S10.E01: Psychedelics

[PrincessPurrsALot]

Main Topic: Psychedelics 

Also: Fox News election lies; train derailment chemical release; Jim Cramer will not shut up about his Brioni suits; a retirement tribute to NBC4 Washington's beat poet Pat Collins

Original air date 2023.02.19

[Annber03]

I loved John's response to the people from that company not showing up to the meeting about the train derailment. Translation: "We're too cowardly to face accountability for our complete and total fuckup." 

The Fox News story is not at all surprising and yet also incredibly infuriating. They need to lose their broadcast license over this. Their pushing of those election lies literally inspired people to threaten others' lives and get them fucking killed, and has posed a significant threat to our democracy. Also, because it cannot be said nearly enough, fuck Tucker Carlson. 

As for the main story, I don't know what made me laugh more, that clip of that reporter getting high off heroin or ASAP's story about the dick rainbow XD. I also loved John imagining Herzog being a DJ at a rave, LOL. 

Of course there's for profit companies for various drugs of this sort. Because why wouldn't there be? Good lord. It is interesting to see the positive effects these drugs could have for people who need them for therapy purposes and such, though - given more and more people have come to realize the bullshit nature of the War on Drugs, and how bipartisan people's attitudes have become on the topic of drugs as therapy benefits, I'd like to hope that's a promising sign...but yeah, the financial aspect, of course, is always going to be a factor. 

[ahisma]

Nice find of the guy explaining the antiquated train braking. Quelle surprise that the Trump administration killed the safety upgrades.

How is Jim Cramer still even on the air? Ugh.

I remember the excitement of psychiatric researchers and the successes they were having with MDMA in the 1980s, until it got swept up in the rest of the Just Say No drug hysteria. Did not know that monkeys on meth was part of it! I’m glad that better understanding of mental health, increased interest in drug legalization, and new research are all leading towards permitting psychedelic drug therapy. I’m NOT excited that private companies want to monopolize it with patents. 

I love the Beat Poet news guy getting two people to flank him with F-14 paper airplanes! 

Edited February 20, 2023 by ahisma
Typo

[Annber03]

2 minutes ago, ahisma said:

How is Jim Cramer still even on the air? Ugh.

I was asking myself this exact same question. 

[ebk57]

9 minutes ago, ahisma said:

I love the Beat Poet news guy getting two people to flank him with F-14 paper airplanes!

I love that you just called Pat Collins a Beat Poet news guy!  

I'm so proud glad (?) John didn't forget him from earlier this season, now that he has retired.  I watched the send-off shows (yeah, they had to fete him on the 5, 6 and 11 pm news programs) and they were...painful.  Hope he enjoys his retirement. 

Nice to have John back!!

[Lantern7]

Nice work from John, AND he didn't even mention Dock Ellis pitching a no-hitter after taking LSD. Even for a guy who probably grew up without baseball, that had to be tough not to include. Sadly, we didn't get to hear John lament about how the England soccer/football squad failed to advance past the quarterfinals in the World Cup, AND they didn't get to penalty kicks after 120 minutes. Poor bastard.

Honestly, this was the first I've heard about the derailment. What are the chances those responsible would be dealt with accordingly? Close to zero, I'd wager, which is infuriating. Not as much as Fox News turning on itself. That should be a fun thing, where you'd watch from a distance, sharing popcorn with Anderson and Wolf.

56 minutes ago, Annber03 said:

The Fox News story is not at all surprising and yet also incredibly infuriating. They need to lose their broadcast license over this. Their pushing of those election lies literally inspired people to threaten others' lives and get them fucking killed, and has posed a significant threat to our democracy. Also, because it cannot be said nearly enough, fuck Tucker Carlson.

If only. I'm pissed Newsmax has a guy in the White House pool, let alone one trying to create a crap narrative that John will probably cover down the road.

I don't know about the future of psychedelics as an effective drug. Even if we get to a point where the benefits are maxed out, I fear the news of people visiting "hell realms" ("helllms"?) would overshadow the success stories.

[paigow]

7 hours ago, Lantern7 said:

I don't know about the future of psychedelics as an effective drug.

Aaron Rodgers goes in the Fail column....

[nickp1991]

Thanks so much for the Pat Collins segment! 

[Popples]

11 hours ago, ebk57 said:

I love that you just called Pat Collins a Beat Poet news guy!  

I'm so proud glad (?) John didn't forget him from earlier this season, now that he has retired.  I watched the send-off shows (yeah, they had to fete him on the 5, 6 and 11 pm news programs) and they were...painful.  Hope he enjoys his retirement. 

I'm only upset that they didn't feature the "Snow Stick", but it wasn't one of Pat's crazier schticks. I'll miss him, though.

[iMonrey]

I'm sort of at the end of my rope with this show focusing so much of its time on really obscure things like psychedelics when there are so many other important things going on. I realize this is a deliberate choice and that John wants to highlight the stories that aren't being told, but dammit. He's just so skilled at nailing the really big stuff like the Fox News lawsuit and the train derailment that it drives me nuts they just get glossed over for a main story I don't give a damn about. I feel like he's wasting his talent. 

[peeayebee]

13 hours ago, Annber03 said:

As for the main story, I don't know what made me laugh more, that clip of that reporter getting high off heroin or ASAP's story about the dick rainbow XD. I also loved John imagining Herzog being a DJ at a rave, LOL. 

Both were great, but I absolutely loved the clip of the reporter inadvertently getting high. His giggles and funny smile practically made my day.

However, Werner Herzog is always welcome.

Were children actually given LSD? And was that stick actually patented?

 

[ShadowKnight2]

Good beginning to the new season. Psychedelic therapy sounds both promising and effective. And I had a laugh at John Oliver's impression of Werner Herzog impression.

Why can't Jim Cramer just shut the fuck up already with his non sequiturs nobody's interested in?

[PrincessPurrsALot]

I did enjoy Jim's cohost's incredulity at Jim thinking he was buying a Brioni suit on Amazon.  People are supposed to take financial advice from him, and he's acting a fool on live TV.  The sarcasm was so strong it radiated. 

I know someone who was trying mushroom therapy.  Haven't had a chance to ask her how it went. I am all for trying whatever it takes to help people as long as it is done in a planned and controlled way - licensed therapists who know what are well trained.  As with anything, someone will find a way yo take advantage.  The hope is that many people can be helped. 

The best part of the Pat Collins send off was the two guys with the F-16 paper planes. You know they were at the airport, bored, and had a chance to be on TV.  Their serious faces were perfect.  

[ruby24]

3 hours ago, iMonrey said:

I'm sort of at the end of my rope with this show focusing so much of its time on really obscure things like psychedelics when there are so many other important things going on. I realize this is a deliberate choice and that John wants to highlight the stories that aren't being told, but dammit. He's just so skilled at nailing the really big stuff like the Fox News lawsuit and the train derailment that it drives me nuts they just get glossed over for a main story I don't give a damn about. I feel like he's wasting his talent. 

I've been trying to think about why he does this too and it seems to be more and more intentional. One, I guess it makes his show different from other topical shows in that his main story is always something NO ONE else has talked about. But I have to admit, it's not usually something I'm interested in hearing about either. I occasionally am when it's related to international news stories that I've wanted to hear more about and only get a tidbit. But my guess would be that he doesn't want to spend a whole lot of time talking about the main news of the day that everyone else has already made jokes about, etc. A glossover is enough.

It reminds me of how he is when he's a guest on talk shows. It's almost like he doesn't want to talk about the news when he shows up on someone else's show and usually veers the conversation away from it.

[heatherchandler]

15 hours ago, Lantern7 said:

 

Honestly, this was the first I've heard about the derailment. What are the chances those responsible would be dealt with accordingly? Close to zero, I'd wager, which is infuriating. 
 

It is very strangely not being reported by cnn and msnbc.  I don’t understand why, I’d think anyone who cares about the environment would want to know about this.  People are sick and animals are dying.  

[peeayebee]

As much as I like seeing John take on a big news story, I usually enjoy hearing about things that aren't so prominent in the media. Occasionally he does a story I'm not very interested in, though I always learn something. 

I don't know how long the writers work on a story. I would guess that it's a week (the time between shows). It makes sense that they do a deep-dive into a story that isn't likely to be affected by last-minute news. 

[ebk57]

2 hours ago, heatherchandler said:

It is very strangely not being reported by cnn and msnbc.  I don’t understand why, I’d think anyone who cares about the environment would want to know about this.  People are sick and animals are dying.  

I don't know when you're watching CNN and MSNBC, but it's certainly being reported while I'm watching. 

[heatherchandler]

31 minutes ago, ebk57 said:

I don't know when you're watching CNN and MSNBC, but it's certainly being reported while I'm watching. 

It happened on 2/6, I had been watching developments on Chicago local news.  CNN.com had one story about how it had stopped burning maybe 3 or 4 days later.  There is more coverage now but at the height of it all, early last week there was nothing on the homepage.  Even dailymail had a ton of coverage and that’s mostly celeb news.

I was glad it was brought up on LWT.  Someone upthread said that was the first they heard of it.

Edited February 21, 2023 by heatherchandler

[ebk57]

Ah...  I don't check out the network websites often, but I have the TV on all the time and I've been keenly aware of the situation since it happened.  I'm glad the local news is covering it well, and I'm also really glad that John gave it attention last night. 

[meowmommy]

On 2/19/2023 at 9:37 PM, Annber03 said:

The Fox News story is not at all surprising and yet also incredibly infuriating. They need to lose their broadcast license over this.

Being a cable network, they don't have a broadcast license.  Those are only for OTA channels.

On 2/20/2023 at 10:30 AM, iMonrey said:

I'm sort of at the end of my rope with this show focusing so much of its time on really obscure things like psychedelics when there are so many other important things going on.

Couldn't agree more.  I don't mind John doing deep dives into topics nobody else spends much time on, but come on, they need to be of interest to more than ten or twelve people.  Save those stories for very slow news weeks.  OTOH, it could be argued there's always going to be something topical to push a feature story off the main, so they might as well run what they planned.

But anecdotal tales of a few obscure people who apparently benefited from psychedelics are not why I waited months for this show to come back for a new season.

Maybe make the show longer than half an hour so they can do current events justice.  It's HBO, after all. 

[swanpride]

The whole Fox news thing...those jokes have been made over here for ages. I remember a decade or so ago Fox news did a segment about an attack in France. Basically everything in the so called news segment was wrong, from the place where it supposedly happened to the number of victims to what actually happened. It was in fact so wrong that some European newspapers felt the need to report HOW wrong it was. Needless to say that they would never get away with it in most European countries. 

[Wilbur Whateley]

I'm sorry, I'm just knocked for a loop that people are seriously claiming that promising and extremely effective treatments for alcoholism, post-traumatic stress disorder and other mental health disorders are "not important," "obscure" and only of interest to a handful of people.  I mean, what? This matters to hundreds of thousands if not millions of people.  It is objectively a big deal. It fully deserves coverage.  You may not be interested in it personally, but I can't even comprehend the mindset that would claim this is not an important issue.  It's been a segment on 60 Minutes and bestselling books have been written about it. I promise you, huge numbers of people care.  This issue is completely in LWT's wheelhouse - it's pretty much ground zero of the type of topic the show was created to cover.

[JustHereForFood]

On 2/20/2023 at 8:48 PM, PrincessPurrsALot said:

I am all for trying whatever it takes to help people as long as it is done in a planned and controlled way - licensed therapists who know what are well trained.  As with anything, someone will find a way yo take advantage.  The hope is that many people can be helped. 

 

Pretty much this. And I would add that people need to be aware of every factor that doctors are aware of, to be able to consent to it. I would be wary of using it to treat addictions though, I mean how likely is it that someone with an addictive personality will just swap one addiction for another?

 

On 2/20/2023 at 9:34 PM, ruby24 said:

I've been trying to think about why he does this too and it seems to be more and more intentional. One, I guess it makes his show different from other topical shows in that his main story is always something NO ONE else has talked about. But I have to admit, it's not usually something I'm interested in hearing about either. I occasionally am when it's related to international news stories that I've wanted to hear more about and only get a tidbit. But my guess would be that he doesn't want to spend a whole lot of time talking about the main news of the day that everyone else has already made jokes about, etc. A glossover is enough.

I have no illusions about the process of picking the topic of the week. I'm pretty sure there's a lot of lobbying involved in the background that would make our heads explode.

[possibilities]

I'm all for the drug research. But I do get a kick out of imagining the commercials, where they speak really fast listing possibly side effects and have to include "visits to hell realms". Of course, people with addiction or PTSD or clinical depression may have already been living in hell realms anyway. 

I know someone who claims one mushroom trip completely changed her life and ended many years of PTSD. This was many years ago, and she doesn't use regularly, it was just the one time.

My understanding of the way drugs are tested is that they do consider whether or not they are addictive and how much, but that is already true of plenty of other drugs that are already approved. As far as I can tell, the effects of psychedelics are not as likely to lead to addiction as most other substances. 

 

[grawlix]

Michael Pollan investigates Psychedelics in his book, How to Change Your Mind.  Recommended reading if you want to get more information about the subject.   I also think he even appeared in the main segment.

[Rlb8031]

On 2/20/2023 at 12:30 PM, iMonrey said:

I'm sort of at the end of my rope with this show focusing so much of its time on really obscure things like psychedelics when there are so many other important things going on. I realize this is a deliberate choice and that John wants to highlight the stories that aren't being told, but dammit. He's just so skilled at nailing the really big stuff like the Fox News lawsuit and the train derailment that it drives me nuts they just get glossed over for a main story I don't give a damn about. I feel like he's wasting his talent. 

I think that the wheelhouse for this show is things that SHOULD be important that people are not talking about. We have a rampant mental health crisis in the US following the pandemic, and rather than simply shrugging every time some elderly person gets attacked in the street for no reason, or someone gets pushed in front of a train, or a new school shooting occurs, we should absolutely be talking about whether there is value to exploring the use of psychedelics and the possible repercussions for allowing Big Pharma to stake a claim in this space. Whether its bail reform, CRT, tort liability, police training or medical debt, these are all critical issues which NO ONE is covering, and which need to be discussed. 

The show seems to veer away from things like Russiagate, January 6th, and other topical controversies that will be covered by "real" journalists. The LWT deep dives always make me think, and I believe there is real value to that.