Dr. Carl Hart was recently on the Joe Rogan Experience (JRE) Podcast #1593. Rogan described him as a “longtime champion for evidence-based drug policies and has written several influential books in the field. His newest is “Drug Use for Grown-Ups: Chasing Liberty in the Land of Fear”.
Dr. Hart spoke openly about his current drug use to Rogan, saying that he regularly uses heroin, methamphetamine, and other illegal drugs daily and encouraged Joe Rogan, who hadn’t taken those drugs in the past, to try them.
During the podcast, Rogan agreed a couple of times to do cocaine and heroin for the first time with the doctor under controlled circumstances.
Two of the most addicting and illegal drugs in the world have destroyed countless lives worldwide. They have been proven by science to change drug users’ physiology, personality, and brain, often causing criminality and psychiatry disorders.
In the interview, Hart attacks other medical professionals when talking with Rogan, like when he called addiction specialist Dr. Drew “a fucking idiot who doesn’t know anything about drugs,” when commenting about an interview he had participated with Cooper Anderson in on CNN.
Dr. Hart said Dr. Drew should have just shut up and listened when Hart spoke on drug addiction, but instead interrupted. He claims that Celebrity Rehab was an exploitative TV show and that Drew doesn’t care about those people.
Hart also said that from the brief time he spent with Drew on Anderson Cooper’s show, it was evident to him that Drew knows absolutely nothing about drugs, what they do to people, and why people take them. Not only that, but Drew apparently couldn’t shut the fuck up and let Dr. Hart talk, who is an expert in the field of neuropsychopharmacology.
When I listened to the podcast, Joe seems to have a lot of admiration for Dr. Hart, who appeared to be very arrogant and combative to differing opinions and believes he is one of the world’s best experts, and everyone else should shut the fuck up and listen.
Hart had told Rogan and has on numerous occasions that people are not dying from drugs but ignorance. Meaning that it is not the drugs that rea deadly, just stupid people who do drugs are dying because they lack proper knowledge, and if they had this information, they would not die.
Several articles and interviews of Hart saying basically stupid people are dying from drugs and it has nothing to do with drugs are published online such as the Scientific American, “People Are Dying Because of Ignorance, not Because of Opioids and on his personal website in an article titled, What Is More Dangerous: Drugs or Ignorance About Drugs?”, Hart makes a claim in his words;
“When we think about heroin physical dependency, people see it portrayed in movies as being this potentially deadly thing,” he said. “It’s not deadly or potentially deadly. You can’t die from heroin withdrawal, but you certainly can die from alcohol withdrawal.
Heroin withdrawal is like the flu. If you’ve had the flu, you’ve had heroin withdrawal.
Hart continues, “It’s not pleasant, so I don’t want to minimize that … but this notion that you can die from heroin withdrawal, that’s just simply not true.”
When researching heroin withdrawal and deaths, I discovered several unbiased studies published in various publications around the world showing that while it is uncommon, heroin withdrawal has been well documented to cause death in some unfortunate users.
“It is generally thought that opiate withdrawal is unpleasant but not life‐threatening, but death can, and does, occur.
The complications of withdrawal are often underestimated and monitored inadequately.
It is essential that clinical management programs are put in place routinely in jails, prisons, and other facilities where withdrawal is likely in order to avert these avoidable deaths.”
In May 2016, a U.S. Professor from Columbia University had to flee the Philipines on an emergency flight because he was in fear for his life.
Dr. Carl Hart was invited to the country by President Rodrigo Duterte to talk about drugs and addiction. Duerte has led one of the world’s most brutal campaigns against drug users, addicts, and sellers. He is alleged to operate death squads by executing excused drug offenders openly on the streets without a trial or jury for several years.
The Columbia University professor is one of the world’s most sought out experts on addiction and an ardent opponent of “drug myths” such as stereotypes depicting meth and crack users as violent zombies.
In a 2017 interview, Hart said that he went to Manila ready to counter the “tremendous amount of misinformation about methamphetamine” in the Philippines, according to the World.
“I thought it would be a nice thing to do,” he said. Hart had no idea that, shortly after his May 6 speech, he’d have to flee the country under a flurry of online death threats.
In the interview, there was a claim about brain shrinkage of meth addicts made by President Duerte and Professor Hart that caught my attention because I recently read some studies on the subject.
The difference in opinions is this – Duerte has distributed literature to the Philippine people that methamphetamine use shrinks the brain of users, and Hart says that information is false or a lie to scare people.
Dr. Carl Hart’s position on drug use and addiction is that it is not the drugs that are causing these health issues, criminality, and psychiatric problems, but it is our society that treats drugs and addicts, and it is the user’s inherent health and already present mental issues that are “triggered by drug use.”
But the big question here is – who is telling the truth?
My research that I will present to you below will prove that Dr. Carl Hart is the person who is spreading disinformation and President Duerte is telling the truth.
As you read my research, please keep in mind that I’m not a big fan of Duertes drug policies. The facts are that if I lived in the Philipines, I would probably have been killed by now. Also, just a short while ago, I would have agreed with Dr. Hart and his position on decriminalizing drugs, but my position on that subject has changed because of the extensive research I have done and also my own experiences with 30 years as a drug addict, a drug seller and even several years spent in court-ordered alcohol and drug addiction programs.
I do not think that we should decriminalize drugs for everyone – just some pre-screened experts who control their minds and bodies. I will explain my theory in a future article, but first, I wanted to put forth research showing some of the statements about meth use and brain shrinkage made by Hart and also the contradicting science and studies that prove that meth use does, in fact, shrink the brain.
“His fairly anodyne speech — which challenged Duterte’s claim that meth shrinks human brains — came to the attention of the president himself.
Duterte went off. He called Hart “that black guy … that son of a bitch who has gone crazy.” He accused him of peddling “bullshit.” Hart became an instant target to the president’s diehard supporters.
“I was receiving death threats,” Hart said. “In the Philippines, people will pay anywhere from $100 to $500 to kill people. I had to take it seriously … and I found a flight leaving the country immediately.”
When you have a president making such ignorant comments about drugs — like he’s a pharmacologist — and when society allows that? And the scientific community doesn’t say it’s wrong? They have much bigger problems.
As he had done with Dr. Drew Pinsky, Hart defiantly claimed the Philippine President’s ignorance when he said, “Duterte’s ignorance is only surpassed by those who support him on this issue.”
Duerte commented on Hart’s claims, saying: “That’s all bullshit to me,” and called Hart a “son of a bitch who has gone crazy”.
In an interview with Public Radio International, Hart said “a president making such ignorant comments about drugs — like he’s a pharmacologist” and added that President Duterte was “out of his league when he talks about drugs”.
So, is the Columbia Professor right or is President Duarte correct when he says that meth shrinks the brain?
Dr. Hart said this to The World about meth use and brain shrinkage:
“This is the most abhorrent claim made by the president. Millions of people around the world take this drug. For a variety of conditions. We don’t see anyone’s brain shrinking.
There’s almost no drug that shrinks your brain besides chronic alcohol use. We’re talking large, large doses. And it’s not really because of the alcohol. It’s because people stop eating and don’t get their vitamins and minerals — and then parts of their brain atrophy.
We’ve never seen, in the methamphetamine doses humans take, any shrinking brains or destroyed brain cells. It’s a ridiculous notion.
Look at the [scientific] literature — the animal literature, the rat literature — where you’re giving 20, 40 or 80 times the normal dose. You can get some damage. But you can also get some damage if you’re giving that much ibuprofen.”
In reading Duerte’s and Hart’s statements, the big question we all should ask in attempting to find who is telling the truth is that if there is any science that would support and or contradict any of their claims.
What I immediately discovered when I did my own research was a plethora of studies over the last 30 years or so that detail the research that has been done on meth use and the effects on the brain.
Research that proves without a shadow of a doubt that chronic meth use does shrink your brain and that Dr. Carl Hart is spreading disinformation and lies that may be killing unsuspecting people who believe the information that he is falsely exposing to our nation’s youth and their parents.
False knowledge that may be infecting hundreds, thousands, and now with his latest appearance on the Joe Rogan Experience Podcast #1593, possibly millions of people will try dangerous drugs because of his advice.
This is why I believe he is one of the world’s most dangerous professors.
Dr. Hart claims that everyone who says that drugs cause these mental and psychiatry problems in users are ignorant.
The word ignorant seems to be the most popular term the Professor uses to describe people who die from drug use, and people who think drugs cause mental illness and death. Another word he throws around a lot are calling people cowards who have a different opinion than him, acting as if his knowledge on the subject is superior to everyone else and that he is the real expert.
Hart said in the interview, “So I want to make this clear. This ain’t a drug issue.
It’s about the elimination of poor people. It’s an excuse for why certain politicians are failing. The killings, for the most part, only happen in poor communities. This is not happening to the middle class.”
Hart continued, “All the physicians, the pharmacologists there, if they’re allowing this to happen? It shows they’re either ignorant or cowards.”
This is a pretty bold and wide statement.
In the interview with The World, Hart had openly called the Philippine President ignorant and his policies a said an interview The Philippines obviously has much bigger problems than methamphetamine, in terms of human rights, and looking after every citizen.”
I agree that there are issues there, but my point with this article is to see if Dr. Hart’s statements about drugs like methamphetamine in terms of it not causing brain shrinkage and or meth or any other drug that he claims are not causing problems with user and creating addictions that lead to amoral and criminal behavior.
For example, a simple Google search on the subject will reveal several studies that contradict Dr. Carl Hart’s statements that meth does not cause brain damage and or shrinkage.
In a 2004 study, Structural abnormalities in the brains of human subjects who use methamphetamine, researchers found on average, that “meth abusers had 7.8% smaller hippocampal volumes than control subjects (p < 0.01; left, p = 0.01; right, p < 0.05) and significant white-matter hypertrophy (7.0%; p < 0.01).
The hippocampal deficits were mapped and correlated with memory performance on a word-recall test and MRI-based maps suggesting that chronic methamphetamine abuse causes a selective pattern of cerebral deterioration that contributes to impaired memory performance, the researchers said.
They stated that meth abuse “may selectively damage the medial temporal lobe and, consistent with metabolic studies, the cingulate-limbic cortex, inducing neuroadaptation, neuropil reduction, or cell death. Prominent white-matter hypertrophy may result from altered myelination and adaptive glial changes, including gliosis secondary to neuronal damage.”
GNOSTIC WARRIOR CONCLUSION
Whether Joe Rogan wants to use cocaine and or heroin with Dr. Carl Hart makes no difference to me, but I believe that Joe should get more information and perhaps do some more research before he ignorantly partakes in these drugs.
I just detailed some of the research that can be easily discovered online that will contradict many of Dr. Harts claims, which I believe are not only dangerous but deadly.
How many people will now try these illegal drugs, become addicted, and possibly die because of this Joe Rogan Podcast?
Moe is the founder of GnosticWarrior.com. He is a father, husband, author, martial arts black belt, and an expert in Gnosticism, the occult, and esotericism.
