Coast To Coast AM - October 12, 2014 Predator Drones & DMT

Host Richard Syrett welcomed psychiatrist Dr. Rick Strassman, who talked about his research with psychedelic compound DMT and how naturally occurring DMT may produce prophecy-like states of consciousness and thus represent a bridge between biology and religious experience. After first being discovered in psychedelic plants in the late 1940's, he said, researchers learned that DMT could also be found in the bodily fluids of humans. While the purpose of DMT in the human body remains a mystery, Strassman noted that it "appears to be actively transported into the brain using the brain's energy" which is an attribute only exhibited by compounds that are required for normal brain functioning, suggesting that DMT plays a critical, albeit unknown, role in the human body. Although DMT was pretty obscure drug compared to LSD" in the early years of psychedelic research, Strassman observed that this changed once researchers realized that the compound was created naturally within the human body. That discovery, he said, led to numerous studies into the possible role of DMT in psychosis and schizophrenia. However, after the drugs "escaped from the laboratory" and people began using them for recreational purposes, the government passed the Controlled Substances Act of 1970, which put an end to studies on the effect of DMT in humans. This moratorium lasted until 1990, when Strassman was allowed to perform the first new research on the mysterious compound's influence on the human mind and body.