Will Elon Musk Step Away From Twitter?

and scaring off advertisers with his antics. On Tuesday, Musk announce plans to find someone else to run the company after his own Twitter poll showed almost fifty eight percent of voters wanted him to step down. My guest is Eric Cally, professor at Columbia Law School. Musk plans to resign as CEO as soon as I find someone foolish enough to take the job. Who would be foolish enough to take a job when they'll be CEO in name only.

It's an interesting job advertisement. To be sure, I'm not really sure that I think we have the one person who is foolish enough to take the job and as Elon Busk, but it makes it even harder when he has said, yes, I'm gonna find a CEO, but I'm still gonna be in charge of a subsidiary part of Twitter. So how does that CEO even operate when you're controlling shareholder is also running one of your division. Can the CEO discipline Mr Bosk for failure to perform? It's it's

a very very precarious situation. So, you know, managing Twitter is already a pretty big ask. Managing it when you know you are the boss to the person who is your boss is gonna be an even bigger lift. So, you know, I'm not really sure he's gonna find a lot of takers, or to the extent that he does find takers, they are largely going to be sort of

lieutenant to him in any respect. And that's white, frankly, doesn't help with some of the other challenges that Mr Busk is facing, particularly from his shareholders and investors at other companies, and notably I'll the tesla here. You know, they have become much more audibly uppity about you know,

his travails over at Twitter. Uh, and whether that that entire enterprise is not only distracting him but may also be you know, sort of contrary to the better interests of Tesla in terms of developing its markets and make sure it's products are reliable and coming off the production line. You know, heading into a very very challenging period of time for Tesla. Shareholders are agitated after a drop in the company's value this year, and some have urged the

board to replace Musk. But is that board ever going to do anything like that. Possibly it would be quite a challenge to do so, give and what a central role he has and continues to play at Tesla. It's important to realize that that Mr Munk, compared to Twitter, Mr Muski, is only about shareholder at Tesla, and that's declining, you know, every time I pick up the newspaper. So he's you know, selling off more and more shares of Tesla.

So it's not um completely out of the out of the realm of possibility that he might end up being moved out as the CEO of Tesla. But you know, it's not really clear whose interest ultimately that serves as the alternative is to really find someone to take over Twitter and for him to sort of concentrate in you know, a much more deliberative way on what's happening over at

at Tesla. That's sort of where he his bread and butter and his power alley is anyway, and social media has always, you know, seemed to be a bit of a sideline for him. So, you know, in many respects, if it's one we're sort of thinking, you know, Mr Muski needs to be put to his highest and best use, and he has to be thinking this as well. You've got to figure it is over at Tesla and not at Twitter, but it's not clear at least at this stage. That's the way that things are going to evolve over time.

He's you know, put himself into kind of an an odd situation where he's made a gigantic, undiversified bet in Twitter's future success. It's gonna be you know, quite a slog to see how that plays out. He may not be able to help himself, but to you know, attend to micromanaging things over at Twitter simply because of the large stake that he has wrapped up in it. Uh. Contrary when you think about Tesla, Yeah, Tesla's lost a

lot of market value. Uh, it's lost it in part because of the crowded base that electric vehicles are increasingly becoming Tesla is no longer the only player in this area. Now some of the big traditional automakers are coming in in both feet into the pool, and that's just going to create a much more challenging environment, not to mentioned the macro economic environment in which carmakers all find themselves.

And so this is gonna be a trajectory of of Tesla and how to steward it through that coming trajectory is going to be a big challenge to whoever is at the helm of Tesla. And it sort of makes sense from the Tesla shareholders perspectives that they don't want someone that is, you know, kind of encumbered with various types of of distractions that may be you know, independent or possibly antagonistic to the best interests of Tesla. And you know, that's another issue that I think is a

hard one to figure out here. You know, Mr Musk's public presence over Twitter and his you know, continued inability to to muzzle his own tweets have also you know, taken a turn in a fairly political direction in the last month and a half, you know, and he has he sort of allied himself much more with sort of conservative ends of the political spectrum that's not necessarily consistent with how Tesla is going to be in a good

position to further it's market share. You know, generally the folks that buy electric cars are not the cat diesel power baseball hat wearing truck, right. They tend to be, you know, the folks who were, you know, kind of worried about carbon footprint and global warming and they want to save the planet. And that crew tends to be disproportionately drawn from the more sort of centrist to progressive

wings of the United States, at least as present. So by taking what seems to be kind of an antagonistic position over Twitter, there's like lots of reasons to believe that Mr Musk has actually, you know, not only gotten distracted, but he may even have cannibalized some of the best sources of loyal customers over at Tesla. Speaking of the latest controversy, because it seems like there's one controversy after another.

He claims that he's a free speech absolutist, and yet there have been instances where he suspends the accounts of journalists and others where it seems like the reason is they said something critical about him. I mean, he can do whatever he wants, right, but what's the effect? Well, I guess, in fairness to Mr musk when he proclaimed himself to be a free speech absolutist, he didn't put an important modifier on that, which is who's free speech?

And evidently he's an absolutist about his own free speech, but when it comes to other people's speech, maybe a little bit less of an absolutist position. I think this is an issue that has long worried people that you know, on some level. Once you get deep into the weeds, you know, part of a hard challenge that is in front of anyone who's doing some type of content moderation on platforms like this is how do you do it

in a completely viewpoint neutral way. It's a big challenge, and it's something that probably needs to draw on a lot of different inputs. Your Musk has, maybe, you know, by necessity, decided that the inputs that he's been drawn are his own intuitions, and therefore, you know, many things that we never realized were dangerous forms of doxing turn out to be doxing from his perspective. You know, reporting

news about Mr musk um criticizing Mr musk. You know that those are the types of things, at least if you've got a large following on Twitter or you know, in the in the public press, that may be something that that he either genuinely feels threatened by and feels is dangerous or just sort of doesn't want to give it a public airing on the platform that he owns, and has decided in a somewhat impetuous and a little bit vindictive way to pull the critics off of the platform.

It's hard to imagine how that then sort of computes into a free speech absolutist position. I think he abandoned that long ago, and Twitter still, you know, has a chance to be what he or whoever is controlling it and maybe even owning it makes of it. But he is not um thus far in his track record stewarding Twitter, he has on acted in a way that seems consistent with some of his own proclamations earlier on about how much he values the freedom of expression in the marketplace

of ideas. There's some backlash from lawmakers in the EU. A vice president of the European Commission said the arbitrary suspension of journalists violated the e use Digital Services Act and it's Media Freedom Act. There's a backlash from lawmakers in the EU. The Vice President of the European Commission said his moves violated the e USE Digital Service Act and it's Media Freedom Act. So where he might be safe in the US, he might have problems in the EU.

It's a big issue for any global company because you are not necessarily, you know, going to be fine simply by you know, abiding by the jurisdictional rules and regulations of even the largest jurisdiction that you're operating in. Once you're operating across jurisdiction, you have a senti many masters

to figure out and attend to. And with the EU, they've long had a much more aggressive position on the social media content, the right to be forgotten and so forth, and so it's just not surprising that the EU regulators are going to be a tougher sell than US regulators, you know, on that score as well. It's probably worth noting that Senator Warren herself has come out of the woodwork to tick the tires not on musk stewardship of Twitter, but on whether he's breaching his duties to Tesla and

Testlas shareholders. Now that's kind of an interesting position for Senator Warren, who's you know, much more of a kind of a stakeholder identified commentator, to be sort of, you know, worried about test La shareholders. But on some level it speaks to the complexity of the situation that he's in. You know, when you are so heavily connected to two companies that are not in the same industry that maybe in some cases working across purposes, it's going to be

hard to stay out of regulators sites. And so the European regulators seemed to have a lot more to say about decisions made and not made at Twitter. Maybe that that US regulators, by the same token, are are going to increasingly come down harder on how Mr Musk is affecting that the running and the outcomes at Tesla. Well, the FTC has apparently expanded its investigation into security concerns

at Twitter. This was an investigation and a consent decree to pre existed his his purchase of the company, and uh and Twitter, you know very much, you know, was was under ongoing obligations and is under ongoing obligations to comply with that consent decree. And and FTC has authority and in many ways a duty to ensure that that

compliance is ongoing. One of the first moves that Mr Musk made once he took control of Twitter in late October was to lay off, you know, a substantial portion of the staff, many of whom were responsible from ensuring that compliance was unfolding in a reasonable way with this

FTC consent decree. So you know, there again, it's in a it's another situation where it's proven quite difficult for Mr Musk to make managerial moves which he you know, seems to have a proclivity to make by shooting from the hip and not to arouse lawmakers and regulators, uh suspicions and criticism. And you know, I wouldn't expect this to abate anytime soon. Uh. You know, the FTC has is extremely active these days in a bunch of different realms, and you know, in many respects Mr Musk has has

kind of made their job a little easier. Are in some of his more controversial actions protected to a large degree because Twitter is a private company. Now not necessarily when a company the private company, that means that one area of law securities law dealing with the rights of public shareholders is at least in part not going to apply. But that doesn't mean that you get a hall path on every other regulatory constraint that faces companies, and those

include content restrictions. Those also include employment restrictions. And so when when you think about the various lenses that that Mr must finds himself under from regulators, they tend, at least with respect to what he's doing at Twitter, they tend not to be securities regulators as much as former employee or you know, FTC regulators that are really about

not protecting shareholders but protecting users and customers. Simply being a privately held company does not get you out of the jurisdictional scope of the FTC or any other regulator whose purpose is not to regulate your relationship with your public shareholds. So yes, the sec doesn't play as larger or all here, but just about every other regulator in the United States and Europe is going to continue to play a role, just like they did before Twitter went private.

Instead of asking you what he did wrong, I want to ask you what do you think he has done right since he owned Twitter. Well, a couple of things that I think are probably worth noting First of all, it was clear that once he took hold of Twitter, he was taking hold of a company whose historical revenue patterns simply did not match up with what was going to be required to service the debt. And so, you know,

some people criticize Mr Muskin. Look, I've been one of them for, you know, in some respects taking you know, fairly extreme and and you know, sort of bold and quite risky tactics when he was making decisions, and then you know, sometimes rolling them back on some level. I don't think you can really avoid that simply because you know, a company that really needs to pivot um may have to pivot using you know, a relatively bold and not

fully tried out strategy. So I don't really fault Mr Musk necessarily for the you know, idea that he's trying on a whole bunch of new approaches and policies that haven't been tried before. I do fault him a little bit for not vetting that a little bit more. They seem to be kind of almost management by fever dream rather than even having a group of people to sort of bounce these ideas off, even if it's in a

relatively short order. But It doesn't surprise me that anyone who's you know, you know, basically trying to keep a company afloat that's got a fairly significant debtload isn't going to be you know, thinking about different, possibly quite major

strategy changes that they may undertake. You know, there's probably some back room um jockeying right now going on that we're not aware of, But I would not be surprised at all if Mr Musk isn't negotiating with some of the banks that holds at least certain parts of the debt that is going to have to start paying off interest in the coming months. That has been a particularly difficult thing for the banks to sell on to outside investors. So a lot of those banks have just kept that

debt on their own books. And usually the way this works is they try to find a syndicate of investors who are willing to buy the debt from them, and there don't seem to be too many takers at least anywhere close to you know, hundred cents on the dollar in terms of those obligations. That actually, in some ways may create an opportunity for Mr Musk to approach the banks and say, well, why don't you let me personally

buy back this debt. But I'm not going to buy it back at a hundred cents on the dollar either, But I'll give you, you know, a price thats competitive relative to what you can get from someone else. And there's almost a sense in which, if that is what's happening, then some of the behavior that Mr Musk is engaged in right now that I think if I were a bank that had lent money to to Twitter, it may

be very very nervous. Well, that also might make my price come down when I when I am bargaining with him to try to figure out how much I'm willing to basically sell back that debt to him, you know, would it be sixty cents on the dollar fifty eight cents on the dollars? So there may well be a few chapters yet that we have to have to see.

The other thing that I think is probably worth noting is that, notwithstanding the fact that Twitter has, you know, it's it's clearly still the most dominant platform out there. And you know, even as as Mr Musk has kind of engaged in, you know, what seems to be pretty erratic behavior, a lot of people have claimed quite publicly they're leaving Twitter, and and you know, you sort of see him wander back a little bit later on because it's still one of the more lively platforms out there.

And I think, you know, one of the things that he is trying to do is some of these other competitors that have emerged in the last few years for more conservative posters are also you know, not necessarily having a feeding frenzy of success, the parlors and the truth socials. I think he, you know, is trying to move those users back onto Twitter, and I think there's some evidence that he's been successful in doing that. So there is a sense in which the size of the network on

Twitter has actually grown a little bit. Their advertising revenues haven't haven't reflected that they haven't been very successful at monetizing that growth, but at least they have sort of maintained, if not slightly shored up their position as a you know, kind of a central hub of social networking. It remains to be seen whether that can be monetized in any

successful way. A lot of advertisers have gotten nervous about that, simply because they're now quite worried that their own advertisements are going to be put up next to you know, content that would have been acted with the prior content moderation policies, but now it's sort of left out there

and can be fairly volatile content. So there may still be a lot more squeamishness by advertisers, but at the very least I think they know that they are, you know, seeing a user base that that appears to remain robot. Mr Musk's own notoriety might well have played partly a role in that as well. Uh, you know, notwithstanding the fact that um, you know, he used to be behaving

in a really erratic way. There are a lot of people that still like to tweet about one main topic, which is Mr Musk, and to that point, about content that advertisers may not want their advertisements next to. The New York Times analyze tweets from more than a thousand users whose accounts were recently reinstated, and many of the users are posting about topics that got them barred in the first place, COVID skepticism, election denialism, and Q and on.

So is that going to hurt the platform? It may well hurt the platform if it's the key goal here

is to try to monetize the user base at Twitter. Uh, you know, advertisers have long been the main source of revenue there, and to the extent that they are going to continue to be the main source of revenue there, I think you have to, you know, put yourself in the shoes of an advertiser who is who is you know, understandably quite squeamish about whether somehow their product is being linked to salacious content that they had no idea it would be linked to. And the odds are you know,

somewhat greater once those posters are back on Twitter. Now they have their own following, So possibly for some advertisers, Uh that's a plot. But the numbers that I've seen coming out of Twitter, the ones that have leaked out, sort of suggests that advertisers are quite nervous about this move. And so if advertisers are gonna sit on the sidelines because of the relaxation of at least this type of content moderation, how do they make up for this in

other ways? And you know that you know, Twitter itself is you know, now trying to figure out, you know, how to slice, dice and julian every version of a verified user that you can pay for that um is within the realm of imagination. You know. How much that

captures people's imaginations I think remains to be seen. I think there are a lot of folks for whom the the idea of you know, paying for a blue check or a green check or a great check or whatever color of the check is is it never was the real reason to you know, you know, become a you know, a verified user on Twitter and just not gonna send the same message that it did before. So I have some you know, I have some concerns that as Twitter loses a lot of advertising revenue, it's gonna have a

hard time making it up with other services. Now it's going to be throwing a few haymakers to try to become kind of the central media hub of everything that everyone does, making a marketplace, make it a chat tool, and and so forth. And it's got some of that functionality now, though it hasn't really sort of become dominant in a lot of those other areas, and it still

remains to be seen whether that's going to happen. But in the absence of being able to substantially amp up advertising dollars, that money's got to come from somewhere, and right now, I think you know what we're seeing, and you know, kind of on a weekly basis is you know, somewhat of a careening set of strategies attempting to figure out where he can get some traction to actually increase revenue streams to the company. Thanks so much for being

on the show. Eric. That's Professor Eric Talley of Columbia Law School. One who makes you larger and one who makes you small and mother, don't do anything. Many people associating magic mushrooms with the psychedelic sixties, with hippies and rock stars following mystics on the fringes and experimenting. But it's a whole different story today as psychedelic drugs are

being accepted by many in the mainstream. How mainstream. The powerhouse lawyer in the paramount series The Good Fight, played by Christine Baranski, went through a course of treatment with psilocybin in the last season. And what are your services? Dr Bettencourt? Is this like ketamine pt one? To wait? It's less powerful. You come in here twice a week. We offer the option of an ivy, a capsule or spray.

You lie down in the other room. You were an imask, you listen to music of your choosing to focus internally, and you have a ninety minute experience. What does that mean experience? Well, some people call it a trip, others awaking dream. Oregon became the first state to legalize psilocybin, the active ingredient in magic mushrooms, two years ago, and in November, voters in Colorado passed a similar ballot initiative.

Decriminalization bills have been introduced in several states for consideration, while others are studying the drug for medical use. However, the use, sail and possession of psilocymon in the United States is still illegal under federal law. Joining me is healthcare policy expert an attorney Harry Nelson of Nelson Hardeman. What psychedelic drugs are being considered for legalization magic mushrooms lsd M, d M A. Well, so there's like a

kind of a sequence that we're in. The only psychedelic drugs that is currently a legally prescribable controlled substance is ketamine, which is why there's been such an explosion of kenemine clinics,

and kenemine has been so popular. But then I would say, after ketamine of the psychedelics true like plant based psychedelics, because ketamine is synthetic um, you know, psilocybe and psilocybe and is clearly out in front as the one that has the most research being done, the most pressure for decriminalization.

And then behind it, I think, you know, you have a whole series of things like um ayahuasca and I be gain other plant based psychedelics, and I think it's sort of picking up the rear and probably the last to be to be criminalized are going to be the synthetics like the b M T S and LSC. But I think we're heading towards decriminalization for all of it over the next ten plus years. I know that some veterans organizations even finance trips overseas to treat PTSD with psilocybin.

How do these drugs work. I'm not a scientist, I'm

just a lawyer who worked closely with them. I mean they all have like intense, uh you know, neurological experiences that give people it's almost an out of body feeling in different cases, and it's a whole series of physical experiences people describe, you know, whole ranges of going from complete surrendy of of an ability to you know, to be outside their own bodies and be perceiving their surroundings and beyond and in all kinds of intense ways, and

people have very very different reactions to them, right and sometimes incredibly transcendent, sometimes scary, which is why there's so much emphasis on these being a guided experience where people are sort of being watched to make sure that that they don't get into a place of dissociation or where they could potentially hurt themselves. But there are still studies being done to determine how effective and safe they are

and what they can be used to treat. I mean, for for decades, the d e A basically blocked research clinical research, and you had very very few studies going on. There were a handful I had clients fifteen plus years ago that we're doing studies on, you know, p PTSD being treated with psilocybin, on using ecstasy, you know m b m A. Also likewise, a lot of studies with veterans.

There was a small stream of studies that were getting approval from td A. As you mentioned, there were a lot of people, but there's an underground movement of people taking these drugs in uh, you know, in ear in setting secluded settings privately, or going out of the country to do so in places where they are legal or decriminalized, and so yeah, so the research is definitely accelerating, and now we have mainstream, major research institutions across the country

who are which are engaging in studies and at least anecdotally from the progress that I'm hearing from researchers who we are working with, just really unbelievable results with things like major depression where there was a resistance to treatment through ordinary means, that and PTSD and a whole range of conditions where these really do appear to be a

breakthrough for many people. In Oregon became the first state to legalize philoslibin on a protracted timeline, but the regulations for its distributions still haven't been worked out by state of fish tolls, and unlike cannabis, psilocybin can't be used at home, it has to be administered at licensed service

centers under the direction of trained facilitators. Is that the model that other states are going to use, well, so right, so Colorado looks like it's going to be the second state and to follow kind of an Oregon model, right, so at least and if they're very strange, come I In my view, it's a very strange model that, um, we're developing where you know, we're sort of as we did with cannabis, we're having this experiment of state by state different rules and at least not home used for philocybin,

at least in these early states. Personally, I think it's a shame that we can't get our federal agencies to move because I think that, you know, what we're doing is we're really sort of carving out a whole new pathway of how these drugs are going to be used when we have a very established system, and all we really need to do is be criminal as them, give them a prescribable status, and allow you know, physicians to prescribe them appropriately and manage them carefully as we do

all the other kinds of control substances where we think there's a risk of danger or abuse. Seems to be crazy, but at the moment, these drugs are not being addressed federally, so therefore doctors can't write prescriptions, and you have states coming up with their own schemes, and while I think Oregon deserves credit at first seeing creative. I think we have a tried in true way to let patients, you know, use medications in appropriate safe settings, including at home with

physician supervision, is illegal at the federal level. Correct. Other than ketamine, all of the psychedelics are currently Schedule one under the Control Substances Act, which means that they are deemed legally to have no medicinal use and therefore are illegal UH and it is a crime to possess them, distribute them, and doctors can't have anything to do with them or they will lose the risks losing their d e A UH licenses essentially a medical licenses and worse

r criminal risks. So then how does it work when let's say you go to Oregon if it's illegal federally

but the state legalized it. I mean, how does that work? So? Right, So, what we're doing, effectively, what we're going is doing, and what it looks like the other states are going to do because we're getting no federal movement here, is to treat this again very much like they did cannabis and create a sourcing supply because we had cannaba's dispensaries we're going to have these clinics that are going to be allowed to um receive you know, the plant based psychedelics

that starting the philocybin, you know, on a regulated basis. And then there will be people who, again not not positions or mental health professionals necessarily, but a whole new class of essentially state licensed guide who will be trained in how to administer and manage and monitor people we're

taking the philocybin. So it's like it's gonna be very much a repeat of cannabis, except the idea of like a lounge where people have to stay on site and in jest is just kind of an additional wrinkle here. So I mean, technically the d e A could arrest someone who has this even in a state where it's legal.

It's true that in theory the d A could. We saw by the way, you know, California was the first state to be criminalized cannabis in the nineties, and we saw that it took several years before the d e A stopped rating Canada's censories and club but two thousand and twelves Department of Justice issued a memo called the

Cole Memorandum. And again this is only cannabis right now, but I'm predicting that it will be the identical stories for psychedelics because that government has taken the position that it has better things to do with three sources, and as long as people are operating carefully within state legal framework, it will not interfere. And I think that rule has

been successful. There was a question at the beginning of Trump administration whether Attorney General Sessions at the time would disrupt it, and we saw very quickly that there was, you know, no support on either side of the political aisle to go back to the old days. The d E a interfering with state law, and so I think it's pretty safe to say that as long as people are operating in states that decriminalize this will be safe. You know, within the parameters that are set in that state,

there's going to be a ban on interstate traffic. I think very parallel to cannabis on a bunch of safety issues and trying to keep organized crime out of it. You know, it'll be safe for people to follow state laws as these states secriminalized. So California had an earlier bill. It was opposed by law enforcement, including the California DA's Association, that said, hallucinations can be dangerous to users and bystanders alike, and it's not clear that the benefit of legalizing these

drugs outweighs the cost to the common welfare. Well, look, it's it's no surprise, um that law enforcement is concerned about this. Candidly, I think when we look at the Cannaba's example that's played out over the last fifteen years, we we have to do there's good reasons to say that there are a lot of dangerous and their effects right, including what it means for motorists and like for people on the road, and the extent to which there's a risk that crime organizations can be part of this. And

so I I think it was it's understandable. Personally, I'm I'm an advocate for opening up more therapeutics that will help more people. Right that we have serious mental health issues in the country and this is an incredibly promising therapy. But at the same time, I think law enforcement is rightly worried that it be done in the right way

and in the safe way. I don't think that we should let those concerned stifle access, but we should be careful to like look for the lessons that we can learn from where things went awry, you know, And there's this, there's this, there's this underlying tension between a movement of people who are just trying to get recreational use, which has one set of arguments to make about it, and

medical use. And I think that if we aren't careful, we can almost um make the medical uses more challenging because of problems that are so stated with recreational youth.

I think it's totally understandable that law enforcement and other groups are going to be, you know, throwing up concerns and urging a ghost low approach, and frankly, I think they've been a little bit more organized in the early political discussions and then the advocacy community for decriminalization and UH again, a lot of different stakeholders in this conversation,

and it's complicated. So I think we've had a few California efforts sales, although it looks like the current one has promising level attraction and does seem to be, at least for now, on a good footing to UH to enactment. Do you think the problem is the stigma associated with hallucinogenics,

you know, Timothy Leary, the bad trips and and all that. Certainly, I think there's some of that, although I do think, you know, my my senses that public attitudes and some in stigma really shifted dramatically with regard to cannabis, and I think we're in a different era where it's not quite as where there's generally public support for more or access,

you know. I think at the same time, on a community level, people are worried about what's going to look like, you know, safety issues and communities, and so I think a lot of the concerns are gonna be a lot more practical to make sure that it rolls out in a way that um, that people can feel good about. And you know, that has a more again, much more of a healthcare therapeutic framework around it as opposed to just being you know, another form of vice that for example,

parents have to worry about kids getting into. Yeah, I think that's where the real issues are going to be. Tell us about the California Bill and where it stands now,

at least in the last two lead places essions. There's been uh previous stills that ran into opposition, but this one was reintroduced by a San Francisco state senator Scott Weener in the late summer, and the idea this one is focused on only plant based hallucinogen and so that would be like philocybin and you know, I begain but it would basically it would create a research institute to study them and also UM create a framework for for

individuals to receive direct amounts to them from the centuries. So it's again very very similar in my mind too, a cannabis model UM, hopefully with some lessons learned to be a little bit more specific than some of the early directors in California. That's it's sort of a little different than oregons in terms of dissensation the individuals anyway, So that's where we are right now. As far as marijuana, how long before you think it will become legal at

the federal level. It's a dangerous question. I've I've been asked to write white papers on this subject for years, and I've gotten it wrong so many times. I think the view that I hear most commonly is that we are probably in the next decade, and likely within the next five years, we will have a critical mass of legislators on both sides of the aisle who will support a change in federal status for cannabis. So I do

think that we will see it. The problem is that the politics are so messy in our existing political dysfunction.

So for example, when people thought that President Obama, you know, after he was really stuffed the d A from rating back in two thousand nine, and that he might go further, you know, it became clear that as midterm elections approach, he needed to you know, get some law and order support from law enforcement, and so that calculus came in, and I think, unfortunately, uh, it's too much of a political football to be certain, but I do think that we are likely five to ten years away from a

formal change, you know, based on the on the critical mass of states that have already legalized it, and just just to clean up some of the messiness of state by states policies that allowed for a lot of bad behavior to flip between the tracts. Any final thoughts on the road ahead for a legalization of psychedelics, I think this is really exciting. I think that to anybody who's skeptical out there, I think there's the data is just really it's worth reading some of the literature about the

breakthrough that people are having to me. You know, I think we've lived in an arrow when that's s R. I, you know, pharmaceuticals like Prozac and zola. Really we're, you know, thirty plus years ago. We're a game changer in UM, creating new options for depression and other mental health challenges. And I think that we are going to be living

through the same kind of a wave. And so I would encourage people to think about this as really a new era and we're really in the very very beginning, but we're gonna look back in thirty years at a transformed landscape for options for people who are struggling with mental health issues. Thank to Psychedelogys. Thanks so much, Harry. That's Harry Nelson of Nelson Hardeman. And that's it for

this edition of The Bloomberg Law Show. Remember you can always get the latest legal news on our Bloomberg Law Podcast. You can find them on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and at www dot Bloomberg dot com slash podcast Slash Law, and remember to tune into The Bloomberg Law Show every week night. Attend the m Wall Street time. I'm June Grosso and you're listening to Bloomberg m