The Man Teaching Microbes to Dream

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Sher Ali Butt

From the dawn of time, humanity has leaned on nature’s gifts — plants, fungi, the marrow of animals — extracting what we needed slowly, clumsily, and at great cost. But every age brings a new alchemy, and in our age, a new architect has emerged.

Sher is that architect. A biochemist forged in the crucible of UC Davis and sharpened by the strategic fire of UC San Diego, he co-founded CB Therapeutics not just to make molecules, but to rewrite the very way we think about making. Where others see scarcity, Sher sees abundance encoded in the language of life itself.

With biosynthesis as his tool, he teaches yeast to dream beyond alcohol and instead ferment the future: CBD, psilocybin, LSD, vitamins, flavors, medicines — all born not from soil or slaughter, but from the elegant churn of living cells. This is not imitation. This is acceleration. This is turning ordinary sugar into the extraordinary — faster, cleaner, purer than anything we have known before.

Sher stands at the crossroads of science and myth, where biology becomes a forge, microbes become allies, and the future of mental health, wellness, and nourishment flows from a beaker instead of a battlefield. He is not simply solving problems. He is bending the arc of possibility itself.

Ladies and gentlemen, travelers and truth-seekers — I give you Sher.

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https://www.cbthera.com/

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George Monty

My name is George Monty. I am the Owner of TrueLife (Podcast/media/ Channel) I’ve spent the last three in years building from the ground up an independent social media brandy that includes communications, content creation, community engagement, online classes in NLP, Graphic Design, Video Editing, and Content creation. I feel so blessed to have reached the following milestones, over 81K hours of watch time, 5 million views, 8K subscribers, & over 60K downloads on the podcast!

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The TrueLife Podcast: Rise Against the Illusion

Welcome to The TrueLife Podcast—a battlefield of ideas where the mind is the ultimate weapon and complacency is the enemy. This is not a place for passive listening. It’s a war cry for those who refuse to bow to the hollow gods of conformity, a call to dismantle the systems that chain our thoughts and numb our souls.

Here, we tear through the lies of modern life with the precision of a scalpel and the force of a sledgehammer. Psychedelics are our compass, suffering is our teacher, and uncertainty is the fuel that drives us forward. Every episode is an incitement to think dangerously—fusing psychology, philosophy, and mysticism with a rage against the machine edge that burns away illusion.

This isn’t just a podcast; it’s a counterattack against the programmed mediocrity of our times. We explore the hidden architectures of power, the rapid evolution of language, and the forbidden territories of consciousness. We weaponize words, images, and melodies to cut through the fog of deception.

For the misfits, the rebels, and the seekers who know there’s something rotten at the core—this is your refuge and your rallying point. Tune in if you’re ready to unshackle your mind and fight for the freedom to think, feel, and live without restraint.

Aloha, and welcome to the resistance.

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to the True Life Podcast. Hope your day is beautiful. Hope the sun is shining, the birds are singing. Hope the wind is at your back. From the dawn of time, humanity has leaned on nature's gifts, plants, fungi, the marrow of animals, extracting what we needed slowly, clumsily, and at great cost. But every age brings a new alchemy. And in our age, a new architect has emerged. Shur is that architect, a biochemist forged in the crucible of UC Davis and sharpened by the strategic fire of UC San Diego. He co-founded CB Therapeutics, not just to make molecules, but to rewrite the very way we think about making. Where others see scarcity, Shur sees abundance encoded in the language of life itself. Shur, congratulations, man. I'm super stoked to talk to you, man. How are you doing? Thank you for having me here and thank you for that amazing introduction. I'm super excited to be here and then talk to you today. I'm doing well. How are you doing? I'm doing good, man. Thanks for asking. I've been having some really interesting conversations and they seem to all be... For me, it's... Man, I'm just immersed in the world of psychedelics. I really love what they do for healing. I love what they do for optimization. I love what they do for relationships, clarity of mind. And so... I'm super stoked to hang out with you, man. We were both at Psychedelic Science and then at the Shark Tank event, man. That's where I first heard of you. Yes, yes. That was epic, man. Let me give you some background. Why don't I throw it back to you, man? So if you can explain a little bit of what you're actually up to. So sure. So we, for the last ten years, we have been working with developing technologies that allow us to produce things like psychedelics, cannabinoids from cannabis, and mostly focusing on rare molecules from different types of therapeutic, you know, starting ingredients that are expensive or that are rare to make, or that may have contaminations like, you know, heavy metals or pesticides. So the idea was how do we make these things, these molecules that are really good for humanity and people and health, But without having to, let's say, you know, pay like a quarter million dollars a kilogram for a product, which is the case for some of these ingredients. So, you know, my background is in biochemistry. And then I got an MBA from, you know, UC San Diego. And I worked for some cannabis labs. I even founded one near Santa Rosa. It's called CB Labs. It's another company which does lab testing up in the Bay Area. So I've always been focused on quality and, you know, sort of like the market side, uh, I've tested products for, you know, heavy metals for pesticides and other ingredients, purity. And it seems to me that, you know, for most industries like cannabis now, even, you know, mushrooms and others, there are these other things like heavy metals and other ingredients that shouldn't be there. So I've always focused on coming from an angle of purity. And so that was my background. Jacob was the other co-founder. He is actually my roommate from undergrad. And he went on to go get a PhD from UC Berkeley. So while I was up in Berkeley actually setting up CB Labs near Santa Rosa, we actually met for a beer at a bar. And I was telling Jacob that, hey, listen, I have this opportunity where And this idea that we can make cannabinoids through something that would allow us to bypass, you know, a four month growth cycle. It would allow us to not worry about pesticides and heavy metals and, you know, plant growth regulators and things like that. And by chance, Jacob was finishing his Ph.D. in bioengineering with you telling me about his project. So so that's where, you know, the inception of the idea came up that, you know, I understand that. the quality side, the customer facing side, you understand the bioengineering. And that's when we decided, hey, we have to figure out a way to use yeast, for example, which you can make beer with, but to be able to make different kinds of molecules. So initially we set out to make CBD, At that time, I remember CBD was very expensive. So we're like, you know, there's, you know, let's do it. So we were successfully able to develop twelve or thirteen different cannabinoids and yeast. And then from that point on, we got interested in psychedelics previously because of our own experience with psychedelics. Funny enough, Jacob and I did shrooms together for the first time as well back in undergrad. And we went to the UC Davis Arboretum. And I don't know if anybody's familiar with the Arboretum. It's one of the largest collections of plants in the world. I think it spread over a bunch of acres, hundreds of acres. So it was a very amazing and unique experience. So we actually made psilocybin just almost as a hobby initially. Like there was no idea, there was no psychedelics industry. So it was like, hey, wouldn't it be cool if we made a strain of yeast that could like eat sugar and brew it into psilocybin? And, you know, once we did that, we were like, okay, well, we don't know what to do with this now. Like, you know, we have this yeast that produces psilocybin, psilocin, beocysteine, norbeocysteine, all the major ingredients you find in psilocybin-cubensis mushrooms, but we don't know what to do with it. So At that point, we're like, you know what, let's just put out a press release and see what kind of attention we get. And in fact, that's what we did. So, you know, we put out a press release. And I remember within two weeks, We got a call from one of the largest companies in the space and they said, Hey, we're very interested in what you're doing, but we don't invest in companies that also have like other arms, like cannabis products, like health and wellness and nutrition. We're only a psychedelics only company. So we will introduce you to our main investor. And then they did. And I think over one zoom call, well, I mean the guy, you know, we were raising money at that point, the whole thing happened. So then, you know, obviously we realized like, you know, this psychedelics thing is bigger than the cannabis side. And we're very happy to see how, you know, the market and everything is emerging. Man, that sounds like a movie. I would totally watch that movie. I would read that book, man. That's epic. You know, people tell me that. People tell me that one day I should get like a movie commissioned on the story. So maybe I will, you know, we'll see. But I think, I feel like we're just, it's like just the beginning. You know what I mean? Like that's like the first phase of the movie, man. Now we're moving into like, Oh shoot. Let's see what happens right over on this side. Right. It's interesting to see, man. I got our first question chime in and over here, this one's coming to us from Rongo. What's up wrong. I'm a friend in Ontario. He says, when you look at biosynthesis, do you see it more as a technology or as a language of life? And what new stories could humanity write in that language? That's a great question. Honestly, I'm impressed. Because, yeah, I think this is, you know, biotechnology is a very new technology, right? I mean, we really know about biotechnology no more than fifty years. And I would say modern biotechnology is no more than twenty five years old. And, you know, you see the compression. of pricing and things like for example the first dna that was sequenced was like you know a billion dollars right you know and now it's like a couple hundred dollars you can get your genome sequence so I think biotechnology I mean, people think AI is going to change the world, and it is. But my personal belief is that biotechnology has the potential to do a lot more than even AI does. I think we're not really even in the era of biotechnology yet, right? So, I mean, just like how computers were discovered, you know, like, and now we're really getting into AI and all this stuff. I think the real new field or whatever is going to emerge out of biotech, I think that has still yet to manifest. So, yeah, I think biotech has the, has the potential to rewire and change everything. I mean, you think about pollution, that's not going to be a thing. Like, like just recently I was reading up on, you know, how they have discovered these species of bacteria and funguses that eat plastics. And that's like one of the things. So, you know, with biology, you learn that you can You can evolve organisms, right? So you can almost make evolution, but in an accelerated path in the lab, right? So you could evolve organisms that eat trash, right? That absorb all the harmful gases that can create natural products in abundance, right? I mean, why are we making these molecules and yeast? So part of it obviously is the cost of the purity, but the other is also like, think about like this, right? You have a farm that grows cannabis. great thing to do obviously I've grown cannabis before I'm a big proponent of that I think there's a place for every type of technology I think there's a always a place for the natural thing there's a place for extracts and there's a place for something more advanced right and they can all coexist together but if you think about it from a perspective of how much time I mean how much water are you going to have to give that cannabis How many hours of labor is going to have to go into that? Right. I mean, these are all associated costs in some way. You know, like you're putting on water every day that is being transported by like a truck that uses gas or gasoline. Right. So all these things are interconnected. So I think biotech is the only is going to be the dominant manufacturing method in the future because it is the most efficient way to produce resources. Man, that's so well put. so interesting I see it I have a tendency to go on tangents but uh it's beautiful the question to go on the long ones man I I feel like an eternal student man I get to talk to so many cool people and like just soak it all in it's so interesting sure like I um I just finished talking to a girl in Switzerland that's using neurons instead of microchips. They're trying to figure out a way to use neurons to be the processor. And I'm like, holy shit, man. It's here, biotech. You see this merger of science and biology. And it has been on the outskirts for a period of time, but you're really seeing it come together now. It is the most efficient way. Why wouldn't we do the biomimicry of the body? And like I said, I mean, I think like the big revolution or like the big, you know, like since computers, right? There were computers, the Intel inside. Now it's all about the new processor, graphics cards. Now, I mean, you remember back in the day, everybody was like, I have this built computer. Yeah, totally. And that was like the... the main conversation, right? And now I think the conversations you have with people are way different. Now it's about, hey, I use, you know, chat GPT to do this and that. I mean, so in that way, it's like a fundamental paradigm shift. And I think you see that in every industry. It happened with cars, it happened with computers. But I think the real paradigm shift with biotech, I think, is yet to come. And I think that's going to be, you know, we're going to be in a place that's... And that's why I think that, you know, as humanity, we we think of like the worst that could happen, which is our job, right? In some ways, be efficient in life. And like, as if you're a business owner, you have to sort of plot out all the possibilities, right? That doesn't mean you actually believe them, but it's good to have that understanding. But I think that, I mean, assuming that things go the way they do, I have no doubt that, you know, in a hundred years from now, even, or maybe not a hundred, I would say in like a few hundred years from now, we will get to a point that I think virtually most diseases and issues will be solved. Most manufacturing will be done this way. For example, we just made You know, animal-free leather, right, is another one of the prototypes that we've developed. Of course, we still have a long way to go. We also made animal fats that are traditionally found in bacon, but now they're made in yeast. So the question is, if you're a vegetarian or you don't believe in, like, let's say eating pork or you don't eat animals, period, or something like that, can you consume that product, right? So we were talking to a food company that makes animal protein. You know how they have, like, those burgers, the possible burgers? Yeah. Okay. So we were obviously doing some business development. We came across a company that said, Hey, we have a protein that is similar to like the bacon protein. Um, but the problem is the product doesn't taste good because most of the flavor in a meat product is actually the fat. which is why Wagyu and all that. So they were asking us, can you develop a strain of yeast? So what we ended up doing is we ended up testing first bacon fat. So we had to do extensive tests. First, we had to make bacon, which we were obviously really good at. And then we had to test it to see what is the breakdown, right? Like what particular fatty acids are in there? What is the concentration? What are the ratios of those? And then we had to reverse engineer that into the yeast. And we were successfully able to do that, right? So that's also a very interesting application, you could say, of biotech. Man, you know, There's a lot of homebrew enthusiasts and a lot of home growers. I'm a big proponent of growing your own if you can do it, and it's usually not that difficult. There's even some extraction methods that I'm familiar with, but some are a little trickier than others, but there's information out there and they're totally doable. Is the process that you're using, is that something that could be like a hobbyist could do once they figured it out? Or is it a difficult process? Do you see it maybe moving into the mainstream the same way kind of grow kits are? I think if you're a hobbyist, you could still do what we do, but you would have to have like millions of dollars, right? I mean, if you have like ten million to spare. Right. It takes it out. I think you can do it. You know, because you would have consultants, you know, you would have labs and work to be done. So as long as you have the money, you can make it happen. But aside from that, unfortunately, no. Damn it. You know, one of the, one of the things that I, uh, one of the concepts that I came up with, I I'm essentially a dreamer. I like to, you know, obviously think about things and, uh, was like, Hey, maybe one day we can make like, you know, how they have these like, uh, espresso machines where you put like a little pod in and, and even now they have like the brew kits for like making your own, right. Or grow your own mushroom. So I was thinking, you know, if technology gets to that point, you know, it's probably not going to happen today, but one day, maybe not too far. we could make like a have your own brew home kit where we could send you the pod and that has like the starting material for the yeast that can make, let's say, psilocin or whatever you want or Ibogaine or all these different things, any drug. So you can just put it in the pod, you can press go, and then it brews it. And in about a five-day period, you get the yeast that makes it and then it extracts the product and you get homemade psychedelics, right? How cool would that be? I think you're going to have some pharmaceutical companies upset with you. Right, right. Uh, maybe, maybe you won't even see me after cause I'll be gone. But that would revolutionize medicine as well. Like think if people, like you said, if people didn't have to source from a lab that cost, you know, ten thousand dollars for a gram of something, man, that could revolutionize treatment and get people the health and the wellness that they need, man. That could be revolutionary. I personally think that pharmaceutical companies are not built with that business model. Their business model is you buy a pill from us, a pill a day, so we make a dollar a day. From that perspective, I think big pharma is afraid of sure of you know I mean for some psychedelics I've seen data I mean this is not just and when I say data data is not me and my eight friends that took something in a garage overnight you know and their fifteen other friends I'm talking about scientific data from stanford and other places that definitively show that there are certain psychedelics that completely reverse things like brain damage or trauma or particular issues that people have. So this is real. I mean, the point is this is real. There's real data. It's, of course, in its infancy, but there is real information there. Which makes you – which goes with the point that, you know, that's why they have, let's say, a legalization sort of program for things like cannabis and not for heroin, right? Yeah. Because there is some legal – there is some data that shows that. But with psychedelics, I think it's going to be much better. Yeah. I do too. I'm so thankful for – I'm so thankful for the underground. Like there's so much happening in the underground where people are able to source it at a decent price. And you got to go through the seeking aspect. You might have to, you might have to meet Chewy on the block for your first time or something, you know, but I mean like, that's part of it, right? Like finding out where to get the source. There's a lot of information in there. Like, Hey, is this good quality? How do I know what's good quality? Like asking yourself all those questions is part of the search to the healing, at least in my opinion out there. But yeah. Yeah, you brought up the idea of science and I wanna ask you this question here and is, how do you personally hold the tension between being a scientist bound to rigor and a visionary driven by imagination? That's also a very good question. Because I don't usually get these sorts of questions. It's a very difficult task, and I think in business, in the ten years that I've been in business, I think that, in fact, is the hardest thing. Founders and visionary people who start companies, they have a lot of ideas, right? Yeah. Hopefully so, right? I mean, the problem is calibrating the idea that you have and figuring out the pathway to manifest that in the life. You have the idea like, I'm going to do this big goal, but where are you going to get the money? Do you even know how much money do you want? Do you even know what it takes? Are you going about it the right way? You know, do you have the right path? I mean, you know, if you want to go from New York to Los Angeles, there's technically a million ways you could go. You first go to Russia and then you go to L.A., right? You could go everywhere in the world but L.A. and then you could go to L.A. or you could go directly to L.A., right? So the point is that Figuring out that path from New York to LA, that's a straight shot, is the real genius, right? Because in business, unfortunately, the people that are going to give you money, they don't give a damn about your idea. They don't give a damn if you're going to save a billion lives. I'm telling you, they don't give a damn. What they give a damn about is the bottom line. It's about the spreadsheet. It's about the Excel. It's about the numbers. And for people who are visionaries, these people don't do stuff for money. Yes, we make money, but it's not about the money. I could have made a lot more money doing something else. I had a pretty good career working for Novartis Pharmaceuticals before this, which paid me more, by the way, just if my board or other people are listening. But But yeah, I mean, you know, from that perspective, you have to align with the world, right? And the world doesn't care about what you come up with, unfortunately. And you have to figure out what that path from New York to LA is. Yeah, that's well said. I heard my old mentor used to tell me that the ideas are worth pennies, but the execution of the idea is worth millions. Exactly. Yeah, it blows my mind to think about. Who do we got over here? I got Clint coming in. Clint says, could microbes become our allies in ways that rewild the planet where humans and yeast are both co-creators in an ecological symphony? Absolutely. I think microbes have been allies since day one. And allies and foes. It's like human beings. Some people are friendly, some are horrible. Like beer. Beer is made through yeast. That is a byproduct of yeast and yogurt and all these things. But I think we're getting to a point where we can manufacture and we can dictate how these organisms are going to go out there and what they're going to do so yes I think we can live in a you know a place where you know we would be able to change the Earth itself and I think that's why I say like five hundred years to make you know something like that like long lasting changes but I think by that time we will have conquered and figured out and I think in my imagination at least dealt with all these things yeah Me too. Now, I'm curious how working with these yeasts and understanding the relationship they have to each other and how they transmute and how they change things. How is working with that and seeing that processed change your relationships in life? Like, do you get to learn like, well, look at it does this. Can I apply that to my life? Well, I mean, unfortunately, no, not yet. Since I started this company, it's sort of taken over my life. Most of my time goes into this. It's changed a lot of relationships because, you know, you're... too focused on one thing. But it has given me a different perspective. I mean, I do sit, you know, when you go for a family dinner or something that you go out and you look at like, you know, a packet of ketchup or something. And, you know, there's all these ideas that go through your head, right? Like, interestingly enough, we made a you know, food dyes that are antioxidants to replace, you know, let's say a red dye for the cancer molecule. So in that way, yeah, I mean, it's fundamentally shifted my perspective of how I see reality. Like I see reality through the lens of someone who understands that fundamentally things can be changed. But unfortunately, it takes millions and millions of dollars to do that. Yeah. It's such an intriguing question. I wish that everybody had the ability to find that thing that they love and then see the world through that lens. You know what I mean? That would be amazing if people could just tune into that frequency a little more. Yeah. And funny enough, like, you know, you bring up things you love. This is what I absolutely love to do, right? I can tell. And that's why I'm here ten years. I mean, we've gone through ups and downs. There have been months and months on end when we got no salary, right? And that's just a part of if you love what you do, you're going to stick it out. I think that's very, very important. Yeah. Is that what you would give advice to like young entrepreneurs that were maybe watching or maybe today, maybe five years from now? What other advice would you give them? I think that's like fundamental advice. Number one is if you absolutely don't love, not just love, you have to be obsessed with it. Like, so, you know, when I was with Pharma, I was working at Novartis. I had a full time job. I used to go to work. And then, you know, five o'clock, you check out, you come home. Normally, people hang out with friends. They go out to a bar. They go out to play pool or something like that, which is the things I used to do. But since I came up with this idea, I got obsessed with it. This is all I could think about. And it got to the point that now when I came home, instead of doing all those activities, I started reading scientific literature. I think I read a few thousand papers. So it became an obsession. I remember my girlfriend at that time was like, what's wrong with you? You know, so and I think every girlfriend since has also said that. Although, right, because it's like I said, it's it's an obsession more than a love. It's it's an absolute obsession. Again, my friend Clint Kyle's The Psychedelic Christian podcast. Everyone should check it out. It's an amazing podcast. And Clint is an amazing human being. He says, I heard over a year ago yeast strains have been developed that produce cannabinoids. What comes to your mind? Uh, yeah, I mean, we did the cannabis strains nine years ago, right? There are maybe five or six different companies that have developed that technology. Um, I know that maybe one or two of them are actually out in the field. Uh, but yeah, I mean, look, uh, You can't patent the genes. So let's say there are genes in any organism. In cannabis, there are genes to make cannabinoids. In mushrooms, there are genes to make psilocybin. Those genes are natural genes as they exist in the organism. And you cannot patent natural genes. It's just not possible or allowable. But what you can patent is you can patent changes you make to that gene that demonstrate that you have made a process more efficient or more valuable. So in that way, there's nothing stopping anybody. Like, for example, if you have ten million dollars, George, and you'd be like, hey, I'm going to invest that ten million in my new hobby and I make strains of yeast to do all these things. So you could also make a strain of yeast that makes cannabinoids and psilocybin. The real key here, in my opinion, is Just like the analogy of New York to LA is when you make a yeast or a process, the ultimate goal is to make it cheaper and more pure than the original process. If you're using the genes that are so inefficient that now it's even more expensive than what it takes normally, then what's the point? So when we have patents, we don't patent the ability to do something. We patent our modifications. that we have spent millions of dollars and years of time learning that actually made the process more efficient. So yes, anybody could theoretically do it. Yeah, it's a great question, Clint. Thank you. Who do we got coming in? Desiree. Here comes Desiree from Palm Desert. She says, when you brew psilocybin or LSD in a lab, are you simply replicating the molecules or are you changing the very mythology of psychedelics themselves? Also a great question. I like your viewers. I get the best audience in the world, man. You know, I think it's both. And I think the second part of the mythology is yet to fully change. That thing is yet to fully be realized because we're just so early in this inception, right? Yeah. One of the projects that we're working on is looking at classic psychedelics, like LSD is one that we developed, right? LSD and yeast. Now, One of the big problems with LSD that everybody I know who does LSD says to me is that, man, it generally just lasts too long. And I think most people who have done LSD will agree to that. And I do too. Right. So the idea is, could you make a version of LSD that only lasts eight hours, but it's the exact same thing. So, so yeah, we are actually working on that particular project in the, and we're looking at, I mean, it's obviously going to take a while to figure out, but yeah, The idea is to take classic psychedelics and see if there are any harmful or undesirable traits of those and to be able to engineer those out. But I think that's going to take a while. But if we're able to successfully do that, then I think we change. the very connection humanity has with psychedelics. In fact, interestingly enough, I was watching some program on TV, and they were talking about back in the ancient Greek days, there's some fish in the Mediterranean Sea. It's got these bright stripes. I can't remember the name of the fish, but apparently if you take that fish, you have hallucinations for up to thirty-six hours, and a lot of it is undesirable. And I was really fascinated with that, that you know to get this effect we are willing to go through all these undesirable effects right so But it's that important, right? I mean, it's that important to humanity as a collective that we will take substances even though there is a lot of discomfort, but we will continue doing it, right? So there's obvious value. Now, if you fundamentally change that to where it's mostly positive, the question that I have is does that fundamentally change you know, that paradigm and that relationship because in some ways, some bad things are also good things, right? Maybe part of the healing that you get is part of the bad trip that you... I don't know. I mean, I don't think anybody really knows the answer to that question. But... in that way that's why I keep coming back to the idea that I think everything has a place right yes I don't think that if you can produce psilocybin in the lab you should only take that I think and and vice versa right I mean I think there may be situations where you would want to eat the mushrooms right there may be other situations where you just may want to take a pill that has some psilocybin in a controlled way so I think You know, it really depends. But no, that's a very interesting thought. It's like if we can make psychedelics and things without any bad effects, then there may be a generation of people that have never gone through that discomfort that was associated with traditional psychedelics. yeah I'm with you there man I I think you know if you just look at classic mythology there's always the ordeal before the revelation and I think that ordeal is necessary like yeah it's hard like that's why you need the courage to do psychedelics like I look you might be in this place for twelve hours man depending on how much you do you might lose your ability to talk like that's a huge that's a huge psychological You know juggernaut, but I think it's important and that guy I'm not a scientist by any means but I in my personal opinion I think that that bad part is necessary because it forces you to simulate the the dangerous parts of life or the scary parts of life or the parts you're depressed or anxiety that have that anxiety and I Don't know that you would get the same effects if you just only got the good that's like saying I want to go through life But not experience any trauma. I don't think that they work like that man, but that's just my opinion. What do you think? So let's complicate this a little bit. Yeah, let's do it. So think about the time when penicillin was invented, right? Okay. So penicillin is an antibiotic that kills germs and it can save your life. Before penicillin, people usually used to die of bacterial infections, and it was a very serious thing. Penicillin was accidentally discovered by someone who had moldy bread left out, and I think somebody ate the moldy bread. And then, you know, the infection went away. And then one guy who was smart enough put two and two together. Like maybe this mold is what's killing or, you know, doing this. And that's how it was, it came about. But also think about this, right? If we were to say like, okay, penicillin kills germs. So every time somebody has an infection, we have to just eat moldy bread, right? I mean, so do you, so in that way, you know, the paradigm, I think, I don't think there is a right answer here, right? But I think of it that way, right? In one way, like, yeah, maybe the trauma is necessary. Maybe the whole thing is part of your experience to get that integration into reality. But on the other side, is it, right? I mean, you know, I'm glad that they figured out how to make pills. And so I don't have, you know, culture mold in my house and like do all of that, right? But again, like it's a very interesting thought for sure. Yeah. And I think it speaks volumes too of people that might be in a coma or people that, you know, have a severe injury. Maybe they need the neuroplasticity of psychedelics, but they don't need to see all the visions of like their mom beating them when they were twelve or something like that, you know what I mean? Right. It's fascinating to think of. It's so much fun. Who do we got over here? I got my friend Betsy. What's up, Betsy from Oceanside, my old hometown. She says, what do you think ancient shamans would say if they saw microbes brewing their sacred medicines? So I think they would be fascinated. I think they would be intrigued. Because the point of doing a ceremony and all that is ultimately the problem. The goal is to heal people, right? How you do it. you know if you can effectively do it a different way then that way is also right right so I I think they would be fascinated with it and personally I think if they saw that there was something easier and more efficient and sometimes people didn't die right I mean a lot of people when they go through some people die through these yeah and other other ceremonies Uh, so if you can come up with a way that can, can fix that, I think it would be a good thing. I mean, like I said, I mean, like the usage of drugs where I think there should be a full spectrum. I think also for processes, I think some, in some cases it's the right thing is to go through a ceremony with a shopper. Another thing is it might be something you do on your own, right. And, and everything in between. So I think it's, it's important to have, um, sort of a broad view. Yeah, I think so, too. It would be interesting to see it. Yeah, who else do I got over here? This one, no name on this one, but they say, if biology is the new manufacturing, what do you think happens to craft, the human art of making? I think the two are mutually exclusive, in my opinion. I think handcrafts and things that we do are different. But, you know, this biology is... for I would say for making products that are difficult to make right so for example you know if you were to buy pure ibogaine for clinical trials right it's about a quarter million dollars a kilogram right uh if you buy let's say psilocybin from like the government registered authority it's six thousand dollars a gram you know, who can afford that? I mean, why are there not more clinical trials and stuff? I mean, part of that is obviously the legal regulations, which I don't think should exist the way they are at all. But the other part is just because of the prices, right? So, you know, if you can make a product that can actually allow access, right? So if I can make something for ten thousand dollars a kilo that that's in the market for two hundred and fifty, that more people are likely to buy it, which means, in my mind, the healing is gonna spread. Yeah, maybe it's not a hundred percent healing like a professional ceremony, like but how many people can really get on the plane for three weeks travel to the middle of the jungle and afford like ten thousand dollars doing that not many people yeah does that mean that they don't have the right to be healed does that mean that we shouldn't if we have something that's even half as effective that they could buy for a few hundred bucks and they could do it in their own home that's not worth it right so in that way I think uh you know things things hopefully will change yeah me too it's it's so unaffordable for so many people and it seems like the people that need it the most are the people that don't have the resources yeah you know I was talking to uh I was actually on another podcast in the dominican republic I was going to the dominican republic three months ago four months ago and I got on a podcast and uh it was at a five mu dmt retreat center so I was there know for a few days and uh perfect new podcast and uh they asked me the same thing like don't you think you know this way is better than uh you know the other lab-made method and I'm like I don't disagree right but uh how many people can afford to even come to your retreat How many people can you even accommodate, right? How many years or hundreds, if not thousands of years would it take to put the whole world through something like this? So on the flip side, if you can make this and you can distribute it widely, you can make it cheap and accessible. I think that will make a more rapid shift. Yeah, I think so too. All right, I'm going to merge the scientist in you and the imagination in you. And here's this question is, okay, imagine it's the year, and CB therapeutics has fulfilled its wildest dreams. What does a day in that world look like for an ordinary person? Well, I mean, I think the caveat here is that the DEA So assuming the DEA chilled out and there was less drug regulation, I think that would look like that we have, sorry, I'm just going to close this. Yeah, man, take your time, man. The trash collector is coming. But in that world, we would have produced almost every psychedelic using this technology and allowing for the DEA to let us distribute it. We would be able to bring every molecule that has healing properties for a fraction of the cost of what you're paying today. I mean, that was the original goal of the company. it was to democratize access to these things you know yeah we started making uh cbd cbd was like fifty thousand dollars a kilogram how many people can afford something like that right exactly so the idea was to make things cheap affordable pure and accessible so if by twenty fifty the dea shows out then um then yeah I think we would be in a position where we've made uh predominantly every every drug you could think of and we have produced a market where uh it's gonna be pure and it's gonna be cheap and affordable and accessible Yeah, I love that, man. I can't wait for that to happen. I guess you got any thoughts on like my personal opinion is that I love the psychedelic renaissance and I want the healing for everyone who wants to try it or has the courage to try it or can find the modality in there somewhere. And I see so much growth there. But it seems to me psychedelic, the psychedelic movement is a lot like mycelium and that it is always underground. And only every now and then does it come above ground. And then you see people like start pitching their tents and selling access and then it goes away again. For me, there just seems like so much There's just so much of the regulations and the laws and the politics and the money behind the scenes. I don't see how it can stay above ground without dying. It seems like it comes in cycles to me, the same way mycelium does. Any thoughts on that? Yeah, so I think we're close to having that breakthrough. And what I mean by that is that the momentum, I think, is slowly building. And I think it might cross a threshold. So one of the things I look at is the number of drugs that are in clinical trials what stage they're at and that ultimately determines sort of like the viability of psychedelics to the world so I know that psilocybin is in phase three with compass pathways the moment that happens I think that's going to be a very big milestone for psychedelics Another milestone that happened recently was in the news was Gilgamesh Pharmaceuticals. And their drug was licensed by a big pharma for one point two billion. So I think we're almost at the cusp. I think within the next two years, there's going to be big movement in psychedelics. Again, this is just my opinion. Yeah, I love it, man. I'm bullish on it. I want it to happen. Who do we got over here? Rivera. Rivera's coming in, and they said, sure, if yeast can be taught to make psilocybin, CBD, or LSD, what does that teach us about the untapped intelligence of life itself? It teaches us that anything is possible, right? I mean, you know, here's – I mean, you know, we are – human beings have come to the point that now we are playing God. I mean, we've been doing it for many years. Agriculture was sort of like the start of that. And we've taken that far to like now airplanes and satellites and medicine and AI. And I don't think that the time is far where we're literally going to control every aspect of our existence, minus the human condition itself, right? I mean, as we have more and more control over life, paradoxically, we are more and more depressed, right? You know, which is a very interesting thing, right? I mean, I think that is the thing that we're going to not be able to have an answer for is the human condition itself. But outside of that, I think we'll be able to take care of everything. That's a great point. And I didn't think about it from that angle. But, yeah, it seems like the more we control, the more we lose our – the more we – almost sounds like a lack of spirituality on some level like we're seeing controlling all these things and maybe we're so caught up in these in this idea of controller or something we have like this absence of spirituality what's your relationship to spirituality what do you think I'm a spiritual person I don't really subscribe to one thing or another but but I find it fascinating that at the end of the day I don't know anybody I don't think anybody really knows what's actually going on, right? You hear people like, this is what happens after death. I'm like, dude, were you there? Were you there, bro? I don't think anybody knows. I think there are speculations and whatnot, but I don't think anybody knows. And the point is, why do we care what happens anyways? we're here to do our time and then that's that what happens after that is none of our business so live in the present you know try to you know be happy do good in the time that we have uh but but yeah I mean it's interesting to see that uh yeah who knows like what happens or what could happen Yeah, it's interesting to see. I always get caught up with the people that are like, it's the end of times. And then I think to myself, like, you know what? You're going to get your own front row seat to it. But the chances of you being here when we all go, it's pretty thin. You know what I mean? I think it's kind of exciting. It's to the brain, to the mundane life. Yeah. You heard about, you know, the three-eye atlas. Yeah, yeah. my thing and then now they're like oh it might be like aliens or they said that about uh before this and I was like dude I hope it's the aliens sorry to say that yeah go ahead because because honestly like life itself is whatever like you may have the best career you may have like the best life but the end of the day is the same same crap right yeah a certain time you have to get your coffee not be late, pay your taxes, do this, be a certain way. I mean, in a certain way, it's boring. In a certain way, it's predictable. In a certain way, In a certain way, the worst thing that could happen, I don't know who said this, but in some movie is the worst thing that could happen to you is you're just average or ordinary, right? The worst thing that could happen is to live an ordinary life. So my buddy was like, oh, I don't know if it's the aliens. I have a lot of, I mean, I'm a conspiracy theorist. Me too. In many ways. Some I have learned not to believe anymore, like the flat earth thing. But there's others that I've been to. But I was almost like, I hope it's the aliens. I mean, that would be the most exciting thing. We need some sort of jokes. I feel like we're the aliens, but that's what I go down, man. Like, if you think about it, like we, I go out in the, I go out in the sun, I get all burned, man. We're just, we're taking all the resources from the planet. Like you could make a pretty good argument for like, dude, we're the aliens. We're the ones over here doing this, you know? We're so we don't even know what's going on half the time. Right. Like we're basically extracting everything and it's like the matrix, right? I mean, that's what the AI said is you guys are like the cancer. And we are the cure, right? Yeah. Speaking of that, I mean, that's why AI scares me a little bit, right? It's like, you know, it is unpredictable. I think people don't fundamentally realize that. The people who realize that they know this, I think they're just too greedy. You know, they're just like, okay, I don't care where humanity goes as long as I become a billionaire and et cetera, et cetera. But speaking of that, yeah, I do worry how, where things, excuse me, are going to go with AI. Like it... know now they're making machines that like automated robots that are like warriors and those are dogs they put sniper rifles on them and all kinds of drones and stuff it's like this is a very this is too dangerous I mean this is I mean what could argue that fundamentally about even having a nuclear bomb right I mean but but I think we're we have invented a thousand and one ways to kill other people and every day it just becomes more efficient more deadly I mean where is this going right yeah yeah man like everything we do it's usually for you could probably say that the majority of our r d is for weapons like everything is for a weapon ultimately when you start digging into it oh they're doing this for military research but then there's some cool stuff that comes out of it later down the line when they when they turn it over to like well I guess you could be healthier favorite food products that came out of the war budget was actually Cheetos. Cheetos was invented to, well, a form of it was invented to be like a long lasting food for like soldiers. And then somebody did, you know, obviously a few modifications to it. And then now we have Cheetos. I had no idea. I had no idea. Who do I got over here? Leon, what's cracking, Leon? I hope your day is beautiful, my friend. He says, when you look at the four challenges CB Therapeutics addresses, do you see them as separate problems or as a single living system that fermentation can harmonize? Good question. So so I think the way I see it is I try to approach every industry independently. Right. Right. So, for example, you know, cannabis and psychedelics were doing projects there. We one day we found out that, you know, that through the news that red die for you and others have been shown to cause cancer and they're putting it in M&M's. I love M&M's and candy. you know, obviously all these kinds of foods. And I was like, wow, this is horrible. Like, I mean, you're putting in literally a cancerous product, knowing it causes cancer. So we're like, you know what, why don't we, you know, Figure something out. So what we did is we took the colors from things like beets, tomatoes, carrots, and those happen to be antioxidants, by the way, the color themselves, the pigment. And we replicated those and we made those products in yeast. Now, you know what the problem, though, is? The problem is the companies don't want to buy it. even though it's cancer, it's like a healthy for you because of like, it's going to be more expensive than cheap, you know, red dye for you that they were thinking. So, so ultimately I think that's one of the problems you face is you invent or you make something that is good for people or, uh, is good for the environment, but. Businesses don't care. They have all these campaigns about saving this, doing that. It's all a PR campaign. It's all marketing. There's literally no substance behind it. Yeah, there's a great quote that says, if you don't have a seat at the table, then you're on the menu. That's a good one. If you don't have a seat at the table, then you're on the menu. What about, so if we think about this process, if we, if maybe not the exact process you're doing now, but is there a way to get like maybe kids involved? Like could you, could there be a day when children learn to like brew the future in school, like turning sugar into molecules instead of code? You think there's a process kids could do at maybe like a elementary school? Is there something they could do to start learning this aspect to kind of get them in the right frame of mind or maybe see a future in biotech? I think, uh, think one of the earlier things to do would be to educate kids on biology in general earlier on I think uh bio biology has come a long way and mostly so in like the last fifty or a hundred years in fact I think the curriculum is maybe a little not as updated I mean we are we've updated the curriculum from the perspective of adding new definitions adding new diagrams and going into detail, but I think you need to fundamentally step back and look at what the broader implication could be and how you can stitch that narrative, like even for kids earlier, right? I mean, you could have children's storybooks that, you know, just like they have kids' storybooks to learn how to code. You know, you probably see those things, right? Like learn how to teach your child coding from early years. You could have one about biology or biotech that can... you know, have kids imagine. I think the biggest thing is to have an imagination, right? I think that's, you know, if you're a drug user of any sorts, you definitely have an overactive imagination. So in that way, I don't think drugs are necessarily bad. I mean, assuming you are a responsible user and you can, you know, find something that's clean and pure and whatnot. But also having kids have the imagination that, you know, You know, one day I could make an AI program or I could program and do this. It could be one day I could, you know, make a new medicine. I could make, you know, a bacteria that can eat plastic or something like that. Right. I mean, that's definitely something we can integrate. Yeah, that brings up another question for me. Like, when we talk about drug development or drug discovery, it seems like your process could be at the front of that, too. Like, you know, creating next-gen psychedelics or next-gen, you know, whatever, next-gen whatever. I think that could be an aspect of it, too. Yeah, so that's primarily what we do. So for example, we have a partnership with a public pharmaceutical company called Atai Life Sciences. Oh, they're crushing in the market right now. Yeah, they are our partners for like five years. Yeah, yeah. He actually sits on our board. Very nice guy, amazing guy. He's got three degrees, all from Yale, right? So you can imagine, you know, the talent of a person like that, right? Amazing guy. So they are a public company, they do clinical trials. So we do the backend development where, you know, we'll try to make unique pharmaceuticals or psychedelics, or if a current one is too expensive or too hard to obtain, or there are purity issues and things like that. So I think, you know, as much as I am a proponent for the gray market on a personal level, from a professional level, I think that definitely you know, the fact that companies are going down the road of doing actual clinical trials and doing it in a very rigorous manner, I think it's a good thing. Because, because, you know, a lot of things, you know, the pharmaceutical process, as bad as it may be, and I think it's bad, not because of the process itself or what it makes, I think it's bad because of the greed behind you know, the management in some ways and the investors. I mean, that's ultimately the bad thing. You know, the whole, that doesn't make the whole process bad, right? I mean, we've got a lot of great treatments and like advancements in science and we've saved hundreds of millions of lives because of, you know, the work that pharmaceutical companies do. But ultimately, the problem is the management and sort of like the greed behind it, right? So if we can separate that, I think that would be an interesting thing. And I think you know, I'm happy to see like, uh, these, uh, new clinical trials and pop up. And even for our companies, uh, you know, it's a very, very long process to get DEA approved. I mean, if the DEA fundamentally changed its stance, that would, in my opinion, be the biggest change that there can happen in this industry by far. Yeah. I wonder if there's a relationship between like the greed aspect of the investors and the corporations and the, that which they measure in clinical trials. Cause it seems to me clinical trials are lacking in so many of the intangibles that we don't thoroughly know how to measure. You know what I mean by that? Like like someone like the tears of a veteran who no longer is depressed, like the tears of the wife of a veteran who's no longer depressed. Like that's evidence. Like that's solid evidence. Like when the wife begins to see, oh, my God, it's working again. But how do you measure that if the biomarkers don't measure that? Like, do you think there's a relationship there or can we do you think we can start moving into clinical trials that begin to measure some of these more subjective ideas? So I think, yeah, I mean, I think. Ultimately, if somebody feels better, it works, right? Yeah. If you think about it, placebo works about thirty four percent of the time. True. Yeah, without a doubt. Well, so there has to be a qualitative differentiation between Things that you can just be cured because of a placebo and things that really like if you have a deadly bacterial infection, you could feel all the positivity in the world. You know, you're probably going to die. Right. So I think it's a very complex question. And for complex questions, you need complex and differentiated solutions. And there's never usually one solution. And, and, and I think that's the thing, right? I mean, when we look at pharmaceutical companies or, or these ideas of how a drug should be administered, what is evidence? These are very, very complicated and complex situations that unfortunately never have one answer. And I think that is sort of like the key to understanding and navigating these fields is to have that broad mindset, right? Just was, which I was saying earlier, like, for example, you know, I'm, I'm a proponent of psychedelics because I've done a lot of psychedelics. That's my primary motivation. So I understand that whole side of it. And most of the psychedelics I've done have not been in the clinical setting. But having said that, I think there's definitely a place for that. I think we could advance this even further. the ultimate goal is to heal people and make them feel well. So why is this not a way? In that way, like I said, there's some times where you just want to do something in your backyard with some, you know, Jimi Hendrix playing in the background or whatever, right? Whatever you're into. But on the other side, you know, you may want to be in a clinical setting to go through a specific sort of trauma and have guided, you know, whole thing. So I think there's a room and a space for both of these situations. Yeah. yeah I agree you know it's it's not a pharma specific problem I mean look at any corporation there is greed there is all these things that are happening and this is a I would almost say this is a human condition greed is a human condition um just like you know in every You know, politics, for example, I don't want to jump into politics, but I'll say something. One thing about me is that I'm an immigrant to the U.S. I moved here twenty years ago on a student visa and then I went through the process and I just got my citizenship about four years ago. So I'm from Pakistan originally. My family still lives there. So I moved here by myself. I live by myself here. But I'm very fascinated to see over the years having friends from different political ideologies. And the most interesting thing I find about politics is this. You turn on one TV channel that's pro one side. they will frame the whole world yeah a way where that is the thing and whatever actually happens in reality they will frame it as a good thing You turn on the other type of TV channel, they have a whole new frame. And what I find very interesting is it's not what actually happens. It's about how you're framing it. So no matter what happens or how anything happens, the framework and how they paint the story changes everything. So in that way, I think greed plays into it from the perspective that whenever you have a lot of power and money involved, you have a lot of bad actors. There's just no way to avoid it, right? I mean, you know, and politicians, I think, are the worst. I think they're the most, I mean, they're the most trained liars or what you want to call it. I don't think they really care about anybody. They're just taking narratives to move further. And it's, you know, how do you root that out, right? Unfortunately, You can't almost, right? I mean, how could you do that? And I think that's the same thing. There's a position of power. There's a company that could do this. People that are bad actors, you could try to stop them, but they will try to get up there. That's exactly why I think everything goes back underground, man. Like, you know, I remember back in like the sixties, Art Linkletter's daughter jumped out of a window and they were like, that's LSD. And then everything got shut down. So my listeners are probably like, shut up, George. But I'm just saying my piece over here. Like all it takes is for one really connected, powerful donor for something bad to happen to that kid. He tells the politician and everything goes away. You know what I mean? And I don't want to be, I'm sorry, I'm being negative after all these people, people shut up about that, George. But like, I don't know. I think it's, I think it's worthy of, of knowing, but I guess the way we would change it, at least in my opinion, and like, I see psychedelics as a tool for self-discovery and I'm privileged in that. I don't maybe have the conditions where I need to go see someone and I can do the psychedelics and I've built my own relationship with them. But I think when each individual takes finds an altered state of awareness where they can understand what they're truly capable of, I think that's where the change comes from. It comes from the bottom up. And then they say what culture is or politics is downstream from culture. So if if we can create that culture and each individual begins to step into who they really are, I think that's the big change, man. Is that too optimistic? I would say yes on a practical level. And the reason is this. I feel like there are different types of people in the world. I was just reading a quote which says that it's something along the lines of some people are not put here to actually make a change. They're here to remind you that if you don't change, this is what you will become. So in that way, not everybody... has the intention to do right. And this is one of the other things you learn in life and in business and in relationships is you may be coming at it from like a open heart, you know, good intention, sort of putting your best foot forward. But the other part, the other party, whether it's a relationship, whether it's a business deal, may not. I mean, their MO from day one might be, yeah, I'm going to get the contract signed and then screw this other party over. And the whole time they've been thinking that or that other partner in a dating situation might be like, oh, I'm going to take him for what he's got kind of a thing. and from day one, and then they play that game, right? So I think in that way, not everybody is playing the same game. And because we're not playing the same game, it's gonna be very difficult, I'm thinking. That's well said. It's naive on my part, but it comes from a good spot, sure. Who do I got over here? Oscar, what's cracking my friend? Hope your day is beautiful. He says, if microbes can be programmed to create abundance, could they also be taught to create beauty, art, and music? uh maybe yeah I I think so because I mean they've they've done interesting things like for example they've connected some like these like sensors to mushrooms and how you could hear the music right maybe you see that uh they've uh created like art pieces that use you know microbes in a sense the question really is is are the microbes really aware of that right you know and the question is to make art does one have to be aware that they're making art like you know they have this elephant somewhere and the elephant paints I swear to god like it makes really nice paintings but the question is does the elephant really understand Like, what exactly is happening, right? I mean, and that art is sold on the internet and people, you know, buy it and they understand it like that. So it's a very subjective question because on one side is humanity. We say like, okay, to have a nervous system, to be conscious, you need to have these, these, these things to like really know what's going on, right? on on another level on a quantum mechanic side they say that every object itself has consciousness that's the the awareness of itself so the question is where is that line of of being able to understand I I don't think there's an answer to this this is this is one of those questions and unfortunately The most important questions in life are ones that nobody has an answer to. This is just one of those things. But yeah, I think it's definitely a very interesting rabbit hole to get down. Yeah, I like where you're going with there, Oscar. I found as I get older, man, like I don't know anything. I don't have any answers, but I can come up with better questions. It seems like there's always better questions, but there's never really answers. nice well I got one more over here for you man you okay on time for another question we're over an hour already okay okay cool let's see what we got over here this one is coming from when we brew this one's pretty cool a shout out to camilla camilla says uh when we brew mental health compounds in a lab are we merely replicating nature or rewriting the map I think a little bit of both, right? And that's also subjective. Like the initial effort is to replicate what nature has because we know that's what works. I mean, think about like, I mean, shout out to the first human beings like hundreds of thousands of years ago that did the mushrooms and then they were like, this is some good stuff, right? doing it and like the ones that that discovered cannabis and all these drugs because because think about it like back then you took a random berry sometimes it worked and sometimes you were dead totally or paralyzed or something right uh so but after doing these things for a long time you would be figured out like okay these are the things if you have these conditions that you go to you do this and it works but ultimately the the point of doing it See with everything, you have to come back to what is the purpose? And this is something I learned going through therapy is what they say is, what is the purpose? Okay, I'll start a business. What is the purpose? Oh, I'll do something significant or I'll make money. What is the purpose of that? You keep asking yourself that question with every answer you get, And five or six answers later, you actually find out the real purpose, which is an interesting practice to do. So the so ultimately what people were trying to do back in the day and they're still doing to this day is to either relax or to figure out or fix an issue. Right. So if we're able to figure out how to cure a disease without having to eat moldy bread, then I think it's going in the right direction, but I think it's still subjective. Yeah, it is. Sure, who are some of the people that you admire and that you, who are some of the people you admire and why? Well, the first one would probably be I would say Marcus Aurelius, a stoic philosopher, probably my favorite person, if I had to think one. Why? Because I think he, you know, they called him the man who solved the universe in some ways. And I think it's, You know, a lot of the human things that we in the modern world suffer from today were figured out a long time ago, right? Like we figured out greed was bad, right? And, you know, be just, have a sense of being right, karma and all these things, you know, be busy on your health, be busy on like these things. And I think once we forgot those things again, then a lot of miseries come, right? So I think he would probably be top of my list uh other people that I can think of the second person would probably be napoleon the general uh because he's just got a very fascinating so I'm fascinated by by people that have a lot of grit and determination despite the circumstances because I feel like My situation was kind of like that. I was student visa. Cannabis was illegal back then, still is federally. It was illegal even in the state. I mean, I started this company in twenty sixteen and I used to go around to investors. They're like, dude, this is totally illegal. Right. So but no, but but it's the persistence and determination one has and that one here. Right. So I think he embodies that in many ways. So so those are the types of people I admire, people that have depth to them. Right. People that are, you know, not just surface level like, hey, what did that what did Katy Perry do tomorrow or. or whatever I don't even really subscribe to mainstream culture in that way I have previously and and I don't think there's anything wrong with it I just think that there are so many uh deep things one can be involved with that that these are things just seem shallow right so I think that's I think psychedelics has really helped me in that way yes and for most people is you you kind of disconnect with reality itself like this matrix sort of a thing that we're living in this uh you know go get a job go to school get the biggest house get the biggest car you know get you know the xbox and this and that and you know it's easy to get into that right but if yeah psychedelics are a very powerful tool that allow you to really disconnect, step back, and kind of see the whole picture. And that's something I'm grateful for, is to be able to be reckless enough to do all these things in some ways, right? But it all works together. And I'll end this with a quote by Marcus Aurelius. He says, if you observe carefully, Everything happens as it should. And, you know, on a surface level, it's like, okay, dude, whatever. But on a deeper angle, you know, what I think it means is that, you know, reality is a certain way. But the unfortunate thing is most people don't see reality the way it is. They have all these filters and all these things which distorts it. And then you try something or the understanding of something and you don't get the desired result. The problem is not the effort that you're making or whatever. The problem is you didn't correctly understand to identify the problem or see it for what it is, right? And that obviously means that you couldn't have come up with the right solution, right? You see something where we're really, really far away in the distance, five miles from now, you think it's like a circular object, so you create a net that's circular, but then it comes out to be a rectangle, right? So in that way, I think, you know, and this is what psychedelics, I think, helps people too with, is to... cut those filters loose and to try to observe reality as close as possible. I don't think anybody can see it completely for what it is. We are human beings and we're designed to have filters and these things. It's a part of survival, right? Like people and all this stuff. But consciously, the more of these filters you can, you know, get rid of, I think the closer you have the ability to see that and the less disappointing things are because you can sort of see Oh, blowing up over there. Yeah, it blows my mind to think about that aspect of seeing reality clearly. It makes me think of like the default mode network. Like when we see these brain scans from psilocybin, you got the default mode network and then all of a sudden there's other connections and maybe some of these cut out. And when I think of culture, I feel like it has this default mode network for you. Hey, you want to follow the default mode network. Then you go to school, you go here, you get this degree, you get this job, you buy this house, you get these two kids. And then like that's sort of the default mode, which isn't bad. I mean, it works, but it seems like it's working less and less for people. Yeah, and I think part of the reason is there's just new things come up. Like, I mean, look at, like, two hundred years ago. You know, if you were, like, a glassmaker, that was, like, the hottest job, you know, or, like, a sword forger or something like that. I mean, those things don't exist today, right? You know, fifty years ago, it was, like, be a doctor, right? Now that's changing. Now it's about being, you know, an AI encoder or something like that. So I think through the perspective of time, you know, things completely change. Yeah. You know, when I sometimes I'll look at the conspiracies or I'll just look at the news and it's so easy to get caught up, like you said, in some of the thinking. But maybe it's not that we're super evil. Maybe it's that we're just new. Maybe we're just figuring it out. You know what I mean? It's a way better lens to look at it. At least it has been for me. And I think that's what it is. You know, I mean, we are learning. I mean, in the scale of like humanity and life, this is just like a blip. Right. But for us, it seems like forever. Right. Um, there's another quote that I, that I read yesterday was, you know, the days are long, but the decades are short. Right. And, and if you think about it, it's the same for my life. Right. Like, I mean, every day is like, oh, at this time you get up and there's some days where you're just like, oh my God, this is still got this, this, this. But like, when I think back, I'm thirty eight. Right. So I think back, I'm like, I'm already thirty eight. But, you know, like, yeah, that way, like, time flies. Like, you know, in the long perspective, right? You know, it just felt like yesterday I was in high school, right? And now I'm here. And now I'm like, wow, like, this is probably what life is. Like, you know, you keep, like, aging. But when you look back on it, it just seems like an instant, you know? yeah it's so true it's so true sure you are really fun to talk to man thanks for hanging out with me this is awesome man okay let's do some more in the future man we can bring a panel together but let's definitely have some more conversations man I'm open to it like I'm having cool I like it I like the the direction and it's just very speakeasy so your audience is great question so I yeah give me a shout out anytime All right. Well, say someone's listening right now and they're like, man, I want to talk to Sher. He is pretty cool to talk to. I want to learn more about his research. Where can people go to find out about you, your research, or what you got coming up? So I don't really use social media, but I have a social media presence just for like as a business owner that I have some of these. But I make it a point to not scroll through social media. I'm a little out of that whole scene. But I have a website, cbthera.com. And you can go and check out what I do. If you want to reach at me, you can always email me. It's share, S-H-E-R, at cbthera.com. I'm happy to have a discussion if somebody wants to have one. But those would be the two ways. Fantastic. The great Clint Kiles again says, great conversation. Clint, you have a great podcast. Everyone should check them out. Cher, thank you so much for being here. Hang on briefly afterwards, but to everybody within the sound of my voice, thank you so much for being here. We got the greatest audience in the world. Thank you for participating. I hope everyone has a beautiful day. That's all we got. Aloha.