107 - Drugs: "Butt Hash"

Drugs is one of those things that people have very strong convictions about, and they rightfully should. You don’t have to look hard to find someone who wants to talk about the legalization of marijuana or how drugs are a tragic downfall of society. It’s such an encompassing word that has many different avenues to travel down that it’s almost like arguing about religion

With that in mind, we tried to strictly narrow down our field of study to hallucinogens. Outside of jenkem, which was a wild ride of stupidity, all of what we talked about were Schedule I controlled substances. We will be revisiting drugs in the next two seasons; specifically diving into uppers and downers. 

From an ethical standpoint, we really wanted to emphasize that we were basing everything we covered on scientific facts without imposing our personal opinions. I don’t feel that was relevant to the podcast and didn’t serve any benefit for any party involved.

Now for me personally, this episode was fascinating. Coming into this episode, I knew a fair amount about drugs and some specifications about their LD50. But getting the physical numbers on things like overdosing on MDMA or weed really put into perspective how specific chemicals react with our bodies and how much our bodies can take of different hallucinogens. I really enjoyed Ryan talking about the amount of THC that has been added over the years to marijuana. I was floored to learn how potent it is today compared to what people experienced when it became a mainstream drug. Once I started researching more about ecstasy, it completely shattered my previous notions about what it does to our brains and serotonin levels. Overall, it was a great learning experience.

When it came to licking toads, I wasn’t surprised to learn that people have constructed “user guides” on how to properly extract psychoactive substances. On top of that, it was no surprise that people created the abomination that is jenkem as a means to get high. I guess when you’re in a pinch to get your fix, anything is possible even if it involves your own urine and feces fermenting in an open space. 

All in all, covering this topic was fun and informative. It was a fine line for us to walk with giving out information on what can be a taboo subject at times. We hope you enjoyed the episode and look forward to jumping back into more myths about drugs in the near future. 

-Josh

105 - Brain: Nocebo and the Lying Left Brain

This one is going to be a bit behind the curtain. Sure, we've touched on science a fair bit, but we never had to describe experiments this in-depth. I was worried about not only explaining the cross-wiring of the brain (which tripped me up a few times), but also describing the elaborate techniques used in the research cited. I hope you got the gist of it.

This also marks our first time being conscientious of show length. Personally, I think the beauty of podcasts is that one can always pause and come back to it later. But, I do understand that it can be a lot to digest in one episode. We'll be addressing everything we cut later down the line because they are still interesting, and that's another episode for your listening pleasure. 
On a personal note, thank you to everyone listening. We say it a lot, but it's true every time. Nothing feels better than someone showing interested in your niche (borderline smug) passion. Ok, maybe a few other things feel better.

Lastly, our new buddies at Dark Myths have been wonderful to us, and you may see some collaboration in the future. It's crazy being brought into the podcasting community with such open arms, especially since we've only been live for just over a month. Darkmyths.org for anyone interested.

Rambling over, see you next week.

-Ryan