Chelsea Handler on Drugs

any type of drugs. Hello Psychoactive listeners. So today my guest is somebody who's really famous. UM, her name's Chelsea Handler and she's got her own podcast. You're Chelsea and had me on a little while ago and very graciously accepted invitation to join me on Coactive. So so Chelsea, thanks so much for doing this. Oh thank you, Evan, no problem, my pleasure. You know, I am pretty removed from like what's going on in pop culture in all

sorts of ways. So I'll tell you the truth. And also for listeners that when you know our folks have arranged for me to be on your podcast. I I heard your name, but I didn't really have a clear idea of who you were, and so I did a little research, so I know why I was being on your podcast. But I have to say, you know, doing this deep dive and preparing for this thing, you're fucking amazing. I mean, you know I'm looking at you. You're a

world famous comedian. This is for the audience of my audience, who doesn't know you are. She is a actress. She is a podcast host. She is a talk show host. In fact, I think she was only the second woman ever after Joan Rivers, to e her own late night talk show. She's been doing documentaries on increasingly serious subjects while still interweaving holes. It's a humor in it. She's a political activist, she's a social just as activist. She's currently at the end of two on tour with a

comedy show called Vaccinated and Horny. So I mean say, I don't know how you do it all, um, but you're amazing. Well, thank you, what a nice introduction. I love it. So I take it that your success is all about your drug use, Is that right? Yes? Yes, one leads very nicely into the other. Uh yeah, I mean I have a very storied history with my affinity for drugs and the legalization of all sorts of things,

And yes, I like to share that on TV and off. No, I mean, I guess part of your whole stick right is that you're very out there about almost everything right. And one of the things I saw was that one of the things that first got you into comedy was when you after you first got arrested with a d

u I or something like that. Yes, I was arrested when I was twenty one years old for a d u I, and I had been using my sister, my older sister's fake i D. So when I got pulled over for my d u Y, I gave them my sister's i D because my practice had been to use

her i D for anything involving alcohol. And so that got me into double trouble because of that, because I got a d u I and I was impersonating somebody else, and my sister was Mormon at the time and she was very very much against drinking and me using her

i D for such activities. So all in all, I got in a lot of trouble and I had to go to this d U I class for about eight weeks where you meet every Wednesday night and the guy running the class basically explains to you how to get out of your next du I So I'm not really sure why why this is a thing, But anyway, in that time I had to make a speech and get up and kind of tell my story. And it was my first experience publicly speaking, and I was terrified, and uh.

I kind of waited and waited and avoided being chosen and sat in the back of the class every night until the very last class where I was called to get up and tell my story. And in telling that story, it was pretty ridiculous. I mean, I called the cop racist. We were both white. I spent seventy two hours in Civil Brand College, which for a Jewish girl from an upper middle class neighborhood in New Jersey is a hot

mess nightmare. But because of that class, everyone I told my story and everyone was loving it and laughing and I could not get off stage. I just thought this was the best feeling in the world. And when I did get off, Everyone's like, oh, you have to become a stand up comedian. And I had never thought about that before because I just it just seemed like something that I don't know. I just had never considered it. It seems scary, and yeah, that's how I decided to

become a stand up comedian. So thankfully that was my first and last d U. I I learned my lesson the first time, so I didn't have to learn it a second time, and uh yeah, it kind of led to my career in stand up. So the irony is all over the place. So doing drugs growing up, I mean, did you start when you were like twelve or thirteen or what was your doing. I was very anti drugs. I was very against them until I tried them and

then I was like, oh, I'd like this. But I didn't really start doing drugs until I was like eighteen, nineteen years old. And then it was booze or I mean acid or yeah, lots of lots of LSD. We go to the Limelight in New York City. We take a lot of LSD, mushrooms, you know, like psychedelics mostly and yeah, some alcohol, but not really alcohol as much until later once I was, you know, in my twenties and moved to Los Angeles. I moved to Los Angeles when I was nineteen, but in high school it was

much and more about mushrooms and LSD. Yeah, m hmmm. And I mean with any of this particularly memorable or was it just kind of doing it for yucks at the time, you know, we I wasn't using it as a therapy, and it wasn't therapeutic. I mean, it was probably therapeutic, unbeknownst to me, but it was more of a party, you know. It was more to laugh and to Dad's and to just kind of be free and like, you know, it was a great It was a great feeling. I connected with the feeling right away. I don't think

I've ever had a negative experience. I know some people have, but with psilocybin or LSD, it was always the same kind of vibe, you know, very I felt very in control. I didn't feel out of control, but I felt great. I love to laugh, you know, on mushrooms make you laugh, and LSD can do the same thing. Sometimes it kind of hits me differently. But it just gave me a sense of um uninhibitedness that I hadn't felt without it. M hm. That you were the youngest of six growing up,

but I wanted growing up. I mean, were you getting high with your siblings as well, or was this all the stuff you did separate from that. Uh No, I wasn't getting high with them. I definitely started taking mushrooms with my brothers around nineteen or twenty because I'm the one who had them, so you know, then I was able to share with them and they didn't really have

a choice of the matter. So yeah, I took mushroms with my brothers on several occasions, and you know, smoked pot with them, but not until I was about nineteen. Uh huh. And I take it with your parents, zero drug used together. No, my parents weren't. Yeah, they didn't do drugs, but my dad and my mom really didn't have any judgment on that. They just thought, you know,

that's part of being a kid. My brothers and sisters who were older than be grew up in the seventies, so I was born in seventy five, so my parents were kind of used to, like, you know, drug exploration. They didn't have a big problem with that, even though I mean, I really you went to a synagogue, you were bought miss as. Your dad Jewish, but your mom like was Mormon. Yeah, she came over from Germany, so there's a big Mormon contingency over Germany or there was,

and after the war she came over. I mean she was about six or seven when World War two ended and her father was served in the German military, so he had been taken as a pow uh in the first year of the war to Iowa, and so he was in Iowa for many years. And then the war ended and he returned, and then they lived in Germany for about ten more years, and then my mom came over to visit New Jersey when she was about nineteen

years old. I met my father and went back home to Germany to tell them she was moving to America. And then shortly after my mom and dad got married, they got pregnant, or probably before they got married, quite frankly, and then my grandparents came over. So my grandparents and my mother were all Mormon, and they came over and my dad was like, listen, I'm going to raise my family Jewish, so you have to get on board with that. There's not gonna be any Mormonism in this family. And

my mom said, sure, no problem. And so I thought my mom was Jewish until I was nine years old, because she was at temple with us every weekend, and she would, you know, she knew all the Hebrew prayers, and we celebrated all the Jewish holidays. Um. Yeah. And I didn't find out she wasn't Jewish until my brother died when I was nine, and we found out she couldn't been buried in the same cemetery as my brother because she wasn't Jewish and she would have to convert

to Judaism. So this was a conversation I overheard in my kitchen with Rabbi Kasd. In the affrementioned Rabbi Kasden, we got mitzvahed, your ex wife, and myself, and he was talking to my father saying, well, we would have to convert Rita to Judaism. And I remember going, what do you mean convert? I thought mom was Jewish and my Dad's like, no, Mom's Mormon. And I was like, what's Mormon? And my Dad's like, don't worry about it

right now. And then I read the Book of Mormon about a year later, and you know, I just threw it at my mother. I go, you can't be serious with this nonsense. Yeah, well, it's interesting. So your grandfather served in the German army in World War Two. Yeah, and they sent him to the Russian Front because he was one of those soldiers, like many German Men, who wanted no part of it, but they didn't. You know, your family was at risk, so you had to serve

in some way. But when they tested you to get in army, you know, he just he was a very physically strong guy. He kind of just didn't demonstrate any of that so that he would be you know, really relegated to some kind of desk job or something. But they ended up setting him to the Russian Front, and uh,

that's where he was taken as a pow. Interesting origins here, and you know, in factually did an episode not long ago about Hitler, the Third Reich and drugs and would a pivotal role drugs play like in the Blitz Creek and amphetamine not weed or anything like that, you know, when the Germans invaders so quickly through Belgium in France. But you know, going back, Chelsea, yourman being a Mormon, I mean, the Mormons are so like you know, not just no weed or alcohol. It's not even any coffee

or anything like that. Ye, your mom was still kind of open minded about that stuff. Uh My mom I think was tired mostly. I mean she had had six children. I was the youngest, and I was like a hellion, Like I came on the scene and was, uh, you know, just challenging them at every turn. I was, you know, but three years old, telling my parents what I've thought of them, asking them if I had a dowry, what

the game plan was for savings. I just constantly was challenging them, and being the youngest, that's typically what happens. You know, you absorb your older siblings sensibilities and you pick up on everything and you're listening to everything. So you grew up very quickly. And I've had a strong personality in my whole life. So my mom wasn't going to challenge me on any of that stuff. She only

returned to Mormonism after my brother died. He had a terrible accident and he was the oldest, and then she became religious again, as one does. She kind of returned to her Mormonism to find solace there within the grieving process, I think, and you remained Mormon throughout the rest of her life. But yeah, she wasn't sanctimonious or you know, trying to instill her beliefs in me. She just was doing her thing and wanted to be left alone doing that.

And I remember also that she struggled with breast cancer for a long time. Was there any thought of her using medical merl wanted to deal with NOI your from chemotherapy and all that sort of thing. No, that was pretty much before that was you know, thought to be acceptable. Really, you know, that never even came up. So it was a long time ago, but I guess, yeah, it feels like it was before the advent of people understanding that you know, marijuana comes from that ground and that it's

from Mother nature. M you know, just to shift away from the drug thing for a second. Um, you know, I was wondering about this. I mean, you just talked about, you know, you're Jewish growing up and such, and I think about, you know, the so many of the famous comedians, both male and female, but with the female commediany. Think about Joan River, you know, Goldie Hawn or Sarah Silverman, who I guess comes up just a little before you,

or Amy Schumer more recently. I mean, when you think about it, do you how do you think you're growing up Jewish? And this, I mean does it shape comedy? Is there a reason why there seems to be a disproportionate number of Jews doing comedy in America. Yeah, yeah, I would say, so you have a sharper sense of humor by being you know, persecuted. You have that feeling. Whether that happened to our generation per say, where we grew up or not. I mean, I think that's intergenerational.

You know, you always feel like as a Jew until you come to Hollywood, that you're in the minority, even though I grew up in a very Italian Jewish neighborhood and Livingston like it was very there was lots of Jewish people, but it's just a very kind of I don't know, there's something very self deprecating about being Jewish because there's humility in it. Hm and um, you know, before we get into cannabis, because I can just I mean,

you're all over the place in the media. You're on more popular programs and news programs talking about how wonderful Merril winter is almost that I can think of. But before we go there, you know, it seems like alcohol was pretty much the dominant drug in your life throughout your twenties, and that on the one hand, it seemed like it almost became a problem, but never really and maybe it was great and you stand by it, but there was I mean, just talk about your relationship with

especially in your younger years, and had that evolved. Well. I was very much a party girl, and I talked about it and made a living talking about it. Like you know, I was rewarded for talking about it. My first book was called My Horizontal Life, a collection of one night stands, and you know, people were like, oh my god, I can't believe you got away with writing a book about that. I'm like, why, what's the problem.

You know, I got a TV show where I talked about alcohol and drug use openly, and I think for a while I was probably over using alcohol because of what happened with my brother. The trauma of you know, my brother dying at that young age and never really having the tools to access or articulate that pain, you know,

and react to it. My parents didn't have the wherewithal to get us into therapy and to get us into you know, trauma grief, and I think that turns into I don't think I know from going to therapy as an adult, that that kind of delayed grief. You know, you use drugs or you use alcohol to, you know, cover up your pain, and you don't think that there's

a problem. You just think you're a fun person. So uh, I think that's in my twenties and the abuse of alcohol, probably to certain degrees, I never was a problem where I had to, like you know, go to rehab or anything. I was always able to cut it out if I had needed to, or tone it down when I needed to. But I have to say, no one really ever even asked me to tone it down because I was doing

well in all facets of my life. If that are measurable, you know, it's kind of an inside job for you to take a look at why you want to drink so much or why you lean on alcohol in the way you do. So nobody ever brought it to my attention. It was definitely part of my persona and it still is.

I still drink, Obviously, I don't drink like I did my my twenties because now I understand you know the ill effects of drinking and the deleterious impact it has on you, and you know how to use it more responsibly. Plus I'm forty seven years old. It doesn't feel good to drink like that, Like I don't have a desire like that anymore, but I can still tiwan on ethant uh huh. I saw someplace you said, Josie said, if

I was an alcoholic, I'd be a functional alcoholic. And I guess you would never have describe yourself an alcoholic, even if you were drinking too much of times, because you could always stop when you wanted to, and you would just clean out and clean out and all that, and it never really cost your professionally. It's not as if you're out there doing sets and you realize that you were screwing up or forgetting lines or this sort

of stuff, for being off. Although you also talked about sometimes not you know, next morning, not remembering the last that you did. Yeah, well, yes, that definitely did happen. And so there were instances. It just wasn't a comment, It wasn't a recurring theme, like it didn't happen over and over again. It happened a couple of times, and you know, they very much kind of woke me up and said, okay, this is you're going a little too far here. Now you have to get yourself under control.

So I've always had a very like um decent, you know, sense of self awareness with regard to my drinking and how it's affecting my career. And if it was so, yeah, it never got to a place where where that you know, where anybody had to sit me down and say, okay, you know, let's get a grip here. And did you have a favorite? I mean, I think the second book was called are you there Vodka? It's meat, Chelsea? I mean, with vodka your favorite booze? Or were you like anything?

You know, what could be? Wine, beer, could be I basically just only drink vodka, uh huh, straight like no, I put a little soda water in it. Uh huh, you know, like martinis with that kind of thing. No, No, I like vodka and soda. That's pretty much. And that's more. I mean, the genesis of that is more for dietary and you know, vanity than anything else. It was like the one drink you could drink without bloating or putting on weight. You know, vodka was supposed to be the

cleanest alcohol. Now they say tequila is, but I'm still devoutly vodka drink drink okay, okay? And would you ever drink on stage when you're performing? Was that party all the time, of course. Yeah, that's part of that. Yeah, that while you're on stage. I have been. I have been on stage where I didn't remember absolutely. I I used to go on tour. I remember my last stand up tour. I had to be doing two shows at Arena's back to back at the same night, and the

second show I would barely remember. And I was exhausted. I had been doing like eight years of my television show or seven years. I had four books come out back to back to back, So that's a book tour, which is a stand up tour, and I had just worked myself into the ground and it became my coping mechanism, which is one of the reasons I stopped doing my show and I stopped doing stand up. I had just

had had it. I was exhausted, and I was, you know, using alcohol to like get me through the next show, to give me energy. And so yeah, that was a big turning point. We'll be talking more after we hear this ad for alreadience you. A few years ago, Chelsea did a series of FOD documentaries on Netflix, like on Chelsea, does the Internet, Silicon Valley Matter? When, on marriage, when a racism and one on drugs, and you spent about a quarter of the episode talking to people who had

been in rehab being addicted. Um, I mean, you know it felt like I mean, part of other parts of it. Of course, we're about you know, we'll get into your ayahuasca trip and other types of elements of drug using.

Getting high in marijuana much more celebratory, and so when you were doing that part of it, the rehab thing, I mean, obviously you're trying to show the spectrum of people's relationship with drugs, but when you see people who struggle that way, do you just feel like, there but for the grace of guy though I or that you just simply can't relate, or I mean, you know, what

did you think about those elements of it. I just remember someone saying to me at a very early age, or overhearing a conversation, saying, I don't ever want to have to give up alcohol, so I'm never going to abuse it. And that just stayed with me. So I I could relate to these people. But I thought, oh, like, I never let it get me, you know, I never felt that I had let it get me. I'm sure other people would disagree. By the way, I'm sure other people would be like, oh my god, she's a lush

or she was a lush or whatever. But that's not really that doesn't matter to me. It's what I you know, it's how I experienced it. And whenever I felt like it had gotten out of control or it could get out of control, I rained it in because I didn't ever want to have to give something up completely. I didn't ever want to have to go to rehab, you know, or do something like that. And yeah, and I don't think I have that addictive personality. I just I like

to have fun. But I don't have that addiction gene, luckily because neither of my parents had it either. Mm hmm, yeah, No, I'm not sort of the same way I mean I've been. I think I basically enjoyed the vast majority of drugs, and most almost every drug been a kind of benefit of my life. And anytime it seems like if I get high three or four days in a row, I just only want to get high the next, you know, the next fuhile, I just want to kind of clear out.

It's always been the same way with alcohol. But you threw another drug in the mix back then, which I've never really played around with that much, which is ambient and sleeping pills. What was that about? Oh yeah, we were demonstrating what happens to people when they're on ambient and what happens when you drink on ambient, because ambient can be such a dangerous sleeping pit hill. So we did that. We showed you know, how how people act when they have one ambient, when they mix it with alcohol,

when they have two ambient. Uh. We were just kind of going through what drugs we could legally do on television, and that fell under that category right now. I mean, and I think it was an interesting point because one of the things that people I think, you know, don't or do realize is that when you're combining alcohol with

a sleeping pill like ambient. I think on the TV show you did at ten look Zambi and a couple of cocktails as well, when you're combining it with alcohol and opioids, that basically, if you combine it in quote unquote the right amounts, there's a mist amounts, it can actually be a great high, but that if you sort of do too much of it, it can actually stop your breathing. So it's got A. It's got a high danger risk level, but you can understand why people do

it because it feels good. But what about in your own life. I thought there's a point where you were sort of getting into the sleeping n till a night thing and all this and beginning to wonder if that would be a problem. Uh yeah, I mean I've probably been through that experience with almost every drug. Like I I've always experimented. Yeah, there was a period of time where I used a man I don't know, maybe a

year or something where I experimented with ambient. There was a year when I experimented with xan X. Sometimes I take xan x, you know today, like to go to sleep if I'm traveling and back and forth. I just came home from my worka for a month, so yeah, I use xan X to get me back on track. But again, it's about using these things judiciously and not

becoming you know, reliant on them. That's where cannabis comes in in such a helpful way, because because cannabis is a great alternative to almost any you know, drug that you're going to get from a pharmaceutical company. You know, it can relax to you, it can help you sleep, It can help you focus if you're taking the right strain. There are so many benefits to it. So yeah, I mean that's why I'm such an advocate for cannabis use because I mean, what the pharmaceutical companies have done to

this country. You know, we can't be trusting them, and and and having a reliance on any of these substances is terrifying for a lot of people. And you know, when you get your genealogy tested, they do tell you whether you have that addiction gene They do when you do twenty three in me, they can tell you that and if you do have it. I mean, you look at people with the opioid crisis, people who have done who did you know oxycodone or not oxycodone? What? What's

the drug? The ones name? OxyContin was the brand name, right, I mean people would take three of those and be addicted. And there are other people who did it for three weeks and weren't addicted. So it's it's also a measure of what you know your constitution is made up. That's a huge factor that nobody had been factoring in for

years before we had this genetic testing. Yeah, I mean it's interesting but by the way, just to finish the THEELI drugs before cannabis, you never really got into the opioid. It sounds like not clear if you ever got much into stimulants, you know, the amphetamine or stuff like that, or into tobacco. I mean basically, is that basically right, that those three drug categories you generally avoided or just smoked.

I smoked a little bit of cigarettes. I smoked a little bit for a few years, and then I got hypnotized. I gave that up. Uh, stimulants, amphetamines. No, I mean I've definitely done cocaine. Uh, no heroin or anything like that. Uh yeah, I mean I've tried pretty much everything that's out there, probably minus heroin or crack or you know, crystal math. I have never done those things, or I have again, I would bet. I don't know what that is. What's oh well, I don't know. If I tell you what,

you got something to look forward to. But I begain is the to the few psychedelic things that comes from a plant actually a root in Africa and gabone called eboga, and it's the one that people use. Nobody does it for fun or for yucks. Um. Some people do it for greater spiritual insight, but it's more commonly associated with people who have a very serious addiction to opioids or alcohol or other things using it to basically clear their

system of that. And there's you know, the beginnings amount of research on it may turn out to be one of the most amazing of all the psychedelics in terms of really being helpful to people. But it's a long long it's it's longer than LSD. It's intense, you know. I mean when you talked about doing ayahuasca and you know, weariness about you know, the diarrhea and the nausea and throwing up. I mean, I begains for many people has the same thing, if not even you know, more challenging.

But you know so, I guess so when you had me on your podcast, right you interviewed me for the first half hour, and then you and I took questions from your audience, you know, about drugs, and they were looking for drug use. And either us are doctors, but we both have a lot of experience and knowledge, and I was very impressed at the way you're handling a lot of those questions. And at one point I saw yourself not when we were talking. But someplace else describe

yourself as a pharmacological into it. There's somebody with natural intuition when it comes to drug years. Um is that just based on experience? So you find that, you know, people are valuing your advice in terms of what you're telling them about this. I mean, I just have a pretty good read on people. I can meet somebody and I understand if they're a person that can handle cannabis, that can handle alcohol, that can handle you know, mushrooms.

Like people come to me all the time, my friends and relatives, and they're always like, what do I take for this? What do I take for that? I just have a vast experience and interest, you know, I think when you're interested in something, and the same with pharmaceuticals, I'm very interested in pharmaceuticals. I'm very interested in anti aging stuff. I'm very interested in peptides. Like when you have a natural curiosity about something, you know, you absorb

a lot of the information around it. So I'm an open book and a like, you know, a reliable sort when when it's something I've had experience with or I've seen other people have, you know, positive outcomes with so on the psychedelic stuff. I mean, you did a lot of acid back then. Are you still doing asset? No? I haven't done LSD in a really long time. M h, yeah, I wouldn't. I wouldn't mind doing some. Actually, yeah, it's funny. I have this lessons. I like micro dose it, but

it's never been my thing. I think for both you and me, mushrooms, you know, plays big time and I've I've read about you doing you know, mushrooms and your staff. I think mushrooms this, and that's tell us say something more about you and mushrooms. Oh well, I love mushrooms. I like micro dosing mushrooms. I have something called fund it.

My friend grows her own mushrooms and she just grounds them up and then it gives them to me and you just like put your finger in, take a little, you know, and put it in your tongue and it's

just like a little pick me up. And you know, you're talking about ten milligrams or something at most, so you're not dosing yourself like you know, it would take five grams to have an actual ushroom sit, which some of my friends in Whistler, Canada are doing this winter, which I said I would join them in, which is one of those guided kind of you know, journeys that you take with somebody there journaling with you, and you know, where you put ice shades on and you put your

headphones on and you actually have a sit So that would be like five grams where you and they say you get rid of your ego, you know. I was like, well, what about two and a half gram She's like, you'll still have your ego, It'll still but you'll be laughing,

like you want to get past the ego part. And I was like, okay, I'm interested in that because you can get rid of, you know, really old patterns of behavior and you can actually see yourself outside of yourself, which is much like my experience doing ayahuasca when I went to Peru and one of the episodes of Chelsea does on Netflix, we did ayahuasca and Peru and um, that was an experience where I understood what it felt like to be outside of yourself and looking at your

life and it it was like watching a phantasm megoria of my own experiences like as an like playing like an iPod shuffle, just all my childhood memories with my sister and me just playing like back and forth like dogs that we had that I had forgotten about, repressed or suppressed memories that just came alive. You know. It opens up those neural pathways where you can remember these things. And it was a really powerful experience, which is what

would draw me to do that with either. I mean, they the options have recently been ketamine or psilocybin, and I feel like ketamine sounds a little bit more disassociative and that's not my preference. So I think I might do that mushroom sit when I get up to Whistler this winter for skiing season. Well, I mean, I'll tell you something. You know, So watching the episode, right the Chelsea does the aahuasca and so you know, you go down to Peru, right, you got this shan in there.

You with two friends, a guy and and and a younger woman and the first night you all drink and the guys having a terrible experience. At least that's what he describes it, you know, on Emera and the younger woman she has a powerful one about childhood stuff and you're just sitting there like I'm not feeling anything, and I could almost like empathize you as like a holy sh it. I mean, first of all, here's my two friends.

They're both having big experience, one bad, one good. You know, Netflix just paid for the whole camera crew to have come down here. I'm down here and I took the same doses them, and I'm not feeling anything. And it sounds like the next day you said to the sham and lay it on me and give me, you know, the dose. I want to make sure I have an experience and then you know, so I is that more or less what was happening that first night when you

didn't feel anything or barely? Yeah, well, I think by both of my friends that I had dragged down to Peru to do Ayawaska with me, we're having such kind of histrionic reactions to the drug, I mean, which is par for the course. So I guess I shouldn't use that word because that lends itself to think that they

couldn't handle it. I mean a lot of people have those kinds of reactions, and they were very emotional and they were very sick, and it just kind of took me out of mine because you know, I was responsible for them, So I mean, I just couldn't relax and let the drug take a hold of me. I felt it coming on, and then when I saw my friends and heard my friends bawling and crying, I was like, oh, I have to be there for them. So the next day that they were like, okay, no friends, and you know,

let's cut the cameras in half. Instead of having four cameras, we had one. And I went into a room alone with a shaman and he gave me a double dose of what I had tried the night before, and then I was able to really focus on my own experience. Have you done it since? No? I haven't. I don't really have a desire to do that drug again. I would. I mean a lot of my friends are always asking me to do it with them because there's people that do it here and to Panga Canyon, and you know,

all over the country people are doing ayahuasca now. But uh, yeah, I don't know. I don't have a strong urge to do that again. M h. You mentioned to paying you I'm one of your shows. I saw you talking about doing the toad medicine five mm O d n T. Yeah was it you talk about that one? I was not pleasant. That is called an ego killer, but it was. It's like an eight and ten minute experience, and I was just it was, it was awful. I was immediately had to I was recovered in my own sweat within

thirty seconds. I had to lie back. It was dark, dark, ominous. All I remember black clouds and black clouds, And I had never felt that on drugs before. I'd always felt hopefulness and enlightenment, you know, and positivity and twinkling and things looking like, you know, more beautiful than they would look in my natural state. But I had never experienced that reaction where everything just felt odious and and calamitous.

And so I just was telling how my please make the stop, make the stop, make the stop, and she was just kind of rubbing my arm and holding my hand and it was over quickly, thankfully, but I was not. Yeah, that was not a pleasant experience. So you're not gonna

do that one again? No, I am not, because I mean so many just people describe smoking his stuff and having these fifteen minutes of wondrous universal, you know, some feeling like his last thing a lifetime in a positive sense of the term, and you know, then coming back and you know, life transformative trips. I mean, in my case, I was intrigued by it, and I was kind of

scared of it. And I finally got up the guts to tell a friend of mine who has laid a lot of people on their first five you know, five M O D M T toy medicine things, Okay, I'm ready to do it. And he says, actually, Ethan, you know, I'm sorry. I don't actually have the smokable version. I only have the snortable version. And I said, well, okay, how it will be different? He goes, you know, I'm not exactly sure as how long the last he goes,

maybe twice as long, maybe thirty minutes. So he lays out two long lines and I snort these two lines of the stuff and a burn like hell going down. Finally settled down, and I gotta tell you five hours later, I mean, I was like, but it was kind of like a mushroomy sort of thing. But I mean at one point I had energy. Shoot, you got my legs.

I'm lying on my back with their dog licking my face while I'm doing this thing, and I like, and afterwards they sit to me from you in Condalini excerci, I said, what's Condalini because my legs were like zapping outward all this sort of stuff, and even when I finished, I was, you know, trying to talk and other you know, I mean, I literally couldn't get words out of my mouth coherently until the next morning. So that is definitely a very very powerful thing, which I think you will

do again. I think I want to try the smokable version and see what that's like, because it wasn't apart from how much it burned going down, it was not an unpleasant experience, you know. I mean, you know when I think when I was a guest on your show, we talked to some people calling in and I said, you know, some people say there's never no such things as a bad trip. Other people have horrifying experiences, whether it's on mushrooms or peyote, mescal in ayahuasca. Part of

it's how you interpret it. I know people who felt like they went through hell and they come out of it and saying it was the best thing that ever happened to them. Um, So you know, a lot of it's in the definition. And I'll also tell you in terms of doing that megados like you're thinking of doing with your friends, and mushrooms. I've done it at like that five six milligram level where you know you can't let me out in public because I look a bit psychotic.

I don't get the ego dissolution. I stay pretty centered the whole time. But it's a very powerful, somewhat spiritual, moving experience, very memorable. UM so yeah, I mean I definitely encourage you. I think I think you'll really uh you know. Oh well that's good to know. So, you know, we talked then You're Brokeram about m d M A, and I was a little surprised when you said that you've you've never done it in a romantic situation, just

you and your romantic partner. That you've done it with friends, You've done it partying. I wonder, since you've done that, have you had a chance to do it in a more intimate environment. I mean, now, I've done m d M A with a romantic partner, but not in a therapy setting, which is what we were talking about on my podcast, Like you were talking about couples having problems and doing m d M A guided therapy, which I would have I would have loved to do with several partners.

I didn't even know that was a thing. But yeah, of course I've done it with romantic partners. It's fun to do with anybody. Okay, Okay, gotta gott got it, So listen, sonata cannabis. I mean you're out there all over the place. You had a funny story you were telling about getting your your sister who was a recovering Mormon you described or I mean, what what what was that like when she did was her first cannabis experience when she did it or she done it when she

was younger or what? H No, No, my sister is very uh yeah, she's very inexperience when it comes to drinking or drug use. So I just kind of got my whole family on board with edibles. We go to a Whistler, Canada each year to see and they started baking us cannabis infused cookies up there about ten or eleven years ago, and we just started handing them out before we went to dinner, and it made our family

vacations just that much more fun. We all just seemed to get along great, have great time, laugh our asses off, and then we just developed this great affinity for cannabis. So yeah, I serve it up every every Christmas. Now, I see, I see, have you ever overnosed unanedable? I mean, like we all have those stories from college about having too much in a you know, marijuana brownie or something like that. Yeah, I mean I've had situations where I

felt high for a couple of days. But again, I'm not one of those people who freaks out like I don't get like a paranoid that that that's not my my bag. I've seen lots of my friends react in that way when you have a brownie or you know. I mean, I had a cannabis infused dinner that we filmed for Netflix, a dinner party one night that was on my Netflix talk show, and I was high for three days after that because they're just serving you one meal after another that's cannabis infused, so there is no

way to recover from that. I mean one of my eyes didn't open for like twenty four hours I was so high. So that was not a great feeling. But again, I don't have you know, freakouts. Yeah, I gotta say, the only time they ever happened to me I was in college. I I think I had smoked some very strong marril wine just before I've ever done edibles. And

then sometimes you can do that. And we go to the sauna and we'd sit in the sauna and we played backgamut, and it would almost be like this contest, like, you know, how long can you stay in the sauna, how far I can you get through the back gamut? And and I was so baked from the cannabis already and being in the sauna just doubly baked it into my head and I almost passed out, almost fell over. God home, and I'll say it took a good thirty six hours to clear out and never done that again.

I mean, that was a highly unpleasant experience. So yeah, that sounds unpleasant. I don't like the idea of sauna and being high. I'm not having a version to extreme heat. Mm hm. So you know, you also see, let me see if I got this right. One of the things I heard you say, it's surprised me it was cannabis. I thought you said that it's not something you particularly enjoy with sex, Is that right? I hear you're wrong. I mean, I just don't think of it as a

sexual drug. I definitely had sex on cannabis, but I don't think of it as an aphrodisiac. That's so interesting, Yeah, I mean, because it's got such a reputation for that. You know, there's the Polster Prize winning writer Natalie Angier Rights from New York Times, and she did this book that When the Poets Here, and she talked about how herself and and everyone in her family had their first

full blown orgasm and influence of marijuana. I mean, I've heard many of these things were for so many, both men and women, but especially women. It's the thing that just kind of settles all the chatter, helps them get more connected into it. But that's not really been your experience and this. Yeah, no, I would say the opposite, and I think I find it try harder to orgasm on cannabis has been my experience. Wow, that's interesting. I

wonder what that is not impossible difficult? Yeah? Yeah, yeah, I think it's just how your receptors in just the drug. You know, some of us have like a certain reaction, and I think some people become calmer, some people become less engaged, some people become hyperactive. You know, it's like, what are your genes gonna do with that information? That and the drug being the information, so I think we all react differently to all sorts of things. Let's take

a break here and go to an ad. You know, I'm thinking about two prior episodes I did en Psychoactive. One was about Jews in cannabis. It was based on an exhibit at the Center for Jewish History in New York, and I'm thinking you should have been one of the

stars in this exhibit. But the other one that's just gone up recently is about um jazz and drugs, based on a book by a phone name Rnintorial Bop Apocalypse, and it gets all into the various dimensions, you know, the question about why so many of the famous jazz musicians used we there's a whole big phase of using heroin, you know, Charlie Parker and a lot of the other musicians.

Alcohol as oftenime as being a destructivelopment. But in your case, when you think about the creative process and you're writing your material and such, what role do the various drugs play, if any, in all of that. I mean, I definitely used cannabis and mushrooms when I'm writing books. I've written six books. I'm working on my seventh right now, which will have all been number one New York Times bestsellers.

I should add, just because we're in the age where you have to kind of sing your own praises, So I'll do that. Um and I definitely use that. Like I when I write everything, I just kind of spit it all out or vomit it all out. I should say, I put everything down, and then I have to go back and finesse it and and infuse it with humor and infuse it with all of the fun stuff. And I find that cannabis or mushrooms are a rate aid

in doing that. You know, if I had the other night, I was at my girlfriend's house and we smoke to joint. I came home and I wrote for an hour, you know, because I was I was like, oh, okay, let me go through this chapter. So it helps. I don't think it's for me. It's not part of the initial process, but it's part of the process. And when you write for an hour under the influence, how does it look the next morning? Some of it's great and profound, and

some of its garbage. Yeah. I sometimes find that when I when I'm getting high and weed, I'll have all these great ideas, but then the next morning, they just seem like they're just blown away in the wind, Whereas with mushrooms, there have been times on mushrooms where I find myself writing, you know, a very personal letter to a friend, a former lover, or whatever it might be, and then the next day, sitting down, it's still totally clear as a bell, and I can write it out

and send it to the person, and it's probably the best letters I've ever written in my life. Had been under the influence of mushrooms. But do you see something similar in that in the difference between the two. Uh, I mean, I have there ever been ones where you think, like a real serious ah ha moment that's come with one drobe or the other. Yeah, mushrooms, I think is more that way, because mushrooms are more realistic. It's just accentuating the beauty that lies there anyway, you see things

in a more kind of magical way. You know. That's why they're called magic. Mushrooms. Uh, hot can just make you think things are funny when they aren't, or you know, you have good ideas when you don't. Mushrooms are pretty. I think they run parallel to your nature as is. It's just an augmentation of of the beauty of things and the use of language. You know, you can write more elegantly when you're on mushrooms, you can think more elegantly,

and you perceive more elegantly. H So, now when you're out there, I mean, you're so frank in talking about so much UM. And I'm curious what has been the reaction like of Netflix, of HBO or the theaters where you perform and how is that evolved over time? Mean, do you have to sign agreement to say you won't say certain things where there ever constraints on what you

could say yours about stuff? Did? Uh? Yeah, they got on my ass, but I you know, I always argued and fought for being able to speak the truth of my experience. So you know, I guess after a while of doing that. You know, people don't understand when they hire me what that comes with and what I'm going to say, and that I'm not good with a lot of parameters about certainly about the truth and my own experiences.

You know, UM, language you can edit and you know, use of bad language or language that's not welcome on you know, network television, but behaviors I've never been able to pretend on anything other than what I am. So anytime I'm doing business with somebody, you know, they know

what they're signing up for. Mm hmmm. And I see people are always pressing you to apologize for something you said and are rare occasions you have, but you've never had to do that around drugs, right, No, No, Well, you know the other thing I admire about you is you're not just talking about your own drug use and giving pretty good advice to people about this, but you've

also become increasingly political. I mean, part of your life is being being a social justice activists and political activists and on issues around gay rights and a lot of other progressive issues, but you've increasingly been stepping out about the drug war, and I think more recently a few years ago, you did a documentary on white privilege, and there was a fascinating personal story where you go back and visit, you know, your boyfriend from when you were

in high school and just share a bit of that story and some of the realization from that with the audience. Um. Yeah, I went. I went and visited my high school boyfriend whose name was Tayshan, and I had dated him for two years and we got caught with marijuana two or three times, and each time we got caught, the police arrested him because he was black and I was white, and they told me just to go back to my neighborhood. Like I was let off immediately, and he was, you know,

sent to jail. And he was the captain of the football team. He was I think the captain of the basketball team too. He had a big future ahead of him, and once you get into that system, it's very hard to get out, and he ended up spending I think eleven or twelve years in prison. Um, and while I was able to just go on my merry way, you know, I never thought twice about him after we broke up, you know, every once in a while it would come up.

So I was able to visit him during this documentary just to demonstrate kind of my naive te and entitlement and you know, being able to walk into a community like his and walk out when I was done with it, versus him being targeted, you know, and us being caught for the same same act, and one of us being punished and one of us being you know released. So it was pretty obvious back in the day, but I

wasn't thinking on those terms. You know, when you're sixteen years old, you're not thinking about that kind of racial inequity or discrimination. You know, it's not until you get older that you're able to reflect and have a more responsible recollection of things. And through that recollection and reflection, you know, I wanted to really examine it and examine all of the things that go with that. So listen, now, I'm wondering, you know, I'm looking about what you're doing

your in your life now. And you guys, you've got another book coming out, You're on tour um, You've hosted a late night talk show before you know, I see, you know, just recently Trevor Nor saying he's leaving The Daily Show, And I'm thinking, wow, I mean, Chelsea would be amazing, you know, in that role to step into those shoes that he and John Stewart had. And I wonder, is that something you're like, not either that specifically you're

generally interested in doing. Now, do you think your openness about so much stuff, both drugs and other stuff might still be a barrier? Would you be expected to pull your punches a bit on all that type of stuff? I mean, what does it look like from where you sit right now, I mean, we're definitely having conversations about me going back to TV and doing a late night show. Um, you know, Trevor Noah quitting is definitely a conversation my agents and I are having around it. You know, Yes,

I would be interested in pursuing conversations around that. I am definitely. I hosted Jimmy Kimmel for a week a couple of months ago, and I really just didn't realize how much I had missed it. I loved commenting on everything that's going on politically and you know, kind of culturally what's happening, and and I'm very good at it. You know, It's a skill set that I have, and I would love to go back to TV. Now now that I've had some time away from it, I can

appreciate it a lot more. Being in the thick of it and kind of working relentlessly for seven or eight years makes you kind of just want to bow out from all things. So now I'm in a different state of mind for sure. Mm hmmm. So the last question, you know, I mean, you're obviously very much of a feminist. You're talking about some of the issues of sexism and like who gets to be big talk show hosts in

the you know, in the media world and stuff. But you'll also make some observations about men and women and drugs, Like at one point you noticed that, for example, men are much less inhibited in lighting up and such. And I wonder if you've got other thoughts about differences between men and women when it comes to their cannabis or other drug use, or is that about it. I mean, I just think that women, you know, like anything, it's a little bit more stigmatized when it comes to women.

Men with all things, have a greater sense of freedom and a greater sense of liberation, whereas women, you know, you find us hiding in the corner. You know, there's a lot of shame attached to drug use, and especially female cannabis use. It's just not the same as male cannabis use. So it's a big, you know, point of talking or talking point for me with regard to because I you know, I want women to be loud and

proud and men don't get this drug for themselves. Like, you know, it's a lot like watching you know, Johnny Depp and Amber heard on trial and you're sitting there He's being lauded as being this cool guy who drinks you know, a half corraftive burlow in the mornings and his snorting lines of cocaine with Marilyn Manson, like and people love it. They're like, oh, she's a terrible woman. Look at him, He's so fun. Like that would just never happen, you know, if that were a woman, a

female who was snorting lines of cocaine. And I mean it's so you know, hypocritical, and there's such a double standard for women and drugs that yeah, I'd like to I like to talk about you can you can do drugs and have a hugely successful life. I'm here to prove that, like, you can be a functioning person and also have a good time on the side. That doesn't

just get to happen for men. Yeah, but I think when it comes to prominent women, if I google on on your name and drugs and video and you pop up on every single major talk show talking about this in addition to a host of other places, Um, so

I really credit you. I mean I think actually when you know, in terms of you know, my life's cause, which was ending marijuana prohibition and rolling back the broader war on drugs, I think the role that you've been playing, and also by getting out there, you know, not just two years ago, but six, seven, eight years ago, more years ago. About that, I really think you've made a positive contribution to shifting the culture and also to helping

move along political sentiment in this way. So for that, I want to thank you. Oh my god, well, thank you. I appreciate that. Yeah, and I also want to thank you Chelsea for joining me and my listeners on Psychoactive for this most enjoyable conversation. Absolutely, what a pleasure. Thank you for having me. Okay, okay, well take care. If you're enjoying Psychoactive, please tell your friends about it, or you can write us a review at Apple Podcasts or

wherever you get your podcasts. We love to hear from our listeners. If you'd like to share your own stories, comes and ideas, then leave us a message at one eight three three seventh of nine. That's eight three three psycho zero, or you can email us at Psychoactive at protozoa dot com, or find me on Twitter at Ethan natal Man. You can also find contact information in our show notes. Psychoactive is a production of I Heart Radio and Protozoa Pictures. It's hosted by me Ethan Nadelman. It's

produced by Noam Osband and Josh Stain. The executive producers are Dylan Golden, Ari Handel, Elizabeth Geesus and Darren Aronofsky from Protozoa Pictures, Alex Williams and Matt Frederick from My Heart Radio and me Ethan Nadelman. Our music is by Ari Blucien and a special thanks to a Brio s F Bianca Grimshaw and Robert bb. Next week I'll be talking with Martin Lee all about c b D. He's the founder and head of Project CBD dot org. We're at this precipice as over nine d clinical trials now

in effect with CBD. There's a massive amount of preclinical data that suggests that CBD shows utility and effectiveness and significant benefits in a number of areas for neurological diseases for certain mood disorders like anxiety I mentioned, also depression for pain. Also it's it's clear that those are the big three pain, anxiety, and depression. Subscribe to Cycleactive now see it, an't miss it.