Gov. Rick Perry: The Conservative Case for Psychedelic Medicine

The self-described 'knuckle-dragging, right-wing conservative' wants MDMA and psilocybin to be legalized for use in therapy for PTSD. And has a hankering to try ibogaine for a total brain 'reset.'

Gov. Rick Perry. Credit: Lex Villena/Reason

In June, I traveled to Denver with my Reason colleague Zach Weismueller to cover the Psychedelic Science 2023 conference, which was organized by the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS), a group that has been working to gain approval of MDMA-assisted therapy for PTSD and related ailments since the late 1980s. We produced a 30-minute documentary about what is rightly called today’s “psychedelic renaissance,” or a new flourishing of substances and subcultures that mostly went underground at the end of the 1960s. The documentary tells the history of psychedelics and how today’s proponents of better living through chemistry are doing things in a very different way than Timothy Leary and others did back in the ‘60s (that’s not a knock on Leary, by the way). Watch the documentary here.

I’m excited to share my full interview with the unlikeliest speaker at the conference—the former Texas governor and Trump administration secretary of energy Rick Perry, who introduced himself to the crowd on the opening morning of the conference as a ‘knuckle-dragging, right-wing conservative’ who is a huge supporter of legalizing psychedelics for use as treatments for PTSD and other indications.

I sat down with Perry to learn how he came to believe psychedelics should be legal medicine for veterans and others suffering from PTSD, how to allow more immigrants to come to America lawfully, and why if he were ever to take a psychedelic drug it would be Ibogaine, a notoriously powerful substance made from the bark of an African tree.

The video is below and below that is a rush, uncorrected transcript generated by Otter.ai. Please check its accuracy against the video.

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

psychedelics, psychedelic, texas, trauma, reason, government, medicine, rick perry, results, give, young man, process, ibogaine, conservative, life, state, work, treatment, legalization, republicans

SPEAKERS

Nick Gillespie, Rick Perry

Nick Gillespie  00:12

Former Republican Texas governor and Trump administration Energy Secretary Rick Perry was the most surprising speaker at the 2023 Psychedelic science conference held in Denver this June.

Organized by the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies, a group that has been pushing for FDA approval of MDMA assisted therapy since the late 1980s. That conference was attended by a reported 13,000 people. Perry sat down with reason to explain why he believes psychedelic should be legal medicine for veterans and others suffering from PTSD, how to allow more immigrants to come to America lawfully and why, if he were ever to take a psychedelic drug, it would be Ibogaine, a notoriously powerful substance made from the bark of an African tree.

Nick Gillespie  01:15

Rick Perry, thanks for talking to reason. Well, you are speaking at a psychedelic conference, what is so important about psychedelics that have brought you a conservative Republican to speak to people who as you said in your opening remarks, probably were wondering why you were there?

Rick Perry: 01:32

When I got introduced to this proximately, five years ago, it was through a young man who worked with me at the Department of Energy at that point in my life, I was the Secretary of Energy. And he was seeing some of his colleagues in the Special Operations world this was a former Navy SEAL. Who, interestingly, today is a United States Congressman, who is very vocal, very supportive of the use of psychedelics for post traumatic stress. And he's the one that started working with me on this, me getting comfortable that Rick Perry, and psychedelics in the same sentence was even even close to a reality. And his twin brother, Marcus Luttrell, who is the author of lone survivor, the book, and then the movie was made about his experiences, that brother lived with us at the governor's mansion for two plus years, as we were, my wife and I were learning about post traumatic stress, and how poor our government was in dealing with this, frankly, and we were trying to find solutions to help heal this young man. And so all of that collectively through the years brought me to a comfort level, that I'm a results oriented guy, you know, the process is the process, I get it. But what's the result? And what I've seen over the last four years in particular, studying this, talking to a myriad of young men in this case, there have been young women that have gone to Mexico as well, I've just not had conversations with any of those. But these young men who have put their lives on the line for us who have been impacted, through all the different types of trauma that come with being a warfighter, that this treatment, this medicine works. And so I've also, you know, educated myself about the history of this and why psychedelics got taken away from the research world, from the citizens at large from the standpoint of being a medicine that could could work. So it started to make a lot of sense to me, that, you know, these are medicines that were taken away for political purposes back in the early 70s. And that, we need to reintegrate, study them do the appropriate things. But the potential here is stunningly positive. I mean, when you just look and I'll give you one peek at the Dr. Rachel Yehuda, PhD who's working at the VA in New York. I think she has two studies behind them. Phase three that are showing just amazing results. Treatment with MDMA two weeks treatment with MDMA treatment, two, three treatments in a month period of time. They have classic symptoms, anxiety, depression, In sleeplessness suicidal thoughts, one or all of those 75% of those individuals who are treated 75% of those who are treated, have zero symptoms after six months. I mean, that's stunning numbers. So my point is, and and I got to ask this early in my engagement with this, it's kind of like, I helped pass in the Texas legislature as a former governor. I think it was House Bill 1802. That allowed for clinical trials on psilocybin in the state of Texas, veteran focused, and we passed it as the law in the state of Texas today. We're very conservative, Republican dominated legislature and state. And we're seeing great results now. No, in that arena. So having those results in hand. Why wouldn't we do this yet?

Nick Gillespie  06:05

Do you think this will sell well, not simply to Republicans, but conservatives? You know, the fact that when we're talking about dealing with trauma with PTSD and things like that, psychedelics, which, you know, going back, somebody like Ronald Reagan was Governor of California was like, you know, we got to stop hippies, who are taking LSD will do think people in your political tribe will be able to kind of grasp the message that you're saying?

Rick Perry 6:31

The short answer is yes, I do. Because I'm not for legalization of drugs, man, this is where I'm, I tell people, I said, Listen, we're gonna go, we need to go a little more pedestrian here. Government has falled this up substantially in the past. Let's not give them a reason to mess this up. Again, let's go thoughtfully at an appropriate pace as fast as we can. But the idea that we're going to stand up and say, You know what, this great stuff, let's just legalize it. Everybody is, you know, go, you know, go find your happy place. That's not a good plan.

Nick Gillespie  07:15

You're breaking my heart.

Rick Perry 07:16

I know. I know. Rick Doblin and I mean, I love Rick Doblin like a brother. Yeah, this is where we disagree. On strategy. I don't think we disagree on end results, which is to get these compounds into as many places as we can with the right. But here, this pretty simple for me. proper diagnosis, proper dosage, proper guidance through the the experience with the medicine, and then the proper follow up follow up is incredibly

Nick Gillespie  07:45

could you as a limited government conservative, can you talk a little bit about why it was wrong that the government, you know, at every level, but especially the federal level interpose itself between, you know, medical care and patients?

Rick Perry 08:01

Good question. My father in law was a physician. And in 1970, they're about he told his then 14 year old daughter as she was helping him in his clinic. Honey, the first dollar we take from the government is our first step towards socialized medicine. And I would suggest to you he was correct. You know, I've spent pretty much a lifetime in government and government needs to be limited. It needs to be restrained at almost every opportunity that you can. And we haven't been very successful with that in our country. So it's one of the reasons I still fear that if we go too fast on this, before the public is fully educated and fully supportive of the use of psychedelics to treat the the trauma that's out there in our world, that we could end up back potentially worse than we were in the early 70s. Now, have you used psychedelic? No, never.

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Nick Gillespie  09:23

What about weed? No, anything like that?

Rick Perry 09:25

No, I'm your classic. I mean, 60s, I grew up in a small community where it wasn't available. It wasn't there. Then I went to an all male military school and in the late 60s, early 70s. I went straight into the United States Air Force where, you know, the idea. I mean, we were tested for drugs on a regular basis, and it's kind of like, you know, I would never put my career in jeopardy, and went on about life.

Nick Gillespie  09:55

Do you think this is the type of issue you know, we live in an intensely polarized being A world right now, particularly between Republicans and Democrats, conservatives and liberals or progressives. Is this the type of issue that people will find common cause on?

Rick Perry 10:09

Yeah, it's interesting. I was just having this conversation with some of the participants here today. At this juncture now, again, I think this is all about the education process, getting people comfortable with the facts, getting people comfortable with the results. But then at the federal level, this is more supported by the Republicans. And here's one of the reasons I think that and I'm in a little bit of a silo because I'm from Texas, and I pay attention to the Texas congressional delegation, and there is a substantial number of former military Special Ops. Dan Crenshaw, Morgan on trail Wesley hot. You know, Jake Lz, was a f 18 pilot who deployed with the SEAL teams, Tony Gonzalez, cyber expert. I mean, we've got a lot of military, Auguste Pflueger, who was a, I think he was an a 10 pilot. Those individuals have seen this firsthand. They know the trauma that has been inflicted on these individuals. And they've also seen the results of the use of psychedelics in treating this trauma. So I think there's a bigger group of Republicans. But what I I tried to tell people I said, this isn't partisan at all. Let's you know, let's let's take our, our labels away on this one, this is about this about humankind. This is about taking care of individuals, it's about saving lives, it's about giving people their lives back. And that's not a Democrat or Republican issue. But, you know, I'm, I'm not Pollyanna here. I understand that. You know, politics always sticks its ugly little head into things.

Nick Gillespie  12:05

So do you think after you know, psychedelic therapy, psychedelic assisted therapy work is shown to work for veterans with PTSD? Other people with trauma, and things move towards legalization or decriminalization? Would you be comfortable doing psychedelics at some point?

Rick Perry 12:25

You know, I tell folks, I said that's. So there's a early stage study going on Ibogaine, at this particular point in time, it appears at this early juncture, that that one treatment, that medicine can not just reset the brain, but literally some senolytics values. turning back the clock, if you will, anti aging of the brain. Increased executive functions. And I'm quite interested in that because a 73 year old, you know, healthy man that, you know, so there's a naturally occurring substance, that properly dose properly diagnosed properly, guided through properly followed up with that can make my executive thought process better, that can literally turn back the clock so to speak, and is a personal note, I was concussed a substantial number of times as a young man growing up, just I grew up on a ranch I grew up on a farm I grew up playing six man football. And there were there were a number of times that I was concussed. And I'm talking about serious concussions where you're out for over a minute or two, me literally laying there. So we know now that that long term, cumulative trauma on the brain. Maybe one of the reasons that I always been chasing the sleep at night, Moby Dick of my life has been to get a night's sleep. You think that might have some to do with it? Well, certainly could.

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Nick Gillespie  14:33

Can you just comment on what a world of wonders it must be like if 13 year old you or 23 year old is saying I could not only you know, you know, a popular lieutenant governor, Governor of Texas, and I'm going to be talking about we need to get psychedelics out into the medicine cabinet of America.

Rick Perry 14:52

Yeah, it'd be literally five years ago. If you told me that my name and psychedelics was gonna be in the same sentence, I would have looked a bit askance at you, do you?

Nick Gillespie  15:07

This is a little bit off topic. You know, one of the things that I think Texas, you know, where I've lived, was actually great on was immigration. Texas is a state that takes in people from all over the world, you know, particularly the relationship with Mexico and Texas is is incredible. It's a real sticking point for the contemporary Republican Party. There isn't anybody there who is willing to say, you know, what, we need more immigrants and we need more legal immigration, is that going to change and is that we need to dose it the Republican Party.

Rick Perry 15:42

If you'll recall, I ran for President in 2011 2012. And as I tell people, if you also recall, in August of 2011, I literally went to the top of the, the polls. And I tell people, it was three of the most exhilarating hours of my life. That's about how long I stayed up there. But I laid out a plan for immigration. And I'll give you the quick cliff notes version here. Because I still think it makes a lot of sense, particularly with the last 10 years and what's happened. You have everyone in this country go to their embassy or to their consulate. And you register, we take your biometric data, so we know who you are. And we give you a card that allows you to be legally in this country, you're a legal alien are not afraid of that terminology, that is not a negative, you're illegal alien, you're here, here's who I am, I come here, didn't necessarily come here legally. But I'm here. Every year, you go down, swipe your card. And if you paid your taxes, you kept your nose clean, you have stayed within the parameters of the laws of the state you live in, you're good to stay for another year. Now, if you want to become a citizen of the United States, there's the line right over there you go get in the line go through the process to become a citizen. But as long as you stay working within the laws of the state, you're good to stay here from now on. Great. And I got really criticized because people said, oh, that's amnesty. Well, what an amnesty it was, it was a way to know who the people are. And we would have had during that period of time, building the the wall, I don't have a problem with building a wall. And because we want to be able to allow people to come in, follow the process. But if you get sent back, because you broke the laws, for whatever reason, you lost your your real right to be in this country, and you get exported, so to speak, you get deported, you're not just going across the border and come back in so there's a real punishment there. And people are going to work hard to stay in the United States work hard to be living in the to the laws of our our states in our country. So I don't know why we can't sit down and have that kind of logical conversation again, about that relatively simple way to register people, and to keep the workforce that we need in this state without having all of the illegal challenges and problems whether it's the human trafficking, the sexual trafficking that's going on the fentanyl problem that we got. seemed like it would make a lot more sense to me.

Nick Gillespie  18:54

Thank you very much. Governor Perry.

[END]

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