Aaron & Andras - Cute Animals Doing Drugs

Hello and welcome back to Psychedelics Today. My name is Kyle. Joe wasn't able to make this call for the interview, so here I am doing the introduction and the interview today. So for this interview, I had the pleasure of speaking with Andreas Lennart and Aaron Nesmith-Beck from Cute Animals Doing Drugs, which is a clothing and apparel company. They sell t-shirts with cute little animals doing drugs. Pretty self-explanatory. Andreas and Aaron reached out to us just to tell us about their project a few months ago, saying that they've created this t-shirt company and just wanted to get the word out there, and we thought it was kind of interesting. They had some cool little t-shirts designed one with, you know, maybe a sloth smoking a joint, a reindeer prancing upon a mushroom cap. So it's an interesting way to maybe start a conversation. If you're in the psychedelic community, you don't really know how to talk about this stuff. It seems like what Aaron and Andreas are doing is just like a creative way to get a conversation started. So here's like a little bit about their company. I'm just going to read from their about page for a little bit. So here's a little bit about their company. Did you know that cats use catnips, catnip to get intoxicated? Reindeer eat the Amanita muscaria, the magic mushroom, the little red toadstool with the white little dots. The jaguar in the Amazon eats vines used to make ayahuasca. Pigs consume truffles that contain cannabinoids. Mammals and insects alike consume phytonutrients. The red toadstool with the white little dots. Pigs consume fermented fruit, sap, and nectar to get drunk. Dolphins enjoy psychoactive effects of certain poisonous puffer fish. And wallabies eat entire poppy fields to enjoy the effects of opium in the flowers. It's true, animals use drugs just like we do. But unlike animals, people are often marginalized, imprisoned, or even executed for their drug use. These regressive policies harm individuals and societies and often violate basic human rights. By contrast, decriminalizing drugs has shown to reduce drug-related deaths, lower rates of addiction, and save millions of tax dollars. What's more, recent scientific research on MDMA, marijuana, psilocybin, and other substances are demonstrating the enormous therapeutic and medicinal potentials of these medicines. Cute Animals Doing Drugs was created by two friends to raise awareness around these issues, support drug policy reform, and encourage honest conversations about drugs in everyday life. We believe individuals have the right to sovereignty over their own consciousness and that there is no reason to deny any adult the safe and beneficial use of psychoactive substances. We believe social and political change can start from the bottom up. Our apparel serves as a conversation starter and a fun, unique way to show your support for an increasingly important social issue. So that's just a little bit about their company, and I hope you check it out. I'll see you next time. They have some cool t-shirts, and they also gave our listeners a nice little discount code. So if you go to cuteanimalsdoingdrugs.com, you can use the coupon code PSYCHEDELICSTODAY25, and that's all caps. Not too sure if it's cap sensitive, but just throw in, just, I would just type in all caps PSYCHEDELICSTODAY25. That's in the show notes too, if you want to go back and look at it. So let's see, news on our end. I'm actually recording this before Horizons. This episode is definitely going to be released after Horizons. So if you were planning on hearing anything about Horizons in this episode, sorry, you'll have to wait for our next episode. We'll probably do a recap, or hopefully we'll have some really great audio or interviews from the conference in the weekend. We actually launched a Patreon page. We were a little, maybe we were questioning whether that was our next move or goal, but we do a little soft launch on that. If you like the show, if you've been listening to us for a while and you want to support it, you can go over to patreon.com slash psychedelics today, I believe, or just go to Patreon and just type in psychedelics today. You'll find us there. You could help donate $2, $5, whatever you want. And I feel like this is still kind of like a soft launch. And if you go over there and check out some of the perks, and if you have any ideas, maybe ways we could improve it, or maybe some other stuff, I'd love to hear from you. So if you're interested in that, maybe some other things that you'd like to see, definitely let us know, and maybe we can switch that up. Yeah, that'd be great if you went over and, you know, donated a couple dollars to help fund this project. It's starting to add up a little bit. So that's the reason why Joe and I decided to try it out. We also have an online shop where you can get a cool little psychedelics today mug with our little spaceman logo and the spore print, where you get a t-shirt. I think Joe actually just made some shower curtains with the spaceman. I just checked that out. It looked kind of cool. So yeah, check the Patreon out, check out our shop. And our Navigating Psychedelics Lessons on Self-Care and Integration course is still up. If you're interested in enrolling and learning more about integration and self-care, we have tons of content on there and a bunch of exclusive interviews with a lot of experts in the field in the harm reduction and integration realm. You can check that out at psychedelicstoday.teachable.com. And I actually just wrapped up a little bit of my book, Psychedelics Today, and I'll see you in the next couple of weeks. group call with some folks and Ashley Booth from the Aware Project joined us and we had a really great conversation about integration and just some interest on how to start a psychedelic group. So I'm not too sure if I'm going to continue with group calls, but I really enjoyed it and I'm hoping to incorporate more group calls into the course. I think it's really valuable to have some face-to-face time with the folks and get to know everybody. I'm just a little hesitant just because my school schedule is a little chaotic right now and I don't know where I'm going to be once I start practicum and all that stuff. But I definitely want to make time if you do sign up to connect with you one-on-one or in a group call. So check that out at psychedelicstoday.teachable.com to sign up for our Navigating Psychedelics Lessons on Self-Care and Integration. And I think that's about it on our end. So I really hope you guys enjoy the show and also go over to cuteanimals.com. Cuteanimalsdoingdrugs.com. Use the coupon code PSYCHEDELICSTODAY25 all caps and get a discount and buy a shirt and support Andreas and Aaron. So thanks for listening and hope you enjoy. All right. Welcome to Psychedelics Today. Today we're here to talk about cute animals doing drugs with Aaron Naismith-Beck and Andres Lenart. Welcome to the show, guys. How are you guys doing today? Pretty good. Yeah. Thanks for having us. Yeah. Yeah. No problem. So let's dig in a little bit about your background and what is this project about and how'd you guys get started with it? So Cute Animals Doing Drugs is an apparel project that Aaron and I have started. Started just a few months ago. And our aim with this initiative is to change societal perceptions around drugs and drug-related issues. So the project involves, it's, you know, different apparel with designs that depict cute animals doing drugs. And these are intending to serve as a conversation starter. So that's the main premise of the project. So part of the initial idea came from the fact that lots of different animal species actually do use psychoactive substances in nature. And so some of our t-shirts are based on that. For example, reindeer eat the Amanita muscaria mushroom. So we have a t-shirt on that. Jaguars eat one of the vines that are used to make ayahuasca. And the dolphins have been seen getting high off like pufferfish in the ocean. So there's a whole bunch of examples of this in the natural world. And we thought part of the message with that is that drug use is universal, basically. And it shouldn't be stigmatized as much as it is. Yeah. And it's also pretty easy to contrast. So when animals are consuming substances, you know, any consequences that arise from that, it just impacts them directly. Whereas the consequences with human drug use, it's, you know, other people marginalizing them and other people stigmatizing them, or other people imprisoning them for their use. So I think it also helps highlight that kind of fact. Yeah, that's wonderful. And how'd you get the idea? Were you guys just sitting around and thinking about like, how could I start a conversation in drug policy? What was your approach? Do you guys have a background and like an interest in psychoactive substances? Yeah, so we can deal with those two questions separately. So just to explain where we got the idea for these t-shirts. So in the past, I always used to wear t-shirts that had cute animals on them. You know, they wouldn't be doing drugs or anything like that. You know, it's just like graphic tees and people tended to like these, right? They always got good reactions. People smiled, sometimes people commented on them. So I have somewhat background in drug policy reform through Canadian Students for Sensible Drug Policy, which is a Canadian organization that's youth oriented. So through my involvement with them, I got some other drug policy shirts. So a pretty good example of the other kinds of drug policy shirts that there are out there is I think Drug Policy Alliance. And they have one that states, you know, no more drug war. So it's a really bold, it's a really explicit message. So, you know, that worked to get conversations started, but it's just too out there. They're too open for a lot of people. So thought by using pictures of cute animals you could achieve the same effect of getting people talking about these issues but it wouldn't have to be so overt yeah just to answer the other part of your question about our backgrounds we've both been interested in psychedelics for a while now like probably 10 years yeah eight or nine ten years maybe and initially it was just personal use mostly introspection and personal development things like that and having fun i guess as well and then more recently within the last maybe three years or so it's been more of a shift towards getting learning about the research getting more interested in sort of policy advocacy type stuff more and more on the psychedelic movement side of things that's wonderful what was your shift between like maybe having fun recreational experiences to getting more into the policy because i think a lot of people can get kind of stuck in that recreational and i'm wondering like what was your shift to want to start a conversation and jump more into the policy side of things for me it was just from learning about maps as research mostly and coming to just see where the sort of psychedelic movement and the research was at like it's almost like a lucky just lucky to be at this point in history you know if it had been 1985 or something as opposed to 2015 then it probably wouldn't have the same perspective on things but it just so happens that we're at the cusp of the quote-unquote psychedelic renaissance or whatever you want to call it so it seems like good timing yeah that was a big part of it for me just sort of learning about the cusp of the quote-unquote psychedelic renaissance or whatever you want to call it so that i was actually at a point in history where all these things were starting to come to the floor again yeah and for me it's probably somewhat similar like at one point i stumbled across the book which that was called uh chasing the scream like the first and last days the war on drugs and before that i hadn't known all the societal implications of current drug policies or how much they impact other groups or how they've been used to oppress minority groups and then stuff like that for political reasons in the past so just learning all that it really gave me perspective on it and that gave me the impetus to try to get involved and at some point i was studying at mcgill university some other people there were starting a canadian students for sensible drug policy chapter so i got involved with that and i got involved with the national board so it was a sequential kind of thing oh that's wonderful yeah it's a really exciting time to be jumping into all this joe and i were actually just doing breath work up in vermont with our teachers you know he was saying he's like i never thought i'd see this day you know that a lot of this research is picking back up and you know i know it started off back in the 90s with strassman and whatnot but he really thought like we wouldn't be this close at his age he thought maybe he wouldn't be able to see the day that possibly mdma would become legal so yeah it is a really exciting time to get involved and it's a really cool idea what you guys are doing really creative to put some cute animals out there because it is interesting that aren't the only like creatures or species that want like want to use substances and it's very prevalent among other species and it's a cool conversation starter i think yeah definitely something i've noticed is in conversations oftentimes if you can kind of reach a point of commonality with somebody around psychedelics or psychedelic experience then you can very often like dive really deeply into an interesting and fruitful conversation if you find out that you both share an interest in psychedelics but it can be difficult to be able to share an interest in psychedelics but it can be difficult to bring these kinds of things up because there's still so much stigma around it so one of the things that we're hoping to do with the apparel is make it a bit easier for people to start those kinds of conversations and how has that been going so far have you heard any feedback from you know maybe some of your customers or have you actually started any conversations by wearing the t-shirts yourself most of the feedback has been good so far we've been pretty happy with it people seem to like the idea they seem to like the designs and different we think is a good sign we've had some design submissions on our website there's a section for people to submit designs if they have any ideas so and one pretty interesting like bit of feedback that we've received from a few people actually so far some people their initial impression was that our intention with this project was to give drugs to animals and so it was just a misconception so yeah we're definitely not doing that but but i i can get why you know they get that from the name but we just want it to be like a you know a way to get people to get to know us and to get to know us but we just want it to be like a you know a way to get to know us and to get to know us and to get to know us but we just want it to be like a you know catchy or memorable name with the project yeah could you describe some of the t-shirts that you have i'm looking at some of them right now but maybe just to give the listeners an idea of what type of product you're putting out there yeah for sure so i think as a we mentioned before some of them are based on real instances of animals using psychoactive substances psychedelics in nature so we got one with a reindeer eating amanita muscari mushroom and yeah so that's the only one currently that's a real case we have one coming out with the dolphin and the puffer fish that i think i mentioned before and then some of the other ones andres you can talk about yeah so we've got like a blue jay that's smoking a jay so it's just a little play on words there and then we've got a giraffe that's you know taking a bong hit the bong it's a really long long long giraffe bong so about as long as the giraffe's neck yeah then the next one is the pugs love drugs so this is just our take on the pugs not drugs design so the pug is holding out his paw and you can see what are you know probably ecstasy tablets and you know his eyes are super dilated yeah and then our final design is just what we call the chill sloth smoking a joint and he's just sloth wearing a scarf holding a joint and then this was a reference to it was i think maybe a year or two ago now australia had a campaign where they were campaigning to high school kids i think and they had a so it was an anti-cannabis advertisement and they had you know kids dressed up in sloth costumes and stuff like that and they were you know they were having problems with their school work or i think in one instance they were going to a party and they just weren't able to socialize and it was you know just just trying to get at like that cannabis consumption is bad but it wasn't like a balanced ad at all so that was just a reference to that i remember that commercial i saw it it's pretty ridiculous yeah and the the sloth one was your original design i thought i just saw somewhere yeah i mean that was actually yeah that was the first one we came up with cool and then that's been one of the favorites so far yeah to maybe play a little devil's advocate have you gotten any negative feedback about maybe like you know this cute little pug loves drugs on the sense of like promoting drug use or could be i don't know kind of like joe camel like trying to get the kids hooked into it right yeah we posted on reddit and i think there was a couple comments on reddit that were a little bit more negative maybe somebody was wondering if we were trying to target kids or something with the animals but oftentimes in the psychedelic space people have this kind of negative perception of for-profit businesses and there were some comments about that as well i think on reddit so there's been negative feedback on that side of things that's kind of another conversation maybe but i've definitely noticed that kind of attitude within the psychedelic community and understandably i think for historical reasons in terms of where the role psychedelics have played in the counterculture and everything but that can definitely be a little bit controversial for some people yeah making money off of drugs in the sense are these sacred sacraments right yeah it's definitely a conversation i've been having a lot actually with folks it's interesting you know because traditionally people would never charge for these sacraments and you know only traditionally used in healing and yeah some people get really rubbed the wrong way when people are trying to either make a business surrounded by it or whatnot right is it more mainstream and i mean not not just you know drug consumption or that kind of thing in general like i can only see the movement going that way like it was possible to exist in that kind of not-for-profit or that kind of domain when it was such a more of a fringe thing but i can only see it becoming more commercialized and i think we just need to accept that as you know part of the trend yeah it's definitely a weird balance where a lot of this stuff is happening we want to get information out there we want to start conversations but yeah how do we do it sustainably maybe not feel like making it into a business i don't know it's it's a weird conversation i've been having a lot with people in this scene yeah no i know what you mean i think it's kind of a difficult issue and it's personally my perspective on it is that we're sort of embedded in capitalism whether you like it or not at this point maybe in the 1960s it might have been easier to make a case in a different direction but in 2017 it seems like that's where we are and even if you think about it in a different way i think it's a different thing i think ultimately this is not the system to be in i still think the best way to change it is to actually be successful within that system and then change it from the inside out sort of railing against the way things are from the outside doesn't seem like it's going to be that effective that's my take on it anyway yeah yeah and you guys seem probably around my age young just graduated and trying to find a place in the world and how do you do that and have a creative project like this and also try and make money to pay for rent and different things like that there's similar discussions in the not-for-profit world right where a lot of organizations just won't compensate their staff very well or you know expect or request a lot of like volunteer work i mean i think there's there's definitely issues inherent to that just because right like if they're not getting the funding that they need the entire model is unsustainable if that's the case right staff end up burning out volunteers end up burning out get the you know talented staff they need and i think that's very reflective of what's happening you know in this subdomain of psychedelics related issues so how's the business been going so far have you seen a lot of sales or is it just still kind of taking off and you guys are still creating the foundation for it it's been okay it's taking a little bit of time to get off the ground like to get traction with it we're still working on it trying to iterate like get as much feedback as we can from people maybe explore different sort of marketing avenues and things like that it is difficult to get traction though for sure yeah yeah like we've just been trying to publicize it through different means so we were trying different things on reddit or on facebook and yeah as aaron mentioned it's been hard to get traction there so you know just spreading it through friends and family has been one avenue but but at the same time i think like we said before pretty much all the feedback we've had from people in person we you know we've told most of the people we know about it has been very very positive so yeah people really tend to love the idea what is your reactions been from friends and family pretty good typically people think tend to think it's funny and creative they know something about the cause then they tend to be supportive of it i mean we're probably both in inside sort of bubbles of people for the most part who are already on the same kind of side as we are with these issues yeah so there's definitely a selection bias in terms of who we're you know sharing this idea with i don't know if the general public would be as positive towards this idea but and like i think different people would still appreciate different things so even if they don't support the ideas of drug policy reform and harm reduction and all those other things that we're trying to get with it they would probably still like the cute animals so right it's hard to hate on cute animals right right yeah it's interesting it's kind of like a interesting way to come out of the closet i guess by wearing a shirt like this i was just wearing my psychedelic science volunteer staff shirt around my town another couple weeks ago and i was just like oh man like this is either going to start like some weird conversation or people are going to think i'm like just kind of nuts because i live in a pretty conservative area at this point and i'm not going to be able to talk about this conservative area at this point right right but that does seem like a perfect way right like if there's other people who are similarly kind of hiding in the psychedelic closet then they'll know they'll be able to discuss this with you like they don't have to be the ones putting themselves out there but they can see that you're you share this interest with them yeah i'm looking at this reindeer cap one and it's really subtle you know it's just like this reindeer looking at some amaminas it's a pretty subtle thing like if i saw that i'd be like oh i get that do you know the story behind the reindeer and the amaminas and the amaminas deer and the amaminas muscaria that you could share i've read that that's where the origins well i don't know i read somewhere online that this is where the origins of the santa part of the santa claus story came with the magic flying reindeer but beyond that and the fact that the reindeer do actually eat the mushrooms i don't know any history behind it yeah some anthropologists believe that that's like the origin story of santa so in siberia where they grow you know the reindeers would eat this and actually the way the amaminas muscaria is broken down it's a little less toxic through the piss because the liver breaks down some of those toxins and then you actually get a cleaner hallucinogenic property from the urine after it's broken down so supposedly these people would watch the reindeer eat these mushroom caps and then act a little crazy and say the shaman might drink the urine to get that effect as well yeah the story about christmas there was a really interesting talk i should find it in the description below if you haven't seen it and put it in the show notes but how they would actually pick them and then hang the mushrooms in the conifer trees around that area and when the snow would build up around the yurts say the medicine person or the shaman would then go during the solstice the winter solstice and then drop through the top of the year and just a little bag of mushrooms to the folks to you know just celebrate the solstice and get through the tough winters but then this concept of the reindeer being high on mushrooms and it's flying you know because when you enter into those spirit worlds you know you're kind of taking a soul flight that's really interesting it's an origin story like i haven't heard that yeah we are our research hadn't gone that deep i'll have to find the article i've came across it a few times but forget it was an anthropologist i don't know my memory spacing i'll just find it and put it in the show notes yeah i mean there was one of the books in the resources that we recommended which was like there's an actual entire book on it called animals and psychedelics the natural world and the instinct to alter consciousness and then i think it's a really interesting book and i think it's a really interesting book and i think it's a really interesting book and that book i mean i only skimmed parts of it but it just talks about all the different animals and the evidence that there is behind them doing drugs and you know altering their states of consciousness in whatever way so for people who are really interested in that i would check that book out and what is that called again it's called animals and psychedelics the natural world and the instinct to alter consciousness and it's by giorgi samarini cool that sounds really interesting there's also a really i think it might be like animal planet or discovery they have a little episode on youtube like animal and drugs and they go through all the different animals that use psychoactive substances yeah i think i've seen that one that's potentially where i saw the jaguar eating the ayahuasca wine yeah it makes me wonder about that because the vine just has the monamine oxidase inhibitor in it so it makes me wonder if he's also eaten the leaf that contains the dmt as well right right yeah i'm not sure about that it's definitely speculative as to whether the jaguar is tripping or how much it's going to be but i think it's a really interesting thing to watch they're tripping the puffer fish is really interesting though with the dolphins they seem to i remember watching the video they're like passing it around and getting intoxicated together and really interesting yeah i think that was a or at least the video i saw was on the bbc and it really seems like the dolphins are like behaving differently after but again there's no way to like verify that they're actually getting intoxicated but it does seem to make sense you know given their behaviors and of their own volition they'll pass around this fish that's possibly toxic yeah this is also a really interesting concept of animals doing drugs you know humans have really learned about a lot of plants through observing animals i remember when i was doing this plant medicine course a while ago just learning about the natural plants around vermont my one teacher was telling me that how some of the native americans would watch the bears and the bear could use certain like say plants in the area for if it was feeling sick or an upset stomach so like people would actually just observe a lot of animals to see which plants they're eating see what plants are safe and i think humans have really learned a lot through just watching animals in our early years interesting that makes me think how much we've sort of lost that kind of connection with the natural world especially in modern society now and i think that's another good reason to try to move this psychedelic movement forward is to sort of get people back in touch with that sense of connection that it provides you yeah definitely so where do you see this project going what are your goals with it so we're definitely hoping to reach as many people as we can and to make however much of an impact with however many people that we can so we're going to continue getting more designs and shirts out there ever so often yeah i mean hopefully we can contribute to the the growing psychedelic movement and that the movement towards changing our drug policies and legalizing yeah i think we just like to play whatever kind of role it can i mean there's as we know there's multiple different avenues people are sort of going about this and i guess we just see this as another potential avenue to move the whole thing forward yeah because not everyone wants to take up a role as an advocate or start protesting or anything like that i mean some people might just want to wear a t-shirt and start a conversation and try to help educate someone else on some of these topics to just move the needle a little bit more yeah it's a really great idea and you have a lot of great links on your website under the resources i mean you have yeah it really looks like you're geared towards policy and research with a lot of links on there not just like you go on it it's just like a drug t-shirt design but yeah really highlighting you know you're really into it for the policy and harm reduction and all that stuff we're really hoping that as conversations are started on this you know if you're wearing the t-shirt and someone asks you about the t-shirt that like if you're wearing the t-shirt and someone you know read up on these topics a little bit more you'll be able to better articulate the evidence you know what are the benefits of you know how ndma research is going for example or you know what what they're showing with that or maybe you can talk about all the problems that are associated with the current criminalization so that's where we're trying to share these resources so that you know people will be able to speak well about these issues have you been to any of the psychedelic conferences yet to pitch these shirts uh we have been to conferences in the past we both went to horizons last year and then i was in psychedelic science earlier this year but we didn't have the website and everything like we actually hadn't even started yet so not yet oh wow so you didn't even get started when psychedelic science happened oh so this is a very new platform yeah it's just a few months we started in mid-may i think yeah and it took a while to get everything you know to get the website up and to get all the resources together and to get the you know the illustrations from the different artists we were working with so it took a while to get it all together yeah wow you guys yeah it's a pretty awesome i thought you guys were around for a little bit longer but wow that's really sweet that's a really short time ago this kind of project was easy to work on because we're both really passionate about this kind of issue so we were putting in a good amount of hours right and you have artists that are creating the designs or do you come up with like an idea and maybe like pitch it to somebody else or i know you have this submit a design button so you're just kind of open to taking designs from whoever as well yeah we come up with the concepts mostly the two of us And then we work with different artists online and the artists, they'll do the actual artwork and send it back to us. And we can maybe iterate on it a little bit, but yeah, we have to submit a design button. So we're definitely open to people's suggestions. Awesome. So if you have any ideas, then feel free to send them over. Definitely. And just through that, submit the design or email. Yeah, for sure. Or you can contact us on social media as well. We've got a Facebook page, Instagram as well. So all these different avenues. So you guys were both involved in the SSDP chapter or is that just you, Andres? That was just me in the past. And actually, so it was CSSDP. So that's just the Canadian version of SSDP. And yeah, I mean, so I was involved with the McGill chapter for a couple of years there. And, you know what I mean? That definitely opened my eyes to all the different kind of advocacy roles that are possible and all the different, you know, subdomains that are within this whole, you know, psychedelic or drug policy reform movement. Again, gave a lot of the initial impetus to get this kind of project going just because I saw that there was potential for this. Yeah, that's awesome. So we're always trying to figure out like how people have gotten involved. And we always kind of say, you know, check out the SSDP chapters and, you know, maybe start a club at the school. So would you have any advice for somebody who wants to get involved in drug policy or just psychedelic research in general? I mean, you guys are taking a very creative approach to this. You know, I'm in grad school right now, but also doing this podcast. So there's so many different avenues. Got any advice for some students that are listening or some people who just want to get involved in some unique way? Yeah. So as you mentioned, like a lot of campuses will have SSDP chapters. So that's a really good avenue, right? If you're in Canada, there's CSSDP at quite a few universities. Otherwise, there's a lot of psychedelic societies in different cities or that are even just popping up. Or if there isn't, right, you can try starting one yourself. In most cities, there's going to be enough interest for that kind of thing. Starting one or creating meetup events, I think that's another really good avenue for their suggestions. Yeah, I would encourage people to just reach out to anybody they know of within the psychedelic community or people that they know who are interested in these things, you know, even if they don't know them personally. But I think, one, this is probably still small enough of a movement that, for the most part, everybody's going to be willing to help anybody else who's interested in it. And then, two, I think people in the psychedelic community in particular are going to be especially willing to try to help each other because we're all kind of on the same page with this whole thing. So just reaching out to people, I think, can be really, can be surprising what could come out of it, basically. Yeah, yeah, definitely. The community is pretty strong and everybody's really passionate about this stuff. So it's a really cool community to be part of. And just to add a little bit to my previous suggestion, when I was suggesting to start a chapter at your local university, so I know that both SSDP and CSSDP, they have sections on their website if you're interested in starting a chapter and we'll give you a ton of support. So, right, they'll send you resources, they'll send you even materials. So when we started our chapter, they sent us a bunch of free T-shirts, stickers, pamphlets, everything that you would need. So it's not as daunting of a task as it might otherwise be. Yeah, great advice. Have you thought about connecting with any of those chapters to get some of your shirts out there for some of the students to maybe walk around campus with? We did a good amount of outreach. At the beginning, we may do more. We haven't thought through it super comprehensively yet. But no, that's a good idea, though. That'd be an interesting partnership if you could connect with some of those organizations. Yeah. Actually, there was one organization that we connected with initially that was a harm reduction group called Karmic in Vancouver. So we tried to collaborate on them promoting it at one of their festivals. I mean, so as we mentioned, we had just started this in the summer. So, yeah, we might look into trying to collaborate with some more other student organizations now that the school year has started back up again. Yeah, cool. I'm interested. I'm just reading. I'm on your site, too. I didn't know this. Do you know anything about that? I didn't know that. I don't know much about it beyond that, to be honest. But, yeah, apparently they do. I guess I do know that pigs do sniff out truffles, but I didn't know that some of them were rich in cannabinoids. Yeah, and we haven't verified most of this. It was just different things that we were reading this on. I mean, most of the sources have seemed legitimate to us. Yeah, was that in the book that you mentioned, The Psychedelics and Animals? That was from a journal article, I think, which we linked to. Yeah, we did cite most of the claims, so I think it's fairly well substantiated. Yeah, just at the bottom of that page. So that's our About page. There's a list of different sources. Okay, cool. So most of this stuff you got either from journal articles or some reputable source. Yeah, yeah, we're definitely in. Or, you know, live videos of it actually happening. Yeah. I also see that you're taking some of the proceeds and also donating it to MAPS or Drug Policy Alliance. Yeah, we're going to be donating 10% of the proceeds to different organizations, so psychedelic research, policy reform, harm reduction. We're doing a different organization each month, so trying to hit on, I guess, the different aspects of the whole space. That's great. Yeah, it's a great way to, yeah, give back to the community. So buy a shirt, and you're also kind of donating to research, which is cool. Absolutely, yeah. And we're, in doing so, right, like in cycling through them, we're trying to help promote the different organizations as well, so if someone's only part of one of the subdomains, if they're only into harm reduction, they might find out about the, you know, the ongoing research or the issues with criminalization, like that kind of thing, to help, you know, give people exposure to more organizations within the domain. Yeah, it's wonderful. Yeah, we definitely encourage people to check out the resources page on our website. There's, also going back to what we were saying before, potential opportunities for getting involved. We have links to different harm reduction organizations, which are usually looking for volunteers, so that's another potential opportunity for people. Yeah, I'm on there right now. So you have current psychedelic research, drug policy reform, and then, you know, the harm reduction, which is great, and then psychedelic societies, so that's a really great resource to have. People are always asking, like, how do I get involved in my community? Check out. To see if there's a club or society in your town. Oh, cool. You also have a bunch of online Reddit forums, which is great. Yeah, you guys have a really great resource page. Yeah, it's important. I think we're definitely aligned with this sort of idea that people should really educate themselves, especially if they're actually planning to use psychedelics. Like, it's important to do your research and know what you're taking and get preparation and understand about the integration process and all these different aspects of it. Probably, I think we would probably agree with this, but a lot of the reason people tend to have bad trips is because they haven't prepared well enough or they just don't know. There's a lack of knowledge or preparation around the experience. Yeah, or oftentimes, they won't be following the right harm reduction precautions. If they're taking MDM at a rate, they might not be drinking enough water. Like, they might not be aware of that. So, I mean, there's just a ton of stuff that can really help out if they're cognizant of that. So, yeah, we're just trying to help, you know, spread these resources. Yeah, I think harm reduction is so important. I mean, obviously, Joe and I, we have created a course on it and are always talking about it. But, yeah, I think if people are going to get involved, they should be highly educated in what they're doing. I've talked to somebody about, like, is there actually, like, informed consent with psychedelics? Because, like, you know, you can obviously, like, know what might happen, but do you actually know what's going to happen? So, it's a really interesting concept. You know, you could really prepare for the best trip, but you never know what's inside of your psyche. You know, things can emerge that you're not ready to deal with. Yeah, absolutely. And people should recognize that, the potential for that as well, I think. Have you guys ever been involved in any harm reduction work before? To some extent, I have with my-- So, McGill University, the university I was at, I just recently graduated, every year they have the first-year orientations, which is, like, five days of partying and stuff like that. And so, I mean, this was mainly for, you know, people who get too drunk and stuff like that. So, I was part of a group that was taking care of them during some instances. But, yeah, I mean, less so, you know, so drug-related. Yeah, just more alcohol-related. Exactly, which is more problematic oftentimes. It's important on the college campuses, definitely. Yeah, sure. Did you guys see a lot of psychedelic use on your college campus? Was that a big thing? Yeah, I mean, there's definitely, like, communities where, you know, within the college, where it's more prevalent. I mean, there was definitely just, you know, a lot of, like, MDMA and cocaine use in the party scene. But, you know, there's definitely different subgroups, some in which people are just smoking a lot of pot all the time. So, there's different subcultures definitely present. I mean, there's definitely, like, a pretty strong binge-drinking culture there as well, right? The minimum age, or the legal age for alcohol consumption, I think, in Quebec is 18. So, you'll definitely even get a lot of Americans coming there, and they've never really been able to drink. And then, during this frosh weekend, right, like, people are just going as hard as they can, and, you know, you'll run into them throwing up on the street or something like that. Like, it doesn't always end well. Yeah. Are you going to have a t-shirt based around drinking? I know that bees like to sometimes get drunk off the fermented nectars. Yeah, we might do. We were thinking about doing one with coffee, actually, to try to make the point that, you know, certain drugs are sort of sanctioned by society and other ones aren't, and it's a little bit arbitrary as to which ones are in one category versus the other. So, we're thinking of, like, a cat drinking coffee or something, potentially. I remember watching this-- I think it was on Discovery Channel, but they were talking about how when the bees would get too drunk off their nectars, When they're collecting pollen, they actually have like a point system in the sense of like, if you come back to the hive drunk, like X amount of times, like they end up like ripping off your wings or your legs. It's really interesting to think about like natural law and that it's, you know, these consequences aren't just for us, like as humans, like it seems like animals all actually have these as well. It's like, you can't come back to the hive drunk three times, you know, that's done. We're going to like, you have a pretty severe consequence if you continue to do that. Yeah, that's pretty harsh. That's really interesting is that that's only some nectar that ends up having alcohol in it or like, do you know how that works? I think so. I mean, any sugar that sits around for a while ends up fermenting in some sense. And I mean, the size of a bee probably doesn't need too much of anything that ferments, you know, and just gets drinks a little too much. Maybe we need some harm reduction initiatives for bees. There you go. New shirt design. Keep the bees safe. Save the bees. So, yeah. Anything else that you guys want to touch on? I don't think so. Nothing comes to mind. Yeah. Oh, actually, one thing. We do have a discount code for your listeners. So they can use the discount code psychedelics today 25 and they'll get 25% off. It's just the name of your podcast psychedelics today. And then the number 25, they'll get 25% off their whole order. Awesome. Thanks. Yeah, that'd be great. An order shipped from both the States and Estonia now. So you can order anywhere in the world and it should get to you in a reasonable time frame. Awesome. I'm excited for that. I'm actually probably going to buy one myself. Any other last like visions or statements for this project or anything that you want to throw out there? Where can we find you? Sure. I will say one thing. So I said this at the end of the This Week in Drugs podcast as well. But I kind of would ask people or maybe encourage people to examine or re-examine their stance on how private. Or secretive they want to be about their either psychedelic experiences or their interest in drug policy and psychedelics more generally. I think we're sort of getting to a point now where it's almost like it's snowballing and the more people that come out of the closet, so to speak, and are open about their experiences and their interests, the more quickly that the whole thing's going to move forward. So and I think a lot of people kind of default to being completely private about it, which is understandable. But at the same time, as I said, I think we're getting to the point now where maybe we're going to have to re-examine the stance on that. That's a great point. Do you have any tips or comments about maybe coming out, maybe buying a shirt? What was your process of coming out of the psychedelic closet? That's a good question, actually. I mean, just intuitively, I think it's pretty important to gauge, you know, how like who you're talking to, how well you know them and if you know anything about their pre-existing beliefs and kind of, you know, slowly bridge the gap in terms of, you know, you don't want to disclose everything to everyone. You kind of want to put it out there. A little bit and then see how they react to that. Definitely. But close family members or friends that you trust and things like that, people who you feel like even if they disapprove, you'd still be safe and everything, even that can do a lot. And again, like sort of like we were talking about before, you might hit on some common ground. It was totally unexpected. Like you might, I've had this experience where I found out a relative is interested in this stuff as well, or somebody you wouldn't expect. So I think it can really be fruitful to do that. And just to add to that, like even if you feel really worried about it. If you're really worried about this kind of thing, you don't need to discuss your experiences yourself, per se. But, you know, you can just kind of talk about the ideas more in general or talk about all the benefits that are associated with it. You don't even have to disclose that you yourself are using it. I think you can just disclose your support for the legalization or the other initiatives that are happening with the movement. Yeah, it's a really great point. My process was really just bringing up a lot of the maps stuff and a lot of the research. And it's been really interesting to hear folks actually come to me now that, you know, they know I'm interested in this, asking me about it because they've been seeing articles online or, you know, somebody came to me talking about, "Oh, I saw this thing on microdosing on like Fox News or CNN." And I was just, you know, they're like, "What do you know about that?" And it's really interesting that this stuff is starting to hit kind of the mainstream and people that like normally would be really hesitant about it are becoming a little bit more curious, which is kind of cool and exciting. I think you're right on, like, who to talk to about this. In our breathwork circles, we always say, really know your audience. Know who can hold the space for whatever you're going to process or tell because it can be a really shameful experience or if somebody doesn't always agree with that, I mean, I think there is some growth that happens in that discomfort as well. I always kind of like getting in those conversations if people don't believe in it because I'm like, "Oh, it gives me an opportunity to test some of this research." Test research and test what I know. But yeah, I think knowing your audience and really being aware on how you share this stuff is really important. Yeah, absolutely. And I think you mentioned the research is a really good point and know your audience as well. Like, for example, if you know the person is the type of person who's likely to be persuaded by a lot of scientific evidence, then you can point to the studies and the papers and be like, "Look, here's the hard data on it." And then if somebody else is of a different persuasion and maybe you could talk about the… historical context of the drug war or something. So knowing these different elements and kind of like where to approach it from I think can be really valuable. Yeah, definitely. All right, cool. So where can people find you? Yeah, so the URL is just cuteanimalsdoingdrugs.com. And we're Cute Animals Doing Drugs Apparel on Facebook, Cute Animals Doing Drugs on Twitter, and also on Instagram. But if you just Google Cute Animals Doing Drugs, you'll also be able to find it. Sweet. And, you know, if you have any design ideas or… you know, you want to submit any more resources that we should put up, you can also do that on our website. That's awesome. I know there's definitely probably a lot of psychedelic artists out there. So, yeah, be sure to check them out and submit some stuff. I think that would be really awesome. Definitely. All right. Well, thanks so much, guys. It's been a really great pleasure to talk to you and learn more about what you guys are doing. And I think it's really cool and a really creative way to start a conversation. So really appreciate the work that you're doing. And I'm liking that, you know, you guys are really kind of backed by this research and, you know, you guys are really focused on the hard work. You know, the harm reduction approach and policy. So, you guys are doing great stuff. Yeah. Thanks for having us on the podcast. We really appreciate it. It's been great to talk to you. Yeah. Same thing. Really admire what you guys are doing with this podcast. Again, getting the ideas out there. Like, you've had some really great episodes, great guests on. So, same to you. And thanks. Sweet. Thanks. And we'll talk soon. Sounds good. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.