Michael Pollan on Psychoactive Plants, Chemicals and Us

Michael Pollan is an extraordinary journalist and thinker whose writing about food and drugs has educated and influenced tens of millions of readers. No book in recent history has done so much to enlighten people about the benefits of psychedelic-assisted therapy as his 2018 best-selling How to Change Your Mind. His latest book, This is Your Mind on Plants, examines three psychoactive drugs: opium, caffeine, and mescaline. But I first met Michael in 1997, when he wrote a prescient article about the political and cultural impact of California’s pathbreaking medical marijuana initiative, Proposition 215.

Here, we discuss why Michael's book on psychedelics has had such a transformative effect, and whether he still believes the new psychedelic revolution may be proceeding too quickly for its own good. He reflects on the challenges of writing about one's own psychedelic experiences -- and why caffeine is the one drug one studies not by using it but by abstaining from it. Few relationships are as complex and multi-dimensional as those between psychoactive plants and us humans, and few humans are as insightful on this relationship as Michael.

Listen to this episode and let me know what you think. Our number is 1-833-779-2460. Our email is [email protected]. Or tweet at me, @ethannadelmann.

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