This transcript was machine generated and may contain errors. Filler words have been removed for readability.

Joe Moore (1:54)
Hello, everybody, and welcome back to Psychedelics Today. This is Joe Moore. Today, we have attorney Robert Rush in studio. So we’re gonna have a really fun conversation with you all and get into some fun stuff about DEA, emergency scheduling, and more. Robert, thanks for joining.

Robert Rush (2:17)
Hey, it’s a pleasure to be here.

Joe Moore (2:19)
And what brings you to Colorado?

Robert Rush (2:23)
I’ve been on a road trip through Colorado just taking some time off and you know, working some along the way. But mostly just kind of taking a little bit of a decompression stop and you know, missing Colorado, having lived here for, for a long time and it’s good to be back in the mountains.

Joe Moore (2:45)
So good to have you here. And not too many people make the journey to Breckenridge to record, so thanks for doing it. And there’s a lot of weird stuff going on in the DEA in America around drug policy and more, and I’m curious about what… let’s, let’s before we do that, let’s talk about your background.

Like, how did you get involved in drug policy work to begin with?

Robert Rush (3:16)
Really, I first got interested-

Joe Moore (3:22)
Right.

Robert Rush (3:22)
And You know, that, that definitely shaped my view of the government’s you know, totalitarian nature cracking down back back in the day. and it, it definitely– and also seeing sort of the pro-social value of certain types of psychedelics it really made me recognize the injustice and the– and also just the denial of the fundamental right of cognitive liberty.

I think people have a, a fundamental human right that they have the right to alter their consciousness, and the government, I don’t think, has a legitimate role in deciding, you know, how we can think. And that kind of really clued me into it. I did a bunch of years at a corporate law firm, and that was not very satisfying.

So that was not very satisfying, so I, I moved into doing a hemp and cannabis practice that eventually evolved into a psychedelics practice. And and then really sort of the getting much more active in the policy side of it was the DOI and DOC hearing that we did back in 2024 that made a large focus of my practice into the, the policy side of it.

Joe Moore (4:48)
Interesting. Okay. So DEA is supposed to be keeping us safe from all these dangerous narcotics and drugs, right? They… So like my– I, I did some writing on this and like the, the way I understand it is there is at the end of prohibition, a number of people who were federal employees need a job, including Anslinger, Harry Anslinger, and the Bureau of Dangerous Narcotic Drugs was started to keep us safe from all sorts of things, including marijuana.

And you know, then we kind of exported this whole thing globally with a lot of false premises, and now we’re kinda still dealing with a somewhat crazy institution, right? Is that somewhat accurate?

Robert Rush (5:39)
Yeah. I, I think the I think the institution itself is something people don’t understand. They, they they may have the you know, false impression that there’s some sort of rationality or evidence basis for the policies that are part of the DEA strategy.

Really, I think if you look at the if you look at the DEA and the CSA and the inception of the CSA, you know, it was designed to attack people of color and political dissidents primarily, and I think the, the DEA has you know, very much so engaged in that. And also, though, it’s just you know, they have a, they have a strange dogmatic culture there regarding drugs

The DEA’s budget, $3.8 billion a year last I checked. people don’t wanna give up that money when they have it. There’s corporate interest involved. the bureaucratic side of it, they do not want anything to change because it’s a threat to their survival, basically, I think. they need to have a crisis to be able to justify their existence and budget

Joe Moore (8:08)
It’s so sad. It’s so sad. And you know, they had to start on a somewhat false premises around, you know, Leary, cannabis, LSD. It was hyper politicized and it wasn’t like an act of a clear and present threat to America, but there was people they wanna make, they wanted to make criminal, like you were saying earlier.

Like we can’t make them illegal, but we can make what they do illegal. And …

Robert Rush (8:39)
Yeah, and I think through 50 years of this sort of culture build up, there is a, there is a really strange institutional culture in the DEA. interacting with the people I’ve had to you know, just being in DEA headquarters they are, they are dogmatic about this.

They are– I don’t want people to think that they’re just doing this just for money also, but that’s, that’s part of, I think, the underlying reason that they want to keep their institution going for their own self-interest. But also, though, they really, they really believe they’re doing God’s work, I think.

That they are, they are saving America. And, you know, when we came in doing the DOI, DOC challenge, I mean, we brought in just academics and they were, you know, scientists researchers, and they, their attitude to us that they, they glared at us, they yelled at our witnesses, their attorneys did. They, they really loathed the people that dared to try to counter their, their actions

Joe Moore (9:53)
So I c- I’ve– Yeah, let’s, let’s kinda dig into the DOI/DOC drama. Um

I think that’s one of the more important stories, and it’s kinda gonna help us illustrate what’s going on now.

Robert Rush (10:11)
Yeah, sure. DOI and DOC, we focus mostly on DOI because DOI is an extremely important research compound. It’s the– It’s a 5-HT2A serotonin receptor agonist, and the last widely available one that’s used for research, and it’s become kind of the gold standard for studying serotonin and the 5-HT2A receptor.

The thing is, though the DEA moved to schedule it for some reason, which would’ve ended research. At the beginning of our process when they began the scheduling process of it the DEA there was– or National Institutes of Health had published over 900 papers using DOI as a research tool.

Currently, it’s at over 1,240 last I checked. so extremely important research compound. And they, the DEA even stipulated that there was no medical evidence it had ever been used by a human, but yet for some reason, they felt a need to add it to Schedule I and with, with no really legitimate risk.

So it was really strange when we conducted the first hearing challenging the scheduling of a of a psychedelic since MDMA in the, the mid-’80s you know, loosely calling MDMA a psychedelic. but I, I’m not gonna get into the debate on that and stuff. But but it’s you know, so y- it was really bizarre, and the lengths that they went to to try to you know, defend their actions, even, you know, citing Reddit posts that, you know, ridiculous Reddit posts claiming that 150 to 200 people, somebody joking around claiming 150 to 200 people had taken DOI at a parent-teacher conference.

And and we watched the DEA’s top scientist stand up there with a straight face and say, you know, “Yes, I believe this is credible evidence of use.” yeah. The– It was, it was great. It was– My co-counsel asked about it. He asked “So Dr. Carbonaro, are you familiar with the term shitposting?” And and so yeah, so he managed to get in the federal record “shitposting.”

Joe Moore (12:40)
Is … So how, how is this structured? Is it a court that’s run and operated by DEA, or is it somewhere else?

Robert Rush (12:49)
It is a courtroom inside DEA headquarters, which is a surreal experience going into that building. And then and it’s read, it’s ran by a administrative law judge who works for the DEA, technically.

The independence is kinda questionable since they are employed by the DEA. so they’re, they’re the ones, you have an administrative law judge who over– If they– When they go to schedule it through normal rulemaking process, go to schedule a drug, then you can request a hearing if you’re going to be a harmed party an interested party.

So then you know, you can request a hearing, and then if they grant you the hearing, then you go down and you, you know, go through a formal administrative law hearing process with producing evidence, witnesses, all through that motion practice, and then finally a hearing in front of the judge.

Joe Moore (13:49)
That is far out.

Robert Rush (13:51)
But there’s a cooler part about it still makes it more fun, is at the end of the day, the judge issues his ruling, and then the DEA will either choose to accept it or not, or move ahead.

Joe Moore (14:03)
How does that function work?

Robert Rush (14:05)
It, it’s– it comes off more like a recommendation, because back with MDMA you know, the, the judge held that it should not be, said that it should be Schedule 3 initially, and you know, the DEA ignored it, and then there was a lawsuit that was filed, and ultimately the lawsuit did not prevail because of something called Chevron deference, which is an administrative law thing.

This is basically you defer to the DEA. But the great part is, right before our DOI hearing, Chevron deference was overturned by the Supreme Court. So going in there, we have a chance that if they ever move forward with anything, they haven’t moved forward to formally schedule DOI since our hearing over a year later.

So if they would move forward with that the law’s changed and now judges have much greater review of administrative findings. So we’re looking for opportunities really to try to find ways into court, into the district courts, to have judges look at the DEA’s application at a CSA, which I do not believe is consistent with the Act.

Joe Moore (15:23)
Okay. So we don’t 100% agree that the DEA is here just trying to make a bunch of cash.

Robert Rush (15:32)
I, I don’t– I think they’re here, they want their funding, I’m sure, because, you know, when I was, when I was in DEA headquarters, I heard one of the bosses there talking to a – Mm-hmm … to an underling and was saying, you know, he’s like, “I’m sending Tony to Colombia, I’m sending Jill to Nigeria.

I like to try to send everybody into the field at least a couple of times to foreign countries so they get out there.” So I think they have, you know, they have incentives and stuff. And also too just, you know, civil affi- civil forfeiture and everything else, you know, it, it, it is about money. I don’t wanna make it that it’s not about money.

But it is also They want the money, but they also believe, I think, it’s some divine noble purpose that they’re fulfilling in, in getting that money.

Joe Moore (16:24)
Hmm. So, like, there’s a world in which these folks are actually true believers in this drug war, and that all these things need to be removed, right?

Robert Rush (16:37)
Yeah.

Yeah. I was, I was shocked. I I expected– I mean, normally attorneys, when you have a hearing, you’re, you’re cordial with each other. You go up, introduce yourself to the opposing counsel, and, you know, it’s, it’s a professional thing. They were chilly to us from the inception, and they didn’t– There was no joking, no talking, no conversation with us.

It was obvious they did not care for us. And they really did not. And then they really didn’t care for us at the end of it because we exposed a lot of just how ridiculous a lot of their arguments were. But, you know, give you an idea of the position of where the DEA head, head is at. The their senior attorney began his closing argument with, “We all know the horrors of LSD.”

And-

Joe Moore (17:24)
I don’t.

Robert Rush (17:25)
Yeah, no, I’m confused because I thought there’s like, you know, priority status, breakthrough status and, you know, and you know, drugs in the development pipeline and stuff so. But like I said, though, they– The FDA and the DEA are two very different organizations. And the DEA, I think the DEA almost in some ways is almost opposed to it.

You know, they kinda expect the D- the FDA to kind of do what they want. For years, they have to, they have to have an analysis done to schedule a drug, and it’s pretty much so just been a rubber stamp for what they’ve wanted. the DEA says, “I think this drug’s dangerous.” The FDA looks at it and they say, “Yeah, we think it’s dangerous.”

Joe Moore (18:14)
Like, okay, so when they say something bonkers like “We all know the horrors of LSD,” is it, is it worth any time addressing that? Or is that, like, not necessarily to the advantage of the case you’re fighting?

Robert Rush (18:31)
I mean, I gave my closing there, and it was a very different perspective on it- Mm-hmm … about the, the harm that the scheduling would do, especially since DOI is being used into research into things like understanding addiction, under– You know, and they’re looking at if DOI could possibly, with understanding how pain functions on a sort of neurotransmitter level, could develop new pain management treatments, things like that.

So you know, their actions are directly harmful, I think, to public health. but that’s, I– They just view it as, you know, “We don’t need these dopers doing drugs.” So they have a very sort of black and white, cartoonish ver- view of drug use. you know, “Drug use bad, drug users bad. we put them in jail.”

Joe Moore (19:29)
Oh, okay. So at, at some point it would be, I think, worth our time to do a little bit of archeology there, like understand the history, like how did we get there? But, you know, right now we have a number of things that are active. There’s still not a ruling on DOI, DOC. There’s pending stuff on 7-OH. You know, this is the what?

The extract from kratom that’s been on the market for a bit.

Robert Rush (19:56)
Yeah. It is a it is synthesized, but it’s also, though, interestingly enough, kratom, when you consume it, metabolizes into 7-OH in your body.

Joe Moore (20:07)
Mm-hmm.

Robert Rush (20:08)
So you’re basically, in a roundabout way, getting the same 7-OH. This is just, you know, you could think of it almost like, you know, d- with marijuana and concentrates.

You know, it’s just it takes less to get sort of the same effect i- is my understanding of it. granted, there are potential, you know, dependence issues with 7-OH or kratom or you know, with many substances. With alcohol there is, you know. But it’s but yeah, it’s, it’s naturally present in kratom in small amounts that decarboxylates into, is my understanding.

And but this is the, the synthesized. Then there’s also some other minor compounds that they also moved to emergency schedule called mitragynine pseudoindoxyl, MGM-15, and MGM-16.

Joe Moore (21:01)
Hmm. So what’s going on with this story? Are people just really freaked out that people can get high or have there been some, like, notable cases that made kind of prohibitionists ex- excited to, to help save us?

Robert Rush (21:21)
My personal cynical view is this is the weaponization of the CSA for business advantage the American Kratom Association has been lobbying heavily extremely heavily for sever-several years. you know, it’s 7-OH accounts for about 20% of the market share is my understanding, but was growing because it’s a more convenient form to get the effects.

It’s in a tablet form versus having a powdered leaf that you have to take. It’s just, it’s a more convenient delivery. the American Kratom Association viewed this as, I think, a business threat and has created a huge narrative that there is a huge public health threat around 7-OH but not kratom and they’ve phrased it in this botanical versus synthetic narrative that I don’t think is really on a, you know, pharmac- pharmacological level accurate.

They put out information saying it’s, you know, 10 or 20 times more potent than morphine and stuff because of the way it bi- it binding and stuff. But the thing that’s different is it’s a partial binding agonist versus a full binding agonist like morphine, so you don’t have the same potential for central nervous system depression and death.

There have been deaths associated with 7-OH as well as kratom, but those are all poly drug deaths. And, you know, they’ll find somebody who had, you know, heroin and 7-OH in their system, and they’ll attribute it to a 7-OH death

Joe Moore (23:10)
Um

I wa- I want to have faith in these institutions, and it seems really challenging right now when money can come in and influence these things. And I would… It, it feels like with, with these kind of inappropriate attributions from coroners maybe, or other researchers, that we’re, we’re seeing bias in the literature.

I think Carl Hart kind of illustrated this really well. there was that recent well, not very recent, but a coroner ruled a death an acute LSD toxicity death. And it, and it seems like a lot of this stuff is political, and it’s, it’s tough. Any-

Robert Rush (23:56)
No, I, I think, you know, there are a lot of very questionable coroner’s reports, and I, I think it’s naive to think any particular occupation is you know, insulated from political pressure.

And also too you know, coroners have their own sort of views and political stance and some of the you know, some of the coroner’s reports I’ve you know, heard about are, are, you know, very suspect

Joe Moore (24:28)
And you know, if these cases are being influenced by money and politics and donations, then you know, how– It’s just so, it’s so confusing to the American public, I think.

So we have this case of the DEA, we have all this hype around opioids, then we see this plant a lot of people are using that, you know, does have traditional use cases, everybody, and a lot of people are using it to help them get off of opioids because you can taper on your own and you don’t have to go through the whole, what do we call it, the Suboxone industrial complex.

Robert Rush (25:06)
Yeah. The, yeah, the medically assisted treatment yeah, for opioids. the –

Joe Moore (25:14)
Which no shade everybody, it’s important, but it’s also, like, it should not be the only option.

Robert Rush (25:20)
Yeah, no, I, I don’t think, you know, Suboxone. And also too some of these, you know, medical treatments and stuff that people are on these pharmaceuticals, they, they have an extremely difficult time getting off of them than when they want to wean off of them, especially like Suboxone.

I know is one that you know, sometimes I’ve heard that the the taper can require years. you know, it’s, it’s, it’s really troubling that that’s like the only path. 7-OH also is used extensively by chronic pain patients. Mm. a large– The, some of the comments with the 7-OH, it’s, it’s very troubling when pe- when they moved the issue that it was gonna be emergency scheduling, th- when they ask people, you know, “What’ll be your response to this?”

Is, you know, “Kill myself.” because there’s people who’ve lost access to opioid pain medications through their doctors and are no longer able to access it, or, you know, simply don’t wish to use you know, they don’t wish to be on a fentanyl patch. They would rather use 7-OH ’cause they feel it’s more manageable.

Joe Moore (26:30)
Right. And, and in some ways sounds less lethal possibly ’cause, you know, we all– fentanyl’s the boogeyman now. It’s it’s a drug I appreciate quite a bit. I’ve had a lot of surgeries from ski accidents and whatever, so.

Robert Rush (26:43)
Yeah. Yeah, I had, I had seven different surgical procedures from a ski accident in 2025, and fentanyl was used in every single one of them.

And as far as fentanyl for a nerve block also, i- if it’s used correctly in a nerve block, you end up using less opioids long term for the pain management ’cause you have less initial pain with it. So I think the demonization of fentanyl is, you know, de- declaring it as a weapon of mass destruction when it’s used in every hospital every day virtually is ridiculous.

Joe Moore (27:18)
I…

Yes. Yes, it is. I heard I did hear a line, “There are gonna be some drugs that we do have to worry about in the future.” I ki- I kinda wanted to be at the point where I’m like, “Oh, okay, cool.” Like, solved. I have my position and it’s good forever, but it wasn’t necessarily aware that novel molecules will come out that, like, could theoretically actually be like a chemical weapon.

Like imagine if we could make a 10,000 times stronger fentanyl, and then you’re carrying like in a gram an actual weapon of mass destruction. You know, that’s troubling.

Robert Rush (28:00)
Oh, yeah. I think it’s terrifying, and the truth is n- novel compounds aren’t going to slow down in production. They’re only gonna increase, especially with AI.

I got to present with Leonard Pickard at a Petri Flohm conference, and his paper was on AI and the potential for not only novel, novel drugs that are going to be coming out, but also potentially biological and chemical weapons. it’s, it’s a very dark dystopian worldview kinda looking at it.

It’s terrifying. But the thing people have to realize is that the DEA is exacerbating this process. Each time they schedule a new chemical, they, you know, there’s going to be five more that pop up, you know, and people rummage through research papers trying to find descriptions of drugs that they think will be useful you know, and then, and then synthesize them, and we don’t know what their safety profiles are like or all, everything else, you know?

It’s, you know… I mean, quite honestly, the opioid crisis would be a lot easier to manage if it was still just heroin.

Joe Moore (29:17)
Right. And I wanna, I wanna give Leonard Pickard credit for somewhat predicting the opioid crisis in a paper he did while he was still at Harvard JFK School before incarceration, and you know, said that it do– it only takes a couple ingredients here for this kind of thing to come forward.

It’s a handful of people that are, you know, have very low morals and ethics, and then a couple kidnapped chemists, and then you’re, you’re in business producing lots and lots of molecules that we don’t really want on around. you know, the– And I, I think this isn’t said often enough, is that with prohibition the drugs that we actually want to see on the street because they’re less harmful, less inclined to kill people, go away.

We call that function the iron law of prohibition, right? And so, you know, honestly, I think we would rather see a lot more fentanyl go away and heroin be available, but the economic pressure has made this kind of new thing easy to create. It’s easier to go through borders ’cause it’s such a small package.

It’s built into the business models. It’s like it’s okay to have a bunch of loss at customs because plenty of it’s still gonna get through, you know? and so if we only had heroin as a problem, we can, we could handle that medically. but it’s, you know, it’s challenging.

Robert Rush (30:52)
Yeah. And I mean, and the, the, the market is very responsive.

You know, the, the 7-OH ban, there’s companies out there, they’ve got their next iterations of molecules that they’re planning to market to replace that. And will they be less dangerous? Will they be more dangerous? Who knows? you know, and this is the risk you put the consumer at, you know this substitution harm.

And they, they just don’t consider it. They, they consider it, “Well, don’t do drugs.” That’s, that’s as simple as their analysis is. they, they don’t recognize the complex reasons why people use drugs. and the notion that people could use drugs in a positive you know, beneficial way, even on a recreational basis, God, that would just make their heads explode.

Joe Moore (31:47)
Yeah, that’s interesting. I wo- I wonder if, you know, in fan- Joe’s fantasy land, if we could merge ATF and DEA, like if there would be some more intellectual conversations about drugs har- drug harms and taxes and like a more rational approach, but who knows?

Robert Rush (32:10)
I’m not sure about the DEA and ATF together combo.

I, I think you, I think you created a, a super villain there, but…

Joe Moore (32:20)
Yeah, we can, we can do that on the weekends. You know, I, I have called for how do we actually abolish it and nobody has to lose jobs. It’s like the guys with guns go to the marshals, the scientists go to FDA, everybody else goes to the Park Service.

Robert Rush (32:35)
Yeah. Or, you know, too yeah, put them into harm reduction.

Joe Moore (32:39)
Mm.

Robert Rush (32:39)
You know, something that, you know, could you imagine if we took that, you know, $3.8 billion and put it all into harm reduction?

Joe Moore (32:45)
The amount of lives saved would be astronomical.

Robert Rush (32:48)
Yeah. But yeah. Yeah. I mean, yes, efficacious you know, strategies that, you know, are cost-effective.

Why would we wanna try that?

Joe Moore (33:00)
Right. You know, and some people need to hear it explicitly. Data. The science actually says if we do good harm reduction, we’re gonna save lives as opposed to spending more money with enforcement. Like, there’s no real good data that says more money spent with prohibition decreases drug risks and harms.

And if we actually spent on education and safety and safe supply, the amount of safety we would see is just something we would not be able to really predict really well, but it would be a really high number. If we look at the programs in, you know, Portugal, Switzerland, et cetera, like we see really great gains.

And when they can institute drug checking places like the, the UK, The Loop, we see radically important decreases in, in drug risk.

Robert Rush (33:50)
Yeah. I mean, we see the opposite direction in this country with federal prohibition on drug testing supplies. I mean, that’s, that’s just madness. It’s also just, it’s really just sick, you know you know, trying to deny a, a simple, cost-effective, cheap, you know, easily distributed tool that, that is documented to save lives.

Why would you possibly wanna deny that? People are going to do drugs. That’s what people refuse to accept, is that, you know, they’re going to use drugs. They always have, and they probably always will. You know, it’s they definitely always will. but also too, the DEA’s not interested in the underlying reasons of why people use drugs and, you know, and the, the broader implications.

I don’t think the politicians, it’s an easy win to just say to your voters, “I got tough and I did this. I passed this,” you know? It’s a lot harder to say, “I think we need really structural reform in society and a much more egalitarian society where resources are distributed more equitably.” you know, you just get called a socialist/communist and ran off the hill.

Joe Moore (35:06)
A thing I find challenging in this psychedelic ecosystem is often a lack of willingness to engage with you know, the science and stories around sensible drug policy. And I’m curious if you’ve encountered that in your kind of forays through the psychedelic landscape.

Robert Rush (35:27)
I, I mean, you know, in this space, you meet all different kinds of people.

You find some people who, you know, psychedelics are good, all other drugs bad. you know, the you know, the kind of– I, I mean, for me, it’s like I don’t, you know, I don’t view attacking somebody else’s drug as being beneficial. I think the kratom 7-OH thing shows that. we’re seeing all sorts of kratom and 7-OH bans pop up.

The Kratom, American Kratom Association has worked very hard to get this narrative out there that 7-OH is dangerous, but people hear kratom associated with it, and they have no nuance whatsoever. And you’re seeing state legislatures and also local legislatures just, you know banning both of them because they don’t understand nuance.

And you know, and psychedelic space tends to be a little more understand nuance and stuff, but there’s some people who also just forcibly reject science. You know, they just view science as being I don’t know, either irrelevant or even kind of opposed to the sort of spiritual aspect of it. So they kind of distance themselves from it.

Joe Moore (36:44)
Yeah. And that’s a, you know, a tragic misplacement of critical

Robert Rush (36:50)
Yeah …

Joe Moore (36:50)
Critical calories spent. Yeah. Like science, we do need to work on that and how we frame it. But yeah, science is not your enemy, friends.

Robert Rush (36:59)
No. I’ve also seen science though, too. Scientists sometimes get challenging when the sorta non, you know, quantifiable, easily framed thing, like those spiritual aspects of psychedelics and stuff.

Lots of times the scientists don’t– They’re just very dismissive of that aspect. So I think we need some sort of common ground for both groups.

Joe Moore (37:20)
Yeah. okay. So 7-OH, like we– I, I heard of people using it. I’ve seen some people on and off develop problems with kratom, but it’s rare. Like it’s– I’ve seen a lot more people develop issues with alcohol throughout my life and recently in the last year.

And, you know, kratom’s available, somewhat cheap, similar to beer. And like, it’s I think it’s kind of pleasant. I, I find it nice, like similar in that same realm of like kava. and I– Have you ever tried the the little tea bags that – What’s his name? Soren Shade was pointing out

Robert Rush (38:02)
I, I haven’t, I haven’t had any Sorens.

But you know, I have had kratom and, you know, it’s it, it is pleasant, but it’s also, I, I found to be fairly mild and you know, not a huge amount to it, to be quite honest, for me. I know there’s some people who take large amounts of it, and I didn’t do that. To be quite honest, I found that if you take large amounts of it, it makes you very nauseated, or at least for my sort of tolerance level that, you know, it’s just– I’m also just not a huge, you know, opiates aren’t my deal.

Joe Moore (38:37)
Right. If if opiates aren’t for you, like a lot of people can’t even take like any kind of opioids or they get nauseous. and that’s– I wonder if there’s some similarity there. It could make sense. I also– The way you have to consume kratom often is just so much leaf material goes into your gut, and I think that’s a little obnoxious.

Robert Rush (39:00)
Yeah, that’s– I found it very unpleasant, like, you know like-

Joe Moore (39:04)
If we were doing it as a nice tea.

Robert Rush (39:05)
Yeah. I’ve had like you know, scoop of kratom mixed in with some orange juice that you, you try to chug it as quickly as you can ’cause the taste is so horrible. Which I think is why the 7-OH is so much more sort of, you know, consumer palatable just to- Mm-hmm

’cause you’re not, you know, mixing a, for me, a foul-tasting leaf blend and chugging it down. But but no, it’s, it’s helped a lot of people get off of opioids and, you know, manage it. And I think, I mean, quite honestly, I think it’s far less dangerous than alcohol by far, without an- any doubt, or tobacco, you know, extremely less dangerous, you know.

But you know, rationality, actual, like, public health implications and harm, and actually doing a hardcore study across the country and looking at it, like, I think would be the appropriate thing for you know, HHS to do. that’s, that’s not interesting, but you have this whole political– I mean, this is, this is strange.

The amount of money behind, that’s moving behind the scenes, I think, is crazy. People don’t realize you know, large amounts of money have been donated by the pro-kratom, anti-7-OH to you know, to PACs and also to in lobbying and who knows where else things go in this current administration. but you can tell, though, that 7-OH pushed back and spent money because it was last summer that the FDA said this should be emergency scheduled, and here we are a year later, and it’s still not emergency scheduled.

They issued a notice that they were gonna emergency schedule it back in July, but even that, they still haven’t moved forward with it. which is telling me something’s happening behind the scenes here

Joe Moore (41:08)
And there’s no real way to get those kinds of stories included in the court record or get that considered as part of the rulings?

Robert Rush (41:18)
Actually, there’s a senator who’s trying to start an investigation into it at the moment.

Joe Moore (41:23)
Hmm.

Robert Rush (41:24)
So I, I have great hopes that that goes somewhere. But we have a very strange politicized environment that we’re living in that you know, I, I don’t know where things will go. it seem, it seems to have a whole lot to do with money behind the scenes, and it’s …

I found the whole thing just you know, witnessing it kind of working and policy behind the scenes there with it very troubling. the rule of law has really been eroded.

Joe Moore (41:58)
Mm-hmm. So are there any other kinds of things on, on 7-OH that we should jump into before we jump to other drugs that are gonna be looked at?

Robert Rush (42:11)
Yeah, I think we’ve … Well, actually there is, there’s one really interesting part. There’s a couple of compounds that are related to it called mitragynine pseudoindoxyl and MGM-15 and MGM-16. The thing that, like, the DEA has now moved to using emergency scheduling a lot. Mm-hmm. Emergency scheduling is really, emergency temporary scheduling, the section it’s under in the Controlled Substances Act, is really troubling because it schedules a substance and puts it on Schedule 1 for two years, extendable to three years.

But the really part that I find chilling about it is that it says specifically during that period, there is no judicial review allowed. So you basically Have, and this is based upon the DEA’s administrator’s judgment, that based upon a brief review of only– normally you– there’s eight factors that are needed to schedule a drug.

This, they just have to look at three of them the administrator does, and then he has to ask the FDA if it is in a investigational new drug or new drug applications on it. That’s the only feedback from the FDA. Not whether it’s a health threat, not whether it’s safe or dangerous, just whether there is this new drug application.

And if there’s not, it’s just up to the DEA’s administrator sole judgment that, “Oh, there’s an imminent threat to public health, so I’m going to criminalize this substance.” And you don’t even get to go into court, and you don’t get the, you don’t get a voice until two to three years later when they move forward, when the temporary scheduling ends, then they have to go through a formal scheduling process to add it to to add it to Schedule 1 permanently.

But that two to three years, depending on, you know, what the substance is, you know, people could be researching it. Mm-hmm. you know, some of these substances, there’s businesses built about it. And just the, the, the whole problematic aspect of the DEA’s just, you know, the DEA’s a hammer and everything is a nail, and that’s the way they operate with the with the, like this, these three compounds, mitragynine pseudoindoxyl.

They didn’t, I guess, understand the fact that there’s minute amounts of pseudoindoxyl that’s present in botanical kratom, and so they de facto kind of added in kratom with this scheduling. But then they put out a press release and said, “We’re going to use our discretion and only prosecute people who we find have a beyond non-natural level, botanical level.”

You know, a- and, and what is that level? They don’t tell you. And this just gives so much prosecutorial discretion to DEA. It’s terrifying.

Joe Moore (45:22)
The the idea that there’s some random administrator at DEA that kind of has this level of authority seems alarming, and, like, that there’s no real obvious process and transparency also seems quite troubling.

And, like, is there, is there any kind of I would say hope in terms of reforming this institution or, like, it, it doesn’t seem like they’re making science-based decisions, like, with, with these things, and it does seem like there’s money in politics here as well.

Robert Rush (45:57)
Yeah. I, I, I personally have little hope for the reform of the institution.

I think you would need to, you need to have some pretty sweeping legislation, I think, defining it and their- Mm-hmm … roles and everything else. The thing that I find really upsetting about this is that the DEA is a law enforcement agency. You know, they’re the drug enforcement agency. You know, they’re not a you know, they’re not supposed to regulate medicine.

They’re not supposed to regulate science, and they de facto have come down to doing both of those.

Joe Moore (46:35)
Hmm. Right. The fact, the fact that they’re an enforcement arm, law enforcement, and they’re actually getting to define what they get to enforce, it just seems like so conflicted.

Robert Rush (46:47)
Yeah. It seems like it should be unconstitutional, in my opinion.

Here we have an organization that makes, that defines through this rulemaking process what is illegal. I think this should be a legislative authority, not a administrative agency that decides what illegal. But then you also have, they’re the ones who go out enforce it. So they are deciding what is a crime, and then, you know, they get the arrest for what they decide is a crime.

I mean, we don’t let any other police force do that.

Joe Moore (47:22)
Right. And then, like an obvious conflict of interest and you know, if we’re trying to make trusted, amazing institutions, then that seems like something we should avoid and work away from. And so Carl Hart and others have suggested that we need to toss Controlled Substances Act in the trash and start over with something that’s more science-based.

Is that in alignment with your thinking?

Robert Rush (47:48)
Oh, absolutely. I think it should be completely science and harm reduction based should be our drug policy. prohibition has failed. Prohibition’s never worked. you know, w- if people want something, they will get it, and somebody will risk anything to make money to get it to them.

I mean, we have the death penalty in countries, in many count- not many, but, you know, some countries around the world, and it, and it’s not like there are no executions for drugs there because people still, even with the death penalty, will, you know, still engage in it.

Joe Moore (48:24)
Mm-hmm. So yeah, I wonder if and when we can start seeing some support for things like that.

I know you know, Cato Institute, Reason Foundation are kind of on board, but I haven’t really seen sweeping policy reform come from Democrats or Republicans yet. because it’s, you know, like, is it a real issue that they wanna, you know, bet the farm on in terms of… You know, I, I think the answer is yes because we can get people back to their families, get families healed stop spending so much on private prisons and prisons in general.

Have– I, I don’t know if you’ve seen this one. Violent criminals are getting released early so that they can house non-violent drug offenders in prisons. Have you seen this?

Robert Rush (49:09)
I, I have not seen that, but it- It’s unbelievable … it does not shock me. Yeah. yeah, the yeah, drugs are You know, this, this boogeyman they’ve created and, you know, politicians are, you know, no one– Yeah, I mean, y- you put yourself out there trying to change this, your opponent’s going to use, get some great sound bites to terrify, you know, the…

It always comes down to the children, too, you know? you know, “Senator Smith wants your children addicted to drugs and is voting to end, like, protections that keep them safe.” You know, that’s how it’ll be framed.

Joe Moore (49:47)
That’s exactly how it’ll be framed, and it’s, it’s tragic. It’s misappropriation of our tax dollars to frame stuff that’s, like, here to keep you know, amazing and able-bodied people in, in our communities, our workforce, our tax base, et cetera.

Like, you know, why sideline so much of America? To me, it becomes a national security issue at the scale it is right now, and I think it’s just really inappropriate. And one, one fun line of thinking I have, Robert, is around people in power and influence, including military personnel, getting compromised by drug offenses and getting kind of blackmail, or at least people getting data on them that really they shouldn’t have.

And, you know, drug dealing is a really great way to get leverage over people.

Robert Rush (50:39)
Oh, yeah. Yeah, no, it’s a, it’s a great way to blackmail somebody you know, and to get leverage over them. Yeah, it’s the whole– You know, and one thing too is, you know, this whole system is, you know I mean, unfortunately, I think probably, I don’t have a statistic on, but, you know, most American families have been touched by an opioid loss.

And, you know, my family’s one of them included, and part of the reason why I do this work. And it’s, you know you know, the holidays will come up. There’s gonna be empty chairs there, and those chairs, I believe, are directly responsible because of prohibition, especially anybody who got an adulterated substance.

That, that, that is strictly the result of prohibition.

Joe Moore (51:28)
Mm-hmm. Absolutely. And addiction cocaine addiction, opioid addiction was handled quite well as a medical problem without shame and stigma before this whole drug war really kicked off. And it’s, it’s tragic to see it keep playing out. And you know, yeah, we’re, we’re gonna need all hands on deck here, everybody, to solve all these crazy problems that are converging and getting people out of jail, getting …

I’m wearing the shirt right now. I don’t know. We’re planning the most incredible jailbreak. Like, it’s like a, I think it was a fundraiser shirt by Zazz Corp, who did a bunch of Grateful Dead shirts. And I think this was like a fundraiser shirt for Last Prisoner Project or something. But like, you know, how do we start getting people back to their communities, back to their families, stop spending so much cash?

I think we’re incarcerating more a higher percentage of our population than any other country, and it’s because of our stupid drug laws.

Robert Rush (52:34)
Yeah. And, and also too, it creates this climate of shame too, where people who are struggling, you know, will hide it. And, you know, and, and also too, it’s just, you know I don’t know how many people are comfortable in, you know, it’s just being quite straight up with their physician because there is such a stigma and, you know.

And there’s also implications. Y- you know, tell your doctor you’re into taking psychedelics and, you know, you’re gonna probably have a different relationship with them afterwards.

Joe Moore (53:07)
I’m open to a new physician in Colorado, everybody. I would love to be honest with people I work on clinical things with.

But, you know, haven’t seen that yet. So yeah. This, this larger kind of emergency scheduling thing, new drugs coming down the pipeline to get scheduled, like it, it seems almost like there’s a quota that they wanna hit

Robert Rush (53:37)
I think there’s a particular chemist at the DEA who is in their diversion control division, and he writes all the announcements for the notices for scheduling.

And basically, he looks for drugs, I believe, and if he sees there’s any sort of a psychoactive potential effect for it, and he finds any evidence that people are using it, whether he finds whether it shows up in some lab data. They, they collect data on basically every time the police, if they raid somewhere or somehow come across the substance, we don’t know how they come across it ’cause the data’s not provided, and a substance ends up with a crime testing lab all the crime testing labs send the data back and they find, you know f- they find results and there’s, “Oh, this, there’s this new drug here.

It’s coming up in the testing results. We found it.” And, or people are talking about it online you know, the you know, people are talking about it online, he’s just, “Okay, it goes to Schedule 1,” because it basically their approach is if it’s not an FDA-approved drug and people are using it and it’s in any way psychoactive it goes to Schedule 1.

It doesn’t matter the the actual risk profile associated with it. It’s just not FDA approved, being used, they consider that abuse. All, all use of a drug that is not FDA approved is abuse according to them, and means it has to go to Schedule 1. That’s their fundamental position. you know.

Joe Moore (55:19)
Is it because DEA is a law enforcement organization that they’re able to withhold data like that from the public?

Robert Rush (55:26)
Sometimes, yeah. Sometimes they will argue that they have, you know- You know, reasons for, for investigative purposes or whatnot to, and their their strategies and tactics that they don’t wanna release this information. But, you know, this is the problem, though. You have an administrative agency that’s basically making laws, in my opinion, criminalizing these things, and then you, you don’t have any checks whatsoever with even what are they basing this on.

That’s, you know, that’s just such sweeping power granted to an agency. It’s the administrative state out of control. you know, I’ve heard people talk about the real deep state is the actual administrative state, and I think this is a great example of the actual deep state. You– I mean, there’s people who will spend the rest of their lives in prison based upon these decisions that we don’t get to know what the data you’re basing this on, what, what evidence you have for this.

It’s just because you say it’s so. I mean, that’s, that’s, you know, there are no checks and balances, and it really does need to be addressed.

Joe Moore (56:36)
So a different scheduling conversation’s coming with, you know, MDMA, psilocybin, 5-MeO-DMT, a number of other molecules coming down the pipe quickly. We just had this hearing in Silver Spring at FDA the other day.

So FDA is gonna come out with all sorts of rules eventually. No real announced timeline for the, the REMS, the Risk Evaluation Mitigation Strategies, where it’s like, you know, I’m calling it how many safes do you have to put it inside? Like, how many locks have to go in front of the, the drug before anybody can get it?

And then then FDA does some sort of ruling on scheduling eventually after FDA kinda says, “Yes, those drugs are approved.” could you explain just, like, high level what this process might look like?

Robert Rush (57:30)
What, what I’m guessing is, well, you’re gonna have the FDA approving, you have the approved drug, and then you’re gonna have to do something if the drug is still Schedule 1.

So you’re going to have to have the DEA then move to, you know, somebody’s gonna file a petition to have it rescheduled and, or the DEA could do that on their own accord. and then you’re going to have, you know, I’m assuming there’ll probably be a formal rulemaking hearing around this. And then what my fears are at the end of the day is the DEA has done several times, and it’s called bifurcated scheduling, where like with with some of the with Marinol in cannabis.

Mm-hmm. You basically, you had THC produced from a, you know, pharmaceutical company. That somehow was not Schedule 1. Mm-hmm. But cannabis and THC, that, that remained Schedule 1 even though it’s the exact same molecule. So you have this extremely cognitively dissonant approach where you know, you have the same molecule that somehow is supposed to be one having no medical utility whatsoever, even though, and it, you know, and a second one that’s the exact same molecule that’s a FDA-approved drug.

I don’t understand how you can reconcile those things. but I think it’s a great tool for prohibition strategy that you can, you know, here’s the pharmaceutical licensed version, profitable version, and then the other, you know, natural version of it remains Schedule 1. Yes. And that, that, that, that I think very well likely could.

I think we’re gonna see that with MDMA, where the MDMA approach with potentially therapy involved that would be probably Schedule 2 drug, I’m guessing. And, you know, but MDMA that you get in a pressy, that’s gonna be Schedule 1, even though it’s the exact same molecule

Joe Moore (59:46)
So pro– I, I’m chatting with some folks about this and kinda may-maybe there needs to be a coalition kind of lobbying on this.

And, you know, how do we make sure psilocybin as such, psilocybin, psilocyn, get lowered to a different schedule, and it’s not just COMP360 or whatever Usona’s coming forward with? Be– I think with psilocybin, it’s a little interesting because there are two large pharmas that seem to be in the running that are gonna come forward with this, so it doesn’t necessarily make sense for DEA to do two different rulings around each one.

And I, I don’t know. I’m hopeful there. Things like MDMA, where there’s only one real kind of major developer, like Resilient, in, in the running it would be a real bummer if only their formulation, their particular crystal and polymorph form of the drug is the thing that gets approved and that other researchers don’t get to benefit from the rescheduling in terms of making it easier to run clinical trials on these things, publish data, doctors prescribing it and doing their own kind of in-house research and publications.

Like, I think it’s, it’s robbing Americans and a, and a large part of the benefit of these things getting rescheduled so that we can spend a lot more money more efficiently by not having to deal with all of the rules the DEA puts on these Schedule 1 drugs.

Robert Rush (1:01:19)
Yeah, no, I mean, the, the whole research aspect of it, but goes back to the, the culture of the DEA.

During the DOI hearing, they filed a motion trying to eliminate all of our witnesses basically. What? And yeah, all of our science witnesses ’cause, you know, like Dave Nichols doesn’t have anything worthwhile to add to the conversation you know, regarding psychedelic chemistry. But they– their whole argument was that research harm is irrelevant in scheduling.

And they, they filed a motion saying, you know that just, you know, with our decisions, the harm to research is irrelevant. I don’t understand how, like, one of the factors they have to consider is public health implications, and I don’t understand how you can say that harm to research is irrelevant and it’s not a potential impact on public health when it’ll stop the development of new treatments potentially for these, you know, these, you know, diseases of despair and you know, with addiction and suicide and mental health issues.

You know, trying to develop and research treatments for these and stopping that is, you know… I don’t understand how that’s not a public health concern. But they were, yeah, they were very open. They had no problem arguing that, you know, harm to research is, is irrelevant. And the, the administrative law judge who seemed very fair in conducting the hearing and stuff agreed in his opinion at the end that, you know, harm to, harm to research was not one of the factors considered in the Controlled Substances Act and that it was irrelevant in decision-making.

Which which originally he had had a different opinion during the motion practice because he allowed our witnesses and he said, “I find it’s not per se irrelevant,” and all- allowed us to have our witnesses. But and we won on that, and then he kinda flipped later and wrote a really strange opinion that, you know, in my opinion, wasn’t really Great writing, and then he retired six days later.

Joe Moore (1:03:32)
Hmm. Interesting timing. Yeah, I do remember that part. I wonder if with the Trump executive order on psychedelics, the interest and attention at ARPA-H a lot of lawmakers who are, you know, of stature pressing for this, if that could shift the opinion of DEA. Like if, you know, 20 senators called the DEA and say, “Hey,” like, “cut shit.”

Robert Rush (1:04:01)
Oh, I think the, the pressure is… Yeah, which is part of the problem, because you kinda don’t want too much pressure on agencies. You want them- Mm-hmm. But you want them to act like, you know, based upon what they’re supposed to do also. Look at the actual evidence, look at the, you know, the various factors and stuff, and – Which

Joe Moore (1:04:22)
Obviously they’re not.

Robert Rush (1:04:23)
Yeah, which they’re not. But you look at the cannabis rescheduling, you know, I, I attended several days of the the hearing down there, and it was surreal to watch to watch the attorneys and, you know, see the attorneys who we had argued against on DOI sitting there you know, assisting in the gallery, taking notes and helping their colleagues and stuff.

And they were vehemently arguing for cannabis has now medical use and, you know, and you know, all these things that we’ve sat for decades arguing for. Now all of a sudden, because they were told marching orders are different, you know. So I think if you– And that o- obviously comes from the issue of-

Joe Moore (1:05:06)
Didn’t they issue an opinion that was like, “Oh, in our opinion cannabis does not pose any problem to Americans”?

It was something along those lines- … maybe a couple weeks ago.

Robert Rush (1:05:18)
I, I have not read that ’cause I’ve been tied up- Mm … with some other stuff. But I do wanna go back to, and check that out though, because, like, a lot of, part of their problem too is that one of their witnesses, I, I he said basically that all use is not abuse, that, you know, abuse is, like, abusive use of a drug, which that, that was their witness, you know.

And they have on the, they have on the opposite end now with the stuff I’m fighting ’em on, you know, they’re basically like all use is abuse, you know. So you know, it’s, it’s, they have no consistency.

Joe Moore (1:06:04)
Mm-hmm.

Robert Rush (1:06:04)
You know, they, they’ll apply different standards at the same time in different matters. It’s it’s very frustrating.

Joe Moore (1:06:13)
So ideally, they’re good faith operators working with the best of evidence, and that hasn’t necessarily proven itself to be the case. So, like, what are we as, you know, the- Let’s call it a psychedelic movement. What are we left with? Like, should we be applying political pressure at scale?

Robert Rush (1:06:33)
Oh, I think so. Yeah.

I, I think, yeah, the I’ve, I’ve seen the effects that, you know, actual, you know, s- you know, with the 7-OH thing there- Mm-hmm … where you have, you know, you have, you know, billion-dollar industries and companies that are willing to put money into it. I realize the psychedelic space is a little different, but I think as a community, putting money into really fighting these things, there, that’s, there needs to be more of it.

You know, the- Mm-hmm … the lobbying we, we really do need some, you know, serious lobbying efforts there

Joe Moore (1:07:13)
You know. ‘Cause this does impact the decriminalization movement. It does impact community use, like religious use. you know, all you wealthy folks going to, you know, Phish and Grateful Dead or whatever they’re called now at The Sphere, you know, like that kind of thing.

It impacts all of us, and not only sick veterans and sick moms, but, you know, the people in jail and the people that will be incarcerated if we don’t jump on this. And it could be your friend or your kid.

Robert Rush (1:07:44)
Yeah. It’s yeah, everybody is, everybody’s been touched by the war on drugs- Mm … you know, with you know, just with you know, the losses of people, whether they’re in prison or whether they’re no longer with us.

Joe Moore (1:07:59)
Right. And, you know, I, I like to Be really specific and say like all of the decades that we’ve missed of s- active psychedelic research and funding is a you know, crime against humanity pretty much. The amount of medic- medicine we could have had by now in our institutions, and like the amount of mental health disturbances we could have resolved, it’s astronomical, you know, the, the toll of human suffering we would not have had.

Not to mention having all that money back that we spent on the war on drugs.

Robert Rush (1:08:37)
Yeah.

Joe Moore (1:08:38)
All the violence, all the deforestation in Colombia.

Robert Rush (1:08:41)
Yeah. Yeah, the environmental impacts, the you know, the, the human cost, the financial cost. It’s, it’s all just it’s too much and it’s gone on for too long. But, you know, it’s so deeply entrenched, it’s gonna take real efforts to fight it and to- Mm-hmm

To change this. And you know, I think there’s, you know– I mean, the, the prison, for-profit prisons, you know, they, they’re not cheap with spending their lobbying money. Mm-hmm. they’re, they’re very targeted. All this, all the corporate interest in this are, are very targeted. Law enforcement’s very targeted with their, their unions.

You know, they … There’s a lot of activity that goes towards making sure things stay illegal, and when new drugs come out, they have to be illegal also. And we have a situation too where we’ve got, on one hand we’re stepping on the gas and the brakes at the same time with substances, because like DOI, a large amount of the research that was done was done with, you know, NIH funding, done with, you know, various other government institutional funding into it.

And then you have a drug like SR-17018 that I’ve been working on trying to fight the emergency scheduling of. That’s a drug that was developed specifically with National Institute of Drug Abuse funding to develop a safer opioid. And then once it’s developed and appears a safer opioid was designed and exists, you have the DEA moving to now emergency add it to Schedule I and shut down– which shuts down all research on it whatsoever.

Joe Moore (1:10:35)
Hmm

Robert Rush (1:10:36)
Yeah, it’s, it’s just unbelievable

Joe Moore (1:10:38)
And it, it ostensibly could be a really great replacement, like improvement on Suboxone treatments?

Robert Rush (1:10:45)
Yeah, it, or, or as a adjunct to Suboxone treatments. One of the unique things about SR-17 is it allows people to detox off of opioids in 12 to 14 days. This drug was developed and people evidently saw a …

You know, what, what occurs with the way these drugs get developed is there’s chemists out there who will, and manufacturers, who will look through academic publications that include descriptions of synthesis in there which is part of academic publications also. And then they will say, “Well, this looks like it maybe could get me high.”

And then they will synthesize and try it. One of the things they found out with SR was it was a really crappy drug to get high off of because it doesn’t have very much of a euphoric effect which is also one of the reasons why it’s a great potential opioid tool to you know, for pain management out there.

But it also doesn’t cause CNS depression the same way regular opioids do. And and but this withdrawal situation with it, where they gave it to rats or mice, and they found out off of morphine when they gave them this, they did not have significant withdrawal symptoms. the people who tried to synthesize it found out it was a crappy drug, but they found out that it was useful for getting off of other drugs.

An entire Reddit community developed around this who knew design protocols, and there’s thousands of people who are no longer opioid dependent because they started using these protocols. And in 12 to 14 days, they’re able to taper off of decades of opioid use sometimes with no significant withdrawals, which, I mean, most people would say this is a miracle drug.

We need to put everything behind it we can. The DEA sees it, and they see that it’s an opioid, and it’s in a class called orphines where there’s three other orphines they scheduled along with it, which they do not have great safety profiles. you know, one of them is responsible for about 60 deaths. But rather than recognizing that SR is not like this drug, any of these drugs whatsoever, is a solution to these drugs they looked at it and said, you know, “It’s in the same orphine class of opioids, so it gets scheduled too, because we see people talking about using it online.”

And the most insane part at the end of the day was that when they issued their order challenging the sche- order, actually emergency scheduling it, shutting down all research currently, is that it resets people’s opioid tolerance because they’re no longer using opioids, and people are at a greater risk of overdosing if they relapse then.

So because it gets people clean just like straight up abstinence would, you know, it’s… And they have a greater risk of overdosing if they would use the same amounts as previously. For that reason, it must be added to Schedule 1, which is just nuts. It, it’s, you could get off of opioids and no longer be dependent, so we have to make this Schedule 1.

Joe Moore (1:13:59)
It’s textbook circular argument. Amazing.

Robert Rush (1:14:04)
Yeah.

Joe Moore (1:14:04)
Good for them for figuring that out and putting it, putting it in …

Robert Rush (1:14:09)
But we are currently challenging it with the the doctors who have invented it and and we, we submitted a request that there be, they remove SR from the other three orphines, and that we have a formal rulemaking hearing if they’re not interested in doing that, and we look at the evidence.

And they completely ignored our, in my opinion, incredibly thoughtful, well-written legal arguments and didn’t even bother responding, and actually moved quicker than they normally do to add it to schedule, to issue the order. normally it takes about 60 or 70 days for them from notice to issue the order.

They did ours, I think, in 45.

Joe Moore (1:14:55)
Mm.

Robert Rush (1:14:55)
And it seemed like they, they had a particular urgency ’cause they did not want the opportunity for, you know, the word to get out and to, you know, address our thoughts. But we’ve got further litigation coming up where we’re it’s not the end of the story.

Joe Moore (1:15:13)
Mm-hmm. Good.

Good. I’m happy to hear that. And, you know, this intersects with a lot of the coming Ibogaine stuff that we’re gonna be seeing in Colorado and elsewhere, so I really hope we can improve how we do work around opioid problems and drugs and things along you know, novel drugs is what I mean. Yeah.

And hopefully, you know, we can Really, I’m, I’m hopeful that Colorado’s gonna do okay with this weird research rollout with ibogaine, but I’m, you know, also a little troubled. but we’ll see. Have you been following it at all?

Robert Rush (1:15:53)
I have not been following it very closely. I have a very- Mm-hmm … sort of tangential appreciate it.

I know there’s gonna be, like, a pilot program that’s gonna research is my understanding.

Joe Moore (1:16:02)
Like, starting next year, and then we’re gonna see stuff in, like, sort of clinics by, like as early as ’28. So, like, ’27 being kind of the, the pilot site rollout. I don’t know if they’ve solved the sourcing problem, ’cause Gabon, I don’t think, is exporting.

It’s still you know, based on the Hunter Thompson historical prank, it’s still a scheduled drug. And yeah, thanks Hunter- … for proving our point.

Robert Rush (1:16:32)
Yeah. I, seriously, though, that is, that’s a perfect example of just how asinine our policy is. You know, I, like, Hunter Thompson’s, like, thing, it was that, that’s why it’s a Schedule 1 drug.

It- that’s all it took, you know? I mean, that’s just, I mean, madness, you know? Mm-hmm. And, you know, it’s… The whole, though, the thing, though, with the sourcing thing, I mean, I, I mean, I, I am very much so for, you know, investigating ibogaine stuff. But there’s, there’s definitely you know, a colonialistic aspect to this that, you know you know, you, we, you have what we want and we’re gonna take it, you know?

It’s-

Joe Moore (1:17:20)
Whether you like it or

Robert Rush (1:17:21)
Not. Yeah, whether you like it or not. We certainly didn’t have a dialogue with Ghana beforehand, you know, and bring them to the table and work out, you know, some way that they are, you know, justly compensated for their contribution, you know? you know- In response

Joe Moore (1:17:39)
To the stuff in Colorado, I think they put a a barrier in place, like, no more exports.

Like, you guys gotta start negotiating with us. we did an article recently from somebody who works for, for the Gabonese government, and Georges Kasita, I think his name is. And he, he’s … This is kind of his purview is botanical exports and farming and things like that. And the, the United States should start negotiating.

My understanding is that everybody Who’s gonna be touching ibogaine in America in terms of, like, university research. if that university has a contract with a Canadian or Netherlands or you know, a- any other kind of international organization the American university is in violation of Nagoya Protocol, and, like, that theoretically puts the other partner organizations at risk of also being at fault.

So, like, there’s a lot of complexity, this tangled web of compliance.

Robert Rush (1:18:44)
So I guess our just refusing to adopt it didn’t sort of solve that problem at the end of the day.

Joe Moore (1:18:49)
Right. I’m hoping to publish on this soon because it’s, it’s important, and we just don’t… Yeah, just by saying, “Yeah, we, we’re, we’re good.”

Just because we do business with everybody else makes us a little bit com- needing to be a little bit compliant.

Robert Rush (1:19:05)
Yeah.

Joe Moore (1:19:06)
Yeah. We don’t, we don’t wanna be at risk here, and I think we owe it to the world to do this in a somewhat fair way. you know, that said, there are other sources of ibogaine and we need to kind of flesh out how, you know, if that’s true, then what do we do with Gabon and compensation there?

And it’s to be fleshed out. I hope we have some authentic conversations on that in the near term. It is important to save lives.

Robert Rush (1:19:32)
It is. It is. It’s important that you know, it’s, it’s a tough balance between, you know, the urgency to address the, the crisis in America and you know, but also recognizing, you know, Indigenous and rights.

And I think also environmental perspective also too. You talked about deforestation in in Colombia, but also too, just like, I, I mean, I have huge issues with, you know the poor Colorado River toad getting grabbed because, you know, you know, 5-MeO-DMT can be synthesized, but because people feel that there’s a more authentic experience, I think you, you know, you have serious environmental potential for a threatened species.

Same with peyote. I think it’s, you know, very … it needs to be a very delicate balance especially rec- rec- yeah, recognizing you know, Native American you know culture. And you know, we shouldn’t g- we shouldn’t have a bunch of you know, people from the psychedelic community looting the peyote gardens.

You know, there’s- Yes … San Pedro, you know?

Joe Moore (1:20:55)
Right. Exactly. And there’s so much more to flesh out here. Thanks for bringing up the toads. I was arguing online yet again about that earlier today. Uh.

Robert Rush (1:21:06)
It’s tough. It’s– People are very people are very invested in their toad

Joe Moore (1:21:13)
Yeah. And without great evidence, you’re at risk of a classic fallacy, the naturalistic fallacy, where just because it’s natural, it’s better or safer or something along those lines.

Yeah. Anyway, Robert, thank you so much. Anything you wanna leave us with?

Robert Rush (1:21:31)
Just I started a project called the Rights and Reason Project that supports the, this work, and it’d be great if people could go check it out at www.rightsandreasonproject.com and support the work we’re doing.

We’re, we’re going to be doing some really highly impactful litigation hopefully, and you know, love to have people participate, whether it’s you know, through supporting our efforts vocally or social media or whether it’s financially.

Joe Moore (1:22:02)
Well, Robert Rush, thank you so much. and you practice psychedelic law?

Robert Rush (1:22:07)
I do practice psychedelic law. I also have a private practice that I, I do psychedelic law work too at rrushlaw.com.

Joe Moore (1:22:16)
Amazing. And for those of you who wanna know how to support Psychedelics Today, check out our Vital Conference November 7 and 8 in Breckenridge, Colorado. We’re doing a music training for expanded states on the 9th and 10th here in Breckenridge.

The next round of Vital, Vital Six is coming up, so apply at vitalpsychedelictraining.com. And that’s it for now. Thank you all for tuning in. Get active. Start getting your people together. It’s, it’s gonna be a busy few years for us in psychedelia. Until next time, everybody. Bye-bye.