Joe Rogan on Journalistic Integrity

But again, you know, this isn't because the drug is bad. It's because people used it Irresponsibly, and this is something that people have so much difficulty Understanding we're so eager to blame drugs for all of our problems drugs have never hurt anyone. They're just inanimate Constellations of carbon and hydrogen nitrogen and oxygen they don't jump out of their bags and vials and attack your serotonin or receptors or dopamine transport or anything like that, so This is just a weird pattern that we've done repeatedly Over time and I don't know if you read the new Michael Pollan book. I know he was on the podcast. I'm in it right now Yeah, it's great. Yeah, it is great. But um, one thing that I thought was interesting about it is that he put a lot of the emphasis on the prohibition of psychedelics on Leary and Leary almost certainly played a role But I think it's slightly ironic that he's a journalist and Didn't really go that deep into the role that journalists played in all of this which was humongous, you know journalists are sculptors of public opinion and it became the standard way of reporting on any of these things to say that they're bad to Sensationalize it and to not have any consideration for what that would do because anytime a journalist writes some scare story they can Really mess with drug policy in a serious way. It might seem like nothing like oh, there's a bunch of people in Brooklyn and they overdosed on some obscure synthetic cannabinoid AMB Fubinica who cares about AMB Fubinica No big deal say that it turns people into zombies and if it gets thrown into schedule one who cares not a big deal well that's a very short sighted way of thinking about all of this because that's exactly what happened with psychedelics and then We're not learning from the mistakes of the past that just because something it's fun to Sensationalize and talk about how dangerous it is at this moment doesn't mean that ten years from now We're gonna recognize that it has serious therapeutic potential and we made a big mistake Outlying it and I think a lot of that also comes from this sort of us versus them Mentality that people have where it's cannabis is good synthetic cannabinoids are bad Well synthetic cannabinoids don't have to be bad for cannabis to be good cannabis can be good without something else being bad to counterbalance that you don't need to hate something to justify your love of cannabis and This whole hatred of synthetic cannabinoids. I think is totally misdirected because these are products of prohibition That most people wouldn't even want to use in the first place and when they do use them They don't know what they're taking. They don't know what dose they're consuming And so of course they're having bad experiences that would happen with almost any drug caffeine included If people just consumed enormous unmeasured doses without having any idea what they were getting into and so they're thrown into schedule one well what happens if 30 years from now once the therapeutic potential of Cannabinoids is being really seriously explored We find out that that am b fubinica that everyone was saying turned homeless people into zombies in Brooklyn in 2017 turns out to activate a certain subtype of the CB1 receptor That's especially useful for Parkinson's disease or something like that Then we're gonna regret having done that so I think people have to be very careful any time you say anything negative about a drug You have to be very very careful because the implications can be enormous. I think that the best Stance and all of this is to not speak ill of drugs Give the drugs a break a true drug enthusiasts, but it's not a problem also with just what journalism is It's like asking a comedian to talk about something but not make fun of it What their job in a certain sense is to get people excited about things and I don't know whether you'd say the lazy way out or the common approach is to say something that scares people I mean, that's that's what clickbait is mostly about either outrage or fear. That's true But there's a lot of richness in truth. I agree, but it's hard to sell It's hard to sell that reason hard to sell. I think the people are lazy You know, right is this idea that a lot of people have that, you know Journalism is organized by some malevolent Rupert Murdoch type puppeteer who's telling everyone to you go off and you say that Cannabis causes car accidents when you go off and you say this evil thing about this and say that alcohol is good Did you see when Alex Jones is on my podcast and got high with me? Drunken I and when it came up in his trial for his divorce He said that George Soros puts a he tests marijuana Every year to see how much George Soros is influencing the levels of THC Excuse but people love these ideas They love the ideas of the puppeteer and the level and puppeteer because it denies individual agency But the reality and I say this as a journalist who's worked at many different publications Not just vice is and this is a difficult reality to swallow is that people are free to say whatever they want most of the time Journalists choose to report on things this way. Yeah, that is true But it's also true that they like I've been a part of stories that I've talked to the author of it and they said well This was manipulated by the editor the editor manipulated the title the chain. That's a great excuse Yeah, the perspective but it's true like the Rolling Stone did an article about me and they called me a Psychedelic warrior and I said to the guy wrote down what the fuck is that? I was laughing and he goes dude I did not write that. Yeah, the editor gets a hold of it tries to make it more salacious It becomes something that's more It's more likely for people to buy or click right especially with headlines that yeah, that is true And the real problem is that this sort of outrage culture and comment culture that has emerged provides no incentive for truth because suppose Someone were to write an article about this conversation we're having right now and it could say Hamilton Morris says Kratom should be illegal or something like that Then that will get so much more engagement because where I love all these people saying fuck Hamilton Oh, he's a he's a traitor How dare he say that it should be illegal that it didn't watch it and then you'll have other people arguing with those people saying Well listen to the interview. Hey, he actually never said anything about that Listen carefully to what are you saying and then you create this whole engagement a bigger engagement for doing the wrong thing You