come to the conclusion that the war on drugs is over And I don't I don't mean that we've won all these battles that are still to come I mean the medicine is out there for the first time in 12,000 years Globally all over the world. It's not going away this time. It's it's it's happening in people's Plastic tubs in their basements people are growing. It's happened. It's out there It's going to be really really difficult For the next three or four generations as we sort out the logistics of all of this and making sure nobody's hurt Along the way, there's going to be you know, but the war on drugs is one It's already one the medicine's there. You just have to start using it and integrating it properly You know finding people with integrity and working with the medicine It's already there that the law will change when we change and we change when we work with the medicine There's a reason it's been kept from us start working with the medicine if we could all close our eyes, please Take a deep breath into the belly And I'd like you to sit for a minute and add everything that you've experienced the last hour and a half feelings of gratitude To the braveness of those that shared their stories feelings of gratitude for the plant connected to the spiritual antenna of the dearly missed Terrence McKenna flaw of attraction Four fractions of fractals fracturing into fragmented factions and their interactions with you and me And it's a perfect symmetry of sacred geometry There is no poetry that can reconcile me with my enemy because my enemy is me I see And how could I look at me kindly when I've been stumbling through this life so blindly monotone all alone Eyes wildly searching for something outside of me trying to recover some broken shard of me when the answer was always at the start of me Always at the heart of me There's no part of me that could break away and not find its way back again Like a jigsaw piece lost for the longest time and then I greeted again like a long lost friend I promised I'd bind to myself until the very end See you again around that bend Now and then I comprehend that time will bend and I will break and minds will rend and first be slate that I am I And I am jake forsaken On the lake of time awakened from the open up my eyes. I'm shaking for little cut ties with flies heartbreaking I've spoken My words are out in the open play out my heart like show pin show me the world like only you can I'm hoping Spin out a tail like token Men the heart that's broken I've spoken