The Joe Rogan Experience - Joe Rogan Experience #876 - Chris Bell

00:00:01.000 That's sweet.

00:00:05.000 I'm just now getting over the hurricane of Shannon Briggs that came through this with a storm of Let's Go Champ. 0.70

00:00:12.000 He's a maniac. 0.98

00:00:13.000 Yeah, he is a maniac. 0.98

00:00:14.000 So I'm glad we can get you in here today because explain to everybody. 0.65

00:00:19.000 First of all, if people don't know, Chris produced and what did you direct it and produce it?

00:00:24.000 Bigger, Stronger, Faster and Prescription Thugs.

00:00:27.000 And Prescription Thugs, which is particularly important because a lot of it was about the prescription industry and how many people get hooked.

00:00:35.000 And you've had experience with it.

00:00:37.000 We've all known people and lost people that have had problems with prescription pills.

00:00:42.000 But you wanted to come in and talk about Kratom.

00:00:44.000 Sure.

00:00:45.000 Yeah, you know, a while back when I was actually hooked on pills, I was looking for a way to get off them.

00:00:51.000 I would search the internet every day on a way to get clean and sober.

00:00:54.000 And I came across this thing called Kratom.

00:00:57.000 And they said, oh, they sell it at these head shops and different things.

00:01:00.000 And, you know, back then I wasn't really familiar with the head shop scene or anything like that.

00:01:04.000 So actually, I never found it.

00:01:06.000 I never went out and sought it out.

00:01:08.000 And then after going through rehab, I had heard about it a couple more times from some people.

00:01:13.000 I've heard about people taking it to get off of opiates.

00:01:15.000 It's a plant.

00:01:16.000 It's a 100% natural plant.

00:01:19.000 It comes from Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia.

00:01:23.000 That's where they grow it.

00:01:24.000 It's been used for like 2,000 years.

00:01:26.000 Basically, it works sort of like an opioid, but it's not a drug.

00:01:30.000 It's just a plant.

00:01:31.000 And it has these properties that have helped people bridge the gap when they get off of opiates so they don't have withdrawals.

00:01:38.000 What it also does is help relieve pain.

00:01:41.000 And it also helps with anxiety.

00:01:43.000 It helps with, you know, elevates your mood.

00:01:45.000 And it does all these great things, but the government now wants to make it a Schedule I drug.

00:01:50.000 So you're saying it's not a drug, though?

00:01:52.000 Well, you know, I guess it's semantics.

00:01:54.000 It's like, how do you classify something?

00:01:56.000 It's been around for 2,000 years.

00:01:58.000 No one's ever done any studies on it being a drug, and no one's ever done any studies on it being a drug.

00:02:02.000 Well, there's been actually a lot of studies on it being a supplement, but they aren't like these FDA-approved double-blind placebo studies that they're requiring for it to be on the market as a normal supplement.

00:02:14.000 But it has psychoactive properties?

00:02:17.000 Well, it'll elevate your mood.

00:02:19.000 So we're just talking about alpha brain or some, you know, nootropics.

00:02:22.000 It'll work like that and it'll elevate your mood.

00:02:25.000 I mean, I don't know where the real distinction is between high and elevation of mood or where, you know, what the difference is really there.

00:02:33.000 But it doesn't make you feel like it's not like I smoked pot.

00:02:36.000 It's more like I had a good cup of coffee.

00:02:38.000 You know, I'm fired up.

00:02:40.000 Back in the day when I used to take pre-workout supplements, caffeine and ephedrine.

00:02:44.000 Kind of feels like that.

00:02:45.000 I just feel like fired up and ready to go, and I don't feel pain.

00:02:49.000 That's interesting that Kratom gets you fired up.

00:02:51.000 I would have thought it would have mellowed you out.

00:02:54.000 I have zero experience with it.

00:02:55.000 You have some here now, and you could drive in this stuff?

00:02:59.000 Is it Well, they tell you not to operate heavy machinery and things like that, but I've never had a problem with it.

00:03:05.000 I actually take it to drive.

00:03:07.000 So, you know, tomorrow I'm leaving for Thanksgiving.

00:03:09.000 I gotta drive six hours. 0.90

00:03:11.000 So, bet your ass I'm taking Kratom before I get in the car to go because it actually helps me focus. 0.98

00:03:16.000 It relieves the pain. 0.99

00:03:18.000 Wow, that sounds crazy.

00:03:21.000 So it mimics the effects of opioids, right?

00:03:26.000 Opiates.

00:03:26.000 But it also elevates you?

00:03:29.000 Well, sure.

00:03:30.000 I don't know if you've ever taken Oxycontin or Vicodin or any of those things like that.

00:03:35.000 No.

00:03:35.000 A lot of times when people take that, they feel like they're indestructible.

00:03:39.000 I took Vicodin, I think it was Vicodin, once when I had my first knee surgery in 93. I fucking hated it. 0.98

00:03:47.000 I took it literally one time. 0.99

00:03:49.000 And I guess for me, you know, I guess it's different for everybody.

00:03:53.000 I think it was Vicodin.

00:03:54.000 It might have been Percocets.

00:03:56.000 But whatever the doctor gave me for pain, I took the pills. 1.00

00:03:58.000 I was like, oh my god, I feel so fucking stupid. 1.00

00:04:01.000 I'd rather be in pain than feel this dumb. 1.00

00:04:03.000 Sure. 0.97

00:04:04.000 I think a lot of times like what happened with me is I came out of anesthesia from a surgery and I was all doped up on the drugs and I didn't even know it.

00:04:10.000 So it just kind of like just kept going.

00:04:13.000 You know what I mean?

00:04:13.000 Like I never I never stopped getting high from the time I was in the hospital for like six years, you know?

00:04:18.000 So for me, it was like, you know, opiates were a real big problem.

00:04:22.000 They were ruining my life.

00:04:23.000 They were destroying me.

00:04:24.000 Now that I got sober two and a half years ago and I started taking Kratom, I feel great.

00:04:29.000 Like everything in my entire career is going, you know, skyrocketing.

00:04:33.000 Things are going great.

00:04:34.000 My relationship with my girlfriend's great.

00:04:36.000 Just everything's been good.

00:04:38.000 So I can't really see the bad in it.

00:04:40.000 So when they decided to make this a Schedule I drug, we decided to make a documentary about it and show the world what it really is.

00:04:46.000 That seems really bizarre that you would have a problem with drugs, and then this would help you.

00:04:53.000 Like, I would think that if you have a problem with drugs, you would want to stay away from anything that's sketchy.

00:04:57.000 Sure.

00:04:58.000 But a big part of addiction, you got to remember, is that we relapse.

00:05:01.000 People relapse.

00:05:02.000 If you can have something, it actually helps with alcohol withdrawals and alcohol cravings.

00:05:06.000 So if we have something that...

00:05:08.000 Will help me to not crave those things or even think about them.

00:05:12.000 Right.

00:05:13.000 And also not feel pain.

00:05:14.000 Like why should I have to be in pain?

00:05:16.000 Like there's no, you know.

00:05:17.000 Now are you in pain right now?

00:05:19.000 Not right now because I took Kratom before I came here.

00:05:21.000 But I would normally be in a lot of arthritic pain.

00:05:24.000 Okay.

00:05:25.000 And you have arthritis just naturally, right?

00:05:28.000 Yeah, double hip replacement surgery.

00:05:30.000 I need both of my knees done, my shoulders shot, you know, kind of everything.

00:05:33.000 I'm kind of pretty beat up.

00:05:35.000 And so, for me, it just works.

00:05:37.000 You know, my brother, who's also a powerlifter, he takes it as well before he trains, and he really loves it too.

00:05:42.000 Takes it before he lifts weights?

00:05:44.000 Yeah.

00:05:44.000 Wow.

00:05:45.000 And he's trying to bench 600 pounds, so it's not like he's using a little bit of weight.

00:05:49.000 No, your brother's a gorilla.

00:05:50.000 He's pushing it.

00:05:51.000 That's so strange to me.

00:05:53.000 I'm glad we didn't talk before this podcast, because I had a thought in my head of what this stuff is, and you're changing it right now.

00:05:59.000 What did you think it was?

00:06:00.000 Well, I felt like it was probably just a good way that people could relieve pain naturally, but I felt like if someone was going to describe it to me, I thought they were going to tell me about an opiate type of effect, that it just mellows you out, but it doesn't...

00:06:14.000 It doesn't hurt you.

00:06:15.000 There are different strains of it.

00:06:16.000 There's a strain called Bali, which is supposed to be good for anxiety and kind of calm you down.

00:06:22.000 There's a strand called Green Melee, which is a good pre-workout.

00:06:28.000 But they're all kind of the same thing.

00:06:30.000 They all have the same alkaloids.

00:06:32.000 Kratom has 27 alkaloids.

00:06:34.000 So when you look at it, it actually has alkaloids That work like opiates.

00:06:38.000 They attach to opiate receptors, but not in the same way.

00:06:41.000 If you look at OxyContin, when it attaches to an opiate receptor, I mean, it's like, you know, it's stuck in there.

00:06:47.000 It's like screwed in, basically.

00:06:48.000 If you think about like a screw, that opiate, it's screwed in there so tight that you could never just pull it out.

00:06:54.000 You'd have to, you know, unscrew it.

00:06:56.000 So with the Kratom, though, it kind of like drifts around the top of that opiate receptor.

00:07:02.000 It doesn't attach it.

00:07:04.000 Nearly as hard.

00:07:05.000 They say that opiates attach a thousand times greater to the opiate receptor than anything found in nature and kratom is found in nature.

00:07:13.000 Oh, wow.

00:07:14.000 But what about heroin?

00:07:15.000 Like the actual poppy seed is found in nature, right?

00:07:18.000 Yeah, and they have to do stuff to it to make it heroin.

00:07:21.000 They have to do stuff with coca leaves to make cocaine.

00:07:26.000 Marijuana and kratom are probably the two most similar drugs.

00:07:30.000 And when I went to interview Senator Mark Pocan last week, he was the one that wrote a letter to the government.

00:07:37.000 He wants to keep Kratom legal.

00:07:38.000 He thinks that it should be allowed for everyone.

00:07:40.000 And I said to him, what do you think about marijuana?

00:07:43.000 And he was like, I just think it should all be legal.

00:07:54.000 Right.

00:07:55.000 Right.

00:08:09.000 So where's the pressure coming from to turn this stuff into a Schedule I drug?

00:08:13.000 If there's no negative response by the body, you're not having people die of overdoses, is there an LD50 rate on this stuff?

00:08:21.000 Well, if you look at, you know, I mean, you're saying where is the... 0.97

00:08:25.000 LD50, we should probably explain to people, lethal dose at 50%, meaning if you take 50 rats and you give them a pound of this shit, 50 of them or, you know, 25 of them will die at a certain level. 0.98

00:08:36.000 Sure. 0.99

00:08:36.000 We've heard about, you know, there's been no deaths from marijuana, right? 0.99

00:08:40.000 Right, ever.

00:08:40.000 Kratom is the same thing.

00:08:41.000 No deaths.

00:08:42.000 There have been zero deaths, and there have actually been 15 deaths that have been brought to the FDA and the DEA's attention.

00:08:49.000 Those 15 deaths, I actually went and interviewed one of the mothers.

00:08:53.000 The kid was on three psych meds.

00:08:54.000 He was on or withdrawing from three different psych meds that have a black box warning that says, warning, if you're a teenager, you might commit suicide.

00:09:02.000 Basically.

00:09:03.000 And this kid committed suicide.

00:09:05.000 He didn't die from a Kratom overdose.

00:09:07.000 He died from committing suicide.

00:09:09.000 And his mother wants to blame Kratom.

00:09:11.000 She doesn't think that the psych meds had anything to do with it.

00:09:15.000 And I don't want to say that Kratom had nothing to do with it.

00:09:17.000 We don't really know.

00:09:18.000 And what I really call for with Kratom is just more research.

00:09:21.000 Like, I want people to put in the money to do the research to make sure that this is safe and Let's see if we can solve this opiate epidemic. 0.74

00:09:29.000 Let's see if we can crack down, basically lower the amount of opiate prescriptions we have in this country.

00:09:36.000 I just read an article the other day.

00:09:37.000 One in seven people in America are going to be affected with addiction problems.

00:09:41.000 Wow.

00:09:42.000 That's crazy.

00:09:43.000 One in seven.

00:09:44.000 Yeah.

00:09:44.000 That means somebody in your family.

00:09:46.000 That's insane.

00:09:48.000 Somebody in your family will be affected by it.

00:09:50.000 That's more than 10%.

00:09:52.000 Yeah.

00:09:52.000 That's weird.

00:09:53.000 That's weird, right?

00:09:55.000 Sure.

00:09:55.000 And it's not that everybody gets addicted.

00:09:58.000 They're affected by addiction.

00:09:59.000 My girlfriend was really affected by addiction because when she met me, I was taking drugs and drinking every day.

00:10:05.000 And that's a big effect, especially on women. 1.00

00:10:09.000 It's tough.

00:10:10.000 It's a tough thing to handle.

00:10:12.000 Now, I can understand this woman whose son died being, I can understand her remorse and looking to point the blame at someone, and a lot of times people are reluctant to point the blame towards something that a doctor prescribed, and they'll automatically say, well, it probably wasn't that, it was probably this other thing that's not regulated.

00:10:29.000 You know what she said to me?

00:10:31.000 She said, Chris, I'm gonna pray for you because I know you're taking Kratom, and I'm gonna pray for you that you're okay.

00:10:37.000 And I was like, you know, lady, you don't need to pray for me.

00:10:39.000 Like, I've been taking it for a year, you know?

00:10:42.000 And I think that people just get it wrong.

00:10:44.000 And I feel bad for her.

00:10:45.000 I feel bad for her in the fact that she can't just realize that, you know, she can't look at the research and see Because when I went and interviewed her, she said, well, I'm not even sure if Kratom killed him.

00:10:56.000 And this is after a gigantic – they mount this gigantic media coverage of this story, right?

00:11:04.000 Like this was all over.

00:11:05.000 And now like two years later after the damage has been done, she's kind of coming back and saying, well, I don't know if it was Kratom.

00:11:11.000 But she already did the damage. 0.97

00:11:13.000 These deaths are the reason why the DEA wants to ban it.

00:11:17.000 Well, the DEA, though, is going on what kind of evidence?

00:11:20.000 I mean, when they do a scientific analysis of Kratom and they break it down, they don't find anything toxic in it, do they?

00:11:26.000 No.

00:11:26.000 Well, I talked to Melvin Patterson.

00:11:27.000 He's the spokesman for the DEA. And when I talked to Melvin Patterson, what he told me is that they lean on the FDA a lot for these kind of decisions, right?

00:11:36.000 So they go to the FDA and they ask the FDA, can you give us an eight-point – it's like some sort of – It's like an eight-point inspection to make sure that this drug is not dangerous.

00:11:47.000 And if it is dangerous, it's deemed dangerous, they'll take it off the market based on the FDA's research.

00:11:53.000 So the DEA had asked the FDA for that eight-point inspection.

00:11:56.000 The FDA never went ahead and did it.

00:11:58.000 So the DEA got upset and said, well, we're going to ban it anyway because we're waiting on you guys.

00:12:03.000 And then there was a big uproar.

00:12:05.000 There was 100,000 people Signed a petition, you know, partly due to you tweeting about it and things like that.

00:12:11.000 It was a guy, Andrew Turner.

00:12:13.000 He tweeted you.

00:12:14.000 He was an Iraq war vet.

00:12:16.000 And you should see his video.

00:12:18.000 He can't even speak without Kratom.

00:12:20.000 He cannot talk normal without Kratom.

00:12:23.000 He speaks with all these ticks and twitches in his face due to, they think, maybe PTSD and some other problems that had affected him.

00:12:30.000 And now he takes Kratom and those twitches all go away.

00:12:33.000 He did a video on YouTube That was kind of amazing.

00:12:36.000 He stopped taking it for six days and you can see all these twitches are evident and then he goes back on the kratom and they all disappear.

00:12:44.000 Wow.

00:12:45.000 So who's pressuring the DEA to turn this stuff into a Schedule I drug?

00:12:50.000 And why Schedule I? There's a couple of patents that are on the alkaloids that are in the plant.

00:12:57.000 So I think that Big Pharma would be the first place to look.

00:13:01.000 They have a couple of patents.

00:13:03.000 They want to basically take this I don't look at it as being that bad, but why make the organic kratom illegal in order to turn this into a more powerful drug?

00:13:14.000 They think that they can extract some of these alkaloids, right?

00:13:20.000 There's two alkaloids, metagenine and the other one is like 7-hydroxymetagenine.

00:13:24.000 It's like too technical for anybody to really care about, but there's two alkaloids that they really care about.

00:13:28.000 That help with opiate withdrawals and help with pain.

00:13:31.000 And those are the two.

00:13:33.000 And they actually just want to ban the two alkaloids, but you can't do that because it's in the plant.

00:13:36.000 So you have to ban the whole plant.

00:13:38.000 And to me, you know, you said it the best.

00:13:40.000 You said making something else illegal is like archaic.

00:13:43.000 It doesn't make any sense.

00:13:45.000 What are you going to do to the people?

00:13:46.000 You know, five states just legalized marijuana.

00:13:48.000 Now you're going to throw people in jail for kratom.

00:13:50.000 It doesn't make sense.

00:13:51.000 Well, I'm worried about this new administration.

00:13:56.000 For various reasons.

00:13:57.000 But I'm worried about him when it comes to being compromised by Big Pharma.

00:14:01.000 I really am.

00:14:02.000 It's such a business-oriented administration.

00:14:05.000 And he's bringing in all these old dudes. 0.99

00:14:07.000 They're right out of that TV show, The Strain.

00:14:09.000 The vampire dudes that are hanging out with the Nazis. 0.65

00:14:12.000 I'm looking at all these people, like Mike Pence, all these old dudes he's bringing in with these archaic ideas.

00:14:18.000 I'm like...

00:14:18.000 They're all against gay marriage.

00:14:20.000 I mean, it's ridiculous. 0.98

00:14:22.000 You know, I was hoping that maybe Trump would bring in some people that would be opposite of his thinking. 0.81

00:14:27.000 And, you know, it just hasn't happened.

00:14:28.000 Well, he was a Democrat for a long time.

00:14:30.000 I mean, Donald Trump was always a Democrat.

00:14:32.000 I mean, him running as a Republican is kind of odd if you look at his history.

00:14:36.000 But he's going all in with a lot of these people.

00:14:40.000 And some of them are deeply opposed to marijuana legalization federally.

00:14:45.000 That stuff is very counterintuitive and counter-progressive.

00:14:49.000 And the marijuana legalization, we've been reading a lot about that, and it's going to be what a lot of people think might be a mess because making it recreational opens it up to Marlboro and all these other companies that make tobacco products to now start selling cannabis and turning it into what we already have. 0.98

00:15:06.000 Bullshit.

00:15:07.000 Well, I'm not opposed to them making it Commercial because I feel like the more people do it the better. 0.99

00:15:14.000 We're all gonna be sure I really I really believe that I mean people say oh you're a pothead thing like that, bro But I really think it's a it I think I mean you can call it a drug But whatever it is it is a component of life that makes people calmer makes people happier makes people more sensitive I just think it's better for people I was 100% against it ever since I was in college.

00:15:34.000 Like, I just thought, like, marijuana, wow, that's the worst thing, you know?

00:15:38.000 And steroids. 0.53

00:15:39.000 I thought marijuana and steroids were the devil.

00:15:41.000 And come to find out, it's all the drugs that the doctors actually prescribe us that are the devil, that we need to look out for.

00:15:47.000 They're not necessarily, I shouldn't say, the devil.

00:15:48.000 They help a lot of people.

00:15:50.000 But we have to be very careful about what we're putting in our bodies that our doctors give us.

00:15:53.000 We can't just say, well, the doctor said it's fine and just, you know, take it.

00:15:57.000 And that's how I got addicted to opiates.

00:15:59.000 And a lot of people want to say, I'll get it on Instagram all the time.

00:16:02.000 Well, bro, it's your fault, man.

00:16:04.000 It's all your fault.

00:16:04.000 And they know nothing about addiction.

00:16:06.000 It's not my fault.

00:16:07.000 It's not anybody's fault.

00:16:08.000 These things happen because it's a progressive...

00:16:11.000 You know, these drugs were designed to make you addicted.

00:16:13.000 So to say it's my fault is kind of ridiculous because the drug was actually designed so people get hooked on it.

00:16:18.000 Yeah, you just didn't outrun it. 0.76

00:16:20.000 That's all it is.

00:16:21.000 I didn't outrun it.

00:16:21.000 Yeah, I mean, that's really what it is.

00:16:23.000 It's like some people outrun it and you get away from it and you should have been stronger, bro.

00:16:27.000 Yeah.

00:16:27.000 You know, like, alright.

00:16:28.000 How many people have to get fucking addicted before you recognize that it's a problem? 0.99

00:16:32.000 I mean, that is a giant problem in this country. 0.99

00:16:34.000 We lose a person to addiction every 19 minutes in this country.

00:16:37.000 Accidental overdoses.

00:16:38.000 I think I've said that stat several times on your show, and it's just, you can't say it enough.

00:16:42.000 You know, we have this giant opiate epidemic, and we have something here.

00:16:46.000 You know, in our film, we're starting to make a documentary about this, and in the film, you know, we show a guy who has a, not a huge habit, but six Vicodin a day habit and he cuts that down to zero using Kratom and we watch that you know that process because I feel like that's important to show that like hey you can actually do this now if we have people that are really really addicted to heroin and really really addicted to these other drugs they might need something like Suboxone and then Kratom you know like we don't really We don't really know.

00:17:17.000 My friend Kelly Dunn, who owns the company Urban Ice that we were just talking to, he actually bought a farm up in Washington, and it's his intent.

00:17:24.000 If people don't have money to go to rehab or do whatever, they can come up and visit him and get Kratom.

00:17:30.000 He's actually a licensed therapist and all that stuff like that.

00:17:33.000 So I feel like...

00:17:35.000 It's sort of this grassroots movement to try to get people to even try Kratom.

00:17:41.000 That's what I've been trying to do is get people like, hey, just try it.

00:17:45.000 Like you said, with marijuana, the more people that try it, the better off we'll be.

00:17:48.000 And I really feel that with Kratom, too.

00:17:50.000 You're making me want to try it.

00:17:52.000 Now, what is the name?

00:17:54.000 Is it a kratom plant?

00:17:56.000 Like, what does a plant look like?

00:17:57.000 Is it a tree?

00:17:58.000 It's a plant.

00:17:59.000 It kind of looks like, I don't know, like a poison ivy plant.

00:18:01.000 I'm sure you can maybe pull one up, you know, but it basically just looks like any other plant, shiny green leaves.

00:18:07.000 I don't think I even heard about it until maybe a couple of years ago, and I didn't know how to pronounce it until a month ago.

00:18:11.000 Well, people say kratom, kratom, tomato, tomato, whatever.

00:18:14.000 I didn't know what it was.

00:18:15.000 I mean, I had rarely heard of it.

00:18:17.000 I think someone gave me some after a show one day. 1.00

00:18:19.000 I'm like, I'm taking this shit. 1.00

00:18:21.000 You know what? 1.00

00:18:21.000 That's what it looks like? 1.00

00:18:22.000 There it goes.

00:18:22.000 It kind of happens a lot.

00:18:24.000 Like somebody will say, hey, here, try this.

00:18:25.000 And I never trust that either.

00:18:27.000 Yeah.

00:18:27.000 But for me, what happened to me is very interesting.

00:18:30.000 I have a lot of friends in this world of fitness and whatever, and so I just end up talking to a lot of people that try a lot of different things.

00:18:39.000 So after I got done with the opiates, I was on Dr. Drew's show, and he said, well, you should try Advil and Tylenol in combination.

00:18:46.000 That's going to be better than an opiate for your pain, for your chronic pain.

00:18:49.000 So I said, okay, I start trying that.

00:18:51.000 Then I get a phone call from my friend who lives in England who tells me he just had a kidney transplant because of all the NSAIDs he was taking.

00:18:58.000 Oh, meaning non-steroidal anti-inflammatories, which are Advil.

00:19:01.000 Sure, yeah, Advil and Tylenol and stuff like that.

00:19:03.000 So he had a kidney transplant.

00:19:05.000 Jesus Christ.

00:19:06.000 I didn't think that that was going to necessarily happen to me, but I was taking like 10 Advil a day.

00:19:11.000 That could happen then, right?

00:19:12.000 I mean, how many were your friend taking?

00:19:14.000 He said about 20. And he was a nubain addict before that, so he doesn't know if it's a nubain, blah, blah, blah, blah.

00:19:19.000 So you get into all these problems.

00:19:20.000 But I just thought, like, well, look, taking 10 Advil and Tylenol a day, because I was taking them in combination, that just can't be good for you.

00:19:27.000 So my friend Kelly hit me up.

00:19:29.000 He's like, hey, man, you should try this plant.

00:19:31.000 It might help you.

00:19:32.000 And...

00:19:33.000 What was your first experience like with it?

00:19:35.000 My first experience was, um, so my friend Kelly was very serious about this and he wants to help a lot of people.

00:19:41.000 He said, I'll fly to Sacramento.

00:19:42.000 I was living up by my brother at the time.

00:19:44.000 So he flew out to Sacramento to see me.

00:19:46.000 He gave me some kratom.

00:19:47.000 He went to his hotel.

00:19:48.000 I went to my house.

00:19:49.000 I had just been filming with my brother for like five hours straight and my arthritis was like at its worst point, like the worst it could possibly be.

00:19:56.000 Is that from standing?

00:19:57.000 Just standing up.

00:19:58.000 Yeah.

00:19:59.000 Yeah.

00:19:59.000 I just get beat up, you know, and, um, Also, like, standing on concrete floors and gyms and stuff like that.

00:20:03.000 So I was just, like, beat up.

00:20:05.000 I took the Kratom, and then he came over later that day to talk to me.

00:20:09.000 I said, dude, you're not going to believe it, but I'm in.

00:20:12.000 You know, like, I don't feel any pain right now.

00:20:14.000 No pain.

00:20:15.000 And it took a good two or three months for me to really get into it.

00:20:18.000 Because, like, I might tell you now, and you might go home and try this, right?

00:20:22.000 Right. 1.00

00:20:22.000 And you might say, yeah, Chris, whatever the fuck. 1.00

00:20:24.000 Like, that doesn't work. 0.99

00:20:25.000 But then, for some reason, you'll go back to it.

00:20:28.000 And then you go back to it and go back to it.

00:20:29.000 And then all of a sudden, like, it's a miracle to you.

00:20:31.000 I don't know.

00:20:32.000 That's how it was for me.

00:20:33.000 I'm not saying that's how it's going to be for everyone.

00:20:35.000 Well, I'm not in any pain. 0.98

00:20:36.000 So if I took it, it would just get fucked up. 0.98

00:20:38.000 Well, elevate your mood. 0.99

00:20:40.000 Elevate my mood.

00:20:41.000 I'm pretty happy right now.

00:20:42.000 I don't want to get more elevated. 0.93

00:20:44.000 I'll do something silly. 0.55

00:20:44.000 Yeah, you might. 0.55

00:20:45.000 You never know.

00:20:46.000 But it also lowers your blood pressure, helps with anxiety, blah, blah, blah, blah, right?

00:20:50.000 So you can look at it for several health benefits.

00:20:52.000 But it doesn't get you to a point where you can't drive or you don't know how to type.

00:20:57.000 I should probably be responsible and say it hasn't gotten me to that point.

00:21:00.000 It hasn't gotten you to that point.

00:21:01.000 But I have taken too much of it.

00:21:04.000 Oh, okay.

00:21:05.000 Give me one of them packets and tell me how much you're supposed to take.

00:21:08.000 Well, it's all going to be relative, right?

00:21:11.000 You would take one of these?

00:21:13.000 What do you weigh?

00:21:13.000 190, 200?

00:21:15.000 Yeah, somewhere in the range of 200. So I take six of them, but I worked up to six of them.

00:21:20.000 Six pills?

00:21:21.000 Yeah.

00:21:21.000 I would suggest this is a packet of pills.

00:21:24.000 Sure.

00:21:25.000 Now, Kratom a lot of times is taken in a powder form, but it tastes disgusting, so I can't handle the powder.

00:21:31.000 So I just take the capsules.

00:21:32.000 Yeah, somebody gave me in a powder form, and I was like, oh, like heroin.

00:21:36.000 You know what?

00:21:36.000 You know, I want to hear something really interesting.

00:21:38.000 I was supposed to speak at an AA meeting the other day, and I got a phone call from somebody at the AA. If I took some right now, how much should I take?

00:21:46.000 Take two.

00:21:47.000 Okay.

00:21:48.000 But, you know, like, I was supposed to speak at an AA meeting, and I got a phone call from a good friend of mine, and she said, well, I'm confused now because I'm not sure if you're sober.

00:21:58.000 Oh, because you're taking Kratom.

00:22:00.000 I'm taking Kratom and it affects your mind. 0.99

00:22:02.000 Oh, so she's worried that you're fucking up. 0.99

00:22:04.000 They're worried that I'm fucking up. 0.99

00:22:06.000 And you know what? 0.98

00:22:06.000 It actually hurt me. 0.98

00:22:08.000 It hurt.

00:22:09.000 It hurt to hear that from somebody that helped me get sober.

00:22:12.000 It really hurt my feelings. 0.99

00:22:14.000 I don't mean to sound like a pussy, but it hurt my feelings to hear, like, hey, you're not sober from people I really look up to. 0.99

00:22:19.000 Right. 0.99

00:22:19.000 Well, I can understand they're worried. 0.99

00:22:21.000 I totally understand their worry.

00:22:22.000 It's so confusing.

00:22:23.000 It sounds like you're doing a heroin substitute, right?

00:22:25.000 Sure.

00:22:26.000 A natural heroin substitute.

00:22:27.000 And it's been called, you know, herbal heroin.

00:22:29.000 So I can see their concern.

00:22:31.000 So is that maybe the same sort of concern that led the DEA to take a close look at this?

00:22:36.000 Because, I mean, if you look at it, I mean, everyone wants to worry that the DEA is in bed with big pharma and it's all about business and they're here to screw over the American people and keep these legal, natural things away from us.

00:22:51.000 But I had the same sort of reservations. 0.92

00:22:53.000 I mean, I didn't know until you came in here today, I didn't know that you could operate cars on it and doesn't fuck with you and that you take it before a drive. 0.95

00:23:01.000 Like, I would have never imagined that. 0.98

00:23:02.000 I do.

00:23:03.000 You know what I'm saying?

00:23:04.000 I don't want to be here and be irresponsible.

00:23:06.000 I don't think I don't want to say, oh, everybody should take Kratom and everybody, you know, but I feel like I feel like I know that it's safe enough to try.

00:23:14.000 For example, I know it's safe enough for anybody to try.

00:23:18.000 So I've seen it.

00:23:19.000 I've seen it in, you know, thousands of people that are that are using it.

00:23:22.000 I get emails every day from people that take Kratom because we're doing a documentary.

00:23:26.000 And you know, as well, you know, when you're I feel that media has the power to change the world.

00:23:30.000 I feel like what you do, what I do, we actually have a voice and we have a power that can change people's minds.

00:23:36.000 My film, Bigger, Stronger, Faster, completely changed people's minds on steroids.

00:23:40.000 It did.

00:23:41.000 It changed my mind.

00:23:42.000 It gave me a view into it that I never had before.

00:23:45.000 And that, and then there was a...

00:23:47.000 Was it an HBO? Was it Real Sports did a whole thing on steroids?

00:23:53.000 Yeah, Real Sports.

00:23:53.000 Yeah, it was Real Sports.

00:23:54.000 And they were essentially saying, where's the bodies?

00:23:58.000 Everyone's talking about people dying from steroid overdoses.

00:24:00.000 No, it's not what's happening.

00:24:01.000 They were dying from pain pills.

00:24:02.000 I didn't get to tell you how I turned around on marijuana.

00:24:07.000 The Joe Rogan experience.

00:24:09.000 Listening to your show.

00:24:10.000 You know, that's why I say media is important.

00:24:12.000 I feel like we can change the world.

00:24:13.000 We can change things.

00:24:14.000 I was dead set against it. 0.98

00:24:15.000 Thought it was for losers. 0.98

00:24:17.000 I'm like, oh, Joe Rogan smokes pot. 0.99

00:24:19.000 Maybe it's not so bad.

00:24:19.000 So I started doing the research.

00:24:21.000 I'm not saying I just jumped in and started doing it, but I've done the research and I know enough that it's That is safe.

00:24:27.000 You know, we know.

00:24:28.000 It's 100% safe.

00:24:29.000 I mean, you could definitely take too much of it. 0.96

00:24:32.000 Just like you were saying you could take too much kratom, you can get too fucking high and freak out. 0.97

00:24:36.000 That's true. 0.96

00:24:37.000 But if you just get a little bit high, you're gonna be alright.

00:24:40.000 Marijuana and kratom are both, they're both miracle plants.

00:24:42.000 They're both plants that are put here.

00:24:44.000 You know, if you believe in God, I believe that, you know, these things were put here on the planet for us to use, to heal ourselves, to feel better.

00:24:51.000 There's nothing wrong with feeling better.

00:24:53.000 I think we have a big aversion in this country to people being able to feel better.

00:24:56.000 Like anything, you know, taking Kratom, oh, it makes you feel better.

00:25:00.000 Like, why is that a crime?

00:25:01.000 It shouldn't be a crime.

00:25:02.000 It should be, you know, we have alcohol on the market that makes people feel better.

00:25:05.000 We have cigarettes and tobacco and that makes people feel better.

00:25:08.000 They get a little buzz from it or whatever.

00:25:10.000 Why not Kratom?

00:25:11.000 Like, what's the big deal?

00:25:12.000 Yeah, we have a reluctance to indulgence in some ways, right?

00:25:15.000 Like, we're worried about indulging in something, something pleasurable, like it's bad for you.

00:25:19.000 Well, people say, oh, Kratom, I heard that makes you high.

00:25:23.000 And I'm like, well, first of all, what would be so bad with that?

00:25:27.000 That's a good feeling for a lot of people.

00:25:29.000 I don't see...

00:25:31.000 That that's so bad to have a little bit of euphoria.

00:25:35.000 Now, being high on cocaine or crack or whatever, that's a completely different story.

00:25:40.000 We're not talking about that.

00:25:40.000 We're just talking about a little elevation in your mood.

00:25:43.000 Yeah, there's a big difference between being high and being impaired.

00:25:46.000 I think we put those two together.

00:25:49.000 And they're always in the same category for some strange reason, and they don't necessarily have to be.

00:25:53.000 Like, a nice cup of coffee gets you high.

00:25:56.000 Yeah.

00:25:56.000 I mean, it does.

00:25:57.000 Look, I drink a cup of coffee in the morning, and I start slapping my hands together, and I want to start doing shit, you know? 0.97

00:26:02.000 If I drank that little caveman coffee nitro, I'd be bouncing off the walls. 0.98

00:26:05.000 Yeah, I'm sure.

00:26:08.000 And I don't think there's anything wrong with it.

00:26:10.000 I love it.

00:26:10.000 I think it should be legal.

00:26:12.000 And I think that if Kratom's in the same league as coffee and Starbucks is the biggest business in our country, why is it so bad?

00:26:20.000 So since the people that are sober and that are helping you with that, they have concerns about it, and there's a lot of people that...

00:26:26.000 It seems like this is a drug or a plant, I should say, that just does not have enough...

00:26:33.000 There's not enough data.

00:26:34.000 There's not enough research.

00:26:35.000 Not enough research.

00:26:36.000 And that's what we want to do.

00:26:37.000 We would like, you know, look, every time there's been an epidemic in this country, we had a polio outbreak, right?

00:26:42.000 And our president was affected by it.

00:26:44.000 So what did we do?

00:26:45.000 We decided, you know what?

00:26:46.000 No more polio.

00:26:47.000 Let's fix the problem.

00:26:48.000 I don't see why the government doesn't say, look, we're losing a person every 19 minutes.

00:26:52.000 This is way more serious than polio.

00:26:54.000 Why are we not putting funding into researching things like kratom?

00:26:59.000 There's other things that are like kratom, too.

00:27:00.000 Why aren't we researching these things?

00:27:02.000 There's another plant called Akiyuma, another plant called Soursop.

00:27:05.000 There's several plants that are like kratom, do similar things.

00:27:09.000 Why can't we study those to Stop the deaths to slow it down, to make a dent in the deaths from opiate addiction.

00:27:19.000 There's no reason why the government can't fund that.

00:27:21.000 Now, what are these other plants?

00:27:23.000 Akiyuma, and what was the other one?

00:27:24.000 One's called Akiyuma, and one's called Soursop.

00:27:26.000 And the reason why I even know about those is because what happens as soon as something gets banned, you look for the next thing.

00:27:32.000 Right, right.

00:27:33.000 Oh, wow.

00:27:34.000 So you're a step ahead.

00:27:35.000 I don't even know what those things do, but I know we, like, as soon as Kratom was banned, we were on the internet looking for, like, well, what else is like it because I don't want to have to deal without it.

00:27:45.000 Well, I think it was you that tweeted something, and I might have retweeted or just read it, but you tweeted something about someone getting arrested Some big drug bust where they busted him for Kratom, which wasn't even illegal.

00:27:57.000 Yeah, that's a weird thing.

00:27:59.000 That was a guy, I think maybe because that guy's neighbors had it out for him.

00:28:04.000 They sort of had it out for him, and they saw these big green bags of what they thought was drugs at his house, and the cops went to raid it, and they were like, well, we're not sure what this is, so we're going to have to arrest you.

00:28:14.000 Oh, God.

00:28:15.000 You know what I mean?

00:28:15.000 It causes a pretty...

00:28:17.000 Pretty weird problem.

00:28:18.000 You know, the thing was when they made it illegal, I had two giant boxes of Kratom sitting in my garage and all I could think about was like, okay, the cops are going to come here and they're going to bust me because they know I'm doing a documentary about it.

00:28:30.000 I'm going to be the, you know, the marked man.

00:28:32.000 Right.

00:28:32.000 But I decided that like, no matter what happened, I was going to keep those boxes in my garage and I wasn't going to worry about it because I figured like, what are they going to do?

00:28:40.000 Come arrest me? 0.99

00:28:40.000 You know how stupid that would look? 0.99

00:28:41.000 Because that's all going in the documentary. 1.00

00:28:43.000 Right.

00:28:44.000 So I don't really have a fear that other people have because I feel like I put everything on camera and put everything, you know, out there.

00:28:51.000 So I feel like...

00:28:51.000 But other people, it is serious.

00:28:53.000 Like the vet I was talking about, he can't live without Kratom.

00:28:57.000 What are we going to do?

00:28:58.000 Take it away from him?

00:28:59.000 What are we going to do in the meantime?

00:29:01.000 You know, if we ban it, what are we going to do?

00:29:04.000 What are we going to do with that guy?

00:29:05.000 Yeah.

00:29:06.000 Like, where is he going to go?

00:29:07.000 Back on opiates?

00:29:08.000 To the VA hospital?

00:29:09.000 Like, it's...

00:29:12.000 What a weird situation.

00:29:13.000 So we really need you, Chris.

00:29:15.000 This documentary is actually important.

00:29:18.000 Yeah, it's very important.

00:29:19.000 It's very important because it's not just about Kratom.

00:29:23.000 This is about how the DEA and the FDA protect the interests of our federal government.

00:29:28.000 And, you know, they keep the money all in the pool to themselves and they don't want anybody else in.

00:29:33.000 And I feel like it's just greed.

00:29:34.000 It's total greed.

00:29:35.000 It has nothing to do with it being dangerous.

00:29:37.000 Well, we're definitely more aware of that kind of greed and those kind of compromises where these companies compromise various branches of the government for their own personal interest.

00:29:48.000 And this Kratom is a perfect example of that because so many people, including me, know almost nothing about it.

00:29:55.000 This is a weird one.

00:29:56.000 You know, this is one where they almost got in Like, before people could understand what exactly it was, which is rare in 2016. There's something like that available.

00:30:06.000 They've never had anything like this.

00:30:08.000 The DEA has never seen, you know, a reply like this.

00:30:11.000 There was 100,000 people that signed, you know, a petition.

00:30:14.000 But one thing that I need to get out there to everybody, the one way we can keep this legal...

00:30:20.000 And keep other things legal as well, is everybody needs to go to a website that the DEA has set up.

00:30:25.000 It's called KratomComments.org.

00:30:27.000 So just K-R-A-T-O-M Comments.org.

00:30:30.000 You can go there and you can leave, you know, up to a 5,000 word message, you know, about Kratom.

00:30:36.000 And it doesn't have to be from somebody who takes it.

00:30:39.000 Like you could just be like, hey, I think this should, I watched this podcast and I really feel this needs to be researched more.

00:30:45.000 And, you know, whatever, whatever you feel, Needs to be said you can just say here so you know like I went on and I left a comment About why I use it and what I like about it And I feel like everybody that does needs to do that or they're not doing their job And what is that put that back up again Jamie please it says December 21st December 1st deadline submit your comments now.

00:31:06.000 What is the deadline?

00:31:07.000 Well, that's why I was a pain in the ass and kept texting you Because I was like, dude, can we get on before this deadline? 0.86

00:31:13.000 Well, it's very important that people know that there's a deadline for these comments. 0.98

00:31:17.000 And in a couple days, it's December 1st.

00:31:19.000 And if you make a comment by December 1st, the DEA has to read it.

00:31:24.000 Like, they have to look at it.

00:31:25.000 So even if you write a bunch of gibberish, they have to read it, which is kind of funny.

00:31:28.000 But don't do that, though, folks. 0.98

00:31:30.000 They'll go, he's on Kratom, he can't even fucking spell. 0.93

00:31:32.000 Yeah, he's on Kratom, he can't spell. 0.98

00:31:33.000 No, but I'm saying they have to look at all of them.

00:31:35.000 So if we can get 10,000 comments, I think there's maybe half that right now, and your show is so powerful.

00:31:41.000 If we can get 10,000 comments, then this is going to stay legal.

00:31:44.000 Wow.

00:31:45.000 So it was supposed to be Schedule 1. They had a plan to make it Schedule 1 a while ago.

00:31:50.000 It's very interesting.

00:31:51.000 The DEA only has one option.

00:31:53.000 The DEA has an emergency scheduling.

00:31:56.000 So there was a drug called Flocka.

00:31:58.000 Have you ever heard of Flocka?

00:31:59.000 No.

00:32:00.000 Jamie, can you look up Flocka, F-L-A, K-K-A? Because you have to see this.

00:32:03.000 Flocka was a drug in Florida where everybody was going crazy. 1.00

00:32:06.000 They were, like, smashing shit. 1.00

00:32:07.000 Really? 0.99

00:32:08.000 They were, like, smashing through their car windows and jumping on cars, and they were, like, zombies.

00:32:12.000 And that got banned, like, immediately.

00:32:14.000 And nobody, there was no, like, there was nobody that stuck up.

00:32:18.000 A new synthetic killer drug.

00:32:20.000 Yeah, wow.

00:32:21.000 That was something.

00:32:22.000 See, it made him crazy.

00:32:23.000 Yeah.

00:32:24.000 Well, you see, like, what some of these people do?

00:32:25.000 Like, look at these people.

00:32:26.000 Oh, my God.

00:32:27.000 They're on Flocka.

00:32:29.000 Is that real?

00:32:29.000 But see, what happens is, I don't know.

00:32:31.000 I don't know.

00:32:32.000 It's a synthetic drug.

00:32:33.000 Whoa.

00:32:34.000 So, I think Kratom gets lumped in with these synthetic drugs like Spice and Flocka.

00:32:40.000 Watch this guy jumps into the back of the car.

00:32:42.000 Oh, my God.

00:32:45.000 Jesus Christ. 1.00

00:32:48.000 What the fuck? 1.00

00:32:49.000 This is someone on Flocka? 1.00

00:32:51.000 Holy shit! 1.00

00:32:52.000 Can you imagine? 1.00

00:32:53.000 That's like that movie...

00:32:54.000 He goes flying off the car, back into the car.

00:32:57.000 It's amazing.

00:32:58.000 Whoa. 1.00

00:33:01.000 What the fuck? 1.00

00:33:02.000 Why am I not here? 1.00

00:33:02.000 Look at this guy, smashing, you know? 1.00

00:33:06.000 Oh my god!

00:33:07.000 It's like the most entertaining video I've ever seen, so even if it's not real, I love it, but I think it was a drug that they were selling in hedge shops down in Florida and it got banned within like, I don't know, a couple months of it being on the market. 0.98

00:33:19.000 Always fucking Florida. 0.99

00:33:21.000 God damn, Florida. 1.00

00:33:23.000 The gateway to demonic possession. 1.00

00:33:25.000 I was saying that's like I Am Legend, like those fucking crazy things from that Will Smith movie. 0.99

00:33:31.000 The monsters, yeah. 0.98

00:33:32.000 So this guy jumped on this guy's hood and he's trying to shake him off?

00:33:35.000 Is that what happened here?

00:33:35.000 All I'm saying is that when we sell things, you know, things that they sell in head shops, like they sold Spice.

00:33:41.000 Remember Spice was a synthetic marijuana.

00:33:44.000 And the problem with it is that a lot of times they're unregulated.

00:33:47.000 That spice just came on the market.

00:33:49.000 There was no regulation.

00:33:50.000 They were selling it in head shops.

00:33:52.000 They were getting away from it.

00:33:53.000 I think everybody puts this stuff on the market to get away with it.

00:33:55.000 But when Kratom was put on the market, it wasn't put on the market to get away with it.

00:34:00.000 The problem is there's a law in America called the DeShay Act.

00:34:04.000 Have you heard of that?

00:34:05.000 No.

00:34:06.000 DeShay is basically the Dietary Supplement Health Something Act, right?

00:34:10.000 I forget.

00:34:11.000 But basically what it does is anything that was on the market before 1994 gets grandfathered in and is a legal supplement.

00:34:19.000 So even if they didn't do the research on it or whatever, before 1994, and that's something that Orrin Hatch put in place to kind of keep the supplement industry, help the supplement Right.

00:34:45.000 In Florida, they've been selling it for 30 years.

00:34:48.000 You know, they've been selling it before 1994. So I actually went to the Freedom of Information Act and we summoned the records for importation of kratom.

00:34:59.000 Now, if we can prove that kratom has been imported to the United States before 1994, we have a pretty solid case to say, you know, look, this gets grandfathered in just like everything else.

00:35:07.000 Wow.

00:35:07.000 So we grandfathered in as a nutritional supplement.

00:35:10.000 I don't know.

00:35:11.000 I mean, I'm sure they're going to make it harder than that.

00:35:13.000 You know, I'm sure like if we have the proof, but I'm just going out at full blast.

00:35:16.000 You know, I feel like if you go at something with everything you got and you look down every avenue, you're going to find something, you know, it's kind of like a, I feel like a lawyer right now.

00:35:25.000 Wow.

00:35:26.000 What a strange predicament.

00:35:28.000 It's very unusual that there's something that's this well loved by the people that are taking it, but so little is known about it by most people, including me.

00:35:36.000 I have to say something that's very important.

00:35:38.000 The people that are against Kratom are just against the fact that they don't know a lot about it.

00:35:42.000 Right.

00:35:42.000 There's very few people that are really dead set against it.

00:35:46.000 There's a congresswoman down in Florida who's dead set against it because they want to boost their election. 1.00

00:35:53.000 They want people to vote for them.

00:35:55.000 So they say, oh, we took this off the street.

00:35:57.000 We saved your children.

00:35:58.000 She doesn't really know nothing about Kratom to make it illegal.

00:36:01.000 What did she say?

00:36:03.000 She told me, this is great.

00:36:05.000 You interviewed her?

00:36:06.000 Yeah, I interviewed her down in Florida.

00:36:07.000 And she told me that, you know, look, when you talk to a mother whose baby was born addicted to Kratom, she's like, that's going to change you.

00:36:16.000 And I said, can you get me that mother's name, address, and phone number so we can contact her?

00:36:20.000 Yeah, sure, we'll get around to it.

00:36:22.000 They've never produced that.

00:36:23.000 She was claiming there really was a mother whose baby was addicted to Kratom?

00:36:27.000 We've asked three or four times and we haven't gotten it.

00:36:29.000 However, I did interview a girl in Washington, D.C. who said that her baby was born addicted to opiates.

00:36:40.000 And that was a terrible, terrible thing that she had to go through.

00:36:43.000 And now she takes Kratom and she's fine.

00:36:45.000 And she's not going to relapse and she'll be fine.

00:36:47.000 And her daughter ended up being fine and stuff like that.

00:36:50.000 So what I'm saying is like, these opiates are what people were being born addicted to.

00:36:53.000 Not Kratom.

00:36:54.000 You know, they're looking down the wrong rabbit hole.

00:36:59.000 So does Kratom have any potential addictive side effects?

00:37:04.000 We don't know.

00:37:05.000 It's hard to tell.

00:37:07.000 How often do you take it?

00:37:09.000 I take it usually every day, but I can give you some anecdotal evidence that I went to Thailand for two weeks a couple months ago, and I had been taking Kratom for four months straight.

00:37:19.000 Then I had two weeks in Thailand.

00:37:21.000 We were actually shooting a kickboxer movie.

00:37:23.000 And after I got back from Thailand, I wasn't jonesing for Kratom.

00:37:30.000 I didn't take it for two weeks because it's illegal there.

00:37:32.000 So there was like a reason...

00:37:33.000 Oh, it is illegal there.

00:37:34.000 Yeah, like the last...

00:37:35.000 Like, I've never been to Thailand, and like, last thing I want to do is show up to Thailand and end up in Thai prison.

00:37:41.000 Yeah, that doesn't sound fun.

00:37:42.000 No, it doesn't sound fun at all.

00:37:43.000 So I was like, you know, I was like, maybe they don't even take this seriously there. 0.96

00:37:46.000 Maybe it's bullshit, but I'm not bringing it. 0.96

00:37:48.000 But it is illegal over there? 0.99

00:37:50.000 Yeah, it's illegal in Thailand.

00:37:51.000 You know why it's illegal in Thailand?

00:37:52.000 This is like...

00:37:53.000 It's really interesting, because if you look at this...

00:37:55.000 You know, like Maing Da is what they call it.

00:37:57.000 It's like a kind of a Thai name.

00:38:00.000 But the reason why it's illegal in Thailand is because it was cutting into the opium profits.

00:38:06.000 Oh, Jesus Christ.

00:38:07.000 So what happens is people...

00:38:09.000 That's probably exactly the same pressure over here.

00:38:11.000 Exactly.

00:38:12.000 But pills.

00:38:13.000 This happened in the 40s.

00:38:14.000 1942 or 3. They banned Kratom and they wanted to...

00:38:19.000 They basically kept it illegal because it was cutting into the money.

00:38:22.000 People were taking it instead of opium, instead of heroin.

00:38:26.000 Wow.

00:38:27.000 Wow.

00:38:27.000 And that's the same thing that's going to happen in this country, but it's going to be different.

00:38:31.000 In this country, it's going to solve a problem.

00:38:34.000 Is opium legal in Thailand?

00:38:37.000 I don't think it's legal, but I think even, you know, it's like they just tried to get Kratom out so that nobody was taking it.

00:38:44.000 Oh, I understand.

00:38:45.000 So the people that were profiting off of opium, period.

00:38:48.000 I think Kratom's more illegal than opium, if that makes sense.

00:38:50.000 That's hilarious.

00:38:52.000 Wow.

00:38:55.000 What a weird rabbit hole this is.

00:38:58.000 Yeah, you know, to me, the whole thing is interesting because I completely get the other side.

00:39:02.000 I don't want anybody taking something that's unsafe.

00:39:04.000 I don't want to market something that's unsafe.

00:39:06.000 But I don't make a dime from selling Kratom.

00:39:08.000 Like, that's not...

00:39:09.000 Right, you're not selling it.

00:39:09.000 That's not where my income comes from, and I'm not going to sell it.

00:39:12.000 So it's like...

00:39:13.000 It's not something where I'm like, hey, man, I can make billions of dollars off this.

00:39:16.000 Let me just...

00:39:16.000 Well, not only that, if anybody would have an interest in not promoting something that's addictive, it would be a guy like you who has an intimate knowledge of what it's like to be addictive and under the spell.

00:39:27.000 Sure.

00:39:27.000 I think addiction needs to be looked at in a certain way, though, where you look at addiction and you go like, okay, I'm addicted to coffee.

00:39:35.000 It's no big deal.

00:39:37.000 What's the problem?

00:39:40.000 People are addicted to coffee.

00:39:41.000 What's the problem?

00:39:42.000 There really is no problem.

00:39:43.000 You just need coffee.

00:39:44.000 Addicted to sugar will lead to problems down the road, but not a problem today.

00:39:48.000 Addicted to cigarettes lead to a problem down the road, but not a problem today.

00:39:51.000 So we don't really know.

00:39:53.000 There's not any long-term studies to show that Kratom is good in the long term.

00:39:57.000 There's not any studies.

00:39:58.000 But we can go by the evidence that we do have.

00:40:01.000 And they've done a lot of studies in mice, and all the studies in mice, like none of the mice die, you know?

00:40:07.000 They're not.

00:40:07.000 And the number one opiate addiction study they did was at University of Ole Miss, whatever that, Mississippi.

00:40:17.000 So Ole Miss, Christopher McCurdy, he's a guy there doing the research, and he really feels that this could be the savior for the opiate epidemic.

00:40:26.000 He feels that they need to make it stronger.

00:40:28.000 He feels they need to extract it, make it stronger, and that would be used for the opiate epidemic.

00:40:33.000 So that's why I said, I think there is potential for it to be studied as both a dietary supplement and as a drug.

00:40:39.000 Because if you can make something out of kratom that's going to help a lot of people, I don't really see it as a big problem if it could be both.

00:40:49.000 Right.

00:40:50.000 You know what I mean?

00:40:50.000 Let them make their money and whatever, but keep it legal for us.

00:40:53.000 So, in doing your documentary, what have you learned about the push to try to make it illegal?

00:40:58.000 And when did it all start?

00:41:00.000 It all started, I think...

00:41:02.000 Shoot, when did it start?

00:41:04.000 It started, like, over the summer.

00:41:06.000 I actually started doing the documentary a little bit before it.

00:41:09.000 I was like, well, maybe people should know about this.

00:41:11.000 Maybe this is something...

00:41:12.000 Oh, so you were doing it just to let people know about it, and then along the way, it started to be threatened.

00:41:16.000 It was weird.

00:41:17.000 It was like, I started doing it going like...

00:41:21.000 Is this going to be a movie or is this more like an infomercial?

00:41:23.000 What is this going to be?

00:41:25.000 I don't want it to be like an infomercial because I'm not selling it or making money off of it.

00:41:30.000 I want it to be something that's very honest about what this product does.

00:41:34.000 And so to me, the ban and the controversy is the best thing that could ever happen because now people know about it and they're aware.

00:41:40.000 As long as it doesn't get banned, we're okay.

00:41:42.000 You have a knack for that.

00:41:44.000 You know, when you think about it, like in Prescription Thugs, you're making this documentary on pill addiction, and then you get hurt during the middle of it, start taking pills, and become addicted to pills during the middle of a documentary on pill addiction.

00:41:57.000 I'm either blessed or cursed.

00:41:58.000 I don't know what that is, you know? 0.99

00:42:00.000 You might fucking manifest it or something, man. 0.97

00:42:03.000 I hope not, because actually the next documentary is about cancer. 0.99

00:42:06.000 Oh, Jesus Christ.

00:42:08.000 Well, the reason I'm doing that, the reason I do all my documentaries is because, like I said, we have the power to change the way people think and we have the power to open up people's minds about things that they might not know about.

00:42:18.000 Well, and also explore things.

00:42:20.000 You're very good at exploring things in a very objective way, in a very honest way.

00:42:24.000 And I think that...

00:42:25.000 That's so important in today's day and age because it's so hard to know why a person's promoting something in one way or not promoting something in another way.

00:42:37.000 It's like what is the interest behind it?

00:42:39.000 What's the motivation behind it?

00:42:40.000 Sure.

00:42:41.000 So to know that there's a guy like you who's doing this stuff just completely...

00:42:44.000 Completely honest and open and raw like that.

00:42:46.000 It's very, very important.

00:42:47.000 Well, thank you.

00:42:48.000 I really appreciate it.

00:42:49.000 Like, number one, being respected by somebody like you just means so much to me.

00:42:54.000 Because, you know, all my life, all I ever wanted to do was, like, I always wanted to prove myself.

00:42:58.000 I always thought I had to, you know, prove myself as a kid.

00:43:00.000 Like, I did this or that.

00:43:01.000 But I feel like these movies just kind of automatically do that for me.

00:43:04.000 I think you're absolutely right.

00:43:06.000 They've been automatically validating everything I've tried to do my whole life.

00:43:08.000 I wanted to be a big feature filmmaker and make Arnold Schwarzenegger movies.

00:43:13.000 And that's the furthest thing from my mind right now, is to make movies that are big action movies that are mindless.

00:43:20.000 I want to make...

00:43:21.000 Big, you know, big documentaries that are smart.

00:43:23.000 Well, it's interesting as life goes on and, you know, you change and evolve and, you know, your motivations change.

00:43:30.000 But I recommend your movies to a lot of people, man, particularly the prescription thugs because of this.

00:43:36.000 So many issues have come up over the last, you know, it seems like the last couple decades in this country are just unprecedented numbers of people that are addicted to pills.

00:43:45.000 It's crazy.

00:43:46.000 There's a couple million people like walking around completely checked out.

00:43:49.000 Yeah.

00:43:49.000 And I feel like It definitely needs to be...

00:43:54.000 I still can't wrap my mind around why the government hasn't stepped in and said we have to fight this opiate epidemic. 0.97

00:44:00.000 I think they're getting paid off.

00:44:02.000 Why isn't the government making the companies that make OxyContin?

00:44:06.000 Like for example, Purdue Pharma.

00:44:07.000 Purdue Pharma admitted like we got all these people addicted.

00:44:10.000 We lied to doctors.

00:44:11.000 They admitted it and they got fined.

00:44:13.000 But the fine was only like a little tiny percent of what they made.

00:44:16.000 You get fined $200 million or even if you get fined a billion dollars, you made $8 billion, who cares?

00:44:21.000 You don't even feel it because you're going to make another billion next year, another billion after that?

00:44:25.000 They actually call it the price of doing business.

00:44:26.000 They build in those fines into the product so they know, hey, we're probably going to get fined on this for $400 million.

00:44:33.000 Let's just build it in the cost of the drug.

00:44:35.000 I mean, it's an insane system that we have here for products that are supposed to help people.

00:44:40.000 Well, it's also this disingenuous thing that politicians do where they pretend they're looking out for the people.

00:44:45.000 But yet, how come you haven't heard a single politician in decades say a word about cigarettes?

00:44:51.000 Obama got into office.

00:44:52.000 He was smoking cigarettes when he got in.

00:44:55.000 That's half a million people just in this country die prematurely every year because of that.

00:45:00.000 And I think if we look at tobacco and we look at the problems with tobacco, what's the big problem with it?

00:45:05.000 They put all these chemicals in the tobacco.

00:45:07.000 And if they could just...

00:45:08.000 Ban that.

00:45:09.000 Look, I don't think actual natural tobacco is that bad for you.

00:45:12.000 Well, how many people are dying from cigars?

00:45:14.000 Not a lot.

00:45:15.000 Not a lot.

00:45:15.000 Not that I know of.

00:45:16.000 I mean, maybe it's abuse, maybe if you get crazy with it, but that's kind of like wine.

00:45:20.000 You know, wine is great, but if you drink wine like four or five bottles a day, you're going to kill your liver.

00:45:25.000 Yeah.

00:45:25.000 It's just like so many things.

00:45:27.000 But I feel like things like that, like wine, like wine feels like, kind of like Kratom has this sort of self-limiting thing. 0.51

00:45:33.000 Like wine, you could drink too much of it, but you feel so shitty.

00:45:36.000 Right.

00:45:37.000 And it's like Kratom's kind of the same way.

00:45:39.000 Like as you take too much of it, you'll just feel so crappy that you're You're going to know never to do that again.

00:45:44.000 What does it do?

00:45:45.000 Like, how does it make you feel crappy?

00:45:46.000 Because you said you're taking too much.

00:45:48.000 Just stomachache?

00:45:49.000 Stomachache, nausea.

00:45:50.000 You know, and when I say, so I guess I should mention that what I actually took, I don't even know if it was Kratom.

00:45:57.000 What I took was a product, and I'll never do this again.

00:45:59.000 It was like some extract that somebody gave me, and I tried it, and that's what made me sick.

00:46:03.000 So it could have been way stronger than regular Kratom.

00:46:06.000 There could have been something else in it.

00:46:07.000 But that was my first, like, okay, be smart about this.

00:46:11.000 Look at the packaging.

00:46:13.000 A big problem with Kratom is most of the Kratom that's on the market, this is the only company in the entire country or world that packages Kratom like a dietary supplement.

00:46:23.000 Every other supplement, if you look on the back, it'll say right here, not for human consumption.

00:46:27.000 That's a problem.

00:46:28.000 Can people buy this right now?

00:46:30.000 Yeah, they could buy it.

00:46:31.000 For now?

00:46:32.000 Sure.

00:46:33.000 This company is from Vegas, so they do a lot of business in Vegas.

00:46:37.000 They're actually in health food stores in Vegas.

00:46:39.000 Explain it to people so they could get it.

00:46:40.000 And obviously, you nor I have any stake in this at all.

00:46:44.000 This is called Urban Ice.

00:46:45.000 Urban Ice Organics.

00:46:47.000 They have a website?

00:46:47.000 Yeah, they have a website.

00:46:48.000 I believe it's urbaniceorganics.com or urbanice.com.

00:46:52.000 I'm not even sure.

00:46:53.000 To tell you the truth.

00:46:54.000 But any head shop should have Kratom.

00:46:59.000 They sell a lot of this in Vegas.

00:47:01.000 So in Vegas, it's all over.

00:47:03.000 But you know what?

00:47:04.000 The other thing we talked about is why are they making illegal?

00:47:07.000 The guy who owns this company made a lot of money off of it.

00:47:09.000 I'm sure.

00:47:10.000 Millions and millions of dollars.

00:47:11.000 So when you make millions and millions of dollars, people want to know, like, hey, dude, you didn't go through the process.

00:47:16.000 And I think Kelly and I were just talking.

00:47:19.000 The process...

00:47:21.000 To make something a, you know, dietary supplement is a long, arduous process.

00:47:26.000 And I feel like Kratom may need to go through that process because, like, we don't have enough information on it and it hadn't been studied.

00:47:33.000 It's sort of something that slipped through the cracks.

00:47:35.000 Like, nobody really knew about it.

00:47:36.000 It wasn't that popular.

00:47:37.000 And it's been around for 2,000 years and no one ever decided to say, hey, this is a dietary supplement.

00:47:43.000 Wow.

00:47:44.000 Now, these other ones that you were talking about, the other ones when you were saying if this gets illegal, there's two that are similar.

00:47:49.000 Name those again.

00:47:50.000 What is it again?

00:47:51.000 Soursop, I think is one of them, and Akiyuma, which is like, I don't think it's Japanese or something, but Akiyuma and Soursop, I've never tried them.

00:47:59.000 I don't know.

00:48:00.000 I've just read about them, you know?

00:48:01.000 But they have a similar effect, allegedly?

00:48:03.000 That's what it says, yeah.

00:48:05.000 That's what they say.

00:48:05.000 But they haven't been as popular, so maybe, you know, like, I feel like they're not as popular because they're probably not as good or strong, but I don't know.

00:48:13.000 Man.

00:48:14.000 So, have they isolated, like, what is the pressure to try to get it illegal?

00:48:22.000 Yeah, we've kept trying to isolate, you know, and we've talked to the people that are against it, and there are Congress people that are against it.

00:48:30.000 There are grieving parents that are against it.

00:48:33.000 You know, like, nobody in Big Pharma is going to come out and say, hey, we're going to make this a drug and screw all of you.

00:48:38.000 Like, they're not going to really say that, so it's really...

00:48:41.000 When you get into Washington, like we were just in Washington for a week and everything's so shady and underhanded in my mind, like all these people are working together.

00:48:49.000 They're all in cahoots, you know, like everything seemed to be like, I don't know, just the congressman that I talked to, Mark Pocan from Wisconsin, marijuana and Kratom are both illegal there and he's kind of fighting for it to be legal.

00:49:03.000 And like I said, he's one of the only congresspeople I met that was like, Willing to go to bat for these kind of things.

00:49:08.000 And I think we need more congresspeople like that that are looking out for the citizens.

00:49:13.000 So there are state laws against it?

00:49:16.000 There's six states, I believe, that have banned Kratom.

00:49:19.000 I think Wisconsin's one of them.

00:49:21.000 Tennessee, Alabama.

00:49:24.000 I don't remember the rest of them, but there's a couple states where it's banned.

00:49:27.000 Hmm.

00:49:28.000 And what do they cite when they say that it's...

00:49:30.000 Deaths.

00:49:31.000 Deaths and danger and kids taking it.

00:49:34.000 You know, everything's about protecting the children and saving the children.

00:49:37.000 But, you know, none of the people in the Kratom industry have never said, like, hey, let's age restrict this.

00:49:42.000 Let's make it, you know, 21 and over or 18 and over or 25 and over.

00:49:46.000 It doesn't, you know, whatever they want to do.

00:49:48.000 Like, no one's even...

00:49:49.000 The FDA has never even come and talk.

00:49:51.000 Like, it's impossible.

00:49:52.000 And this is the big problem.

00:49:53.000 It's impossible to talk to the FDA or DEA. I just spoke to the...

00:49:58.000 Spokesman for the DEA last week, Melvin Patterson.

00:50:01.000 And I said, hey, Mr. Patterson, I would really like to come down and do an interview with you.

00:50:05.000 He's like, oh yeah, sorry, we don't do that.

00:50:08.000 And I want to say, well, you work for me.

00:50:10.000 We pay their salaries.

00:50:13.000 I know people hear that all the time.

00:50:14.000 I think there just needs to be more transparency in the DEA and the FDA. The FDA is like Scientology.

00:50:22.000 You can't find out anything about it.

00:50:24.000 When you try to do research on it, you try to find out who's doing what or whatever, there's not a whole lot of transparency.

00:50:29.000 And that's why documentary filmmakers like me have to use the Freedom of Information Act, where if we request something from the government, You know, they have to give it to us, and that's something that really helps us.

00:50:41.000 So this is a, I mean, we're talking about what a rabbit hole this is, but this is a weird rabbit hole for you to have started this out as something like you're finding this plant to be beneficial, you see all these people that are benefiting from it, and you're like, hey, this is a great subject, I'm going to let the world know about it.

00:50:54.000 And then as you're doing it, you start feeling this dark push for it to be Schedule 1 and to start making it legal.

00:51:02.000 What's that journey been like?

00:51:05.000 Weird.

00:51:06.000 You know, I think scary a little bit because you start this thing and I thought it was just gonna go down the two.

00:51:13.000 I mean, I thought they were gonna maybe make it illegal and then, you know, maybe we have nothing.

00:51:17.000 You know, once you make something a schedule one drug, it's impossible.

00:51:21.000 Ask the people, the marijuana people, it's impossible to take it off of schedule one.

00:51:24.000 It can happen, but it's really hard.

00:51:27.000 So I think the idea is not to get it there in the first place.

00:51:30.000 Well, there was talk about the DEA removing marijuana from Schedule 1 this summer, and they backed out of it.

00:51:35.000 I just read some more about that today.

00:51:38.000 It's still kind of up in the air, huh?

00:51:40.000 Well, they got close to it, and they said they were going to reconsider it, and apparently a lot of people were very hopeful.

00:51:44.000 They thought, this is going to be it.

00:51:45.000 Schedule 1 is ridiculous. 0.71

00:51:46.000 No medicinal value. 0.83

00:51:47.000 I mean, they've shown marijuana to cure some forms of cancer. 0.99

00:51:51.000 To say there's no medicinal value for it is completely ridiculous.

00:51:55.000 We need to start dumping our money into researching these plants, Because, like, look, you have these pharma companies, and I don't know if you've seen this show on Discovery where they show you how they come up with new drugs. 0.97

00:52:07.000 They basically take, like, there's a machine, and it's like this fucking robot, and it takes, like, every fucking substance in the world and combines it until, like, it makes millions and millions of different... 0.92

00:52:17.000 Different kind of fucking, like, things, you know? 0.99

00:52:20.000 Different kind of drugs. 0.99

00:52:21.000 And then they start testing it on, like, every different disease to see if it works.

00:52:25.000 So it's like, it's like shooting in the dark.

00:52:28.000 It's like, they have no, like, they're like, there's a machine that'll just make a drug, and then they figure out if it works on something.

00:52:34.000 Rather than, like, we already know that Kratom works for this, this, and this.

00:52:37.000 And we already know that marijuana works for this, this, and this.

00:52:39.000 Why not put the money into studying that, rather than shooting in the dark, making some weird, you know... 1.00

00:52:44.000 Combination of shit. 1.00

00:52:45.000 Have you seen that? 1.00

00:52:46.000 No, I haven't seen it at all.

00:52:47.000 I'll have to find that video for you.

00:52:48.000 It sounds almost like...

00:52:50.000 It sounds like they use those algorithms to try to work the stock market.

00:52:56.000 It's something like, yeah, similar.

00:52:58.000 They're just throwing numbers up.

00:52:59.000 Yeah.

00:53:00.000 Well, there's a lot of them that come out real bad.

00:53:02.000 I mean, I know a dude who had a stroke, a young guy from Vioxx.

00:53:06.000 That stuff.

00:53:06.000 Oh, yeah.

00:53:07.000 Yeah, yeah.

00:53:07.000 You should probably know about that.

00:53:09.000 Yeah, Vioxx.

00:53:09.000 Arthritis.

00:53:10.000 Arthritis medication. 1.00

00:53:11.000 Yeah, I know a guy in his 30s had a fucking stroke on that stuff. 0.99

00:53:14.000 Really? 0.99

00:53:14.000 Yeah. 0.99

00:53:15.000 See, that's serious.

00:53:16.000 They pulled it off the market.

00:53:17.000 Yeah, they pulled that off the market.

00:53:18.000 I think there was 55,000 deaths from Vioxx.

00:53:22.000 And Kratom?

00:53:24.000 Zero.

00:53:24.000 Oh, weird.

00:53:25.000 Marijuana?

00:53:26.000 Zero! 0.90

00:53:27.000 How strange.

00:53:28.000 Yeah.

00:53:29.000 Man, there's a business in selling people pills.

00:53:33.000 We live in a twisted world.

00:53:34.000 We do live in a twisted world. 0.97

00:53:35.000 The fact that people are going to keep that from somebody who's in pain is ridiculous.

00:53:39.000 Well, I'm hoping that as time goes on, we're slowly starting to understand that it is impossible for your doctor to know all the ramifications and repercussions involved in any drug.

00:53:50.000 I was just on the show, the doctors, with a doctor whose son was taking kratom.

00:53:56.000 His son was a drug addict.

00:53:58.000 And he kind of found out about it.

00:54:00.000 And then his son said, Dad, I'm going to get off all the heroin.

00:54:03.000 I'm going to start taking Kratom.

00:54:04.000 And he said his son has been on Kratom now for, I don't know, like six months.

00:54:08.000 He's been sober.

00:54:09.000 He's been happier than he's ever been.

00:54:11.000 And this doctor is 100%, you know, down with it.

00:54:14.000 And he was on the show The Doctors With Me.

00:54:16.000 And he was arguing with, you know, there's a guy from, what's that show?

00:54:22.000 Intervention.

00:54:23.000 One of the dudes from Intervention was on the doctors with us, arguing like, yeah, people get addicted to Kratom all the time.

00:54:28.000 And it's like, dude, you're a marketing guy.

00:54:30.000 Like these people in rehab, like you gotta understand, The reason why if you Google Kratom, rehabs come up is because rehabs have marketing teams.

00:54:37.000 They're trying to get as many people into the doors as they can.

00:54:41.000 So they tell you Kratom's bad and they put it on their website.

00:54:43.000 Narconon is a big rehab center.

00:54:46.000 They're owned by Scientologists.

00:54:47.000 And they're all over the Kratom thing saying like, are you addicted to Kratom?

00:54:51.000 Call us.

00:54:52.000 I feel like the people that get addicted to it.

00:54:55.000 I went to rehab.

00:54:56.000 I've been in rehab with people that were there for marijuana. 1.00

00:55:00.000 And you want to just be like, dude, what the fuck are you doing here? 0.99

00:55:03.000 Do you remember Celebrity Rehab? 0.99

00:55:05.000 Yeah.

00:55:06.000 But people do have a problem with it, so it's okay.

00:55:09.000 You can go to rehab for anything.

00:55:12.000 So going for Kratom is no different than going for depression or something.

00:55:15.000 Or gambling.

00:55:16.000 You can go to rehab for gambling.

00:55:17.000 So I don't know why they're marketing it to people.

00:55:20.000 I think it's kind of sadistic in a way.

00:55:22.000 They're looking for people that are on Kratom.

00:55:25.000 I don't know.

00:55:26.000 I mean, I don't know why they...

00:55:28.000 Well, perhaps if they don't have any personal experience with it, maybe it's not as nefarious as we think it is. 0.99

00:55:32.000 Maybe they're just ignorant. 0.99

00:55:33.000 Sure. 0.99

00:55:34.000 And the good rehabs aren't doing that, I should say.

00:55:36.000 Like, where I went, Cliffside Malibu, they don't have a Kratom thing on their website because they're a legitimate rehab center.

00:55:42.000 I was talking about celebrity rehab.

00:55:44.000 I remember when Eric Roberts was on it.

00:55:46.000 It was hilarious.

00:55:47.000 Everybody else is shaking and throwing up and sweating.

00:55:49.000 Eric Roberts sitting there with a newspaper, a cup of coffee.

00:55:53.000 He's got slippers on.

00:55:53.000 He was just in there for pot.

00:55:55.000 Yeah.

00:55:55.000 Like, there was no withdrawal.

00:55:57.000 There was nothing happened.

00:55:59.000 They're like, oh, what does it feel like?

00:56:00.000 He's like, I feel fine.

00:56:02.000 I just don't have weed. 0.99

00:56:04.000 Well, the problem with when you tell somebody that they have a problem, they start thinking, fuck, I have a problem. 0.98

00:56:10.000 You know, like, have you ever had a cop behind you and you never did anything? 0.98

00:56:13.000 No, but you're like looking in the rear view mirror and you kind of drop both hands on a wheel.

00:56:17.000 Yeah, you're like, how's my license?

00:56:18.000 Is it good?

00:56:19.000 My license is good.

00:56:20.000 Did I pay my insurance? 1.00

00:56:21.000 Fuck. 1.00

00:56:21.000 Do I have a gun? 1.00

00:56:22.000 There's no gun in this car. 0.99

00:56:23.000 Why am I fucking freaking out? 0.97

00:56:24.000 Am I speeding? 0.98

00:56:25.000 No, I'm going the speed limit.

00:56:26.000 But meanwhile, there's something if someone tells you, hey, you've got a problem.

00:56:31.000 You've got a problem.

00:56:32.000 You might not think you have a problem, but you've got a problem. 1.00

00:56:34.000 I'm like, fuck, I've got a problem. 0.99

00:56:35.000 What's my problem? 1.00

00:56:36.000 You know, your problem is kratom, or your problem is sex, or your problem is whatever the fuck it is. 1.00

00:56:41.000 Exercise. 1.00

00:56:42.000 You're addicted to exercise.

00:56:43.000 Someone can tell you you have a problem, and then most of us are at least a little insecure.

00:56:48.000 Almost everybody I know is at least a little insecure.

00:56:50.000 And as soon as someone accuses you of something, you start considering the possibility they're right. 0.83

00:56:55.000 Yeah, and then sometimes you try to hide it more.

00:56:57.000 Yes!

00:56:58.000 That's my...

00:56:59.000 You know, as an addict, I was like, okay, well, now they're on.

00:57:01.000 I mean, I better really...

00:57:03.000 Really hide this.

00:57:03.000 I had a conversation one day with my dad.

00:57:05.000 I'll never forget it.

00:57:06.000 My dad is like the nicest person in the world.

00:57:08.000 You've seen him in the movies.

00:57:09.000 And one day I was out of money.

00:57:12.000 I'm in my 40s and I'm out of money. 0.89

00:57:14.000 That's ridiculous. 1.00

00:57:15.000 That's stupid. 1.00

00:57:16.000 You know what I mean? 1.00

00:57:16.000 But I was a drug addict. 1.00

00:57:18.000 So my dad said to me, I don't know what's wrong with you, but I think you're a drug addict or an alcoholic or something.

00:57:23.000 But there's no reason why a guy in there, 40 years old, should be out of money.

00:57:27.000 And I'm like, you know what, man?

00:57:29.000 He's right.

00:57:29.000 And it was that conversation that it was about three months before I went to rehab, but like that was the conversation.

00:57:36.000 Huh.

00:57:36.000 It was that conversation.

00:57:37.000 It was my dad being disappointed in me.

00:57:39.000 It was like that conversation that really sort of shook me to the ground.

00:57:43.000 Like somebody telling me I had a problem, it like kind of shook me to the core because he yelled at me when he said it and he never yelled at me.

00:57:49.000 Well, sometimes that's all you need is one person's opinion who you really love. 0.99

00:57:53.000 Yeah, booting the ass from dad. 1.00

00:57:55.000 Yeah, and you go, shit. 1.00

00:57:56.000 And my dad's been through everything. 1.00

00:57:58.000 You know, he's had cancer, he's had, you know, his half of his intestine pulled out.

00:58:02.000 He's had all these issues, and they're not due to drugs or alcohol, so it makes me feel even more guilty.

00:58:07.000 Because, like, my issues are just due to something I'm doing.

00:58:09.000 Right, right.

00:58:10.000 Well, except arthritis.

00:58:11.000 Yeah, but...

00:58:12.000 I'm feeling it now.

00:58:14.000 I don't know what it's doing, but something's going on.

00:58:16.000 Got a boner?

00:58:17.000 No.

00:58:17.000 Does that happen?

00:58:18.000 You should have probably warned me.

00:58:19.000 No. 1.00

00:58:20.000 Shit, man. 1.00

00:58:20.000 I wish. 1.00

00:58:21.000 Fuck. 1.00

00:58:23.000 No, just... 1.00

00:58:24.000 I feel good.

00:58:26.000 It doesn't...

00:58:26.000 It's not...

00:58:28.000 Not negatively affected me in any way.

00:58:29.000 I don't feel slow or anything like that.

00:58:31.000 That's what I was assuming it was.

00:58:34.000 I mean, literally, one of the things that I wanted to do before talking to you about this, I wanted to do no research.

00:58:39.000 Because I literally wanted to just go in with my ignorance so that I can question you from ignorance.

00:58:45.000 Interestingly enough, if you try to do research, it's kind of...

00:58:49.000 It's kind of biased right off the bat from Google.

00:58:51.000 Like I said, when you search Kratom, a lot of times what comes up are the rehab centers that are paying to be...

00:58:57.000 Oh, let's try it right now.

00:58:58.000 And then if you type in Kratom ban, you'll get more of a across the board, up and down, you know?

00:59:03.000 I'm going to try it with Bing because I've been using Windows.

00:59:05.000 So let's see if they have the same thing.

00:59:09.000 Would you say he's mocking Bing?

00:59:11.000 I don't know.

00:59:12.000 Bing is not bad, man. 0.99

00:59:14.000 I don't have any problems with Bing.

00:59:16.000 Okay.

00:59:16.000 Kratom Red on Amazon.com.

00:59:18.000 See?

00:59:19.000 They're trying to sell you it.

00:59:20.000 Oh, they're trying to sell it.

00:59:21.000 Yeah.

00:59:22.000 Kratom Red.

00:59:23.000 Okay.

00:59:24.000 Drug abuse.

00:59:25.000 Kratom effects.

00:59:26.000 Okay.

00:59:26.000 Narconon.

00:59:27.000 I did not know Narconon is owned by Scientology.

00:59:30.000 That's crazy.

00:59:30.000 I didn't know that either, but I have my buddy Anthony Roberts.

00:59:33.000 He was like...

00:59:34.000 When I was doing Bigger, Stronger, Faster, it was this dude that would always hit me up online about stuff, and he kind of knew everything, so I hired him to work on this movie as a researcher and a writer, and he's been teaching me a lot about how to find stuff.

00:59:47.000 Let's see what the Narconon people have to say about it.

00:59:50.000 Effects of drugs.

00:59:52.000 So it's narconon.org, the effects of drug abuse.

00:59:56.000 It says, Kratom is a relatively new drug to the U.S. and Europe, and has been used for many years in Southeast Asia as an anti-diarrheal medicine.

01:00:04.000 Hey.

01:00:04.000 Does it really?

01:00:05.000 You know, I've heard that.

01:00:07.000 Yeah, a lot of people...

01:00:07.000 So you got diarrhea, you take Kratom.

01:00:09.000 A painkiller and a recreational drug.

01:00:12.000 Kratom is the popular name for a tree, and the drug comes from its leaves.

01:00:16.000 The drug may be bought in leaf form, but in this country is more likely purchased as a capsule with a powdered leaf material or chopped up in the form of a leaf that can be used for a tea or for smoking.

01:00:27.000 Yeah, this says tea on it.

01:00:28.000 Do people make actual tea out of it?

01:00:29.000 Yeah, they make tea out of it, yeah. 1.00

01:00:30.000 It tastes like shit. 1.00

01:00:31.000 I think it tastes terrible. 1.00

01:00:33.000 It's pretty bitter.

01:00:36.000 It says the effects of Kratom come on rather quickly and lasts between five and seven hours, although high doses can last longer.

01:00:42.000 It's heavily promoted as a legal, undetectable safe drug that can be used to come off stronger drugs.

01:00:48.000 It is not illegal in the United States, but the breakdown products of Kratom can be detected in some drug tests.

01:00:55.000 Is that true for people who work at UPS or something?

01:00:57.000 I haven't seen that happen, no.

01:00:59.000 I don't think that's true.

01:01:01.000 They might be scaring you?

01:01:02.000 Yeah.

01:01:02.000 They're probably trying to get you to join up?

01:01:03.000 No, I don't think it would show up on a drug test because it's not an opiate.

01:01:05.000 It's not the same ingredients.

01:01:09.000 It says the breakdown products of creatine can be detected with some drug tests.

01:01:13.000 Maybe.

01:01:13.000 Maybe some drug tests that are looking.

01:01:15.000 Well, there is a specific drug test that looks for it.

01:01:18.000 You know, that will go in and look for just Kratom.

01:01:22.000 And that's what they use when somebody commits suicide or whatever, and they say, oh, is there Kratom in their system or whatever?

01:01:29.000 You know, and there's 15 deaths from Kratom.

01:01:33.000 14 to 15 deaths are all polypharmacy, which means we're taking several different things.

01:01:38.000 Most of the time, it's like polypharmacy, but it's like, oh, they were taking Xanax, Vicodin, and Kratom.

01:01:44.000 And you're like, why would you blame it on the Kratom?

01:01:46.000 It seems like the least egregious of all of them.

01:01:50.000 If it's only in combination with other pharmaceuticals, that sounds crazy.

01:01:53.000 Then there's no deaths.

01:01:54.000 I mean, that's like marijuana.

01:01:57.000 It's like, who knows how many people have died on marijuana and other drugs?

01:02:02.000 It's funny that you bring up Thailand, because they're using Thailand as an example here.

01:02:07.000 More than 13,000 people were arrested for Kratom-related crimes.

01:02:11.000 In Thailand.

01:02:12.000 That's just because it's illegal in Thailand to preserve the opiate industry.

01:02:15.000 They conveniently ignore that.

01:02:16.000 So the drug is abused for its abused for its sedative or stimulating effects.

01:02:22.000 Not used.

01:02:23.000 It says abused.

01:02:24.000 Well, see, the thing is, I don't think that taking a normal...

01:02:29.000 I think if I took, you know, 50 pills a day, that would be abusing it.

01:02:33.000 I maybe take six pills a day.

01:02:35.000 Maybe, at the most, ten.

01:02:36.000 And even the term pill is a weird word, because what you're basically taking is powdered plants.

01:02:42.000 Yeah, well, the term drug is a weird word.

01:02:44.000 If you went back and read that statement that you just read and substituted the word plant, it wouldn't sound bad at all.

01:02:49.000 The plant comes as a powder, the plant is this, the plant does that.

01:02:52.000 It wouldn't sound bad, but when you use the word drug, it really paints it in a...

01:02:56.000 Well drugs such a weird word because it covers too many different effects.

01:03:00.000 It covers stimulants, depressants.

01:03:02.000 So here's what it says.

01:03:03.000 A person using this drug may expect or may not expect or want the following undesirable effects of kratom.

01:03:11.000 Edginess.

01:03:12.000 Nervousness, vomiting can be severe or prolonged.

01:03:15.000 Nausea can be severe or prolonged.

01:03:17.000 Sweating, itching, constipation, delusions, lethargy, respiratory depression, tremors, aggressive or combative behavior, psychotic episodes, hallucinations, and paranoia.

01:03:28.000 There's a big thing you just mentioned there.

01:03:30.000 Respiratory depression has not been shown with Kratom. 0.99

01:03:34.000 So they're fucking with you. 0.99

01:03:35.000 And that's what kills people with Oxy. 1.00

01:03:37.000 What about hallucinations?

01:03:38.000 Do people hallucinate on Kratom?

01:03:40.000 I've never met one.

01:03:41.000 Psychotic episodes?

01:03:42.000 Never met one.

01:03:43.000 Aggressive or combative behavior?

01:03:45.000 Never really experienced that.

01:03:48.000 The only thing I can say that I have experienced are people that feel better and are in better moods.

01:03:53.000 Here's an interesting one.

01:03:54.000 Addiction effects may include, number one, loss of sexual desire. 1.00

01:03:59.000 People are like, fuck this drug. 0.99

01:04:02.000 Loss of what? 1.00

01:04:03.000 It will actually prolong you during sex. 1.00

01:04:06.000 Oh, shit. 1.00

01:04:07.000 Prolong you. 1.00

01:04:08.000 So, like, make it harder to finish, basically.

01:04:10.000 Darkening of the skin or face. 0.94

01:04:12.000 What do you want to be, black? 1.00

01:04:14.000 That's an effect, a negative effect. 0.92

01:04:17.000 Well, you know where that comes from, darkening of the face and the skin? 0.82

01:04:20.000 It comes from in Thailand, when they did the study in 1975, they were researching the workers, the workers out in the fields.

01:04:29.000 So they're researching these workers out in the fields that were chewing the kratom leaves, saying, oh, they're turning brown.

01:04:35.000 Because they're out in the field in the sun! 1.00

01:04:38.000 That's so stupid! 1.00

01:04:39.000 So like, these people are turning brown! 1.00

01:04:41.000 Oh my god, that's so stupid! 1.00

01:04:43.000 And that's listed as a side effect, melanin. 1.00

01:04:46.000 Well, and then you'll have people, like congresspeople and other people that are fighting against this, try to use that as a fact.

01:04:53.000 Here's where it gets really weird.

01:04:54.000 Withdrawal effects of creatum are very similar to those of opiate-like heroin or prescription painkillers.

01:05:02.000 Let's hear those.

01:05:03.000 Here's the withdrawal effects.

01:05:04.000 Diarrhea.

01:05:05.000 I thought it was anti-diarrhea! 1.00

01:05:07.000 Make up your fucking mind. 1.00

01:05:09.000 Muscle pain. 1.00

01:05:10.000 I thought it's good for pain.

01:05:12.000 Yeah, it's great for pain.

01:05:13.000 Muscle tremors or jerking.

01:05:15.000 Actually, the vet, all his muscle jerking and twitching goes away.

01:05:20.000 They're saying that that's a side effect.

01:05:23.000 Restlessness and sleeplessness.

01:05:26.000 Does it help you?

01:05:28.000 You know, I haven't really stayed up all night on it.

01:05:33.000 There's adverse effects to everything that we could possibly ingest.

01:05:37.000 So it's more like, let's take a big group of these adverse effects and see which ones occur more often in people.

01:05:46.000 It really hasn't been shown across the board to do all these things to everybody.

01:05:50.000 There was one guy that was on Kratom for three years and they said he's got to be addicted to Kratom.

01:05:56.000 We're going to study him.

01:05:57.000 We're going to see what happens when he gets off Kratom.

01:06:01.000 So he gets off Kratom and you know what happened to him?

01:06:04.000 What?

01:06:04.000 He had a runny nose.

01:06:05.000 Whoa.

01:06:06.000 Yeah.

01:06:07.000 That's scary.

01:06:07.000 That was the only thing that he complained about was like a runny nose.

01:06:11.000 Here in large font, it says, Narconon can help the person who is addicted to Kratom in large words.

01:06:20.000 And then it goes back.

01:06:22.000 Well, every drug has different effects.

01:06:25.000 Oh man, the route back to sobriety is much the same from person to person.

01:06:30.000 Recovery must include relief from incessant cravings near the beginnings of rehab.

01:06:39.000 You know what we said about, we were talking, I actually heard your podcast and you brought me up on another one of your podcasts and we were talking about time, the amount of time it takes to get sober.

01:06:50.000 Yeah.

01:06:50.000 And I still believe that, right?

01:06:52.000 I still believe like it takes time.

01:06:54.000 To reset.

01:06:55.000 Sure, but the thing that we have to talk about is like you don't just take this and get off of opiates.

01:07:00.000 You take this, and you go to AA meetings, and you go to, you know, whatever works for you.

01:07:05.000 Counseling.

01:07:06.000 Yeah, you go to counseling, you go to a therapist, and you talk to them about why you couldn't get off the drugs, and you tell them you're taking this, and you say, hey, let's see if we can solve this problem, you know?

01:07:15.000 Right. 0.98

01:07:16.000 It's, let's not be stupid about it. 0.97

01:07:18.000 Like I went to the doctor and I got, when I was addicted to opiates and I would drive around my car crying, I would be crying, saying, I just want help. 0.94

01:07:27.000 You know, my brother was dying from this.

01:07:29.000 I knew he was going to die from it.

01:07:30.000 I knew it.

01:07:30.000 So I was driving around.

01:07:31.000 I would cry.

01:07:32.000 I'd be like, I need rehab.

01:07:33.000 I need help.

01:07:34.000 I don't know what to do.

01:07:35.000 Every rehab I called was like $4,000, $6,000.

01:07:38.000 And I didn't have the money at the time.

01:07:39.000 I was a drug addict.

01:07:40.000 You know, I was broke.

01:07:41.000 If I had known about something like this, Back then, it would have completely changed the person I am now.

01:07:47.000 I would have lost five or six years, you know?

01:07:50.000 Wow. 0.99

01:07:52.000 That's fucking crazy. 1.00

01:07:54.000 It's just crazy. 1.00

01:07:55.000 It's so weird when you're a grown adult and all of a sudden you find out about something that's been around for thousands of years.

01:08:02.000 It's been helping people.

01:08:03.000 You're like, I try to pay attention. 0.98

01:08:05.000 How the fuck did I miss this one? 0.84

01:08:06.000 For me, being like the guy who did bigger, stronger, faster, always talking about supplements and everything, I missed it too. 0.99

01:08:12.000 Wow.

01:08:13.000 I know about every supplement on the market.

01:08:15.000 I know everything Onnit makes.

01:08:17.000 I know every supplement that's out there.

01:08:19.000 I look at them.

01:08:19.000 I want to see what they do.

01:08:21.000 And I missed it.

01:08:25.000 That is really fascinating.

01:08:27.000 It's just really, really fascinating.

01:08:29.000 So now we're in this state where the DEA held off its Schedule 1 distinction, right?

01:08:36.000 They were going to designate it as a Schedule 1. Sure.

01:08:40.000 The DEA isn't, I think, this big monster that everybody thinks.

01:08:44.000 Everybody's like, oh, the DEA and blah, blah, blah.

01:08:45.000 I think the DEA, I believe, from what I've gathered from this whole situation, is they're not happy about what happened.

01:08:55.000 They didn't know.

01:08:56.000 They weren't aware that this many people use Kratom and are happy about it.

01:09:00.000 I think that they really didn't know.

01:09:02.000 I don't think it's like...

01:09:03.000 I don't think it's as devious as people think.

01:09:06.000 Like, I don't think it was a big, you know...

01:09:07.000 It definitely could be something that is pushed by big pharma.

01:09:11.000 But I feel like the way that the DEA has reacted so far has been, you know, pretty normal.

01:09:17.000 Pretty, like...

01:09:18.000 Reasonable.

01:09:18.000 Yeah, reasonable.

01:09:19.000 Yeah, like, it's been like, hey, okay, I'm sorry.

01:09:22.000 Let's open up a website and take some comments.

01:09:24.000 Well, I really hope people listen to this, get to it.

01:09:28.000 Give the address out one more time.

01:09:29.000 It's kratomcomments.org.

01:09:31.000 K-R-A-T-O-M comments.org.

01:09:38.000 And so, December 1st, once December 1st rolls around, which is right around the corner...

01:09:44.000 What happens if they get a bunch of notes and I mean they have to get 10,000?

01:09:49.000 Is that what it has to be?

01:09:50.000 Well, they don't have to get any certain number, but I think if they get 10,000 it's like that's the number we were at.

01:09:54.000 That's what you're aiming for?

01:09:56.000 Was aiming for.

01:09:56.000 You know like what's great is I've actually become friends a lot of people in this Kratom community and it's not the kind of people that you would think like I feel like when I went to the Kratom March in Washington, D.C., I didn't know what kind of people I was going to meet, but I met mothers and grandmothers and all these people that were like my mom.

01:10:16.000 And I wasn't expecting that.

01:10:17.000 I was expecting to meet a bunch of people like, what's up, dude?

01:10:21.000 And that kind of...

01:10:22.000 That kind of guy. 1.00

01:10:23.000 Saying like, yeah, man, the government sucks. 0.97

01:10:26.000 Let's keep this legal. 0.98

01:10:26.000 Tower 7, bro. 0.98

01:10:27.000 Look into it.

01:10:28.000 It was vets, veterans that fought overseas for us and have risked a lot for us.

01:10:35.000 It was mothers and grandmothers and...

01:10:38.000 People like that more than it was of these devious characters that they think are using Kratom.

01:10:44.000 Wow.

01:10:44.000 So this is a really important issue.

01:10:47.000 And when is your documentary going to come out?

01:10:49.000 We're hoping the documentary will come out early next year.

01:10:52.000 So it's just a matter of how fast we can get it together.

01:10:55.000 We're almost done shooting.

01:10:57.000 Okay, so now it's just the editing process and then also, are you gonna wait around to see what happens after December 1st?

01:11:03.000 Yeah, yeah, we'll wait around.

01:11:04.000 We're gonna start editing.

01:11:05.000 We're starting editing right now.

01:11:06.000 So basically, you know, if things happen, for example, Bernie Sanders is one of the guys who signed the Kratom letter.

01:11:13.000 I want to talk to him.

01:11:14.000 I'd love to talk.

01:11:15.000 He's kind of an amazing guy to me.

01:11:16.000 I would love to pick his brain about this and see what he thinks.

01:11:19.000 So it's impossible to nail these people down.

01:11:22.000 But you never know when you might get five minutes with Bernie at a rally somewhere.

01:11:26.000 So we're going to continue to try to get those bigger names that we wanted to get.

01:11:30.000 I think they're important.

01:11:32.000 Orrin Hatch is involved in this.

01:11:33.000 Orrin Hatch is a senator from Utah that's been very involved in the dietary supplements for a long, long time.

01:11:39.000 So we'd like to get his opinion on it.

01:11:42.000 But it's kind of crazy.

01:11:43.000 I would hope that the DEA and the FDA would listen to this interview and sit with us and do an interview.

01:11:50.000 I would love to, like, just let them speak their mind.

01:11:52.000 I don't do interviews where I go in and ambush people.

01:11:55.000 No, you don't.

01:11:56.000 I let them speak their mind.

01:11:57.000 No, you don't at all.

01:11:58.000 I think I took it probably an hour ago, right?

01:12:01.000 How long do I take it?

01:12:03.000 10, 15 minutes into the show?

01:12:06.000 It's, uh, yeah.

01:12:07.000 I mean, I guess I have, like, a mild, very mild stimulant sort of effect that I feel, but it's nothing...

01:12:20.000 Nothing to be concerned with.

01:12:21.000 You're not dying.

01:12:22.000 I'm not.

01:12:22.000 It doesn't...

01:12:23.000 I'm me, you know?

01:12:24.000 I mean, it doesn't really...

01:12:25.000 Like, I've taken some stuff before.

01:12:27.000 I was in Colorado this weekend, and I took a lot of edibles.

01:12:30.000 Whoa.

01:12:32.000 Whoo! 1.00

01:12:32.000 Those fucking people aren't screwing around, man. 1.00

01:12:34.000 They're going deep in Colorado. 1.00

01:12:36.000 Yeah, man.

01:12:36.000 I heard your special talking about edibles.

01:12:38.000 That was amazing.

01:12:40.000 But you're pretty sensitive to them, too, right?

01:12:42.000 I guess.

01:12:42.000 I don't know, man.

01:12:43.000 I'm more sensitive than Joey Diaz.

01:12:45.000 Joey Diaz, like, I'm on that level.

01:12:47.000 Like, 300 milligrams.

01:12:48.000 I'm like, yeah, that's cool.

01:12:49.000 That's what you take?

01:12:50.000 I don't even do it because I would have to take too much of it.

01:12:53.000 Well, one time I did a podcast with Sam Harris recently, and I have this spray that is 1,000 milligrams.

01:13:00.000 Like, I guess it's 1,000 milligrams in the whole bottle, but it's like...

01:13:04.000 I don't know exactly.

01:13:05.000 That's just a spray?

01:13:06.000 Yeah, this is the more mild version.

01:13:08.000 This one's 175 milligrams.

01:13:11.000 THC? Yeah, it's like 20 milligrams of pump.

01:13:15.000 Or 10 milligrams.

01:13:16.000 Between 10 and 20 milligrams of pump depending on how strong the stuff is.

01:13:19.000 Who makes that? 0.93

01:13:19.000 This is Jombo. 0.93

01:13:21.000 Jombo makes a bunch of great stuff.

01:13:23.000 All organic.

01:13:24.000 These like honey.

01:13:25.000 Jombo.

01:13:26.000 Where do you get that?

01:13:27.000 A dispensary?

01:13:27.000 I'll hook you up.

01:13:29.000 Hey, you want one of these?

01:13:30.000 Take this one.

01:13:31.000 Take the spray.

01:13:32.000 Enjoy.

01:13:33.000 Don't get crazy.

01:13:34.000 You know what's weird?

01:13:34.000 I don't like to smoke pot.

01:13:37.000 I like this stuff better because I'm just so used to taking things like that.

01:13:41.000 And I also feel like I don't want to get back into the whole...

01:13:44.000 My girlfriend would flip out if I started smoking pot. 0.99

01:13:47.000 But to use some edible stuff and play around with this and see if it works for pain and stuff like that to me is something that's very viable.

01:13:54.000 Isn't that funny where people worry about, like, smoking is like, oh, he's smoking drugs.

01:13:59.000 But if you're spraying breath spray under your tongue, it's like, ah, he's just relieving pain.

01:14:04.000 You know, I just think we need to open our minds to a lot of these substances that are out there that can help us, you know?

01:14:08.000 Yeah.

01:14:09.000 You know, it's great to say, don't take anything.

01:14:11.000 That's not the world that we live in, though.

01:14:12.000 Right.

01:14:13.000 Well, CBDs, you know, CBDs are great because they're not psychoactive at all.

01:14:17.000 Yeah.

01:14:17.000 And Shannon Briggs, who was just in earlier, said that it's helped him tremendously.

01:14:21.000 Is this CBD? That's pot.

01:14:22.000 That'll get you fucked up, son. 1.00

01:14:23.000 Be careful. 1.00

01:14:24.000 Be very careful.

01:14:26.000 But, you know, the difference being the edible version of marijuana has a very different psychoactive effect, too.

01:14:32.000 That's why a lot of people think they're getting spiked.

01:14:34.000 You know, like, they'll eat a pot cookie and they'll think, oh my god, somebody put acid in this.

01:14:38.000 Because it's really psychedelic in the way it's processed by the body.

01:14:43.000 Your liver produces this metabolite called 11-hydroxy metabolite.

01:14:48.000 And it's just way more powerful than THC. You're the only comedian that I've seen bring science into the act.

01:14:54.000 That was amazing. 0.99

01:14:57.000 Just to kiss your ass a little bit, that entire special is at the top of the game. 1.00

01:15:02.000 Oh, thank you very much, man. 1.00

01:15:03.000 You're up there with Bill Burr and all those dudes.

01:15:04.000 Thanks.

01:15:05.000 I'm hustling.

01:15:06.000 That's great.

01:15:07.000 So I wanted to get you...

01:15:08.000 I don't have a whole lot of time, so I wanted to get you in here today and get it done.

01:15:11.000 But what else...

01:15:12.000 Can you tell people about this and what else can be done?

01:15:15.000 I think that people need to go to kratomcomments.org, leave a comment.

01:15:19.000 People can call the DEA. They can ask for Melvin Patterson.

01:15:23.000 He's the spokesman.

01:15:24.000 They can leave a message with him.

01:15:25.000 I think this kratomcomments.org, though, is going to be the most effective.

01:15:29.000 And also, people need to seek it out.

01:15:31.000 And people can hit me up on Facebook or Instagram.

01:15:33.000 I'm pretty readily available.

01:15:35.000 So if...

01:15:36.000 If people have questions and want to hit me up, then just hit me up.

01:15:39.000 I mean, I'm at Big Strong Fast on social media, and I will answer questions as much as I can.

01:15:44.000 I don't hide from people, you know?

01:15:46.000 No, you don't.

01:15:46.000 And when the documentary's out, can you come back in and watch it?

01:15:50.000 Absolutely.

01:15:50.000 We'll talk about it, and hopefully we'll have some good news about it.

01:15:53.000 All right, folks, I'm high on Kratom right now.

01:15:55.000 It doesn't do anything.

01:15:56.000 My brother wants to get back in here with you, too.

01:15:58.000 Okay, I love that dude.

01:15:59.000 Smelly, yeah.

01:15:59.000 Can I mention something about him?

01:16:00.000 Yeah, for sure.

01:16:01.000 He's got a big sale going on for the Black Friday.

01:16:04.000 If you enter the code ROGAN, it's 20% off.

01:16:08.000 Is that for his slingshot?

01:16:09.000 Howmuchyourbench.net is his website for slingshot.

01:16:11.000 All the slingshot products.

01:16:13.000 I had to plug them.

01:16:13.000 Okay, beautiful.

01:16:14.000 Well, shout out to Mark.

01:16:16.000 All right.

01:16:16.000 Well, thank you, Chris.

01:16:17.000 Really, really appreciate it.

01:16:18.000 And do you have a name for this documentary?

01:16:20.000 Right now we're calling it A Leaf of Faith.

01:16:22.000 A Leaf of Faith.

01:16:23.000 I like it.

01:16:24.000 I like it. 0.99

01:16:25.000 So if you have a new name, people will fucking look for it. 0.98

01:16:28.000 I think I dig that name. 0.98

01:16:29.000 It's cool.

01:16:29.000 Let's go with it.

01:16:30.000 A Leaf of Faith.

01:16:31.000 Beautiful.

01:16:32.000 Thanks, Chris.

01:16:33.000 Appreciate it, man.

01:16:33.000 Thank you so much.

01:16:34.000 I appreciate it. 0.99

01:16:37.000 It's like a fucking wrestling match talking to you. 1.00

The Joe Rogan Experience - November 16, 2016

Joe Rogan Experience #876 - Chris Bell

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