Reason Podcast

Psychedelic and hallucinogenic drugs are enjoying a revival—as agents of personal pleasure, mind expansion, and conventional medicine. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recently designated psilocybin, the active ingredient in magic mushrooms, as a "breakthrough therapy" for treatment of depression. MDMA, the active ingredient in ecstasy, has been similarly designated as a breakthrough therapy for post-traumatic stress disorder. Earlier this year, two major books about psychedelics came out. Michael Pollan's How to Change Your Mind: What the New Science of Psychedelics Teaches Us about Consciousness, Dying, Addiction, Depression, and Transcendence is a relatively conventional history and memoir that drew praise from Reason's Jacob Sullum for recovering the history of "psychedelics' potential for facilitating psychotherapy, promoting the rehabilitation of addicts, and relieving end-of-life anxiety" before Timothy Leary and others promoted such drugs as the stuff of total political and cultural revolution. "Psychedelics have been politicized, medicalized, and spiritualized," asks Sullum in his review. "Will they ever be personalized?" Which brings us to that second book, Trip: Psychedelics, Alienation, and Change, written by acclaimed novelist Tao Lin. Born in 1983 to immigrants from Taiwan and raised in Florida, Lin is a critical darling of the contemporary literary scene (Bret Easton Ellis has declared him to be "the most interesting prose stylist of his generation"). His books Taipei, Richard Yates, Shoplifting from American Apparel, and others are populated by disaffected young people who take copious amounts of drugs, especially downers such as Xanax and prescription opioids. Trip is an excruciatingly personal non-fiction account of the author's use of psychedelics as part of a "sustained, conscious effort...to not drift toward meaninglessness, depression, disempowering forms of resignation, and bleak ideologies like existentialism." "Weird is the compass setting," writes Lin at one point, quoting Terence McKenna (1946-2000), who helped popularize magic mushrooms and inspire rave culture. Trip is certainly weird, but like the most-potent drugs, also wonderful. Interview by Nick Gillespie.

Is Sen. Rand Paul right about special-prosecutor investigations being "banana republic"-style attempts to pin a crime on a president? Reason editors Katherine Mangu-Ward, Peter Suderman, Nick Gillespie and Matt Welch debate. Audio production by Ian Keyser. 'Flying pea v.1' by Daddy_Scrabble is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 3.0

Without a doubt, one of the biggest policy wins for Reason since our debut in 1968 has been the legalization of marijuana in the United States. Currently, 10 states and the District of Columbia allow use for recreational purposes and another 33 allow its use as medicine. Donald Trump has even indicated that he'd sign legislation turning control of pot over to the states. So when Reason celebrated its 50th anniversary in November, we put together a panel devoted to talking about how drug policy has changed over the years, the difficulties in actually implementing legalization, and how drugs the government still considers "illicit"—LSD, MDMA, psilocybin, and more—are now being talked about not simply as ways to get high but as means to increase mental health, happiness, and well-being. The panelists included: Adrian Moore, Ph.D., who runs the research division of Reason Foundation and consults with cities and states that are implementing marijuana legalization Dana Rohrabacher, a longtime Republican member of Congress who consistently pushed to end the federal war on pot Jacob Sullum, a Reason senior editor who has written about drug policy for years and is the author of Saying Yes: In Defense of Drug Use Reason's Nick Gillespie moderates. Audio production by Ian Keyser. 'Hard Boiled' by Kevin MacLeod is licensed under CC BY 3.0 Photo Credit: RICK WILKING/REUTERS/Newscom

Raise your glass, folks! Today is Repeal Day, which marks the anniversary of the end of federal alcohol prohibition in the United States. To celebrate the occasion, Peter Suderman interviewed Jarrett Dieterle, a senior fellow at the R Street Institute and the author of a new report on "America's Dumbest Drinking Laws," about how Prohibition came about, what forces were empowered when alcohol was illegal, how alcohol laws changed after repeal, and the many ways in which the effects of Prohibition still linger today. Audio production by Ian Keyser. Photo Credit: ID 87700464 © Nomadsoul1 | Dreamstime.com

Reason editors Katherine Mangu-Ward, Peter Suderman, Nick Gillespie and Matt Welch assess the George H.W. Bush legacy, from bogus supermarket-scanner stories to the disastrous fallout from the first Gulf War. Audio production by Ian Keyser. 'Fishing' by David Szesztay is licensed under CC BY-NC 3.0

Has the message of anti-racism become as harmful a force in American life as racism itself? That was the resolution at a public debate hosted by the Soho Forum on November 14, 2018. It featured John McWhorter, associate professor of English at Columbia University, and Nikhil Singh, professor of social and cultural analysis and history at New York University. Soho Forum Director Gene Epstein moderated. Edited by Todd Krainin. Music: "Voyeur," by Jingle Punks.

Do you want to know what Reason's top editors really think about U.S. foreign policy, the national debt, net neutrality, Donald Trump, and personal drug use? Listen in a live stream of the Reason Podcast, in which Nick Gillespie, Katherine Mangu-Ward, Peter Suderman, and Matt Welch take questions from the audience. Music: "Hard Boiled" by Kevin MacLeod used under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 license. Recorded on November 28, 2018.

Since 2015, when Reason first sat down with Adam Conover, host of TruTV's hit show Adam Ruins Everything, a new president has taken office, a new media landscape has emerged, and some would say we're inhabiting a new reality. What's it like to make a show that seeks to uncover hidden truths in the "post-truth era"? "I guess what's happened is that I've a little bit let go of the idea that we can reach everybody," says Conover, who's about to go on a live tour and is gearing up for the premiere of his show's third season. "Certain people...the informational world they live in, it's so distorted that it's hard to get through." But most people still have a "deep down desire to learn, to know the truth," he says. In a wide-ranging interview with Reason's Zach Weissmueller (full disclosure: Weissmueller is married to the show's casting director), Conover shares his thoughts on the "response videos" to his work proliferating on YouTube, how he contends with the psychological defense mechanisms that prevent viewers from changing their opinions, the "de-platforming" of conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, and how big tech companies are changing our perceptions of reality. The new season of Adam Ruins Everything premieres on November 27, 2018, and his live tour starts on November 28. Produced by Zach Weissmueller. Camera by Paul Detrick, Justin Monticello, and Alexis Garcia. "Happy Whistle" by Scott Holmes is licensed under an Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial license "Symphony No. 5" by Gustav Mahler and performed by the Waterloo-Cedar Falls Symphony is licensend under a Creative Commons Unported Attribution License

Reason editors check their premises about immigration in the wake of Sunday's border skirmish. Audio production by Ian Keyser. 'Hide the Horror' by Asthmatic Astronaut is licensed under CC BY NC SA 3.0

A few weeks ago in Los Angeles, Reason celebrated its 50th anniversary. To mark that milestone, we hosted a series of discussions taking the measure of how far the world has come since 1968 in relation to a bunch of topics that we've long been interested in. We're happy to share with you a panel titled "The First Amendment in the 21st Century." The participants included: Nadine Strossen, a professor at New York University Law School, the former president of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), and the author most recently of Hate: Why We Should Resist It with Free Speech, Not Censorship; Stephanie Slade, the managing editor of Reason magazine, who writes frequently about religious liberty, and; Eugene Volokh, a professor at UCLA's law school, a frequently citied First Amendment scholar, and the creator of the popular law blog, The Volokh Conspiracy.

Can you imagine a lawsuit called Rand v. Reason, pitting the author of The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged against the nation's only magazine of "Free Minds and Free Markets"? Well, it almost happened in the 1970s. In the latest Reason Podcast, one of our founding editors, Manny Klausner, tells Nick Gillespie that tale, along with many stories of the early days of Reason and the libertarian movement. Attending New York University law school in the late 1950s and early 1960s, Klausner studied with Ludwig von Mises, represented the libertarian wing of the fledgling Conservative Party, and came under the influence of firebrand economist Murray Rothbard as well. While working at Reason, Klausner (archive here) produced memorable interviews with the likes of Pentagon Papers leaker Daniel Ellsberg, economist Thomas Sowell, '70s self-help guru Robert Ringer, and future President Ronald Reagan. Founded in 1968 by Lanny Friedlander (1947–2011), Reason is celebrating its 50th anniversary by hosting a series of in-depth conversations with past editors about how the magazine has changed since its founding, what we've gotten right and wrong over the years, and what the future holds for believers in "free minds and free markets." Along with Poole and Tibor Machan (1939-2016), Klausner was one of the principals of Reason Enterprises, which bought the magazine from the Friedlander in 1971. He was also a co-founder of the nonprofit Reason Foundation, established in 1978, which continues to publish this website and podcast. As an attorney, Klausner participated in Bush v. Gore, the case that settled the 2000 election, and successfully defended Matt Drudge in a defamation suit brought by Clinton adviser Sidney Blumenthal. Audio production by Ian Keyser. Photo credit: Jim Epstein.

Assessing the Trump-media wars, prospects for federal sentencing reform, and whether Rand Paul should puke on Mitch McConnell's desk. With Katherine Mangu-Ward, Nick Gillespie, Peter Suderman, and Matt Welch. Audio production by Ian Keyser. 'Superator' by Pietnastka is licensed under CC BY-NC 3.0

Should social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube only remove users who make true threats or incite violence? Or do they have an ethical obligation to hold their users to a higher standard? That was the topic of a recent public debate hosted by Reason—a West Coast version of the popular New York City-based debate series, The Soho Forum—pitting Thaddeus Russell, author of A Renegade History of the United States and host of the Unregistered podcast, against Ken White, an attorney at Brown, White & Osborn, author at the legal blog Popehat, and co-host of the podcast All the President's Lawyers. 'Machinery' by Kai Engel is licenced under CC BY-NC 4.0

In 2004, Michael Bell's 21-year-old son was killed by police during a routine traffic stop in Kenosha, Wisconsin. Within three days, local law enforcement declared it had fully investigated the matter and announced that police had acted properly throughout. Pushing through his grief, Bell also pushed for change, beginning a decade-long campaign to legally mandate truly independent investigations into deadly use of force by police. He succeeded in Wisconsin and, to date, seven other states to pass such legislation. Bell's crusade is the subject of a recent video by today's podcast subject, Kmele Foster of Freethink Media, an online video platform founded in 2011 to tell stories about human perseverance, inspiration, and progress. Foster is also the former co-host, with Kennedy and Reason's own Matt Welch, of the Fox Business show The Independents, and a current co-host of the popular podcast The Fifth Column, a free-wheeling, boozy deep-read of news and popular culture. Foster was born in 1980 and raised in the Washington, D.C. area. Nick Gillespie talks with him about how the Michael Bell story exemplifies what Freethink Media is trying to accomplish, what it was like growing up in an immigrant household (his mother is Jamaican), why libertarianism is underrepresented among racial and ethnic minorities, how he came to his anarcho-capitalist beliefs, and what his hopes are for his 1-year-old daughter. Audio production by Ian Keyser.

If you think politics is bad now, just wait until the economy goes south, and states come to debt-strapped Washington looking for a bailout, argue Katherine Mangu-Ward, Peter Suderman, Nick Gillespie and Matt Welch on the latest Reason Podcast. Audio production by Ian Keyser. 'Fifteen Street' by Blue Dot Sessions is licensed under CC BY-NC 4.0