Altered States

‌

Episodes

‌

Altered States

Psychedelics are now at the center of a global conversation about mental health, mysticism, and even how we experience illness and death. In Altered States, host Arielle Duhaime-Ross explores how people are taking these drugs, who has access to them, how they're regulated, who stands to profit, and what these substances might offer us as individuals and as a society.

Episodes

A Navy SEAL Goes to Mexico to take Ibogaine

A former Navy SEAL named Craig deployed nine times over nearly three decades in the military. When he left the service, he felt lucky to have all his limbs, toes and fingers. But he found himself struggling with language and memory and rising frustration. One day he forgot his wife’s name and couldn’t remember it for hours. His wife Gretchen started looking for help online and found information about a Stanford University research study on ibogaine and veterans. Craig volunteered....

Oct 23, 2024•44 min•Transcript available on Metacast

The Peyote Plan

A plan to protect the peyote cactus is taking shape on the Winnebago Reservation in Nebraska during this summer’s Native American Church of North America conference. Indigenous leaders are hustling to take their peyote proposal all the way to the White House before the November election. Producer Adreanna Rodriguez tells the story.

Oct 16, 2024•26 min•Transcript available on Metacast

What if Ketamine is More Addictive Than We Thought?

When journalist Anna Silman started reporting on ketamine five years ago she did so because people in her friend group had begun taking the drug recreationally. She was intrigued by the ways that interest in psychedelic-assisted therapy meant more people were taking ketamine, both with a prescription and without one too. But as she started to see friends struggle with dependency, something other countries have been ringing the alarm about for years, she began to wonder whether the U.S. has been ...

Oct 09, 2024•42 min•Transcript available on Metacast

Psychedelics on the Ballot

At first the effort in Oregon to legalize psilocybin seemed doomed. Then the organizers started talking to the architect behind the carefully coordinated, state-by-state campaign to legalize cannabis, an attorney by the name of Graham Boyd. His initial thought was that what worked for cannabis would never work for psychedelics. But what he found in Oregon changed his mind. Producer Damiano Marchetti investigates.

Oct 02, 2024•26 min•Transcript available on Metacast

A Former War Correspondent Unravels

Ernesto Londoño is a national correspondent and former war correspondent at The New York Time s. For most of his life, Ernesto was a classic journalist – skeptical, stoic – whose early life in war-torn Colombia and reporting experiences in Iraq and Afghanistan left him traumatized, though he didn’t know it. Then Ernesto signs up for a retreat in the Amazon where he drinks ayahuasca. This retreat is followed by many more throughout Latin America. These experiences began to melt some of his armor,...

Sep 25, 2024•48 min•Transcript available on Metacast

Show Update

Altered States is taking a short breather and will be back soon. In the meantime, consider joining host Arielle Duhaime-Ross and other journalists for a virtual panel called The New Psychedelic Beat: Unraveling Oregon’s Drug Policy Story hosted by the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism and the UC Berkeley Center for the Science of Psychedelics. September 25, 2024 at 1 pm PT....

Sep 11, 2024•35 sec•Transcript available on Metacast

Fair Trade Ibogaine

In recent years, an increasing number of international clinics have begun offering treatments using ibogaine, a psychedelic drug that comes from a West African plant, to help treat conditions such as trauma and addiction. Much of the global supply of ibogaine is smuggled illegally out of Gabon. A former NBA basketball player from Gabon named Stéphane Lasme is at the forefront of new efforts to build a sustainable fair trade iboga industry.

Sep 04, 2024•33 min•Transcript available on Metacast

The Longest Trip

Several years ago, Heather was given three doses of psilocybin as part of a clinical study for treatment-resistant depression. Ever since, she’s been experiencing strange visual distortions, including “visual snow” and shimmering walls. What’s it like to develop a chronic condition following a trip? And what do scientists know about why it happens and who’s at risk?

Aug 28, 2024•40 min•Transcript available on Metacast

The Peace Seekers

For the last couple of years, producer Shaina Shealy has been following Israeli and Palestinian peace activists who have been coming together to drink the psychedelic brew ayahuasca in an effort to heal their collective intergenerational trauma. It seemed to be helping them when suddenly the region erupts into chaos and violence.

Aug 21, 2024•49 min•Transcript available on Metacast

An FDA Update

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s decision on MDMA-assisted therapy for post traumatic stress disorder.

Aug 14, 2024•2 min•Transcript available on Metacast

Will Doctors Soon Prescribe Ecstasy?

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is poised to decide whether to approve MDMA-assisted therapy for the treatment of post traumatic stress disorder. Host Arielle Duhaime-Ross interviews Michael Pollan, author of the best-selling book "How to Change Your Mind,” about how we got here, and what the decision might mean for the future of psychedelics.

Aug 07, 2024•33 min•Transcript available on Metacast

The Oregon Experiment

In 2020, voters in Oregon passed a ballot measure that allows people to take magic mushrooms, or psilocybin, with a guide. But what does that actually look like — or sound like? Host Arielle Duhaime-Ross follows along with a licensed psilocybin facilitator as she guides a 67-year-old man on his first mushroom trip.

Aug 07, 2024•35 min•Transcript available on Metacast

Coming Soon: Altered States

Psychedelics now inhabit a strange liminal space. Are they party drugs? Medications? Religious sacraments? In Altered States, host Arielle Duhaime-Ross explores how people are taking these drugs, who stands to profit, and what these substances might offer us as individuals and as a society.

Jul 31, 2024•3 min•Transcript available on Metacast