•topic03:30
Rehabilitating the coca leaf after forty years of no movement
Weil has worked for many years to rehabilitate coca and to teach people the differences between coca and cocaine, and says he is delighted that momentum is finally building. The changes are happening in Colombia, in other countries and in the United States, where groups are forming to legalize coca, make it medically available, and educate people on the distinction. One partner he names is the River Styx Foundation, whose director is Cody Swift, and who are interested in funding coca research to document some of the medical benefits. Weil frames this as the first change in attitudes he has seen in some forty-odd years. His argument for access runs on two tracks. Medically, coca is not cocaine — it has distinct effects and unique medical effects, and we should have access to it. Culturally, it is the sacred plant of a great many indigenous peoples in South America and has been thoroughly demonized by American society, which ties its rehabilitation to the broader momentum around indigenous cultures and rights. Tim supplies firsthand evidence from limited exposure: given coca for altitude sickness in South America, his symptoms had all but vanished within forty-five minutes. He also nods to River Styx's work with the Indigenous Peyote Conservation Initiative, which purchased a tract of land in Texas that has become a unifying symbol of hope for Native American groups who historically would not automatically get along.
- Weil has spent decades teaching the difference between coca and cocaine, and calls the current momentum the first attitude change in some forty years.
- Groups in Colombia, elsewhere and in the United States are working to legalize coca and make it medically available.
- Cody Swift's River Styx Foundation is interested in funding coca research to document the medical benefits.
- Coca is the sacred plant of many indigenous South American peoples, which links its rehabilitation to indigenous rights.
- Tim's altitude sickness in South America resolved almost entirely within forty-five minutes of being given coca.
“i've worked for many years to try to rehabilitate coca to teach people the differences between coca and cocaine”
“it's the first time in in 40 some years that i've seen any change in attitudes up here”
“this is the sacred plant of a great many indigenous people in south america and it has been so demonized by our society”
#coca#drug-policy#indigenous-rights#ethnobotany#river-styx-foundation
•topic22:30
Reporting on Leary and Alpert, and making peace with it
Tim reads from a Crimson piece on Harvard's tentative psychedelic renaissance, which revisits the early-1960s Harvard Psilocybin Project and Timothy Leary — the man Nixon called the most dangerous man in America. Weil was the only Crimson member with a science background, majoring in biology, so he was assigned to cover the controversy. He is careful to credit the early research: Leary and Richard Alpert were the first people to really emphasize set and setting as determinants of drug experiences, and they documented very positive effects of psychedelic experiences on prisoners at Concord Reformatory. Then a cult grew up around them, the faculty got upset, and Weil wrote the stories that contributed to their departure. He made peace with Leary a few years after graduating, and knew Alpert — later Ram Dass — over the years, doing fundraisers after his stroke. At a good meeting in Maui a few years before Ram Dass died, Ram Dass told him he had done him a blessing by forcing him out of Harvard, because otherwise he would not have become Ram Dass. On the current renaissance, Weil says the mainstreaming astonishes him. Everywhere he speaks, whatever the topic, he gets asked about psychedelics. He calls it maybe one of the only good things happening in society, while flagging what worries him: people still using them as party drugs, a medical profession slow to engage, drugs still in Schedule One, too few trained guides, and an awful lot of commercial interests circling.
- Weil covered the Leary and Alpert controversy for the Crimson because he was the only member with a science background.
- He credits their early work for emphasising set and setting and for documenting positive effects on prisoners at Concord Reformatory.
- Ram Dass later told him he had done him a blessing by forcing him out of Harvard, because otherwise he would not have become Ram Dass.
- Weil finds the mainstreaming astonishing and calls it maybe one of the only good things happening in society.
- His concerns: recreational-only use, a slow medical profession, Schedule One status, too few trained guides, and commercial interests circling.
“they were the first people to really emphasize sentence setting as really important determinants of drug experiences”
“he said that i had done him a blessing by forcing him out of harvard because otherwise he wouldn't have been ramdos”
“there's an awful lot of circling around of commercial interests looking at how they can capitalize on all this”
#timothy-leary#ram-dass#psychedelic-renaissance#set-and-setting#harvard-psilocybin-project
•topic37:30
Matcha, fermented turmeric, and thirty years of being early
On his second day in Japan in November 1959, Weil's host mother took him next door to a neighbour who performed a tea ceremony and presented him with a bowl of matcha. He was completely taken — first by the colour, then by the whisk, then by the taste. From the 1970s he brought matcha back every trip when nobody in the United States had heard of it, partnered with a Japanese company and began selling through his website in the 1980s — again, he says, way ahead of its time. Only when he saw matcha becoming popular did he build the company properly, and on a specific observation: so few people had access to good matcha, because badly prepared or badly stored matcha oxidizes fast given its huge surface area, losing the bright green colour and turning bitter. The health case rests on matcha being the only form of tea where the whole leaf is consumed — which Tim correctly notes raises the stakes on pesticide sourcing — and on it having the highest levels of antioxidants and of l-theanine, the calming amino acid that takes the jittery edge off caffeine. The mechanism is agronomic: about three weeks before harvest the plants are heavily shaded, cutting seventy to eighty percent of sunlight, so leaves grow bigger and thinner and produce more antioxidants and l-theanine. The fermented turmeric tea he found ubiquitous in Okinawa, first imported ready-to-drink and also way ahead of its time, now ships as a powder.
- Weil fell in love with matcha at a tea ceremony on his second day in Japan in 1959, before knowing anything about its health benefits.
- He sold matcha through his website in the 1980s and calls that attempt, like the Beneficial Plants association, way ahead of its time.
- He relaunched not because matcha got popular but because so few people had access to good matcha, which oxidizes fast and turns bitter.
- Matcha is the only form of tea in which the whole leaf is consumed, which makes sourcing and pesticide load far more consequential.
- Three weeks of heavy shading before harvest cuts seventy to eighty percent of sunlight and drives up antioxidants, l-theanine and chlorophyll.
“again like the beneficial plant association way ahead of its time this was in the 1980s”
“so when i had the chance when i saw matcha becoming popular here it bothered me that so few people had access to good matcha”
“about three weeks before harvest the plants are heavily shaded with shade cloth that cuts out about seventy eighty percent of the sunlight and in…”
#matcha#l-theanine#turmeric#timing#sourcing#green-tea