Is Kava Bad For Your Liver, The Best Kava Stacks, Psychedelics Role In “Knowing God” & Much More

My name is Ben Greenfield, and on this episode of the Ben Greenfield Life.

Podcast, if you're looking to rebuild your life and your life is like, symbolically a house that you're trying to build, you're trying to reconstruct it, you've got this empty lot that needs to be excavated first. You can bring in the tools and you can bring in the building blocks, and you can just throw them in a pile. And then you don't have a house. And you're like, okay, well, then I'll just take more of it and throw it in a pile and throw it in a pile. And then you've got a bigger and bigger pile of rubble that's worse than the clean slate that you had before. So a house is made out of bricks, but a pile of bricks is not a house, right? So the big piece that is missing in most people's process is the structure, the discipline, the integration to take any perspective and any approach that you take and responsibly actively seek to mold it into something that produces more fruit day in and day out.

Faith, family, fitness, health, performance, nutrition, longevity, ancestral living, biohacking, and a whole lot more. Welcome to the show.

Well, hello, folks. What you're about to hear is a podcast interview with my friend Cameron George. He's been on my podcast before to talk about this plant medicine called Kava. We not only take a deeper dive into Kava on this episode, but he actually had a lot of questions he wanted to ask me about entheogens, psychedelics, and plant medicines. And so we just had a fascinating discussion. We recorded this at an event called Runga in Austin, Texas. We kind of broke away and did one of my famous walking and talking podcasts on a little walking trail near the Runga facility. And. And so I think you're really going to dig this one. The show notes are going to be at BenGreenfieldLife.com CameronGeorge it's pretty easy to spell C A M E R O N G E O r g e. BenGreenfieldLife.com Cameron George and if you're interested in some of the stuff that we discussed regarding Kava, his company is called True Kava. I'll link to that and I'll reach out to him and see if I can get some discount codes and for his stuff that I'll also put@bengreenfieldlife.com CameronGeorge if you want to try some of his tinctures and drinks. And I actually really, really like his stuff. I dosed with an ungodly amount of kava right before we began this podcast and actually felt pretty good. The show notes are@BenGreenfieldLife.com CameronGeorge Enjoy. Cameron, I think I'm kinda sorta a guest on your podcast and I'm curious if you sabotage every guest by giving them this strange fringe, powdered, concentrated extract of kava from some forbidden island or if you're just kind of guinea pigging this stuff out on me.

Well, I decided whenever I was going to launch a podcast that that would be a core strategy and theme of the show is we're going to high, like overdose everyone on kava.

Right.

Going into the episode.

Yeah. Conversations with Cameron on drugs.

It's a little bit of a truth serum.

So I was telling you when you were dosing me up with kava, because you gave me like, let's cut straight to this chase. Kind of like the strong shit that probably isn't like hyper marketable for the average audience because it turns your mouth numb and it's kind of bitter and way different than the stuff you've sent to me in my house in the past, which is like these nice flavorful canned drinks and tinctures and stuff. So I have had the experience that you just gave me back in the kitchen here in Austin, down in Hawaii, when I've drank traditional kava in kava ceremonies down there, like kava bars, shout out to kanaka kava. By the way, I think the best pupu platter in Hawaii is down there in Kailua Kona kanaka kava back behind the volleyball courts there. But I've had like giant fishbowl size volumes of kava from there and experienced that same mouth turned numb type of feeling, but had always associated kava with kind of like nighttime relaxation, tiredness, almost like a Hawaiian legal form of weed or something that you drink. What you told me was what we just took as like energizing.

Yeah. Well, it's kind of funny too, because depending on the island that you get your kava at, you can get drastically different effects across the spectrum from, you know, just kind of like the world of cannabis. There's all these different strains that have slightly different effects. You know, there's sort of like the sativa strains that are generally like more cerebral and activating.

Yeah.

And then there's like the indica strains that are, you know, sort of more body, that sort of all the way to like that couch lock feeling that people, if they get really toasted on it.

Right.

But it's still, there's an overarching effect that feels like cannabis. There are certain characteristics that come through no matter what. And kava is kind of like that, except for kava doesn't really interfere with your faculties. Hardly like at hardly any dose, even massive doses of it.

So, yeah, it's not psychedelic.

Right, right, right. It doesn't take you into an altered state. It's more like a calm, enhanced state of like natural sobriety. Right. So it's like they have a saying in the islands, I think we talked about in the last conversation in Vanuatu, where, you know, kind of the Mecca of kava is.

Wait, Vanuatu is an island?

Yeah, well, it's an island chain.

O.

It's right off the coast of Fiji. So everyone knows Fiji. So it's over there in the South Pacific, like in Polynesia. So Vanuatu, it's been used for like 3,000 years. Like 90% of the population drinks kava on a regular basis. But the important thing is they drink it in the food form. Right. Like coffee as a food form. And then there's like caffeine powder, which is not a food form.

Right. Actually that's a good point. To interrupt you real quick is like, I tell people this, you could buy a bag of concentrated caffeine powder from bulk supplements or whatever on Amazon and a few tablespoons of that could literally kill somebody.

Right, right.

Whereas a cup of coffee is not the hyper extracted, hyper concentrated stuff. And the same would go for like, I mean, I'm sure you've heard about all the issues with kratom going on. People getting addicted to kratom, people getting sick from kratom, etc. Like kratom powder that you make like a morning glass of tea out of isn't that big of a deal. But these hyper concentrated versions that a lot of supplement manufacturers using now are kind of messing people up. And so back to what you were saying about kava. Are you implying that, like there's certain, like hyper concentrated versions that wouldn't be as good and that the islanders and Vanuatu are just drinking like this natural powdered extract?

Yeah. So actually now we'll actually just back here in 2021, the WHO and the Codex Alimentarius Commission, which is a subset of the WHO that sets kind of like world food quality standards, adopted an international quality standard that actually by classification separates food grade kava from kava, like extracts. Right, okay. Because it was important enough and it was hurting the kava industry for years that people would sort of get these denatured forms of Kava that were extracted with solvents, where they sort of isolated a few of the active constituents and turned it basically into a pharmaceutical. Which is the same thing that happens, like, with cocaine out of, like, coca leaf tea, which is very safe.

Right.

It's kind of the same comparison. Right. They drink it in Peru, like, daily, and it's. No one is, like, robbing convenience stores and, like, losing their life over the weekend or anything. And cocaine is one of the most destructive substances you can put in your body. Right. So it's. Context matters, and the devil's in the details. But whenever a lot of these medicines are in their complete food form, they have more of a compatibility with human biology because it's one organism integrating with another organism fully, not sort of one bastardized or isolated constituent within that organism. It's just like if you take an individual constituent, like a hormone out of the human body and, you know, and synthesize it and give it back to a human, you can create problems, you know, whenever you do that over time. Right. If you're injecting testosterone or something, versus, say, giving a plant medicine that contains compounds that help to elevate testosterone indirectly, or if you're, say, eating some form of meat, like raw testicles or something, that actually has the bioidentical version of the hormone in it within a matrix.

Yeah. So kava is like raw testicles, basically. So Vanuatu would be island where they harvest this stuff and traditionally drink it in powdered form. But when I asked that question, what I had kind of mentioned was this idea that I have always associated kava with being an anxiolytic, with being something that could enhance sleep, something to kind of, like, settle you down at the end of the day, similar to my experience in Hawaii, how they'll serve it, and then you're just, like, ready to go face down on your table or else get an Uber back and go to bed, I guess. I don't have Ubers in Hawaii. You got to hitchhike back and go to bed, at least in Kona. But whatever you gave me just now up in the kitchen, it was like a blend, I think you said, of chips and roots, and you said it was going to be energizing, and you had me mix it into coffee. So tell me about that.

Yeah, it's really interesting. So we kind of touched on this just a few minutes ago. So just like cannabis, right, you have this, like, spectrum that spans across an effects profile for kava, real kava in its traditional form, whenever you don't, you know, bastardize it with any kind of, like, you know, isolation process or, like, solvent extraction method like we spoke about, contains a really balanced effect of both headiness and heaviness. So it sort of gives you sort of like an engaged, sort of activated feeling inside of your consciousness, inside of your psyche, while relaxing you and grounding you at the same time. So a balanced strain of kava will actually sort of give you both of those effects. So it's not as much stimulating, but activating. Right. So you're not sort of like, lulled. Your brain chemistry isn't lulled, but you are relaxed at the same time. And that's kind of what this is. But there's a spectrum, just like we spoke about with cannabis, that certain strains have been bred and dialed in to express more of one characteristic than the other. So this blend that I gave you teeters more towards the mental activation and the nootropic effect.

Okay, got it. It would almost be like taking caffeine. I'm sure you've heard of this trick. And you take like, 100 milligrams of L theanine when you have a cup of coffee, and it kind of allows the coffee to last a little bit longer, extends the life of the caffeine, the bloodstream, but kind of staves off some of the jitter effects of not just coffee, but any caffeinated compound. Now, my experience right now is I dosed up about 20 minutes ago. What I feel like right now is I do feel a little bit like my tongue was kind of numb, my lips were numb, as you get with a little bit more of a concentrated kava, and I've got a little bit of relaxation going on, kind of similar to the type of body relaxation I'd experience with, like, an indica strain of cannabis. But my. My cognition, and of course, I suppose the podcast listeners could judge, my. My cognition seems kind of like, dialed in and focused. So the best way I can describe is my body feels relaxed right now, and we're walking, as everybody's probably guessed by now, we're walking along this little path outside a place where Cameron and I are staying, and my body feels very relaxed, but my brain feels kind of focused. Is that the type of experience that you think I should be having?

Correct. And the body relaxation. I gave you two things. I gave you two things out of the RD bag, which kind of amplifies some of the characteristics of our standard retail products, the really tasty ones that are sort of like the baseline for what everybody starts with. The first powder that I gave you teeters more towards that cerebral effect. And the pace that I gave you brings out more, more of that relaxation.

So let's say that I couldn't, or somebody's listening in and they couldn't like buy what you just gave me in the concentrated form from your website or whatever. But you have like the tincture, which is a little bit stronger. Could I, for example, if I wanted this same effect, take your canned kava drink and like pour that into a glass and put a few dropper fulls of the tincture in to make it stronger?

Yeah. So our retail products that are available right now on the website, you know, direct to consumer and that we're launching in retail, have been dialed in already to contain both of those effects in a very, very smooth, sort of marketable form for almost anybody to enjoy right out of the gate. And then later on in the future, we'll have more specialized products released in, you know, direct to consumer and into the medical space that people can kind of amplify one characteristic more than the other. So. Yes, yeah. So like, the products right now are very balanced. They're sort of like in the middle of that spectrum, which is really where Kava showcases its best effects profiles. Whenever you get it right in the middle, that's where it's most popular. That really gives it kind of like that social lubricant, alcoholic effect, where obviously the effects of alcohol relax the body, relax the mind, but they also engage the person socially. But obviously we know that the negative feedback or deleterious effects with alcohol that don't exist with kava.

Yeah, exactly. Just a few more usage based questions that I know you had some questions for me because I don't know, kind of doing this for both of our respective podcasts. But first of all, if I were to drink this, let's say in the morning as a substitute for my coffee or tea, does it have calories? Like, will it take me out of a fasted state that classic supplements question everybody who's orthorexic wants to know about.

So it's basically negligible. Like, our carbonated drink from the Website only has 5 calories in it and it has no sugar, so it's sweetened with stevia. And that was a very, very difficult thing to do to cover up.

That's addictive, by the way. I think I drank six of them yesterday.

Yeah, yeah, the drink. I mean, everybody absolutely loves the drink because, you know, the two main barriers with kava, the effects are profound. And once people use kava, you know, Regularly and they get sort of the cumulative buildup effect that it kind of takes. I always tell people to take kava for about two weeks to a month to get to its maximum of what it's going to do for them.

Oh, really?

Yeah, yeah. That's an important point because there's a.

I'd never heard that there's a reverse.

Tolerance effect because of how kava works, pharmacology.

A reverse tolerance effect.

Yeah. So this is something that's been well documented anthropologically, but also in the scientific literature as well, is that kava elicits an upregulatory effect and it's kind of like a reset to the nervous system and to the brain chemistry. So what we've actually seen the studies now, which had been documented in the South Pacific forever. Of course not from a scientific standpoint, theirs was experiential from the indigenous people. But what we're seeing, the scientific literature is over long term usage. We see an upregulation in the GABA pathway and the dopamine pathway, but we see an increase in GABA receptor density, which is the opposite effect of say a pharmaceutical that would affect the same receptors like a benzodiazepine, like Xanax or Klonopin or alcohol. Those things will give you the most and like any illicit drug will give you the most prominent effect the first time you take it. And then the receptors adapt to it. Right. They develop tolerance. And it's basically when you take most drugs, they're kind of like a hack to the body that borrows from tomorrow's brain chemistry to pay for today. Right? Your brain chemistry that makes you feel good. These chemicals are like, you know, currency. And if you overstimulate them, then you're sort of like exhausting them. Right. But kava is having this effect where it's giving you this acute activation of those systems, but it's turning them on and up, regulating them. So over time you need less of the same substance to get the same.

That's fascinating.

Okay, so that makes it interesting. That's one thing about kava that not only is it not, because I get this question all the time, is kava just a replacement for another drug? Am I just switching out one addiction for the other?

Yeah.

Kava has been consistently shown every form of evidence to not only be non addictive, but because of the process I just described, it's actually an anti addictive substance that helps to interrupt that sort of, you know, dopamine, you know, serotonin, GABA depletion loop that people get into. Okay. Which is fantastic for getting off of pharmaceuticals.

That makes sense. A lot of people have asked me if kava is hard on their liver, and I've. I've seen some people talk about how they think kava might raise liver enzymes or something like that. Tell me about that.

Okay. That's. This is a very, very important point. I get this question all the time. And right out of the gate, this kind of alludes to what we were talking about earlier, about the form of the plant that you're using, the whole food form versus, like, the. The, you know, the drug, like, synthesized isolate form, which is more true for some plants than others. Right. Not all plants in nature are plants that are consumable. In fact, plants are living organisms, just like we're living organisms.

And I just don't want to be eaten, says Dr. Paul Saladino.

Well, I would say I. That's, you know, to me, that's a little bit extreme in the sense of, like, you know, kind of, you know.

I know I don't want to be eaten either.

You. I mean, projecting personified characteristics onto other organisms like plants. But what I would say is that with every organism in the natural ecology, and we're part of that ecology.

There'S opportunities behaviorally to form relationships, one organism to another. I like to think of bringing a plant or a fungus into your life or another person as forming a relationship with them. Just like some people have certain guardrails up and have certain adaptations in their life that make them harder to form a relationship with. Plants are the same way. So some plants are ready to interface with humans in a more direct way, and some plants have more adaptive defenses that make it very difficult to do that. Right, right.

And like a thorn bush.

Yes. Or kale, or most mushrooms that you pick up off the ground, you don't want to eat. Right. Meaning, like the ground mushrooms. A lot of them. There are plenty of mushrooms that'll make you sick as hell. Some will kill you.

I think it's pretty obvious mushrooms don't want to be eaten.

Most of them, yes. And of course, there are some. There's some adaptogenic mushrooms, mainly tree mushrooms, rishi, chaga, shiitake, maitake, all of which have more of an interface with the human body. But I say all that because some plants across that spectrum are very, very primed for relationship with human biology. And from everything that we know about kava, it is absolutely in that category. However, there are. There are certain things, if you use certain parts of the plant, which is. Goes back to indigenous wisdom, the indigenous people of the South Pacific figured out how to form a relationship with this plant. And it is really, really interfaces well as a protector of the nervous system and a protector for the emotions and also a good processor of trauma in the system, which is a little bit, you know, different of a discussion. But where the liver toxicity misnomer came in, it was really based on ignorance and misperception. Back in the early 2000s, Kava was starting to sort of make headway in the marketplace. And there was one. And just like anything else, you know, the pharmaceutical companies, you know, and industry tries to jump in and to, you know, stupid millennials. Yeah. And. But anyways, there was one pharmaceutical company in Germany that tried to develop a patented isolate of kava. And they were using these egregious solvents. And they didn't pay homage to the parts of the plant that were used that were usable or the extraction methods or anything that the indigenous people had helped to curate over thousands of years. So they just thought they would try to get kavalactones. And so they ended up with some cheap material which were like leaves and stems of the plant. And you're only supposed to use the roots. The roots are adaptable to humans.

Not just the roots, but the chips too, because you put some chips in what you gave me.

The chips are technically part of the roots. The roots start at the stump that comes right above the ground and goes down into the lateral roots, which are the stringy parts that go underneath the ground. Anything above the basal stump, when it branches off into stems and leaves, contain much higher amounts of these plant defense alkaloids that it defends itself from pests. But the below and just stump parts do not, and they're highly negligible. So those parts of the plant need to be used anyways. That wasn't paid attention to. And not only did they get the wrong parts of the plant, but then they concentrated these plant defense alkaloids. After the investigation that took place 15 years post this whole circumstance, they concentrated them with solvents so that you ended up with a solvent isolate of a lot of these plant defense compounds. So it was no more kava than cocaine is, you know, coca tea. So anyways, it hurt a handful of people, and that created this misnomer on liver toxicity.

But, yeah, that's unfortunate, but it makes sense. Thank you for explaining that, because that was one concern of mine, and then the other is just more curiosity. You know, you had me put my kava that you gave me today in coffee, and you said, that would kind of like, accelerate the effects and amplify the effects. Yes. So we've established that coffee might be one thing good to put kava in if you're looking for the energy.

Yes.

What else would kind of, like, stack well with kava, in your opinion? Like, if you were to choose some of your favorite things to mix with it?

Well, my favorite things to mix with it are going to be, you know, different potentiators and, you know, caffeine, depending on what you're using kava for. If you're using kava at the end of the day for more of the body relaxation and social lubrication and to get your cortisol levels down, then you wouldn't want to mix it with caffeine. But early part of the day, if you're using these sort of. Our blends that are all primed to be totally tolerable at daytime, or some daytime blends, like, say, our Kavaplex Mind Oil that goes perfect with coffee.

Caffeine, that's the name of the one you have that's more for, like, clarity and focus. Kavaplex Mind. That's a tincture.

Yes.

Okay. I have that one. I like that one.

Yeah, yeah. And caffeine really helps with blood flow and transport of the kavalactones, and it gives a very noticeable potentiation effect. So they potentiate each other. The kava, like you mentioned, kind of like the theanine, kind of takes the edge off the caffeine.

Yeah.

But it also intensifies the sort of, like, natural euphoria. They potentiate each other and the nootropic kick as well, too. So it's a. It is. It's one of the best nootropic blends I've ever tried because I like something.

You mean kava caffeine combo.

Yes.

Yeah.

And I would throw MCT into that.

Let's clarify. Not kava caffeine. K Mbo. The kava kaffeine.

Right, right, right. And I would throw MCT into that because MCT helps to transport oil. Yeah.

Okay.

MCT oil, preferably C8. It increases the transport of the kavalactones, acting kind of like a little lipid raft that gets them past the liver and into the bloodstream and everything and across the gut and all that.

Okay, so that's cool. And then, obviously, there's companies that, you know, I'm sure you never like it when competitors are brought up, but there's companies like Feel Free that are combining it with Kratom, which seems to be an interesting that a lot of people like. And then I have found. And this might be a new one for you, Cameron. 13 Butanediol is a ketone ester that in lower amounts is used as a performance enhancing aid. And in higher amounts can actually be a pretty potent muscle relaxant if it's kind of like combined with ketone esters. Like a company ketone aid is making these nighttime drinks like gin and tonic and Moscow mule and champagne, but it's not alcohol. It's 13 butane diol with ketone ester. So it's like it doesn't produce all the acetaldehyde and the toxic side effects of alcohol, but it gives you, like this relaxed, social lubricating effect. Now what I've experimented with is taking kava, you know, under this theory that's kind of sort of a relaxant anyways, or can be, and then combining it with ketone drinks, and that's actually really nice evening cocktail. You ever try something like that?

Yes, yes. That goes greatly and for far more reasons than a lot of people realize. Right. So it's not just that you're supplying these two separate things that both either directly or indirectly affect dopamine and different things, which is part of it, but they actually have a metabolic synergy. So something that's not well known about kava are its metabolic effects. So I think we mentioned this in the last conversation, but I like to kind of tell people what the, you know, like, you know, when talking about.

Wait, just real quick, the last conversation? You mean the last conversation when I had you on my podcast?

Yeah.

Okay. I'll make sure if, you know, this one gets. Gets published on my show. I'll link to that one for any listening in. I'll make show notes. I'll put them at. I'll put them at like Bengreenfield Life slash Cameron George, which is Cameron's name. BenGreenfieldLife.com Cameron George. I'll hunt down another podcast we didn't and link to it, but go ahead.

So basically, kava's main identity as a plant in the natural ecology, it has two main functions, but the main function role that it plays in natural ecology is it's a protective organism. Right.

It has, you know, a protective role in the natural ecology where it helps to add some protection to the organisms around it and so on. But it has developed hormetically, a very broad, as far as we can tell, complete set of adaptogenic, sort of, you know, stress and trauma adaptive compounds that stream across all of human Biology, Right. So basically, you know, whenever you take in kava as an organism, it transfers that adaptability and that sort of protection status to the human. Which is why when kava has been thoroughly studied, it hits on almost every neuro and tissue protective pathway that we know of, from the down regulation of glutamate and excitotoxicity. COX inhibitor, it's a nerve 2 activator, it's a sodium calcium channel blocker. So it's this very protective substance. But I mention that because one of the last effects that a lot of people don't really know about or have never heard about is its metabolic effects. And its metabolic effects also feed into that identity because its metabolic effects are also part of its protective nature, as far as we can tell, because obviously whenever a person doesn't have food and they go into a recycle mode that's mediated by this AMP kinase pathway and these fat burning pathways that help the body survive in a time which it doesn't have food. That is a protective system in the body that helps the body not only survive in a time when external food isn't present, but it also helps to put the body in a recycled state where it helps to clear out its old bad tissues and recycle them to use them as food fuel. So kava has this mechanism where it helps to activate AMP kinase and it helps to suppress mtor. Of course it acts as a modulator, it doesn't always suppress mtor, but it has this effect especially whenever it's needed. So basically kava's been shown to activate AMP kinase, it's been shown to, you know, to put the body into this sort of cell recycling.

Similar to what ketones would do.

Exactly.

So you're getting like this 1, 2 combination of relaxation and that longevity autophagy inducing effect. That's interesting.

And it helps.

I didn't realize that.

So basically it's helping the body turn over energy more efficiently in the form of ketone production, but also in dopamine up regulation without having to put glucose in the brain.

That's pretty sweet. You're kind of making me want to do like a Google image search for kava, because I can't say I've actually got my head wrapped around with the whole plant. Looks like. Are you able to describe it at all when you talk about that protective effect?

It's a shrub that generally grows about 3 meters off the ground, a little tall, but it has these stalks that almost kind of look like micro bamboo, these stems and then these beautiful big heart Shaped leaves.

Oh wow.

Right. So you see it growing.

Okay.

You know, big.

I'm have to look it up. I'll put a picture in the show. Have you been there to Vanuatu?

So yeah, so we. So our whole supply chain is in Vanuatu and you know, we operated out of New Zealand and also some in Fiji and some in Hawaii as well. Too. So. Well. But anyways, the. That's why we get those like synergistic effects with ketones and stuff as well. It's super synergistic. And you touch briefly on the combination not only with caffeine and MCT and with ketones, but there's definitely other people, even kava bars popping up and other companies that are stacking it with Kratom. Yeah, that is an interesting short conversation. It's. That can be a little bit of a double edged sword. And the same conversation that we were having with kava about whole plant versus isolate does apply to Kratom. However, Kratom's even like whole leaf Kratom doesn't have the same sort of broadly tonic daily use safety profile as kava. It's still a great medicine.

Yeah.

But having a lot of experience with it and seeing a lot of use with it clinically and things, there are a percentage of people that are going to get a level of habituation even to the whole leaf extract.

I talked about this on a podcast. It's also based on certain people have a genetic susceptibility based on their CYP enzymes in the liver to get really hit hard by Kratom from a biological standpoint as far as liver health. And also kind of like some people just get knocked on their ass by a cup of coffee because they're like a fast coffee oxidizer. The same can be said for, for Kratom. So yeah, I mean, obviously, you know, probably the most popular one out there right now is the feel free energy drink that's like, I think it's like 10 parts kava, one part kratom or something like that. And a lot of people think it makes them feel great. I actually like it, but I've talked to for everybody who likes it, seems like a lot of people kind of get a little bit messed up by it or use too much. So I agree that's a combination that you need to proceed with caution with. Even though I think there's. There's some efficacy to it and you. There's no reason you couldn't get powdered Kratom and like put a little bit in with your.

Yeah.

With your kava drinks and kind of experiment.

Yeah, the main thing is I would always, just because kratom can be that double edged sword, I would just want people to be aware of that and to kind of do a little bit of due diligence. But before and just know like to start with small dosages and to just like experiment a little because a lot of people just kind of start taking it indiscriminately. And I get this all the time and I've seen this and actually in, in Vanuatu, the, you know, the communities in Vanuatu actually really, really dislike this sort of this thing that's popped up with people like at kava bars. Just slipping kratom in without telling people. It's not about trying to deter people from the medicine. What it is is just telling people the differences between the two so that they don't get completely lumped in together.

So this is all super interesting. What's also interesting is you had actually come up to me in the past couple days here at Runga and asked me if you could ask me some questions for your podcast and then we wound up recording. And I've just absolutely learned a ton about cava in the past half hour. But I think you had some things you also wanted to ask me. So I won't hog the whole podcast. So if you have questions for me, go ahead. And by the way, for folks listening in, I know occasionally we get a little bit of wind popping up where Cameron and I are walking like this six minute long trail. Like there's one corner we go around where you get a little bit of wind. But we're totally on brand. You guys know me, I love to walk and talk and get sunshine. So I hope it doesn't bug you too much. All right, so. So Cameron, what do you got for me?

Right, exactly. Yeah. Well, I think this is a good segue kind of into this. We're already talking about plant medicine and everything. This interests me so much. You did this podcast or you did a couple podcasts recently? I think you did, you know, a two parter talking about your sort of re examination of the whole psychedelic phenomenon.

Yeah.

And where you're at with it personally and where you kind of, from your perspective, your experiences and where you think some of the misnomers, the dangers, the potential dangers and just indiscriminate use of them. And then I saw you did podcast with Josh Trent as well where you guys had a great discussion on it. So I was fascinated by that. To kind of pick your brain on where you're at with that? Because I have my own thoughts on that, and a lot of what you said really resonated with me, at least as far as the potential dangers that aren't spoken of a lot. Right. On that topic.

Yeah. Well, prepare to laugh your ass off at me, because I'm a spiritual guy. Like, I'm super into science, but we kind of live in this scientific, materialistic, hyperlogical, post reformational era in which things need to be proven by science or seen to be believed. And so when I say something like, you know, a trip dose or a journey dose of shrooms actually has the capability to open up a portal to the other world and allow you to be able to interact with entities and spirits who, without a certain type of entheogen in your system, you might have not really been able to interact with. At least the average person would not have been able to interact with. I'll get laughed at. Which I think is kind of funny, because there's very few, like atheists, who will go do ayahuasca or psilocybin or ibogaine or DMT or something of the like and not come back with some type of belief, often a strong belief in the existence of a spiritual world or a belief in God or something like that, because they've encountered some type of deep love and light, or they've encountered some type of entity, or in many cases, they've even come out of an experience having a feeling as though they're possessed by something, which is often the case when you're working with a shaman in the Amazon, for example, and this doesn't happen to everybody, but it's kind of an example of the idea that these entheogens, and this is the case for thousands and thousands of years in humans, have been a method via which human beings interact with the divine or interact with the spiritual world. And so my concern is now that it's become quite trendy and popular to use these medicines, either traveling to the Amazon to do so, or they're widely available, as I think most people know, in the average loft or apartment or Airbnb, where you have your shaman with the weekend certification come on over and serve you up a nice little brew. We've now got a whole bunch of people who traditionally would have been like priests and shamans and chiefs in indigenous societies, having access to some pretty powerful medicines that bring them into a spiritual experience. And in many cases, the type of entities or spirits one is encountering in that space might not necessarily have your best interests in mind. And you Know, we're talking about everything from demons to spirits to angels to, you know, like Lucifer, you know, Satan masquerading as an angel of light. And again, like this is to the average white lab coat wearing scientist, complete hooey. Yet I believe that we're souls with a body, not bodies with a soul. And that we're surrounded by a spiritual world that very few of us interact with on a daily basis, but that exists nonetheless and is accessible through several means. You know, prayer, devotion, meditation, silence, solitude, fasting, the so called chopping wood and carrying water of the spiritual discipline kingdom, but also more rapidly and easily accessible without necessarily doing that work and by popping a pill or sipping a brew. And the problem that I have with that is a, for every nine people who have a fantastic experience, a fantastic, mind expanding, spiritually uplifting experience with plant medicines, there's one person who comes out of it kind of effed up, right? Like psychosis, schizophrenia, kind of like completely confused about their path in life and often in need of some type of, again, don't laugh, exorcism, right? Or the need to release whatever entity possessed them while they were in that space. Furthermore, in addition to the dangers that are inherent with that one person who might be a little bit more prone to getting messed up psychologically by that experience, there's also this idea that it's the ultimate path to spiritual enlightenment and that really the best way to find God is to engage in the use of plant medicine. Well, if that's the best way to find God, there are billions and billions of people who may not have access to or cannot afford plant medicines, who all of a sudden are left behind by these spiritual mystics who are the chosen few who are able to engage with these compounds. And everybody else just kind of gets the thumbs down approach. And that's because they're unable to access these or interact with them. And so essentially I would never want to give people the message that in order to find God or interact with God, you need to take some exogenous substance because God is free. And furthermore, I think it's a little bit dangerous and a lot of people don't know the spiritual world that they're messing around with. And that all being said, I don't think that plant medicines are all bad. I think there are certain use cases. For example, I still microdose occasionally, I would say about once every 10 to 12 days or so with psilocybin or LSD or wachuma cactus powder in very small amounts for enhancing things like creativity or Focus or sociability. I don't think there's an issue in the proper set and setting, a medically controlled set and setting, not necessarily via ayahuasca tourism in the Amazon, which by the way isn't that great for the environment either. I think there's a set and setting for things like end of life therapy for terminal cancer or deep trauma that needs to be pulled back out of the system and dealt with in some way. And the only way to kind of shut down the frontal cortices and access that trauma is by tweaking some neurotransmitters via the use of these plant medicines. And perhaps for things like sensory enhancement for hunting experience or something along those lines. There's a few use cases. But the problem is it's becoming way too popular, way more widespread, without a big enough warning sign and without people being informed or educated on the idea. This is a deep spiritual experience that doesn't necessarily involve just all like angels and lights and positivity, and in fact can involve interactions with dark entities and dark spirits who may not have your best interests in mind. And that's where, that's where my concern is. And I've been asked, well, Ben, did you just have some kind of like a bad trip that made you not like plant medicines anymore? And the fact is I've never had anything but a deeply positive and life changing and profound experience, whether me or me and my wife with plant medicines. And I believe part of that might be because I lived a really plain Jane childhood, as did she, with very little trauma to pull back up. And we're also Christians, which I think has probably helped us out a little bit in terms of us having, you know, some, some good spirits on our side. But you can't tell me that like you're going to go into some plant medicine experience all prepared to interact with these entities because they've existed for tens of thousands of years. And who are you to say that these demons and spiritual entities who have known how to manipulate many, many generations of humans before you, are things that you're strong enough to be able to handle yourself and come away from unharmed. So I'm not flat out against plant medicines. I think that there should be a much, much bigger warning sign placed on them. And I also think that people are being told too much that it is the way to God or it is the way to spiritual enlightenment, when in fact you don't need any of that for spiritual enlightenment. And the final thing I'll say, and then I'll shut My yapper is that I think that we do have access to synthetic compounds that can allow for a mind expanding and left and right hemisphere coordinative effect in the absence of some of the unpredictable weird dark energies that plant medicines carry with them. Sasha Shulgin, for example, did a lot of research on some different synthetics that can have similar effects to things like psilocybin and DMT without necessarily the unpredictability of them. There are ways that you can get similar effects of ayahuasca such as farm auasca type approach without necessarily getting that natural organic plant medicine approach that, that demons and other entities seem to so favorably choose to interact with humans. And so I think there is a little bit more safety with synthetics. And even since publishing that article just to do my research properly, I have journeyed a couple of times with purely synthetic compounds. And the best way I can describe it is it's not as spiritual. There's not as much of a feeling of like God and angels or any entities in the room or anything like that. But you kind of get that same effect you might be looking for with mind expansion, like thinking in different ways, approaching business or personal or relationship issues in different ways, being able to control the experience with your breath, but not being distressed by some dark energies that I think are present with the plant medicine approach. And those, I think the technical term for them is clarogenic compounds. And I think if one were to mess around with a plant medicine esque experience that that would be a far safer route. Unfortunately, there's very few practitioners that do not mix the synthetics with plant medicine compounds, thus introducing some of the same risks that I'm concerned about.

Well, first of all, thanks so much for summing that up for us, just for the listeners and everything, because that's, it's, you know, it's, I mean it's really important, you know, for people to hear some sound bites here and there without actually hearing your entire thought process behind a conclusion like that. And I think it is important too because a lot of people are hearing that term plant medicine. Whenever you're talking plant medicines, you're talking about the classic psychedelic class, primarily the serotonin analogs, the atryptamine compounds like psilocybin, dmt, lsd, ayahuasca, anything that creates a super hyper perceptual altered state of mind that brings you either out of body or into a full blown trip state where you're highly vulnerable to both positive, healthy and negative unhealthy influences of all types And I think it's really important just even listening to that, just to let listeners know if you're someone who hears Ben's explanation of his current position on this and says, what are you talking about, Ben? You're talking about a lot of things, angels and demons and things that aren't tangible that we can't prove and sort of, you know, and you know, what am I supposed to do with this? Well, I mean, first of all, the first response to that is if you ever read Rick Strassman's book dmt, the Spirit Molecule, where he did this series of studies where they gave people dmt. And Rick actually pulled out of this research afterwards, I believe, because he felt it was irresponsible just to give people these compounds and see what happens. Right, right. Because they all came back having this hyper perceptual experience that, I mean, virtually every.

Patient or client within the study came back describing some form of a spiritual experience. So whether or not you think that these experiences are some hyper phenomenon of brain activity and you subscribe to the more reductionist perspective of consciousness, that you think that the brain is more of a generator of consciousness and anything that happens in our brain is just sort of an imaginary outplay soup of chemicals. Right, exactly. And it creates this sort of subjective experience that's all in your mind or you believe in sort of this sort of Rupert Sheldrake morphic resonance, you know, theory behind consciousness where you believe the brain is more of a receiver transceiver of consciousness, you know, where it's like a, you know, an antenna that's picking up things. And you know, people like Dennis McKenna have talked about this too. We actually really like. Well, well, first of all, let me say that no matter which side of the fence you're on there, the experiences are real. Right. And the experiences can have potential detrimental effects if they go wrong or if the person is either not well prepared or if they're in a situation in which the circumstances and all of the variables are not in place. And the problem is that you can't.

Fully ascertain it, or the shaman or the facilitator is not an upright person who has that individual's best interests in mind. Which was the topic of a recent 10 part podcast series by New Yorker magazine, which would be interesting to listen to about rampant sexual abuse and you know, and, and financial abuse in the industry, just because people are a little bit more manipulatable under the influence of some of these compounds. You know, it's also important to note that for People listening in who are Christians or who read the Bible. There is a term that's used in the Bible called pharmakia. That term directly translates into using drugs to divine with God or to divine with the spiritual world. That's actually a forbidden practice in the Bible, right? To go and say, okay, well let's take this pill or this compound and see what God has to say to me or enter into the spirit world. And I think the reason for that is God's pretty smart and knew that human beings might not have the capacity to be able to handle that with wisdom. And it's interesting also because it is differentiated from sobriety. Right? Sobriety is something that's recommended in the Bible, really commanded in the Bible, like temperance, not getting drunk. I think that's a, it's a great recommendation for societal stability and to not have people being plastered and wandering the streets at night having had too much beer or wine. But there's not that many people who have a deeply spiritual experience on beer and wine. And so pharmakey is actually different than drinking alcohol because it's a whole different experience altogether. But it's kind of like listed as in the Bible as like one of the more serious kind of like soul scarring mortal sins right up there with like cheating on your lover and defying that sacred sexual relationship or, or worshiping idols other than God, you know, or in this case taking drugs and exogenous compounds to commune with the divine. And so if you believe in the Bible and you as a Christian, I have to bring that up because I rely upon the Bible as my source of absolute truth. This is actually what got me down the path of researching this a bit more in the first place was because I kept reading that word in the Bible and I was kind of like ignoring it. And then I started to research it. I thought, well geez, every time I'm like journeying with psilocybin or having some type of mind expanding experience, which I had done quite often for, for like 10 years, I'm actually doing exactly that thing that's technically forbidden in my handbook for life. And so that's kind of. I realize not everybody follows the Bible as their guidebook for life, but it's important to understand that when the Bible says pharmakia it is literally referring to like going to the Amazon to do ayahuasca or taking a heroic dose of psilocybin. And for people who want to learn more about that, there's a fantastic book by an author named Robert or Forum I'm going to have my podcast pretty soon called, appropriately enough, Pharmacia. So that's something to think about also.

Yeah, I mean, it's all very interesting. And you know, as. As time goes on, even this idea, for those who are kind of even questioning the idea that this class of compounds could have the ability to take you into hyper. A hyper perceptual space to experience things beyond a normal state of consciousness and things that exist in other places in reality, it's becoming less and less of a theory. And it's actually starting to intersect too with, with, you know, modern science. I mean, we actually have mechanisms now, proposed mechanisms that really kind of coincide with what we know in quantum physics. Like, you know, for example, one of the mechanisms or the main theory behind what these compounds do and like, you know, people like Dennis Mc Kenneth talked about this a lot, is though, we think that they're modulating a process called sensory gating in the brain through these five HT2A receptors. And what that does is these receptors are the primary receptors that modulate what comes in, what information is allowed in from the environment. And by plugging into those receptors and temporarily disabling those receptors, it's opening the brain up to a like, like, it's like an antenna that all of a sudden it can get 5,000 more channels. Right?

Yeah.

And that's the main theory behind this. It's actually a really, really credible theory. And to some people that's a good idea because, you know, the idea of expanding awareness on being able. Whenever you're on psychedelics, you notice sort of micro details about your environment that you never did before. You'll stare at an anthill and look at all the intricacies and you can learn things under that. And so my perspective on it, because as someone, I mean, Ben and I both have had many, many experiences on all kinds of psychedelics. And like Ben, I've derived primarily positive experiences from them. So I went through this long period of time where I sort of believe that they were indiscriminately good because of it.

If it's good for me, it must be good for everybody, bro.

And it's one of those things that. But I also have had a couple horrific experiences as well too. And while I do say that where I can stand today, I reflect on those horrific experiences and learned a lot from them. There was, I think that whenever you're stepping into a hyper perceptual state, no matter if you think that it's sort of a reductionist circumstance or if it truly is hyper perceptual or interdimensional or whatever, the experience itself is still a realm that entails both great risk and potential opportunity. And so I have always been of the mindset with psychedelics after I sort of got out of that initial phase of taking them years and years ago, that, because I've seen it go both ways, that I personally would never tell somebody to engage in a psychedelic experience because as far as on those compounds, because I don't know all of the variables in which they're going to have a good outcome or a bad. And neither do they.

Right.

And so it is a situation. However, I do believe that there is a level of personal responsibility in all of this, that if a person feels drawn or called to a given experience and they have a positive outcome, then I personally am not going to shy them away from that in that sense. But I believe that's a personal, a personal choice that is between them and their own experience and whatever they consider to be the source of where life, life, you know, emanates from the intelligence, God, whatever. Somebody would put the label on it that, that has kind of been my like approach to it because I have seen a tremendous amount both, you know, a lot of the work that's coming out with maps and different things and like people who have, have benefited so greatly. I, I, I look at the psychedelics like, like this, I look at them like a tool. You know, for me, my life experience has shown me that the devil's in the details and context matters. There are some things in this world that are indiscriminately unadaptable and bad, like drinking a thermometer full of mercury or something, right. You're not going to get hormesis off that or adaptation. But there are certain things that aren't good or bad in my opinion. You know, they don't have a moral aspect to them. That the more dimension comes in with the application and the use. Right. And I'm at the point where I kind of see most of these compounds kind of like a scalpel, right? A scalpel can be used to save someone's life. In surgery under an emergency state, whenever you have to go deep into a wound to reset it, it can be a nasty experience. It can be hard, but it can go deeper and faster. It's a tool that can be used to bring about a positive outcome. It's the duality principle, immersing yourself in the darkness sometimes or, or going into a difficult experience now. But so it's, you know, A scalpel can be used to save someone's life, but the tiniest misstep, you can kill someone.

Yeah.

You know, so that's kind of where I see those tools. But like you, I love how you've re examined and that you're kind of taking this position of like and, and that you are kind of brave enough to just to tell people, hey look, I did it this way and I'm updating my perspective and I don't believe it's my responsibility to tell people to use a scalpel.

As you've noted, like it's dangerous. So you better have a really damn good reason beyond I broke up with my boyfriend or girlfriend or I'm trying to figure out what kind of career I should follow to do something like this. You better have some really, really good scrap supervision from somebody that you absolutely trust. And ideally, in my opinion, you should be using more predictable compounds than some of the, the pure plants such as the, you know, the, the synthetics. And I don't necessarily think everything's supposed to be safe and pleasant. Right. But at the same time I think that more people need to have a complete understanding of what they're getting into, comma, more people need to do the hard work. Chopping wood, carrying water, doing meditation and devotions and engaging in the spiritual disciplines and silence and solitude and study and journaling and breath work and all these things that people seem reticent to do because they know the easy pill popping route is right around the corner. But the way I like to think of it is this. When you take plant medicines, oh, you definitely experience God, right? Or at least many people do. You know, the full on light and love. And like I mentioned, very few atheists will use the plant medicine, come out the other end still believing that there is not a God. But there's a difference between experiencing God and truly knowing God in your day to day existence. Following God's law, loving your neighbor as yourself, following the ten Commandments and many of the moral foundations upon which our country, at least America, was founded upon. There's a tendency, I think, for people to get super excited from a plant medicine experience, kind of change their whole life, temporarily fall back into their old ways and then go back to the medicine at some point for a reboot. By engaging in the spiritual disciplines and doing the hard work each morning, even if it's just 15 to 20 minutes of devotions and a prayer at the end of the day, you're actually kind of engaging the equivalent of a daily exercise session versus a Gastric bypass surgery every once in a while. And so I do think that many people, people will turn to drugs or the plant medicines out of pure laziness and not wanting to do the hard work. And that's not everybody. But there's a certain element of the integrative process that occurs or is at least recommended after plant medicine that I think should occur for a very long time before plant medicine. And I think if people engaged in that, there would be far fewer people actually feeling as though they needed plant medicine. I mean, if you look at the Johns Hopkins studies on psilocybin and nicotine addiction and the success that they've had with the use of psilocybin for nicotine addiction, I have that entire study in my office. Reams upon reams of paper visualization and talk therapy and nlp, neuro, linguistic programming and all these things that people are doing as a part of that study, plus psilocybin. But guess what? They never actually did a study where they had people do everything except the plant medicine. And I suspect that if they had, they would have seen some pretty remarkable success in terms of nicotine addiction or nicotine, you know, staving up, nicotine withdrawal symptoms, etc. Basically what I'm saying is more people need to do the hard work before they turn to something like plant medicine. If they did, they probably wouldn't have as much deep a desire or need for that experience.

Yes. So yeah, I'll say a couple more things about this as we move towards wrapping this thing up. One of the main, you know, aspects of this conversation that I would just highlight more than anything is integration. Integration. Integration, Right. It's a huge piece that's missing in, in any of this like health and wellness, personal development, pursuit kind of thing. Right. And it comes down to a base core choice or trajectory in mentality, which is a choice kind of between victimhood and between personal responsibility. Right. They can't coexist really at the same time. And one certainly leads to progression of a person and personal growth and one leads to the victim circumstance replicating itself over and over and a person becoming more ill. It doesn't mean everything that has happened to you in your life is your fault, but it is your responsibility to deal with it. You're the only one that can change it. So it is one of those things like with, you know, the conversation around plant medicine, like I kind of referred to, I kind of see these really powerful medicines as really powerful, sort of like heavy duty use tools. Right. And just like any tool or just like any building block, right? If you're looking, if you're looking to rebuild your life, and your life is like symbolically a house that you're trying to build, you're trying to reconstruct it. You've got this empty lot that needs to be excavated first. You can bring in the tools and you can bring in the building blocks and you can just throw them in a pile. And then you don't have a house and you're like, okay, well then I'll just take more of it and throw it in a pile and throw it in a pile and then you've got a bigger and bigger pile of rubble that's worse than the clean slate that you had before. Right now you have no clue how.

To interpret or what to do with.

So a house is made out of bricks, but a pile of bricks is not a house, right? So the big piece that is missing in most people's process is the structure, the discipline, the integration to take any perspective and, you know, any approach that you take and responsibly actively seek to mold it into something that produces more fruit day in and day out. Right?

Yeah.

So this is a really, really important point with, you know, any form of, you know, therapy that you're choosing to engage in and to, and to your point too as well, just about the landscape of plant medicines and the risk and the benefits. I mean, it's going back to the beginning of the conversation, not to just talk about, you know, you know, kava over and over. But that was actually this class of compounds, whether it be chlorogenics or whether it be this sort of, this sort of landscape of subtle tools, like more subtle compounds that don't take you into this sort of super, you know, hyper perceptual state. I've found these to actually be more useful tools long term in many cases because of their broad tolerability. Because as where stronger psychedelics kind of shout a message at you, these more subtle compounds kind of whisper it. I mean, kava is certainly like the all star of my to top of my list. And you know, whether you're using a compound like that, whether you're just engaging in more disciplinary practices, I do believe that sometimes the best medicine is not the one that hits you over the head with a hammer or just throws the pile of bricks in a pile too fast for you to actually integrate them, but putting one brick slowly at a time and getting you in, into a state where you can actually apply what you've learned and not overburden yourself. And bury yourself in bricks, you know, so that you get smothered.

I agree. It's the concept of running 20 minutes a day versus a marathon once a month. It's the concept of, you know, doing a little bit of prayer each morning versus some deep weekend spiritual experience, you know. You know, on a very seldom basis. It's just this idea of chopping wood, carrying water, doing the little amounts of work each day. And I think that that's really what the human body and brain and spirit is better equipped to deal with. And obviously, we opened up a lot of different talking points there, and we're kind of back at the compound. You might hear the music in the background and everything. But what I'm gonna do, Cameron, is I'm gonna. I'm gonna kind of open up the discussion@bengreenfieldlife.com CameronGeorge I know you're going to put this out on your podcast as well, but, you know, as with any of my discussions, I would welcome people to. To engage, to jump in, add your own flavor, your own color, your own comments, because this is just an ongoing conversation. And I love to hear the perspective of everybody else, too. And Cameron, it was pretty fun walking and talking with you and hearing your perspective.

Oh, absolutely. Anytime, man. I love these conversations. They're why I do what I do, why we do what we do. I mean, at the end of the day, we're all one collective community that really just wants tomorrow to be better than today. And it's like, even if we disagree on micro things, I'm sure there's a lot of people that may disagree with things that I said or things that you said and some of these polarizing topics. I mean, what we're all really trying to do is we're really just trying to learn how to live life and to grow and to progress as responsibly and safely as we can.

Right?

You know, and, you know, it's always a learning process. That's why I love having conversations with you and conversations with anybody who's delved into these topics and has direct experience. Experience is delve into the research. And it's just great to get a conversation going too. And so with comments and questions and stuff, it's like we all have part of the answer, you know, maybe. And trying to evolve the conversation and.

A conversation dosed up with more kava than I probably ever had in my life and surviving, I'm pretty proud of. So you guys can check out the true kava as well that Cameron and I were talking about. I'll link to that in the show notes@bengroup life.com Cameron George Cameron. Thanks man. That was a fun chat.

Oh yeah, thanks, man. Anytime.

Oh wait, we weren't recording. No. Just kidding. All right, thanks for listening, everybody.

More than ever these days, people like you and me need a fresh, entertaining, well informed, and often outside the box approach to discovering the health and happiness and hope that we all crave. So I hope I've been able to do that for you on this episode today. And if you liked it, or if you love what I'm up to, then please leave me a review on your preferred podcast listening channel, wherever that might be, and just find the Ben Greenfield Life episode. Say something nice. Thanks so much. Means a lot.