China w/ Hamilton Morris | You Be Trippin' with Ari Shaffir

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I was telling somebody about

the feelings you get on

Molly, on MDMA.

I love how MAPS is always like, please don't call it Molly.

They're trying to make it an actual usable drug.

But I've fallen in love on it before.

And then people are like, but then when you come off it, you realize that was just a drug.

It's like, no, the feeling's real.

The feeling lasts.

Yeah,

it's complicated.

I mean,

I've never had something that was completely illusory, but definitely,

I mean, that's the main reason I wouldn't want to do it in public because you could just end up in a conversation with some stranger where you have this tremendous, boundless love, and they're not necessarily a bad person, but it just seems like maybe a small

waste of your, or maybe that's what it's all about.

Maybe, where you like connect with somebody.

Yeah.

I think the biggest problem with it is like calling an ex saying you don't want to fight anymore or like life's too short.

And the next day you go, bad, I really actually kind of want to keep fighting.

I shouldn't have made that call.

Now it's I was really set in

where you been and where you going.

This is our race travel show.

Yeah, we're gonna talk about travel today.

It's you be tripping, yeah.

Hello, everybody.

Welcome to you be tripping.

It's a travel podcast.

Every episode, a guest comes on and tells me about some fucking cool place in the world.

It's the only podcast that is both audio and video.

And today my guest is

Hamilton Morris.

What's going on?

Not much.

I'm happy to be here.

Thanks.

Good to meet you.

Yeah.

Did I just say your name wrong?

No, I said it correctly.

Damn, okay.

Just for a second there, I was like, what did I just say?

Yeah, you seemed uncertain.

Yeah, right?

You could feel it.

I was like, wait, it's Morris.

I got it.

I can introduce myself if it's.

You would have done it similarly, right?

I mean, if I said the name right, then it probably would have been overlapped.

Where are we going today?

What do you want to tell me about?

Thanks for doing it, by the way.

Of course, of course.

Yeah.

I thought I would talk about

my trips to China to visit various drug manufacturing facilities.

Nice.

Yeah.

Already,

I don't consider, I don't think of China with drugs.

So it's already kind of interesting.

Well, that's interesting.

Yeah.

It's

culturally

conservative and not something that people associate with drugs.

But at the same time, it is the land of drugs.

It is the birthplace of,

I mean, it's the birthplace of so much of the material goods in our world.

It's like a third of all manufacturing almost takes place in China.

And the chemical industry is

44% of the world's chemicals come from China.

Really?

Yeah.

Interesting.

Yeah.

So when it comes to chemistry and chemical production, China is the place.

There's nothing like China.

And I've been to China four times every single time.

I only visited factories and last.

What?

Yeah.

Because it's so interesting to see where all this stuff comes from.

I feel like in order to understand any phenomenon, particularly in the realm of drugs, you have to think very carefully about where things come from.

Because that informs everything else.

What do you mean?

I think a lot of people have this idea that

our world of drugs is some kind of meritocracy and the drugs that people use are the best drugs, but that is very much not the case.

What do you mean?

Like, alcohol would be the.

So they're like, that's the best because it's available, but it's only because

we have it.

It's just a

quirk that it happens to be this metabolic byproduct of the fermentation of glucose and yeast.

yeast.

And for so many

generations, humanity has observed this effect where rotting fruit or honey or whatever produces an intoxicating effect.

And this became integrated into almost every human culture.

And so we think, all right, alcohol, that's the drug, but it's not.

I mean, it's just happens to be the case that yeast does this thing that produces this extraordinarily toxic chemical that is is really not very good at all, but due to historical factors and cultural factors, it becomes integrated into our society.

And that's the case for most drugs.

It's not as if most of the drugs that we use are the best thing.

They just happen to exist often because there's some kind of natural source that's readily available, like cocaine wouldn't be used at all if it weren't the case that in South America, there's a culture of consuming coca leaves and it grows abundantly in these impoverished regions and there's a lot of money to be made extracting it and refining it and exporting it to wealthier countries.

But if it weren't being produced by plants, if plants weren't doing all the synthetic heavy lifting,

no one would be doing cocaine.

Right, right.

Or just like boomers are big in places where they grow.

Exactly.

But that's the other weird thing is like...

You really like mushrooms, right?

You started a mushroom holiday.

Junefest.

Yeah.

July 20th to 22nd this year.

And I think most people think that mushrooms are the greatest psychedelic.

They're the most commonly used psychedelic.

And

the reality is that

it just happens to be the most available psychedelic.

But in the 1960s, nobody was using mushrooms because, weirdly, people didn't know that they grew in the United States and nobody knew how to cultivate them outside of a lab.

It wasn't until Terrence McKenna and Dennis McKenna introduced these techniques for home cultivation that the world of mushrooms that currently exists emerged.

It went from being this ultra-obscure thing to the most common psychedelic.

Whoever invented closets was also pretty big.

Without John Clauset, they would have

Jimmy Heatlamp.

Yeah.

They'd have a lot of problems.

But that's the case for everything.

Like all these, it's not because mushrooms are necessarily the best, although I do think that they're pretty amazing.

It's pretty great.

It's a good starter, too.

Of like the starter psychedelic.

You know what I mean?

Where it's like if you want to go like hard hard, which you definitely, your reputation precedes you, but like

how do you nobody goes straight to fucking I don't know crocodil or meth, you know?

It's just like you need like a way in.

Also in fairness, I'm getting way more into acid lately.

Yeah, it's amazing.

I feel like I'm betraying mushrooms.

But that's another example.

The only reason that people have access to LSD is because the majority of the molecule is being synthesized by a fungus, and then there's a final modification that chemists do to convert lysergic acid into LSD.

But if it weren't for that fungus, nobody would have LSD.

So I've always been interested in tracing these things and

why people use the drugs that they use, because it isn't about them being the best drugs necessarily.

It's about all these other factors.

And it's really in China that you can identify a lot of these factors.

So

when you make MDMA,

there's an almost infinite number of drugs, and there is a demonstrably infinite number of ways to make that almost infinite number of drugs.

You can make MDMA

countless ways, but

again,

you want to start with something that is as close to MDMA as possible to reduce the amount of work that you have to do.

Okay.

Like, if someone said, like, can you make a salmon dinner?

You would

want a frozen salmon filet as opposed to like salmon semen and a salmon egg.

And that's starting off.

Yeah.

It's got to be a while.

So you want to go to China to like see where this stuff comes from?

Well, I was really interested.

There was this kind of weird phenomenon where

the natural source of MDMA is sassafras, typically.

Oh, really?

Yeah.

It's a chemical called saffrol.

It's found in a number of different plants.

Sassafras is a big one.

There's also this tree that grows in Cambodia and Indonesia.

It doesn't have an English name.

I think the Latin binomial is Cinnamomum parthenoxylon.

But it's like this, it's a giant tree.

And

you can cut down these trees and extract the oil from the tree and use that oil to make MDMA.

So there was this kind of illegal harvesting of old-growth trees in Cambodia that had become a very popular way of obtaining saffral to make MDMA.

Wow, I always thought MDMA is just lab and nothing to do with natural.

Well, it is synthetic, but you want to start with that material that contains most of the molecule.

Yeah.

And

so in 2008, there was a major crackdown on the illegal harvesting of these.

I think they're sometimes called camphor trees in

the trees.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Type in cinnamomum parthenoxylon.

Come on, bro.

Cinnamomum.

I'll start with tree.

Tree.

P-A-R-T-H-E-N-O-X-Y-L

O-N,

I believe.

Fuck it.

All right.

This is why you get a producer.

Everyone imagine a tree.

Yeah, okay.

Everyone's like, whatever, man.

We're going to have to see it.

Idiot.

Fucking.

All right.

Well, this is episode 72 of how RA is secretly autistic.

So in 2008, there was this initiative to prevent people from illegally cutting down these old groups.

in Cambodia.

Okay, cool.

And the government...

They needed them for beating baby skulls against

them for something good.

And the government burned, I think it was like 33 tons of the saffral-containing oil,

which was equivalent to somewhere in the ballpark of 30 million MDMA tablets.

What?

So this was actually a pretty

sad.

You can never prevent people from doing drugs, obviously.

People have tried continuously.

Just raise the price up.

That's all you're really doing.

Even then.

But then people will use a different drug.

No, I'm saying burning all these things is just making us all pay more.

Yeah, exactly.

So they burn these trees

or they burn the oil from these trees.

And

around the same time, there's a kind of online market emerging.

And there's an increased incentive because MDMA has become more expensive and less available to find replacement drugs.

And there was this drug called methadrone

for methylmethcathinone.

And it was cheaper to make and it didn't require the oil of sassafras or these cinnamamum parthenoxalon trees.

And

guys, when you're acting, you just look it up and put it on screen for me.

All right.

Go ahead.

And

this stuff became immensely popular.

And it was also legal internationally because it was a new drug.

Love a new drug.

Yeah.

Love a new senator underwear drug.

Legal,

new, and

among other things, it was also very good.

I tried this drug and I thought it was fantastic.

Think of drugs you won't do.

Just like,

I don't know, I mean, I don't like a lot of drugs.

I don't like alcohol.

Yeah, but like, you won't try them, is what I'm saying.

Or are you just like, I mean, I got to give it a go?

I mean, extremely neurotoxic things.

It probably wouldn't.

You know, there's drugs that are demonstrably neurotoxic that really are dangerous.

Oh, right.

Yeah.

But they're not commonly used.

But, so not something like that.

But,

and then there's things that I don't think there's any, you know, all this kind of scopolamine type stuff.

It's not that I'm categorically against it.

It's just that

being delirious for several days is something that I usually don't have time for.

It's hard to justify it.

That is the thing with some of these drugs where it's like, first of all, it's midnight.

You should have come to me at like 4 p.m.

Like, I got shit to do tomorrow.

I just don't have the energy for it sometimes.

Hi, everybody.

I'm breaking in real quick to let you know that Hamilton Morris has his own podcast.

It's called the Hamilton Morris Podcast.

He's also on Patreon at patreon.com

slash Hamilton Morris.

Myself, I've got a tour coming.

I've also got a special on Netflix right now called America Sweetheart.

It's called the number one special of 2025 out of the three that have been on Netflix so far i'm on the road

san antonio tampa denver schomburg atlanta portland san jose orlando fort lauderdale seattle vancouver calgary edmonton and anchorage all tickets are available at ari shear.com i've also got merch up like this one the stay positive shirt the main message from my special I've also got a new one too called the go for a hike shirt

you should check that out anyway I think that's it please subscribe wherever you are watching or listening.

I'm having a lot of fun with this podcast.

I mean, what's even the point of this?

Has anybody been paying attention to these crazy things I do?

All right, get back to the episode.

China with Hamilton Morris.

I've got a great wrap-up for this.

Also, I need to apologize,

guys.

I'm not saying I'm perfect.

I've never said I'm perfect.

And knowing that it

kind of makes me perfect.

This is a good episode to do this in.

I was given a box.

Let's leave it at that.

A box from the weed maps, guys, in Brea, California.

And I appreciated it.

And I was going to take it home.

I was going to go through Nashville, where I am now, at the Russell Hotel.

And then onwards to the United States of America, New York, Nova York.

And in that box was

a lot of edibles and a lot of

mushroom chocolate bars.

And I left it

in

the back seat of the Volkswagen compact SUV that I rented from Thrifty.

Now, my only hope is the man who checked me in with spacers in his ears.

I'm begging that you looked in the back seat there and figure that out.

You recognized me.

You knew who I was.

I'm hoping you opened that box and someone got some joy out of it.

There's also, unfortunately, a hat that was in there with the side flaps.

It was a great hat.

I had my Baba Clava too, but that hat really went with me to a long, a lot of places.

I didn't like to say an RIP to that hat.

The mushroom, sure.

That was a mistake, and I'll never live that down.

I was legitimately upset.

I was legitimately upset when I found out I'd left that back there.

Get the shirt, you should be able to come but

that hat

rip

you served me well I remember trying to stuff you under a ski helmet once with the flaps

you were a good hat

you were a good hat all right let's get back to the episode R.I.P.

the flappy hat maybe you saw it on this podcast

Can we do a montage of me wearing that hat?

Just a quick I will remember you you type of thing.

Chad, do you have any sad music?

Anyway, let's get back to the episode.

Sorry about the loss of drugs.

Legitimately, to Hamilton Morris, I apologize to you.

That was wrong, especially for this week's episode to do that.

Now let's get back to China and drug labs.

Anyway, so these drugs are being made in China.

Yeah, that's how you got there.

Yeah.

And

I mean, this documentary series, Hamilton's Pharmacopia.

I've been working in a lab doing medicinal chemistry for most of my adult life,

and

I've always been really interested in the interplay of drugs and how journalists cover these drugs.

Because historically, journalists have done

a catastrophically bad job of covering these issues.

They've done such a bad job that many people have conspiracy theories.

They think that journalists must be under the thumb of the government or big pharma in order to write all these negative things about drugs all the time.

And the sad reality is that, as far as I've seen, they're not.

They're choosing to discuss drugs this way.

Is it just because of the predispositions, like the way they were raised?

I was in a, I was in a, here's the example.

I was in an

Amazonian city, like a main, a big city, on the outskirts.

And this guy who worked at the Chamber of

not commerce, but

I don't know, whatever, Was like, hey, we should separate ourselves from the other cities by being the ayahuasca city.

Like, you can come here.

And everybody else, like, we're not getting a bunch of fucking degenerate backpackers here to do drugs all day.

And he had to be like, that's not what's going to happen.

It's not an everyday drug.

Yeah.

And then they were like, no.

And then he goes, okay, tell you what, though, can I just take you on an ayahuasca trip?

And they were like, yeah, I'll do that.

Because they all grew up with like in like with like indigenous like family and stuff.

So like, sure.

And then when they do it one by one, they're like, oh, I was just wrong about it.

It's not this this fucking people with dreadlocks coming by here every day and like begging for change.

It's they're going to come, do it, and leave.

Yeah.

And so it was just lack of understanding that made them be against it.

Lack of understanding and this sort of cautionary, fear-based culture where I feel that everyone is...

They'll say, well, some people will have a bad experience, and of course they will.

Or some people will get hurt.

Of course it will.

But that's the case with almost everything, yet there isn't this weird tendency to focus on the negatives.

Anyway, so I've always been sort of amazed by this.

And when this new drug, Mathedrone, emerged, of course, it was no different.

And

all of the reporting was like, look at an inside look at the filthy Chinese labs where the designer drugs that...

our youth are taking are being made.

And then there'd be some photo of a not particularly dirty lab.

And

it's like somebody spilled something.

like, Yeah, I'm like, Well, they're about to clean it up.

Yeah, and it's also, have you seen any fucking Chinese restaurants?

You gotta have something to compare it to.

Well, it just felt like it was as if someone who'd never cooked anything was going into a restaurant and saying, Wait a second, there's grease splattered on the stove.

What are we doing here?

Like, these people had no idea what they were talking about.

And it annoyed me because the reality, I've analyzed a lot of samples of various drugs from China, and the reality is that compared to the typical black market, they're for the most part doing a very good job.

And I mean, that's a huge generalization because, as I said, it's like about half of the world's chemicals.

But from what I've seen with the drugs that are, the kind of recreational drugs that are coming from China, it's usually been

pretty pure.

And

who's paying them to do it?

To get illegal?

Like, what these labs?

The consumers.

I mean, this is another kind of interesting historical change that occurred with the globalization of the chemical trade, where historically things like MDMA were made domestically.

So you'd have people that made MDMA in Texas or wherever, but the penalties became so harsh

that it became

And the surveillance was so intense.

Of course, it didn't prevent anyone from using MDMA, but it did deter people from making it domestically.

Yeah.

Also, this is what I, once weed became legal in California first, and or more or less, you know, God, it got so much better.

Because they weren't worried about getting cracked down on.

And they're like, let's grow this weed a little longer.

Let's put two plants together and really try to make something special.

Oh, yeah.

Anytime you have a regulated industry that's legal, it tends to be yeah, they're not worried about getting raided at any moment.

So they're just like, let's try it's like cooking almost.

And

there was testing that was necessitated by many many states.

So there was a requirement to produce good product.

But in China, they weren't having any worry about the

it was legal in China.

It was legal pretty much everywhere at this point, but it was being made in China.

And unlike MDMA, you could actually make mephadrone from toluene, like the hardware store solvent toluene can be converted in a number of synthetic steps to MDMA.

So the precursor is inexpensive, very readily available,

and they had the facilities to make it in enormous quantities.

And this drug really became popular as a sort of people would describe it as a hybrid between MDMA and cocaine, qualitatively, like the experience of it.

Cool.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And it really produced this effect.

It was kind of like an 80s wedding photography kind of effect, at least for me, where it's like everything has this kind of like Vaseline on the lens, glowy look that I thought was very pleasant.

Did you find out about it and do it here and then go, go, let me go see

where it's grown?

Yeah, yeah.

Well, so I was reading all these reports about how terrible these labs were, and

I was thinking, this is so unfair to these Chinese chemists.

I really

want to visit these labs and understand what they're doing and tell the true story of this industry.

So I started going to China.

It's a very weird,

a very weird

correlation of

science Jew and reporter.

Well, there was like a definitively sinophobic element to it, like in all the

news reports.

They would say, and it's being made in China.

Oh, yeah, there's that too.

Where it's just like, that's just a buzzword for evil.

Yeah, yeah.

It's like, well, so is that almost everything.

So

what is your yeah, take your shirt off, loser?

So I thought, like, no one is going to tell the truth of any of this

unless I do it.

So I've got to go to China and visit these labs.

And the first time I went was in 2012.

And this was like

this was during the period where Vice

was

starting to have a ton of cash.

And it was, they were very rich and it was the best type.

They were nouveau riche and that's the best type of rich.

They were so cool back then.

Well they got sold or whatever.

I don't know what happened, but like, they were so cool.

They had more money than they knew what to do with.

So, typically, when you pitch a story to some news outlet, especially if it's going to cost them any money to produce,

it's difficult to ask a lot of questions.

There was none of that.

You'd say, I want to go to China and visit some synthetic cannabinoid and mephadrone labs.

And they'd say, All right, okay, sure.

We'll go for it.

Here's the company card.

Yeah.

Enjoy.

Yeah.

Wow.

Yeah.

And so I went.

I mean, how do you?

Okay.

You're okay.

I want to get.

I mean, how would you?

I would be so tempted to just be like, sick.

I'm just going to stay in Shanghai and fuck hookers for like a week

and then like kind of like move by, but I couldn't find it.

And with

nobody watching over me.

Anyway, you're like focused.

And I started going to these labs and it was sort of, as I had assumed, it was very innocent.

I didn't see any indication.

They let you in?

They let me in, yeah.

Yeah.

And I filmed a good bit of stuff, and crazily

all of the footage was lost no the

somehow and Vice was so disorganized during this period that no one even asked questions about it no one was like wait a second didn't we send you and a cameraman to China to film this what do you mean it was lost

somehow on which end on

it was maybe the cameraman or the producer who's managing the media I don't know exactly what happened I mean things were very disorganized so disorganized that no one even as I said asked questions about us going to China to visit these labs Where were these labs?

What towns?

So where's Shanghai?

In Shanghai.

Yeah.

Wow.

And you had been there before or no?

Yeah.

How much does Shanghai fucking rule?

It's pretty cool.

It's pretty cool.

How come?

What do you like about it?

I mean, I love manufacturing, as weird as that is.

Like, it is so cool

to see this stuff, to see where everything comes from.

Like, I love that.

Wow.

Wow.

Yeah, you're like a nine-year-old when they sees one of those, like, cat caterpillar trucks.

I'm like, wow, that's what I've kind of been playing with.

Wow, that's a great reason to go to Shanghai to see the manufacturing.

Yeah,

great manufacturing there.

Yeah, I like the mix of old and new.

Yeah, that's also beautiful.

And just like, it's so foreign.

How'd you get by over there?

Language-wise, and like, and like

the first time

for guide?

There was, I think, the first time there was no guide, we just somehow made it work.

The second time

there was a

local guy who was a translator, who was helping.

There are actually two local people as part of the story.

So the footage was lost.

No one even noticed.

And

I decided that I would go back and film the story again in 2014.

That's when I went.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Good time to be there.

God, it was great.

Yeah.

It was so like

open to foreignness.

They hadn't really cracked down on anything yet.

The comedy scene was fucking wild.

There was a spy in every show.

We knew that.

But so they're like, don't fuck, don't say anything about the government.

And then you'd be like, okay.

And they'd be like, hey, listen, I know what your comedian brain thinks as soon as I tell you that.

This isn't like you'll walk people.

Like, we'll definitely be shut down forever.

And there's a chance of jail.

Just don't, just please don't do it.

Did you do it?

I made one joke because I was doing, I didn't

do any China jokes, but I was doing jokes about American politics.

I was really disillusioned.

Yeah.

And I was like, we need a Mao in my country to come murder all our senators.

And I was like, ooh, I'm like, it's pro, it's pro-Mao.

Like, just move on, man.

Yeah.

Anyway,

fun times, though.

That club got shut down.

After a while, like, we got all we needed from your

capitalism.

We figured it out.

Wow.

You guys are welcome to leave.

Wow.

But yeah, it was a cool time to be there.

Yeah.

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And I had seen all this sort of undercover stuff being done, which I felt

by definition makes things look sketchy there's no way to go with an undercover hidden camera and not make things look bad yeah you could just do a like nice church service yeah it's like the shaky yeah you're like what's going on here so I was like I don't want to do any of this I'm not I have nothing to hide I'm here to show the reality of what's going on if I explain myself and my intentions, surely they'll let me film in their labs openly.

And that was not the case.

Yeah.

Wait, did they know they were doing something wrong?

Like if I went to visit a box factory to see how they make boxes, Simpson's episode, I think,

they'd be like, sure.

Maybe.

Come on in.

As long as we're not doing like human rights abuses at the box factory.

You'd be surprised.

I actually bet if you tried to film in a box factory that they might say no.

Because they're like, what do we have to gain?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Or there might be some box haters that...

There probably are.

There's probably some anti-box group.

Yeah, fucking

gays, male gays, hate boxes.

There's like well, actually, yeah, I mean, I'm a little bit anti-box, actually.

Maybe I would be the hater.

There are too many boxes in this one.

There's too many boxes.

You ever get an Amazon package and it's a box?

Like, why so big?

And then there's another box inside that box.

Yeah.

What are you doing?

It's fucked up.

It's fucked up.

You should get a hidden camera and expose these boxes for being too big.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So I contact them, I try, I contact lots and lots and lots of labs, and

nobody is allowing me to film.

Wow.

So then I start thinking, well, how can I do this openly

if nobody is allowing me to do it?

You were stuck on, I want to go openly.

I don't want to shift on that yet.

Yeah.

Okay.

So my next idea is, well, what if I can find someone who has poured so much money into the Chinese chemical industry that they feel indebted to him and they will allow him to tour the labs.

And I vaguely knew this drug baron in New Zealand, this guy Matt Bowden,

who had made a fortune selling this drug BZP, which was a kind of legal

MDMA replacement drug that was somewhat popular in the 90s.

It was actually very popular in New Zealand

and had pivoted from BZP to synthetic cannabinoids.

And the money that he'd poured into the industry had built factories in China.

He was a big player.

And so I thought, okay, well, if Matt Bowden

is coming with me, they'll do it for Matt Bowden.

Yeah.

And so Matt Bowden was very nice.

And he said, okay, I'll do anything I can to try to make this happen.

That's why I'm with Rogan.

They're like, sorry, we don't have any reservations.

I'm like, I think Joe Rogan might be joining me.

They're like, oh, actually.

I've thrown that name around so much.

But But yeah.

So

Matt Bowden calls all these different manufacturers that he's worked with.

And they say,

sorry.

Really?

You can't do it.

For a legal thing.

For a legal thing.

That's got to pique your interest.

Yeah.

Well, they just don't want the trouble.

They've seen the way the journalists treat these issues.

What are the chances that a journalist is truly going to be on their side?

This would be almost unheard of.

I get it, actually, now.

What's the benefit?

We're running a successful business.

We're getting nothing from this.

Have a journalist come in and film everything that we're doing for people that won't understand.

Yeah.

This would want to tires.

So

being honest and open about what we were trying to do didn't work.

Matt Bowden intervening on my behalf didn't work.

So then my next tactic was

to

exploit the fact that Matt Bowden was a musician.

He was a steampunk musician.

He'd used his fortune to buy all of these elaborate steampunk devices and costumes.

Very, yeah.

Really?

Like he had

a building full of custom-made

like Wild, Wild West goggles and

like all just

what's that festival called?

Burning Man shit.

Damn, look at him.

What a dork.

Jesus.

Well, well, okay, so.

so oh yeah this is my burning man outfit you just everyone has these glasses this is actually from this shoot so i'll get into this okay so so the next tactic was map out in as a musician yeah what if

instead of going as journalists exactly we go openly filming but we're not filming the labs per se we're filming a steampunk rock opera we're gonna pay you to use a location yeah to film secretly you're spying not i wouldn't say secretly spying.

We are filming a steampunk rock opera in these labs.

And

we propose this, and they say, absolutely, of course.

Of course.

Because Chinese love steampunk or because it's just like extra money.

They did.

They did.

They loved it.

They were in awe of his music and performances.

They were

so, so excited by his artistry.

What?

Yes.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So,

this tactic.

What?

That's so weird.

What?

Yeah.

So this tactic

worked extraordinarily well.

Not only were we able to film in the labs,

we had tripods, we had dollies, we were going through everything, and all the chemists were so delighted by Matt Bowden's performance that they were stopping making drugs to watch him sing.

What?

Like they were filming us.

That's so great.

Yeah.

On their clearly superior cameras that we don't get

on their iPhones and stuff, whatever their versions of that are.

Wow.

Okay, so then you're in there and you're talking to them and stuff?

Yeah.

Yeah, so this works spectacularly well.

And I was able to see all kinds of, I mean, these labs are really amazing.

You know, there's because it's not, it is very mercenary, for better or worse.

I don't really say that critically.

They're not, you know, in the United States, if someone's making MDMA, they're making MDMA to make MDMA.

They know what they're making.

They know why they're making it.

They know who's going to use it.

In China, a lot of these labs, they're just making chemicals.

I think a lot of the people genuinely did not know the nature of the chemicals that they were creating.

This is why you'll get like a shower curtain from

China and it'll say like, um, happy Passover, and it'll have a Hanukkah candle on it.

Because they're just like, I don't know, we threw together images they told us to.

Yeah.

They're unaware, really, what they're doing.

Yeah.

Yeah, because they're probably doing 500 things in that same factory.

Like, as people are making synthetic cannabinoids, someone else is making, you know, they were, they had these giant crystals of this chemical, that was

dimethyl acetylsuccinate that's used to make tartrazine to color mountain dew.

And, you know, it's just like, okay, they're making the tartrazine over there.

They're making the synthetic cannabinoids over here.

They're making some intermediate for a pharmaceutical product over in the other corner.

And I don't think that they really knew exactly what a lot of these chemicals were.

Which in and of itself is very interesting.

It is interesting.

Yeah.

That they're just like, wow,

manufacturing.

And it it was good.

I didn't find anything horrifying.

I didn't find that they're sprinkling lead powder and the drugs or anything like that.

It was sort of as I expected.

It was people doing their best to make chemicals and doing a pretty good job.

And

so.

Oh, you're in this.

Hamilton Morris Travels is Eon.

Okay.

I didn't read that part yet.

Yeah, yeah.

This is from.

We made a piece for the Vice HBO show that covered parts of this.

I mean, there were so many ramifications of this that were really bizarre.

One was

that

I still just wanted to go to as many labs as possible and wanted to use the same tactic of total openness.

And I remember we went to one lab in Pudong

and tried the same thing.

You know, is there any way that we can film?

They say,

no,

we've all agreed that there will be no secret recording.

And we're talking with this chemist, and she's actually, unlike what I just said, she is aware.

She does know what these drugs are being used for.

She knows that they're drugs.

Oh, interesting.

Yeah.

And

there was one drug that had become somewhat popular in Russia called MDMB fubinica.

This was like an extremely potent synthetic cannabinoid.

And I remember asking her, you know, could I buy some MDMB fubinica?

And she was like, you know, why on earth would you want MDMB fubinica?

Don't you know about all these hospitalizations in Russia?

Russia?

Whoa, really?

Yeah, and I was like, oh, okay,

some people do know what's going on.

This is very interesting.

But she's still willing to make it.

Well, no, she was actually discouraging me from

asking her to make it.

She didn't want to make it.

Again, ethical, hardworking, good.

It's funny how it doesn't go with the story of

a billion people that you're sum them up into one thing.

And it's like, no, it's just humans.

They're like, oh, people are dying.

That's no good.

Yeah, I mean, it's all

this evil Chinese idea of a human.

And

the toxicity of these chemicals was intimately linked to their patterns of distribution.

Like, I don't know if you followed all of the spice

stuff in the United States, but there would always be these news articles where they'd say an outbreak of spice poisoning among homeless people in Brooklyn.

Like, what is the government going to do to prohibit these dangerous drugs?

And no one was acknowledging the fact that the whole reason people were even using these drugs in the first place was because of prohibition, because they didn't have access to cannabis.

And because they couldn't legally be sold for human consumption, the whole thing was you get a pouch of potpourri.

And

there's no dosage information because dosage would

indicate that it's intended to be consumed.

So you get a little mylar pouch of some stuff with a picture of SpongeBob on it.

What is it?

What is the dose?

Do you smoke a whole joint of it to get high?

Do you smoke one hit of a joint?

Do you smoke half a hit?

Once people start overdosing or eating someone's face or whatever, then it's like it's no, we're not looking to make this safer.

We're just looking to get rid of it.

Oh, yeah, yeah.

And you know the story of the face eating.

Yeah, what was that?

It wasn't spice.

It was nothing.

The guy was so he ate someone else's face sober.

He was a mentally ill man who ate a homeless man's face.

And some

cop was like, this is bath salts.

Bath salts made him eat this guy's face.

And then everyone ran with it.

Yeah, right.

And then they did a toxicological analysis, and there was like a trace amount of THC in his blood, but he was sober.

He just love they always do that.

Marijuana was found in his bloodstream.

Like, what did I mean?

I smoked a week ago?

You're going to blame it on that?

Like, what are you talking about?

It's just dorks trying to fucking figure out what it was.

Yeah.

Oh, can you, of all the faces to eat,

homeless?

I don't even shake their hand.

Get out of here.

Yeah, it's rough.

You gotta cook that.

I tried to interview the man whose face was eaten.

He lived?

He literally survived.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Was he just out and just being eaten?

Well, that's what I wanted to talk to him about.

I had some questions about how this even occurred.

When did you stop fighting back?

Were you

so you're gonna victim shame?

Fair, I apologize.

The views of the guests are hosts of this podcast and not necessarily reflect the podcast itself.

So you're in there just getting access to different ones.

Yeah, yeah.

So I'm kind of seeing all this and, you know, I just find the whole thing totally amazing.

And we had...

Can I break in for a second?

Yeah.

What were the bathrooms like at these places?

I don't think I use the bathroom.

Were you there for hours?

If you're a Jew, you got to piss every 20 minutes.

I don't have a bathroom memory.

Okay.

That's a good question, though.

I wonder if they were the squatty ones or the fucking or the

western ones.

Yeah.

Or if they were clean.

Can you have a clean fucking shit squat toilet?

For the most part, the labs in general were very clean.

We ate at the labs and they had nice food and it was good.

Cool.

They were nice zones.

And so this chemist who's running this lab is also doing contract work for Pfizer.

I mean, they're doing all kinds of stuff.

Pretty amazing to see the overlap of all these different industries.

And

I leave the lab and I was thinking, like, I started talking to these people on the crew and I was like, damn, that was amazing.

Like, I so,

I know we all said that we're not going to record anything secretly, but I so much wish that there were a recording of that conversation.

It was so fascinating.

And this

woman,

an English expat who's living in China, who had been hired by the production to act as a field producer or something like that.

I was like,

Well, maybe there is a recording.

I was like, What do you mean?

She's like, Maybe there is a recording.

I was like, Are you saying

you saying that you recorded this?

We all agreed there would be no secret recording, but I'm happy that you did because it's very useful.

Even though we did agree that this would not happen, please send it to me.

I'd love to listen to it.

Yeah.

She's like, Well, I'm not sure.

No way.

She wants a fucking bra.

I'm not sure I want to do that.

And then Matt Bowden is listening to this.

He's like, what is going on right now?

Someone is secretly recording these

conversations.

Yeah, being coy and villainous about

their secret recording.

And

I remember talking to the producer, and I was like, this other producer producer is saying that they were secretly recording my conversations.

And he's like, eh, whatever.

I was like, no, it's really weird that she was doing that.

It's a breach of contract.

It goes against our agreement for this entire production.

Like, I don't think this is a good thing.

And he's like, it doesn't matter.

Just forget about it.

And

I was thinking, like, what is what?

What is going on?

Then I later realized that he was almost certainly sleeping with her,

which is

another element of the...

Yeah, he's like, it's not worth it with her.

Trust me.

She gets annoying.

What'd you want?

She want you to go down on her?

She was like, I want to see what a Western fucking box munch is like.

She was from England.

So she just wanted a bribe or what did she want?

That's crazy.

No, she wanted to take the story for herself.

So why even tell you?

Because then she actually asked me to help her decipher some of the chemistry that was being discussed in her secret recording of the

wild.

And I think people don't realize how crazy journalism is.

Everyone always talks about the lying media or whatever, but they don't realize that there truly is just

totally unprofessional behavior going on routinely during these stories that you might read in whatever publication and think it's just some kind of normal reporting.

Let's assume it's her.

Is that?

No.

Yeah.

I just like googling random stuff.

That's nuts.

So you wouldn't get the footage?

You couldn't get it?

The audio?

I don't think she ever gave it to me, and she did publish an independent story.

I don't want to hate on her too much.

I mean, you weren't.

At the time, I did say something on Twitter and then I could tell that people were going to harass her and I didn't want to

didn't seem productive to initiate that sort of thing.

But

after that, it was kind of as if the whole

nature of the production, the ethos of the production disintegrated

and there was this

idea of like, all right, maybe we should just film in these labs.

Maybe we should try it out.

Film secretly.

Film secretly, yeah.

And

so,

again, Vice still had a lot of money at this point.

And one of the producers was like, well, Vice gave us state-of-the-art best spyglasses that money can buy.

Oh, cool.

Like the

top-of-the-line spyglasses.

And I was like, okay, let me take a look at them.

And it opens up the box, and it's like these massive Woody Allen hornrim glasses with like a shiny lens on the bridge and a USB port on the arm

and a glowing blue LED.

And I was like, these are not very good spyglasses.

I don't think that it's.

We're gonna get caught.

And the producer's like, you're right.

These glasses are gonna get us killed.

They're gonna get us killed and smashes them.

And I mean,

this was a weird production.

He smashes the glasses.

So then we go to this line.

There's got to be some fear, too.

Like, you're in a...

They weren't as enemy-ish then as now.

But, like, you're in a formerly communist country.

There's got to be some fear of, like, are we going to be looked at as spies?

You're also fucking with someone's business, potentially.

At least, you know, whatever.

If someone, if you found out that I was secretly recording this conversation, it would be weird.

Yeah.

Even if you are recording it openly, it's just secret recording in general is a kind of weird thing to do.

Nobody likes it.

Nobody likes it.

So spyglasses are smashing off the table.

So then the next

idea was some kind of hybrid between the two, which is just to wear a camera around your neck like a tourist and just have it on.

And to use it periodically, but in a...

And then put it away, but still recording.

Yeah.

Ollie G was really good at this.

He would have people sign

usage waivers as he was dressed up as Ali G.

And there was another guy in a suit, which the people being interviewed would assume that's the interviewer.

And then Ali G would come and be like, hey, I need you to do this and do that.

And then the suit guy would get behind the camera.

And he'd be like, oh, what?

And then it'd be Ali G going, like, booyah kasha, whatever.

And they're like, oh, but they've already signed it, you know, based on this other thing.

So they didn't think they were being pranked.

Right.

Or like, hey, we're doing this interview about something.

And then this guy starts fucking with you, but they've already signed the shit they have to sign.

Right.

Based on like a semi-false pretense, but like, got it done.

Yeah.

So, like, yeah, that's a good idea.

Like, film somebody record and then put it back and just keep it going.

Call attention to like when you're actually using it.

Or just do it in a kind of amateurish way that is less threatening.

I mean, even just the way a camera looks totally changes the way that people interact with it.

If it's like a rig that has a shotgun mic and a big lens, people will interact with it totally differently than if it's a point-and-shoot.

Yeah.

So we did this sort of hybrid, not hiding it, but

kind of looking a little bit more amateur than we actually were.

And that ended up being a sort of effective tactic.

And again,

we didn't really capture anything bad.

I don't think that any of this was bad.

I don't see it as an expose of anything evil.

And my hope,

if anything, was just to show that this is a

sort of of obvious ramification of prohibition this is just what happens if you don't allow people to use the drugs that they want they'll find a different way and there was almost no way to avoid this I mean this is also what happened with fentanyl this is what happens with pretty much any drug as soon as you crack down even the fucking

whatever spice whatever what they tell the army like we're gonna test you for weed and they're like well we're still gonna get fucked up so now we gotta do a one molecule off I'm talking to a guy who knows way more than me about no no no but you're you're that's absolutely right.

That's 100% right.

And that's how it actually started in the United States: in the military for that specific reason.

This is the irony of drug testing:

instead of preventing people from using drugs, it

promotes the use of untestable drugs with unknown effects and unknown toxicity.

And it was in the military where spice first took off because of urine analysis.

Damn.

Yeah.

So

you're there.

You're finding out all this shit.

How'd you decide to leave?

Or would you like?

Yeah, like what's the story then?

That it's all.

I guess the story is

that this is a thing that is going to continue until drug policy is reformed sufficiently to allow people to sell drugs openly.

And

I don't know if that message got across.

I mean, there was also the steampunk rock opera.

Did that ever come out?

Yeah, yeah, it came out.

Really?

Yeah.

It was part of the piece.

What's that movie about the making of a doomed movie?

I forget.

It was like Brazil or something where it was like the making of a movie never happened.

Somebody died, I think, in the making of it.

Does it sound familiar at all?

Somebody got their head chopped off by a helicopter.

Well, that happened in the Twilight Zone movie.

Oh, yeah.

And they used the scene in the Twilight Zone.

They don't use the scene of the decapitation, but they...

Have you seen this?

They kept going with the scene?

No.

They...

They...

It's in the movie.

They don't show the decapitation, but they show everything leading up to the decapitation, but of course don't acknowledge that the star was killed.

Yeah.

Wow.

Fucking Hollywood.

I mean, it resulted in.

major labor reform

in the film industry and a a lawsuit.

So it was.

Yeah.

But I'm just thinking, like, that idea that, like, well, we got to make the movie.

Instead of, like, ah, shit, somebody died.

Let's just go home.

It's still like, it's the picture.

We got it so important.

Wait.

So, anyway, so this making of this rock opera, you made the rock opera?

Yeah, yeah.

We filmed.

We filmed a lot of.

I thought it was an amazing experience.

I think Matt Bowden's awesome.

And I think

the whole reason that this happened was New Zealand had this very bizarre quirk in their drug policy where they refused to approve cannabis.

But they said

you can't sell cannabis, but you can sell a synthetic cannabinoid if you subject it to a sort of preclinical analysis that's analogous to a pharmaceutical drug.

If you demonstrate that it's not physically toxic, you can sell it as a recreational drug with no medical pretense,

which is very different than what happens in the United States, where everything typically passes through a medicalization period before approval, right?

Before you have legal cannabis, you have marinol that's being prescribed for chemotherapy-associated nausea, and you have medical marijuana, and then gradually the medical pretense is dropped, and you have...

There was that time in LA where it was medical marijuana, but it was so rampant.

You know, there was a time where it was like, but like, there's a way to get in.

You can just find a crooked-ish doctor.

And then there was a period when I got into it where it was like, oh, it was just everywhere.

You could just say, I can't sleep.

Yeah, you just can, I mean, it's.

And then you're in these stores and it's great.

But then if someone in a wheelchair came in, there was a moment like,

we're here because of you, please.

Like, without you and your suffering, we would not be able to get fucked up.

So go for it.

Or someone with cataracts.

Like, please, sir.

Yeah.

And now it's back to just like, fuck off.

We didn't lying, cataracts, idiot.

Like, it has nothing to do with you anymore.

Yep.

Yeah.

So they abandoned all of that pretense and they said, all right, you can just sell these drugs as recreational drugs for adults to use to get high and have a good time as long as you demonstrate that they're safe.

And

I mean, this was, it was weird that they wouldn't approve cannabis, but that aside, it was actually incredibly progressive and sophisticated drug policy that's been almost completely forgotten because it didn't work for a number of reasons.

One was actually that animal rights activists protested it on the grounds that the preclinical toxicology work would hurt animals.

Wow.

Wow.

Yeah.

And you're like, that's not even what we're doing.

But it's like, yeah, fair.

Well, it's one of those things.

There's physical testing on rabbits.

Yeah.

Yeah, I mean, it's one of those things where it's like, if that's your concern.

Makeup should be your issue.

Or people eating meat would be the big one that is really, I think the scientific use of animals is probably the most justifiable of all uses.

Depending on the, I mean, it depends on the context.

Like if someone's, you know, has a tradition and they're eating an animal to survive or whatever.

I mean, I eat meat.

I'm not even moralizing in this dimension.

But I think going after scientists is kind of the weirdest.

of all of these paths of trying to not the major problem.

Not at all.

Yeah.

Not at all.

So that was what undid a lot of this work ultimately.

And

there was the issue that the synthetic cannabinoids, they were brilliantly designed.

Like he had a whole team of chemists and pharmacologists who were working and they made some really extraordinary drugs.

I mean they had drugs that were far more potent than THC and they only lasted about 30 minutes.

So it was almost like a cannabinoid DMT.

But the issue is that there is actually a pretty well-established association between drug duration and its propensity for abuse and addiction, where shorter duration drugs that have a faster onset are almost always more abusable than a

Coke.

And also it goes away and they're like, let's do that more.

As opposed to an edible, you're like, I'm good for six hours.

Yeah.

Like, I don't need it.

And then when I'm done, I'm like, I'm done.

Or mushrooms.

It's like, we're done now.

Yeah.

When it wears off, it'll be good.

Yeah.

Well, mushrooms, no one gets addicted.

It's not even really possible.

Wait, wait.

Bro.

No.

Hold on.

Okay, we're good.

Why?

Right on the fucking camera, dude.

Yeah, I would love, though, a shorter, acting, heavy one.

Those are my favorite.

Like the, you know, the DMTs or the whatever where it's like, okay, it's not a whole day.

It's just, let's just do it, get the high out of it, and then be gone.

Can I tell you about my drug that I invented?

No.

But if you know a chemist, please.

It makes you temp.

I don't know how to do it.

I just want someone to, I have an idea for it.

Okay.

It makes you temporarily just get homework done or whatever, autistic for a short amount of time.

And then another pill to make you un-autistic to get back to your normal life.

Possible?

Maybe.

I mean, some people actually do say that about some of these nootropic drugs, these race-athemmed type drugs, is that they promote a sort of autistic type mentality yeah

i mean they're good at getting work done or like you know when you take like uh

what are those concentration drugs

that it just makes you like i'm gonna clean my whole fucking apartment now like modafinil or provigil or aderol like the adder all yeah yeah it's like People do it to get high, but I'm like, damn, it makes you get shit done.

Yeah.

So did you ever go back and do more of it?

This research?

Yeah, yeah, I went back to China again

and went to a different series of labs.

It was a different project.

Then I was sort of interested in this disconnect between drug pricing and the raw material cost of drugs because, I mean, everyone post Martin Shkreli is aware of this enormous disparity between the pharmaceutical cost of a drug and the actual raw material cost.

And

there are so many

glaring examples of that.

The one, the drug Deraprim that Martin Shkrelli was selling became kind of the publicly discussed one, but I was interested in a cancer chemotherapy agent called lenalidomide that's used to treat multiple myeloma.

And again, it's the same deal where it was, you know,

financially crippling for a lot of people with cancer, but it's so cheap and made in such abundance that when I was visiting these labs, they're like, oh, here's a free sample.

And the free sample is, you know, enough to treat several people for the rest of their lives.

Really?

Yeah.

Because it costs them nothing.

Yeah.

That's so interesting.

I heard he was on this podcast Legion of Skanks, which is

whatever.

We just make fun of shit.

But he was like, you know, there was a generic version of that drug that I gouged everybody on.

So like anyone could get what they needed for like pennies.

Really?

Yeah.

He was like, it's like Viagra.

And he's like, you know, there's like a no-name Viagra that's like way cheaper.

But he goes, that's what mine.

It was just like, it was just the designer drug.

Well, there could have been one.

I don't know that there was.

It was off-patent.

There could have been a generic.

And that's part of it.

Like, I actually am not into that.

Oh, maybe that's what he's, maybe that's what he meant.

Yeah.

You can just make that.

Yeah, I mean, that's part of the whole issue is that there's something a tiny bit disingenuous about the way that I was approaching this issue because it's very easy to make that case of like, well, wait a second.

This person's paying an enormous amount of money for this drug and the raw material cost is very low.

What's going on here?

And the reality, of course, is that the cost is associated with covering research and development.

And anytime a pharmaceutical company develops a drug that doesn't succeed, they have to somehow overcome those losses to continue doing research and development.

And

there is a little bit of complexity in the

production and creation of these drugs that it's not totally fair.

I mean, this also has to do with our totally fucked up medical system and insurance and so many different factors that it's not good to oversimplify it.

But I was interested in this one example just because I think a lot of people aren't aware.

It was like a big thing with the Martin Shkrelli drug Dereprim, where a lot of chemists, myself included,

would

show how easy it is to make this drug.

And

it's it's again, it's sort of disingenuous because yes, it is easy to make, but what are we expecting people to make it themselves they're not going to do that and then even when i get this free sample of this drug lenalidomide from the the factory

then what do i give this to someone with cancer and say oh you get a milligram sensitive scale and it's yeah but then it's like all right how about 20 bucks you know it's like forget like uh two cents but like there's a middle range of like well let me package this for you oh yeah so like every so a chemist can get paid some and a pharmacist can get paid some and then it just like it goes up a little, but not to like 20,000.

And ideally insurance and our tax money would cover it in such a way that whatever it does

cost,

it's not a burden for the sick person to bear.

I can't get started on American insurance.

Yeah.

It's like a, it's like a, I just, I hate thinking about it.

Hey, can I ask a question?

Yeah.

I want to finish up China, but something I've never been able to, I want to talk about fentanyl and i never got the answer on where this shit comes from and i realized that maybe you know yeah i thought it was at first it was cartels fucking with other cartels and their stash but then there was like how would they anybody know i heard it was cutting but i'm like why would you cut with like a death drug and then also there's this weird thing of like a cop had one grain on his shoulder had to go to the hospital and other guys are fully snorting straight lines of fentanyl it's like these stories don't match like something's off in this and they go with their tolerance Like, how do you go from one grain will kill you?

How do you get your tolerance that much from one grain will kill you to snorting full lines?

There's no

X meets Y on that.

Oh, yeah, yeah.

I mean, that's just, okay, well, a few questions there.

The tolerance one is that opioids really do produce a remarkable tolerance in habitual users.

And it is genuinely the case that someone who's been using opioids for years and has a high tolerance can

use a quantity of fentanyl that would be deadly many times over for a non-tolerant user.

Okay.

And with fentanyl in particular,

it's actually weird.

People always talk about the potency of fentanyl, but they don't talk about the duration of it.

It's a very short duration drug.

That's why in terms of the medical preparations, they're always like a transdermal patch that allows continuous release into the bloodstream or a lollipop that you in your mouth so that it's continuously being released.

If you just snort, a fent?

Yeah, yeah.

Fentanyl lollipops?

Yeah, the brand name Actique.

Brand name?

Yeah.

What?

Yeah.

Where do you get that?

It's used for breakthrough cancer pain.

It's not.

Oh, right.

Yeah, yeah.

I mean, fentanyl is a very important medicine.

It has a terrible name, but it's kind of an extremely useful way of managing pain in cancer and it's used in anesthesia as well so where so where is it coming from

so this was a sort of inevitability because

with heroin

in order to make it you need poppies you don't need poppies but it like you said they want to start with as much base product as possible yeah so it's just a one-step chemical reaction from the morphine in poppies to heroin it's a very easy transformation.

It doesn't even really need to be done, but the diacetylation makes it stronger.

And

this means it has to be produced in a region of the world that has these poppies.

There's all kinds of complexity introduced, although it does make the chemistry aspect easier.

And

this really has been going on for a long time, really picked up during World War II.

There was a huge initiative, particularly in Germany, to

find synthetic opioids that weren't dependent on any kind of natural product in order to produce.

And that's where you get methadone

and damerol and a lot of these synthetic opioids that aren't being made that way.

And then that kind of opened the door that it doesn't need to have a chemical similarity to morphine in order to exert the same type of effect.

You can have completely synthetic compounds that are far stronger than morphine or heroin heroin that are easier to produce because of just being fully synthetic products.

And

out of that, I mean, opioids are such valuable medicines and have been for such a long time that there has been a huge amount of scientific research dedicated to exploring the different types of structures that exert that kind of activity.

And of course, there's been this eternal search for an opioid that doesn't produce addiction, which hasn't gone all that well.

And

so

in the context of this, there was a medicinal chemist named Paul Janssen.

He was the one that discovered fentanyl.

And it was a really amazing discovery because this is a chemically somewhat simple substance that is way,

way stronger than morphine or heroin or anything like that and can be produced easily and has great medical properties.

But those same features that made it attractive from a medical perspective also made it attractive from a recreational perspective.

And it was an inevitability that

someone would start making this in underground labs.

It's just too easy to make and too potent, and the profit margin is so enormous that

there's no way to prevent it.

Okay.

Sure.

And then how does it go from,

how is it in everybody's coke?

Well, that's the other, there's so many.

And also, how is it not in anybody's Coke in Berlin

or London?

Yeah.

I'm not sure how much cocaine actually contained.

I've heard these reports.

Coke Molly, all of it.

You know what I mean?

Like, it's in our powder and pressed powder, and it's not in anyone in Europe's.

One possibility is cross-contamination.

If someone who's selling drugs is dealing with fentanyl, some fentanyl could get into the other drugs that they're selling.

It's one possibility.

The other more nefarious possibility is that they're intentionally introducing it to make these other drugs more addictive.

Because if you have cocaine that also contains fentanyl, then it will be more addictive.

People will buy more of it.

So it wasn't to cut it

because also, like, it kind of does the opposite of Coke, right?

Yeah.

So, like, it would be like, then none of it makes sense to me.

Yeah.

I'm not sure how frequently that happens.

I think it does happen occasionally.

But

the other thing is that when a drug gains a status as the evil danger drug, then people start blaming it for problems without evidence right so you know I've often spoken with people and they say oh you know someone I know died of a fentanyl overdose and I say like that's terrible how do you know and they'll say oh well they they were using opioids and they died and we used to just have ODs yeah yeah people yeah 20 years ago people's like it's because you party too hard yeah people can and do overdose on heroin or morphine or whatever yeah it's very much possible to overdose on most opioids opioids of that nature.

It's when everyone at a party dies.

Yeah, it's like, oh, hold up.

Yeah, yeah.

This is not to say that people don't die from fentanyl.

They absolutely do, but it has attained the status as the drug that causes death.

So people without evidence will attribute any drug overdose to fentanyl and in doing so

enhance the reputation of this drug without real evidence for it playing any causal role in in the death.

Interesting.

That's one aspect.

Because also I know there's like, I've tested bags that we'd already done, and then you get a tester kit, you know, if something old or whatever, and you get a tester kit and test it, and you're like, oh, shit, it's got fentanyl in it.

But we're like,

but I've been doing this stuff.

So like, where's my death?

You've had that happen?

Yeah, like a bag of drugs that we've already been in.

And then with all the danger now, like, we got to start testing our stuff.

I'm like, well, let's test stuff that we know is safe because we've already done it.

And then it's like, turns out not safe.

But like

there's also that disconnect of like a grain is supposed to kill you, and we've been doing it, and it has fentanyl in it.

Right.

And then there's also this uncertainty because the tests

are tests because you can fuck up with actual pain.

And the repurpose urine test strips that were never intended for that type of analysis.

And there's sometimes cross-reactivity with other substances.

It kind of would depend.

And again, because of prohibition,

analytical services are very difficult to access for most people in the United States and other countries like Spain.

It's much, much easier and unrestricted.

But in the US, yeah, most people just depend on these like color metric reagent test kits or urine test strips or things like that that are maybe better than nothing, but not something I would think.

Oh, so if you put too much water in, then it's like everything test positive, like an extra drop.

Really?

Yeah, or the serum, whatever it is.

And then you're like, no, you got to put in less.

And then you're like, oh, it's safe.

And you're like, well, no, no way.

I don't trust this now.

Yeah.

You know?

But also,

I heard

the reason I brought it up with you was because I heard a, like a, I thought of a story that Biden was meeting with

the Chinese president.

And he was like, all right, let's discuss trade.

Let's discuss whatever.

I don't know, whatever.

And he goes, hey, last thing, you got to cut it out with the fentanyl.

And then the guy said, yeah, I'll work on it.

Which made me go, oh, yeah, it's coming from, I thought it was coming from the cartels and not from China.

But this makes me think maybe

well the cartels would probably be getting precursors from China or elsewhere.

I mean, this is the thing.

It's like it doesn't, it is China because it's cheap and easy, but then once it becomes less cheap and less easy, it will become somewhere else.

It will become India or Czechoslovakia.

So they're not dosing our drugs.

They're just like manufacturing at a request.

China.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Oh, yeah.

That's kind of I've even seen that.

I think there's an Adam Curtis documentary that kind of alludes to that possibility.

Yeah, he's awesome.

Yeah, that this is some kind of like revenge for the opium wars.

And

I don't think so.

I don't think that there's some kind of

because then it would have been England.

They were the opium war people.

Yeah.

But they all have safe shit.

And we are.

Yeah.

Okay.

Well, that's not an answer, but someone.

In terms of the cop stuff, I don't think it's real.

I think, I mean, you know, there's the placebo effect, and then there's the nocebo effect, which is like the negative version of the placebo effect, which is very, very real.

And

you have

no

like that.

Yeah.

Actually, I maybe even talked about this with Joe Rogan, and I think he maybe mentioned you with finasteride, with

propecia.

And

they've even done a study with propecia where they took two groups of men, one group they informed about side effects and the other one they didn't.

And unsurprisingly, the group that was primed to be concerned about side effects experienced more

severe side effects yeah it's like you got to do it in a in a like um

in a vacuum almost when i was taking some like some depression medication and i just didn't read about any of the side effects and then i was trying to fuck my girlfriend and i just couldn't come and then it was like three times in a row i'm like i don't know what's going on then she read the box and she was like oh hey it's this which makes me think oh it's real because i didn't know about it at all if it was an ssr i it's definitely real yeah right but but it's like it wasn't me imagining it because i wasn't even aware that it existed

for the effects.

Right.

But then, like, they said, like, finasteride in the placebo regrew hair in like a third of the patients.

Really?

Yeah.

And, like, you're just getting a sugar pill.

That's interesting.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I mean,

these effects of expectation are incredibly powerful, and

it's very difficult to medically control from them.

This is actually a big thing in this MDMA trial where in psychedelic research in general where it's harder to placebo control because the drugs have such prominent psychoactive effects that both the therapist and the patient tend not always there actually are exceptions but they tend to know that they have taken an active substance or not taken an active substance you're saying you really got to dose people

You can't tell a chemist that.

Yeah, Rogan thinks, and I'm not disagreeing with him, that like the finacer

led to my deepest depression, but it's also like I couldn't isolate it from like a wife leaving me and like a bunch of other stuff.

And just like people get depression.

Yeah, and hair loss and the idea of it is depressing to people.

There's that too.

There's it's not like a delightful experience to be like, nice,

some part of my body is dysfunctioning and I'm taking a weird

hormonal medication that is frightening in order to address this problem.

It was actively a failure in comedy too.

Nothing's isolated in this.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So, and of course, it's not to say that it's all nocebo or that nobody experiences these side effects.

It's just that there are these complicated effects of expectation.

And with these comps, they're hearing nothing but the worst of the worst.

They have this whole internal mythology surrounding drugs, things like PCP.

You know, they distribute manuals that

only serve to heighten the fears associated with it.

And I think this is like, and then this trickles out into the culture.

The cops speak to journalists.

The journalists uncritically repeat what the cops have told them.

People uncritically read what the journalists have repeated from the cops.

And suddenly you think that people consuming PCP have superhuman strength.

Yep, that was always the thing.

Yeah.

So they told us when we were in grade school.

Jump out of a, out of

a third-story building and be fine.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Or Rodney King was was on PCP, so they had to beat him up because

superhuman strength.

Yeah.

And it becomes a justification for police brutality because if you are promoting an idea that a drug gives people superhuman strength, then

some very serious force is warranted.

These are people that can tear open handcuffs and tear car doors off their hinges.

So you really have to be very careful.

And if you're a cop who's read that, if he's not using it evilly, but like, I'm scared.

This guy just took a superpower pill.

Yeah, but of course the issue is that it's not true.

So then it's in whether or not the cops truly believe it.

I think in many instances they do

because

that is part of the culture of kind of vigilance and fear that is so prominent in law enforcement.

And so with fentanyl, it's like

it is a very potent drug and it is somewhat frightening.

And if you don't know that much about pharmacology or toxicology and you just hear that stuff is so many thousand times more potent than morphine, and then you see a bag of some white powder and you start to feel a little weird, it's very easy to freak yourself out and think that you're dying.

And then, and then, if that happens, then you're kind of heroic as well because you just in the line of duty, you just

were poisoned trying to keep America's youth safe.

It's a good story.

It promotes caution.

So there's a lot of incentive to promote ideas like that, even if they're not true.

Right, right, right.

This is why every time like you fuck some skank, you're like the next day, you're like, that itch is something.

That can't just be because I didn't shower this morning.

That's got to be some disease.

And then for like three, four full weeks, you're like, well, I have everything.

But why is it in all our stuff suddenly?

It wasn't around like six years ago.

Well, again, these have to do with complicated market factors.

So there was this change in medical attitudes toward opioids that is largely attributed to the effects of Purdue and the Sacklers, where

and I actually think that

they're endlessly attacked by journalists and really everyone, but I think that there is a case to be made for

liberal prescription of opioids.

I'm not so into the idea of being prevented from accessing drugs that I want to use.

I don't like the idea that I'm not going to be allowed to consume drugs for my own safety in general.

So on that level, I'm a little bit hesitant to

wag my finger at somebody for allowing me to access drugs.

Of course, it's more complicated than that.

Yeah, I would just like, like, if I'm getting even like a Vicodin for

a tooth surgery or something, there's still a warning, like, hey, don't drive on this.

Like, you might get super tired.

Right.

A bit of a warning with

whatever that Purdue drug was that they're making movies about.

OxyContin.

Yeah.

A bit of a warning.

Instead of suggesting it to my friend and my dad and all these people, like, take that.

I'm like, dude, no.

Take aspen first and then Vicodin and then get on that shit.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It was over-prescribed without question.

But one unintended consequence of this was that journalists loved the story.

This was like an addictive drug for the journalists, was shaming the Sackler family because it's a perfect story.

They're rich also.

They're rich, totally unsympathetic,

totally without risk to criticize them.

And you look good doing it.

You're standing up against the...

the people who died against these evil billionaires.

So everyone kept drumming the story.

And the New York Times would write these things,

internal documents from Purdue show that they were aware that oxycodone was an addictive drug.

And it's like, well, of course they were.

Are you kidding me?

Like, how is this even remotely surprising?

So I thought the way that it was being covered was kind of nuts.

And

but so Purdue's under all this pressure, they reformulate oxycodone in an abuse-deterrent tablet that can't be crushed or injected.

So suddenly all these people that are dependent on crushing and injecting or snorting oxycodone can't really do it anymore.

And they shift to other sources of opioids in order to achieve the high, and this creates a market for fentanyl.

Purdue is still blamed for it, but it's a little weird to say it's still your fault for making the oxycodone less abusable.

Right, because the people who are already on it were like, well, now we're going to search for something, but they're, I guess, less addicting, they're getting less new patients or customers.

And then there's a major crackdown on opioids.

There's all these lawsuits, and then people still want opioids.

By 2021, the media was fully saturated with stories about Purdue and the Sacklers and OxyContin and the opioid epidemic.

There probably wasn't a person alive who hadn't encountered those stories.

And yet, more people died of drug overdoses than any other year in history.

And so the idea that it's as simple as this is what happens when you liberally allow people to access drugs doesn't really capture the reality that there are all these social factors like COVID and kind of

right, like I'm bored as fuck.

Isolation drugs.

Yeah.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah.

And I'm alone, social isolation, disintegration,

never the most amount of molly use in business meetings.

Because it was like, it's like 3 p.m.

meeting.

I'm so bored until then.

I'm like, well, I'll take it at 2:30.

It won't kick until after the meeting.

Push them back at 30 minutes and you're fucked.

Interesting.

Yeah.

And then, so then what happened is

in the wake of that, manufacturers of other potentially abusable drugs, particularly stimulants, decided, all right, well, we don't want to get sued.

We don't want the same scrutiny.

We just will

not make them as available.

Of course, there's also pressure from the DEA.

And now the result is that

Adderall and Ritalin are totally unavailable.

Like, really?

For years, they have been completely so unavailable that there are companies in the Philippines that that will call pharmacies trying to find one that has any available because it's like a full-time job.

I know a pharmacist who said that people break down crying because they're spending all of their time just trying to find one pharmacy that has Ritalin for their children.

Really?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Wow.

Yeah.

Yeah.

When they say over-prescribe, it's like, that's like,

it, it,

like,

connotatively means it's all bad.

And it also means take away our freedom.

We can't,

we are not allowed.

We shouldn't.

But the whole overstrike is also like, but sometimes it's good, right?

It's just like if it goes too far, it's like, sure, but like, you know.

And like, you know, these things are complicated.

I don't want to put it all into the ballpark of personal responsibility, but that's a big part of it that never gets acknowledged.

No one ever says like, well, you know, you do play a role in

decision to drink it too much.

Stop drinking this week.

Yeah.

Like,

you're a grown-up.

Get in control.

yeah

yeah you're saying they're all pussies i get it

um

all right well

the china part is over

so i think the podcast we should wrap it up um

that is interesting though i gotta look at this rock opera yeah check it out yeah it's so funny and it only existed because you needed to get access to a fucking chinese fucking pharmaceutical company yeah and they loved it they got the the show of their lives they were so did they did you get any feedback on them watching the rock opera?

They thought it was spectacular.

They actually said to him, you are a true artist.

Wow.

What's the rock opera on?

Like, where can you watch it?

You can watch it in this piece on YouTube.

On Vice?

Yeah.

He also, I think, has released some albums for anyone that wants to hear Matt Outen's music.

Really?

And he's released a different rock opera that may even include some of this footage.

Wow.

It's so weird when somebody's way into one thing and then way, way into another thing.

You know?

Videos.

Damn.

I mean, I'm not going to.

First of all, we need more rock operas.

Yeah.

And just in general.

What is that?

That's so funny.

Is that the place?

No.

That was one of the places.

Really?

Yeah.

They were primarily manufacturing actually a hair loss drug.

Really?

Yeah.

Yeah, the hair loss is depression and boner issues.

Those are the big ones.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah, huge.

One time we were

talking about it, Fenasteride or the other one, whatever, in the comedy store, and we're walking by,

just talking about it.

Me and maybe Ryan or Neil, walk by Whitney Cummings, and she was like, No, it's true.

I've had guys have like problems getting boners,

and they've been taken.

I was like, Yeah, but you got small tits, also

you can't isolate, is what I'm saying.

Not anymore, though.

Wow, that's so cool.

Where else do you want to go?

What's on your radar of places to go?

Oh, I mean,

anywhere that there's an

interesting chemical world, I would like to.

I mean, I'm just interested in other stuff.

Like, I would

like to go back to Madagascar and

do more

work looking at different fungi.

I mean, there's like there's just a crazy world of unknown stuff out there.

Yeah.

Like, is that you?

That's me.

God, you're young.

When?

That was 2022.

That was alright.

It was like 10, 12 years ago.

Yeah.

What the fuck's he wearing?

I was looking at how young you looked.

I didn't realize it was fucking Roman centaur.

Oh, nice.

Madagascar, have you ever been to the Amazon and looked at any of their

usage stuff?

Yeah, yeah.

It's wild when

you go to some farm, like, can we show you what some plants do?

Yeah.

And then they're like, this is for back pain.

This is for this is for, and you're like, this is for like

whatever it's called.

blood flow and they just like slap it against yourself and then you just get tingling for like 20 minutes and you're like what the fuck is is this?

I said it to Rogan.

He was like, yeah, everybody goes and researches stuff down there.

Because it was like this idea that maybe they actually cultivated

usable things and then kind of got wiped out and everything, birds just kind of moved them around.

These

usable drugs from like a thousand years ago.

Oh, yeah.

I mean, that's like most of the drugs that are commonly used are derived from some kind of natural product.

That's been the tactic from the beginning.

And even these things like fentanyl, it's part of this kind of long path of modification and seeing how a natural structure can be altered in order to accentuate certain effects.

This is the case with most psychedelics as well.

Like all the psychedelics that I've made, you're kind of starting from psilocybin or psilocybin or DMT or something like that.

And you strain it pretty much and then

you modify it structurally, yeah.

Wow.

The coolest one was they were like, this is for period cramps.

And then they were like, how did you people know that?

You know, they're like, this one's for a venom

antidote for a snake.

Like, how do you know?

Like, we'll look at it and it looks like a fucking split tongue.

Oh.

And they're like, what?

And then they're like, yeah, it's like it's speaking to us.

Yeah, there's a term for it.

It's called the doctrine of signatures.

What is that?

It's the idea that a medicine resembles what it is treating.

So if you're having testicle problems, you have an orchid because

it's testicular in its character.

But then it's like, if it was cultivated however long ago, they're like, well, make it look this way too.

Yeah, get the most.

Yeah.

Like the putting red dye in like strawberry soda.

You know, it's like it'll taste strawberry without it.

But the coolest one was period cramps.

And like, how'd you know?

And he like turned it over and the leaf looks like it's been dipped in blood halfway.

It's wild.

I'll show you a picture of it.

It's nuts.

And you're like, what?

And I'm like, did you plant this?

It goes, no, they're everywhere.

We talked to this ethnobotanist down there.

It was so cool.

Anyway.

All right, Hamilton.

Thanks.

That fucking seems amazing.

What a fun trip.

Thank you.

What a fun trip.

So how did you lose all the footage?

It sucks.

So it never came out?

One of them.

Of the three times I went to film in these Chinese labs, one of the trips, the footage was lost.

Oh, okay.

But you still got your story?

The Brock Opera stuff's on YouTube.

Okay.

Yeah.

What are you working on now?

What are you doing these days?

I have a podcast that is mostly about drug chemistry, and I was just making new psychedelics for years.

I'm trying to transfer that research to a new lab at the moment, but that was it.

I was just focused on creating as many new psychedelic drugs as possible.

Why'd you get into psychedelics?

And are you just?

Who's that guy from San Francisco?

He was all into

just vegetables, and then he was like, I should research mushrooms too.

I don't know why I didn't.

Vegetable guy.

He was like a food grower,

like researcher.

I don't know.

For decades and decades.

And then he was like, why have I not looked into mushrooms?

If I'm into the potency of jalapenos and everything else,

you know him.

Very well known.

I think he's from the Bay.

No, Paul Stamitz.

Maybe.

No, no, no.

That's the.

No.

No.

That guy looks like a mushroom.

He's a he's he's

more culinary.

And then he's just

Michael Pollen?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

How did you get from just like scientist to, you know,

cool?

No, it was in the opposite direction.

I was interested in drugs.

And then it's kind of like people that are very into music often become musicians because in order to fully understand music, you play an instrument, you record music, you understand all the intricacy.

So it's kind of, if you're really interested in drugs, you kind of have to

learn chemistry.

Wow.

Oh, interesting.

Are there any cool new ones coming?

Yeah, there are.

Yeah.

I mean, this is because

in this legalization, medicalization movement, there's been an influx of funding to study psychedelic drugs that never existed previously.

Like, I've been doing chemistry related to psychedelics for 13 years or 14 years.

And before

2021,

I think it was maybe like the cumulative funding that I received was one $4,000 grant from Tim Ferris.

Like, the government certainly wasn't giving us money.

Like, it wasn't happening.

And then suddenly, there's like an enormous amount of support to do the research.

And it has been really good.

It has resulted in the creation of an enormous number of new drugs.

That's great.

I love also Tim Ferriss is like known for the most part as this

how to get your work done guy, but he's just a fucking hippie

at his heart.

He's just a fucking yeah, I want people to do drugs safely at festivals.

Yeah, he's a believer, having a good time.

He's a real mensch, yeah, he's a real mensch.

Yeah, it's just surprising when you get somebody from that world being cool, yeah,

yeah.

Anyway, uh, Instagram, you can follow Hamilton Morris.

If you can't spell that, you shouldn't listen to this podcast.

It's an easy one.

Who's that guy?

I was trying to prevent the DEA from prohibiting these psychedelics and was selling the DEA as a terrorist organization t-shirt.

So it's just a friend of mine who's modeling the DEA as a terrorist organization shirt.

Nice.

Dude, this was really cool.

That sounds like a fun trip, too.

Did you have any fun time while you were there, or was it just the research and come home?

I thought the whole thing was extremely fun.

I mean, I love this stuff.

It's immensely fun for me to see any of this stuff.

Nice.

Yeah, that's so funny.

I'll pass right, but you know, like the Obey Giant

campaign?

Yeah.

And one of the ideas was like, you put the stencil up or someone, a fan, will put a stencil up somewhere.

It'll just Andre the Giant.

Yeah.

And it'll should make you look at your surroundings in a way you haven't.

Or like you're passing by and you're like, oh, there's that giant, you know, Andre the Giant guy.

Like, what is this building?

It's on?

I pass this every day at work, on the way to work.

Like, what is this?

And it's like, oh, it's a t-shirt factory.

You're like, oh, I never thought about it.

Yeah.

I have never thought of Shanghai in China as a manufacturing.

Like, that's not my Shanghai at all.

Yeah.

It's the cauldron from which

so much emergency.

Like, be aware of it.

Damn.

All right.

Well, that's it.

Thank you.

I love the conversation.

conversation.

Yeah, that was really cool.

That helped me get to the bottom of fentanyl.

All of us, like drug users, are like, what's going on?

And we're not getting real answers.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Campaign for legal testing in the United States and policy reform so that this isn't an issue because it's not necessary.

It doesn't need to be this way.

You ever done fentanyl?

Like straight?

I have under a medical context when I was having a colonoscopy, they used fentanyl.

Wow.

Yeah, that's not that.

That doesn't go with this idea.

Yeah.

Yeah, but I mean,

I'm not super into opioids.

It's not really my vibe.

Yeah, me neither.

Austin used to be a big pill town, like, like 15 years ago.

I dated some chick you could put a pill in her hand and she could tell you the dosage and what it was.

But

how they were cool back then.

All right.

Oh, you got any travel tips in general?

Travel tips in general.

Pack Light is one a lot of people do.

Have a good toiletries bag.

Pack light is a good one.

How do you get drugs around?

I mean, going to a factory that is manufacturing them is a decent

tactic.

Yeah.

But actually, I mean, that is a

kind of a sample of what you're doing here under the pretense of doing a story on it.

Skateboarders get acid around by taking off their trucks and putting a tap or two in there, then putting the trucks back on.

Oh, wow.

And no dogs tested looking for fucking acid.

Weirdly, I did actually see that

in a

drug-sniffing dog training kit, there was an LSD training.

Oh, no.

I don't think they ever use it.

I was very surprised to see this.

That's the number one drug I have, no, maybe weed, have on me by accident in a place where it'd be really bad to have.

Yeah, yeah.

It's like, oh, take through credit.

I was like, oh, fuck, I had three hits in here.

Could have been bad.

um all right thanks hamilton i appreciate it guys follow him at hamilton morris at uh instagram he's got a patreon page

where he is all right what do you do here uber mensch mensch luftmensch oh yeah definitely jewish sorry i didn't realize before

cool how often you put out episodes on here three times a month nice that's the right that's the right Give yourself a month off, a week off.

Cool, buddy.

Thank you.

It was nice to meet you.

Good to meet you.

Yeah.

All right, everybody.

goodbye

okay guys that is the episode that uh what's it called stained glasses from the russell hotel in east nashville yeah they gave away the condo the headliners don't stay at the condo anymore in nashville did you know that yeah they put up the side room people there now it's one of the best condos in comedy because of the location it's right across the street

it's right across the street

And the neighborhoods got better.

I was there fighting for it when it was a crap neighborhood.

And now they got that one thrift store.

They got the coffee shop with a good pour over that Adrian added milk to, and it was very embarrassing to all of us.

They were like, oh, well, I'd never.

And the guy was like, no, I mean, it's up to your choice.

However you want to do it.

Ooh, I got to go meet Nate.

But anyway,

little park right there I took Bandit to a bunch of times.

Anyway.

But I'm in East Nashville now.

I was focusing the positives.

And I got to do a cool new thing.

I saw a band yesterday at the Jane's or something.

The Deltas with a Z

What the hell was that?

Jane?

Something like that.

Jane's Hideaway.

Pretty good show, the Deltas.

Pretty good show.

That's the episode, everybody.

I hope you enjoyed it.

Don't forget to subscribe wherever you're listening or watching.

And if you're watching, leave a comment on YouTube.

These episodes are made better

by

watching.

It's different than most podcasts where it's negligible.

The difference is pretty massive.

Alan Caffey, who edited this, expertly puts in the pictures that the guests have, video sometimes from all the episodes.

He also does sound effects, which is fun.

Who did that?

Was that Chad or was that Alan?

Bro, whoever's watching, I love it.

When you take...

I see it in the comments sometimes.

I try to get it in the comments for a couple days.

When Caffe again goes like this, they made a fucking

sound.

It's so stupid.

I love it.

I love it.

Oh, my God.

Dude, China is rules.

I went to the Daily Wire yesterday to go do somebody's pocket, Michael Knowles.

They're wild over there.

They're really stuck into their own

talking points the same way the left-wing things are stuck into their talking points.

It's just funny.

It's like you hear stuff.

You're like, that's a 25-year ago study that's not real anymore.

He's a cool guy, but like those talking points are all like the same.

They're all quoting the same

research and stuff.

But cool people.

Very welcoming.

But yeah, I mean, the world is so much better.

Nobody's fighting.

Nobody's really fighting.

Stay positive, everybody.

That's the message of the shirt that you can get right now

at AriShafir.com.

The stay positive shirt.

I believe that R.I.P.

Feidelberg shirts are all gone.

I may be wrong.

I only made 30 of those on purpose because really, they were just for Feidelberg at KFC.

Yoni Feidelberg.

Rest in peace.

If you saw my special, you know what I'm talking about.

Ari Shafir's America's Sweetheart on Netflix right now.

Have you seen it?

Stay till the end.

The closer is the thing.

I mean, I'm telling you, I've never seen a Hasidic guy laugh that hard as when I was doing that closing joke.

He was fine the whole time.

But when I was doing that closing joke, he was dying.

You could hear him going, it was like an, oh, what the fuck is the world?

China fucking rules, everybody.

And Hamilton, this is, I've already been quoting this episode, even though it wasn't out yet, as

a reason

to watch.

To listen to this podcast.

It is, first of all, I got through Hamilton from your suggestions.

You guys put it out there on the YouTube.

One, it helps the algorithm, but two, it helps me know who to book.

Hamilton Morris, you said.

So I got him.

China.

I think you even said, yeah, I think he went to China.

So fucking great.

I've admired his work.

Not all of it, but a lot of it from afar for a while.

Don't forget to check out the Hamilton Morris podcast or sign up for his Patreon, patreon.com slash Hamilton Morris.

I myself, for the UB Tripping podcast, have almost raised enough money where we achieved our goal where we can send someone around the world.

So it's going to be soon

to start looking for who that is.

Maybe it's you.

I've been reading your postcards.

Some with Sagalow.

It's a couple of episodes with Ryan O'Neill.

Patreon.com slash UB Trippin.

But

I might wrap up soon.

I don't know.

Anyway, but yeah, I said, listen.

I went to China.

It was a completely different trip to China than Hamilton Morris.

Hamilton Morris went to China.

All he wanted to do, I was telling this guy the other day, Azad,

I was like, all he wanted to do in China was go to drug labs, right?

I didn't go to any drug labs.

So his China is way different than my China.

My China was the first foreign place I'd been.

I was like, oh my God, this is crazy.

I just wanted to get out and try the food.

Hamilton's like, you heard him in this.

I just kind of ate the food at the hotel.

It wasn't my thing.

I just wanted to see what the drug labs are like.

I mean, fucking cool.

So it's different and then i usually compare it to like my

paris was a writing class with rolf potts tim dylan's paris is probably gonna be food related

um jim jeffries hookers i don't know if that's true i don't know if any of them have been to paris um but i know i've been to paris but the point is everybody's trip to a place is different and i'm not interested in this podcast and getting like what sort of do in that place it's what you did in the place what your experience was You be tripping.

Is that the name of the podcast?

It is.

So, anyway, guys, that's it.

Today's episode was produced by your mom's house network.

They do a great fucking job.

They do a great fucking job.

And

that's it.

I am on tour right now.

All new material from America Sweetheart, in case you're wondering.

Although in Denver, I'm doing a greatest hits week, which will include

maybe one bit from America Sweetheart.

But write in your favorite bits of mine, even if you can't be there.

Write them in.

So, because I got to start the first day, and then I'm going to take suggestions from people, you know.

But here's my

road gigs.

Adrian will be with me in some of the places.

Fucking Luca.

I hope you OD on Ozempic.

I hope you OD in Ozempic.

They're good again.

San Antonio this week, not with Ari Maddie.

He had to go do a Killers of Kill Tony

show.

I got to find out who's going to open for me.

Tampa, Florida with Steve Simone.

Denver, Colorado with Colin Tyrrell.

I'm doing the greatest hits week.

He's doing his own material.

Schaunburg, Illinois, Atlanta, and Portland, all with Adrian Appalucci.

Then San Jose, Orlando, Fort Lauderdale, Seattle,

Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton.

That all takes us through to middle of April

or early April.

And then Anchorage, Alaska in June as my final show on this tour.

I will not be touring for 2026.

I will not be touring for the rest of 2025.

If you don't see me here, you won't see me.

And if I'm coming to one of these cities,

I'm not going to be back there in 2027 either.

So what are we in now?

2025?

It's going to be three plus years since you see me.

I would get a ticket.

Shows are added already in Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton.

The first shows sold out.

Show added in Orlando.

Show added in Fort Lauderdale.

And show added in Portland.

Tickets are selling well.

That's it, you guys.

Until next week, I'm definitely forgetting to tell you something, and I don't remember what it is.

Please subscribe.

Oh, buy some merch.

Arishafir.com.

Okay.

Bye.

Next week, Israel with Jeffrey Osmos.

That's going to be a fun one to celebrate the Peace Accord.

We're done, everybody.

Palestinians and Jews, now that they signed a piece of paper, are mortal friends.

Enemies no longer.

That's right.

Mortal friends.

They signed a paper.

Word is bond.

Mortal friends, Palestinians and Jews.

And anyone who wanted to co-opt that fight and said,

hey, well, I want to weigh in.

I'm really upset about this.

I'm really sad.

Peace Accord.

So it's all good.

They've been cool with it.

So you have to be cool with it too.

It's like me and Bert.

burt you'd be a fool you'd be a fool right now to still be mad about uh me and burt and the way he acted that whole time the way he fucking pussed out i'm saying no leave him alone now it's over i've forgiven him so you need to move on i've forgiven bobby lee for not fighting back uh who else probably a lot of people i've forgiven all of them for not handling it the right

right way so palestinians and jews and anyone who uh made that their cause you got to move on too it's over and it'll be fully over next week on Monday when Jeffrey Osmans takes the stage on You Be Trippin'.

See you next week.

What was this one?

China.

Thanks for tuning in.

Sure, sure.

I do know that word.

Share, sure.