Carl Hart: Heroin, Cocaine, MDMA, Alcohol & the Role of Drugs in Society
心理与人性音乐与艺术生物与进化政治与社会技术与编程
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drugsdondrugeffectsalcoholcocaineheroinnegativeexperiencedoingtalkaddictionenvironmentpositivesocietykindsbooksurepersonwithdrawal
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🎙️ 完整对话（1469 条）
Lex Fridman (00:00.000)
The following is a conversation with Carl Hart,
以下是与卡尔·哈特的对话，
Lex Fridman (00:02.840)
department chair and professor of psychology
系主任兼心理学教授
Lex Fridman (00:04.920)
at Columbia University.
在哥伦比亚大学。
Lex Fridman (00:06.880)
He's the author of several books on the topic of drugs,
他是多本有关毒品主题的书籍的作者
Lex Fridman (00:10.120)
including his most recent, called Drug Use for Grownups,
包括他最近的作品《成年人吸毒》，
Carl Hart (00:14.360)
that challenges us to, quote,
这挑战我们，引用，
Lex Fridman (00:16.520)
use empirical evidence to guide public policy
使用经验证据来指导公共政策
Carl Hart (00:19.400)
even if it makes us uncomfortable.
即使这让我们感到不舒服。
Lex Fridman (00:21.800)
His research on drugs, including hard drugs,
他对毒品的研究，包括硬性毒品，
Carl Hart (00:24.400)
like heroin and cocaine, challenges much of what we think
就像海洛因和可卡因一样，挑战了我们的大部分想法
Lex Fridman (00:28.160)
we know about drugs and their role in society.
我们了解毒品及其在社会中的作用。
Carl Hart (00:31.480)
His main thesis is that drug addiction
他的主要论点是吸毒成瘾
Lex Fridman (00:34.120)
has less to do with the drugs themselves
与药物本身关系不大
Lex Fridman (00:36.560)
and more to do with cooccurring psychiatric disorders,
更多地与同时发生的精神疾病有关，
Lex Fridman (00:39.800)
such as depression and schizophrenia,
比如抑郁症和精神分裂症，
Lex Fridman (00:42.280)
and socioeconomic factors, such as unemployment,
以及社会经济因素，例如失业，
Lex Fridman (00:46.120)
underemployment, and resource deprivation
就业不足和资源匮乏
Carl Hart (00:48.320)
within the community.
在社区内。
Lex Fridman (00:49.840)
In addition, he believes that we should legalize all drugs
此外，他认为我们应该使所有毒品合法化
Lex Fridman (00:53.480)
so that if people choose to use them,
这样如果人们选择使用它们
Lex Fridman (00:55.320)
they could do so responsibly and openly
Lex Fridman (00:58.160)
and get help if needed in a controlled, safe environment.
Lex Fridman (01:02.600)
His ideas are controversial,
Lex Fridman (01:04.680)
but are fundamentally grounded in empirical data
Lex Fridman (01:07.480)
and rigorous scientific studies.
Carl Hart (01:09.480)
I don't know if his conclusions are right,
Lex Fridman (01:12.000)
but they are at least worth thinking about.
Lex Fridman (01:14.640)
So I ask that you consider these ideas with an open mind
Lex Fridman (01:18.920)
and as always, make sure you exercise
Carl Hart (01:21.360)
your critical thinking skills in making decisions
Lex Fridman (01:24.120)
about substances you put in your body.
Carl Hart (01:26.440)
You are a free thinking being,
Lex Fridman (01:30.080)
the main character, if you will,
Carl Hart (01:32.040)
the hero in a story that's being written by you.
Lex Fridman (01:35.880)
So at the end of the day,
Carl Hart (01:37.200)
you are responsible for the choices you make.
Lex Fridman (01:40.160)
So choose wisely.
Carl Hart (01:42.480)
This is the Lex Friedman podcast.
Lex Fridman (01:44.600)
To support it, please check out our sponsors
Carl Hart (01:46.920)
in the description.
Lex Fridman (01:48.280)
And now, here's my conversation with Carl Hart.
Carl Hart (01:52.200)
I think it is bold and powerful to admit
Lex Fridman (01:55.760)
to using in your private life
Carl Hart (01:57.400)
the drugs that you study in your research,
Lex Fridman (01:59.520)
including heroin and cocaine.
Lex Fridman (02:01.200)
So let me ask, what is the experience of taking heroin like?
Lex Fridman (02:05.680)
What happens to the body?
Lex Fridman (02:06.640)
What happens to the mind when you take it?
Lex Fridman (02:08.920)
Well, you know, I take MDMA, cannabis,
Lex Fridman (02:11.760)
and all the rest of these drugs too.
Lex Fridman (02:13.440)
I've tried those drugs.
Carl Hart (02:15.920)
The experience in the body and the mind,
Lex Fridman (02:18.760)
I don't really know what people wanna know
Carl Hart (02:21.600)
in that regard.
Lex Fridman (02:22.560)
It's like saying, what is the experience
Lex Fridman (02:24.240)
of having an orgasm in the body and the mind?
Lex Fridman (02:27.760)
Or some other sort of event that you really enjoy.
Lex Fridman (02:32.280)
So I don't really know what people...
Lex Fridman (02:34.200)
Is that what poetry is for,
Lex Fridman (02:35.280)
for describing these kinds of experiences?
Lex Fridman (02:37.040)
I mean, I guess, given MDMA, given psilocybin,
Carl Hart (02:41.240)
in the full context of that,
Lex Fridman (02:42.960)
maybe it's more useful to say,
Lex Fridman (02:45.320)
what are the differences in experiences
Lex Fridman (02:48.960)
that your mind goes through?
Carl Hart (02:50.840)
Like chemically, biologically.
Lex Fridman (02:53.760)
So like keeping it strictly to sort of the biology of it
Carl Hart (02:59.040)
versus the full environmental human experience.
Lex Fridman (03:01.720)
Yeah, see, this is a mistake that people make all the time.
Carl Hart (03:04.720)
They try to act as if biology
Lex Fridman (03:07.760)
is the only determinant of drug effects.
Lex Fridman (03:10.080)
And that's just not how it works.
Lex Fridman (03:12.240)
You need the environment.
Carl Hart (03:13.600)
You need the cage, as they say.
Lex Fridman (03:15.560)
If you don't have the cage,
Carl Hart (03:17.280)
you don't get the full extent of the effects.
Lex Fridman (03:20.200)
And so like you can take MDMA and have an awful time.
Carl Hart (03:23.800)
You can have a time in which you get paranoid and so forth.
Lex Fridman (03:27.880)
And then you can take that drug under the right conditions
Lex Fridman (03:31.760)
and it just be like one of the best moments you've ever had.
Lex Fridman (03:34.880)
It certainly enhanced a number of my relationships.
Lex Fridman (03:39.480)
But I've also had some times with MDMA
Lex Fridman (03:42.040)
that haven't been so lovely.
Carl Hart (03:43.680)
When the people who you are hanging out with,
Lex Fridman (03:46.800)
you don't know them, you're distrustful
Lex Fridman (03:48.600)
and all of those kinds of things.
Lex Fridman (03:49.960)
So it's important to put context in it.
Carl Hart (03:52.800)
Now we can talk about drugs at a biochemical level,
Lex Fridman (03:55.840)
at a biological level.
Lex Fridman (03:57.120)
And we kind of do that in this country
Lex Fridman (03:58.840)
with this fascination with neuroscience.
Lex Fridman (04:01.000)
And that's an inappropriate kind of fascination
Lex Fridman (04:06.040)
in the way we talk about it.
Lex Fridman (04:07.520)
So we can talk about opioids
Lex Fridman (04:08.760)
and then we can talk about endogenous opioid system
Carl Hart (04:12.360)
in the brain.
Lex Fridman (04:13.200)
We can talk about dopamine
Lex Fridman (04:14.760)
and other sort of monoamine transmitters
Lex Fridman (04:17.880)
and what opioids are doing to them.
Lex Fridman (04:20.840)
And we can do the same thing with MDMA.
Lex Fridman (04:24.040)
And we won't be any closer to understanding
Carl Hart (04:27.880)
the sort of experience that is induced by these drugs.
Lex Fridman (04:32.960)
Certainly the experience that we all seek.
Lex Fridman (04:35.320)
You know what I'm saying?
Lex Fridman (04:36.400)
So getting a positive experience
Carl Hart (04:38.040)
or getting a negative experience
Lex Fridman (04:39.360)
is strongly defined by the environment.
Carl Hart (04:42.040)
Strongly dependent upon it.
Lex Fridman (04:44.000)
But the environment is a very,
Carl Hart (04:45.920)
it's a short word that can describe a lot of things.
Lex Fridman (04:48.840)
So would you say the environment is important
Lex Fridman (04:51.880)
or the people where you are currently in your life?
Lex Fridman (04:55.720)
Or is it also dependent on the full trajectory
Carl Hart (04:58.360)
of your psychology of your life experiences
Lex Fridman (05:00.640)
of your parents or the people you came up with
Carl Hart (05:03.040)
of the trauma you've experienced
Lex Fridman (05:04.880)
of the hopes and dreams that were crushed
Carl Hart (05:07.160)
or not or the opposite or the success levels
Lex Fridman (05:10.880)
or all those things.
Carl Hart (05:11.760)
Like what are the interesting sort of landscape
Lex Fridman (05:15.600)
of experiences that contribute to how you actually feel
Lex Fridman (05:19.480)
when you take a drug?
Lex Fridman (05:20.440)
Right on.
Lex Fridman (05:21.400)
So all of those things are important.
Lex Fridman (05:23.160)
But you know, like if someone had trauma in childhood
Lex Fridman (05:26.200)
and they did the work and they dealt with it
Lex Fridman (05:28.200)
that's not so important in this case.
Lex Fridman (05:30.520)
But if they didn't deal with it
Lex Fridman (05:31.760)
and that trauma is being triggered in that event
Carl Hart (05:34.880)
in that moment, then it's important.
Lex Fridman (05:38.120)
But let's just take somebody like me.
Carl Hart (05:40.840)
I'm 54 years old.
Lex Fridman (05:42.000)
I'll be 55 this month actually.
Lex Fridman (05:43.640)
And you know, I've done a lot of work
Lex Fridman (05:47.040)
in terms of figuring out who I am
Lex Fridman (05:50.080)
and I'm comfortable with myself.
Lex Fridman (05:52.600)
And I know how to set limits for whatever it is I'm doing.
Lex Fridman (05:59.000)
And so I know I need to work out.
Lex Fridman (06:02.040)
I know I need to eat well.
Carl Hart (06:03.480)
I know I need to sleep well.
Lex Fridman (06:05.240)
I know I need to be in an environment
Carl Hart (06:07.840)
with people within my trust.
Lex Fridman (06:10.880)
And then if all of those things are met,
Carl Hart (06:13.160)
oh, it's likely to be a good time.
Lex Fridman (06:16.560)
You know what I'm saying?
Lex Fridman (06:17.400)
But if I haven't slept, if I haven't worked out,
Lex Fridman (06:20.000)
if I don't feel good, it won't be a good time.
Lex Fridman (06:23.400)
But I try and be responsible
Lex Fridman (06:25.840)
and take care of my eating habits, sleeping habits,
Carl Hart (06:30.920)
make sure my responsibilities are taken care of.
Lex Fridman (06:34.080)
And so when I'm in that moment, I just enjoy that moment.
Carl Hart (06:39.080)
I'm there.
Lex Fridman (06:39.920)
I'm not thinking about a bill that I didn't pay.
Carl Hart (06:42.880)
I'm not thinking about, oh, I forgot to do this for my kid.
Lex Fridman (06:46.760)
I'm not thinking about that
Carl Hart (06:47.840)
because all of those things are taken care of.
Lex Fridman (06:49.760)
If they're not taken care of, it will impact the experience
Lex Fridman (06:53.080)
and it may negatively impact the experience.
Lex Fridman (06:57.640)
Well, that is the counterintuitive,
Carl Hart (06:59.480)
even controversial finding from your recent book.
Lex Fridman (07:03.040)
So we should kind of, I know it seems obvious to you,
Lex Fridman (07:06.840)
but I think a lot of people hearing this
Lex Fridman (07:08.640)
would think it's quite non obvious.
Lex Fridman (07:11.120)
So in your new book, Drug Use for Grownups,
Lex Fridman (07:15.360)
you write for the finding section.
Carl Hart (07:18.000)
I discovered that the predominant effects produced
Lex Fridman (07:20.480)
by the drugs discussed in this book are positive.
Carl Hart (07:24.160)
It didn't matter whether the drug in question was cannabis,
Lex Fridman (07:27.320)
cocaine, heroin, methamphetamine, or psilocybin.
Carl Hart (07:31.360)
Overwhelmingly, consumers expressed feeling more altruistic,
Lex Fridman (07:35.280)
empathetic, euphoric, focused, grateful, and tranquil.
Carl Hart (07:39.320)
They also experienced enhanced social interactions,
Lex Fridman (07:41.840)
a great sense of purpose and meaning,
Lex Fridman (07:43.640)
and increased sexual intimacy and performance.
Lex Fridman (07:46.320)
This constellation of findings
Carl Hart (07:49.480)
challenged my original beliefs about drugs and their effects.
Lex Fridman (07:52.960)
I had been indoctrinated to be biased
Carl Hart (07:55.560)
toward the negative effects of drug use.
Lex Fridman (07:57.520)
But over the past two plus decades,
Carl Hart (08:00.040)
I had gained a deeper, more nuanced understanding.
Lex Fridman (08:03.000)
These words are very counterintuitive to a lot of people.
Carl Hart (08:09.400)
I think like you also mentioned in the book and elsewhere,
Lex Fridman (08:12.800)
people have come around to maybe psilocybin
Carl Hart (08:16.720)
being one such drug, maybe cannabis being one such drug,
Lex Fridman (08:20.680)
but you also mentioned other drugs
Carl Hart (08:22.440)
like cocaine, heroin, methamphetamine.
Lex Fridman (08:26.520)
Can you just linger on this point?
Lex Fridman (08:28.760)
How do we get the positive effects of those drugs
Lex Fridman (08:33.040)
and why in the media,
Lex Fridman (08:34.520)
and the general conception we have of these drugs
Lex Fridman (08:36.840)
is that they were going to make a bad life worse
Lex Fridman (08:41.480)
or ruin a good life?
Lex Fridman (08:43.360)
Well, so your first question was,
Lex Fridman (08:44.920)
how do we harness the positive effects?
Lex Fridman (08:47.560)
How do we increase the likelihood
Lex Fridman (08:49.880)
of getting the positive effects?
Lex Fridman (08:51.120)
Again, like I said,
Carl Hart (08:53.000)
we wanna make sure that people are responsible
Lex Fridman (08:55.640)
and they've handled their responsibilities,
Carl Hart (08:57.760)
make sure they eat well, sleep well, exercise,
Lex Fridman (09:00.240)
all of those sorts of things play an important role.
Lex Fridman (09:03.240)
And also if they know exactly what they're getting
Lex Fridman (09:06.280)
and then they're not paranoid about,
Carl Hart (09:08.320)
it's something contaminated in some adulterant in my drug.
Lex Fridman (09:13.640)
So you wanna make sure you know exactly what you have.
Carl Hart (09:16.080)
Once you satisfy those kinds of things,
Lex Fridman (09:18.800)
you understand the dose and potency,
Carl Hart (09:20.960)
you understand all of those things
Lex Fridman (09:22.480)
to decrease any sort of anxiety you might have
Carl Hart (09:25.560)
about the substance itself, it increases the likelihood
Lex Fridman (09:29.040)
that you will have a better time.
Lex Fridman (09:30.600)
So anxiety is a big one, you need to remove the anxiety.
Lex Fridman (09:33.160)
Anxiety is critical, it's huge.
Carl Hart (09:36.640)
Many of the negative effects that we see with drugs
Lex Fridman (09:39.400)
have to do with anxiety
Lex Fridman (09:41.280)
and not necessarily anxiety because a drug induced it,
Lex Fridman (09:44.600)
it's the anxiety that the situation induced a lot of times.
Lex Fridman (09:49.160)
And then you ask like,
Lex Fridman (09:50.200)
well, why does this sound counterintuitive?
Lex Fridman (09:53.360)
Why does the media report differently?
Lex Fridman (09:59.040)
Well, because there's money in reporting
Carl Hart (10:01.160)
the negative effects almost exclusively.
Lex Fridman (10:04.280)
Think about writing a newspaper article.
Carl Hart (10:08.280)
It's really easy to get the population all ginned up
Lex Fridman (10:11.640)
about something like an opioid crisis, overdoses,
Lex Fridman (10:14.960)
and you don't even have to tell people
Lex Fridman (10:17.640)
how to keep people safe if you're talking about overdose.
Carl Hart (10:20.960)
You don't even have to say why people are dying
Lex Fridman (10:23.720)
from overdoses.
Carl Hart (10:24.720)
Like overdoses in our country happen largely
Lex Fridman (10:27.600)
because people get contaminated drugs,
Carl Hart (10:30.200)
because people are combining sedatives
Lex Fridman (10:33.360)
and they don't know that this enhances
Carl Hart (10:36.080)
the respiratory depressing effects of drugs.
Lex Fridman (10:38.640)
They don't know.
Lex Fridman (10:39.560)
But when you read these newspaper articles,
Lex Fridman (10:41.960)
they don't say this.
Carl Hart (10:43.240)
They don't say how to keep people safe.
Lex Fridman (10:45.600)
All they do is frighten the population.
Carl Hart (10:48.640)
There's money in that.
Lex Fridman (10:49.480)
And then we think about people who write TV shows,
Carl Hart (10:54.120)
the people who write movies.
Lex Fridman (10:56.440)
Most of the stuff written about drugs is just bullshit.
Carl Hart (11:01.120)
I think about, I love going to watch comedians
Lex Fridman (11:04.000)
and the comedians when they talk about drugs,
Carl Hart (11:06.200)
again, most of the things that they say about drugs
Lex Fridman (11:09.520)
is bullshit.
Carl Hart (11:10.560)
I mean, you can say the stupidest things about drugs
Lex Fridman (11:13.640)
and be believed.
Carl Hart (11:14.720)
You can write a movie and you don't even have
Lex Fridman (11:19.000)
to develop your characters.
Carl Hart (11:20.720)
If you throw drugs into the mix, you say,
Lex Fridman (11:23.200)
oh, he's a drug dealer.
Carl Hart (11:24.520)
You don't have to say anything
Lex Fridman (11:25.960)
about that person's background
Carl Hart (11:27.200)
or about that person being developed as a character
Lex Fridman (11:31.280)
because the population think they know.
Lex Fridman (11:33.520)
And the writer is lazy
Lex Fridman (11:37.000)
and does not do any sort of development.
Carl Hart (11:39.520)
Just think about any more.
Lex Fridman (11:42.720)
Oh, let's think about the Sopranos, for example.
Carl Hart (11:45.760)
They have a new program coming out.
Lex Fridman (11:48.240)
So let's think about them for a second.
Carl Hart (11:50.360)
The Sopranos is a show in which the lead character,
Lex Fridman (11:54.840)
Tony, kills people for a living.
Lex Fridman (11:57.360)
That's what he does, right?
Lex Fridman (11:59.920)
This character actually made a sympathetic for him
Carl Hart (12:05.480)
when he is besmirching and denigrating his nephew,
Lex Fridman (12:10.840)
Christopher, for using a drug.
Lex Fridman (12:13.200)
And we feel sympathy for Tony, the character,
Lex Fridman (12:17.760)
who just killed somebody, who is a horrible person,
Lex Fridman (12:22.520)
but being a drug user is a worse person.
Lex Fridman (12:26.760)
That's what the show wants us to believe.
Carl Hart (12:28.760)
Tony's a racist, murderer, all of these things,
Lex Fridman (12:32.840)
but we feel sympathy for him.
Lex Fridman (12:34.320)
But we don't feel sympathy for anyone who uses drugs.
Lex Fridman (12:38.120)
That's some crazy shit.
Carl Hart (12:39.600)
I mean, and the American public buys into it.
Lex Fridman (12:42.400)
That is, that's wild to me,
Lex Fridman (12:44.640)
and that we all bought into this crap.
Lex Fridman (12:47.040)
And that's what we do in damn near everything
Carl Hart (12:50.520)
that's in film, on television.
Lex Fridman (12:52.840)
And it's like, what's wrong with you people?
Lex Fridman (12:55.960)
So why aren't there not more stories
Lex Fridman (12:59.680)
of grownups using drugs?
Carl Hart (13:03.080)
The full spectrum of drugs that we're talking about.
Lex Fridman (13:05.400)
Why isn't there?
Lex Fridman (13:06.520)
So we talked offline about Joe Rogan.
Lex Fridman (13:09.040)
He's somebody who started smoking weed later in life,
Carl Hart (13:12.480)
which is an interesting story.
Lex Fridman (13:13.560)
Like when he's already very successful
Lex Fridman (13:16.040)
and he has a very interesting way
Lex Fridman (13:17.320)
of describing his experience with weed,
Carl Hart (13:19.160)
that it was like enhancing just productivity.
Lex Fridman (13:22.280)
It actually, I think he says,
Carl Hart (13:23.400)
like it increases anxiety a little bit
Lex Fridman (13:25.200)
in a way that was productive, like paranoia, not anxiety.
Lex Fridman (13:29.480)
And so that's an interesting story of an adult
Lex Fridman (13:32.320)
talking about the use of weed for productivity purposes.
Lex Fridman (13:36.880)
But you don't get those stories very often.
Lex Fridman (13:39.080)
Why?
Carl Hart (13:40.960)
I think fear.
Lex Fridman (13:41.960)
People are afraid that they will be belittled, dismissed,
Carl Hart (13:46.600)
all of these things, that's a drug addict
Lex Fridman (13:48.360)
or some negative thing, but cannabis is lightweight.
Carl Hart (13:51.240)
Come on, you can admit cannabis these days.
Lex Fridman (13:54.560)
And the fact that I don't know when Joe started,
Lex Fridman (13:58.360)
but if he did start later in life, that's cool.
Lex Fridman (14:01.440)
I mean, you are mature, developed,
Carl Hart (14:04.920)
you have developed some responsibility skills,
Lex Fridman (14:08.800)
all of these kinds of things.
Carl Hart (14:09.960)
This is a good thing.
Lex Fridman (14:12.080)
You don't want people to engage in any kind of behaviors
Carl Hart (14:17.160)
when they're young and immature
Lex Fridman (14:19.200)
that might put them in harm's way.
Lex Fridman (14:21.720)
And so we want people to be developed at least.
Lex Fridman (14:26.640)
I mean, whether it's being in a relationship with a partner
Carl Hart (14:32.800)
or whether it's driving an automobile,
Lex Fridman (14:35.520)
all of these things that can be potentially harmful,
Lex Fridman (14:38.160)
but extremely beneficial
Lex Fridman (14:40.800)
if you are responsible enough to handle them.
Carl Hart (14:44.000)
You want people to be mature, so that's a good thing.
Lex Fridman (14:46.720)
So how are you supposed to, like somebody like me,
Carl Hart (14:49.920)
somebody like Joe, how are you supposed to understand
Lex Fridman (14:52.760)
what the dangers are, what the negative effects are?
Lex Fridman (14:55.240)
So you said automobile, relationships.
Lex Fridman (14:59.240)
I think I have a reasonably, it's crappy,
Lex Fridman (15:03.520)
but reasonable understanding of all the troubles
Lex Fridman (15:06.400)
I can get with in relationships and what things to avoid.
Carl Hart (15:09.800)
Same thing with driving a car.
Lex Fridman (15:11.640)
I have no idea.
Carl Hart (15:12.880)
I'm in the dark in terms of what are the things
Lex Fridman (15:16.960)
to be careful about, what to avoid with drug use
Carl Hart (15:21.600)
when we're talking about the heavy drugs.
Lex Fridman (15:24.080)
Have you ever drank alcohol?
Carl Hart (15:25.880)
Yes.
Lex Fridman (15:26.720)
That's drug use.
Carl Hart (15:27.560)
I know, I drank a lot.
Lex Fridman (15:28.840)
But I understand that because culturally I came up,
Carl Hart (15:31.880)
I was taught a lot of like, this is what you don't do
Lex Fridman (15:35.880)
and this is what you do.
Carl Hart (15:37.320)
This is when you drink a lot.
Lex Fridman (15:38.640)
I mean, you see the effects, you see the,
Carl Hart (15:40.760)
there's a lot of negative examples,
Lex Fridman (15:42.280)
there's positive examples of social stimulant.
Carl Hart (15:45.080)
There's examples of great artists using alcohol
Lex Fridman (15:49.240)
to sort of, I don't know, to help be the catalyst
Carl Hart (15:52.960)
for that magic moment, for all of that.
Lex Fridman (15:55.840)
I have some examples now, especially in America,
Carl Hart (15:59.480)
the same with weed, more and more you're starting
Lex Fridman (16:02.320)
to get a lot of stories of psychedelics of different kinds.
Carl Hart (16:07.200)
There's psilocybin where you have mushrooms
Lex Fridman (16:12.280)
or even MDMA used sort of positively.
Carl Hart (16:15.400)
There's kind of like negative stories from the past
Lex Fridman (16:19.680)
about acid, about LSD being used,
Carl Hart (16:22.720)
ultimately for productive ends,
Lex Fridman (16:26.760)
but it destroyed the person.
Carl Hart (16:28.040)
That's kind of how the story goes.
Lex Fridman (16:29.480)
It was like a trade off.
Lex Fridman (16:30.880)
You take, it's like, what is it?
Lex Fridman (16:33.560)
Robert Johnson sold his soul to the devil to learn guitar.
Carl Hart (16:36.760)
Like it's a trade off.
Lex Fridman (16:37.800)
You can take the drug, you're gonna create some good stuff,
Lex Fridman (16:40.160)
but you have to pay for it.
Lex Fridman (16:41.440)
Those are the stories.
Carl Hart (16:42.440)
That's some bullshit we tell children, come on.
Lex Fridman (16:45.120)
That's exactly right.
Carl Hart (16:46.320)
You're exactly right.
Lex Fridman (16:47.360)
These fairy tales, these cautionary tales
Carl Hart (16:49.760)
that we tell people, we have to grow up.
Lex Fridman (16:52.840)
That's what the book is about, drug use for grownups.
Carl Hart (16:56.360)
We tell people, Pinocchio, if you lie, your nose grow.
Lex Fridman (17:02.320)
Who believes that?
Lex Fridman (17:03.160)
Who believes that there are fairy tales?
Lex Fridman (17:04.760)
But that's exactly what these stories are.
Carl Hart (17:06.800)
They're in the same vein as those kind of stories,
Lex Fridman (17:11.040)
as Pinocchio.
Carl Hart (17:13.520)
Like you said, when you were learning about alcohol,
Lex Fridman (17:16.240)
you were told what to do, what not to do, so forth.
Carl Hart (17:20.240)
The same can be true with MDMA, with cocaine, with heroin.
Lex Fridman (17:24.680)
The same is true, because there are some times
Carl Hart (17:28.360)
when there are some potential dangers that you should avoid.
Lex Fridman (17:32.200)
And I wrote about some of them,
Carl Hart (17:36.040)
certainly in my work, just throughout all of my writings.
Lex Fridman (17:39.320)
I talk about those kinds of things
Lex Fridman (17:40.800)
and other people talk about these things.
Lex Fridman (17:43.040)
The problem is, is that we're getting our education
Carl Hart (17:47.920)
from bullshit sources, from people who believe
Lex Fridman (17:51.920)
in this kind of Pinocchio thing.
Lex Fridman (17:54.840)
And it just does not fit with the evidence.
Lex Fridman (17:58.120)
And the evidence we all publish in the scientific literature,
Carl Hart (18:01.960)
all these things that I'm saying,
Lex Fridman (18:04.160)
it's there in the literature.
Carl Hart (18:05.840)
I mean, at a place like Columbia,
Lex Fridman (18:07.840)
we give these drugs thousands of doses every year.
Lex Fridman (18:13.360)
Do you think we would be doing this?
Lex Fridman (18:15.840)
And we do this with research grants
Carl Hart (18:18.200)
that's funded by the public, taxpayers dollars.
Lex Fridman (18:22.400)
Do you think we would be allowed to do this
Lex Fridman (18:25.240)
if these drugs were so dangerous?
Lex Fridman (18:29.040)
It's just nonsense.
Carl Hart (18:30.920)
I mean, and the drugs we're talking about,
Lex Fridman (18:33.360)
they are all approved for medical use
Carl Hart (18:37.320)
somewhere in the world.
Lex Fridman (18:40.400)
And the studies you conduct are basically
Carl Hart (18:42.680)
asking what kinds of questions.
Lex Fridman (18:44.520)
So you take the full range of drugs you're talking about
Carl Hart (18:49.160)
from marijuana to psilocybin to MDMA to cocaine and heroin.
Lex Fridman (18:53.680)
What is the study looking at?
Carl Hart (18:55.000)
Like what the actual experience with the positive
Lex Fridman (18:56.920)
and negative effects of the experience on the drug are
Carl Hart (18:59.560)
in the control conditions.
Lex Fridman (19:01.200)
Yeah, so we did these kinds of experiments with alcohol,
Carl Hart (19:05.280)
nicotine, all these drugs in order to have
Lex Fridman (19:08.520)
an empirical database to tell people
Carl Hart (19:12.120)
exactly what these drugs do and what they don't do.
Lex Fridman (19:15.040)
The conditions under which the drugs
Carl Hart (19:17.640)
will produce positive effects,
Lex Fridman (19:19.240)
the conditions under which the drugs were more likely
Carl Hart (19:21.880)
to produce negative effects.
Lex Fridman (19:23.680)
All of this information is important for society to know.
Lex Fridman (19:28.040)
And we do know, and that's why we're collecting the data.
Lex Fridman (19:31.920)
We're collecting the data to help us with treatment
Carl Hart (19:35.920)
if someone is having problems with these data.
Lex Fridman (19:38.720)
Hopefully we'll understand more about how to help them
Carl Hart (19:45.720)
deal with their problems based on some of the research
Lex Fridman (19:48.640)
that we're doing.
Lex Fridman (19:49.480)
So what kind of negative effects are we looking out for?
Lex Fridman (19:51.960)
Like what are the properties of drugs
Lex Fridman (19:53.880)
we should be careful about?
Lex Fridman (19:55.000)
Is it addictive properties?
Lex Fridman (19:56.680)
How addictive it is, how destructive or painful,
Lex Fridman (1:00:01.520)
I mean, other than that, I dig what's that about.
Carl Hart (1:00:05.320)
Yeah, I don't understand that, but that's what they do.
Lex Fridman (1:00:08.000)
Again, this sort of glorification of cops,
Carl Hart (1:00:13.720)
that's dangerous for a society.
Lex Fridman (1:00:16.280)
And those cats who do that kind of thing,
Carl Hart (1:00:19.280)
I have a problem with that.
Lex Fridman (1:00:21.000)
Is it all sort of to push back a little bit?
Carl Hart (1:00:23.520)
Because I come from the Soviet Union
Lex Fridman (1:00:25.120)
where there's a huge amount of corruption.
Lex Fridman (1:00:26.880)
And when I see what's going on with cops in this country,
Lex Fridman (1:00:30.640)
there's a lot of proper criticism you can apply,
Lex Fridman (1:00:32.880)
but like relative to other places,
Lex Fridman (1:00:36.120)
this is, well, on so many ways, this country is incredible.
Carl Hart (1:00:40.560)
Is your criticism towards cops
Lex Fridman (1:00:44.040)
or towards what cops are asked to do?
Carl Hart (1:00:46.320)
Yeah, towards what cops are asked to do.
Lex Fridman (1:00:49.560)
Cops provide the shield for politicians and those in power.
Carl Hart (1:00:54.560)
Absolutely, because I was in the military,
Lex Fridman (1:00:57.120)
I spent four years in the military
Lex Fridman (1:00:58.760)
and I did what I was told to do.
Lex Fridman (1:01:00.880)
And I was ignorant and thought I was doing the right thing.
Lex Fridman (1:01:06.000)
And I did what I was told to do.
Lex Fridman (1:01:08.240)
And so just like these guys are doing what they're told to do.
Lex Fridman (1:01:11.640)
But no, my real beef is with the power structure,
Lex Fridman (1:01:15.160)
the folks who are telling them what to do.
Lex Fridman (1:01:17.640)
And also the folks who go play cops on television.
Lex Fridman (1:01:22.640)
That imagery, that sort of glorifying cops,
Carl Hart (1:01:28.000)
that's a problem in a democracy.
Lex Fridman (1:01:30.560)
Yeah, all sides of the glorification
Carl Hart (1:01:32.680)
of the drug war is a problem.
Lex Fridman (1:01:35.160)
Yeah.
Carl Hart (1:01:37.520)
If I can just linger on a little longer
Lex Fridman (1:01:40.240)
in terms of the effects of drugs,
Carl Hart (1:01:42.360)
on the positive like mind expanding components of it,
Lex Fridman (1:01:46.560)
what have mind altering drugs teach you
Lex Fridman (1:01:53.840)
about the human mind?
Lex Fridman (1:01:55.240)
Sort of from a neuroscience, not even like a biochemical,
Lex Fridman (1:01:59.920)
but just like the human mind is amazing, right?
Lex Fridman (1:02:02.960)
The places it can go.
Carl Hart (1:02:06.280)
Like, are there some insights you've learned
Lex Fridman (1:02:09.040)
from studying drugs about the mind?
Carl Hart (1:02:11.200)
Yeah, can I start from a neurochemical perspective first
Lex Fridman (1:02:15.000)
and then we'll go larger?
Carl Hart (1:02:16.720)
Just from a neurochemical perspective.
Lex Fridman (1:02:19.280)
I mean, everything I know about the brain,
Carl Hart (1:02:22.440)
I learned through drugs because of my interest in drugs.
Lex Fridman (1:02:25.800)
So I learned a lot about dopamine neurons
Carl Hart (1:02:28.280)
in certain regions of the brain, about neuro epinephrine
Lex Fridman (1:02:30.840)
neurons and a wide range of other sort of neural transmission
Carl Hart (1:02:35.840)
happened because of drugs.
Lex Fridman (1:02:37.120)
And so that's a really valuable tool, lessons for me.
Lex Fridman (1:02:41.800)
But then when we think that we move out a bit
Lex Fridman (1:02:45.160)
and we think more globally,
Lex Fridman (1:02:46.360)
what have I learned in terms of the mind from drugs?
Lex Fridman (1:02:52.720)
I have really learned how to be more forgiving of people
Lex Fridman (1:02:59.800)
and myself and tolerant, more tolerant of people
Lex Fridman (1:03:06.680)
and certainly learned a lot more about empathy
Carl Hart (1:03:10.680)
as a result of drug use.
Lex Fridman (1:03:16.000)
And like I said earlier, I'm learning what we can be
Carl Hart (1:03:22.000)
as a species and it's quite incredible,
Lex Fridman (1:03:25.960)
but because of drugs.
Carl Hart (1:03:27.520)
Yeah, there's a certain property of drugs in different ways.
Lex Fridman (1:03:29.920)
They take you out of your body,
Carl Hart (1:03:31.280)
like they help you evaluate yourself
Lex Fridman (1:03:34.600)
from like a third person perspective.
Carl Hart (1:03:36.640)
It's almost like you have a consciousness in here
Lex Fridman (1:03:38.560)
and you get to step outside of it a little bit.
Carl Hart (1:03:41.040)
I mean, that's kind of what meditation does too.
Lex Fridman (1:03:42.960)
All of these processes,
Carl Hart (1:03:44.560)
that's what a hell of a good workout does too.
Lex Fridman (1:03:47.320)
It makes you evaluate yourself and then somehow
Carl Hart (1:03:50.640)
that allows you to be forgiving to yourself
Lex Fridman (1:03:54.840)
and forgiving to others, sort of empathize.
Carl Hart (1:03:57.680)
It trains that part of your brain.
Lex Fridman (1:03:59.720)
So stepping outside of yourself,
Carl Hart (1:04:01.240)
not taking yourself too seriously, that process.
Lex Fridman (1:04:03.760)
And different drugs do that in different ways.
Carl Hart (1:04:06.280)
Obviously, I don't know from personal experience
Lex Fridman (1:04:07.920)
on some of them, but I'm now curious,
Carl Hart (1:04:14.680)
it's unfortunate that the Hollywood and different stories
Lex Fridman (1:04:18.760)
we have demonize certain drugs and sort of basically,
Carl Hart (1:04:23.800)
I don't know, make it difficult for people like me
Lex Fridman (1:04:25.440)
to explore those ideas, but then I'm really thankful
Carl Hart (1:04:28.440)
for people like you who are pushing the science forward
Lex Fridman (1:04:30.600)
and are unafraid to talk about this kind of stuff.
Carl Hart (1:04:34.960)
Cause I'm really fascinated with consciousness
Lex Fridman (1:04:36.840)
on the engineering side.
Carl Hart (1:04:38.160)
I really want to build robots that have elements
Lex Fridman (1:04:42.080)
of intelligence, emotion, even consciousness.
Lex Fridman (1:04:45.040)
And for that, we need to understand it in ourselves
Lex Fridman (1:04:47.640)
and drugs is all the different kinds of drugs.
Carl Hart (1:04:51.080)
If you safely seems like an incredible tool
Lex Fridman (1:04:53.920)
to understand ourselves.
Lex Fridman (1:04:55.600)
And if we're limiting ourselves from certain drugs
Lex Fridman (1:04:58.080)
because of certain political games that are being played,
Carl Hart (1:05:01.600)
it's sad.
Lex Fridman (1:05:03.200)
And people know this, a lot of middle to upper class
Carl Hart (1:05:06.880)
people know this, the illicit drug trade business
Lex Fridman (1:05:10.520)
is a multi million dollar industry,
Carl Hart (1:05:12.760)
multi billion dollar industry that could not be supported
Lex Fridman (1:05:17.080)
by people who are poor.
Lex Fridman (1:05:19.080)
And that has to be supported by a lot of customers.
Lex Fridman (1:05:23.800)
And a lot of people around the world know this,
Carl Hart (1:05:27.640)
they're in the closet and in the book,
Lex Fridman (1:05:30.080)
I call for them to get out of the closet.
Lex Fridman (1:05:32.680)
So we can start being more honest
Lex Fridman (1:05:35.280)
and we can take the pressure off of those people
Carl Hart (1:05:38.440)
who are not as privileged.
Lex Fridman (1:05:40.720)
Like I said, you're brave, you're bold.
Carl Hart (1:05:43.720)
I gotta ask you for some advice.
Lex Fridman (1:05:45.560)
What advice would you give to a young person today?
Carl Hart (1:05:48.080)
High school, maybe undergrad, college,
Lex Fridman (1:05:52.040)
thinking about their career,
Carl Hart (1:05:54.280)
thinking about how to live a life they can be proud of.
Lex Fridman (1:05:57.560)
Yeah, whatever career they choose,
Carl Hart (1:06:00.200)
just make sure that they dedicate themselves to it
Lex Fridman (1:06:03.600)
and be the best at what they do first.
Carl Hart (1:06:06.400)
That's what you have to do first.
Lex Fridman (1:06:08.720)
Like people see me advocating for this position.
Carl Hart (1:06:13.240)
30 years of science is in these opinions, this view.
Lex Fridman (1:06:18.760)
And trust me, I would be dismissed
Carl Hart (1:06:21.280)
if I didn't know my shit, if I was not.
Lex Fridman (1:06:24.040)
Yeah, you did the work, you proved yourself,
Carl Hart (1:06:26.200)
you're legit by the people in the eyes of the people
Lex Fridman (1:06:30.480)
who know.
Carl Hart (1:06:31.320)
Absolutely, so that's the main thing
Lex Fridman (1:06:33.360)
that I would encourage people to do,
Carl Hart (1:06:34.920)
really know your craft.
Lex Fridman (1:06:36.480)
If you know your craft,
Lex Fridman (1:06:38.680)
and then maybe you will be a service
Lex Fridman (1:06:42.240)
to your fellow citizens.
Carl Hart (1:06:45.880)
There are so many people out here faking the funk
Lex Fridman (1:06:48.240)
and they don't know their craft
Lex Fridman (1:06:50.360)
and they're not a service to the people
Lex Fridman (1:06:52.920)
that they claim to serve.
Lex Fridman (1:06:54.560)
And that's a problem.
Lex Fridman (1:06:55.800)
And when you have a fair number of people
Carl Hart (1:06:59.280)
like that in positions of power,
Lex Fridman (1:07:01.960)
your society is going to crumble.
Lex Fridman (1:07:04.760)
What about the scientific path?
Lex Fridman (1:07:06.840)
You recommend people get a PhD?
Carl Hart (1:07:09.760)
Not necessarily, like my own children,
Lex Fridman (1:07:13.040)
I don't recommend that.
Lex Fridman (1:07:14.400)
So science can, certainly my science
Lex Fridman (1:07:19.200)
can be a very petty sort of space to be in.
Lex Fridman (1:07:22.360)
But it was the only sort of path that I had.
Lex Fridman (1:07:26.720)
And so I had to do it.
Lex Fridman (1:07:29.040)
But no, I would really encourage people
Lex Fridman (1:07:34.560)
to just do something that they enjoy
Lex Fridman (1:07:38.160)
and something that makes them happy.
Lex Fridman (1:07:40.520)
Because the greater number of happy people in our society,
Carl Hart (1:07:45.920)
the better off we all are.
Lex Fridman (1:07:48.960)
All right, since you mentioned happiness,
Carl Hart (1:07:51.000)
gotta ask you about the pursuit of happiness
Lex Fridman (1:07:53.360)
and the ridiculous question about meaning.
Lex Fridman (1:07:57.160)
Do you think this life has meaning?
Lex Fridman (1:07:59.240)
What do you think is the meaning of life?
Carl Hart (1:08:01.200)
I'm sorry.
Lex Fridman (1:08:02.880)
I certainly hope it has meaning.
Carl Hart (1:08:04.560)
I mean, I'm certainly trying to live my life
Lex Fridman (1:08:07.240)
like it has meaning.
Carl Hart (1:08:08.400)
You know, I really love my life now.
Lex Fridman (1:08:12.200)
I just got back from Geneva.
Carl Hart (1:08:14.680)
I spent the summer abroad in Europe
Lex Fridman (1:08:17.800)
and trying to be in a more civilized place
Carl Hart (1:08:20.560)
where you can enjoy yourself as a responsible adult.
Lex Fridman (1:08:25.280)
And then it allowed me to decompress
Lex Fridman (1:08:27.560)
and then come back here.
Lex Fridman (1:08:29.840)
The thing about coming back here
Carl Hart (1:08:31.200)
is that you have to be ready to fight.
Lex Fridman (1:08:33.160)
And I don't wanna fight anymore.
Carl Hart (1:08:35.520)
I just wanna be able to help a society and people.
Lex Fridman (1:08:39.680)
And so I'll have to keep a place in Europe
Carl Hart (1:08:42.920)
to go and decompress and then come back
Lex Fridman (1:08:46.320)
to be able to tolerate the situation.
Lex Fridman (1:08:48.120)
So life for me has a lot of meaning.
Lex Fridman (1:08:51.400)
I'm enjoying life.
Lex Fridman (1:08:53.320)
And this is like the greatest,
Lex Fridman (1:08:57.000)
the best part of my life ever right now at this moment.
Lex Fridman (1:09:00.120)
So it's the joy,
Lex Fridman (1:09:01.920)
but you also enjoy the fight a little bit or?
Carl Hart (1:09:03.920)
No, I don't really, I'm tired of that.
Lex Fridman (1:09:06.040)
You know, it's like, why?
Carl Hart (1:09:08.480)
You're trying to,
Lex Fridman (1:09:11.480)
I'm trying to help people to see how they can be happy
Lex Fridman (1:09:16.480)
and then people are fighting me on that.
Lex Fridman (1:09:19.320)
I don't wanna be happy.
Carl Hart (1:09:20.200)
I wanna be ignorant.
Lex Fridman (1:09:21.120)
Leave me alone.
Carl Hart (1:09:22.280)
That's what people are saying.
Lex Fridman (1:09:24.120)
Well, so what is the source of joy for you
Lex Fridman (1:09:25.840)
when you decompress?
Lex Fridman (1:09:27.440)
MDMA is a source, you know,
Lex Fridman (1:09:30.440)
and a place where you don't have to worry about laws,
Lex Fridman (1:09:34.880)
that's like Europe.
Carl Hart (1:09:35.880)
You can feel really free.
Lex Fridman (1:09:37.560)
Yeah, heroin can even be a nice space
Carl Hart (1:09:41.960)
if I'm in my own head,
Lex Fridman (1:09:44.320)
but with others, MDMA is great.
Carl Hart (1:09:48.520)
So, but good friends, good food.
Lex Fridman (1:09:52.840)
The usual.
Carl Hart (1:09:53.680)
Yeah, yeah.
Lex Fridman (1:09:55.120)
Family, love.
Carl Hart (1:09:56.160)
Yeah, that's right.
Lex Fridman (1:09:57.800)
Carl, you're an incredible human being.
Carl Hart (1:09:59.560)
You really make me think.
Lex Fridman (1:10:00.680)
Everyone who listens to this,
Carl Hart (1:10:04.520)
I mean, I'm really glad you exist.
Lex Fridman (1:10:07.320)
I know you say you don't like the fight,
Lex Fridman (1:10:08.800)
but I'm really glad you're fighting the fight
Lex Fridman (1:10:10.400)
because it's gonna help a lot of people.
Carl Hart (1:10:11.920)
It's gonna help, at the very least,
Lex Fridman (1:10:15.160)
help a lot of people think
Lex Fridman (1:10:16.880)
and challenge the conventions of the day
Lex Fridman (1:10:19.440)
and maybe challenge them to find joy.
Carl Hart (1:10:22.040)
I really appreciate you spending your valuable time with me.
Lex Fridman (1:10:24.720)
This was an awesome conversation.
Carl Hart (1:10:26.120)
Thank you so much for talking to me.
Lex Fridman (1:10:27.200)
Thank you for having me, man.
Carl Hart (1:10:29.480)
Thanks for listening to this conversation with Carl Hart.
Lex Fridman (1:10:32.840)
To support this podcast,
Carl Hart (1:10:34.080)
please check out our sponsors in the description.
Lex Fridman (1:10:36.840)
And now let me leave you with some words from Frank Zappa.
Carl Hart (1:10:40.280)
A drug is not bad.
Lex Fridman (1:10:41.800)
A drug is a chemical compound.
Carl Hart (1:10:44.160)
The problem comes in when people who take drugs
Lex Fridman (1:10:47.400)
treat them like a license to behave like an asshole.
Carl Hart (1:10:50.160)
Thank you for listening and hope to see you next time.
Lex Fridman (20:01.000)
whatever the withdrawal processes,
Lex Fridman (20:06.000)
what kind of things are we looking out for?
Lex Fridman (20:07.960)
Yeah, those are certain kind of questions
Carl Hart (20:09.760)
we certainly have asked because like something like
Lex Fridman (20:12.760)
crack cocaine versus alcohol or heroin
Carl Hart (20:16.720)
when it comes to withdrawal of physical dependence.
Lex Fridman (20:20.560)
Like cocaine has a very limited sort of withdrawal symptoms.
Carl Hart (20:24.920)
I mean, it's hard to see.
Lex Fridman (20:26.720)
Same is true with methamphetamine.
Lex Fridman (20:28.040)
But with heroin, you certainly can see a withdrawal syndrome
Lex Fridman (20:32.040)
that's unpleasant, but with alcohol that withdrawal
Carl Hart (20:36.960)
can actually kill you.
Lex Fridman (20:39.040)
So heroin is unpleasant and not lovely,
Lex Fridman (20:42.400)
but with alcohol withdrawal, that's the one,
Lex Fridman (20:44.560)
that's the most dangerous.
Carl Hart (20:45.760)
I mean, all of these kind of questions
Lex Fridman (20:47.560)
we wanna know answers to.
Lex Fridman (20:50.800)
And so when we think about heroin or some other drugs
Lex Fridman (20:55.440)
and you say like, what kind of negative effects?
Carl Hart (20:57.880)
Negative effects, we don't talk about much in the society.
Lex Fridman (21:00.920)
The main thing that really concerns me
Carl Hart (21:02.800)
about like heroin use really is constipation.
Lex Fridman (21:06.240)
So if people are using heroin on a regular basis
Lex Fridman (21:11.200)
and then they have a sort of slowing of their gut modality,
Lex Fridman (21:16.480)
they're likely to increase constipation and that's not good.
Carl Hart (21:20.640)
I mean, for your general health,
Lex Fridman (21:22.920)
but we never talk about that in this society.
Lex Fridman (21:25.640)
And that's probably the most important thing
Lex Fridman (21:28.800)
aside from the fact that people get contaminated street drugs
Lex Fridman (21:32.680)
and that sort of stuff and increase the likelihood
Lex Fridman (21:34.800)
of maybe dying from some contaminant
Carl Hart (21:37.480)
or people who are inexperienced
Lex Fridman (21:40.200)
and they're mixing heroin with other sedatives.
Carl Hart (21:42.600)
That's not good, but the constipation is a huge one.
Lex Fridman (21:47.800)
And then other sort of drugs, negative effects
Carl Hart (21:51.960)
like the amphetamines, all of the amphetamines,
Lex Fridman (21:54.920)
they disrupt sleep, food intake,
Carl Hart (21:56.840)
all of these things are so critical
Lex Fridman (21:59.480)
for sustaining human life, but we never talk about that
Carl Hart (22:02.960)
because it's not as sexy as this nonsense
Lex Fridman (22:05.880)
that people write about like addiction.
Carl Hart (22:08.120)
Addiction has almost nothing to do
Lex Fridman (22:10.080)
with the drugs themselves.
Lex Fridman (22:11.480)
And I make that comment because the vast majority of users
Lex Fridman (22:16.720)
for any drug never become addicted.
Lex Fridman (22:19.600)
And so if the vast majority of users don't become addicted,
Lex Fridman (22:23.040)
then you have to move beyond the drug
Carl Hart (22:25.200)
when you're talking about the phenomenon interest
Lex Fridman (22:27.560)
in this case, addiction.
Lex Fridman (22:29.320)
And so when we think about addiction,
Lex Fridman (22:31.560)
it has much more to do with our psychosocial environment
Carl Hart (22:35.080)
than the drug itself, but that's not sexy.
Lex Fridman (22:38.520)
So addiction is even the property of the environment,
Carl Hart (22:41.280)
not a property, a result of the environment.
Lex Fridman (22:44.320)
It certainly can be.
Carl Hart (22:45.320)
There are people who are suffering
Lex Fridman (22:47.760)
from cooccurring mental illness like depression, anxiety.
Carl Hart (22:52.800)
I mean, that's within the person, of course,
Lex Fridman (22:55.440)
and that increases the likelihood for addiction.
Lex Fridman (22:57.920)
So that's not so much the environment,
Lex Fridman (23:01.440)
but there are people who, for example,
Carl Hart (23:03.640)
they have chronic unrealistic expectations heaped on them.
Lex Fridman (23:07.800)
And those people are more likely
Carl Hart (23:09.800)
to have some problems with drugs.
Lex Fridman (23:12.000)
There are people who are just immature,
Carl Hart (23:14.360)
not having developed responsibility skills.
Lex Fridman (23:18.280)
They are likely to have some problems
Carl Hart (23:20.640)
if they engage in some of these behaviors.
Lex Fridman (23:23.640)
There are people who lost their jobs, COVID,
Carl Hart (23:27.120)
factories went away, a wide range of things.
Lex Fridman (23:30.080)
And those people used to have standing in their community.
Carl Hart (23:33.560)
Now they have none.
Lex Fridman (23:35.520)
Those people might be susceptible
Carl Hart (23:37.680)
to having a drug related problem if they indulge.
Lex Fridman (23:41.240)
All of these kinds of issues are far more important
Carl Hart (23:44.400)
than the drug itself.
Lex Fridman (23:46.480)
And so they could seek escape in a particular drug.
Carl Hart (23:48.560)
I mean, there is a biochemical thing
Lex Fridman (23:51.320)
to each of these drugs,
Lex Fridman (23:52.400)
and some pull you in harder than others
Lex Fridman (23:55.280)
when you need the escape, right?
Carl Hart (23:56.960)
When you're not doing well in life.
Lex Fridman (23:58.880)
What evidence you have for that bullshit?
Carl Hart (24:00.200)
I don't.
Lex Fridman (24:01.040)
Yeah, because there is none.
Carl Hart (24:02.000)
There is absolutely none.
Lex Fridman (24:03.760)
I mean, people say stuff like that,
Lex Fridman (24:06.800)
and that's the problem.
Lex Fridman (24:09.520)
That's precisely the problem.
Carl Hart (24:11.480)
See, I'm operating from limited personal evidence.
Lex Fridman (24:14.840)
Well, this is a problem though,
Lex Fridman (24:16.160)
but we have a scientific database.
Lex Fridman (24:18.680)
We don't need personal evidence for this.
Carl Hart (24:21.240)
We have, in my book, I try to go through some of the science
Lex Fridman (24:24.600)
so people could understand.
Carl Hart (24:26.480)
It's like when you have a math problem,
Lex Fridman (24:29.840)
you don't want people saying,
Carl Hart (24:31.000)
well, you know, I feel like this.
Lex Fridman (24:32.760)
Fuck what you feel.
Lex Fridman (24:33.960)
What does the data say?
Lex Fridman (24:35.960)
So one of the problems with the data,
Lex Fridman (24:38.480)
so one data is there's the studies that you're doing,
Lex Fridman (24:41.800)
this is excellent research work,
Lex Fridman (24:43.240)
but there's some of the drugs that are illegal.
Lex Fridman (24:45.560)
Yes. And some are legal.
Lex Fridman (24:47.960)
So you have just,
Lex Fridman (24:50.400)
it's unfortunate that some of the drugs are illegal
Carl Hart (24:53.160)
or whatever you believe,
Lex Fridman (24:54.920)
but there's not enough of a data set of public
Lex Fridman (24:57.600)
and the open use.
Lex Fridman (24:58.800)
That's like you got in the wild data set.
Carl Hart (25:01.440)
It'd be nice to do, you know, thousands of people
Lex Fridman (25:03.920)
and see from all the different kinds of environments
Lex Fridman (25:06.080)
and all that kind of stuff to get an understanding.
Lex Fridman (25:08.520)
I think we have a substantial database,
Lex Fridman (25:13.240)
but people just ignore it.
Lex Fridman (25:15.320)
Got it.
Carl Hart (25:17.120)
That said, let me ask you the question of legalization.
Lex Fridman (25:21.440)
So should, in your view, all drugs be legalized?
Carl Hart (25:26.200)
The drugs that people seek
Lex Fridman (25:27.920)
certainly should be legally regulated
Lex Fridman (25:30.480)
and available to adults.
Lex Fridman (25:32.400)
So when I say the drugs people seek,
Carl Hart (25:33.960)
like cannabis, MDMA, cocaine, heroin,
Lex Fridman (25:39.840)
those drugs certainly should be available.
Lex Fridman (25:42.280)
And some of the psychedelics that people seek.
Lex Fridman (25:45.480)
Now, the thing about it is that some people think that,
Carl Hart (25:50.480)
oh, it will be a free fall.
Lex Fridman (25:52.080)
These drugs are available to everyone.
Carl Hart (25:54.000)
That's not true.
Lex Fridman (25:54.880)
I mean, there will be age requirements
Lex Fridman (25:57.640)
and maybe other requirements,
Lex Fridman (25:59.320)
but they should be available.
Lex Fridman (26:01.120)
And we should also do like what we do with alcohol.
Lex Fridman (26:04.480)
We can put enough alcohol in a bottle to kill you,
Lex Fridman (26:08.200)
but we don't.
Lex Fridman (26:09.320)
So we regulate it such that the amount that's in the bottle
Carl Hart (26:13.840)
enhances the safety and minimizes the potential harms.
Lex Fridman (26:18.240)
We can do the same thing with these other drugs.
Lex Fridman (26:20.560)
And we can also say, okay,
Lex Fridman (26:22.880)
we won't be selling intravenous preparations
Carl Hart (26:25.960)
of any of these drugs.
Lex Fridman (26:28.760)
The drugs that the routes of administration will be oral
Lex Fridman (26:32.640)
and I don't know, let's say intranasal.
Lex Fridman (26:38.160)
Again, routes of administration,
Carl Hart (26:40.720)
the dose that you have in each unit,
Lex Fridman (26:43.640)
all can minimize harm based on how you do these things.
Lex Fridman (26:49.200)
And we can do that.
Lex Fridman (26:50.040)
We have the technology, we have the knowhow.
Lex Fridman (26:53.760)
So you're actually making me think
Lex Fridman (26:55.040)
about alcohol a little bit.
Lex Fridman (26:56.120)
So if I were, say the drugs become legalized
Lex Fridman (26:58.760)
in the way you're describing,
Lex Fridman (27:00.160)
and me, Lex, wanted to, as an adult,
Lex Fridman (27:04.440)
explore some of these drugs,
Lex Fridman (27:06.360)
what are some procedures do you think
Lex Fridman (27:10.120)
for sort of safe, positive exploration of those drugs?
Carl Hart (27:14.920)
The reason I say I'm thinking about alcohol
Lex Fridman (27:16.840)
because I don't think,
Carl Hart (27:18.280)
besides not putting enough alcohol in a bottle to kill you,
Lex Fridman (27:22.440)
I don't think anyone ever gave me specific instructions.
Carl Hart (27:25.800)
I think it's kind of word of mouth
Lex Fridman (27:27.280)
and examples of people doing the wrong thing.
Carl Hart (27:30.880)
You kind of get it through osmosis that way.
Lex Fridman (27:33.960)
Is that basically what we would do,
Lex Fridman (27:36.280)
this kind of free exploration of use?
Lex Fridman (27:38.200)
No, we have to change our education about these things.
Carl Hart (27:41.280)
I mean, let's just take a drug like cocaine.
Lex Fridman (27:44.200)
Cocaine's a stimulant.
Carl Hart (27:46.600)
You want to make sure people understand
Lex Fridman (27:47.960)
that they shouldn't be taking cocaine near bedtime.
Carl Hart (27:50.400)
You know, they need to get a certain amount of hours of sleep
Lex Fridman (27:54.960)
and they need to get up in the morning.
Carl Hart (27:57.400)
Cocaine probably isn't a drug for you at night.
Lex Fridman (28:00.000)
Certainly not.
Carl Hart (28:01.680)
Certainly not amphetamines at night for most people.
Lex Fridman (28:04.600)
And also, if you want to make sure that you,
Carl Hart (28:06.840)
they need to understand that cocaine
Lex Fridman (28:09.520)
can also disrupt your food intake.
Carl Hart (28:11.800)
Not as much as the amphetamines,
Lex Fridman (28:13.280)
but all of these kinds of things people need to know
Lex Fridman (28:15.800)
so they can have proper nutrition
Lex Fridman (28:18.440)
and they can time their drug use
Carl Hart (28:22.480)
around these other important functions
Lex Fridman (28:25.520)
that's the same human life.
Lex Fridman (28:26.880)
So we have to make sure that we educate people.
Lex Fridman (28:30.920)
We can't just throw people in a while.
Carl Hart (28:34.400)
That's stupid.
Lex Fridman (28:36.120)
I gotta tell you, I mean, for me,
Lex Fridman (28:37.920)
and even given your book and for people listening to this,
Lex Fridman (28:40.400)
it's still tough to hear that the thing
Carl Hart (28:44.160)
we should be concerned about with cocaine
Lex Fridman (28:48.520)
is the same as with caffeine.
Carl Hart (28:50.560)
Don't take it before bed.
Lex Fridman (28:52.000)
And the thing we should be concerned with heroin
Carl Hart (28:54.520)
is constipation.
Lex Fridman (28:55.440)
Yeah.
Carl Hart (28:58.880)
Okay.
Lex Fridman (29:00.480)
But the questions I keep wanting to ask you,
Carl Hart (29:04.840)
I should be asking the same things of alcohol,
Lex Fridman (29:07.840)
but when you're not doing well psychologically
Carl Hart (29:10.760)
in the ways you describe,
Lex Fridman (29:11.840)
when the environment is not right,
Carl Hart (29:17.120)
there's some aspect in which saying that drugs
Lex Fridman (29:19.760)
can be used responsibly and effectively
Lex Fridman (29:22.560)
and mostly positive can give those folks a pass
Lex Fridman (29:28.360)
to use it instead of working on themselves
Lex Fridman (29:30.600)
and fixing their environment first.
Lex Fridman (29:32.840)
I don't know, what do you want me to say to that?
Carl Hart (29:35.280)
I mean, they have access to alcohol,
Lex Fridman (29:37.280)
they have access to the...
Carl Hart (29:39.640)
You know, we live in this country called the United States
Lex Fridman (29:42.920)
where our Declaration of Independence says
Carl Hart (29:45.280)
that we are free to live like we wanna live
Lex Fridman (29:48.400)
so long as we don't disrupt other people
Carl Hart (29:51.240)
from doing the same.
Lex Fridman (29:53.440)
But it's remarkable to me
Lex Fridman (29:55.240)
how we try to control the behaviors of other people.
Lex Fridman (29:58.080)
That's just remarkable.
Carl Hart (30:00.720)
Yeah.
Lex Fridman (30:01.720)
And that's partially what your book is about.
Carl Hart (30:03.800)
I mean, it's not just about drugs, it's about freedom.
Lex Fridman (30:06.360)
That's the bigger issue that we can't get to.
Carl Hart (30:09.120)
It's like this issue of freedom
Lex Fridman (30:12.280)
and freedom comes with a tremendous amount
Carl Hart (30:14.520)
of responsibility.
Lex Fridman (30:15.960)
I am responsible for my neighbors, my brothers.
Carl Hart (30:18.960)
I mean, I can't impede their freedoms.
Lex Fridman (30:22.840)
Like some people think that their freedom
Carl Hart (30:24.880)
supersedes everybody else's freedoms.
Lex Fridman (30:26.680)
No.
Lex Fridman (30:27.520)
And that's what I'm trying to remind people in this book.
Lex Fridman (30:30.920)
I am responsible to you as a citizen
Lex Fridman (30:36.800)
and we're in this together.
Lex Fridman (30:39.520)
And I tried to make that point in the book
Lex Fridman (30:41.960)
and people have conveniently ignored things like that.
Lex Fridman (30:47.280)
Do you think the war on drugs
Lex Fridman (30:49.640)
has done more positive or negative for the world?
Lex Fridman (30:53.560)
Depends on which world you live in.
Carl Hart (30:55.480)
The war on drugs has been hugely beneficial
Lex Fridman (30:58.800)
to law enforcement, to the media,
Carl Hart (31:02.720)
to people who make bullshit TV shows.
Lex Fridman (31:06.760)
The Sopranos, The Wire, all of those shows,
Carl Hart (31:10.200)
they benefit from this kind of nonsense.
Lex Fridman (31:15.800)
Who else have benefited?
Carl Hart (31:17.120)
People who provide treatment,
Lex Fridman (31:19.760)
many of them benefit from the war on drugs.
Carl Hart (31:21.840)
The folks who do urine testing for drugs,
Lex Fridman (31:25.480)
they've all benefited.
Carl Hart (31:26.920)
They're making mad money.
Lex Fridman (31:28.960)
People who run prisons,
Carl Hart (31:31.240)
the phone companies who charge the prisoners,
Lex Fridman (31:35.320)
the people who run the hotels that are around the prisons
Carl Hart (31:38.640)
where people's family have to come and stay,
Lex Fridman (31:41.360)
the restaurants, they are making out like bandits.
Lex Fridman (31:45.840)
But many of us are getting screwed as a society.
Lex Fridman (31:49.960)
In general, we're getting screwed,
Lex Fridman (31:51.440)
but there are people who are just benefiting handsomely.
Lex Fridman (31:54.960)
That's why it continues.
Carl Hart (31:56.320)
Politicians benefit.
Lex Fridman (31:58.000)
I mean, whether you're Democrat or Republican,
Carl Hart (32:00.320)
you have the same stance on drugs anyway,
Lex Fridman (32:02.640)
so they all benefit from this.
Lex Fridman (32:05.800)
So many questions I want to ask you,
Lex Fridman (32:07.520)
because you're challenging a lot of beliefs
Carl Hart (32:08.880)
that people have about drugs, about society in general.
Lex Fridman (32:13.080)
So it's difficult for me to ask the right questions here.
Carl Hart (32:18.000)
If you were with a sort of a snap of a finger,
Lex Fridman (32:23.000)
change the world, what from a policy perspective would you,
Lex Fridman (32:28.960)
and from just a, I don't know, human to human perspective,
Lex Fridman (32:33.120)
what would you like to see in the United States of America
Carl Hart (32:36.200)
in terms of if that fixes some of the problems
Lex Fridman (32:37.920)
we're discussing here?
Carl Hart (32:39.040)
First of all, we wouldn't be arresting anybody
Lex Fridman (32:41.920)
for drugs anymore.
Carl Hart (32:42.880)
That would go away.
Lex Fridman (32:45.040)
The folks who are in prison for drugs, that would go away.
Carl Hart (32:48.440)
Their records would be expunged, that would just go away.
Lex Fridman (32:52.080)
And then we work on a system to make sure
Carl Hart (32:56.520)
that responsible adults can legally obtain these substances
Lex Fridman (33:02.440)
and we'll have a corresponding educational system
Carl Hart (33:05.680)
to teach people how to do this.
Lex Fridman (33:08.800)
That's where I would start initially.
Carl Hart (33:12.400)
Yeah, the arresting for drug use
Lex Fridman (33:15.600)
or anything drug related is absurd,
Carl Hart (33:18.400)
especially in the context of hard destructive alcohol
Lex Fridman (33:20.920)
and tobacco.
Carl Hart (33:22.920)
Alcohol can be destructive to some people,
Lex Fridman (33:25.000)
but alcohol also is a hugely beneficial drug.
Carl Hart (33:28.600)
To be honest, which I couldn't have gotten through
Lex Fridman (33:31.240)
many of the sort of receptions and functions
Carl Hart (33:34.280)
I had to go through as the chair of the department
Lex Fridman (33:37.640)
without alcohol.
Carl Hart (33:38.480)
Yeah, you have a line I really liked.
Lex Fridman (33:41.120)
The vast amount of predictably favorable drug effects
Carl Hart (33:44.600)
intrigued me, so much so that I expanded my own drug use
Lex Fridman (33:47.880)
to take advantage of the wide array
Carl Hart (33:49.360)
of beneficial outcome specific drugs can offer.
Lex Fridman (33:52.400)
The part that entertained me was this.
Carl Hart (33:54.640)
To put this in personal terms,
Lex Fridman (33:56.160)
my position as department chairman from 2016 to 2019
Carl Hart (34:00.600)
was far more detrimental to my health
Lex Fridman (34:02.560)
than my drug use ever was.
Carl Hart (34:04.360)
I mean, there is a standard we're treating drugs,
Lex Fridman (34:07.520)
certain kinds of drugs that's completely different
Carl Hart (34:10.200)
than the standard we're treating everything else
Lex Fridman (34:11.600)
in our lives.
Carl Hart (34:13.680)
Yeah, I mean, it's almost difficult to snap out of it
Lex Fridman (34:17.120)
as I'm listening to you and reading your work.
Carl Hart (34:24.280)
It's difficult because it's like,
Lex Fridman (34:27.000)
why is everybody living this idea that certain drugs
Lex Fridman (34:31.800)
are so horribly destructive and others are not?
Lex Fridman (34:35.560)
And we just kind of fix that idea.
Lex Fridman (34:37.680)
And then there's this narrative,
Lex Fridman (34:41.120)
I hate to be so cynical to think that there is just
Carl Hart (34:43.600)
like a system that just propagates narratives.
Lex Fridman (34:46.320)
I always kind of think that truth wins out.
Carl Hart (34:50.240)
Truth is the best narrative.
Lex Fridman (34:51.480)
I believe that too.
Carl Hart (34:52.560)
Obviously, that's why I'm out here and putting,
Lex Fridman (34:54.920)
subjecting myself to this sort of criticism and so forth,
Lex Fridman (34:58.240)
but because I believe that truth ultimately wins out,
Lex Fridman (35:01.160)
but I might be wrong,
Lex Fridman (35:02.840)
but I have to live my life like it's true.
Lex Fridman (35:07.800)
Otherwise, then I have no hope, then why be here?
Carl Hart (35:11.200)
Well, kind of, if you can steal man
Lex Fridman (35:12.840)
or at least show respect to a criticism,
Carl Hart (35:15.520)
you've I'm sure received quite a bit of criticism
Lex Fridman (35:19.680)
for your work.
Carl Hart (35:20.640)
I've heard quite a bit of BS criticisms,
Lex Fridman (35:23.760)
sort of ignorant stuff that don't actually pay attention
Carl Hart (35:27.040)
to your work, but is there some serious,
Lex Fridman (35:30.200)
like is there some pushback that makes you think twice?
Carl Hart (35:34.160)
People say like, I'm presenting a too rosy picture of drugs.
Lex Fridman (35:40.480)
I don't wanna do that.
Carl Hart (35:42.040)
I don't want people to think that I'm not aware of the
Lex Fridman (35:45.600)
potential negative effects of any activity,
Carl Hart (35:49.280)
including drug use.
Lex Fridman (35:51.200)
And so I do acknowledge that there are potential harms
Carl Hart (35:56.680)
associated with drugs.
Lex Fridman (35:57.560)
I acknowledge that in the book,
Lex Fridman (35:59.920)
but the fact remains the beneficial effects far outweigh
Lex Fridman (36:03.560)
the potential harmful effects.
Lex Fridman (36:05.400)
And we have technology information to help people
Lex Fridman (36:09.720)
to minimize the likelihood of negative effects.
Lex Fridman (36:12.200)
But this sort of approach that we have where we say
Lex Fridman (36:16.680)
we're only exclusively presenting the harmful effects
Lex Fridman (36:20.360)
and that should make people, keep people safe.
Lex Fridman (36:23.320)
I just have a problem with that.
Lex Fridman (36:25.480)
But I certainly, I take the point that people say
Lex Fridman (36:31.160)
there are negative effects.
Carl Hart (36:32.200)
Absolutely, I absolutely agree.
Lex Fridman (36:35.160)
What do you, if I can just talk about specific drugs,
Carl Hart (36:39.200)
what's the difference between opioids and benzos,
Lex Fridman (36:42.920)
for example, specifically, I mean,
Carl Hart (36:47.440)
these are drugs that you often read about
Lex Fridman (36:50.680)
being misused at scale.
Lex Fridman (36:53.120)
I mean, the misuse is the problem, right?
Lex Fridman (36:56.120)
No matter what the drug is.
Lex Fridman (36:58.320)
And that's actually what you're pushing for is education
Lex Fridman (37:00.720)
and it should be legal and should be good.
Lex Fridman (37:03.720)
So people should know what's the difference in proper use,
Lex Fridman (37:08.600)
positive use and misuse.
Carl Hart (37:10.640)
I mean, one public figure who has been going through this
Lex Fridman (37:13.960)
is Jordan Peterson, he's been public about his struggle
Carl Hart (37:17.120)
of getting off benzos, the withdrawal he's going through.
Lex Fridman (37:20.520)
I mean, what are your thoughts about the misuse of benzos
Lex Fridman (37:25.920)
or opioids and so on, the epidemic that people talk about?
Lex Fridman (37:30.000)
Yeah, I don't know Jordan's specific case,
Lex Fridman (37:33.200)
but certainly with benzodiazepines in general,
Lex Fridman (37:36.120)
we talked about withdrawal earlier.
Carl Hart (37:37.680)
When I said that with alcohol withdrawal, you can die.
Lex Fridman (37:40.120)
So benzos and alcohol, they're closely related.
Lex Fridman (37:43.480)
So benzo withdrawal too can kill you just like alcohol.
Lex Fridman (37:47.360)
So when we think about the effects
Carl Hart (37:49.160)
that benzodiazepines produce,
Lex Fridman (37:51.280)
think about the effects that alcohol produce,
Carl Hart (37:53.400)
they're comparable or similar.
Lex Fridman (37:55.680)
And so I know that it's a difficult one to wean yourself off
Carl Hart (38:01.360)
if you develop the dependence,
Lex Fridman (38:03.400)
but we have protocols for that and I hope he's okay.
Carl Hart (38:09.560)
It's interesting you say we have protocols for that,
Lex Fridman (38:11.280)
but from my understanding was that
Carl Hart (38:13.560)
like the protocols aren't standardized.
Lex Fridman (38:16.080)
It feels like a lot of doctors aren't as helpful
Carl Hart (38:19.000)
as they could be in this process.
Lex Fridman (38:20.800)
Like it's a bit of a mess.
Carl Hart (38:22.280)
Certainly with withdrawal,
Lex Fridman (38:23.920)
they're more standardized than anything.
Lex Fridman (38:27.040)
So like if someone is going through alcohol withdrawal,
Lex Fridman (38:30.600)
there is a standard protocol that most physicians
Carl Hart (38:33.600)
in this business, they follow.
Lex Fridman (38:36.040)
The same is true with a benzo withdrawal.
Lex Fridman (38:39.440)
But the thing where it gets murky
Lex Fridman (38:41.560)
is when they're treating addiction itself.
Lex Fridman (38:44.080)
So when you're thinking about the substance use disorder
Lex Fridman (38:47.840)
in the DSM, not just withdrawal, but the entire addiction,
Carl Hart (38:51.320)
that's where you have this sort of a divergence
Lex Fridman (38:56.320)
or diversity in terms of approaches.
Lex Fridman (39:00.480)
And many of those approaches are rubbish.
Lex Fridman (39:03.480)
Can you just elaborate like technically
Lex Fridman (39:06.680)
what the term addiction means that you're referring to?
Lex Fridman (39:09.600)
When I use the term addiction,
Carl Hart (39:11.000)
I'm referring to the Diagnostic Statistical Manual
Lex Fridman (39:16.400)
of the American Psychiatric Association,
Carl Hart (39:18.680)
number five now, the DSM five.
Lex Fridman (39:20.960)
That's never been wrong, right?
Carl Hart (39:24.240)
I'm just kidding.
Lex Fridman (39:25.080)
You're absolutely, that point is well taken.
Lex Fridman (39:28.080)
And your point is that their definition
Lex Fridman (39:33.040)
of substance use disorder, that's addiction.
Carl Hart (39:35.320)
That's what I'm talking about.
Lex Fridman (39:36.520)
But that definition continues to evolve.
Lex Fridman (39:39.640)
And so you're right.
Lex Fridman (39:41.560)
They still are working it out.
Carl Hart (39:44.120)
We're getting new information from scientific studies
Lex Fridman (39:47.240)
and so forth.
Lex Fridman (39:48.080)
And so it's supposed to be incorporated into the DSM,
Lex Fridman (39:51.560)
but there are some problems with the DSM.
Carl Hart (39:53.960)
Like for example, they also have this sort of once an addict,
Lex Fridman (39:58.920)
always an addict thing.
Lex Fridman (40:00.560)
And there's no evidence to support that, but it's evolving.
Lex Fridman (40:05.200)
And it's the definition that people in science
Lex Fridman (40:09.600)
and medicine use.
Lex Fridman (40:10.880)
And so we all know we're talking about the same language
Carl Hart (40:13.840)
when we call someone a substance use disorder patient
Lex Fridman (40:17.600)
or someone who meets criteria for addiction.
Carl Hart (40:19.680)
We all are speaking the same language.
Lex Fridman (40:22.200)
We're not saying that simply because this person
Carl Hart (40:24.800)
use heroin, they are an addict.
Lex Fridman (40:26.600)
That's not what we're saying.
Carl Hart (40:28.040)
You have to meet these criteria where you have disruptions
Lex Fridman (40:32.120)
in your psychosocial functioning.
Carl Hart (40:34.120)
That's one.
Lex Fridman (40:35.280)
And two, you, the person are distressed
Carl Hart (40:39.440)
by these disruptions.
Lex Fridman (40:43.160)
So people have to meet those two basic criteria
Carl Hart (40:46.520)
before we say they are addicted.
Lex Fridman (40:48.680)
So once an addict, always an addict, this idea.
Lex Fridman (40:53.960)
So I've, I mean, some of it is always mapped
Lex Fridman (40:57.880)
to the person, all right.
Lex Fridman (40:58.760)
But just the people I've interacted with
Lex Fridman (41:01.720)
who have struggled with alcohol addiction,
Carl Hart (41:04.080)
I don't know what the proper term is.
Lex Fridman (41:06.360)
It seems like with Alcohol Anonymous,
Carl Hart (41:09.080)
the process of putting that addiction behind you
Lex Fridman (41:14.800)
is a very, very long process.
Carl Hart (41:16.960)
It's surprisingly long to me.
Lex Fridman (41:18.800)
That almost seems like a whole life.
Carl Hart (41:20.640)
Like, he's not always an addict, but it takes decades.
Lex Fridman (41:24.200)
It seems like, what is that?
Carl Hart (41:27.600)
What, can you maybe just, from your understanding
Lex Fridman (41:31.440)
as a scientist, from your understanding as a human
Carl Hart (41:33.320)
who studies human nature, why does it take so long
Lex Fridman (41:36.120)
to treat, to deal with that addiction?
Lex Fridman (41:42.920)
Well, you cited Alcohol Anonymous, right?
Lex Fridman (41:46.600)
And so I don't think of Alcohol Anonymous
Carl Hart (41:49.640)
as like a treatment that I would send any relative to,
Lex Fridman (41:54.400)
like for a drug related problem.
Carl Hart (41:57.640)
I think Alcohol Anonymous AA is really good
Lex Fridman (42:01.760)
for social interactions, making sure people
Carl Hart (42:07.120)
have a social group and they have peers.
Lex Fridman (42:10.360)
I mean, that's a good thing.
Carl Hart (42:11.920)
We all need that social interaction.
Lex Fridman (42:14.720)
But I don't think they know much about drugs.
Carl Hart (42:16.760)
That's not, it's like saying, well, you know,
Lex Fridman (42:21.040)
my uncle broke his knee and he has this support group
Lex Fridman (42:25.160)
and they said this, and then we follow that.
Lex Fridman (42:30.840)
That doesn't make any sense.
Lex Fridman (42:31.960)
But in our society, judges even sentence people
Lex Fridman (42:36.680)
to go to AA.
Lex Fridman (42:39.040)
Are you kidding me?
Lex Fridman (42:40.680)
But that's the kind of thing that has been allowed to happen
Carl Hart (42:44.920)
in this society because we think of drugs
Lex Fridman (42:48.440)
as this moral failing or drug addiction
Carl Hart (42:51.840)
as this moral failing.
Lex Fridman (42:54.120)
And any idiot can provide treatment
Lex Fridman (42:56.600)
and no disrespect to AA because I think what they do
Lex Fridman (43:00.760)
is a lot more than what some people do
Carl Hart (43:02.880)
because at least they have this social,
Lex Fridman (43:05.920)
these social interactions, you have a social group.
Carl Hart (43:09.720)
That's better than what a lot of these other idiots
Lex Fridman (43:12.520)
out here do.
Carl Hart (43:13.640)
Well, and that social support group unrelated to the drug,
Lex Fridman (43:18.440)
it helps cure some of the environment issues
Carl Hart (43:20.960)
you might be in.
Lex Fridman (43:21.800)
That's the whole point.
Lex Fridman (43:23.000)
So we kind of coupled the drug to the environment,
Lex Fridman (43:25.120)
but the reality is, as you argue,
Carl Hart (43:28.400)
most of the problems come from the environment.
Lex Fridman (43:31.000)
Certainly with people who are experiencing
Carl Hart (43:32.960)
drug related problem with most of the people,
Lex Fridman (43:34.800)
not all, but most.
Carl Hart (43:36.840)
There are differences like that psychedelics
Lex Fridman (43:40.800)
and like psilocybin has versus alcohol.
Carl Hart (43:43.880)
I personally think I've enjoyed both experiences
Lex Fridman (43:49.200)
in different ways.
Carl Hart (43:51.200)
Is it possible or are we getting into the realm of poetry
Lex Fridman (43:54.920)
to describe the benefits, like how it alters the mind,
Lex Fridman (43:59.480)
how the different drugs alter the mind
Lex Fridman (44:03.000)
and the places it can take you
Lex Fridman (44:05.000)
that produce a positive experience?
Lex Fridman (44:06.800)
Yeah, no, it's very real.
Carl Hart (44:09.480)
Like some drugs take people in places that other drugs can
Lex Fridman (44:14.840)
and that's very real.
Carl Hart (44:17.000)
I have friends, some of them you know,
Lex Fridman (44:21.560)
they, for example, say that they've never had an experience
Carl Hart (44:27.560)
like the one they had with ayahuasca
Lex Fridman (44:29.760)
and they've done a number of sort of things,
Lex Fridman (44:32.200)
but they did the ayahuasca in a setting with a shaman
Lex Fridman (44:38.120)
and this group and they felt like they actually began
Carl Hart (44:45.400)
to heal or solve some problems
Lex Fridman (44:47.560)
that they were trying to solve for some years.
Lex Fridman (44:50.960)
And that's great, that's great for them.
Lex Fridman (44:54.000)
And nothing else does it for them like that.
Lex Fridman (44:56.600)
And that's absolutely fantastic.
Lex Fridman (44:59.120)
All I argue is that if that kind of thing happens for you
Carl Hart (45:06.880)
with ayahuasca, with psilocybin,
Lex Fridman (45:09.520)
with some other psychedelic,
Lex Fridman (45:12.320)
why isn't it possible that heroin does that for someone
Lex Fridman (45:16.880)
or cocaine does that for someone else
Carl Hart (45:19.600)
or MDMA does it for someone, that's it.
Lex Fridman (45:23.240)
That's interesting to imagine like a shaman for heroin.
Lex Fridman (45:27.280)
Like why not?
Lex Fridman (45:29.120)
Or cocaine, you said creating an environment for yourself,
Carl Hart (45:31.480)
for use of these different substances
Lex Fridman (45:33.960)
and that environment has a very strong impact
Carl Hart (45:39.600)
on the actual experience that you have.
Lex Fridman (45:41.720)
But I mean, so cocaine is an upper and then.
Carl Hart (45:47.320)
Yeah, the way we define drugs like uppers and downers,
Lex Fridman (45:50.840)
that's a really kind of inappropriate way
Lex Fridman (45:55.840)
but it's a quick way.
Lex Fridman (45:57.320)
So we certainly say cocaine is an upper or stimulant.
Lex Fridman (46:01.000)
But it depends on the activity of the person
Lex Fridman (46:05.120)
before they take the drug.
Carl Hart (46:06.200)
Say like if you're like really active
Lex Fridman (46:08.280)
before taking a drug like cocaine,
Carl Hart (46:10.560)
it might actually calm you.
Lex Fridman (46:12.640)
So it all depends on the activity of the person
Carl Hart (46:15.440)
before they take the drug.
Lex Fridman (46:16.720)
I remember, I don't know if you know Matthew Johnson is.
Carl Hart (46:19.800)
Of course.
Lex Fridman (46:21.320)
He did all these studies on,
Carl Hart (46:22.840)
or I remember just reading a paper,
Lex Fridman (46:25.040)
I didn't get a chance to talk with him much about it,
Lex Fridman (46:27.040)
but it was about condom use and cocaine.
Lex Fridman (46:30.560)
And then like the doses
Lex Fridman (46:33.080)
and whether people are more or less likely.
Lex Fridman (46:35.480)
Like the unsafe thing there is the using or not using,
Carl Hart (46:40.320)
or not using, I guess, condoms during sexual intercourse.
Lex Fridman (46:45.480)
I don't know, I just, I love that these drugs
Carl Hart (46:48.040)
that have connotation probably because of Hollywood,
Lex Fridman (46:52.000)
negative connotations are actually being studied by science.
Lex Fridman (46:54.520)
And then the actual impact they have,
Lex Fridman (46:56.360)
and what are the negative effects.
Carl Hart (46:57.960)
Again, in those studies often,
Lex Fridman (47:01.240)
the positive effects are difficult to quantify, I think.
Carl Hart (47:05.080)
Maybe I guess you can from self report and so on.
Lex Fridman (47:08.080)
Positive effects are not difficult to quantify.
Carl Hart (47:11.120)
You ask people about their euphoria,
Lex Fridman (47:15.200)
you can see how well people are getting along.
Carl Hart (47:18.040)
Like in our studies that we have people sometimes in groups
Lex Fridman (47:22.560)
and you see how well they get along
Carl Hart (47:25.520)
on the various drug conditions or placebo conditions.
Lex Fridman (47:29.720)
It's really, it's not that difficult.
Lex Fridman (47:32.240)
And then you can see these amazing studies
Lex Fridman (47:34.360)
with like Rick Doblin, like the looking at MDMA
Lex Fridman (47:37.960)
and combined with therapy,
Lex Fridman (47:41.920)
like how you can overcome certain PTSD things
Carl Hart (47:44.760)
or depression and so on.
Lex Fridman (47:46.920)
Yeah, it's really interesting.
Carl Hart (47:48.280)
It's really interesting.
Lex Fridman (47:50.840)
I had to ask you, cause you mentioned The Wire.
Lex Fridman (47:53.400)
Do you think The Wire, you think movies like Trainspotting,
Lex Fridman (47:56.280)
do you think they're ultimately destroying?
Carl Hart (47:58.080)
Cause okay.
Lex Fridman (47:59.960)
Yes, they celebrate murder, right?
Carl Hart (48:02.160)
The Godfather a little bit.
Lex Fridman (48:04.240)
Yeah.
Lex Fridman (48:05.080)
But another one, I mean,
Lex Fridman (48:07.240)
it's like these racist ass motherfuckers
Lex Fridman (48:10.080)
and they also are killing people,
Lex Fridman (48:12.600)
but yet they say, we don't do drugs.
Lex Fridman (48:14.720)
What kind of shit is that?
Lex Fridman (48:16.120)
I mean, people who are doing drugs, psilocybin or whatever.
Carl Hart (48:21.480)
The thing is we're trying to be better people
Lex Fridman (48:24.480)
and trying to make our society better
Lex Fridman (48:27.080)
and you're killing people
Lex Fridman (48:28.160)
and you are denigrating people for using drugs.
Lex Fridman (48:32.280)
Are you fucking kidding me?
Lex Fridman (48:33.440)
And we let them get away with that as a society.
Lex Fridman (48:35.920)
Do you see those movies?
Lex Fridman (48:37.160)
I apologize if I'm not sufficiently informed.
Lex Fridman (48:39.680)
You see them as denigrating drugs?
Lex Fridman (48:41.720)
Of course.
Carl Hart (48:42.560)
I mean, The Godfather.
Lex Fridman (48:44.720)
Yes, that's right.
Carl Hart (48:45.560)
That's a good example.
Lex Fridman (48:46.400)
The Godfather, The Sopranos is all about that.
Carl Hart (48:49.520)
I mean, Christopher is using heroin in The Sopranos
Lex Fridman (48:53.600)
and they have an intervention in one season
Lex Fridman (48:58.440)
and they are denigrating him.
Lex Fridman (49:02.880)
Are you kidding me?
Carl Hart (49:03.720)
You just cut somebody's head off.
Lex Fridman (49:05.640)
Yeah, but they're, to be fair,
Carl Hart (49:07.840)
they were denigrating, I think, all drugs.
Lex Fridman (49:10.520)
And then they're drinking alcohol in the butterbeam.
Carl Hart (49:13.080)
Yeah, yeah.
Lex Fridman (49:13.920)
Come on, I mean, first of all, they're killing people.
Carl Hart (49:18.120)
They don't have any space, none,
Lex Fridman (49:21.320)
to denigrate somebody who's just trying
Carl Hart (49:23.760)
to alter their consciousness.
Lex Fridman (49:26.520)
Are you kidding me?
Lex Fridman (49:27.520)
And not bothering anyone else.
Lex Fridman (49:29.600)
But there's a lot of other mob movies
Carl Hart (49:31.400)
that Scarface celebrates the murder and the drugs equally.
Lex Fridman (49:35.960)
So, I mean, it doesn't,
Carl Hart (49:39.280)
it celebrates all of the, not just drugs or so on,
Lex Fridman (49:44.360)
it's extreme.
Carl Hart (49:45.200)
All of those movies, you know,
Lex Fridman (49:46.760)
I loved all those movies.
Carl Hart (49:48.000)
I'm from Miami, I loved Scarface.
Lex Fridman (49:50.080)
I even liked The Sopranos that I started looking
Carl Hart (49:52.440)
at that shit with a critical eye and see what it's doing.
Lex Fridman (49:56.520)
But Scarface is dependent upon the American viewer
Carl Hart (50:02.560)
having a certain view of people who deal in drugs.
Lex Fridman (50:06.240)
And that view is that these people are animals, basically.
Lex Fridman (50:10.560)
And in the end, the animal kills himself
Lex Fridman (50:14.000)
with too much cocaine and he was high.
Carl Hart (50:16.720)
That's what they show.
Lex Fridman (50:17.880)
And so it's like, what the fuck?
Lex Fridman (50:20.680)
So it's leveraging, it's playing
Lex Fridman (50:22.120)
into not the better angels of our nature.
Carl Hart (50:31.000)
The question.
Lex Fridman (50:31.840)
Don't take away these great movies from me.
Lex Fridman (50:34.080)
But it's true, you have to think about them critically
Lex Fridman (50:36.360)
in the context.
Carl Hart (50:37.200)
Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.
Lex Fridman (50:38.800)
I like these movies.
Carl Hart (50:39.640)
It's not a matter of taking away.
Lex Fridman (50:41.080)
It's a matter of making the writers be more honest
Carl Hart (50:45.920)
to the reality.
Lex Fridman (50:46.960)
That's it.
Carl Hart (50:47.800)
That's true.
Lex Fridman (50:48.640)
That's really true.
Lex Fridman (50:49.480)
And the writers, the people, the culture, all of it.
Lex Fridman (50:52.080)
I mean, they write these things.
Carl Hart (50:54.240)
I just think about some hip hop artists.
Lex Fridman (50:57.000)
They say like, this is real.
Carl Hart (50:58.640)
This is my experience and so forth.
Lex Fridman (51:01.240)
And that's how these movie writers,
Carl Hart (51:02.960)
they write this bullshit and then say, well, this is real.
Lex Fridman (51:07.440)
Anyway, I get so upset talking about it
Carl Hart (51:10.440)
because I know the harm it's doing.
Lex Fridman (51:12.920)
And I know those kinds of movies are the reason
Carl Hart (51:16.200)
that we have this war on drugs.
Lex Fridman (51:18.800)
And all of these people are going to jail
Carl Hart (51:21.360)
because of those kinds of movies.
Lex Fridman (51:24.560)
In the epilogue of your book, you quote James Baldwin.
Carl Hart (51:28.400)
You cannot know what you will discover on the journey,
Lex Fridman (51:31.120)
what you will do with what you find
Carl Hart (51:33.560)
or what you find will do to you.
Lex Fridman (51:36.600)
So let me ask, how has drug use or the study of drugs
Lex Fridman (51:40.600)
changed you as a human being?
Lex Fridman (51:42.920)
It has helped me think about other people's experience.
Lex Fridman (51:46.520)
So how we're all connected, like going to Northern Ireland.
Lex Fridman (51:51.040)
I don't know if you know much about the situation
Carl Hart (51:53.480)
with the troubles and what those people went through.
Lex Fridman (51:57.000)
And so I see people there.
Carl Hart (51:59.760)
Northern Ireland, by the way, is all white.
Lex Fridman (52:02.240)
And you see those people there suffering
Carl Hart (52:04.840)
for the same reasons that people in Appalachia
Lex Fridman (52:08.200)
are suffering for.
Carl Hart (52:09.880)
Neglected by politicians who told them lies about drugs
Lex Fridman (52:14.640)
and not dealing with the real problems,
Carl Hart (52:16.560)
like West Virginia, for example.
Lex Fridman (52:19.000)
Their water's polluted, the factories have gone away,
Carl Hart (52:22.440)
people are desperate and they're blaming drugs.
Lex Fridman (52:25.920)
Are you kidding me?
Lex Fridman (52:27.560)
So the politicians don't have to bring back the jobs.
Lex Fridman (52:31.360)
So we don't have to really make sure
Carl Hart (52:34.320)
they have clean drinking water, things of that nature.
Lex Fridman (52:37.560)
And so those people are connected
Carl Hart (52:39.360)
to the people in Northern Ireland.
Lex Fridman (52:40.720)
They're connected to the people in Brownsville.
Carl Hart (52:43.640)
They're connected to the people in other places
Lex Fridman (52:46.840)
in the United States for the same reason.
Carl Hart (52:49.120)
They're connected to the people in Sao Paulo, Brazil.
Lex Fridman (52:54.640)
Same thing, people are catching hell for the same reason
Carl Hart (52:58.320)
in the Philippines for the same reason.
Lex Fridman (53:01.360)
And that's why I feel so strongly about this thing
Carl Hart (53:04.920)
because I know there are people getting paid
Lex Fridman (53:08.600)
and their paycheck is predicated on subjugating
Lex Fridman (53:13.200)
and the suffering of those other people.
Lex Fridman (53:17.520)
So when we hear about the destructive effects of drugs,
Carl Hart (53:21.920)
it's essentially a scapegoat for the failures of leaders
Lex Fridman (53:28.000)
and politicians to help alleviate the suffering
Carl Hart (53:30.920)
of people in those communities.
Lex Fridman (53:31.760)
Absolutely, it's so easy to say,
Carl Hart (53:34.560)
I'm gonna rid your community of drugs.
Lex Fridman (53:36.800)
I'm gonna put more cops on the street.
Carl Hart (53:40.360)
If you want a problem not to be solved,
Lex Fridman (53:45.000)
just give it to the military or the cops.
Carl Hart (53:48.280)
You had a tough childhood growing up in Miami, like you said.
Lex Fridman (53:51.760)
What memory stands out in particular that was formative
Lex Fridman (53:56.720)
and helping make you the man you are?
Lex Fridman (54:00.520)
That's so hard to say, my grandmother was really important.
Lex Fridman (54:08.480)
So maybe just her trying to make sure that I think critically,
Lex Fridman (54:13.200)
I guess that's the biggest one.
Lex Fridman (54:15.520)
So you moved in with your parents split?
Lex Fridman (54:19.320)
Six, seven, yeah.
Lex Fridman (54:20.760)
What have you learned about life from her?
Lex Fridman (54:23.520)
Be self sufficient, be critical and keep your eyes open
Lex Fridman (54:28.320)
and watch out for the okie doke.
Lex Fridman (54:30.760)
And that's what this whole drug thing is about.
Carl Hart (54:33.440)
It's the okie doke, people, it really boils down
Lex Fridman (54:38.280)
to just simple thing.
Carl Hart (54:40.120)
We're all similar in that we're all just trying
Lex Fridman (54:43.800)
to live our life, trying to take care of our kids.
Carl Hart (54:46.240)
We want the best for our kids, all of us.
Lex Fridman (54:48.680)
But yet somehow we've been made to believe
Carl Hart (54:54.480)
that we're different in that way.
Lex Fridman (54:56.720)
But fundamentally, we're all the same.
Lex Fridman (54:58.680)
So when people are seeking to feel pleasure, to feel better,
Lex Fridman (55:05.120)
why don't we celebrate that?
Carl Hart (55:06.800)
Instead, we denigrate people for that.
Lex Fridman (55:10.480)
I mean, if I feel better, I'm more likely to treat you well.
Carl Hart (55:15.240)
I got to say still, though, you're going against the grain
Lex Fridman (55:19.960)
and you're at Columbia, it takes a lot of guts
Carl Hart (55:25.480)
to sort of speak out about these ideas so boldly.
Lex Fridman (55:29.280)
I don't know how to ask this question.
Lex Fridman (55:32.360)
Where do you find the guts?
Lex Fridman (55:34.160)
What, because it's also perhaps inspirational to others
Carl Hart (55:39.320)
in different disciplines that are sort of taking
Lex Fridman (55:41.720)
on the conventional wisdom of the day.
Lex Fridman (55:43.920)
And challenging it, what does it take to do that?
Lex Fridman (55:47.040)
What advice would you give to others like you kind
Lex Fridman (55:50.800)
of a little bit afraid to do so?
Lex Fridman (55:52.680)
Once you know, you cannot not know, as they say.
Lex Fridman (55:56.320)
And so I have to look in the mirror.
Lex Fridman (55:58.040)
And then looking in the mirror, I have to face myself.
Lex Fridman (56:01.720)
Have I lived honestly?
Lex Fridman (56:03.880)
And if I can't face myself, then what am I doing here?
Carl Hart (56:10.520)
You know, that's how I see it.
Lex Fridman (56:14.640)
One of the things that people don't really talk about
Carl Hart (56:19.120)
with drugs and people who die from some drug related death.
Lex Fridman (56:23.720)
And I've been thinking about this a whole lot
Carl Hart (56:27.200)
over the past couple of years.
Lex Fridman (56:28.800)
It's like some of these drugs can take you to a place
Carl Hart (56:33.120)
where you feel so optimistic and positive about humans,
Lex Fridman (56:37.520)
our fellow humans.
Lex Fridman (56:39.200)
And you want to do your best to contribute.
Lex Fridman (56:43.560)
And because you know the possibilities
Carl Hart (56:46.120)
of what we can be as a society.
Lex Fridman (56:49.760)
And then you come up with resistance and you, like you say,
Carl Hart (56:54.040)
there are a lot, there's a lot of resistance
Lex Fridman (56:55.920)
and people just have a hard time.
Lex Fridman (56:58.440)
And so if you know humans can be better
Lex Fridman (57:03.640)
and they refuse to be better, why be here
Lex Fridman (57:07.720)
as someone who knows that we can do this better?
Lex Fridman (57:12.080)
I certainly don't want to do it the way we're doing it.
Lex Fridman (57:15.520)
So you kind of see drugs as mechanisms
Lex Fridman (57:19.680)
for potentially elevating the human spirit,
Carl Hart (57:21.720)
sort of making people feel better.
Lex Fridman (57:24.440)
So you want to communicate that message.
Lex Fridman (57:26.960)
So it's that plus the fact that drugs are used as scapegoat
Lex Fridman (57:32.440)
to not alleviate the suffering of certain communities.
Lex Fridman (57:36.520)
So those two things come together.
Lex Fridman (57:38.320)
One of the sort of main points of the book too
Carl Hart (57:41.440)
was to try and get people to understand the possibilities
Lex Fridman (57:45.760)
that we could have if we embraced certain drug use.
Carl Hart (57:52.480)
If we allowed adults to do this sort of thing.
Lex Fridman (57:56.720)
Relationships can be better.
Carl Hart (58:01.400)
A wide range of beneficial effects.
Lex Fridman (58:04.200)
People would be, or can learn to be more magnanimous.
Carl Hart (58:09.880)
All of these pro social things that we say we value.
Lex Fridman (58:15.040)
In your previous book, High Price,
Carl Hart (58:16.520)
you talk about rap and DJing, chapter five.
Lex Fridman (58:21.280)
There's a nice picture of you DJing from 1983.
Lex Fridman (58:24.960)
So let me ask who in your view,
Lex Fridman (58:28.000)
this is the toughest question of this interview,
Lex Fridman (58:30.400)
is the greatest hip hop artist of all time?
Lex Fridman (58:32.440)
Maybe give some candidates.
Carl Hart (58:34.280)
Oh, wow.
Lex Fridman (58:35.080)
Who is the greatest hip hop artist?
Carl Hart (58:37.840)
I don't know if I'm qualified to make that bag
Lex Fridman (58:40.240)
because I have to go back to like Gil Scott Heron.
Carl Hart (58:47.600)
Like people think of him as one of the fathers of hip hop.
Lex Fridman (58:52.960)
That's my all time favorite.
Carl Hart (58:56.200)
People like Chuck D from Public Enemy.
Lex Fridman (58:58.720)
Some of the things that they were doing,
Carl Hart (59:00.520)
I was really digging, but even though I was digging
Lex Fridman (59:04.160)
like Public Enemy, but even they got it wrong on drugs.
Carl Hart (59:08.880)
Even Gil Scott Heron got it wrong on drugs.
Lex Fridman (59:12.200)
But they were doing so much other good stuff.
Carl Hart (59:16.280)
It helped me to develop as a person.
Lex Fridman (59:20.720)
And so I think like my son is a hip hop artist now.
Carl Hart (59:29.200)
I think those folks who are in the game now,
Lex Fridman (59:31.840)
they are a lot more qualified to talk about who's
Carl Hart (59:35.360)
the greatest hip hop artist.
Lex Fridman (59:37.680)
I'm not qualified.
Carl Hart (59:38.800)
The evolution, I mean, have you tracked the evolution
Lex Fridman (59:41.240)
from sort of the 90s with Wu Tang and Tupac and Biggie
Lex Fridman (59:45.800)
and then to what we have today?
Lex Fridman (59:48.160)
So there's just been a crazy amount of progress.
Carl Hart (59:50.800)
It's like almost difficult to track.
Lex Fridman (59:52.680)
Yeah, I mean, I really love what they're doing.
Carl Hart (59:55.480)
I like what they accept the part where they get over 40
Lex Fridman (59:59.280)
and they become fucking cops on TV.
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