Altered States

Oct 23 2024 13 ep. 29 mins 112

Altered States Podcast artwork

Psychedelics are now at the center of a global conversation about mental health, mysticism, and even how we experience illness and death. In Altered States, host Arielle Duhaime-Ross explores how people are taking these drugs, who has access to them, how they're regulated, who stands to profit, and what these substances might offer us as individuals and as a society.

Copy RSS

Subscribe on Podcast Addict

A Navy SEAL Goes to Mexico to take Ibogaine

Oct 23 2024 44 mins

A former Navy SEAL named Craig deployed nine times over nearly three decades in the military. When he left the service, he felt lucky to have all his limbs, toes and fingers. But he found himself struggling with language and memory and rising frustration. One day he forgot his wife’s name and couldn’t remember it for hours. His wife Gretchen started looking for help online and

The Peyote Plan

Oct 16 2024 25 mins

A plan to protect the peyote cactus is taking shape on the Winnebago Reservation in Nebraska during this summer’s Native American Church of North America conference. Indigenous leaders are hustling to take their peyote proposal all the way to the White House before the November election. Producer Adreanna Rodriguez tells the story.

What if Ketamine is More Addictive Than We Thought?

Oct 09 2024 42 mins

When journalist Anna Silman started reporting on ketamine five years ago she did so because people in her friend group had begun taking the drug recreationally. She was intrigued by the ways that interest in psychedelic-assisted therapy meant more people were taking ketamine, both with a prescription and without one too. But as she started to see friends struggle with dependency, s

Psychedelics on the Ballot

Oct 02 2024 25 mins

At first the effort in Oregon to legalize psilocybin seemed doomed. Then the organizers started talking to the architect behind the carefully coordinated, state-by-state campaign to legalize cannabis, an attorney by the name of Graham Boyd. His initial thought was that what worked for cannabis would never work for psychedelics. But what he found in Oregon changed his mind. Producer

A Former War Correspondent Unravels

Sep 25 2024 48 mins

Ernesto Londoño is a national correspondent and former war correspondent at The New York Times. For most of his life, Ernesto was a classic journalist – skeptical, stoic – whose early life in war-torn Colombia and reporting experiences in Iraq and Afghanistan left him traumatized, though he didn’t know it. Then Ernesto signs up for a retreat in the Amazon where he drinks aya

Show Update

Altered States is taking a short breather and will be back soon. In the meantime, consider joining host Arielle Duhaime-Ross and other journalists for a virtual panel called The New Psychedelic Beat: Unraveling Oregon’s Drug Policy Story hosted by the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism and the UC Berkeley Center for the Science of Psychedelics. September 25, 2024 at 1 pm P

Fair Trade Ibogaine

Sep 04 2024 33 mins

In recent years, an increasing number of international clinics have begun offering treatments using ibogaine, a psychedelic drug that comes from a West African plant, to help treat conditions such as trauma and addiction. Much of the global supply of ibogaine is smuggled illegally out of Gabon. A former NBA basketball player from Gabon named Stéphane Lasme is at the forefront of n

The Longest Trip

Aug 28 2024 40 mins

Several years ago, Heather was given three doses of psilocybin as part of a clinical study for treatment-resistant depression. Ever since, she’s been experiencing strange visual distortions, including “visual snow” and shimmering walls. What’s it like to develop a chronic condition following a trip? And what do scientists know about why it happens and who’s at risk?

The Peace Seekers

Aug 21 2024 49 mins

For the last couple of years, producer Shaina Shealy has been following Israeli and Palestinian peace activists who have been coming together to drink the psychedelic brew ayahuasca in an effort to heal their collective intergenerational trauma. It seemed to be helping them when suddenly the region erupts into chaos and violence.

An FDA Update

Aug 14 2024 2 mins

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s decision on MDMA-assisted therapy for post traumatic stress disorder.