The war on plant medicine & science 🌱 🍃 🌵 The late Nolan Williams’ amazing TED Talk just dropped: In 1756, the war on plant medicine was led by the anti-fruiters: “people who weaponize scientific skepticism to thwart new treatments from getting out to the world.” Instead of eating citrus to prevent scurvy, arsenic tonics were prescribed for sailors. It birthed the world’s first clinical trial to determine which treatment worked. Plants won, and we eliminated scurvy. But… a million people died during the war against progress by the "anti-fruiters" as they were called. Psychedelic plant medicines have faced the same science-suppressing scrutiny for the past 60 years, and well over a million have died from suicide who could have been saved. The U.S has lost over 20x more veterans to suicide than combat this century. Groups like VETS and Heroic Hearts have been sending veterans overseas for psychedelic therapy, curing most of them of PTSD, depression, anxiety, and addiction (alcohol, nicotine, and opioids). Nolan decided to study them, with MRI imaging before and after. After one ibogaine treatment session, “remarkably, we saw resolution of disability from Traumatic Brain Injury, something we have not seen before.” It was the first substance ever discovered to meaningfully reverse MRI-measured brain age. Nolan on ibogaine: “We have never seen such a broad acting CNS compound before. It’s one of the most amazing drugs on the planet. It’s the equivalent of a broad acting antibiotic that can treat all infections.” And… we are so sad that Nolan passed this year. We have supported his work and became good friends. We could go on for pages, but let me point instead to Stanford’s new obit on this great man: