featured image
Substances

The Potential of Buprenorphine, the Risks of Ketamine, and How Psychedelics Could Prevent Nuclear War

December 10, 2024
Featuring: Howard Kornfeld, MD

In this episode, Joe interviews Howard Kornfeld, MD: renowned pain medicine expert, addiction specialist, early pioneer in psychedelic medicine, and currently the director of recovery medicine at Recovery Without Walls.

featured image
Subscribe Share

In this episode, Joe interviews Howard Kornfeld, MD: renowned pain medicine expert, addiction specialist, early pioneer in psychedelic medicine, and currently the director of recovery medicine at Recovery Without Walls.

As a leader in the utilization of buprenorphine, he talks about how it came about as a treatment for addiction and chronic pain, its similarities to MDMA, and how its fast-tracked FDA approval could give us clues on how to get MDMA approved. He also dives into the history of ketamine, its unique effects compared to other substances, its potential for abuse, and what can happen with overuse. And he talks a lot about the connection he sees between psychedelics and the prevention of nuclear war, inspired by Sasha Shulgin’s opinion that nothing changes minds faster than psychedelics. He points out that when there is darkness, there is light: Albert Hofmann’s famed bicycle trip on acid happened 3 months after the nuclear chain reaction was invented. Can the growing use of psychedelics inspire the kind of change we need to save the world?

He also discusses:

  • The need for new study designs as we come to terms with the fact that double-blind studies don’t really work with psychedelics
  • Criticisms of the FDA’s denial of MDMA: Was the process unfair?
  • His predictions that advocates will begin pushing to decriminalize MDMA at the state level
  • The books, Tripping on Utopia and Drugged
  • How he played a part in prisons ending the practice of killing prisoners with cyanide gas

and more! 

Links

Recoverywithoutwalls.com

Ippnw.org: International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War

What do Alien Abduction and Psychedelic Experiences have in Common? Let Dr. John E. Mack’s Work Explain

Atlasobscura.com: How a Famed New Age Retreat Center Helped End the Cold War

Trackii.com

Thebulletin.org: Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists

Wikipedia.org: Buprenorphine

Omnimagazine.com: John Lilly on Dolphin Consciousness

National Library of Medicine: Ketamine bladder syndrome: an important differential diagnosis when assessing a patient with persistent lower urinary tract symptoms

Cghjournal.org: Liver Injury Is Common Among Chronic Abusers of Ketamine

United Nations’ Treaty on the prohibition of nuclear weapons

How to Change Your Mind: What the New Science of Psychedelics Teaches Us About Consciousness, Dying, Addiction, Depression, and Transcendence, by Michael Pollan

The Nature of Drugs Vol. 1: History, Pharmacology, and Social Impact, by Alexander Shulgin

Tripping on Utopia: Margaret Mead, the Cold War, and the Troubled Birth of Psychedelic Science, by Benjamin Breen

Psychonauts: Drugs and the Making of the Modern Mind, by Mike Jay

Drugged: The Science and Culture Behind Psychotropic Drugs, Richard J. Miller

Nytimes.com: At the Brink: A Series About the Threat of Nuclear Weapons in an Unstable World

Scientificamerican.com: Inside the $1.5-Trillion Nuclear Weapons Program You’ve Never Heard Of

*Amazon links are affiliate links, meaning that Psychedelics Today will receive a percentage of the sale

Dr.-Howard-Kornfeld

In this Episode

Howard Kornfeld, MD

Howard Kornfeld, MD, is a diplomate in pain medicine, recognized by the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology, and a distinguished fellow of the American Society of Addiction Medicine. He was board certified in emergency medicine for 40 years. He graduated from the Northwestern University Medical School in 1975 as part of the honors program in medical education. He serves on the clinical faculty and has taught in the pain and addiction fellowship and other programs at UCSF. He is a nationally recognized and published leader in the utilization of buprenorphine (also known as Suboxone™) for chronic pain and opiate addiction. Dr. Kornfeld is also known as a pioneer of the psychedelic medicine field, having convened early investigators with FDA approved studies in pivotal research and policy conferences – the 1994/1995 Pacific Symposia on Psychedelic Drugs – while serving as a visiting physician-in-residence at the world-famous Esalen Institute. Dr. Kornfeld is also considered an expert in alcohol, benzodiazepine, cocaine, and stimulant addiction, and developed the Recovery Without Walls program more than twenty years ago as a new model for outpatient care, attracting referrals widely and inspiring others in the field. He has always been guided by the movements towards integrative and holistic physical and mental health. He was a delegate in 1981 at the first congress of International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, the organization that won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1985. In 2022, he attended the Nuclear Ban Forum in Vienna to support the United Nations Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. He provided early assistance to civil liberties organizations in the 1990s in their lawsuit that led the federal judiciary to forbid the Attorney General of California’s use of the gas chamber in death penalty cases, as cruel and unusual punishment. He continues to study the role of societal addiction as a driving force in the global polycrisis of fossil fuel and armaments dependence, inequity, and biodiversity loss. In this regard, he has continued to serve as an advisor to the International Bateson Institute.

Socials: Linkedin

Recovery Without Walls socials: Instagram / Facebook

Load more podcasts