The Scott Adams School - 05/27/26 DR. DREW!! Guest Professor.

You guys, you guys, welcome everybody. This is the perfect, uh, Dr. Drew first appearance on the Scott Adams School. You have no idea. It took a village and here we are. Look at Dr. Drew. So you guys, welcome to the Scott Adams School. We know we're late, but we've technically been live and reminiscent of Scott, there were technical glitches, needless to say, right, Dr. Drew? It was fun.

And, and we, we patch things together. We sort of, we're, we're half on the phone, half on Rumble Studio, half going out on the international web. It's great. It's, uh, it's, we made it work.

We did it. We did it. So just so you guys know, I, I can hear Dr. Drew in my ears, so can Owen, but Dr. Drew, his, um, hearing capacity through Rumble Studio wasn't working, so he's listening to me on my phone where I have conferenced in Owen, so he's going to hear us through his earbuds in the phone. But listen, it, it's the dream. We're doing it. So we're going to take a deep breath, we're going to have a simultaneous sip, and, um, let's do it.

Because we've learned that coffee is even healthier than we thought. How about that, huh? Yes, the recent science, New York Times reports, Scott Adams says that coffee is really, really good for you. So not only do we have the delight of the simultaneous sip, but we're all going to be healthier in a moment, those of us having coffee. And all you need to participate is a cup or mug or a glass, a tank or chalice or stein, a canteen jug or flask, a vessel of any kind. Fill it with your favorite liquid. I like coffee because it's so healthy. And join me now for the unparalleled pleasure, the dopamine at the end of the day, the thing that makes everything better, the simultaneous sip. Go.

Mm-hmm.

Yes. Science confirmed. I feel healthier.

Don't you?

I think you do.

Oh, and we have a doctor in the house about feeling healthier, so Do you feel healthier, Dr. Drew?

Oh yeah. Coffee. I, I've been, uh, watching the literature on coffee for 30 years cuz I'm a big coffee drinker and it only gets better. Looks like a healthier and healthier move. And I wanna thank my wife for bailing us out this morning. You got to meet her a little bit. Uh, she produces this whole studio and she's the one that got us to this point where we could actually do this in about 3 minutes. And I, so thank you for that. But I wanna, I wanna talk about something real quick. Because Scott Adams always talked about dopamine and the dopamine hit. Can I start with that?

Please.

So people have grave misconceptions about the dopaminergic system in the brain, like almost everybody. And I want to clarify this, and this is not by way of being critical, because everybody has this misconception. The brain has two systems that are completely separate, a liking system and a wanting system. Okay. The liking system is primarily the endorphin system. We like it. It's yummy. We get rewarded. It's where the opioids work. It's where the endorphins work. And it secondarily goes into the dopaminergic system. But the dopaminergic system is the wanting system. And what addiction is, is a usurpation of the wanting system so that even when you don't like the thing you're wanting, you keep wanting it. Cocaine is the Crack is the ultimate sort of example that people go psychotic, they hate it, and they just keep doing it until they, you know, end up, you know, doing crazy things. But they don't like it anymore. They don't like it after the first hit. They only like the first hit, and they know they're not going to like it after the second, third, fourth hit. And yet they— the one thing they'll describe it as chasing, you know, chasing that high. You know, they're not going to get back to that. They've tried it a million times. But the dopamine system is the part of the brain that says, do that again. And you don't feel anything else except a motivational state. Do that again. Do that again.

But that can be healthy too, right?

Well, of course, it's where survival and reproduction and eating and going to work and doing all the things that are priorities in life. You need that dopaminergic system creating the motivational states. People don't talk— Scott Adams used to talk about motivational states, one of the few people that would talk about that. But motivation is a key thing in humans. And by the way, something that, you know, Carolla and I always say, people that are left-leaning have completely left out of the equation of policy.

They—

it's like they don't understand human motivation. And the other side is saying, no, let's create policies that motivate people to do the right thing. No, no, no, no, no. That motivation. You're a tabula rasa. It's only what society puts in that matters, which is all BS.

So, so I am chasing some dopamine today, that is for sure. We do, we do so much coffee news on this program, which, you know, Scott Adams always did. So, you know, we're like, all right, let's keep it going. And Dr. Drew, do I have to take the creamer out of my coffee to get the benefit of coffee?

No, no, there is some thought of that, but no, I don't, I don't believe that. And, and by creamer, I hope you're not using all that, you know, the stuff, the crazy, you know, Coffee Mate and stuff like that.

I used to use Coffee Mate, and that's the only reason I drank coffee when I started, like, in my 40s, because I'm like, ooh, this is good. And then I've now switched to Chobani, so that's like a a regular, like, cream, but it has flavor. But it's like Chobani is more natural.

Okay. Because most of those coffee additives are sugar, corn syrup, God knows what else.

Yeah.

I remember I was in medical school. They were, they were, you know, saying, hey, don't let your diabetics use this stuff. They don't realize how much sugar is in it.

Yes, for sure. Owen puts all sorts of stuff in his coffee. He's my coffee hero. Tell Dr. Drew about your coffee.

I put in L-theanine and cinnamon. And creatine.

Approve of all of it. I, I take, I take theanine almost every day, uh, and I take creatine every day. And the cinnamon, I get, I get that. That's a good one. Nice additive. Well done.

Yeah, I mean, I think from what I understand, the L-theanine is supposedly something that'll kind of even out the caffeine, like it'll not make it so sharp and peaks.

Yeah, exactly. And that's the reason I don't take it every day. I kind of like the—

I need the spike, I suppose. Good to leave it out. And then creatine is kind of unrelated to the coffee. It's just healthy for you. I think that's the one that has like the most solid research that almost everybody should really be taking creatine.

All right, so what does it do, Owen? Is it good for women?

I mean, Dr. Drew could probably tell you better than me, but I think from my understanding, it's good for muscles, it's good for the brain, it's all everything.

Exactly, exactly. Muscle and brain and aging. So, but the controversy is how much, and I'm not clear on that yet. How much do you take?

I think it's half a teaspoon each time, but I might do it a couple times a day, so maybe a teaspoon. It's 1,000?

Take 1,000?

Yeah.

I mean, it might be 5 grams, but I know for the brain effects they tell you you should have 10 or 20 or something more than that.

Yeah, they get up towards 20. I take 10. I don't know about 20, or maybe I'm taking— I think I take— I actually take the pills because it's more, I don't know, even. The powder, I like the powders, but they really stir me up a little bit.

Mm-hmm.

Okay. Now we have a question happening in the chat. What about decaf coffee?

Benefit, but not, maybe not as much. Look, you're using chemicals to take the caffeine out. Why not just leave the caffeine in? I mean, it's, it's caffeine's harmless and that might be part of the benefit. So there's no doubt that the flavonoids and the antioxidants, they're a big part of the story. So I'd rather you do decaffeinated than none. But I think caffeine is going to prove to be a benefit as well.

Will I ever be able to smoke cigarettes again and it'll be good for me?

No. But people have grave misconceptions about nicotine.

Yes.

Right. They get there because we've done such a good job from the public health standpoint, which is a whole other topic for me, of making people fearful of cigarettes. Uh, they therefore believe that nicotine must be damaging. Nicotine is harmless. Harmless. It's the addictive component of cigarettes that gets you using the tobacco, which is the dangerous part of the cigarette. The tobacco, not the nicotine.

Oh, so, oh, okay. I never heard it explained that way. So the tobacco, do they add nicotine to it?

I'm sure they enhance. It's like what they're doing with weed. They enhance the effect to get you to get addicted to it.

Right.

More of it, of course. Yeah.

I mean, I think it was always in there, but yeah, they probably have like bred it, bred it to have more and things like that.

And the paper and the filter. And then if you're smoking Newports and all that stuff and they were like, oh, you're getting fiberglass in your lungs, I'm like, all right, I'm done, I'm done. So that was forever ago, but I miss it. I still dream about having a cigarette.

You smoked? I didn't. We didn't know that.

Oh my God. 1,000 years ago when everybody smoked, when it was like, do you want smoking or nonsmoking?

You don't look old enough to be a smoker, but, but, but be that as it may, to be in that world where there was a smoker versus a nonsmoker world. But, but be sure, talk to your doctor about it because you do, you screen things differently even with a 10 or 20-pack year history in your, in your past.

Well, so I'll reveal my age. Okay, you guys ready? Here it comes. 56. So I'm 56. And yeah, so I was around long enough for the smoking sections and the airplanes and the whole thing. It was, it was a vibe.

You were a teen smoker.

Yes, of course.

Yeah, okay, guys, I'm 67 and I, I know, I know of what I speak. I saw that too. And then I took care of all the people with the emphysema and the vascular disease and all that stuff. It was just terrible.

Yeah, yep, for sure.

I, I grew up with a whole family that smoked. My brothers and sisters smoked when they were teenagers, and my parents both smoked, but my dad did quit. Um, I think he put staples in his ears or something. I don't remember exactly what that was, but I think that was one of the treatments that helped him quit. And my mom, I think, quit and started again a number of times. I'm not even sure if she's fully quit yet, but she probably has at least cut down a lot. She's still around.

I want to thank you guys for— I forgot two things before I forget. A, thank you guys for doing Scott Adams School. I know he would be so delighted with all this. It's a gift, and I thank you for doing it. And I know the amount of dedication and work it takes to do this. And then to try to approximate what Scott gives us, I know is just impossible. I get it. But thank you for doing it. And the other thing I want to bring up, just make sure I don't forget, those of you in California, make sure you vote for Michael Gates for Attorney General. He's our only hope. Also, the controller— what is his name? Somebody's going to have to look up what the controller options are. And I'll tell you, the guy, he's got a name like Bud, but he has got an exceptional plan for getting the budget right here in California. These are— they call it the golden ticket. They're our only hope. We've got— if you can't get the rest through, please, those two guys through, because—

oh, wait, tell us more. So this is for attorney general. But tell us—

the comptroller. Give me the— give me those options and I'll tell you who the guy is you should be voting for. But in general, so, so I was in— I, I had— I've had so— because I worked in a psychiatric hospital all those years, I've had so many frivolous lawsuits you can't even imagine. And this one, was another crazy one where it was a patient I had never seen, not my patient, but because when the patient was discharged, the patient— the nurse peeked her head in the door and said, patient's been discharged. And the doctor who I happened to be sitting with said, great, thanks. And she documented in the chart, Dr. Blum and Dr. Pinsky aware of discharge because I was sitting in the room. Now I'm in the lawsuit, and the lawsuit was completely frivolous. It was a wrongful death for a guy that died in hospice. Explain that to me. Anyway, it was dismissed quickly, but I had to go through many, many, many, many, many hours of depositions and all the crap that disrupts your life. So I'm sorry that Marcel is not here today.

I would love to talk to him. We are too.

Yeah. But my attorney was this young guy who was really good, and I kind of got a relationship with him. Fast forward 20 years, he shows up. I do a show that my wife produces called Ask Dr. Drew at 2:00 on Pacific on Tuesday and Thursday and, um, 4 o'clock on Wednesday. So we'll be doing it at 4 o'clock today. And, uh, this guy turns up, he's the city attorney for Huntington Beach. He comes on my show because he's been suing Newsom like 30 times successfully for all the overreach of government. And Huntington Beach is just like this, this oasis in California. And turned out to be the same guy. And so we developed this, this friendship, and about 2 years ago, he goes, I think I can get attorney general. I think we can do that. Bonta is a nightmare. He's not even doing lawyering. He's not even doing his job. We got to get him out. And now he has a very good chance of getting in.

Wow. So you guys, I posted about him last night, I think it was. Please share the post, tag your California people, you know, reshare it, get the word out there. Dr. Drew knows. Listen, the doctor has spoken. Go ahead.

And look at what Bonta's wife is doing, who's in the assembly. She's proposed a bill to make it illegal for investigative journalists to investigate fraud in California. Are you aware of this, Bill?

Wow.

Oh, and you must be aware of this.

It's amazing that they can even propose things like that. I don't understand. I mean, how can you come out in favor of fraud, like, just blatantly? I don't understand it.

It's like, well, Newsom did. Newsom, as soon as the fraud was— was exposed, he went, it's racist against, um, Armenians. You're being racist.

Not—

not— there's fraud going on. It's Armenians, by the way, are certainly not a minority around here. All of our friends are Armenians. There are more Armenians living in Glendale than in Armenia by a long margin. And so, you know, that's not racist.

It's just so out of control. Like the, you know, the stat that came out that Somalia's fraud is bigger than their GDP and in Somalia and like, but just for like, you know, you hear about the president of Mexico being in the pocket of cartels, but like at least she's smart enough not to say, um, yeah, I am. Like, at least, at least she says no, no, that's not happening. And, and, you know, with the things that Newsom and this other person is doing, it's like, what? You're literally saying you want to prevent people from stopping fraud? What exactly is your agenda?

What possible logic could you have?

I don't think anyone buys that it's racist.

I know, but the racist card seems to work for a lot of people still. They're very, very brainwashed. Which actually, I wanted to ask you about Dr. Drew. Like, seriously, how— this is a big loaded question, but How do we cure these people with TDS? Because we know whoever the next Republican president is, it's going to be that syndrome. It's not, it's not a Trump thing. This is, this is a political thing. Um, because I always say if there was social media and all this stuff going on when, when George W. Bush was president, it would be the same exact thing, but we just have a bigger reach now, unfortunately, with with the, uh, social media. So, but it is a problem because we've like just put our sanity aside and are just believing any nonsense. And you can't break these people of their addiction to hating Republicans and politicians. So what do we do?

Owen, didn't you address this like last week? Weren't you trying to talk about how impossible it is? Yeah, uh, And I— this is why I love Scott Adams. He would calm me down on all of it by giving me strategies to look at it and think about it. And I— it would seem so much more manageable the way he presented it. By the way, that's why if you present little— not just the whiteboard stuff that Scott did, but present the little pieces of video of his, his, his previous parts, it's a public service to have just go cull through and find the gems and play them for us. I mean, that's— we need more of that, number one.

We have—

we need more of him. Number 2, I used to listen to a podcast called You Are Not So Smart, and it was about— it was kind of the first thing I was ever exposed to as it pertains to persuasion. I, at the time, was several years ago. I became obsessed with flat earthers. I'm like, how would I— how would I deal with that person? How do you— how frustrating. Little did I know that the whole half the world would become effectively flat earthers in regards to many things, COVID and TDS and all these things. Scott Adams. And that podcast was making the case. They talked about the backlash syndrome, which may or may not exist, where you can convince somebody on a narrow topic, but they'll backlash in other areas. Like, you convince someone that a measles vaccine may be a good idea, but then they'll double down on their anti-vax beliefs for everything else. So he made the case that the only option is to discuss people's worldview. Because if you really go at these things that are sort of organizing principles for how they see the world, including their social relationships, it's really hard. It's really hard. And I use a lot of what's called therapeutic wonderment. Just, you don't come at people. That's when all the force fields go up. You just use lots of wonderment. Like, I wonder why. I wonder, is it possible? I wonder what you're thinking. Of course, you know the answer in your head, but you just still ask questions and people can't help but expose things about themselves when you use— that's why it's called therapeutic wonderment.

But this is like an actual disorder, don't you feel like this? I feel like the TDS is like, you look at someone like Sam Harris, we always go to him as an example because you're like, here's someone who's seems like they're so smart and whatever, but he can't see what, what happened to him right in front of his face.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I have been reading extensively about mass psychosis, true believers, behavior of mobs. I started when social media came around. I started seeing the mob action and I kind of predicted it in my book on narcissism, which I wrote. God, I don't know, 12, 14 years ago. It was kind of a follow-on to Christopher Lash and some of the other things that have been sort of predicting the narcissistic turn. And this book was based on some research that I did with a friend of mine where we showed that, yeah, indeed, particularly celebrities are terribly narcissistic. And the narcissist and the celebrity-ness seeking celebrity was an attempt to heal the narcissistic injuries of childhood. Of course, that doesn't work. But we also showed that there's been a narcissistic turn everywhere. Like, we are all much more narcissistic than we used to be. In 1850, it was debated whether narcissistic personality existed. Now we know it exists. There's no doubt about it. But we all have some of it now, right? Uh, and one of the things that narcissists do is to manage their aggression. They collectively form little big or little mobs and focus their aggression outside of themselves on a scapegoat. So this is something that René Girard talked about, although he didn't have the narcissistic piece in there. The scapegoating mechanism is real, and it is a function of mob behavior. And that's the mob formation. And the gratification of mobs is to some extent, in my belief, related to the narcissistic turn. You see it when there's a lot of narcissism around. So I became obsessed with 1789 in France because that's where this all really got going. And same old stuff, same thing we're seeing now, same phenomenon precisely.

I think part of the problem with TDS is just that it continues to be reinforced all the time by media and by politicians and all these things. So I think it is a mass psychosis, but I think it's really hard to crack. Either individually or at a population level because you're fighting this continuing wave of propaganda that's against you.

Well, let's go back to that because I totally agree with you. But the way, using Matthias Desmet's frame on mass formation, there is about 20% true believers. So it's important to understand who the true believers are and they're the problem. And there's 10% of people like us who raise their hand and go, "Hang on a second.

Whoa, whoa, whoa.

What's going on here?" and the true believers have to crush the, the, the dissenters, the question marks. Our job is to get that 70% in the middle that just want to keep their head down and be left alone. We need that group. You're not going to— the true believers, you're not going to really get on board. But the people just want to get on with their life, be left alone. That's your target. And I'm noticing with the Spencer Pratt thing that They've been hard to get because the Overton window has been so narrow. And Spencer Pratt just kicked open the Overton window and started saying things I've been saying forever. And literally people went, oh, you can do that? Oh, why aren't we doing that? If you can do it, why aren't we doing it? And that pertains to everything that's screwed up in our governmental systems. And we have people elected now who are not interested in governing. I think you mentioned this yesterday. Somebody said this in the show yesterday or maybe last week. They're not interested in governing. They're interested in representing. They want to represent. They want a place at the table. They want to be representing. Good, but not going to help us when we're in really, really serious trouble. And in this town, It's gone to the point where it's negligent manslaughter. Let's call it what it is. We lose 6 people a day in the streets here.

Wow.

And it increases every year. And these are people that could be treated, could be saved. It's negligent manslaughter. And Karen Bass's solution was, we need social workers and we need to give the meth addicts teeth. Social workers, they are not— social workers are doing the work with the homeless. They are not— I can't say this loud enough— they are not trained to do this. It's like asking a physical therapist to do surgery. These are the sickest psychiatric patients, as sick as you get. It needs psychiatrist, neurologist, infectious disease doctor, internist, people who have trained for years to be able to manage these cases, not social workers. They don't even know what they're looking at because they've not been trained. And this— I said this in a, in a big national meeting of county representatives about 2 years ago, and the whole room went, oh, they just, they just gave me social workers. It's always how we've done it. I go, yeah, well, stop, stop. They don't know. They can't do it. The scariest things that these people say to me is you got to meet people where they are. Are you kidding me? Like, I'm going to— what are you talking about? Meet people where they are? You got to get them where they need to go immediately or they will die. Meet people where they are. It's a strain. It's like, oh, you need an abdominal obstruction. Well, let me meet you where you are. Let me—

how's your—

nonsense. This is total nonsense. And it is captured the governmental agencies.

I've been hearing you talk about this situation, this crisis for years. You were the one that clued me in about the plague and everything else. I'm like, what are we doing? And you said these people don't want to live inside. They're addicts. This is where they want to be. Like, they can't even help where they want to be. This is it. So I have a question. So it's multi-part. First, the way I see Spencer is I keep saying 2015 Donald Trump. It was just like, he's just, yeah, I'm not a politician. There's problems. I know how to solve them. I'll put the people around me to do it. So my first question to you is, if Spencer asked you to help him head up how to fix this problem, would you accept?

I would advise happily. It's not that hard. One of the biggest problems we have is a deficiency in resources and beds. Because this is another thing I think people need to understand. Let me tell you a little story here. The, the, the hit— speaking of derangements, there is a derangement as it pertains to the history of the state medical hospitals in this country. Reagan did not end the state hospital system in this country. The way it went down is, you understand, psychiatry was in the grips of psychoanalysis for 50 years. We were the only country in the world that did that. Vienna, the Austria, they did it for like 5 minutes and then they abandoned it. This country trained medical doctors as psychoanalysts for 50 years. And as such, the psychoanalysts started believing they knew the solutions to all society and all ills and all everything. And the first 3 heads of the National Institute of Mental Health were psychoanalysts, wouldn't— 2 of which had never set foot in a state hospital or even a psychiatric hospital. And one had set foot in one summer, but really had no idea what he was looking at because he wasn't even a doctor. He was an entomologist, if I remember right. And so here were guys that had no understanding of chronic psychiatric illness who had never been in a chronic psychiatric hospital setting. They decided much in the line of this post-structuralist, which Read about the poststructuralists and their impact on everything academic and political. Now, they just— the French from 75 years ago, who the French today will have nothing to do with, the philosophers from 75 years ago destroyed our academic system. But look, look at, um, oh, what's her name that wrote that book Sexual Personae? She talks about this a lot. You can find her online talking about it. So Michel Foucault took the position that psychiatric hospitals cause mental illness. And these psychoanalysts grabbed on to that and decided their job needed to be to dismantle the state medical system, which was a system that had built over 150 years, was terrible in some states, but was excellent in others. And the reason the states had to do it is because the Constitution doesn't provide any provision where the, the federal government should have anything to do with mental health services, particularly back in the day. So they found a sympathetic ear in a new senator who had a sister with chronic psychiatric illness. His name was John Kennedy. And when he became president, they really went at him. Rosemary had had a frontal lobotomy. It destroyed her life. It was Joe's pushing doctors to do it that got it done. Remember, lobotomy was much like— it was— it was psychosurgeries. I can tell you a whole story about how that stuff gets carried out, whether it's the opiate crisis or COVID or vaccines or psychosurgeries. There's always an evangelical physician who gets a hold of the regulatory system and the medical societies and professional societies and then the reimbursement systems. And on it goes. Think Deborah Birx. That was a good example of that. I keep digressing because these are such big stories for me. So when he becomes president, they, they throw down in front of him the Community Mental Health Act. That act was to dismantle the state healthcare system and replace it with community mental health centers whose stated goal was preventing mental illness, not treating mental illness, preventing, which is something we don't know how to do to this day. The last signature he put before his fateful trip to Dallas was for the Community Mental Health Act, which set the state hospitals on the path to destruction. Okay. The community mental health centers which replaced it were abject failures. And in the meantime, millions— hundreds of thousands of patients were disgorged from these state hospitals with no plan for them. They went to the streets, the prisons, and the nursing homes. The community mental health centers did nothing for them. They were completely unable to manage this because they were busy doing prevention, which they couldn't do. And Reagan ended the funding to the abject failure of the community mental health system, which was not the state hospital system.

So it sounds a lot like the setup of the Joker movie, right?

Exactly. Exactly. So that's that story.

By the way, I think the person you were looking for, for a sexual persona, is Camille Paglia.

Camille Paglia. Go listen to Camille Paglia and some of her talks. Listen to her talk to Jordan Peterson. The two of them together, it's magical.

Oh, nice. Okay, good. So do we need to bring back mental institutions?

Oh, absolutely. We need— we are— that's what— that was sort of what prompted me to tell you this long story, is we have a deficiency in the capacity to manage these cases. And we have to, we have to create acute settings, chronic settings, residential settings. I know RFK has been flirting with this for a long time. I've talked to him about it many times. He wants to set up these sort of work farms for the next 1 to 2 years of rehabilitation after people are stabilized. He doesn't quite get how far gone we are and what's going to be required to get people in condition where they can tolerate going to the work camps that he imagines.

Do you think people would go to those facilities if they were available?

Sure. You have to— back to the motivational thing. Addiction is a usurpation of the brain's motivational system. Survival, everything else takes a second, goes down in orders of importance relative to the use. Impulse. They're— the addict is not aware of this. They have something called anosognosia. Anosognosia is literally a biological block of insight. They don't see what's happening to them. You have to— it's the same thing that dementia patients get. It's the same thing schizophrenics get, same thing that stroke patients get. You have to take them and you have to motivate them. Well, what motivates addicts? Well, one thing is to go, hey, you can't stay here. You have to come over here. That's all you have to do and they'll follow you. I've got a nice place for you. Sorry, you cannot stay here. Let's go. You have to motivate them to do something or they will die. The usual motivations are loss, loss of a child, you know, a loss of their health. They believe they're going to die, which, if they're lucky enough to get through that, inevitably happens. Loss of freedom. That's a very big motivator for people, and we don't do that anymore. And a period of time where they at least clear sufficiently, the anosognosia settles down and they can start to see what's happening to them. And we can start to work on their motivation to get better. But it takes work to do that. It's very time-consuming, it's very slow. And you have to have a unified front of people saying, you can't do that, you can't keep doing drugs. I'm sorry, you can't steal. Sorry, You can't slide down. If you're sick enough, do you want to lie down on the sidewalk and stay there? No, no, we got to, we got to help you. We'll take you on.

Yeah.

If you don't do that for a dementia patient, let's say a dementia patient is running around in the streets, you're guilty of patient abuse. Mm-hmm. If you take a schizophrenic with the same symptom complex running around the streets and you take them by the hand and say, come with me, you've now just kidnapped someone. So California has got to change its laws so we can do that. It's the other thing we have to do.

Well, I mean, that was my concern is, as I understand it, in many states, if not all of them, there's pretty strict limits about involuntarily committing someone to an institution that you can do it maybe for 24 hours or 72 hours.

I'm not talking about that. I, we do need to— we in order— I'm talking about, well, two things. I'm talking about motivating people to get better, to be much nicer environments than they're staying in and to expand the category of gravely disabled, which we've actually done in California. I was advocating that like 8 years ago and they actually did it. It's unfortunately not being applied properly yet. But you have to say, you know, if, say, if you're so ill that you don't know where you are, you can't— we don't know what's going on. You're lying on the street with an open wound and you don't want help. We're going to have to help you.

Mm-hmm.

Great. You're gravely disabled. Gravely disabled used to be the main reason we held people against their will because it was a broad category that let us help people. That got closed to really nothing where you couldn't even use it. It's being expanded again. But that's got to be expanded so again we can keep people long enough that the anosognosia settles down and the insight clears. And it takes time, and it takes time.

And they're also creating a public hazard to everybody else. So, you know, you can't, you can't be sitting there with like open wounds and laying in feces and rats running around. And, you know, it's— what are we doing? It's just so weird. Like, you never thought you'd see this. I mean, I saw something similar back in the day in New York, like in the '70s. It was pretty rough, um, until Rudy—

yeah, way worse here than that was.

Yes. Oh yeah. And I just can't even believe it. So, um, I also think if you can enforce laws— okay, so I was thinking about it last night, you know how, um, everyone's being let out of prisons and this and that. They're like, well, our prisons are too crowded. And I don't know, this is just my free-floating thought, and I'm like thinking, well, aren't they also crowded with a lot of illegal immigrants also? And don't they need to go back to where they came from so we they can open up the prison cells for the actual criminals that are citizens. So everything's just so broken. Um, and I love just hearing common sense of people that are, you know, follow the laws. If you're not here legally, you gotta go. And if you're sick, you got to get off this. You can't do drugs out in the street in front of people. And by the way, now I'm gonna sound like a little ninny, but New York, with everybody that goes there now, is like, it just smells like weed everywhere. You're not free in New York from not breathing that smell in. And I just feel like we're just like run amok with, um, drugs everywhere. And I don't know, we didn't grow up like that. We didn't see this like that. We heard about it. So I just feel like, follow the laws on the books. Why is this so hard to do?

Well, it's legal to— it's legal to do drugs and traffic drugs here, just so you know.

And traffic them? And—

oh, as long as you do certain amounts, it's legal. And up until recently, it was also legal to steal up to $900 a day to support your habit.

Oh, they stopped that now?

Well, they've closed— slowly closing some of that stuff, but, but still, it's still dumb the way we do it. Yeah, it's, it's, it's dangerous. It's killing people.

I'm just always baffled by the policies in California. And the theme I use for that is it seems like California's government is hostile to its citizens. It's like everything they pass seems to be like, what can we do to make people's lives worse here?

Carole used to always say that. He'd go, uh, good on homeless, bad on taxpayers. He would say that all the time. Yeah, the taxpayer particularly— I mean, 10% of this country, this state, pays like 90% of the taxes, and those are the ones that are treated absolutely the worst by the state.

Wow. All right, so we got problems, you guys. And I know President Trump is very much on board with opening, uh, mental institutions. He said it for years.

And listen, listen, let me say one other thing. You keep saying mental institutions. Let's call them what they are— psychiatric hospitals.

Okay.

Hospital setting. Right. And they are not One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. Ken Kesey wrote that book in 1959. We're coming in on 75 years ago. That is— and people thought they were watching a documentary when they watched that movie. They were not watching a documentary. And psychiatric hospitals are nothing like that today. They are lovely. They're like hotels. You would love to stay in one. And many of them have grounds and facilities. And we take residential settings later. Believe me, it's a vast improvement from where they're living. And once they get there and sort of involved with it, they usually engage. I did this for 30 years. I ran treatment programs. It's not hard. You just got to put the right structures in place and off you go. It's not hard. We just have to do it.

And Dr. Drew, as someone who has consumed your media forever, going back to, you know, Loveline and all the way through Celebrity Rehab and all of that, you have always shown yourself to always be the same, which is caring and compassionate and authentic. And that's amazing that through everything you've seen and been through and fame and, you know, people knowing who you are, you have just remained the most— I, I tell people, what you see is what you get. That is Dr. Drew.

And you're very kind, but, but I want to say something about that, which is that That was largely built on how much I loved the profession and how important we thought— my generation thought this job was so important. COVID blew that all apart. I know. COVID changed me a little bit because I watched my peers behave in ways that were just astonishing. And I'm seeing the system, particularly primary care type, the most important kinds of caretaking, just being eviscerated and decaying and falling apart. And the physicians don't seem to care, and they're all employed and they're just doing what the employees tell them. I'm really worried about what's happened to this profession. I don't at all see the calling that we had, my peer age, my peer cohort. We talked about how important the job was. We thought we were doing the most important job in the world. It's not that anymore. It just isn't. And then public health has completely run amok. Who knew that there's a wrinkle in our Constitution that gives them fiat authority in an emergency? That's got to be closed. That has to stop. Most of the public health officials are either not doctors or haven't practiced medicine or pediatricians and trying to make decisions about adult medicine. They are not in a position to do so. And here we have Francis Collins on the record saying Well, we made, we made no consideration of the harm we might do. Oh my God. And indeed, public health has no mandate to do no harm. That's shocking to me.

Shocking. I agree. And that's part of watching you through. I remember when COVID started, how you were, and as things went along and I watched you— I say this every day, it's a superpower when the information changes, when you get new information and it's not aligning, you have to change your position. And Dr. Drew did it in real time. I watched the whole thing, and again, it just makes me love and appreciate you even more because I watched you do it. You didn't like hold on to a position because you didn't want to be embarrassed. You're not that guy. Um, so I'm gonna just make a strong pivot for a second because I cannot believe how fast this hour is going. Um, I have to play this clip. This was on, um, this was on Locals, and this was when you and Greg went to visit Scott Adams, and it's just a little clip Jay Plemons made. But let's just watch this together.

And then, Erica, full disclosure, I can't hear the clips, so I won't— I remember going up there and stuff, so— but go ahead and play it.

Okay.

And you mentioned this morning that Trump could be blocking Clinton— I mean, protecting him from— and I thought, oh, that makes perfect sense to me. And I had this feeling like, oh, I'd want to protect him too, you know what I mean? Really?

Would you?

I, I would want to. I wouldn't know if I would. I would want to.

I I would feel if Clinton had not come after me.

Hear it now. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. I would repay him. It wouldn't be just that though. I thought, you know, it— oh boy, I'm going to say something pretty controversial here, which is that if you— something like if you separate him from Hillary, you really see how awful Hillary is relative to him. Oh my God, yes. And because he was a great administrator, interesting dude, you know, sex addict, whatever, good for him, you know what I mean? But he, but he really, but he, but he ran a great administration and he's a super bright guy and he wanted to do all the right things and he's not going after Trump and he's, you know, being a, a statesman. He's really the consummate statesman. And he just liked to bang the chicks. He did like, as he likes, he likes the chicks. He likes the chicks. They got, he got into it for the chicks.

He's just like— he is so nuts.

Oh my God, great. Thank you for playing that. Um, I'm, I'm surprised at how clearly I said that, and I agree with myself, uh, about, about Bill Clinton. Uh, and Greg and I, we speak all the time about our, our, our gratitude, uh, that, that we took the time and we found the time, we went up there and we did this thing with Scott Adams. It was— I don't want to say it too strongly, but it was kind of life-changing. I mean, it was such an important moment for the three of us. Greg and I, our friendship tightened up. I felt like I reached out to Scott Adams in a way that was meaningful to him by coming up there. And I get deeply, you know, grief. Grief grabs me when I see that clip. Greg and I, our relationship formed around Scott Adams. He used to do a one-night-a-week show on Saturdays, and I started doing that a little bit and actually pulled the producer aside of that Saturday show years ago. And I said, hey, this is a hit 5 nights a week. You got to roll it out. I'm telling you, it's going to work. And about 2 years later, they did. We were on that show, was on a break. I think we used to do it live. And Scott goes— I had mentioned persuasion or something, and I had found Scott Adams on various podcasts talking about it. And Greg goes, did you ever— you know, he does a Periscope every day at 7 o'clock. Periscope. Isn't that funny? Every day at 7 o'clock. You watch it? I go, no, I'm sort of like, what's a Periscope? And I made sure I figured that out and went and listened. I'm like, oh my goodness, this is fantastic. And that's where I started with Scott. I can't even remember how I got to meet— it galvanized Greg and my relationship, but I can't remember how I met Scott. I think it was through Corolla. I think I met him at Corolla Studios because I made an issue of him with Adam and he goes, oh, he's coming in. I went, I got to meet him. And then have you heard my crazy story about our trip to Greece?

Yes. Yes. You can tell it though, that a lot of people may not have. Yeah.

So he, he's here, Scott Adams, every morning. And I would listen to the show. 7 o'clock is sort of when I'm showering. And so I would have the show always going in the shower. And I hear him talk about how he's going on the trip of a lifetime. And he sort of vaguely told, you know, the what time of year, like what time of the month, vaguely gave some dates. He didn't say specifically. And I thought, And I just had this deep thought where I just went, he's going where I'm going. We're going to the same place. It was like, I just was like, then I was like, no, come on, Scott, you can't be. Let me. So I DM'd him or something. I go, hey, where are you going? And you go, Santorini. Oh really? We're going to Santorini. When? Exact same dates. Exact same date on the same airplane. On the same airplane. So we spent several days together. We'd had several dinners and stuff. He and Christina were there. At the time, and we had a great time. And that's where our relationship really formed.

Oh, yeah. He told us all about that. He's like, you'll never believe this, you know? And we just— we're like, we were with Dr. Drew. That's so fun. So it's like it was just a way for you to get together to have that time, which, you know, is always so precious for everybody. Everybody, you know, your time is precious. You know, you just don't know it.

I think Scott's life was somehow designed to convince him that we're in a simulation.

Well, you know, and sometimes I would call him and I go, I'd go, I'd go, Scott, you're doing something. I feel it. What are you doing? And he'd go, I'm always doing something. I'm not going to tell you. And I go, well, you're up to something. I can feel that. I can feel the tectonic plates moving. What are you doing? And, you know, inevitably he would bring us somewhere with his persuasion.

And I would laugh and be like, you know, you're like running the universe from your garage or from your computer, you know, and like he would be workshopping something, and then, you know, 2 days later you're watching the news, you're like, oh, I would just like turn to my husband, I'm like, just FYI, Scott did that. And he'd be like, really? I'm like, yep, he did that 2 days ago. You know, it was crazy.

I think he invented the term TDS. I mean, certainly the acronym. I first— I heard Trump Derangement Syndrome was from him for sure. I don't know, maybe you heard it somewhere.

I think he was also the one who came up with 3D chess. And people still use that either, you know, in positive or making fun of it, but they, they still use that term, like 4D chess, 5D chess, all came from Scott Adams.

Yep.

Oh, I love that.

And you know, he— oh, and he used to refer to you a lot. Um, would he call you? Would he sort of— would you guys communicate regularly?

Or honestly, mostly it was just online. I was sending him stories all the time. I mean, we did chat and, you know, from time to time. And I did go to visit him in person once before he passed, and he was, you know, on the way down but not nearly at the end of that, so he was pretty healthy. Relatively speaking. Um, but a lot of it was just, you know, I, I started trying to get his attention online, and some of that was hit or miss based on the technology. And eventually I got him to give me his DM so I could send him stories that way. And that's mostly how we communicated.

You and Naval were people that he really relied on for, for insight. For insight.

Wow, Owen, you and Naval. When do you hear that?

Well, maybe he'd offer— he'd kind of bring you guys up in the same way, at least, if not at the same time.

I'm humbled to hear that.

Heck yeah, that's beautiful. Um, so Dr. Drew, what— every— or so what, what are the things that we have to do as a takeaway right now? Oh, and I do want to mention, just so people know, that Ken Paxton won yesterday in Texas. And so now, who is it, Owen? It's that, um, but they have to get out. I can't— Talaricio, something like that. Yeah, so that's the guy they want to get out now. So, so, and we have to focus on California, you guys. Um, we have to make it better for Dr. Drew and for Marcella to be living there. So Dr. Drew, whenever you want a message to get out, like, this is a, this is a group of your warriors also. We're all Scots to break So let us know and we'll amplify. Okay, we'll amplify whatever you need.

Did we— did we find it? Let me— I'll have to look it up because you guys didn't tell me who the controller— we got to get this guy.

I did have that. It's Malia Cohen on the Democratic side and Herb Morgan on the Republican side.

Herb.

Herb. I always want to say Bud. Herb. Herb is the guy. Herb. I've talked to him. I interviewed him. I met him. That's your man. He will— the controller, it turns out, can really do things. We just don't— we don't have government officials that govern. It's just an extraordinary time. We either have incompetent or unconcerned with government.

Yeah, it's insanity. What and what other things? I'm just trying to read the chat. I know you guys have questions for Dr. Drew. They're going by so fast.

I can't quite see it or I would help you with that. It's across the room for me.

Okay. They want to know about the controller. Oh, what else, you guys? Sorry, they're going by fast for me. Um, and Dr. Drew, what do you want to tell us about— oh, I have a question. So your Ask Dr. Drew show, is that live?

Yeah, it's a live stream. You can get— it's also up as a podcast and a YouTube channel, whatnot. But, uh, and it's on Rumble. Uh, we do very well on Rumble, so please, we, we love Rumble. Rumble was really— I was being canceled and shadow banned everywhere for daring to talk to people that now run the NIH and the FDA and the HHS, for daring to, quote, platform these people. That's a word I never want to hear again. If you use the word host, eliminate the word platform. It's used as a pejorative and it means nothing. A platform like a— two doctors discussing on a livestream, two doctors talking to each other about their opinions. That's platforming. Take a hike.

Somebody asked, is President Trump's health a concern?

I mean, look, he's old. He's— I pray to God I have the vitality and health that he has at his age. He is old. I want it now. Yeah, right. And the thing about men is the wheels start to come off the wagon in their 70s. It just happens. Stuff goes down. So stuff is going to happen to him as an older man. Is it going to impair him? Apparently not. I mean, he just performs at a level that's ridiculous. I wish I could not sleep like that. And I remember his first— you know, I gave a talk at the White House about homelessness during the end of the first presidency, and I got to meet Azar, the HHS director. And he's an accomplished guy, used to run Lilly, he's a lawyer. And he said, you know, this guy is amazing. He goes, I call him at 4 in the morning for a decision and he will immediately give me that decision. And he doesn't care day or night. Call him if you need input or decision. Call me now. And he said that's kind of an extraordinary superpower that he has as a, as an executive.

Yeah.

And he will do anything, any time, 24/7. And you kind of hear Rubio and Kennedy kind of talking about that and it inspires them. And they perform better as a result.

Oh, I don't— I'm not going to relitigate Scott's health, but so— oh, so how are you feeling about— I hate talking about politics all the time, but moving forward, do you have a preference over Rubio or Vance? It's kind of like the boxer's briefs conversation.

I don't. I don't. I think that's an extraordinary guy with an extraordinary story, but I'm so impressed by Rubio. I am so impressed by him. So I don't know. We'll see. I don't— I'm not forming opinions yet. I am just— I'm a— I'm really a Rubio enthusiast. I'm a fan of J.D. Vance. I'm an enthusiast for Rubio.

Do you think his—

translates—

do you think his transformation is genuine in the sense that he used to be kind of perceived as sort of this deep state guy? And then under Trump, under this term, he seems like a completely different person.

You know, my wife has been a fan of his forever, as has her best friends who are Cuban. So I've been hearing a lot about him for a long time. I don't know what to make of it. I think he's just a good executive and he was a senator and dealing with the system handed to him. Look, if 10 years ago you were a senator, you'd have to be a part of the swamp. What are you going to do? You'd have to operate within it. I don't know. It's a good question and we'll see. I don't— I'm not making forming opinions yet about, about any of that. But, but you did say something about Scott's health. I want to talk— at least remind everybody, get your PSAs, man, after 50 and after 40. You have— if you have a first-degree relative with prostate cancer. I have prostate cancer. I had a prostatectomy 14 years, 13 years ago, something like that. It's a manageable illness when you get it early.

Hmm. That's true.

That's an example of it getting away.

Don't be afraid. It's a simple test, right?

There's no digital rectal exam anymore. It's just a blood test. And Black men more than anybody tend to present with more advanced and more aggressive disease. So it's really important. We do a horrible job with African-American men. So it's really important to you guys and to the rest, it's equally important to not have to suffer with the illness because it's so manageable early. I'm the example of that.

That's great advice. One last question from Mike Burt. He wanted to know if you still give Susan daily foot rubs.

Give daily what?

Foot rubs.

I do. I actually do. Yeah. If your wife is into it, I recommend you provide such. It's simple. You lie there when you're watching TV and do the foot rub. It doesn't hurt anything. It's no sweat for me.

Amazing.

It's easier than shoulder rubs. It's easy. Just take the foot, rub it. Big deal.

That was a great question, Mike Burt. Yeah, and listen, everybody loves a good foot rub. Dr. Drew, don't avoid us because Rumble's a pain in the neck, okay?

Okay. Yeah, no, I won't. It's really the time of day for me, and I've got so much going on right now. I can't believe we're so fortunate. I'm so grateful for everything in my life. Gratitude is an important emotion. It lets you know you're on the right track. And I have just gratitude up and down. And I've had this extraordinary— I just thought I'd be seeing patients in an office, in a hospital setting my whole life. And I had this extraordinary adventure Never planned it. Never, never. It just happened. And I just would— it's all been a big improvisation where somebody goes, hey, we're going to do a TV show. I'm like, how do you do that? Let's all walk in that room and see what that's all about and try to use media to do something good. And it's been a great privilege. And this is with being with you guys today is part of that privilege.

So, you know, you're part of this family for sure, as you know. So we We hate having to give up this hour now, but you guys, let's always be thankful to Scott Adams and Shelley Adams for allowing the show to continue. Did you want to say—

thank you for bringing— and thank you for bringing Gad Saad in here last week. That was one of the best Gad Saad appearances ever. And he's a— he's a friend.

He—

we meet in Laguna when we can. He's— he's an extraordinary guy and he really was on full display. So listen to that pod if you haven't seen it yet.

Oh, we enjoyed him. Thank you so much for saying that. Yeah, we had a great time with him. So again, thank you to Scott Adams and Shelley Adams for allowing this. This show to continue. Um, and as always, uh, you guys, we do a closing sip to our beloved Scott, who we miss so, so, so much. And I know he's beaming seeing you here with us today, Dr. Drew. It means a lot to all of us. So a closing sip, you guys. Be useful to Scott.

To Scott.

Bye, guys. Thanks, Dr. Drew.

My privilege. You guys, bye.

Thanks, Owen.

All right, you too.

Bye. Let's see if we can turn off Rumble. I have to hang up my phone calls. Oh my God, that's so funny. Okay, you guys, that was so fun.