#133 - Meet The Most Important Man Alive In The History of MDMA

Check out Scispace (JNGIANT20: 20% off the monthly plan or JNGIANT40: 40% off the annual plan): https://scispace.com/?via=jun1giantshoulder Get Muse EEG Headband (15% off): https://choosemuse.com/giantsshoulder Want a full breakdown of your own conscious inner experience? Join the Giant's Shoulder community: https://www.skool.com/the-giants-shoulder-6526/about Rick Doblin is the founder of MAPS and the man who spent 50 years dragging the world's most demonized drug into the doctor's office. He taxed legal ecstasy dealers to fund the first MDMA toxicity studies, sued the DEA with the profits, and got a Harvard PhD in public policy to beat the system from inside — then ran the only completed Phase 3 trials in history showing that two-thirds of severe PTSD patients no longer had the diagnosis after MDMA-assisted therapy. Expect to learn how he taxed ecstasy dealers to sue the DEA, why MDMA was a couples-therapy drug before it was a party drug, the real reason Nixon criminalized psychedelics in 1970, why 88% of severe PTSD patients responded to MDMA therapy while half dropped out of standard VA treatment, why you can't get addicted to MDMA the way you can to cocaine, why you'll do more jail time for MDMA than for the same weight of cocaine, his plan for "net zero trauma by 2070," and much more… Timestamps 0:00:00 Trailer 0:03:03 Winning the Generational Lottery After the Holocaust 0:05:27 Dropping Out of College to Study LSD 0:08:15 The Forgotten Golden Era of Psychedelic Research 0:09:33 When the CIA Weaponized LSD for Mind Control 0:13:10 Half a Pound of Mescaline and Ten Years to Recover 0:15:09 The Day a Stranger Said "There's This Drug Called Adam" 0:15:56 MDMA Was a Therapy Drug Before It Was Ecstasy 0:18:39 Sasha Shulgin, the Man Who Invented 200 Psychedelics 0:24:12 How Dealers Tweaked Molecules to Stay Legal 0:27:21 Why Nixon Really Criminalized the Hippies 0:30:04 Going to War With the DEA — and Winning 0:33:56 Founding MAPS and $200 Million Later 0:39:09 Taxing the Ecstasy Dealers to Fund the Lawsuit 0:41:33 The First MDMA Safety Study, Run on a Beach 0:42:43 The 1992 Moment That Reopened Psychedelic Science 0:44:31 The First PTSD Study, Shut Down for Politics 0:48:08 Cannabis Is Palliative, Psychedelics Are Curative 0:50:08 The Veteran Suicide Epidemic Nobody Will Fund 0:53:33 Why MAPS Bet Everything on MDMA 0:58:35 The Effect Sizes That Should Have Changed Everything 1:01:01 Why Half of Veterans Quit Standard PTSD Therapy 1:02:13 Why the Data Alone Was Never Going to Win 1:04:54 The Absurd Reason the FDA Cited: "Euphoria" 1:06:34 Why You Can't Get Hooked on MDMA 1:07:26 More Jail for MDMA Than for Cocaine 1:08:36 Net Zero Trauma by 2070 1:10:47 MDMA for Couples, and Bringing It to the World... ... Email for sponsorship enquiries:evan@thegiantsshoulder.com Guest Links Rick Doblin — MAPS: https://maps.org/people/rick-doblin/ Rick Doblin on X: https://x.com/RickDoblin MAPS: https://maps.org