This episode is sponsored by yet another incredible
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the Behind the Shield podcast. Welcome to the
Behind the Shield podcast. As always, my name
is James Geering, and this week it is my absolute
honor to welcome on the show Dr. Pam Crisco and
Phil Danes from Roots to Thrive. Now, in this
conversation, we discuss a host of topics from
Pam's journey into the wildland fire service,
her transition into medicine, Phil's journey
into becoming a psychedelic practitioner, using
psychedelics to help first responders, the creation
of Roots to Thrive, ketamine therapy, forging
resilience, and so much more. Now, before we
get to this incredible conversation, as I say
every week, please just take a moment. go to
whichever app you listen to this on subscribe
to the show leave feedback and leave a rating
Every single five -star rating truly does elevate
this podcast, therefore making it easier for
others to find. And this is a free library of
over 1 ,200 episodes now. So all I ask in return
is that you help share these incredible men and
women's stories so I can get them to every single
person on planet Earth who needs to hear them.
So with that being said, I introduce to you...
Dr. Pam Crisco and Phil Danes. Enjoy. Well, Phil
and Pam, I want to start by saying two things.
Firstly, thank you to our mutual friend, Steve
Farina, for making this introduction. And secondly,
I want to welcome you both onto the Behind the
Shield podcast today. Great to be here. Thanks,
James. Yeah, thank you, James. And thank you,
Steve, for the intro. Well, let's start with
you individually. Pam, where are we finding you
on planet Earth today? Yeah, today I usually
find me on Cortez Island in British Columbia,
but today I happen to be in Washington State
doing some speaking. But yeah, my home is in
British Columbia and on the unceded territory
of the Clahoo's First Nations. Brilliant. And
Phil, what about you? I am at home today on Vancouver
Island in a little town called Ladysmith. in
British Columbia, and that's the traditional
non -seeded territory of the Stamenis First Nation.
You have a snowboard in the background, but one
of my Canadian friends told me that the snow
has been awful recently. Have you got any around
you? Actually, interestingly, in the last two
weeks or so, they've got a... Pretty good size
dump on Mount Washington, which is about an hour
and a half from us, but haven't made it up yet.
Okay. Gotcha. All right. Well, I'd love to start
at the beginning of each of your timeline. So
let's start with you, Pam. Tell me where you
were born and tell me a little bit about your
family dynamic, what your parents did, how many
siblings. Wow. Okay. Fantastic. I was born in
Edmonton, Alberta in Canada. I never really lived
there at all, but I'm the oldest of three girls.
So there's a 12 -year spread between me and my
youngest sibling. I'm an aunt nine times over.
I've got nine nieces and nephews and no children
myself because I am too selfish. I like freedom.
And my parents are fantastic. A couple, Elaine
and Dave. My mom went to school for radio broadcast
and then did a whole lot of other things. And
my dad was an NHL hockey player. And so that
really defined our lives as we moved around North
America, depending on where training camp was,
what team he was playing with. And then when
we finished all that, we landed in northern Alberta
in a small little town where I finished high
school. went on to university after that. So
that gets me to that far. When we talk about
ice hockey, and especially in the mental health
space, there's a lot of conversations about not
only trauma and childhood trauma, but also TBIs
and concussions. When you reflect back now, I'm
assuming that probably wasn't as much of a discussion
when your dad was playing. Were there any kind
of issues or struggles he had back then as a
consequence of what he did for his sport? Yeah,
well, that's really interesting because I'm actually,
we're at the beginning steps of working with
the NHL players. um alumni on this and we have
a number of folks that we've been working with
um on a couple things some microdosing uh preliminary
stuff working but yeah you know back in the day
when my dad played hockey they didn't wear helmets
or they chose to wear helmets they didn't wear
mouth like they didn't wear anything and in fact
they like the freedom and and we were just having
a big conversation about this is that there was
a lot more respect on the ice about that like
there wasn't all the dirty play with the sticks
people are a lot more careful and if you threw
a punch you threw a punch and you it you fought
to the end right you weren't fighting uh ridiculously
because of all the protection that they were
wearing but as a result with with folks like
my dad who you know the alumni there but also
hockey players and rugby players and we're seeing
that huge uptick in ce cte which not only is
showing up as early dementia but is also showing
up as a high level of depression high level of
anxiety and social anxiety and a high level of
alcohol use disorder And so we're really trying
to help get a leash or get a connection to these
players because it's actually fixable. If we
can get them into psilocybin or ketamine sessions,
what happens is they start regaining some of
the function. They get the immediate antidepressant
effect. And then the longer -term microdosing
has been showing some really great promise. So
we have a lot of players who are now alumni because
now they can talk about it. When you're a professional
athlete, you cannot talk about using these. medicines
and so yeah i could talk all day on that but
i won't but it's it's a really exciting area
and these guys are suffering so a lot of a lot
of these men who are in their 60s and 70s you
know a lot of them are sitting at home watching
sports and drinking a lot and that's their life
rinse repeat day after day and they're socially
isolating because of the anxiety i had uh clint
viner chuck on the show who was the goalie that
got his throat cut open on national television
and Prior to that, he was an enforcer as well,
I think, or that kind of player, at least not
an enforcer because he was a goalie. And his
struggles with alcoholism and depression, it's
the same thing. And you look at MMA, you look
at boxing, you look at rugby, you look at football,
and then you look at the impact of sleep deprivation
on the first responders, which mimics TBI. The
myelin sheath gets broken down. And when you're
talking about that retiree, whether it's a sport
or a first responder or a veteran it's the same
kind of image so i think that this is so applicable
across the board of everyone that's listening
but the hope that there are solutions you know
when i was young in you know early medicine like
science we were told that the brain once once
you broke it you broke it that was it but now
we're understanding neuroplasticity and that
you can actually come back from some of these
injuries Yeah, that's exactly what we were taught.
Basically at 25, you're done. That's what you
had. That was your brain. And now it's so exciting.
That's what I love about science is it's always
evolving. We're never done. As we advance, every
time we advance and every time we get better
information, we have to pivot and we have to
kind of clean the slate of what we thought we
knew because we're really just truly toddlers
when it comes to this science, which is exciting.
Why is it that... When it comes to the humility
needed to say the way that we thought things
went, it has changed. It's not actually as we
thought it was. Why is it such a struggle for
communities like science or politics or my profession
when we get to a point where we realize the way
we do it isn't working? it's so hard to get people
to steer the ship to a different direction. What
have you seen as far as the struggles of saying
we were wrong and that being okay, because we
did the best with what we had before, but there
is a better way of doing it now. Yeah, well,
and I think that really ties into the whole thing
about Roots to Thrive and what we've been doing
at Roots to Thrive is, you know, I think of all
of us, we kind of live in as a bell curve, right?
There's always at the front of that bell curve,
there's the edge runners or the courageous people,
the ones that are grabbing and going like, hey,
this is new. This is exciting. This is where
the innovation is. It's the same in medicine
and science. At the front of that is where all
the innovation and all the fun is. That's where
Roots to Thrive likes to play is like, how can
we use the best science and the best techniques
to help people so that they can get back to their
lives and do what they really want to do? And
then a good portion of scientists and doctors
and nurses are kind of in that middle. You know,
some are more on the middle front where they're
leaning in, they're interested. And then there's
a whole group that are on the backside of that.
And I unfortunately think we give way too much
energy to the backside, trying to convince the
dinosaurs to catch up. And I think we really
should just ignore the dinosaurs and run faster
and go faster and innovate and just let them
go extinct. who is just an absolute brilliant
woman, says, you know, science only advances
with every death, which means like as the old
guard dies off, science advances. It's not her
saying it's actually attributable to somebody
else, but she reminds me that a lot. And I think
just reiterating, we have to ignore the old school.
and we have to we have to stay on the leading
edge of what is best for people what is best
for innovation and what is what makes a better
world for everyone and and unfortunately we seem
to get stuck in that middle place and go how
do we change the stigma how do we change minds
we don't we leave them behind we leave them behind
and let them do whatever they do back there while
we create a better world out front and roots
to thrive has always been that way we've always
been innovative we have an innovative lead on
our team we research in the areas nobody else
has researched we constantly quality improve
the program and that that's scientific right
that is what scientists do you lean you lean
forward and you go and you ask the questions
no one's ever asked and go can we do better absolutely
i i work with an organization that um works with
darpa And I didn't even know what DARPA was until
someone educated me a couple of years ago. But
any crazy idea that they have in the military
or in science, like I think, you know, Phil could
fly if he just puts his snowboard on and flaps
his arms. And they're like, all right, well,
here's millions of dollars. Go prove that you're
wrong. And if you don't, then, oh, OK, we just
discovered Wi -Fi. We just discovered satellites
or whatever the next thing is. And so if we look
at the front leaders of all the innovation in
the world that isn't just profit based, like,
you know, a lot of medicines, for example, that
comes from that front. You know, those thought
leaders as people that are crazy enough to believe
that something is true, even though no one else
believes it. So I couldn't agree more. I don't
focus on on the the people that are pulling the
opposite direction. I believe there's the middle
portion that you can sway towards the front.
That's who we need to focus our energy on. All
right. Well, Phil, let's kind of walk you through.
So tell me where you were born. Tell me a little
bit about your family dynamic, what your parents
did for a living and how many siblings. Yeah,
thank you. Nice to hear a little bit of history
about you, Pam, and get to know you on a little
deeper level, hear about your family. So I was
born in Portland, Oregon, to my parents, George
and Leslie Dames. And I've got two siblings.
I'm the youngest of three. I have a sister two
years older than me. Amy and my brother is named
Bumper. Yes, his real name is Bumper. And he's
five years older than me. Similar to Pam, my
dad played professional football for a couple
of years. He had a short stint with the 49ers
and then played in the... Canadian Football League
for a little bit of time. So there's been an
interesting, as he has aged, seeing his health
be impacted by the rough sport of football and
the difference in helmets when he played and
the concussion level that he had back in the
day has certainly impacted him as he's aged.
Yeah, we moved up and down the West Coast between
Oregon and California as I was growing up and
ultimately landed in central Oregon and then
found my way up to married a Canadian and found
our way up to Vancouver Island in 2009. Yeah,
I think I touched on all the points you were
looking for. You should really move into your
spouse a bit more because your spouse is an amazing
human. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you, Pam. Yeah. So my
partner is Shannon, Shannon Dames, and she's,
Pam mentioned we have an innovation lead on our
team and that is Shannon. She's a true, both
Pam and Shannon are very true innovators in this
field. And I believe they are. yeah, absolutely
leaders in this field and not afraid to run ahead
and innovate. And Shannon studied resilience
at the University of Calgary and Roots to Thrive
was essentially born out of the research that
she completed. She's a nurse by trade and was
very curious and intrigued by the level of burnout
that nurses were experiencing in her work and
was. So wanted to study it as to what was the
root cause of the burnout and why were nurses
dropping like flies in the different hospitals
that she worked in. And yeah, so Roots to Thrive
was born out of that research. And ultimately,
she created a resilience program, which was Roots
to Thrive. After it was created, after a little
while, it was connected to PAM. And the innovative
idea of what if we took that resilience program
and wove in ketamine -assisted therapy, what
would that look like? So her and Pam. I remember
the early conversations and just listening to
the two of them talk on the phone or on Zoom
and hearing them go back and forth. I was like,
wow, watch out. These two are going to do something
pretty amazing. So, yeah, Shannon has been a
huge, huge part of this organization and continues
to be. I get to take all the innovative ideas
that the two of them have and the rest of our
team and just kind of operationalize them. That's
where I get to step in. So it's an absolute pleasure
to get to witness not only the teamwork together,
but then the impact that our program has on individuals
that come through the different programs. What
were the elements that she identified were causing
burnout in nurses? The boy, I wish she was here
to answer these questions because she could answer
them way better than me. Really, the root of
it and the root of our program essentially is
authentic connection, community, having a space
where individuals can just show up as they are
and they're going to be received and held in
compassion. So there are different work environments
that some folks would consider toxic. And in
those toxic environments... Burnout just eventually
happens. So a common term that we use in our
program and one that she used in her research
quite a bit was unconditional positive regard.
So when you are in relationship with others and
you are held in unconditional positive regard,
that is a very powerful mechanism to avoid burnout.
And in our program and what her research showed
was that when you can be in those spaces where
you feel safe enough to show up as you are, regardless
of what's happening in your life, be held and
kind of mirrored unconditional positive regard,
it's an incredibly powerful tool to increase
resilience, whether in a personal setting or
a professional setting. In the nine years I've
been doing this and 1200 plus episodes now, one
of the things that really, I would say debunked
is the right word, but one of the things that
became far more prevalent in the mental health
conversation wasn't the calls that these men
and women had seen. It was unaddressed childhood
trauma. Sleep deprivation was a massive one,
but then organizational betrayal. And you have
these men and women that wear the patch on their
shoulder and they literally would die for a complete
stranger. God forbid it came across that. And
then their own tribe turns their back on them
or their own tribe throws them under a bus. It
doesn't surprise me for a second that it was
the organizational side that really was where
she dialed in because you can be the most passionate
first responder and, you know, use all the correct
tools. But if the environment that you're in
is one of betrayal, you know, whether that's
actually, you know, you did everything right
and then you got, you know, used as a scapegoat
or it was just simply. you're being worked into
the ground and no one's advocating for you. I
think that's one of the most unspoken elements
of first responder trauma. And back to that,
I want to say one thing that I know is because
I was a first responder and then I was went into
medicine is that the reality is what drives us
to even get those jobs comes from our childhood,
right? It comes from I'm not good enough. I'm
not smart enough. If I just get this job, then
my parents will love me or my dad will. go, attaboy,
son, way to go. There's just so much of that
drive. When I got hired on the fire department,
those were the stories. People were like, yeah,
you could just feel it in the gutter when we
were going to calls, sitting in the back of the
truck talking. That was so present there. What
was the drive to get there, to be a hero? Same
in medicine. Medicine has the same thing. It's
so interesting, these feelings of deficiency.
that we grow up with drive us to accomplish.
But then there has to be a place where you can
heal that stuff. So you can just accomplish for
just to be a great human, you know, and just
to be in service to humanity. So it's ubiquitous
across nursing, medicine. firefighters, police
officers, paramedics, all the heroes of our society
that are really in service to humanity. It's
so common. Not everyone. There's always exceptions.
But then when you layer on that, you know, like
you've worked so hard to get into that profession
and then you start having nightmares or you start
feeling like as soon as you drive up to the fire
hall, you're ready to puke. for the anxiety,
right? And then you think it's a deficiency of
yourself. And it's not a deficiency of yourself.
You're having a normal human reaction to your
life into your job. Right. And that's what I
love about like, what what Shannon's research
brought forward is that the only way to heal
that is it back in relationship is to get back
together in communities where you can talk honestly
about what you're going through and others will
hear it and they won't judge you. They'll go,
yeah, that's logical. I get you. That makes sense
to me. And then people heal. And we've seen that
over and over and over with all these professions
is that when they can come into a group and have
that experience, wow, what changes happen first
off. And then you add in the psychedelic therapy
and it accelerates. that healing but it's in
it's already in a really strong relational container
it's not just psychedelics on their own it's
like you're there with a group of firefighters
like really digging into what needs to go and
you all love each other anyways you still it's
like you're accepted for who you are so you know
i i just think we have to remember that the reason
we even got to those applications the reason
we even applied for these jobs There's often
that childhood stuff there in the basement that
we really need to recognize. And probably what
we should be doing, like my own soapbox on this,
is when you do get hired on the fire department
or the police force or get accepted to med school,
you probably should go through a psychedelic
therapy program first and foremost, and then
continue on into the job. Yeah, Pam, as you're
sharing, there's a past participant who's a firefighter
that came through our program. And I'm reminded
of a struggle that he was having. His grandfather
was a firefighter. His dad was a firefighter.
So there's like an automatic, yes, I'm going
to be a firefighter. And was experiencing this
incredible level of... experienced trauma just
through naturally being a firefighter and what
he witnessed and the calls that he had to go
out on. But this real tension between can I do
this and continue this legacy that's in my family
and then feeling the shame coming up around it
and all the different emotions that were arising
in him and the pressure to maintain the legacy
for his sons. He was really wrestling with, can
I continue on? Is it worth it? What do I need
to do for my own mental and physical health?
I was reminded of him as you were sharing that,
Pam. So I appreciate you bringing that up. It
echoes something that I've started talking about
recently. Again, my understanding of all these
things are just constantly evolving. But knowing
now that... Most of us do have significant events
when we were younger that have driven us to this
point, whether you want to make sure someone
doesn't feel the pain that you did, or you want
to be the protector, or like you said, you want
to have that identity, that armor. You want a
job that's exciting, that's busy enough where
you don't have to think about the thing beneath
the thing. There's such a beautiful opportunity
to say in an orientation of a fire department
or a police department. The fact that you're
sitting in these chairs means that you've probably
been through some shit. So let's start talking
about that right now. If it's buried down, it's
going to be a fracture to your foundation. But
if we start talking about it, working through
it, whether it's talk therapy, whether it's a
psychedelic journey, whatever it looks like.
that becomes resilience, that becomes empathy,
that becomes a superpower and uniform then, and
you're going to perform at a higher level. And
I like the idea of reframing mental health with
a performance lens now, rather than the kind
of doom and gloom, anxiety, depression, suicide,
which is a real thing. But kind of like you said,
with the bell curve, if you forge performance
at the front. And everyone's hanging on to that
rope. Even the people in the depths are still
going to be pulled in the right direction. But
to acknowledge it at the front door, to get people
to understand if they work through it, they will
be a better first responder. I think that will
be such a powerful conversation that people wouldn't
feel lost and ashamed because it would be normalized
from day one then. Yeah, completely. And just
acknowledging that these are normal responses.
These are not abnormal responses. Somewhere in
the industrial revolution, and especially in
kind of from the, I think a lot of it came from
World War II and stuff, like just suck it up
and get back to work. You know, you've gone,
you fought for your country, now you come back,
get a job and get your white picket fence and
get married and all that sort of stuff. It was
kind of like, just get on with it, shove it down.
And it was completely ignored. And now we're
just going, you know, we're kind of digging ourselves
out of a lot of these myths. and these are normal
responses this is how a human responds to trauma
this is not a weakness and in fact if you're
not responding you should be worried like if
you're not having some sort of visceral reaction
or some sort of anxiety or depression or something
or nightmares There's something maybe not so
normal about not having that. And what I like
now is I think we are gaining momentum on the
front end here, that this is not a weakness.
This is not a character deficit. This is normal.
And like you said, the sooner we deal with it,
the sooner we lean into it, the better our life
is. We keep our marriages. We keep our jobs.
Our kids get a great parent. We have a lot of
fun, more laughter. We're not sitting. In a chair,
drinking beers, watching TV 24 -7. We're out
there living life. And that's what we see when
people lean into this work is they get their
lives back. Absolutely. Well, I want to get to
your journey into the fire service. Let's go
back to Phil first. So Phil, as you were going
through the high school age, what was it you
were dreaming of becoming? Yeah, thanks for bringing
it back to that. I totally forgot to mention
what my parents did for... So my dad worked in
finance. After he exited football, he was a bond
trader for a while in the Portland, Oregon area.
And I really looked up to my dad when I was growing
up. I was heavily involved in athletics. So there
was a natural desire to follow in his footsteps.
And so I was very in competitive athletics, soccer
and tennis. tennyson university down in california
and followed in his footsteps and worked in the
finance field so i either wanted to be an engineer
or which was my grandpa he was an aeronautical
engineer or work in finance as like a stock broker
financial advisor and when i was in the high
school age so i studied business and marketing
in university and ultimately landed in the finance
industry directly after graduation. Up to this
point, has you had any experience with plant
medicines or any other psychedelic? No, no. The
household I grew up in was very, very conservative.
So very kind of shielded from. different medicines,
whether it be cannabis, LSD, all the psychedelics,
just very, don't touch those, those aren't good,
you might, something bad might happen. So there's
a lot of fear that was kind of ingrained into
me, and didn't really have any exposure to it
up until about 10 years ago. Personally, yeah.
And what was that? 10 years ago? It was actually
Shannon. She graduated from University of Calgary
and was very... In her words, she didn't want
to walk across the stage and graduate at University
of Calgary. She wanted to go to Peru and dig
a little deeper into... the studies of resilience.
So she, and I don't think she would mind me saying
this, but she did participate in ayahuasca ceremonies
in Peru, came back and well, number one, the
experience was incredible for her. The first
time she really was able to be in her body and
experience feeling emotions in her body for an
extended period of time. So there was a very,
very significant transformational experience
for her to get away for two or three weeks, participate
in these ceremonies. And in my mind, in the household
I grew up in, it was like, holy shit, what are
you doing? I don't know if you should do this.
This is scaring me. But she came back. significantly
changed in a good way, in a very good way, healthy
way. So in that, I got curious, started doing
some own work on myself, not necessarily with
different plant medicines, but really more of
a focus on community and connection. And at the
same time, I was transitioning out of the financial
field, not quite sure what I wanted to do, but
committed to taking a couple of years off of
work and spending time with our kids and having
the space to really define what it is I want
to do. And ultimately, and that started a men's
group that with a few guys here on Vancouver
Island, some. other fathers at my kids' school
that they went to that were on somewhat of a
similar path as me. And that was a real, it was
heavily successful in my own path. Just having
a space where, an intentional space where men
of a similar age as myself have similar age kids.
uh similar professions where we can just gather
around the fire uh with a nice structure to really
connect in a meaningful way and authentically
show up and share what was really coming up for
us not just be on the surface but dip below the
surface and talk about emotions and whatnot um
so that that really kind of launched me into
this field that the men's group work and uh allowed
me to embody the experience of being in a group
that's focused on resilience essentially well
pam let's roll the clock back then so what were
you dreaming of becoming in high school and how
did that lead to the fire service yeah when i
was in high school um i was actually i went my
first degree is criminology So I was thinking
something law enforcement or legal law, environmental
law, something like that. So I did a criminology
degree. And while I was doing that, one of my
best buds, he was a forestry firefighter. And
he was like, why don't you apply? Like, you're
in great shape. You've always played sports.
You've always done this. Why don't you come try
out and get this summer job and make some money?
Because, you know, we weren't making much money
in the summer for university. and so i applied
and got hired on with uh with forestry service
i did four seasons with forestry um in the while
i was getting my criminology degree and uh and
that of course i was just accumulating all my
all my skill sets like running chainsaws and
you know first aid and all the stuff you needed
to be in forestry and then when i finished my
criminology degree i applied to law school and
got accepted and then i kind of looked around
and i looked around the people that i was going
to be going to law school with. And I realized
they weren't my people. I was like, I don't think
I want to hang out with these people for the
next four years. So I was kind of lost. Didn't
really know what I was going to do. And again,
another one of my guy friends said, well, you've
got all the requirements. Why don't you apply
for the city? He was applying for city fire departments.
And so he's like, come on, let's apply together.
And so I applied for Quilliam. It was kind of
one of the weirdest things I've ever had to do.
It wasn't hard. I mean, it was stuff I was used
to doing all the time, but to have all these
chiefs following me around as I did each part
of the physical exam was pretty hilarious in
a way. And I ended up getting hired on with Coquitlam
and stayed there for eight years and then found
that, I mean, loved it. Coquitlam was fantastic.
My crew was fantastic. They're all still great
friends. In fact, Steve Farina got hired, who
introduced us to you. He was hired on 18 months
after me. But it's interesting because everyone
I got hired on the fire department is retired
and I'm not retired and I won't be retired for
another 15 years in medicine. But yeah, it was
a great time, really good. But what I really
found is that I was really being, I was really
drawn to what we were doing on the medicals when
we went to medical calls and that I was always
calling up the eMERGE docs after and saying,
how'd that guy do? How'd that woman do? And I
kind of realized that I also didn't really want
to do all the night shifts anymore. I was starting
to get really, you know, irritated with, you
know, working 14 hours a night and feeling like
a sack of junk the next day. So I applied to
medicine and then did 36 hour shifts instead
overnight. But it was good. It's really good.
I'm glad I did that. And like I said, those guys
are still my family. They're good brothers and
surrogate dads that I have. I get to see them
regularly. How competitive was it to get hired
back then? It was about the same as medicine.
It was about one hire for every 1 ,200 applicants.
Yeah. So medicine was equal. Medicine was one
person got accepted for every 1 ,200 applicants
at the time. Amazing. We are in such a retention
and recruitment crisis at the moment in our profession.
And it wasn't that long ago that we weren't.
It was only probably 10 years ago that it really
started nosediving. And, you know, it's obvious
to me what the issue is, is, you know, as you
just talked about, only eight years in, you're
already getting beaten down by the shift work.
And so not only that, but that's one of the biggest
things is in America, the standard work week
is 56 hours. Now, as they get more and more understaffed,
you get more and more mandatory overtime. Now
they're working 80 plus hours a week. And these
young people are looking at this going, that
sounds awful. Why would I do that when I could
be a welder or a mechanic or an electrician and
be home every night? So it's a great opportunity
to revisit anyone that worked a couple of decades
ago to see just what it was supposed to look
like. Because as you said, do you want the person
who you're trusting with your life or with your
health to be the bottom of the barrel? No, you
want to be picking from the people that are at
the top tier. So the fact that we're now begging
high school kids to do this job and training
them from scratch and offering hiring bonuses
is the polar opposite, in my opinion, of what...
fire service hiring should look like so when
we fix what's broken i think we're going to go
back to to where it was before but people seem
to have forgotten just how competitive it was
certainly 20 years ago yeah and and what's really
interesting about what you're saying is because
we're not dealing with the mental health crisis
in first responders is a lot of those workplaces
are toxic so they're incredibly toxic the bullying
is insane like it's it it The number of stories
I get from firefighter colleagues, like how many
firefighters I talk to in a weekly basis and
talk about their workplace. I mean, a lot of
the workplaces are verging on illegal, like completely
illegal behavior. And the workers' compensation
is not keeping up. They are not recognizing that
these cutting -edge therapies need to be used.
In fact, in British Columbia, where we are, they're
blocking it. You know, despite the data, despite
the published outcomes, they're blocking it.
And it need not be that way. I mean, we could
have firefighters going through 24 -7 through
our program and getting better. And we would
see the divorce rate drop. We would see the substance
use rate drop. We would see the off work time
drop. It's a no brainer. Like, even if you don't
care about people, you only care about money.
It's a no brainer to do this. Yeah, and these
should be, I mean, these people should be taken
care of to the highest level. They are taking
care of us. And as you know, the modern day firefighter
is so different than before because not only
are you structure fires, but you're hazardous
materials, you're confined space rescue, you're
high angle rescue, you know, like it just add
on swift water rescue. I mean, it's everything
that the police don't do. The fire department
does. Everything. I literally use that exact
verbiage. We are the Swiss army knife of the
first responder professions. And yet we work
double. I mean, it's funny because my whole career
I've heard people say, well, we want to try and
make what the cops make. Now, if you're working
a 56 -hour work week, you're not making what
the cops make. You're making what they make in
only 40 hours. So 16 hours more, so you're not.
So it's not about the money. My focus is just
on the working conditions, but we've told ourselves
so many fallacies. And I think one of the aha
moments I had recently was, and just because
I've seen it firsthand, like locally here, we've
had the county that I live in, they had five
suicides in five years and other three attempts
that were kind of swept under the rug. And I
realized it because... People seem unmoved by
it. Nothing has changed whatsoever. And the solutions
have been given on a silver platter. Everything
from what we're going to talk about today to
changing the work week, investing in a fourth
shift so you can actually have a healthy rest
and recovery period. And it made me realize that
if you are a fire chief or a police chief or
a union president or a city and county council
member, and your firefighters or your first responders
are dying, and you still sleep soundly at night,
We forget to look at the top tier with the mental
health as well. Like, are you fit for duty if
you are unmoved by the fact that there's divorce
and alcoholism? And, you know, so I think that's
the other thing that we're not really acknowledging
is that there are a lot of people that aren't
fit for duty that are wearing chiefs bugles and
in political positions. Yeah, exactly. I 100
% agree with everything you said. And that, again,
goes back to the innovation part where Roots
to Thrive has really thrived in the research
is because we see this. And so what we did is
we had a health economist look at our numbers.
And they said, for every person that comes through
our program, what does it save the health care
system? So we know that if somebody comes into
Roots to Thrive, and let's say they only have
a single diagnosis, they just have depression.
We saved the provincial health care system about
$30 ,000. And that's incredible. Now, never mind
if you layer on all the other things. I've got
PTSD and anxiety and maybe alcohol use disorder.
Like it's a no brainer. So for any city manager
out there that is trying to save their city.
money on time off work or rehab or all the things
the city has to pay. And I think every place
is a bit different. Sometimes it's the fire department
that has to cover it. Sometimes it's the city
that covers it. Sometimes it's the workers' compensation.
But even for just the bean counters, it's a no
-brainer to make sure that these programs are
open door, ready to go. that firefighters can
go right in at the first at the first sign of
losing resiliency at the first sign of having
that irritation at their spouse when they walk
in the door the first time that they start having
nightmares you get them in the door we have we
have a paramedic right now that's going through
a program and their worker has completely got
it they're back at work and as soon as they have
enough as soon as it layers on enough and they
they get a check yep they come through the program
No job loss, no time off work, no substance use
disorder, marriage intact, kids got their parent.
How can you not want to say yes, please to that
when you are in that top echelon making those
decisions? It's one of the easiest decisions
they can make, really. This is something I've
talked about recently as well. There is a...
A victim mentality baked into our physical and
mental health, which is if you are struggling,
and I'll give you a perfect example, back injury.
I tore three ligaments lifting a patient about
10, 12 years ago now. And the workman's comp
process, firstly, I mean, the second physician
I was, or PA that I was presented with was about
400 pounds. And I'm like, okay, so I'm taking
wellness advice from this gentleman. But they
threw meds and potentially surgery at me. And
I'm like, well, no, there was an imbalance that
caused me to get hurt. This wasn't a big patient
or anything. This is a traumatic injury. I need
to heal the injury and then heal what caused
the injury in the first place. So luckily. I
had enough information on my life's journey to
be my own advocate and, you know, push against
what they wanted me to do. And I chose physical
therapy and chiropractic and foundation training
and healed my back with no pills, no surgery.
But I have got friends that didn't have that,
went down the surgical route, you know, got everything
fused and then had to fight for, you know, two
years to get a medical disability because the
system isn't set up. to surround you with the
right healing tools like the Thor 3 program the
Green Berets have in America here to get you
back into combat, get you back on the field.
We don't want you to be disabled and worrying
about someone with a camera taking a picture
of you because you picked up dog food one time.
We want you to be back to work and then you retire
when you choose to retire. And it's the same
with the mental health thing. The PTSD retirement
really is telling you, well, don't get better,
otherwise you'll stop getting the disability
money. Well, how about we focus on getting you
better so that you, again, can retire with a
healthy mind and then thrive into retirement
as well? Totally agree. Yeah, I recall a conversation
with an individual who's trying to get their
participation covered through workers' comp.
And in order for them to get it covered, they
had to take on They had to, I think it was a
PTSD diagnosis for a certain period of time in
order to get the coverage. So they just had to
take on the label of being disabled. And he was
saying, I just have to be this for six more months
and then I will get long -term disability. And
there's a real incongruence there for him. And
in that incongruence, it manifests in all different
forms of whether it's shame or embarrassment
or whatever. But yeah, it ties right into what
you're saying, James, about the victim mentality
that folks absorb in the struggle of getting
this type of coverage approved. Yeah. It creates
the wrong mindset. It's not a healing mindset
anymore. It's the opposite. And I've seen it.
I've witnessed it with my friends. Well, Pam,
you talked about transitioning into medicine.
Firstly, did you have much holistic training
when it came to your medical training? A lot
of doctors I've had on here when it came to nutrition,
exercise, sleep, or even, you know, it's kind
of a crazy thought now that they'd be talking
about plant medicine, but it probably should
be in there. You know, what was your training
like? And then what was the disconnect for, you
know, a practitioner in Canada becoming a physician?
Well, what I actually had originally planned
on going into naturopathic medicine is what I
had. And I stumbled very luckily into a practitioner
who would let me shadow her while I was still
on the fire department. So while I was finishing
up my science degree, so I could apply to medicine,
I was doing that while I was on the fire department.
And so I was working with this naturopath and
she was just, it was like an old school apprenticeship.
I got to sit there and learn from her. When it
got to the point that I had all the qualifications
to apply for medical school, her and her husband,
who was actually a healthcare administrator,
both of them said, don't apply to naturopathic
college. You've already got all that in your
brain now. Apply to conventional medicine and
you'll have both. You already have both. And
you'll be able to influence healthcare better
from within the medical system. So that was a
very nice advice. people wiser than me at the
time told me. So I followed that advice and went
into medicine. And then when you're in medicine,
you just put your head down and get through.
And unfortunately, we created an accountability
group in medicine. So it was a bunch of us that
were coming from second or third careers. There
was another firefighter in my med school class
as well. So we were, we kept ourselves meeting
regularly so that we held true to our values
as we went through medicine so that we could
come out the other end intact. And so we were
the ones that lifted each other up when we were
like, oh, this sucks. I'm quitting this. I can't
do this anymore. Like we held there as a unit
for each other so that we could get through and
just keep that holistic outlook on life. We were
all athletes. We were all, you know, we ate well.
We understood it and we weren't getting that
in medical school. And as a block, we could advocate
for it. And if we couldn't get it through the
school system, we could do it on our own. so
it was that i mean that just really again speaks
to community when you're in a community you have
strength and so as a community when one of us
was weak the others could hold us up and we could
hold others up when they were not thriving so
we did that and then as soon as i was out of
medicine i was what i did is once you have the
freedom is then i just found the practitioners
around the world that were that were successful
you know so i who is the best out there and i
would contact them and say, I'm coming. I'm going
to come learn from you. I want to see what you're
doing because you're getting people better. So
people from the nutrition field, from the athletics
field. And still do actually work with a really
high level group of sports athletes that are
sports practitioners that mostly work with elite
Olympic and professional athletes. And I go and
train with them. I go to the same conferences
as them. We learn together. And that went into
a pain clinic. that i that i had in vancouver
where i was bringing psychedelic therapy into
that pain clinic to deal with you have the physical
pain but then you have the emotional pain and
so it was really just that's i just co -created
my my learning path to go who you know you don't
want to learn from the people that aren't getting
success like why i mean like you know if you've
got a psychiatrist somebody at one of the uh
patients i was talking to this morning like We're
getting them off all the medications that their
psychiatrist is putting them on. And this psychiatrist,
all they know is how to be a prescriber. They
don't know how to get to the root of the trauma,
right? So you don't want to learn from that psychiatrist.
You want to learn from the psychiatrist. Like
at Roots to Thrive, we have Dr. Crosby -Wattler.
We want to learn from the psychiatrist that gets
it, that gets humans, that gets what builds resiliency,
what builds healing, what builds a healthy, thriving
life. And so that's so, there was, I don't know,
good mentors really pushed me in the right direction
with that. So having that holistic learning ahead
of time and then going through medicine and then
also having this tribe of accountability folks
to hold that path. And then again, finding the
people that are doing it the best and learning
from them. That's who you want to learn from.
And I feel like Roots to Thrive is all of that.
Everybody on our team are people that are at
the leading edge of what they do and really are
experts, except the most humble and egoless folks
I've ever worked with. I just had a psychiatrist
who's also a neuroscientist, Dr. Dave Rabin on
the show. He's the founder of Apollo Neuro, which
is a wearable. But the way he presented psychiatric
meds was so great. I mean, obviously, you're
not talking about some of the extreme conditions
that require maybe more medication, but the antidepressants,
the anti -anxiety, et cetera, that most people
are prescribed. The way he presented is, you
know, you've cut your arm and you're bleeding.
So you put a tourniquet on it, you know, to stabilize
it until you can get to surgery. He said, well,
the SSRI is a tourniquet. That doesn't mean you're
supposed to wear a tourniquet the rest of your
life. It's just to get you to the point where
you can now get the help. And it was such a good
way of reframing it. deep in depression and suicidal,
you know, maybe at that point there's an application
for that just to level them off. And then now
they have the, you know, the ability to go to
talk therapy or EMDR or obviously, you know,
taper off it and then do a, you know, psychedelic
retreat. But that's not how it's presented. And
it's the same with the hypertension med. It's
the same with, you know, diabetic med. the conversation
isn't well we need to just use this to stabilize
to get your blood pressure out of 220 and down
so you don't stroke but we need to get your your
bmi down we need to what is a bad bad term bmi
is terrible but your body composition down you
know your um your nutrition change so that then
You don't need these drugs anymore. But with
the psych side, it's so irresponsible because
most people are given it like, well, you're going
to be on this the rest of your life and you haven't
fixed anything. All you're doing is just masking
the symptoms. Yeah, totally agree. Totally agree.
And that is one of the things that we do very
nicely is help people recognize that these are
just tools and they don't have to have a judgment
around it either. It's just a tool in the toolbox.
And when that tool is no longer needed because
they've built, they've helped resolve some of
the trauma, they've been able to work through
some of the challenges and use other techniques
and especially things that help get them back
into parasympathetic, get our nervous systems
re -regulated, that then maybe these medicines
can slowly be weaned off and can go back into
the toolbox and not be used until. and less needed
again and the interesting thing too which i love
and and i think there's when you look at all
the clinical trials that are registered now clinicaltrials
.gov is that we're also seeing how much not only
that these medicines you know especially with
ketamine and psilocybin mdma as well is that
not only are the mental health challenges resolving
but we're seeing massive changes in these other
medical conditions. We've had a number of people
come through our program with mass cell dysregulation,
and they're better. They're better after going
through Roots to Thrive. They don't have any
more flares. They haven't had to use their EpiPen
forever. So these other conditions that have
this physiological element, Parkinson's people,
We'll report that their gait is longer and the
pill rolling and the tremor is starting to go
down. So it really shows how they're both woven
together. So not only will people perhaps see
these medications as now no longer needed, well,
we actually do what's needed, what actually is
going to help the condition, but the physical.
health challenges is really really interesting
and it's not surprising because it's mind body
spirit medicine isn't it like it's all connected
the head is connected to the body that's that's
a fact so if if the mental health is better we
know from of course the clinical trials too we
know that when mental health gets better neural
inflammation drops if neural inflammation drops
inflammation generally is dropping if inflammation
generally is dropping then the body can work
at a higher level to fix other things and we
might start to see more physical health challenges
change so i hope so pam i'm as you're speaking
about this i'm curious if you'd be willing to
say a little bit more we did some work a couple
years ago with uh folks suffering like folks
that had received an end -of -life diagnosis
uh and uh we they received a section 56 exemption
through health canada to participate in psilocybin
assisted therapy and we saw some remarkable outcomes
on the physical health side and i'm curious if
you'd be willing to speak to that a little bit
pam yeah yeah as phil said we were able we had
quite a few cohorts of people that came through
our program uh with psilocybin and you know it
was it what's what's remarkable is not just found
in our program but also found in the programs
at nyu and john hopkins is that many of these
end of life folks even though they qualify to
get into the program they have to have a palliative
diagnosis which means they're likely to die in
the next one to two years and many of them don't
you know in fact most of them are still doing
quite well they're like so when this this when
this mental health level goes away or starts
getting resolved. So it's not only the existential
distress and anxiety and depression from an end
-of -life diagnosis, but there's also the whole
life of trauma before that that even got them
to that place. And as all of that stuff unlayers
and starts to heal, suddenly their vibrancy grows
you see it like you actually see it at the end
of some of those sessions phil was a facilitator
for many of them and saw that too um is that
there is they went in like walking in with canes
and got up at the end and walked out and forgot
they even had canes like they didn't need it
or talked about going golfing after or and a
group like a whole group of them went surfing
and camping together like everything shifted
And so, and talking to our colleagues like Bill
Richards, who's at the NYU site, I asked him
in December, not last December, but two Decembers,
I go, are your folks dying? He's like, no. And
I'm like, neither are ours. You know, it's really
interesting. So, and the physical health stuff,
like they feel better in their bodies, the pain
drops, the family really reports that. We got
a lot of reports from their family, sisters and
stuff saying it's the happiest I've seen them.
Their pain is dropped. They're not using their
meds anymore. Not in all cases. Some people still
have passed on. Some people got a little bit
of relief, but not full relief. But the fact
that there was that much change is phenomenal.
And it's interesting in Canada because it's harder
to get access right now through Health Canada.
for a psilocybin session at end of life than
it is to get MAID, medical assistance in dying.
You can get medical assistance in dying, no problem.
But to get access to a medicine that might make
your life better, it might resolve some of that
trauma, is incredibly challenging right now.
And it shouldn't be. I was going to ask you about
MAID because you were kind of talking about the
end of life side. So I have seen... Some of the
people, I don't know if I'm in an echo chamber,
I don't know if I see certain people, but the
presentation, because I'm a huge believer in
euthanasia. If it's truly end of life, if you're
just going to be suffering and every day is just
going to be zero quality and be able to make
that choice the same way as we're compassionate
towards our animals when I get to that point.
But the way that some of the people I've heard
talked about that in Canada is it's being presented
irresponsibly sometimes to groups that maybe,
you know, it's not actually applicable to, you
know, rather than a last ditch end of life, nothing
else is going to help. You know, it's just going
to alleviate the suffering at the other end.
I think their concern was if there were mental
health problems, it was almost like. Well, here's
your suicide option if you want it. Now, that
might be, like I said, completely distorted.
So what is your perception of the pros and the
cons of MAID and how it's been introduced to
the Canadian people? Well, I think we all want
– the first way to look at it is what do you
want? So I think about that. If I was in a place
where I knew that my suffering would be just
too much or I was just too done, just done. I
would want that choice personally. That's my
own personal opinion. I think the way that we
should be looking at MAID is you should have
all options prior to it. And if you want to choose
MAID, excellent. No problem. That's your choice.
And if you are suffering from existential distress
or depression or PTSD or chronic pain, like every
option should be on the table. It should just
be a hell yes. There should be no blocks. So
in Canada, if I had the magic wand, if I was
a health minister, I would say, if you qualify
for MAID, you qualify for psychedelic therapy,
period. And as much psychedelic therapy as you
want, period. And you qualify for the best pain
therapy, period. That's a no -brainer. There's
just no reason to roadblock that. And I think
that's what we would find. Is that if we could
use, again, this goes back to innovation, right?
If we had the innovators making the decisions
and opening up the doors and giving patients
full choice of what they get, then they're going
to feel better. And there's certainly going to
be people that are going to go, I don't want
to do psychedelics. I just want MAID. That's
what I want. I'm done with this condition. I
would like to go out on my own terms. But how
can you not give these other options to people
first and foremost? And I think that would just
remove the whole debate. because if you can have
everything on the table to feel better and you,
and you get to the end of the table and you're
like, no, this is what I, and we actually had,
we had a participant in our program that had,
when they came in, they had their made date set.
And at the end of their session, they're like,
I still think I want to do made, but just not
yet. And they went, it was quite a while. I can't
remember quite Phil. I don't know if you remember,
but I think it was over a year and a half later
that they decided. to go ahead and they had a
beautiful celebration of life first they were
able to fully fully engage with their life up
until that point well and we also had another
one recently uh i want to say six months ago
came through our program was checking the box
for made just to get to that point of being able
to go through the MAID process. And I just saw
recently that they're coming back to do what
we call an alumni refresher, which is a group
of 10 alumni participants coming together to
do a group ketamine -assisted therapy session,
just one single session, and they're signed up
for it. So I haven't engaged with the participant.
I don't know the details, but I take that as
a good sign that they're... still here coming
back and doing another session yeah yeah yeah
so there is a lot there is a lot of stuff out
there about about made but i and i think that
the noise there i just want to come back to your
original question the noise there really i think
the focus should be why can't they have all the
options first and then that noise will disappear
because it doesn't have to be it doesn't have
to be siloed it are not siloed it doesn't have
to be this against that It doesn't make sense.
It's like, what is best for that person? So I
know there's people that are pro and there's
people that are anti. And I think they just need
to say, no, just put your opinions inside and
let's create the system where people have the
choice of what they want. So that each person
has a choice of what they want. So I think a
lot of what you were talking about is just that
noise in the system. And the noise comes because
people can't have, right now, there's roadblocks
for them getting psychedelic therapy. I just
watched, I think it was called Famous Last Words,
if I've got that right. It's an interview that
they do with people who are probably going to
pass away. I would imagine there's probably a
year or two window that they do it in. So Jane
Goodall was one, but they just interviewed Eric
Dane, the actor that had ALS. And in that conversation,
he'd mentioned that he tried all different kinds
of out -the -box therapies, I think is how he
referred to it. And he didn't say it exactly
as far as euthanasia, but he implied that he
had a plan if they didn't work. And then he passed
away. And I don't know if that was ultimately
from, air quotes, natural causes or if he, you
know, went through with his own plan. But that
is an example. Like you said, if those are all
on the table and say he tried psychedelics and
then got to that point and, you know, he was
adamant that once he wasn't able to really, you
know, control, could speak, etc. And he lost
who he was and his physicality and his ability
to communicate with his loved ones. That was
his own personal choice. Then that was the line.
And so that's a kind of illustration exactly
what you're talking about. Why would you not
have access to these potential elements that
would add months or years or alleviate pain or
whatever it is? If you're going to allow someone
to ultimately take their own life in a medical
sense, why would you not then? have them, you
know, give them the access to the other things
that might work. It might just be the thing that
was missing to turn them around. The thing that
Pam said, allowing the patient to be in full
choice. And I think that's the key piece. And
we do find in our program and all of us as humans,
when we are in choice, we tend to... We own the
decision. We're not being directed by somebody
else on what we should do. And the outcomes are
much better when we are in choice. So allowing
the patient, the participant to make the decision,
whether it's doing MAID or doing psychedelics
or seeing a counselor, regardless of what it
is, it's allowing them to step in and in choice.
is the right way to go. Going back to the palliative
care and people with cancer, coming from a background
of, you know, basic level, street level medicine
and science and sports science. So nothing, I'm
not saying I'm a neuroscientist or a physician
or anything, but there's almost like an interesting
perspective when you haven't been. put into too
much of a narrow field in medicine. You're still
looking at it with a broad brush. The idea that
you can kill cancer by agent oranging the whole
body with chemo and then crossing your fingers,
hoping the good cells come back, never made any
sense to me. And so, you know, with what you're
talking about, knowing that a lot of cancer is
coming from stress, whether it's nutritional
stress, whether it's, you know. trauma stress
trying to get as close to homeostasis again with
the way you move the way you eat your relationships
your time in nature etc um this application of
plant medicine makes perfect sense to me like
like if i i can tell you this now you know knock
on wood i hope not but if i got a cancer diagnosis
i would lean into the holistic route because
i personally think that chemo kills more people
than cancer does it just you know and then their
end of life usually is horrendous as well so
i hope that you know advances in immunotherapy
and some of these other things will be a great
adjunct to the holistic side but the you know
the the kind of global chemo that we've done
it just doesn't make any sense to me but addressing
like you said the emotional and physical trauma
through the plant medicine journeys is something
that i absolutely would do because you're ultimately
then trying to find any root of inflammation
any root of stress that is you know feeding the
cancer ultimately and trying to reduce or eliminate
that yeah and what i think what you're saying
too is uh making it even wider is you know 60
of health we can really control You know, drinking
water, eating good food, moving our body, laughing,
turning off the news, hanging out with people
that uplift us. All of that, you know, I remember
one of my favorite cardiologists said, you know,
if we could just get people exercising, that's
60 % better than any pill we can give them. Right?
So there's, we give up a lot of control. We don't
need to. We can, anyone can take it back. But
really going like, what is the hierarchy of health,
first and foremost? And there's a great... group
out of vancouver i've just lost the name for
a minute but uh it'll come in a moment but they
that when people get a diagnosis the first weekend
they spend with them is like here's all the things
you can do here's how much water you got to drink
here's the vegetables you want to get in your
body here's the movement like all of the the
real hierarchy of health and then down the road
is you know nutritional supplements and then
the medical system whether it's it's surgery
chemo etc so We are at a time of unprecedented
individualized medicine too. So we are finding
like there are, I think we're going to be moving
away from those chemos to more targeted gene
therapy over time, but incredibly expensive and
still only people who can afford it are getting
that. And I do have a patient who has leukemia
and every so many months she does a psilocybin
journey where all she does is scan her body,
talk to the cancer. and see what it needs see
what her body needs and she goes in there in
head to toe and she's doing fantastic her numbers
are fantastic she probably really doesn't even
qualify for the diagnosis anymore but she's having
that mind body spirit conversation and she's
also doing all the other things she's also moving
the bar in her favor on all that stuff and that's
what we need to do better in medicine is go when
you get any diagnosis that's inflammatory which
cancer is, or degenerative, is you got to do
all these things. And one of the most frustrating
things I find as a physician is back in the day
in Canada, we used to have this great program
that all the media had to show called participation.
And it talked about all the things you should
be doing to be a healthy human. And we've given
up that. We have these airways and social media
that we don't get to really push prevention out
there. And wouldn't it be nice to have federally
in Canada and the US, like, hey, here's prevention.
Here is true prevention. Turn off the TV and
go outside. Go play with your kids. Have you
drank enough water? Wouldn't it be nice instead
of seeing an ad for... Viagra, the ad is like,
hey, go have a glass of water. So we can really
change that. And I totally agree. But it's psychedelic
therapy or any kind of spiritual therapy. Anything
is going to be helpful. And we can do that. And
a lot of people are doing it. And this again
goes, I'm going to just on a soapbox, but this
also goes back to the bell curve. Like the front
end of that bell curve in healthcare is doing
exactly what you brought up, is looking at mind,
body, spirit, is looking at all those elements
of wellness. And the back half is really falling
behind. So I'm optimistic. Yeah, no, I am too.
And one of the things that I think I like to
revisit, you know, on a lot of these conversations
is the pandemic. Because if there ever was a
time where we had a captive audience and really
got to impart wisdom on the holistic tools that
forge health and prevention, it was 2020, 2021.
And the polar opposite happened. If you just
sat down and wrote down all the things that would
make people more susceptible to the virus, that's
what they told you. Well, don't go outside. Don't
see people that you love. We'll just get fast
food delivered to your house and alcohol. Binge
watch the Tiger King and don't look at the sun.
I mean, it was awful. And there were no lessons
on the back end. And what do you do if you've
got cancer? Yeah, that's one conversation. But
the biggest conversation was, well, what do you
do to prevent? cardiovascular disease cancers
strokes you know mental health challenges i mean
all these things are preventable and you know
the the irony is in a lot of like the doctor
said if we just went back to how we existed a
hundred years ago as far as how we move what
our food looks like you know our community that
would be 80 % of the fight right there, just
rolling the clock back. And then use some of
the modern ancient plant medicines, some of the
modern medicines, and infuse that. And now, my
goodness, you'd have a population that was thriving.
But as I've pointed out many, many times, as
I sit here in America in 2026, post -COVID, where
the lesson should have been a healthier nation
is a more resilient nation to disease, we're
75 % obese or overweight. So no lesson was learned.
And it's no wonder that we have a cancer epidemic
and an opioid crisis and all these other things,
because no one's actually leaning into all the
politics is still, like you said, on the back
end of that bell curve, because sadly, there's
a lot of money to be made in sick people. Yeah.
Well, and that's really, I think the biggest
thing, if you really wanted to be revolutionary
in the US, what you would do is say in two years,
healthcare cannot be a shareholder value. If
you really cared about people, I say, you know
what? There will no longer be any for -profit
insurance companies. And we are going to, I mean,
I know it would like people's head will explode
me even saying this, but saying, you know what?
You can only make 10%. off of pharmaceutical
drugs, period. Because that's still a pretty
sweet profit. And Mark Cuban's Cost Plus Drugs
has shown that in the US. He's making a pretty
good profit just by bringing the prices down
and being transparent. But the biggest challenge
is it's all for profit. It can't be. This is
a basic human right. An advanced society would
say healthcare is a basic human right. not a
shareholder value. An advanced society would
do that. And with that, innovation would matter.
Health would matter because it's your taxpayer
dollars that are holding up massive CEO salaries
and massive shareholder paybacks. So if you could
just clean that up, you could do all this. And
it's not that hard. I know, like I said, some
people's heads are going to explode with that.
But the happiness factor, like you could actually
start moving towards Bhutan and what does gross
national happiness look like? Like we live in
a society, we live in a world right now where
there is enough resources for everyone. There's
enough resources for everyone to be happy. There's
enough resources for everyone to be well. This
division of have and have nots is artificial.
Everyone could be healthy in the US. Everyone
could have a great life in the US. There is no
reason that it's not happening other than we
bought into shareholder value for healthcare.
And you remove that and suddenly everyone's healthy.
It wouldn't take long. I bet you it would take
10 years and I'll probably have a bullet on my
head now. I'm not the first to say it though.
We know this. We know this, right? And the good
thing is there are, in the U .S., there are some
HMOs that are coming as nonprofits. There are
some HMOs that are coming as cooperatives. So
if you can find those folks and uplift them,
they're fantastic because that is the future
of healthcare, is where you pool your money.
This is what insurance is supposed to be, right?
You pool your money. and then you when you need
the treatment you get it right there's not supposed
to be shareholders in that equation anywhere
so how they snuck in there i don't know but it's
time for them to go i've said this many times
on here like the number of people i've had who
are from different countries that have an incredible
solution. So the way Norway does prisons, Finland's
education system, Portugal's decriminalization
of addiction. And I think that the British NHS
at its core, how it was intended to be, is such
an amazing structure for healthcare. Because
if you think about it, if you've got, as you
said, a pot of taxpayers' money, and that is
going to... when people really need it you know
everything from childbirth to get hit by a bus
to god forbid you get cancer you know end of
life etc then the drive is to make the nation
as healthy as possible let's try and use as little
of this tax money as we can unless we need it
so now you have healthy british people which
was the case back in the you know 70s when it
was really thriving but if you have a profit
-based system like america then the inverse is
true you know let's People are sick. We're going
to make the most money. If we go to war, my weapon
manufacturer friends make the most money. It's
just basic economics. So the moment you have
a profit -based system, it's the people themselves
that lose. And it kills me because, like I said,
I mean, the disease that we have in this country,
the unnecessary premature deaths and just the
low quality of life that so many people live.
I mean, you see these obese children and it breaks
my heart. Like they're never even going to know
what it feels like to be an energetic, athletic
child unless they manage to turn a corner somehow.
So the fact that, you know, I think it's because
we are so sick and so tired that people don't
fight back and don't question it. if you have
a truly altruistic system where you just take
care of each other as a nation and that drives
the health of the nation scandinavia is a great
example then everyone wins everyone wins then
yeah it's sad when you when you look at the uh
like a ceo of a for any for -profit organization
but specifically publicly traded organizations
their job is to increase the shareholder value
or increase the stock price and at it regardless
of at what expense like and then currently it's
just at the expense of the people in different
industries and i mean we're talking about medical
specifically but we haven't even gotten into
like food and the types of foods that are out
there and the different ingredients that are
terrible for our health and you look at what
the what children are eating and consuming and
i've got a 13 and a 14 year old and it's a daily
battle like trying to educate them and teach
them like don't don't eat the jolly rancher there's
recent research that there's high level of arsenic
in them like it's yeah so it's it's a it's a
battle it's all it that feels like it's unwinnable
at this point in time But tying it back to Pam's
comment on innovation, this is when we need the
innovation, we need shifts in policy, all those
things to benefit current population, but also
the up and coming generations. I want to kind
of springboard that back to also is that, you
know, the innovation. We also have a mythology
that anything happens top down. It never does.
There has never been cool innovation that has
happened top down. Complete myth, never happened.
Everything happens from the bottom up. And that's
what I love too. Like Roots to Thrive chose specifically
to be a nonprofit, right? That way our service
is to the people that come through our program,
period. like that's who we serve like not only
is the team healthy and taken care of but then
we we focus all of that there so any bill is
the money guy he keeps us like straight and narrow
on this but but because of that profits get to
go back to scholarships so people go through
the program That's a win. That's a win -win.
All of us healthcare providers in the program
feel great about what we're doing because we
know we're serving the participants. And this
goes back to, also, this is a bottom -up program.
We tried to bring it into the system. We realized
that most of the system is being run by people
that are not courageous. They don't understand.
patients and what what is needed to get patients
well and many of them are mbas so they've never
been in service to humanity they've been in service
to money or business and so when we took ourselves
out of the system and turned it into the non
-profit suddenly like this grassroots approach
bottom up means everything's on the table we
can do everything We can serve, we can innovate,
we can publish, we can train. We have a really
robust training program where people from all
over the world come and train with us so they
can take what we've learned back to their communities
and do the same thing, like incredibly collaborative.
And I think that is really important for people
that are listening, is we lead from the bottom
up so everyone can be a leader. So whether you're
at a fire department that needs to change, it's
going to start from the bottom up. It's going
to start from the members demanding the change.
Whether you're in a health care system in a state
that needs to change, it's going to start from
the bottom up, from a group of people coming
together and say, let's pool our money and create
our own health care HMO. You know, we have to
just stop pretending people know that people
that are up here and that we oddly, oddly give
the name leader to are not leaders. And it all
happens from the bottom up, which is exciting,
which means everybody watching can do something.
Everyone can go, how can I make this world better?
What can I do? Do not give away your power. And
this is of such a... a positive, pivotal time
in history where never before have people had
the opportunity to be more powerful, to be more
innovative. And we're living at levels of income
we've never had before. It's crazy. We're living
better than kings used to live. All of us, every
single one of us are living better than royalty
used to live. So I'm incredibly optimistic, but
I just want to put that out there. It's all grassroots.
It all comes from the bottom, all innovation,
everything. And so everybody out there has now,
once these words hit your ears, you now have
the obligation to do something with it and go,
how can I make my community better? Whether that's
putting in a garden, helping a neighbor, advocating
for mental health care, advocating for better
food section in the grocery stores, whatever.
The sky's the limit if we all really lean into
a little bit of our own personal leadership.
I always hate when I'm told, you know, if you
want to make change in the fire service, then
promote. Because it doesn't work, like you said.
And it's funny because I've made the most change
when I left the fire service and was outside
the castle walls saying, all right, and I'm starting
to throw fireballs over the top. Now we're changing,
you know, now you're paying attention, but it's
true. And then if you want to kind of circle
around to what we were talking about earlier,
if you are Richard Sackler and you were the head
of Purdue Farmer and OxyContin that was, you
know, forced on doctors and they, you know, lied
to him. and told him it wasn't addictive. And
now as we sit here, 100 ,000 Americans die from
opioids every year, and you sleep soundly in
your bed, you're a sociopath, not someone to
be revered in the business world. If you're the
head of William Morris, if you're the head of
a weapons manufacturer, whatever it is, and your
products are taking hundreds of thousands of
lives, millions of lives, tobacco still kills
8 million people worldwide at the moment, and
you sleep well in your bed, then you are... A
complete sociopath. So we have to also deconstruct,
as you said, what is the leader? What is this
person that we put on a pedestal? Because that's
not. They're taking. It's the opposite of everything
that all the holy books that you subscribe to
is teaching you about. Kindness, compassion,
empathy, community, service, gratitude. They
are the antithesis of that. So I could not agree
more when we realize that we are the base of
that pyramid. And, you know, if we walk away,
then everything crumbles. That's when you really
force change. And it's even, you know, like they
say, vote with your dollar. If tomorrow no one
ever bought a McDonald's burger again, McDonald's
would collapse. I think that would be great personally.
But yeah, so but I think that they've done they,
you know, the mysterious they have done such
a good job of thinking people that they're, excuse
me, getting people to think that they are powerless.
rather than realizing, as we see throughout history,
when people have had enough and they stand side
by side, I mean, they can topple governments.
They can move mountains. Yeah. Yeah, grab the
pitchforks. And then the torture. Throw the fireballs.
The bottom -up mentality that Pam was talking
about, in our first cohort, which was... 2020,
I think, 2019, 2020. Yeah, early 2020, yep. Yeah,
we had 15 healthcare providers who came through
our program that were suffering from burnout
related to COVID. And we were trying to figure
out, do we want to call them patients? Do we
want to call them participants? But we decided
on the term patient partner. And the intention
there was they helped us build the program. So
yes, they came in as patients, but they informed
how we were going to run our program ongoing.
And we continue to do that. We always gather
feedback from participants. We have a team that
reviews the feedback. And then we have a team
that decides on what do we implement of the feedback.
And that's, like Pam mentioned, we constantly
earn quality improvement. uh on all levels of
our program and a lot of that is driven by participants
in our programs so it's participants have a voice
in what we do and it's a big voice and we can't
deliver on everything but i'd say a good handful
of things we absolutely implement and i think
that's part of the reason why our program has
the results that we have is because it's heavily
informed by those that come through our program.
And a lot of our team has also been through the
program. So there's an embodied experience that
each of them have. They've lived through what
participants have lived through. They identify
with it. They empathize and they can meet them
where they need to be met and hold them in that
unconditional positive regard. So just really.
echoing that bottom -up piece and like a hospital
doesn't they might have a comment box for you
know drop your comment in here and let us know
how we're doing guaranteed 99 of them don't even
get read probably uh but we have a comment box
and i mean it's not it's an electronic comment
box but yeah we we keep track of it we implement
it and it's a huge win for us Like we get to
create a program that participants want and one
that works. Well, I'll put this to both of you,
whoever wants to answer this. You have, as you
mentioned, the resilience program, and then you
have the resilience program with the integrated
psychedelic therapy. So talk to me about the
two and then give me an overview of what someone
would experience if they went through. Maybe
I can talk about the overview, Pam, and then
you can get the second part. So both programs
are 12 weeks in duration. They run in parallel.
So each participant is onboarded. So they get
referred into our program by a family physician,
psychiatrist, nurse practitioner. uh the resilience
program is not a medical program so they don't
require it doesn't require a referral but all
participants Our intake and with an intake nurse,
and that's about a 45 -minute intake, really
intentional in the questions that she asks, really
wanting to get to know the participant as best
as we can. Julia Sheffield is our lead intake
nurse, who's incredible at the role, really meets
participants where they're at and gets to know
them so that we can place them in the proper
small group. And we have a team that assists
her in the placing of folks. If folks are participating
in the psychedelic -assisted therapy portion
utilizing ketamine, then they go see Dr. Pam
just to make sure it's safe for them to participate
in it and they can ask any questions to the doctor
at that point in time too. Once they're onboarded
and go through the intake process, then we start
the cohort. Cohorts range in size. depending
on the enrollment, but anywhere from on average
24 to 32 participants. And they're part of a
small group, and that's usually seven or eight
participants in a small group. And then they
have two facilitators, a lead facilitator and
a co -facilitator. And there's a weekly meeting
that's virtual Tuesday evenings from 6 p .m.
to 8 p .m. The whole cohort gathers together
as one. We're a community. We're intentional
in how we gather. So the first, I'd say, 30 minutes
of the two hours is everybody together. And there's
some basic announcements that we make, but then
the bulk of the time is spent. more educational.
So there's a topic each of the 12 weeks and the
topics are wide ranging. But a member of our
team speaks to the topic depending on the week.
So this week was emotional conditioning and pathways
of expression. And this was taught by Todd Haspect,
who's a facilitator and Wes Taylor, who's a facilitator.
After that, coming to know We call it coming
to know the educational part. We do a pause practice,
and that's just a transition from our heads to
our bodies, creating some space to, yeah, we
live so much of our life in our heads, kind of
go, go, go mentality in the society we live in.
So creating five or seven minutes just to slow
down a little bit. And what that does is biologically
preps our bodies. for more meaningful connection.
So calming the nervous system, getting us prepped
to go into the small group at that point. So
on Zoom, then everybody goes into a breakout
room and is with their small group at that point
in time. And there's a question. that each person
or a prompt that each person answers and the
prompt is connected to the topic that was spoken
to when everybody was together in the large group
so those there's a 12 of those sessions throughout
so 12 weeks long they're two hours in duration
and then on weeks five seven and nine we have
the ketamine assisted therapy sessions and those
are again, in your same small group that you
meet with each of the 12 weeks. And the unique
piece is whether you're in the resilience program
or whether you're in the program with ketamine
-assisted therapy, everybody's mixed. So James,
if you're receiving ketamine -assisted therapy,
let's say Pam's receiving it as well and we're
all in the same small group and I'm maybe not
receiving it. We're still in the same small group.
I would still be welcome to come to the ketamine
assisted therapy session, participate in the
experience, but just not receive the medicine.
And that's a really unique piece and a good handful
of the resilience participants do come to those
sessions and have very meaningful experiences.
Yeah, so that's a basic overview of the 12 weeks.
Within the 12 weeks, there's lots of optional
sessions that we offer as add -ons that are included.
We have integration sessions after the Monday
after the medicine sessions. We have, Pam mentioned
Dr. Crosby -Wattler, a psychiatrist. He offers
different preparation and integration sessions
for groups. Elder Geraldine Manson, a Snuneymuk
elder, she will do groups with Crosby as well
that are quite unique, where Crosby brings the
Western. knowledge in medicine. And then Elder
Geraldine brings the more indigenous ways of
knowing. And they weave beautifully, the two
of them. They've got so much wisdom and knowledge.
And then Helen Wattler, who's an energy worker
who specializes in EFT or tapping, she does group
tapping sessions. So it's almost like two, three
nights a week. There's options for folks to drop
in with us. step into the container and learn
something, learn a new tool that they can implement
in their day -to -day life. Yeah, so that's the
overview, just in a very quick few minutes there.
Pam, I'll pass to you to see if you want to add
anything to what I said. Yeah, what we really
find is, you know, a lot of, I mean, it sounds
like a lot of words, and Phil did a great job
explaining it, but what it's really doing is
bringing people together. And they're starting
to, like, we get harmed in relationship, we heal
in relationship. So it's part of that too. So
they're coming together as a group, realizing
also that they're not the only ones with the
problems they have. And they start forming quite
often with mental health challenges as we start
isolating, right? We move away from others when
we really need to be moving in. And Roots to
Thrive is all designed about getting people to
move inward, lean in to all this. And so everything
is so... thoughtfully structured that it helps
people build trust with each other helps people
start to be able to talk openly be more vulnerable
and figure out where they're going like what
are their intentions for their own healing path
and their own healing journey and because they're
traveling it with all these other folks that
are equally suffering there's an immediate healing
effect there that people start to go oh i'm not
the only one I thought I was the only firefighter
with PTSD. No, here I'm with seven other firefighters
and we're all saying the same thing. I'm not
crazy. This is real. This is not a weakness.
They start to see how this is, as I said earlier,
they're all having normal reactions to their
life. and now they're starting to make friends
they're starting to make bonds one of our participants
said anything like i can't believe i came into
this program and you gave me friends like like
wow so and so but even before they get to their
first psychedelic session we're already seeing
reductions in substance use we're seeing reductions
in anxiety so there it's already like the tools
are starting to work So they're creating a toolbox.
And one of the other things that is really, you
know, we had to go online because of COVID. And
we weren't totally sure it was going to work.
But what we found is because people are at home
for the first four weeks of the programming,
they're sharing what they're learning with their
families and their kids. So they're kind of bringing
their family along as opposed to if they had
just picked up and come to a retreat center and
did the same thing. they're actually taking the
conversation right back to their family immediately
and right to their workplaces if they're still
working. So we often hear from CEOs that come
through our program, I'm already using the tools
you're teaching me here in my boardroom. So you
can see how there's all this magic in a way that's
kind of happened early on. And then by the time
they get to their psychedelic journey, and they
come on site, which is in person, it's like,
it's like, In their small groups of eight, they're
like, they're already friends. They're already
family. They're hugging. They're like, wow, you
know, they're already connected. And then they
have this beautiful ceremonial psychedelic journey.
And now like they're truly, they're a team. You
know, they're really embedded in their own healing
and each other's healing. And they know that
the team is there for them too. Like they really
know that we care deeply that they get better.
and that we help them and we walk with them and
we're not it's one thing that phil didn't mention
is it's also non -hierarchical like we really
try to get rid of that hierarchy that the team
is walking alongside them like we are also challenged
in our day -to -day lives we also are still on
our healing journey and that is another feedback
we get a lot is like it was so nice to be with
healthcare professionals that were just like
deeply vulnerable too You know, so as opposed
to me, hey, I've got my doctor hat on and my
life is excellent. No, like some days my life
sucks, you know, and we can we bring that in.
And so what we see is this beautiful path of
through the 12 weeks of some people make huge
steps really quickly. Some people it's baby steps,
but nonetheless, they all come through the program
and they end up with friends and colleagues.
that they've traveled this whole path on. Many
of them stay in contact. Many of them are friends.
Some of the programs right from the beginning
still meet. Some of the cohorts are still meeting
on a monthly basis, and they're just talking
about whatever's important to them. And as Phil
said earlier, we're a constant quality improvement
project, so we never stop. So every cohort, every
next group gets a better version than the previous
group because we've improved it again. So innovation
from the bottom up, really. Yeah, the remarkable
thing which Pam alluded to is, so we have five
weeks of two -hour sessions in the beginning,
then they come to the first medicine session.
So they're only together about 10 hours for the
first five weeks. But when they come together
face -to -face for the first time, it's like
an old group of friends coming together, and
they've never even met each other face -to -face.
And that's highly intentional in how we structure
it. And the ultimate intention of these groups
is to co -create a space of unconditional positive
regard. It's not us as the team creating it.
It's not the participants creating it. It's all
of us. It's the team and participants. And our
team answers the same prompts that the participants
do. Our team shows up in a vulnerable way. which
is unique. And in the typical mental health field
or the physicians, the medical field, doctors
and therapists don't necessarily show up in a
real vulnerable way, but we walk that line and
we model it as best we can for participants.
And that's another unique piece of our offerings.
One of the things that's become apparent to me
when I hear people that have done the ketamine
route is when there is success. It seems like
they have an infusion, but they're also they're
guided through that experience when there is
not success. It seems like every single time
they're like, yeah, they they put in the IV and
then they walked out the room and they were just
left with the ketamine. And I even heard I hadn't
heard this for all the time I've been talking
about this until literally a few weeks ago. One
of my friends told me he went to a place. He
certainly doesn't think highly of this place
now. So I don't know how reputable it was. But
he got stuck in a K -hole during his experience,
and he said basically he lived a lifetime in
that K -hole, and it was traumatizing. And he
actually told of a Navy SEAL who had a similar
experience, had this whole family this entire
lifetime. When he came out of it, he was so devastated
that he'd lost this family that he basically
had through his lifetime under ketamine that
he ended up taking his own life. That obviously
is something that needs to be discussed. So what
are you seeing as far as where this is safe and
effective? And what are some of the cautionary
tales to make sure people aren't going to the
wrong place? Yeah, I'm so glad you're bringing
this up because I forget that, especially in
the US, there's so many IV ketamine clinics.
It is absolutely something we don't do. We don't
do IV. We do intramuscular and our sessions are
incredibly ceremonial. So people come in, it's
a beautiful room. In the small group sessions
ahead of time, there's this predictability that
is created of how we check in, how we start,
how we share. And so when they come in person
and they're in the ceremony room where the ketamine
is happening, they're having the journey with
their eight folks in their group. So there's
eight of them plus the team. and so there it's
it's very ritual and this has been very well
taught to us by our elders and our indigenous
elders that have helped us co -create the ritual
and the ceremony of the program especially elder
geraldine manson and so they come into this space
where they feel held they feel safe and the team
is there no one is left Phil curates these absolutely
brilliant playlists that follow the arc of the
journey. And people are, you know, comfortably
on their mats. We have weighted blankets. We
have eye coverings, which follows our new name
as teachings to be downward and inward, like
to go inward. Music is on headphones so participants
can control the intensity of the music. The music
is also playing in the room. and so and then
as a medicine comes on like everybody is going
into the medicine at the same time there's this
arc of the journey that they follow and the team
is there to support them in whatever is needed
um phil also mentioned we have somatic energy
workers so we have eden trained energy workers
that are in the room to help people move things
through plus of all of our facilitators are incredibly
skilled so no one's left alone and then after
as everybody emerges and is out then there's
an opportunity for the integration to start.
So now there's some sharing. And then immediately
in the days following, there's also numerous
other opportunities to come back together as
a group and share and start the integration.
So this IV ketamine model, any model of psychedelics
without ceremony, without ritual, without predictability,
and without a strong therapeutic wraparound,
is is is a recipe especially in the u .s for
malpractice and for you know class action lawsuits
which we are seeing now against some of these
companies um it's just it it again to pull out
the shareholder value and you would not see that
happen so and that's why our numbers are so great
like at 12 weeks our numbers right now for uh
for people that come into our program who have
ptsd at 12 weeks 92 percent no longer qualify
for that diagnosis But that is not IV therapy.
That is a solid wraparound program. We are co
-creating the same healing container we would
want if we were in that situation. And it's actually
probably cheaper than what a lot of the programs
are in the US. We had somebody come into our
program that had done 30 IV sessions. in California
and they came into our program. They said after
the first ketamine journey with us in this ceremony,
they had gotten more in our program right there
than they had gotten in those 30 IV ketamines.
So your friend is absolutely right. Like you
should not be working. with groups that don't
do solid therapy and help you, one, be safe during
the journey, not left alone, but then also have
solid preparation ahead of time and solid integration
after time. It's a non -negotiable. It's a non
-negotiable. It is just absolutely malpractice
to be doing it any other way. What about the
MDMA -led psychotherapy? I had Dr. Ben Sesser
on a couple of times from Bristol, who's one
of the people blazing the trail there. And the
efficacy, again, with PTSD after just three treatments
is phenomenal. But as I alluded to earlier with
OxyContin, an FDA -approved drug, them trying
to get MDMA, and recently they were refused by
the FDA. So that, again, government corruption
speaks volumes there. So talk to me about how
you integrate that and the efficacy that you're
seeing. Yeah, we have to, again, we have to apply
right now on a case -by -case basis for people
to go through our program with MDMA. And it's
been phenomenal. It's been phenomenal. What we
really do well is really help patients go down
the line that works best for them, whether it's
ketamine, psilocybin, or MDMA. And another decision
we made in our program a while ago is that all
of our therapists have to be five -star. And
so we have a five -star team. Our patients that
go through the program, it doesn't matter what
medicine they're working with, they are getting
a solid therapeutic team that is going to work
with them to get through whatever it is. MDMA
has been incredibly successful in our program.
We've had absolutely great successes. We hope
to incorporate it even more in the future, but
we have to apply for every person. Like I said,
it takes a lot of work. I don't know if you want
to say more about that, Phil, but we have a great
team. MDMA is fantastic. The interesting thing
is the MAPS MDMA studies, their success rate
at the high level is 67%, which is phenomenal,
which is excellent. But what we're even seeing
in our program with the ketamine is we're getting
92. So I think outside of the MAPS protocol,
which hasn't really innovated, I think we're
seeing higher numbers in our program because
we've been able to innovate. And not stay in
a protocolized structure that they have to do
in the clinical trials. So I think what we're
going to see over time is when these medicines
are fully available, is the best clinics are
going to get even better outcomes. Yeah, I was
going to mention that. We primarily work with
ketamine because it's legal. And it's a lot easier
access for participants to come through and access
it. MDMA works great for PTSD, and we see physical
pain reduction, significant physical pain reduction
for different folks. But it's hard to argue with
the outcomes that we're seeing with ketamine
within our resilience program, the 92 % that
Pam talked about. And ketamine is also a much
shorter duration than MDMA, which leads to a
much lower cost for participants. So a typical
MDMA session is upwards of 10 hours, whereas
our ketamine -assisted therapy sessions are six
hours, five or six hours in duration. So you're
looking at upwards of half the cost for a ketamine
session with that 92 % reduction in PTSD. So
easier access, lower cost. significant reductions.
And as long as that's the case with ketamine,
we will continue to use it until MDMA and psilocybin
come on board and they're fully legal and whatnot.
I want to hit one more area, then we'll go to
some closing questions so I can be mindful of
your time. At the beginning, you'd mentioned
a study specific to firefighters that you've
been seeing. So talk to me about that. Yeah,
we had a bit of funding that came through that
we were able to run through an open label firefighter
cohort that came through Roots to Thrive. So,
yeah, so we knew firefighters, many firefighters
had gone through our program. In fact, we've
even had a firefighter facilitator train with
us. And I think we have another one coming in
the near future. Possibly in the near future.
But so they ran through our program and we just
followed the normal. What we follow is depression,
anxiety and PTSD. And they did phenomenally exactly
what we expected. They ran through as a cohort.
Quite often other first responders are sprinkled
through other groups where they're mixed with
different professions. And it was really interesting,
actually. When we looked at the data, one of
the firefighters, his data was exactly the same
from beginning to end. So after we had to publish
that as is, we couldn't. But I phoned him up
and I said, what happened? You're doing so great.
I don't understand. He goes, well, the week you
sent us the measures, we had a firefighter suicide.
So that was a shitty week for me, which really
just brought it home. how much we need this.
But even with his numbers not being as great
because that's what he was dealing with that
week when he filled in all the validated assessments,
we still had remarkable outcomes. So what we
also did is we published also their stories,
the qualitative, like what was it like? What
did they like? What other things did they notice
that weren't specifically measured? So sleep
was a huge improvement there. The camaraderie
was a huge, they really enjoyed that. And what
we're actually doing now to move the bar forward,
we've got two projects going forward. One is
we're actually going, because firefighters...
are having such a hard time getting access to
these therapies. Like when they finally, by the
time firefighters finally raise their hand and
say, I need help, they've needed help for a long
time. Most people don't put up their hand right
away. And when they do put up their hand and
then they try to get insurance to cover it, like
workers' compensation, quite often they get sanctuary
trauma. This is a group that's supposed to help
them and they don't. They put them through all
this other stuff. In British Columbia, it can
take up to 18 months for them to even get an
assessment. I know, exactly. So we're actually
doing, we've got a study that's in ethics right
now that when we want to get our ethics approval,
then we're going to be interviewing a ton of
firefighters. And we're going to publish on that.
And we're going to publish on it on purpose to
move the bar. to say to workers' compensation,
you're not doing the job you're paid to do. And
that data will be able to be used. In fact, the
International Association of Firefighters has
been seeing all the studies we've been publishing
and going, thank you. This is helping. We can
use your data to advocate. Well, really, to push
the organizations that are supposed to be doing
their job, to push them to do their job. So we're
going to do that. They're better. And then for
anyone that wants to see some of that, the documentary
Quiet the Sirens followed a number of those firefighters
through the Roots to Thrive program. So you get
to hear it in their own words, what it was like
and what it was done. The team there, Mike Bernard,
I think, and Jesse Fraser, they did a phenomenal
job. They did a phenomenal job and were absolute
great storytellers. We're going to keep doing
that research to move the bar until firefighters
get the therapy they deserve. And in that research
article, Pam, there was also a six -month follow
-up with the participants in the cohort. Is that
right? Yep. And the results are durable. That's
what people ask. Are they durable? But it's kind
of a funny question to ask because if you're
still working, you're still experiencing trauma.
You know, what we should be saying is, well,
actually, just change it a bit. We have an emergency
nurse that came through our program who couldn't
work. And then she came through our program and
went back to work. And then she was funded as
needed to go through the program, which from
that time on, never lost a day of work. And she
knew herself after so much time, she started
getting nightmares. said hey i need another session
kept her at work kept her healthy so yeah we
so that is another thing that our program does
is we try to follow all our participants out
um four years so we're at four years right now
trying to show show the people that make these
decisions that the that these results are real
they're not just transient you mentioned quiet
the sirens where can people watch that You can
just Google it, Quiet the Sirens. It's a TELUS
documentary in Canada. It's free. Anybody can
watch it. If you Google it, you'll find it. The
link is online. Yeah, the easiest way to find
it would be to Google TELUS Quiet the Sirens.
And I believe the domain is on telusoriginals
.com. And then once you get there, you just want
to look for Quiet the Sirens. Beautiful. What
about Roots to Thrive? Where can people find
that online? www .rootstothrive .com or just
search it. That's the easiest spot to go. You
mentioned scholarships. If people listening maybe
don't have the funds because, oh, I don't know,
they're a firefighter and they get paid like
shit, how can they apply for that? Yeah, we have
an application process. We have a participant
navigator program coordinator who they inquire
on our website and then get connected with our
participant navigator. And from there, they would
just request this scholarship application and
fill it out. And then we have a committee that
reviews the applications. And depending cohort
to cohort, we have different amounts of funding
that we're able to allocate. And we review the
applications and reach out to folks who are eligible
for it and offer them essentially a dollar, a
specified dollar amount. And the application
is very easy. I think it's two pages and just
ask basic questions and to provide basic information.
We don't need tax returns or anything like that.
We keep it simple. And as a nonprofit, what happens
is every donation that comes into Roots to Thrive
goes into that scholarship bucket. So we have
that. We have had some very kind philanthropists
that have come through from time to time. And
we have a long wait list of people waiting for
scholarships. And so, like I said, we work really
hard to get as many people through that as possible.
So every dollar helps move that faster. By far
the biggest barrier for folks to participate
is funding. And each cohort, we start with about,
when we start onboarding participants, we start
with about 150 to 200 people that have said,
I want to do this. But it gets whittled down
to 24 to 32 folks who can actually afford it.
And so I think 99 % of the barrier is financial.
for folks the other one percent is medical or
timing or they're just not able to do it yeah
which circles back to either you know national
health care coverage or a fire department realizing
that it's a proactive investment in their people
and helping them I want to put a number on that
because the program, it costs 6 ,000 Canadian,
which is about 4 ,000 American. The average cost
of a firefighter off work to a department is
80 ,000 to a quarter million, depending. It's
a no -brainer. Any program like that, the return
is just crazy. Absolutely. Well, I want to thank
you both. It's been such an amazing conversation.
Again, I mean, I've had so many people on here
that have got different dynamics when it comes
to whether it's ketamine, MDMA, you know, Ibogaine,
psilocybin, et cetera. But, you know, there's
these reoccurring themes of what we're supposed
to see as far as, you know, that integration,
the kind of journey, the guided journey element
to it. And, you know, here we are presented with
yet another incredible solution, especially for
people up in Canada. I want to thank you both
for being so generous with your time and coming
on the Behind the Shield podcast today. Yeah,
James, thank you. And thanks for the continued
work that you're doing. It's important. Been
fun to spend time with you, James. Thanks.