OODA Loop PTSD Breakthrough: Marine Aviator, Ibogaine Therapy, and The Mission Within

0:00What am I getting at? The underlying message is very simple then. There is no layout. Unless we can eliminate the feature just sighted. Well, I don't know. We don't know how to do this. There is no layout. Jay, Jay Copeland, welcome to No Way Out. Yeah, thanks guys. Good to be here. We know you're going to fit right in with our conversational approach to talking all things. You know, wherever the road takes us, it's good to have another marine on board, but also an aviator, too. We're all, we're all, we all have some common bonds in this conversation here. Yeah, absolutely. Although I will say I had more fun jumping out of airplanes and flying them. Then flying them? Well, and I guess I'm a slightly envious in the sense that it's like freaking freezing here in your back home in beautiful San Diego, which parts I love to. Yeah, it's not, it's not super warm today. Last week we had a really big

1:02warm spell where it got like 75 degrees every day. It was beautiful. Today it's probably 50s. Look, maybe 60, but the warmer the more you guys are. Yeah, Manhattan, really. And fixing to get a whole lot colder. So why don't you paint us the picture of who you are and how you got here talking on this topic with a brother marine and a brother aviator? Yeah, sure. Thanks. Thanks for the opportunity to do that. I am now the CEO of Mission Within Foundation, which is an organization providing scholarships for veterans and first responders, taxes. Let's just call it alternative therapies for mental health, for emotional support. And I came to this role after having experienced a retreat myself at the Mission Within back in March of 2024. Prior to that, I was pretty much a disaster dumpster fire of a human being.

2:06I was I was a raging asshole and really quick to anger, had a lot of pent up frustration and a lot of guilt and self-hate that I didn't even know I had. Did a couple of tours in a rack toward the end of my career? I retired from the Marine Corps in late 2006 or early 2007. When I retired, I was the deputy director for advisor training at first Marine Expeditionary Force, a camp Pendleton, and had been asked to stand up Marsoc with a guy called Denny Halec. He was a two-star at the time. So I told Denny that, you know, respectfully, I was going to decline his offer. And to this day, he still reminds me. I should have gone with him to Marsoc, but, you know, I had met a gal here in San Diego that I was really interested in. We were having a good

3:06time surfing in the mornings and, you know, just hanging out. Things were great and I was going to end up marrying her, which I did. And we had a son together. And that's kind of when the wheels came off. You know, all the anger and frustration, guilt, self-hate started coming out in ways that were not acceptable. And after about nine years of putting up my shit, she finally threw me out. My son didn't want to have anything to do with me. I was, you know, I was a patient at the VA in San Diego. Great, great hospital, you know, affiliated with UC San Diego Medicine, which is a fantastic health system. But what they were doing for me, like so many others, just didn't work. You know, I had multiple TBI's, traumatic brain injuries. I was diagnosed with severe PTSD. And like I said, I was a dumpster fiery human being. Excuse me. And so took a lot of my frustrations

4:06out on my wife and the kids. And it was understandable why she did what she did. So I started going to therapy, you know, religiously. I was there every week on Friday to meet with my therapist. And it was fine to have somebody to talk to, but it didn't get to the root of things. You know, she had some good, really good advice on how to approach things. But again, if you're not getting to the root of the problems, then there's really no way to get out of this cycle of just anger and frustration. I mean, I was the guy we lived in La Jolla, which is a beautiful area of San Diego. And I hated my neighbors. I hated the people that lived there, you know, for no reason, right? It was just, I saw them all having a sense of entitlement and walking down the street. I just wanted to punch everybody I saw, which is no way COVID. This is way pre-COVID. This is way pre-COVID. This is like, you know, 2008, 9, 10, that time period. So I don't have an

5:12excuse. We missed your call sign, by the way. It's appropriate here. Okay. That's that question. Well, sometimes the stories aren't appropriate of how call signs are, you know, given or earns. Call sign was slugger. Slugger. So I had a little bit of a temper issue even before the deployments. So, so we got to go way back in time if we're going to cover this. So before all of this, I was a pilot in the Navy. And I got in a fight with a squadron mate. Broke his nose, gave him 10 stitches. The squadron immediately tried to take my wings, boarded me not once twice because the first board got kicked back by an admiral staff saying, no, this was not comprised the right way. It's clear you guys were out to get this guy. But between the two boards, I requested orders to bus. And you fellas know that military bureaucracy is like molasses. I had orders the next day to go to Buds. That's how happy they were just to

6:13get rid of me. Well, in the interim, they reconvened the board and it came out in my favor, barely. So I had to go see a three star admiral over it. And ASO Sienna. And long story short, you said, no, we spent too much money on you to train you as a pilot. So you're going to stay as a pilot in the Navy. And that was that. So in 92, 91, I applied for an inner service transfer to the Marine Corps. They want to be a part of an organization that wasn't, you know, willing to fight, you know, it's just it's just my nature. And and so like the scorpion. And so got my inner service transfer and in February of 92, I woke up one morning as a navy lieutenant went to bed that night as a Marine Corps captain. So I had originally applied to the Marine Corps when I was joining the military. They weren't taking pilots. And so I went to the Navy, but ultimately ended up in the Marine Corps for. So you went to TBS with a bunch of seconded tenants? No, I did not. No, I did

7:20not go to TBS. They sent me in summer of 92 to a school called amphibious warfare school, a Quantico, which is a little school for Marine Corps. And so that was my my first introduction to Marine Corps schools, anything like that. And so I am that oddity of Marine officers who did not attend. Yes, currently, generally, Mr. That's what I was just going to bring up Jim Amos didn't go either. So I know I know Jim and his wife Bonnie pretty well. And Jim famously did not go to TBS. And they came coming down. So coming up. There you go. But I managed to fall through the cracks long enough to become a lieutenant colonels. Well, there you go. These things happen going back to yeah, doing all these therapies. Yeah, that's right. Right. And you know, this continued. I took the meds for a long time. And it wasn't until I moved up to Idaho in 2020 that I spoke with my doctor

8:28there and told him that look, these meds aren't really doing anything for me. Can I come off him? He said, yeah, you absolutely can. He said, what you're on, you can either tie trade them down and come off them or you can just quit cold turkey. So I tied traded down. I started taking them every other day. Then two days a week, then one day a week, and then done and didn't see any appreciable difference in anything. My sleep was no better. I started taking THC gummies. At night to sleep. I was a pretty heavy drinker for a long time. Easily four bourbons a night. In the summertime, it was tequila and cigars every night was just kind of my routine. Just sit outside, read a book, have a scar for drinks, go to bed, which is not really good for your body or your mind. And then in about 2021, 22, buddy of mine, 30 year teams guy called me up and said, hey, bro, I just went and did this thing. You got to go. It's going to change your life.

9:31And so I finally had an opportunity to do that and was awarded a scholarship to do so by an organization called Boot Campaign and went, you know, knowing really nothing about this. I didn't do any research because I didn't want to have any, I didn't want to have any preconceived notions of what was going to happen or establish any expectations of what an outcome should be from this. So I just went in cold and which I think is the best way to do it. Got my treatment at the mission within and everything changed. My life just overnight, it felt like just changed for the better. So I was walk us through that walk walker. Yeah, so walk us through that. So you know, you go to this retreat with five other guys. There were three of us on scholarship and three who weren't. So I had two seals. One guy was a former dev group guy, the other guy forget what

10:31coast he had served on. But you go down to place in Mexico, you get in a van with five guys, you've just met all there for the same thing. And one of the guys was like, he seemed dangerous and like really just pissed off with life. And we get down there, they kind of go through some ground rules for the weekend. And there's a lot of ceremony around what's happening. And you sit down around a big coffee table in the living room. You're on couches and chairs and you have a share circle. It's the first time I've ever done something like this, right? Where you've got five other guys like yourself who were down there for healing. But now you're expected to kind of just say why you're there, what brought you there, what you're hoping to get from the weekend. It's really an uncomfortable feeling at first to be able to sit down and just tell complete

11:32strangers your innermost darkest secrets. But you do it. And it's very cathartic actually. I'm so grateful for having that opportunity and that experience. It just kind of from the outset reshapes your mindset and the way you look at others, right? Because there's no judgment, you know, the folks who run these retreats are absolutely angels on earth that they do this work and provide this space for us to heal. So that night you have ceremony going into an eye-begin treatment. It's all very safe and effective. So clinically, it's very safe. EKG, Zecocardiograms, everybody has to pee in a cup to make sure that we're clean and we can do the eye-begin. One of the requirements is that you refrain from alcohol recreational drug use for one to two weeks prior to the retreat. Start eating a cleaner diet, taper off a caffeine if that's

12:33your big fix. And then you go into the eye-begin and it's surreal. You're wearing headphones, noise canceling headphones and eye-mask. And when it kicks in, it's just, you know, it's it could be brutal. Some guys had just a really brutal, horrible experience. But it's what the medicine knows you need. You know, the medicine gives you what you need. For me, it was seen a lot of the things that I had done to people, but not not so much in a clear concise manner. There was a lot of symbolism there that I had to either ask the medicine what it meant or was left to my own devices to interpret. And for me, the biggest thing that came out of it was during my journey, my eye-begin journey that lasted 12 hours. And I was not one of those guys that puked all night. I had dry heaves probably four times throughout the night. But the biggest thing that I gained from that was how I saw my son and how I am what led to how I treated him. So every time that I would see

13:40him during this journey, as he got closer to me to where I could see his face, whether it was him in the car seat when he was like two or three years old, driving with his mom up until he was 16 years old. Every time I saw him, he had a clown mask on. And, you know, what the medicine showed me with that was that I wasn't seeing him for the person that he really is. So during my service, I had the opportunity to serve with some really high level operators, you know, tier one units. And that was how I got my scholarship was having that background. But, you know, guys like that, like me, you know, we want our kids, our sons, especially to kind of be mini-meas, right? Like I had been a walk on football player at the University of Miami. I compete in Jiu-Jitsu. You know, I'm a world champion in Jiu-Jitsu. I train MMA with Chris Lieben who fought in UFC for 10 years. You know, that's kind of what I expected my son to be. And he's not. And

14:42that's perfect because he's a wonderful person. You know, he's brilliant. He speaks three languages like a native. He's studying equine science and human anatomy at Colorado State with his goal being to become an equine orthopedist, which I didn't even know existed. You know, so he has talents and skills that I will never have. And interestingly, during his Christmas break, he said to me that he wants to start training at a martial art. So now, you know, these things come when they're supposed to. We can't force things as people to happen on the time frame that we want them to. And we certainly can't force a person to be something that they're not. And it was such a great learning for me to have that realization and that recognition that I would never have had without the medicine. So you do the I began 12 hours, like I said, for me, for some people, it's a little less for some, it's longer. You know, I've known and heard of people having like

15:4524 hours of this. But the next day is kind of a day off for reflection and introspection. And you know, you eat if you can, if you're if you're able to. And then the following day after that, and we call that next day, gray day. And so the day after gray day is our five MEO experience. And we are taking one at a time to do the five MEO. And for me, the times I've done five MEO and I've done it a few times now, it's just a very spiritual experience. You know, my first dose of five MEO ever was really cathartic. It'll it allowed me to let go of all the anger and self hate and guilt that I had carried from years of, you know, abuse as a child through all the traumas of combat, everything leading up to that day, just gone, just just flooded out of me and allowed me to just accept love to know that other people loved me and that it was okay to love myself, which up

16:51until that point, and I was 64 at the time, I had never done. I didn't know how. And so it's no surprise that every relationship I ever had until that point was a failure, just another disaster. You know, if you can't love yourself, you can't possibly love someone else. And it's only by the grace of God in these medicines that, you know, I learn these lessons and that I'm able to be a completely different person today. You know, somebody who is acceptable to society and is working to do things for others to give others this opportunity at healing and and freedom really, you know, one of my goals now, I'm partnered with another organization called Psychedelic Medicine Coalition. And we are working on the innovative therapy centers of excellence bill that they have put forth to Congress and Senate. So last week, I was in DC for meetings with Senate staffers

17:51to educate them on this bill so that it can be passed. And this would allow five VA's co-located with universities that are already doing psychedelics research to start doing research on psychedelics and bring them into the VA's so that we can have these therapies, whether it's MDMA, psilocybin, or ultimately, I began to allow veterans to heal. And it's a much bigger lift than just that. You know, we have to be able to bring in the right people to the VA who know how to serve these medicines and to provide the therapy and the coaching on the back end because it's not, you know, this is not a magic pill. There's no panacea here. There's a lot of work that goes into it on the back end. I was fortunate to have 12 integration coaching sessions given to me after my retreat, which were invaluable. And then 10 guided meditation coaching sessions on on one coaching for meditation that stays with me to this day. Even if I'm not actively practicing

18:57meditation one day, there are times I'll find myself in a semi-meditative state just reflecting on what I learned from that. And well, it just allows you to relax a little bit and kind of re-center during how were you received in DC? Very well. So I was there working with Melissa Lavassani from psychedelic medicine coalition. And it's good. This bill has tremendous sponsorship from both sides of the aisle in both houses of Congress. And so the Senate is working on rewriting a few things into their bill and that the House will eventually adopt into their bill as well. You know, sending up prayers for this. And as Morgan with Trell says, we've got one shot to get this right. We don't want the community, you know, the psychedelic community at large to do anything that could hamper the chances of this getting passed. Yeah, I mean, can we talk about that

20:00for a minute? Just let's go back about a year. I think it was a result of Alaska Airlines pilot that jumps into cockpit and, you know, walks out and says, hey, I was a psilocybin, the psychedelics that made me do this. That is a very bad thing that happened. I don't know doubt about that. But those are the type of incidents that people connect and go, those things are horrible, right? And the next thing that could happen, and I think this may happen is there could be there could be Trojan horses within the community of military folks that are doing things because there's money involved with this. So what is Morgan Latrell talking about when he says we got one shot at this and we got to be careful. We'll be right back. This episode of No Way Out is brought to you by Ember Health. Ember Health provides safe, effective IV ketamine care for people seeking relief from depression. The practice is defining the gold standard of IV ketamine care for depression through an evidence base partner oriented and patient centered care model. Ember deeply values collaboration and coordinates with patients mental health teams to optimize their care. Ember is proud to have

21:03an 84% treatment success rate among its patients with 44% reaching depression remission. Since it's founding in 2018, Ember has done over 40,000 infusions and treated over 2,500 patients. They treat a range of patients with depression, including veterans like us, first responders, adolescents, older adults, and people with co-occurring conditions like anxiety, addiction, and PTSD. Check out EmberHealth.co. That's EmberHealth.co to learn more. LinkedIn the show notes. Yeah, so what he's talking about is that we write these bills the right way that they are presented so that all the guardrails are written into the bills, right? That there is enough in there with regard to oversight that nobody can say no to us. That everything is done so perfectly that it's impossible for one legislator to vote against it or for some other agency.

22:12I don't want to start naming names to come back and say, no, we can't do that. This stuff is illegal. It should never be legalized because there is support from HHS. There's even support from the president on this. The difficult part of all this is getting to the president. It's not that he's not in favor of it, but I'd say he has a few things going on right now that he's got to focus on. It's really getting his advisors, getting time with them to sit down with them and then have them take this forward. We know Kennedy's on board. He's come out publicly with that. Of course, when podcasts, hosts and guests talk about this, and I remember years ago, going through I've gained in five of my other treatments and coming back and talking to folks in our community, I'm talking the fighter aviation community. They thought we were freaking crazy, right? They're like, you guys are, this is nuts. Then a few years pass and they hear about I've gained from Brian Hubbard and Governor Perry on Joe Rogan, Joe Rogan, right? They come back and

23:14they're like, this is real. We're like, yeah, man, this is real stuff. This is actually. I think the credibility factor within our community, and I'm just saying this, people look at us and let's talk about this aviation community. Having done podcasts with other generations of fighter pilots and aviators, they look at this conversation and go, you guys, there's something wrong with you guys. You shouldn't be talking about this. This shouldn't be happening. That's another, that's a Vietnam generation of aviators, but we're getting a sense of. So within the community, we have to communicate to them and say, yeah, we get it. We know you're an airline pilot, and you're probably fucked up like anybody else, but you're flying these passengers around, and yet you're hiding all these things. It's not because they want to. It's because they have to, right? In order to continue flying. So the system is driving that behaviors. So within the aviation community, when we're lucky, we have somebody like Governor Perry out there, he used to fly, see what he's talking about this, right? It's okay. It's okay. And we need to break that stigma to allow folks to go do this and the FAA needs to get involved. And I think that's, that's a next

24:16step. Maybe a couple of years down the road when we get this result. But at the end of the day, had you come in here and told me about this treatment five years ago, I would have walked away, right? It takes somebody with credibility to come in and go, hey, let me tell you about this, let me walk you through this. And we had that through, was Buckley, was went through this, and he said, hey, I went in there with Marcus La Trille, I went in there with Marcus, help me out from Capone's, Capone, right? So he started in, and if one of the football players, I forgot his name too. Anyway, he comes back and I'm like, I know, I've known Wizz for a long time, and I know he's a straight shooter, but it took him, somebody like that to go down there and come back and go, let me tell you about this. And I remember sitting down with my wife, and this is during COVID, and I looked at her and I'm like, have you ever heard of this crap? And she's like, yeah, it sounds legit. And that's how we ended up getting involved with this, is it took us a huge, it was a big ring orientation for me to go, hey, I'm Catholic, I drink beer, I think everything with marijuana and psychedelics is horrible. I went to university Colorado,

25:17not too far from CSU, by the way, to, and that's where I grew up, right? But to shift that thinking was a major lift. And I imagine that's the same issue you're having now, maybe not just in the community, but outside. Can you talk a little bit more about that? Sure. What we're seeing is that it's not such a lift anymore, right? So, you know, you talk about Vietnam era guys. Well, I grew up in the 60s, and I remember being told, you know, look at those hippies, all strung out on acid and whatever, right? And so psychedelics got a very bad name. And, you know, that's in 71, or whatever, when Nixon classified, all these things is schedule one. And, and schedule one is interesting because it means that a substance has no medical application, and it's addictive. These medicines are the opposite. They are not, you're not going to become addicted to Ibogaine. You know, you're going to do this once, maybe in your entire lifetime. And if you do it

26:18right, and if you follow through and do the work, it's going to have lasting effects for the rest of your life. You don't need to do it more than once. MEO, yeah, you can do this multiple times a year even, but it's not addictive, but you're not addicted to it. It's not like I'm going to have a stash of five MEO at home. That would be stupid. That would be reckless. Yeah. Well, other than Mike Tyson, right? Well, you know, people do get those vape pens of it, and they, they kind of microdose it, I guess, but I'm not doing that. So let's go back to the time when you were introduced to some type of SSRIs or whatever via the VA, right? It was, it was easy to convince you to do that, right? Absolutely. Well, it was everybody did it, right? So it, let's, yeah, this is what the, just what the doctor is telling me to do, right? So I wasn't smart enough to ask, well, what exactly is this and what's it going to do for me? And I did learn later on to become a much better advocate

27:18for myself as a patient. And it wasn't just with that. It's with with everything. I've had cancer twice, you know, and the first time I had it, I had prostate cancer in my mid fifties. And with being treated at the VA and the doctor said to me that this urologist, she says, well, you know, you're a perfect candidate for surgery. I just looked at her and I said, well, why is that? Why am I a candidate for surgery? And before this very dear friend of mine had had prostate cancer, he ended up doing proton radiation here in San Diego, actually, with the preeminent proton radiation on colleges in the world. I mean, this guy gets flown all over the world to lecture on it. And he's, he's an amazing guy. And my friend who did it, he could have had any treatment he wanted anywhere in the world. He's wealthy enough to do that and to go and get the best. And so she said, well, you know, you're young and you're healthy and you're in good shape. So you should have surgery. I said, that's exactly why I'm not going to have surgery. I said, I'm 55. God willing. I got

28:18another 30 years to live. And I want to make sure that everything works. I don't want to risk it. Well, it's very safe. You know, we used the robot that, okay, I said to her, look, I said, this is what I know. And this is what I want to do. I want to go have proton radiation therapy based on all my labs and my numbers. It's going to be effective and safe. And she said, well, there's no efficacy at which point I went back to old J. I'm still old J at this point. I said to her, I said, look, I have as many degrees as you do. And I think I'm smarter than you are. They've been using proton radiation since the 50s to treat pediatric brain tumors. There's a ton of efficacy. And there's also a ton of literature. I'd be happy to give you my PubMed subscription so you could read it. And that was the end of the meeting with the doctor I walked out. I get a letter from the VA. We are going to pay for your proton radiation. So you got to advocate for yourself. And going back to the SSRIs, I didn't. I just took it at face value. I said, okay, give me the SSRIs and I'm

29:18sleeping three hours a night for seven years at this point. I'll take the sleep meds too. So there's a phrase in here that we talk about just because something is doesn't mean it ought to be. So our, you know, the way we look at doctors, we look at them as, hey, they have our best interest in mind and all that. We talk about system stride behaviors on the show quite a bit. And you know what they do, you know, people, people don't just get into practicing medicine just make a lot of money. I believe that the doctors, you know, my experience 99 times out of 100, these doctors have your best interest at heart. Now, do they all have the latest and greatest information? No. Is every patient exactly the same? No. Right, right. You know, we're all different. And we all have different needs to treat the same thing, right? Like, you know, I have a great primary care provider now. She understands me. She knows who I am. When I went to, when I started seeing her, I was still drinking and smoking cigars and smoking a little weed. She didn't tell me no.

30:21She said it would be better if you don't, but she also knows I'm an athlete that I still trained you just two, six days a week and I compete. And she's all for it. My previous primary care provider said I should quit because I was too old. Yeah. Are you out of your mind? Keep moving. Yeah. Yeah. I'm curious about maybe we could talk about this. We don't have to, but having seen guys go through the treatment and blood test before blood test after, it's just amazing what happens. And it could be attributed to the diet, the reduction of alcohol or whatever, but it's, you know, having been through that, I like to know, can you talk a little about maybe what you're, what happened to you internally, biologically, after? Yes. So I quit drinking six days before I went to my retreat. And that was March 16th, 2024. I've had not had a drink since then. I've not used any cannabis products to sleep, sleep better now than I ever did. I don't have the inflammation in my body from the alcohol. You know, like I said, I'm 66 and I trained you just two, six days a

31:26week, unless I'm badly injured or really sick or traveling for work. But otherwise, I'm training. And so I feel, my body feels as good now as it did 20 years ago, maybe better because I'm not doing those things. I'm still capable, you know, with some limitations, of course. I mean, I, I'm not going to just go and jump over six foot walled away I used to, but I can do things. I feel great. I mean, you know, when I was even 45, you know, looking at a 65 year old, that's an old guy. Well, I don't, I don't think I'm an old guy yet. You know, I haven't got to that point. And maybe it's because I'm still somewhat immature and soft-moored, but, you know, I think mindset helps a lot when you're talking about aging and how you feel and how you act and what you can do. You got to have the right mindset and then you have to take care of yourself. Since doing these medicines and every time I do 5MEO, I just feel so much better afterward because it's not just

32:32the experience of it. It's deeply spiritual for me. I mean, I'm a Christian, you know, and it was only because I think not only because, but greatly because of the 5MEO experiences where I have sat with God. Like, I don't see him, you know, if you see God, you die. So he doesn't reveal himself to me, but I have felt the spirit of God of Lord Jesus in me during a 5MEO experience to where it was like spiritual warfare between me and Satan. And God was not, he wasn't a manual, wasn't God with me, it was God in me. And that's that's how I flat Satan. When you were in DC, what were we push back, not position, we're being trends on that. None at all. The folks that we met with were all very much on board, the Senate staffers that we met with. In the Senate, the bill will be introduced by a Democrat with a strong, strong bipartisan sponsorship from the Republican Party. So it's being very

33:39well received. I think part of it is the fact that there are so many veterans now serving in Congress in both houses, you know, and they understand the need for this and that the VA has an obligation to not just treat veterans, but to heal us. Yeah. So let's project out a little bit. We have Texas Colorado. I think Kentucky might be on the list for Abigail as far as Mississippi, just signed yesterday. Yeah. So I think it was a concept bill yesterday. Not exactly a liberal, those are not exactly liberal states. Yeah. So let's project out a little bit. What does it look like in the state of Texas or Colorado, Mississippi, maybe Kentucky in the next six months, nine months, if let's say mission within can come to Texas, right? What does that look like for you? What does that mean? What are the challenges? What's what are blockers in your way? So for me, running a foundation, the work they're doing, I see as a net positive so that I can someday retire, right? Like,

34:42you know, I should be spending my time training jujitsu, surfing, fly fishing, hunting, and skiing, but I'm working, you know, crazy hours, putting in a lot of work, a lot of travel just just to ensure that my brother and sister veterans can heal and first responders as well. And so this work is just too important. And if these states can pass legislation, pardon me, that will allow them to perform the right research and the right studies to show the federal government that these medicines ought to be legalized for the right clinical type of use, then I can work myself out of a job, which is my goal. You know, I don't need to be doing this, but I want to, I have to, because it's just too important to save lives. You know, we talk about 22 a day, well, that's bullshit. It's closer to 40 veterans who commit suicide. We talk about homelessness in general. Well, on any given

35:49day, you've got more homeless veterans than all the service members who were killed during the Vietnam War, and that's 52,000 plus. So what are we going to do about it? Clearly, what we've been trying to do isn't working the way we hope it would. And it's not a knock on the VA by any stretch, right? The VA has guidelines. These medicines are legal to be used right now. So what are they going to do? They're going to do what they know and what does work. So in medicine, you have a number needed to treat an NNT. And when you talk about treating patients with SSRIs, you've got to treat probably 244 of them to have a good outcome, a full positive outcome with one. When you talk about plant medicines, it's a one to one ratio, right? It's a one time deal. Say that again, unequivocally. So people take that, say it one more time, crystal clear. So with the number needed

36:52to treat using the standard protocols that we have now, you got to treat SSRIs and other things. Yeah. Zoloft, all those things, right? You got to treat 244 and you have a good outcome with one. So 243 patients don't derive the benefits with plant medicines. You treat one and done. I don't know how. Why is that controversial? Well, because there are organizations and there are companies or whom that's not beneficial. You don't have a customer if you can cure them, right? Sure. The whole purpose of having a customer is to make sure you have a customer, right? Yeah. If you want to talk dollars, right? So if we're looking at it from a business standpoint, from a financial model, it don't make sense. Norman Oler was on talking about his research into LSD. We had, we had him on twice once about LSD and once about methamphetamines with the, with the Nazis, which was phenomenally interesting. I just read the book, Blitzed. Yeah. Yeah, he came on

37:53trail about that. It's unreal. Yeah, he's coming back up. He'll come back on to talk about Abigail and some trips to Antarctica or whatever soon. He came, we were talking about trips. So the one episode was talking about trips. He was saying how when Hoffman was doing his original work, he figured out that my surgical acid or you know LSD was a one-time mental health use. Was it like you didn't have to, you didn't have to use it again until it became just Pontra saying there's no, there's no customer rotation on that. Like you can't keep somebody in the system on that. Correct. Yeah. And you know, the way I look at it now is that we have a sick care system, not a healthcare system. It's in, it's in a lot of people's best interests to keep us sick. And you know, I think that RFK Junior recognizes that and he wants to make changes to the way the system works. We had just this summer to treat. So ketamine is one that we've had some discussions on and we had Niko Grunman from Dr. Niko Grunman that runs

38:56Ember Health here in the city talking about. But you know, you hear ketamine dismisses a psychedelic, but you never hear people say, no, it's an alternative to anesthesia. It's a generic drug. It's been used for a long time. And there's a lot of valuable research that shows that those mitigate depression and suicidal ideations and that sort of thing that's actually helping veterans and you know, PTSD survivors. Yeah. Look, there's a lot of great application for ketamine. I'm never going to be somebody who's going to downplay the benefits of any of these alternative therapies. That's that's not my place. I'm not a scientist. I, you know, I think that if something works for you, then by all means, you should use it. I mean, look, J&J has a nasal inhaler version of ketamine. Did you see how much money they made last quarter on that or how much revenue they brought? It came out yesterday, I think. I think it's insane. It's insane. I'll grab it with yeah, but you know, it's, if it's efficacious for somebody, absolutely use it. I've never tried

40:02ketamine. I've never been exposed to it personally. So I don't know. I know people who have and they've had some good effects from it, you know, some good outcomes. It doesn't seem to have the same long-term benefits that without having to do it multiple times, that something like Ibogaine does, but certainly we're seeing positive outcomes from it. And, you know, if that's what works for somebody and it is available through the VA now, then by all means, if it's indicated, absolutely, somebody should take advantage of that. Yeah. I would like to go back to what Pont was mentioning earlier though about the, you know, the blood tests before and after. Well, what's even more interesting and truly remarkable is the brain scans. You know, it goes back to Nolan Williams. May he rest in peace. Research at Stanford and the work that Dr. Greg Fonzo is doing

41:03now at UT Austin at the Gordon and Chimaine McGill Center for Psychedelic Research and Therapy. So we are actually funding some of the seals who go through that program through that research program. We got a few more to go and then we'll have a sample size, I think of 40. So doing brain scans before and after the Ibogaine therapy and seeing just incredible results, you know, from Nolan's research, from the work he did, the outcomes were that within one to three months, the average patient's brain age went down by 1.7 years. And that was just like immediately after. So what that showing is that because of the neuro regenerative properties of Ibogaine, it's actually re-growing white matter in the brain, which is really, it's amazing. That's like really, that's amazing. Yeah. So here's so much about like the endemic or the epidemic of dementia and Alzheimer's

42:07and things like that. Well, find me something else that can do that. So there are studies, you know, they've been doing studies in Switzerland. And I think that now even Ambo is beginning to do some research on Parkinson's and MS and the positive outcomes that we're having with Ibogaine for those diseases. It's, it's just remarkable. We're a guy with, I've seen it, a guy with Parkinson's could not get out of his chair. And post Ibogaine, he is walking. He's walking. He has full motor control. What else is on that? Yeah. If that's not a miracle of modern medicine, I don't know what is. And it's not so modern as you know. Well, that's, I think that's the biggest, to me, it's the biggest scandal of everything. It's like this stuff has been around for thousands and thousands of years. This is nothing new. It's just like, there's just like in, in this scope of human history, there's this period that we're hopefully coming out of where ancient remedies like

43:07this can be used without, you know, I mean, yeah, I get it. The recreational crowd gives it a bad wrap, but you know, there's the therapeutic value of these things, particularly when you talk about 40 a day and other things. It's not just Ibogaine, right? Like my ex-wife was a professor at Cal State and she taught medical anthropology, which was really a course on comparing traditional medical belief systems with Western medicine. And you know, you talk about some of the practices of the mom in Vietnam, or what some of these current derives are using like the guinea pig and the egg and that all these things down in Central America or something. You know what? They've worked for thousands of years. These remedies, these treatments have worked for thousands of years to cure people. And some of it is just pure common sense. Like when somebody's sick, you don't give them cold food, you give them warm foods. And they give it, you know, it's just, it's crazy that we just

44:11have put so much stock in Western medical beliefs, which don't get me wrong. We've got tremendous things from that, right? Kind of sill and just to name one, right? And there's a guy at Columbia who you may want to talk to, his name is Dolabor Samus. And he runs a lab at Columbia. He's part of a company called Gilgamesh. And Dolly is working on a molecule of Ibogaine that will not have the cardiac effects that it currently does in its present state. So he talks about two miracles that he's seen in his life. And he attributes one to antibiotics that he would not be here if it wasn't for that. But he said that Ibogaine is the other miracle in medicine that he's ever seen. And that's it. And he's a brilliant guy, brilliant guy. Well, we've just, we've had two Columbia people in the last week or two, record with us on some more topics. So we'll have to reach out to him. It's a very. Yeah, Marissa can put you in touch with Dolly. Okay, very cool. Yeah, great guy.

45:13Very cool. Wow. I'm just, I'm still blown away by those numbers of, was it number needed to treat? It's just, it's just an unbelievable ratio. Yeah, I mean, yeah, I've got the numbers on Spravado, just so you guys know. And this is, this is a, for those interested in what this could look like. A quarter for 2025 sales, I'm going to three million, run rate above two billion, looking at 20, 27, 20, 28, zero to three point five billion in sales. That's what they're projecting. That's just provider right now. So there is, there is money involved in this. Let's not say there isn't. You can look at the market in the last couple of months. You can see a run up and several companies that are working on either LSD, some type of derivative of DMT. I'm not following anybody's doing ibogate or working on ibogaine, other than, is he saying Gilgamesh, is that right? Gilgamesh, yeah. Yeah. So there is opportunity here for those that are interested in profiting from this, but I don't know how you make money from something you're getting your backyard. Well, that's the, you know, that they're in lies of problem. You can't pat in mother nature. That's right. They try. They try can create different molecules of it and pat in that.

46:21Right. Like Jane Jade has with spravado. Like, and, and I want to be clear that I don't, I don't think that's wrong, right? If you, yeah, if you're, if you're providing something to the public that if you're working and spending billions of dollars to provide something to the public that is for good, you should absolutely be allowed to profit from that. There's nothing wrong. Obviously, I'm a capitalist. Believe me, there's nothing wrong with making money. Yeah. And I believe everybody should have the opportunity to do so. It's just, are you doing it for the right reasons? Is it going to benefit society or be a detriment to society? Oh, and if they can come up with something that is beneficial and can provide healing to society that we desperately need, then absolutely do it. Yeah. All for it. Well, winding down, Jay, where do we want to send people to learn more about your work? Yeah. So our website is missionwithinfoundation.org. They can follow me on social media, on Instagram.

47:26I'm J underscore Copeland underscore USA. And I think just like J underscore K, USA underscore USA on Facebook, something like that. Also on LinkedIn. And we've been pretty active on social media lately, posting some things from the trip to DC. We had an event last Wednesday evening with representatives, the trail, Lou Karea from California, and Jack Bergman from Michigan. All huge proponents of this and advocates for it. They're all sponsors of this bill in the house. Representative Karea actually introduced the bill. And so it's gaining some traction. And like I said, I hope to be able to do enough good to work myself out of a job here one day and see not only our veterans and first responders heal, but have it available at some point to society to make sure that we can all heal. There's a lot of

48:31trauma out there and people need this. I think we'd be better as a society in whole if more people had access to these medicines. And one of the things that helped me quite a bit was looking at others and seeing others as people, right? You know, my neighbors aren't my enemies. And you know, one one last story about all this. So after my retreat, my son had gone to Costa Rica for a couple weeks with his mom the day I was getting back. So when they finally got home and I had some time with him, which was good because I needed that time to integrate as well. You know, I sat down with him, told him all about it. And I said to him, I said, you know, I'm really sorry for being such a shit dad for all these years and being an asshole of a husband to your mom. He said, no, it's okay. It's okay. I said, no, it's not okay. I said, I wish I'd had this 20 years ago. And he just looked at me. He says, nah, then I'd have just been raised like a sissy. And I told him, I said, that's not the case. I said, believe me, if you were ever in danger, I'm just as capable

49:33of extreme violence as I always was. But I know that's not how I have to be. Like anger shouldn't be my first response. So a couple months later, I was taking him to the DMV to get his learners permit. Being an Idaho resident, I didn't have, I don't have a California driver's license or California ID. So I had to show like a mortgage or electric bill. And I had all that on my phone. We get to the DMV. And the lady says to me, sorry, that's got to be in paper. We don't do electronic. Old J would have like cursed her out, slammed doors, gone outside and pissed off to the end of the world. And I wasn't. I was able to understand that this isn't her fault. You know, maybe I didn't read something right. You know, she, she just works here. I said, thank you. We left. I said to my son, I said, I'm really sorry. He said, no, it's okay. I said, no, I'm your father. And I, I let you down today. And this is what's so wonderful about the medicines is that it doesn't just

50:37affect the person who is able to have access to them, but others in your circle pick up on that. And they change their behaviors too. You know, previously I'd have been pissed off. Then my son would have been pissed off. But the way I handled it made all the difference that day. Because when I, when I said that to him that I let him down, he said, no, dad, he said, now we just have more time to spend something doing something together that's more meaningful to me. That never would have happened. Never would have. I can't think of a more perfect, more beautiful outcome to a bad situation than that. That's awesome. Well, Jay, we appreciate you coming on, sharing your insight today. You know, there's still a lot of runway to go and the learning is a very long runway. There's a very long runway. But I think we'll get it done. Yeah, and it's good to see that the destigmatization is taking you know, when I first met Pontch in person several years ago, and he talked about psychedelics, I thought he was nuts. It's just like you were describing

51:38earlier. So, but, but having known people that took their own life that were very close to me, that were veterans, I tabled, I tabled it as an option to understand it as best I could really quick, because, you know, I'd give anything to have my friends back, you know, so. Absolutely. Yeah, but it's all getting a van to go to Tijuana, man. This is awesome. It's just like midship and cruise in San Diego. But, you know, so we'll cut the recording, but Jay, thanks for joining us, and thank you for having me. And thanks for coming on, just guys. Thank you. Yeah, so I'm preferdella, simplify. That's all for this episode of No Way Out. We thank you for listening, and we hope you enjoyed the conversation. Make sure you check out the show notes for links to people, ideas, and things discuss in each episode. As always, we want to thank our guests as they are hand-selected to improve your orientation. You can thank our guests by leaving a comment or sharing this episode with a friend. Just a friendly reminder, your competition may be a No Way Out subscriber.

52:44Don't let them disrupt your Udalupe. Subscribe today. Thanks again for listening, and we'll catch you in the next episode of No Way Out. So, again, I'll send you to me in the next one. This order, which is that it's called by the tail. Tail. Tail. Tail. We want to get a map of these interactions and a situation we deal with. You're an ignorant and petitioner debt. The ambiguity helps make adjustments to that, to adjust to the world.

53:45If you want to take some several points of view, that will be more than a many-sided implicit cross-currency process of projection, empty the correlation and rejection.