Jill W: [00:00:00] Hello, welcome to TSC talks. Your host, Jill Woodworth. Here. I am so glad to be with James Davis. He is a, he is a volunteer among other things, but my basis of meeting him was a volunteer and the leader of bay Staters for natural medicine. Just to give you a little background here before we get started, I’m going to read this, but.
He’s done tremendous work. I’m really excited to have him here. And I’ll tell you how our paths crossed in a minute, but he’s the leader for Bay Staters for natural medicine. They’ve mobilized over a thousand Massachusetts volunteers to decriminalize Somerville, Cambridge, north Hampton.
East Hampton pending resolutions in Boston, Burlington, Vermont Amhurst, Worcester, Needham, Salem and Medford. These resolutions… resolutions, decriminalize growing and selling plants like magic mushrooms, which reduce the risk of opioid addiction. 55% after a single experience and have been proven to, to have [00:01:00] statistically significant benefits for PTSD and depression.
The resolutions also end all controlled substance possession arrests, referring people for addiction treatment and committing our cities to invest in these services. Let’s see. And your day job, you’re a legislative director to a math, Massachusetts state rep the chairs, the legislator’s cannabis committee, and formally did legislative work for the city council of Berkeley.
You have a master’s degree in public administration from USC and a BA in economics and history from Columbia and your views do not necessarily represent your employer. One thing that I read in what I was researching you a little bit, was that your personal connection?
Actually, no, I’ll let you go into it. So yeah. Why don’t you tell me a little bit about yourself and about the advocacy work that you’re doing and we will roll from.
James D: Thanks, James, thank you so much for having me, Jill. I’m really excited to chat and I am really [00:02:00] grateful for the support you showed for bay Staters.
When we were just a 10 follower Instagram group. We only started about a year and some months ago. And at that stage, We were just weirdos, emailing our city councils, sharing our stories with plant medicine. We took the philosophy that we didn’t need to fundraise a lot of money. We didn’t need to even have a website active to just start doing this advocacy work and start speaking from the heart.
And you know, what this has snowballed into is really, really awesome and beautiful and all the lessons we’ve learned along the way and advocacy. About the medicines themselves just from meeting so many people whose lives have been changed with this psilocybin experience or an MDMA experiment experience or an LSD experience.
So just really honored to be here and really glad that we met too. Yeah. Thanks. Yeah. To tell you a little bit more about who I [00:03:00] am. I know you mentioned all those credentials Yeah, they really don’t define who I am. I would say. So I, I grew up in Kansas in a trailer park that was on the wrong side of the railroad tracks.
So all the middle-class kids lived on one side a Walmart super center. And then I lived on the side that was mostly liquor stores and churches and run down streets. So. I was I was raised by my mom my biggest inspiration in life and she Growing up was always working multiple jobs to make ends me really inspire me to work hard as well.
And then she was dealing with a lot of intergenerational trauma herself. Her father’s had served in the Pacific theater, the Korean war and Vietnam. And. There was just a lot of, a lot of trauma that she had picked up from childhood and then relationships stemming from, from being a young woman and just growing [00:04:00] alongside her.
It really shaped me into the person I am today and made me really compassionate to help people who are struggling in poverty who have that intergenerational trauma. So that’s why I think fundamentally this line of work emerged from.
Jill W: That’s really beautiful. I know I’m sure that was not, it was a tough upbringing in a lot of ways, but I, yeah, just to have your mom, just to have that connection with your mom.
I, I remember when I first met you and I should say, I don’t know how our paths crossed specifically. Maybe through social media, but I ended up doing a little bit of advocacy work with James and I’ve had my own plant medicine experiences that have been transformational. Really. I don’t want to say saved my life, but really gave me the insight I needed to.
To kind of take charge and not to be, not be a victim and be a participant in my, my life. So I, you know, [00:05:00] I’m so supportive of this, I think it’s, I think it’s great. I want to say everybody, but if it might not be right for everybody, but for as many people as possible. And I do want to say as a special needs mom we’re, we’re kind of trapped in a lot of situations that can’t, that don’t necessarily resolve.
And I think that having a tool like this can give you an ability to get above. The, the trauma that you’re actually you’re experiencing trauma. Either whether you’re witnessing it or you’re impacted by something that’s happening with your kids or the follow-up from relationship problems. And you know, this tool has been tremendous as well as I’d say cannabis as well, but the plant medicines, the plants, thank God for the plants.
Yeah. So how’s the, you know, you guys have done amazing since I last was even involved. So I don’t know if you want to talk further about that or move into a more personal discussion and talk about like what your life’s been like you gave a little bit, or [00:06:00] any particular lived experience that have moved you into, you know, further understanding why you’re here and what you’re doing.
Kind of thing.
James D: So I’m going to try to actually combine those questions, a segue segue into the ladder. So where we kind of left off in early 2020 is we had finally heard back from Somerville city councilors mantra. The old mantra goes, you know first they ignore you. Then they laugh at you, then they debate you and then you went and that’s the exact formula formula we have seen across the state with plant medicine is you’re not taken seriously at first, but then when they’re receiving an email a day, From people who are very credentialed and very serious about how this has changed their life, they start to pay attention because the city counselors see a lot of human suffering in their own communities and their own families.
Many of them privately struggle with these [00:07:00] issues as well because they’re human beings too. And so when we finally got that meeting with my Somerville city counselor at the time, We were going to approach it the same way we approach our weekly meetings and that’s to speak from the heart. So every single week we meet online at 7:00 PM.
And the first half of the meeting is making people feel at home giving them the space to talk about plant medicine or their thoughts on it. If they haven’t done it, what makes them passionate? What brought them to the meeting? Because having that people first philosophy where your story is, your biggest tool for advocacy has served us extremely well.
You know, we do then talk about strategy and then we take the actions in those, those weekly meetings, their community action hours. But we try to model that philosophy of speaking from the heart and why we care our why when we meet with lawmakers, because you [00:08:00] will never change the world with Jess grafts or just statistics or.
Even just logic because human beings are not logical creatures, we’re emotional creatures, we’re creatures whose you know, mood impacts judges decisions if they’ve had lunch yet. And so
Jill W: even that’s an important thing to mention. Sorry, I had to add that. Yeah, we are. That’s how we are designed to operate people we’ve forgotten.
James D: And so if we hear from people who have. Lived experiences with depression or suicidality or PTSD or they’re, they’re coming from a veteran background, whatever that is. We have many different types of peoples in Bay Staters. That’s that’s what convinces lawmaker makers to go forward. So in that first meeting since we were vulnerable, About our past and why we cared.
Our city counselor was vulnerable and told us that he had lost his mother to cancer just a few months before, [00:09:00] earlier that year. And this came up because psilocybin assisted therapy has an 80% clinical response rate for people struggling with terminal illness, anxiety, and there was not a dry eye. In that zone, knowing that if we had just met with him six months before we could have provided him and his family, a lot of relief, a lot of relief.
And so that’s what this work fundamentally is about is persuading as many people as possible that these are not drugs. These are. Substances that were scheduled by the United States, federal government for political purposes. And it was a horrendous mistake for our mental health and for our communities.
And that’s, that’s our guiding star is to educate people and inspire more people to try to. Try these plant medicines too. [00:10:00] Wow.
Jill W: Yeah. Yeah. I I’d say just from being involved in your organization, you took the time with me personally, to hear my story. I think you were one of the first person, people that I told my, you know, my true story from, you know, pretty much from start to finish and you listened and just were so engaged and vulnerable yourself.
I really appreciated that. The one that meeting that we had with our low, my local reps, because I actually did, you know, did use microdosing at a certain point and it, it definitely shifted, shifted some deep depression that I was dealing with and I felt really strongly that they needed to hear about it.
But yeah, just leading with the heart is beautiful. I just. Such a gift. And so glad to hear about all your, you guys progress so far and I’m sure you’ll keep going. So keep going. Yeah. Tell me, tell me more about personally and you know, like we said, any controversies around it, I think when you said not to segway [00:11:00] too much oh gosh, I just lost my train of thought.
Yeah. Why don’t you go into into.
James D: So fundamentally the reason why bay Staters were city by city, having already decriminalized for, and, you know, notable ones, like the ones I mentioned, Amhurst Bedford, say one Revere Needham and Wester with a veteran version. Burlington Vermont next month, Boston potentially in a few months.
Amazing reason why we are going city by city is because people, first of all, trust their local lawmakers more than they do in abstract government or the medical complex. And then we also want to have these measures stand as a hedge against corporate lobbying on the state level, because there is hundreds of billions of dollars at stake on how we legalize these plants.
So, for example, there’s a camp that’s trying to just get patented synthetic versions of these [00:12:00] molecules. So they can start selling it to very, very wealthy people. It’s going to serve maybe the top 1% of income or. Then there’s a corporation called maps, the multidisciplinary association of psychedelic studies that co-ops the language of social justice.
They pretend to be the good guys. They pretend to be against the patent people, but they’re trying to overregulate how you can sit with a care provider to use these medicines. And so the end result of that lobbying could be. That you have to only use this with a licensed therapist. Well, here’s who that leaves out their own research says that most people can’t afford the co-pays and deductibles associated with mental health care, even if they have insurance.
So, you know, 30 million Americans don’t have insurance. Then we have folks who just don’t trust the medical complex. A lot of people in this country, their first interaction [00:13:00] with a mental health care system is a call from. DCF, the department of child and family services. There’s people extremely skeptical of the medical complex that don’t want to sit with a therapist to do this.
They’re more beneficial doing it at home or with a trusted friend. Then there’s folks who, you know, they’re from Haiti, they’re first or second generation immigrants that. There’s no therapists that look like them or talk like them or understand culture the way they do, which is why bay Staters is providing free trainings for people on how to trip sit..
So we can create a Legion of people who are informed about plant medicine and can hold space for others and help them process it therapeutically as well, without the need for this expensive licensing, that’s going to make an experience that should be. Basically free up to $200 versus, you know, tens of thousands of dollars like these corporate actors are lobbying for.
So with that [00:14:00] mission in place, that’s why we go city by city and just try to educate as many people, which you know, is what I’m partially here to do today. So,
Jill W: yeah, that’s, that’s fantastic. And I’ve kind of followed the psychedelic movement and I see that. I see how like, Big pharma and corporations want to get in there.
And I’m always , whenever somebody posts about how great that I’m , no, no you’re taking away the, like the experientials and that there can’t be like a power structure to it. And I could see personally that’s one of the things that attracted me to it is I didn’t have to go see a doctor.
It was something I could facilitate at home. You know, I knew enough about, I was able to research enough, had people that I could talk to about it. And do it myself and yeah, I did not want to go near a therapist or any of those systems, so, yeah, that’s great. That’s really, and to
James D: bring this, to bring this back and to the personal level, I really don’t [00:15:00] like most therapists.
So I had an experience in college where. My mom had almost gotten killed in a mass shooting that happened in my hometown. And my friends had told me that they saw police cars outside the trailer park, where I grew up. It turns out that the mass shooter had fled to a different park. I didn’t know that.
And I was in New York at the time for school and I was just calling my mom frantically. She was a working late shift at Walmart. Couldn’t pick up and I was just, I had a mental breakdown, just worried about my mom and. You know, I needed a lot of love and a lot of care of that situation, but instead I had a micro economics exam at 9:00 AM the next day I opened up that exam.
I’m prepared very diligently. I love economics. And I could barely even read the questions because I was in such a compromised emotional state. So I told the professor [00:16:00] what had happened, you know? He’s not my therapist. He’s a, he’s a micro economics researcher. Not exactly the most empathetic people, but he says, no problem, James.
You’ll just need to get a note from the mental health department, the counseling treatment center so that you can retake the test. So I went in found myself a therapist. I got a guy I thought, oh, you know, a guy whatever. It was really one of the first times I’d been in therapy and I told him what had happened and why that had compromised my ability to take this test.
And he seemed to be listening, listening pretty intently. He had his degrees on the wall. His master’s degree has PhD and all these books and he looks at me and he says, well, I know a lot of students at this school are struggling academically. Have you kept a calendar?
Jill W: That’s helpful.
James D: And so, you know, I told him about [00:17:00] PTSD and, and other, you know, just genuine hardships worrying for my mom’s safety growing up.
And then this situation where she could have been killed and his advice was to keep a calendar. And I pulled out my calendar and I showed him and I said, I do keep a calendar. Very nice calendar. And. He really had nothing substantive to say, because he never wanted for anything in life. And I’ve, I’ve spoken with a few very, very gifted therapists over the years.
Not necessarily like person to person about my problems, but a lot of therapists feel the same way about their own colleagues. They don’t think that they’re very empathetic or. That emotionally intelligent of people, particularly for folks who didn’t grow up like them who couldn’t afford master’s degrees, who didn’t go to college.
And so until we. Have a mental health care system where we train people from all [00:18:00] backgrounds, how to hold space for each other. You’re going to have really ineffective talk therapists who are just kind of going through the motions with a lot of people and that’s, that’s pathetic. It doesn’t have to be that way.
Jill W: I’m so right with you. So right with you, my own experiences with therapists over the years have just been nightmare. Well, some of them are nightmarish, but just, they just could not get the, lived experience piece is so it’s like such a part of like, what I’ve tried to do with this podcast is, you know, we’re just missing so many pieces by not tapping.
The rich lived experiences from , situations like yours. Growing up that way. You know, that looking at all these degrees on the wall and just the human experience and what we gain from like the bottom being at the bottom are those are, those are the deep experiences that give us the. I don’t know what, I don’t even know how to put it.
They give us the connection and the inner strength [00:19:00] to, to walk through this crazy world. So, yeah, I am so glad that you are on that same page because I feel so much the same way. I see it with my kids who have been in counseling. They’re just not meeting them where they’re at. So yeah, that’s, that’s phenomenal to know that you have that, that impetus behind basically.
James D: And maybe, maybe one idea I interject into the conversation too, is I wouldn’t say that everyone who has been through the ringer in life is going to be a good mental health counselor. There’s plenty of people who maybe, maybe there’ll be more empathetic from the experience, but then sometimes life kicks people so hard and so much that they actually become less empathetic and more closed off.
So it’s like, It’s about finding people who have this X factor, where they really just do care about others and can listen and can listen. And I even feel like some people who have had it relatively easy can still have that [00:20:00] factor. You can still be extremely compassionate and helpful people. Just a lot of the folks who end up with that therapists license and, and all those masters degrees.
Unfortunately, a lot of them just don’t have that X factor and then. You know, for a lot of vulnerable populations that need someone that understands their trauma to some degree, or we’re not serving them a great example of this as I think like fewer than 5% of therapists are people of color in a country that is like very close to becoming like majority minority I think like in the next few years, and it’s just like, You know, you can, you can still have empathetic experiences despite your eye, your identity, you know, for sure.
But it is probably pretty helpful to talk about like racism with someone who has experienced racism. Right, right,
Jill W: right. Yeah. It seems like, get it away from the professional idea of mental health. More [00:21:00] of a, like, I don’t want to say pal mentor. Instead of this charging and structure and systems that just don’t.
Apply to humans, they applied to
James D: systems. So yeah, there’s a, there’s a guy in Japan that makes, I think like over probably a million dollars a year or something. And he basically just goes on, walks with people who are lonely, who like go to dinner with them and just like be their friend for like an hour.
And people will pay out the nose for that. I think that’s just a symptom of the rot that our economic system has like thrust on our society. It’s like neighbors used to like sit in their stoops and, and talk to each other. We used to get together to play cards. We used to live closer to our families. We didn’t spend as much time [00:22:00] with our face and our goddamn phones.
Oh my God. We had community. People were in bowling clubs, they were in unions. They were in you know, clubs and societies. And they would, they would find a meaning in their lives from that. And for whatever reason that dopamine hit, we just get from just scrolling our feeds and our social media has replaced a lot of that community.
So base Staters is also trying, we throw in person events that are coming up. It’s been a little harder, cause it’s just been really cold. And then. A lot of people are concerned about on the Cron. I’ve been less concerned, frankly. And then, you know, having that in-person experience it’s, it’s irreplaceable and it’s something that all of these lockdowns restrictions just the past two years has just, we were already on a slow decline to becoming the loneliest society we’ve ever been.
But then that just accelerated it, you know, 10 fold and we got to get back from now rehab. [00:23:00] Yeah.
Jill W: I definitely feel the same way. And the guy you mentioned in was a China, but yeah, I love the idea. I don’t like that he’s charging, you know? Yeah. Just the idea that something so simple can be as useful as spewing your guts to someone.
Really get it. So, yeah. And the connected, yeah, I feel like it’s all been lost and I see it with the kids , and the schools it’s so much more focused on the digital experience and. Not the in-person activities. For instance, my son who really academically is not been able to succeed in any way, major disability issues, but what’s really lit him up and what’s been most beneficial for him is this farm program.
He said, where he goes out and he works on these farms and gets his hands, you know, on the animals. And. It’s just, I, yeah, it’s like back to basics back to these, these things that used to be part of our, part of [00:24:00] our everyday lives. And, you know, not saying that everything is bad, that is with the digital, the tech, but there’s, it’s really out of balance.
James D: Yeah. Absolutely. And I’m so glad that’s helped your son just being able to also just go out and do things that are, that are physical and real. It’s. It’s so therapeutic for so many,
Jill W: right? Yeah. Why spend time in a classroom beating your head against the wall to learn, to, you know, read at a certain level when , the time’s up, get out there and start being in it the end in life and yeah.
Yeah. So that’s
James D: a little simpler. And for some folks, it’s like, we have this public public education system where we’re giving kids Ritalin and Adderall, because they’re just kids. They don’t want to sit in a desk all day. They want to go they’re human beings. They want to go run around and it’s, it’s like we’ve forced kids to adapt to school instead of adapting school, to like meet kids where [00:25:00] they’re at and.
We did the same thing during the pandemic. I just don’t know. I know a ton of kids in my family who their parents were just like, you you’re saying what you want to kill yourself. That is, that is not the young man we know. And it’s just because they were so isolated and so kept away from other kids. That, that trauma that they experienced is gonna take a long time to heal.
And I hope, I hope that things like plant medicine can, when they’re a little older, help them process some of that. And then we just need to be the change we want to see in the world. We got to create that community, that in-person community, where you go meet your neighbors, you go shovel their snow. You go say hi to them.
You actually introduce them. So when I, when I first moved to this neighborhood in summer, I was like, I’m throwing a party for the neighbors. I was adamant. I’m like, I’m throwing a party. I’m inviting all of them. No matter their age, no matter what they [00:26:00] look like. So I just printed off the invites. They were pretty funny.
We wrote like custom jokes on the back and we just distributed them all over the neighborhood neighbors that had lived here for like four or five years had never met each other until they came to a block party. Wethrew having lived there for a month. So you just, you should just do that stuff. You should just like treat your neighbors and treat people in your community.
Think locally about how you can help people who are lonely. Because having this like grandiose vision that you need to fix it internationally or fix it nationally, like you can’t, you can only look out for the people who were in your life and in your community. We’re doing the best we can here. We got some really cool events coming up too, if folks want to join to.
Yeah.
Jill W: Yeah. The one other thing I wanted to hit on is misconceptions that people have. I don’t want to keep you here too long, but yeah. Misconceptions that people might have as we’re talking [00:27:00] about this. So freely, because we both have such a positive experience. What are some of the reservations, you know, and how do you counter those in your, in your advocacy?
And.
James D: Yeah. Well, one thing you said earlier, Jill, is, is I don’t think this experience is for everyone, right? It’s a good point. So folks, folks who have had negative or manic episodes using cannabis, I think that’s a pretty good screening alternative that if you feel out of control you know, getting high.
That you might not feel very comfortable having, having a trip experience, right. There’s other ways to help process life that are really mindful and helpful as well. Pick your medicine, you know, instead of picking your. Okay. I will
Jill W: say, I have to add there that, you know, with cannabis, I had a really intense I call it a spiritual experience, but it was defined as a psychotic break.
But I was on a bunch of other medications. So I think sometimes looking at what somebody else’s, you know, either going on [00:28:00] in their life or consuming and it wasn’t the right time for. Continued to pursue cannabis then, but something in my head, I was like, wow, it’s that powerful? I’m able to clear or see things that I could never see, like it, the seed was planted.
So sometimes I guess a difficult experience can be, can be integrated,
James D: but the spot on spot on and I’ve definitely had There there’s been a few times where I’ve taken more edibles than I, than I really plan to. And I was definitely in a Headspace though. Very strange, but also very therapeutic and very enlightening.
Just thinking about all the systems and identities and walls that we build around ourselves to stay sane. Right. You know, we tell ourselves I’m, I’m an American, I’m a woman. I may doctor I am from this city when these are all. You know, [00:29:00] helpful for us to ground ourselves and like construct an identity around ourselves, but you know, what, what does it mean to be an American?
What does it really mean to be a woman? What does it really mean to be any of these markers that we use to like, identify who we are and cannabis and plant medicine can at least temporarily help dissolve some of those walls in our consciousness so that we can think different. And the real work you mentioned integration is even when you’re having an uncomfortable experience in the moment on a psilocybin journey or with cannabis is just understanding the experience is going to be over.
And you can take that lesson and internalize it. I like to think of it as like, The talk therapy, you can just put butter on top of the toast, right? It’s just on top of the toast, the post to work, maybe it’ll melt a little bit. It [00:30:00] kind of affects your psyche, but this melts the butter. This gets the butter to soak into your subconscious mind a bit so that you can be what’s called neuroplastic.
You can have a little more flexibility in your thoughts. So here’s an example I love to get. On my first psilocybin experience, I was in Berkeley, California.
Very appropriate, very appropriate. I took maybe three grams of mushrooms. I was going to go hang out with friends later. They had invited me over and I was just sitting in a park and I decided to go on a walk down Shattuck avenue. And it was, it was early evening. It was very beautiful, the whites, and I just saw a lot of smiling, happy couples and people out on the town.
And the realization I had is that there’s a lot of work. That’s given out in [00:31:00] my wife by neighbors, by friends, by family, by coworkers that I had not believed myself worthy of receiving. I’d been turning it away. I just been saying, I don’t deserve this love. And then just like almost convincing myself.
It didn’t exist when I was just not realizing it. I wasn’t accepted. That’s a revelation that a guru could give you that you could see scrolling on Instagram that you could look up on. Good reads quotes. You know, it’s not that like profound on its surface, but still a Siberian allowed that butter to solve.
You’re not just hearing these mantras, you can actually kind of internalize them and break through the real walls that prevent you from believing things that can be helpful. So a lot of these spiritual revelations that you’ll have on plant medicine, they might not sound. Profound on paper, but what makes them profound is that you can internalize them and make them a [00:32:00] habit and a habit of mind.
Jill W: That’s great insight. I love that. Yeah. So true. So true. Yeah. I had a thought when you were talking, but again, I lost it. That’s what happens when you hit 50? And the other yeah. Controversies. I think one thing that I’ve experienced is I did a deep dive into the spiritual community. And I’m so on board with your idea or your discussion of identities and just being that we’re here, having a human experience, we are so much more than the physical, our physicality and just loving this community, but also a lot of people have.
Seeing a plant medicine as almost a crutch. And to me, I, I feel like I need to talk about this because of what you said in terms of just accessibility for, for humanity, for everybody. Are we going to leave everybody out because this doesn’t fit into the box of, you know, what’s going to, you know, like it’s, harshing our evolution because we’re, we’re using a plant medicine and really.
Possibly these [00:33:00] people that are thinking that have not had the same path and whatnot, and they don’t really understand the, the dire need for this sort of thing. So I don’t know if you have any thoughts on that, but I know you’ve got to get going and,
James D: oh, this is no, I still got some time. So the. Really, really excited to be here too.
I was having a conversation with a pastor in Dorchester who runs a runs. You know, he serves one of the biggest black churches in the city of Boston and a lot of folks. And communities that were really harmed by the war on drugs are the most for humanly anti-cannabis right. They all drugs are bad.
Stay away from them. They’re not good for you. And you know, one point that really got through to him, And it gets through to a lot of people who are in that mindset is psilocybin can help [00:34:00] a lot of people who have unhealthy relationships with anything, whether it be biting your nails, whether it be a addiction to sex or pornography, to people who use cannabis as an emotional crutch.
And I know some of those people, I was that person in college to some degree. And even though there’s not a. As strong of a chemical, a basis for addiction addiction is something that’s shaped by our environment and by the culture that we are in. And so aside Ben, when it’s combined with real changes in action and the types of people you surround yourself with and what you actually do with your time, it can help you break free of a lot of habits that are self-destructive.
And so when you mentioned. Dependency psilocybin is kind of nice in the sense that it’s inherently non habit for me. So if you try to have a [00:35:00] larger macro dose experience of three or four grams of mushrooms, your brains serotonin receptors, won’t let you have that spiritual experience for at least a few weeks, sometimes months because your brain builds up a tolerance.
So it’s almost, it’s almost mystical and how that science works and that you’re not supposed to use plant medicine constantly. You’re supposed to use it as a, as an occasional therapeutic to help process things. Microdosing is a little different. It’s also, non-habit forming a, you just take a 10th of a gram or so every few days it boosts your mood slightly.
It makes you feel. A little more focused. It it’s different for every person. But the nice thing about siliciden is the unlike cannabis. I think there’s a much lower risk of, of dependency. [00:36:00] Absolutely.
Jill W: Yeah. The intentionality, I think that piece of that, I still use Canada. I use cannabis and it’s just, and it’s easy to fall into habits where you’re using.
All the time and you know, that’s okay too. I just refuse to put judgment on it. I think that it’s a path. And if that’s your, your one thing that you’re using to like chill and get through your day, and it’s not really hurting things, maybe you’re not as checked in in some ways as you should be or whatever, but I think it affects everybody differently too, but just.
Yeah, but I do see that that can be, you know, I found personally that it, it works better for me when I, when I am in a little more intentional and Kind of not so not as frequently, but that doesn’t always work, but I do my best.
James D: Yeah. And we, we have a a really good guide on how to prepare and do these experiences in a safe way.
Folks who are [00:37:00] on SSR rise. It’s difficult because a lot of times you can’t feel siliciden experiences. And unless you weaned off of accessorize for two to six weeks. And so that’s difficult, it’s really hard to come down from those types of analytical drugs.
Jill W: Yeah. My motivation in some ways I think I heard it on Joe Rogan or something about that interaction and being like, oh, I’ve got to, and I wanted to get off those meds, but.
That was a motivator for me that I could maybe have a better plant and theologian experience once I tapered off. And it was very true.
James D: So the worst drugs are the ones that punish you when you try to move away from them, you know, and I think that’s probably, you could generalize that through relationships too.
Like the, the best relationships you’ll have in life, they’re willing to let you. Too. They’re willing to give you freedom from them, but it’s the substances compounds, dopamine hits you, name it, drugs that, you know, [00:38:00] punish you physiologically for leaving. Those are the ones that you got to look out for.
That’s not to say SSRI is don’t help some people I’m sure that’s right. Short.
Jill W: Yeah, they’re a good tool. Short-term you know, I just think a lot of there’s a tendency to prescribe and then never follow any support with that. You’re oh, I’m on antidepressants. Are you seeing a counselor? This was my experience.
No, I’ve not seen a counselor. I’m just taking my happy pills every day. Yeah. I’m well medicated, but I’m not. Yeah. And it catches up with you physically, too. Cause they do. Long-term side effects, but before it gets too far, I want to ask if someone’s looking to pursue psychedelic medicine or, you know, get involved in your organization.
What, what can, what can they do if they’re listening? And they’re like, huh, I’m really interested in that.
James D: Definitely. So bass Staters is the Instagram handle, the Twitter handle, the Facebook handle. So it’s just app based data is our website is based Staters in M as in natural [00:39:00] medicine.org. And yeah, shoot us, shoot us a message.
Follow us. Cause we’re always posting new events. We’ve got a newsletter that I need to get around to sending this evening. That’ll have. You know, our next two upcoming events, we have a party against imperialism, which I believe is great. It’s the first Saturday of February and it’s going to be local community organizers, a lot of office groups, but a lot of people who are not leftist to just in my basement with drinks with good music and just good discussion topics.
So we can think about how mental health intersects with making sure. Entire global society better to because the war on drugs creates a lot of violence around the world that we’re privileged enough not to have to experience absent. Then we are having plant medicine Palooza, which is March 12th.
That’s a Saturday from about noon to 4:00 PM. [00:40:00] We’re going to have professional mushroom growers that have hosted these trainings before in Worcester. Teach us how to grow legal mushrooms. The asterix there is that legal mushrooms are grown the same way as psilocybin mushrooms. Got it. Then they’re going to teach us how to grow CAC di as well.
And then we’re going to. Classes on meditation and trip sitting. So trip sitting is this practice of sitting with someone else while they have a plant medicine experience that could be with cannabis or it could be with psychedelics. So we’re gonna have. People who have helped hundreds, if not thousands find therapeutic relief there and learning trip sitting is useful.
If you want to do an experience by herself as well, or you want to give some inside tips to a trusted friend that you want to just be there and sit by your side trip sitting is. Yeah, you’re not talking the whole time. You’re doing a lot of insider work. The person who is [00:41:00] on a siliciden bin is they’re not talking to you constantly.
You’re just kinda like bringing them water if they need it or bringing them a blanket. But sometimes they do want to talk about harder feelings that they’re going through and in the moment, so. Yeah, that’s going to be a lot of fun. It’s also a plant-based barbecue. So we’re going to have really awesome food.
I want
Jill W: to go to that. When is that? I got to get on your newsletter. Dan.
James D: That’s a that’s March 12th, Saturday, March 12th, noon to 4:00 PM. And that’s at my house. So 43 Paulina street Somerville, right by Davis square.
Jill W: Wow. James, I’m just blown away by all the work that you you’ve done. And, and the. And faith daters wow.
I have to off, I love it
James D: so much. And last last quick plug is every Thursday without fail because people like consistent meetings. They’re always at the same time. So every Thursday at 7:00 PM Eastern time anywhere [00:42:00] you’re listening from, even in other states, You’re welcome to join our virtual action hours.
So we start out just by introducing ourselves, you know, it’s almost like talk therapy at the beginning just to be in a space where people, like,
Jill W: I felt that when I was
James D: staff. Cause you can’t talk to your boss about it. You can’t talk to your mom about it in the same way. I mean, maybe some people can, but and then we talk about strategies.
So like what we’re doing politically with these cities and then the last you know, half hours. So we actually take action together. So you get to leave the meeting, knowing that you’ve changed the world
Jill W: because. Got everybody kind of pushed us to, to do it, to be like, do it now, you know, follow up and do it right away.
Don’t just say, you’re going to do it. I love that.
James D: And it’s easy to do when you’re inspired by other people in the moment. And you’re all, you’re all doing it together. You’re right there. And you’ve. You know, already given yourself [00:43:00] 30 minutes to take some easy actions to email some lawmakers call your local lawmakers.
And you’ve already practiced what you’re going to say, because you’re just telling them your why you’re telling them the exact same you know, the stuff you told us on why you care. That’s what you’re telling to the lawmakers too. So it’s, it’s pretty fun and easy. And. We adapt it to where people are too, because a lot of folks are not involved in politics or that scary.
It doesn’t have to be so scary. We can make it easy to get involved.
Jill W: Yeah. Phenomenal, even, you know, a good way to get involved and then take it to other ways to get involved, you know, other ways of advocating. So I learned a lot from the experience of being involved, I definitely want to get back on your newsletter list.
I’m sure. Yeah. Thank you, James so much. I going to take a little time processing this. We get it right. And share it all over and I’ll put all the links and where you can, where you can learn more and all that in the notes and go from there.
James D: So you thanks for your courage, Jill, to [00:44:00] like have this podcast and help so many other people you know, learn about cannabis and learn about these cool topics.
And I just really, I admire you and I can’t imagine how difficult it is to have, have have kids. Just take up so much of your, of your bandwidth, but you just love them to death anyway.
Jill W: Yeah. Yeah. It’s worth, it’s changed me in ways I can’t even describe, so. Yeah. Anyways, thanks so much and good luck and God bless and keep going.
James D: Thank you.
Jill W: Anything else you want to add? Talk to you. Okay. We’re done. All right.
James D: Sounds good. Bye bye. For now.