Exploring the role of psychedelics in healing PTSD among veterans: Weapons and Warfare

Feb 05, 2025 at 03:00 AM CST

A veteran shares his journey and the groundbreaking mission he undertook to help fellow veterans heal through psychedelic-assisted therapy. — Image credit: No Fallen Heroes

This recording was made using enhanced software.

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This week on Weapons and Warfare, host Ryan Robertson sits down with former naval aviator Matthew Buckley to explore an innovative approach to addressing the silent battle many veterans face: PTSD. Buckley shares his journey and the groundbreaking mission he has undertaken to help fellow veterans heal through psychedelic-assisted therapy.

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Robertson and Buckley delve into Buckley’s experiences with these treatments and the stigma surrounding them. The discussion challenges conventional methods and highlights the urgent need for compassionate solutions for those who have served.

You can subscribe to the Weapons and Warfare podcast on the platform of your choosing here.

Ryan Robertson is the anchor of the Straight Arrow News video podcast Weapons and Warfare. He wore many hats in his career — from photographer to news director — and firmly believes honest journalism will save our Republic.

Tags: Drugs, Mental health, U.S. military, Veterans

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[RYAN ROBERTSON]

HELLO AND WELCOME TO WEAPONS AND WARFARE. FOR STRAIGHT ARROW NEWS, I’M YOUR HOST, RYAN ROBERTSON, AND THIS WEEK, I THINK WE HAVE SOMETHING SPECIAL FOR YOU. AN EXTENDED CONVERSATION WITH FORMER NAVAL AVIATOR AND F-18 HORNET PILOT MATT BUCKLEY CALLSIGN WHIZZ.

WE ORIGINALLY CONNECTED FOR A CONVERSATION ABOUT CHINA’S MILITARY AMBITIONS ABOUT WHAT THEY SAY IS A SIXTH-GEN STEALTH AIRCRAFT. IF YOU MISSED LAST WEEK’S EPISODE, I HIGHLY RECOMMEND GOING BACK AND CHECKING IT OUT AFTER WATCHING THIS EPISODE.

BEYOND CHINA, I WANTED TO TALK TO MATT ABOUT HIS FOUNDATION, NO FALLEN HEROES. IT’S A 501(C)(3) PUBLIC CHARITY, AND THEIR MISSION IS TO HELP HEAL VETERANS, FIRST RESPONDERS AND THEIR FAMILIES.ULTIMATELY, THEIR GOAL IS TO END SUICIDE IN THE VETERAN AND FIRST RESPONDER COMMUNITIES BY TREATING THEIR PTSD, DEPRESSION, AND ANXIETY THROUGH ALTERNATIVE FORMS OF MEDICINE.

THROUGH THE FOUNDATION, HE’S WORKING TO EDUCATE AND BRING AWARENESS TO THE MENTAL HEALTH CHALLENGES VETERANS AND FIRST RESPONDERS FACE EVERY DAY.

ACCORDING TO THEIR WEBSITE, THEY ENVISION A WORLD WHERE THOSE IN NEED HAVE LOCAL ACCESS TO LIFE-SAVING PSYCHEDELIC-ASSISTED THERAPY. MY CONVERSATION WITH MATT WAS WIDE-RANGING AND COVERED A LOT OF GROUND.

MATT’S VIEWS ARE BASED ON HIS LIFE EXPERIENCES AND MAY NOT BE SHARED BY EVERYONE HERE AT WEAPONS AND WARFARE. ALSO, AS A BIT OF A WARNING, WE HAVE NOT EDITED THIS CONVERSATION FOR CONTENT, SO PLEASE BE ADVISED, IF YOU ARE OFFENDED BY THE USE OF SOME COLORFUL LANGUAGE, THIS MAY NOT BE FOR YOU.

[RYAN ROBERTSON]

WHEN YOU STARTED THE FOUNDATION, WHEN DID IT HAPPEN? WHY DID YOU START IT? AND LIKE, WHAT WAS THE IMPETUS?

[MATT BUCKLEY]

“Well, you know, I guess the impetus was starting in childhood. I was sexually abused as a child, one of six Irish Catholic kids from South Jersey, South Philadelphia, typical Irish Catholic family. I was an altar boy and all that type of stuff. And my middle sister, Monica, she was killed by a drunk driver when she was 19. And that was a that was a hand grenade that went off in my family. I mean, technically, when she died, I lost my parents too. I mean, they were just, I mean, my dad was done. I think he died years later, of a of a broken heart. So very tough childhood in high school. But, you know, I grew up on the Jersey Shore, the real one, not the MTV one, but I grew up on the Jersey Shore. I love the beach. I love the ocean. And one of my best friends who lived across the street, his dad was larger than life. He was, he was an Eastern Airlines pilot, but he flew f1 Oh, sixes out of the Atlantic City Air National Guard. And this guy drove a Trans Am, you know, he was a Vietnam, you know, fighter pilot. And I’m like, holy crap, I want to do that. Um, and obviously, being a beach guy and navy, I’m like, I want to fly fighters off a carrier. So I did, you know, God takes care of fools, drunks and sailors. So I looked out, and it sucked, because now I’m really going to age myself in 86 I was a junior in high school tracking, go Navy and fly fighters for the Navy, and then the movie Top Gun comes out. I’m like, son of a bitch. Then everybody wanted to be a fighter pilot. I’m like, of course, so I just had to bust my ass. Even more, lucked out. Ended up selecting F eighteens and out of California. And I did two deployments, Kitty Hawk and Abraham Lincoln over Iraq. But on my first workups, like, before you go on cruise, you got to get ready to go on cruise, right? It’s called workups. You’re actually gone. More getting ready to go than when you’re gone. You know, you go out to the boat for a month and learn how to land on the boat. Then you go up to Nevada to drop bombs and break big rocks into little rocks, and then, you know, back to the boat, because you might have forgot how to land on it. So during workups, during my first squadron, we lost eight air crew, eight air crew, three in a prowler, two in a Tomcat. You know, two, two in Hornets. It was just the first female at 14. Pilot crashed trying to land on the Lincoln. I was like, Holy shit, man. I just got into this stuff. We didn’t even head west from California towards Iraq, and we lost eight so in 15 years of flying fighters, I lost 16 buddies, not a single combat loss out of those 16 bad decisions, bad weather, stupidity, God, but that was a that was a ton of trauma, man, and then just beating the shit out of me, pulling, you know, seven 8g dog fighting the air. You know, we, I’d fight the jet on the edge of consciousness, right? You you pull a bunch of G the blood’s coming out of your head, squeezing your legs and your abs to, oh, there he is, you know, now, back on the G just beating the shit out of yourself, and then coming back and landing aboard the boat. If you sit in your driveway, in your car, and a crane pulls you up to the second story and let’s go, that’s the equivalent force of landing aboard a carrier. It’s it’s never less, or you don’t land. And then oftentimes, especially if the deck is pitching, it’s often more so. And I remember one of those days, you know, going launching off the boat catapult launch zero to 200 miles an hour in a second and a half brain to the back of your your medulla oblongata or whatever. So I remember landing aboard the boat after a dog fight and sweating. And, you know, I’m 27 year old kid, and I remember going in the red room, and the flight surgeon just looked at me, and he shook his head. He’s like, Man, you guys don’t want to know what happens to you. I’m like, Whatever, man. I’m at the top of the world. So, you know, physically beat me up, mentally, beat me up. You know, just a bad situation. I flew fighters for the reserves for about five years at a Naval Air Station Fort Worth, separate, long conversation. My first and last day at work in American Airlines was 911 packing for my first trip saw the attack. Raced out to the Air Station, to my fighter squadron, and we ended up Manding, uh, Manning an air combat patrol with the F 16 squadron next door. Separate story. I bring that up because I got furloughed, you know, which is a polite airline term for laid off. Yeah. So I on active duty. I taught myself how to trade. I didn’t join the Navy to get rich, so I’m. Like, you know what? Let me learn how to trade stocks and options. So I got hired by a trading firm in Chicago, and this is all getting to the foundation, because I was still flying Hornets and I was in Chicago in a trading firm. So I go from an organization where you trust the men and women with your life, or they’re not in that organization anymore, to Wall Street, where I couldn’t trust a dude to watch my wallet if I went to the bathroom for five minutes, right? It was a it was a horrific transition. I’m like, Oh my God, you people are disgusting. There were guys who would push their own mother in front of a bus for $1 and I was lost. Hit the booze, hit the drugs. I lost my mission. I lost Why am I getting up, you know? And I was making a shit pot of money. I had never seen that much money in my life, but it I was empty, yeah. And then along the way, on active duty and in the reserves, I lost 2f 18 brothers to suicide. And then, when I stopped flying, a groomsman in my wedding who I got winged with in Kingsville, Texas, man, one of my best friends, Eric Swenson, marine Hornet. Guy, beautiful bride and five kids just decided to leave as well. I was devastated. So 3f 18 suicides, and then in 2020 literally, it’s a god. Oh, every moment’s a God moment. This was a huge God moment. I had a buddy in the White House in December of 19. He’s like, Dude, there’s something that escaped from a level four lab in Wuhan China. They’re digging up the highways around the city. They’re sending in mobile crematoriums. We’re freaking out. I’m like, what I’m trading, right? Yeah, so, and I’ll never forget this, as I was starting to hear some tipper, I’ll never forget january 22 Trump is in Davos. Remember every year there’s the annual beautiful people conference in Davos. Yeah, and it was a throwaway interview in a CNBC it was Joe Kiernan Donald Trump CNBC interview. Hey, you know, Mr. President, before you go, what’s this China flu or China bug? Joe, dumb question. Why you even ask me such a stupid question? You’re You’re such an idiot. Good, great backswing, been to mar a Lago. You’re an idiot not coming here. I looked into this camera. I was in a live trade brief, man, we were watching it. I told my members, I’m like, Get out. Get out of I’m like, buy puts on the S, p5, 100, get long. Volatility. We pounded the market into the dirt for three weeks as the smart money got on TV and said, What? Oh, this is a bottom Oh, I’d be a buyer of stocks here. Boom, boom, boom, yeah. I bring this up because in like, two and a half weeks, or three weeks, we made, I made two and a half million bucks in trades. Wow. Why does that matter? My dad always told me after, you know, before he died, he’s like, Matthew, you can’t take it with you, buddy. You’re not a pharaoh. They don’t put it in your in your casket, not you know, I’m not one to quote the Bible too often. But you know, it’ll be easier for a rich for camel to pass through, and I have a needle, than a rich man enter the kingdom of heaven. And that was right after my buddy had died. So I told my wife, I said, You know what? And back then, the government number, which is a lie, was 22 seven, whatever it was. Back then, 1819, 22 veterans were dying every day from suicide. And I was like that, that’s a mass shooting. I hate even talking like this to the universe. Could could you imagine if 22 children, not once a year were being shot. Yeah, every day, every day. Yeah, this country, we would flip the fuck out. Yeah. So I said, You know what, Susie, let’s start a foundation to try and end veteran suicide. But how do you, how do you, how do you keep a guy or a gal from killing themselves? I was like, What would help him with job placement? Buy buy him a suit. Help him write a resume. I was clueless. But around that time, a buddy mind’s like, Hey, there. I got a I got a seal buddy. There’s a group of Special Forces dudes that go down to Mexico and they do psychedelic assisted therapy to heal their trauma. And there’s a really cool group going in a couple weeks. Would you want to go? And I said, Man, go to Mexico. Do drugs with Navy SEALs. It sounds like a great weekend. Sign me up. Yeah. I had, oh my god, man, I look back on a laugh now, because, I mean, I did my prep. I had coaching calls and, you know, had my integration or, you know, pre flight planning, but I there was no way I could have ever known what was going to happen. So I ended up going with a pretty cool group, Marcus Luttrell. Obviously, everybody knows who Marcus Latrell is, Lone Survivor, yeah, another teammate of of of his, you. And then JT, Jared Taylor from from black rifle coffee. And then an NFL veteran. His name’s Robert gallery. He was an all American at Iowa. Big dude went and played in the NFL. And you know, you meet in San Diego, and you drive about an hour south to a clinic. Why? Because, if you did this in San Diego, you’re a felon, right? If you do it an hour south, it’ll save your life. But anyway, I bring that up because we, you know, we take a little convoy down to the clinic, and I was in the car with Robert, and I got to tell you, Ryan, he was, I was sitting in the car next to a dead iceberg. He’s just a he was a big gray he needed, like, a sickle. And, I mean, he I was like, Oh my God, this guy’s awful. Yeah, I bring this up because let me just fast forward real quick, a year, a year later, I’m at a fundraiser in San Diego, out on Coronado, and this big freaking dude bumps into me. I’m like, Holy shit, I’m gonna get my ass kicked. It was him, and he was a completely different human being. Wow, I didn’t even recognize it wasn’t I’m like, Oh, my God, Robert, he was a different human so we went down to a clinic called the mission within. It’s in, I think it’s in Tijuana. I think they call it. It’s a beautiful, you know, clinic, overlooking the Pacific. It’s right out of central casting, you know, yeah, and I gotta tell you, man, I don’t know how much time we have, but we sat with the first night, we sat with a medicine called Ibogaine. Iboga I B, O, G, A, is Root Bark from Gabon Africa, okay, Central West Africa. If you do Iboga, the actual route, it’s like, I’ve done Iboga down in Costa Rica. It’s like, sawdust. It’s, it’s, you’re chewing on sawdust, man, and, yeah, tree bark, as the name sounds, it’s tree bark. It’s got about 12, I think alkaloids in it. And in the West we we pull out one of the alkaloids called eyeball game, which just has incredible healing characteristics. One of them is neuroplasticity, right? You can google Navy SEAL Stanford study. So Stanford, not Boca Raton Community College Stanford, did a Ibogaine study with 30 plus seals, and I think 80 90% of them up to a year. Two years later, showed 0% pts. I mean, these were suicidal dudes and bad guys in a bad place. So Ibogaine has neuroplasticity. It can regrow dead neural pathways. So some of these guys, we gave a grant to a SEAL who was a Breacher, right? Explosion, explosion, you know, gray, black and dark on his brain scans three months after the eyeball gain, it was completely, what, wow, right? So, neuroplasticity, and then it’s got incredible. Addiction. Interrupter, I was a drinker. Not proud to say, I don’t know if you can be a good drinker. I was a bad drinker, right? I couldn’t look at or smell alcohol for a year after I came home, if I smelled like a vodka, like in the room, it would make me dry heave. It was, it was that much of a shock to my system. Now, four years later, if I want a glass of red wine with my steak, I can do it. But old wiz a glass was the bottle probably two or three sure it destroyed alcohol in my life. Um, and the experience itself was a 12 to 14 hour journey, and you’re wide awake. People are like, Oh, my God, you’re tripping or whatever. I’m like, No, I got my eye shades on. Eye shades up. There’s Marcus, there’s JT, there’s two nurses, there’s the EKG monitor, because they’re monitoring your heart rate. All right, yeah, I’m on Earth. High shades, back on, Full Movie, yeah. And I’ll tell you, Ryan, I I got 3040, years of healing in 12 to 14 hours. It was not fun. It was not recreational. I’ll tell you, man, I’ve landed a hornet on a carrier in the middle of Pacific at night in bad weather, low on fuel. That was easy compared to this experience. It was, it was extremely challenging. Very, very, what is it?”

[RYAN ROBERTSON]

I MEAN, WHEN YOU’RE WHEN WE’RE TALKING ABOUT REPAIRING DEAD NEURAL PATHWAYS IN THE BRAIN, THAT’S OBVIOUSLY GOING TO HAVE AN IMPACT WITH WHAT YOUR MIND IS EXPERIENCING IN THAT MOMENT. AND I’M, YOU KNOW, NOT TO GO INTO IT, BUT I’VE BEEN TO COLLEGE TOWNS. I KNOW WHAT PSYCHEDELICS DO, YOU KNOW, BUT THE EXPERIENCE THAT YOU’RE DESCRIBING WAS A VERY, YOU KNOW, CLINICAL, VERY. TROLL, EVERYBODY WAS SAFE, YOU KNOW, LIKE, NOT LIKE BACK IN MY DAY, WHERE WE WANDERED AROUND THE WOODS AND HOPEFULLY DIDN’T GET EATEN BY A BEAR OR SOMETHING, BUT LIKE, YOU KNOW, IT WAS SOUNDS LIKE A VERY, VERY SAFE ENVIRONMENT THAT ALLOWED YOU AND THOSE WITH YOU TO KIND OF INTERNALLY AND MENTALLY PROCESS THE TRAUMA THAT YOU WERE CARRYING WITH YOU.

[MATT BUCKLEY]

“Amen. This is not as I alluded to. I had two briefing calls with my with my guide. There’s a manual. You can come in with intentions. I mean, you are you’re tight going in, you do an EKG before, you do blood work before down there, once you show up, you do a drug and alcohol test. If you got anything in you, you ain’t sitting with the medicine, right? Because people like Google Ibogaine and, of course, the fear porn pops up. Like 30 people have died, yeah, over about 40 years. Yeah, yeah. 3000 people. Google this one. 3000 people die every year from aspirin, yeah? So they always these anti whatever people are like, oh, people can die on it, dude, yeah, you can…”

[RYAN ROBERTSON]

DON’T GO TO A VENDING MACHINE. THEY FALL OVER ON A LOT OF PEOPLE, EXACTLY.

[MATT BUCKLEY]

“And it’s sad, because just about every death that was associated with, like a retreat or Ibogaine was because of either the dude showed up literally on heroin, or the guy was drunk or had underlying heart issues, and yeah, so don’t, don’t listen to the fear porn. It’s not risk free. But like I just alluded to, these clinics in Mexico have been doing it for decades. So you are on an EKG. They did screen you. They did look at you. Blood work. There was two nurses throughout the night. There’s a cardiologist downstairs. The guy slept on the couch the whole night, just in case something happened. There was an IV port. Everybody had an IV port. There was nothing plugged in. But if something, if they needed to push fluids, for example, with Robert, so man, you know, 14 hours later, I got up, I went downstairs. I’m like, I am a different human being, the colors were brighter. Everything was brighter. I bring that up because, you know, then somebody else came down. Four of us were downstairs. Robert didn’t come down until, like, dinner the next day. He came down for about five minutes. Looked like shit, and he just went back to bed. And I could tell the doctors were like, looking at us like we probably were terrified, and they looked at us and they said, the medicines working. He’s got a lot. It’s, it’s, it’s really digging. We’re like, you sure they’re like, Yeah, trust us. This. This is completely normal, people that have a lot in there. The medicine really, really takes, takes its time. So you nailed it. This is, it’s clinical, but it’s also, you know, I will use the word spiritual, right? You’re not in a white room with dudes and lab coats and clipboards. So it’s a little bit of both. It’s a perfect balance. But to your point, this is not some fly by night, you know, type of place, right? Matter of fact. Thank you to the voters in the great states of Oregon and Colorado, these medicines are legal at a state level. Yeah. However, nobody’s doing Ibogaine yet for all of these reasons, they have to get the infrastructure up. I mean, I I’m a partner in a psilocybin clinic that we just opened in Oregon. That’s easy, man, ain’t no cardiologists, nurses, EKG, it’s psilocybin, and it’s, you know, two to four hour experience. Hypogain infrastructure is going to going to need a little bit a little bit more. But man, it was with it was the most transformative experience of my life. I got to experience my sister again, my father. And the medicine went in there, and it scrubbed things that I didn’t know I was carrying right from childhood. And you’re not and you can choose to use whatever word you want to. I choose to use the word God, you know, source divine truth, universe, Steve. Call it Steve. I don’t give a shit. But even the man, I’ve seen, guys who are the most atheist, agnostic, you know, make fun of God, they come out the other side. Like, I’m not gonna call it God. I’m like, I’m not saying anything. They’re like, there was something that was full of love and light and forgiveness and it it helped me. I’m like, okay, yeah, call it Steve. I don’t care.”

[RYAN ROBERTSON]

YEAH, AND, AND THAT’S A THAT’S A SHARED I MEAN, EVERYBODY PROBABLY EXPERIENCES A LITTLE BIT DIFFERENT, BUT YOU’RE SAYING THAT’S A SHARED EXPERIENCE ACROSS DIFFERENT USERS.

[MATT BUCKLEY]

“What’s incredible, Ryan is with the hundreds of people that I’ve experienced with doing this medicine and my other sister, foundations. I don’t think we’ve heard of a single person that’s come to the other side that hasn’t had that type of experience. But also it’s, it’s, and I don’t know if half is a good word, everybody reports kind of the first half, the first. Again, choose whatever word you you want. I’m going to use, God, it was a tour. When I got home, I looked at my wife, I said, I don’t have to travel ever again in my life. She’s like, why? I saw everything. And now people watching this might chuckle, laugh if you want. I saw everything. I got a tour of everything. You name it. I saw it, and it was almost like God was saying, like, check this out. You are part of all of this, and part of this is you. I can cook baby. Look at how spectacular This is. We get so into our life. I gotta be at practice. I gotta pay the taxes, my mortgage, you know, check this out, man, let, let’s put things into perspective. So that’s like, they call it the visualization phase. The medicine goes in there. And the first phase is check this out. And then the second half that everybody reports is them. God says, All right, wasn’t that cool? Let’s go. And then it is no shit, their individual one on one. It’s like I was sitting in a movie theater, the most beautiful movie theater in the universe, next to God, looking at trauma, but not being in the trauma, looking at the childhood stuff, and I could see it completely different. And it was just, you know, I remember one point just before the maybe, let’s call it halftime, right? The visualization happened before God took me and we left. The visualization stopped, and I didn’t, maybe, intuitively I knew that was God doing that. But the first half was just, I’m like, Oh my God, I’ve never seen more beautiful things in my life. And then it whenever it ended, I’m in space, not like, scary space. I’m just like, looking like, I’m like, Holy shit, look at just the universe. Yeah, there’s a big white light right there that appeared energy, love. It just emanated. I just felt home. And of course, you know, doubting whiz here, I’m like, are you God? And never any words. It was all energy and communication. God doesn’t talk. It was just you. God answers. And of course, it was I am. And I remember saying, Wow, where have you been? And God said, I have always been, and I will always be. Where have you been? My son, right? And that, and it was very loving, the way that was, I got that, but it just made me sad. And I remember just crying and going, I am awful. I’m awful. I’m an awful Father, I’m an awful husband, I’m a drunk and no God said, Matthew, I don’t make imperfect things. You’re perfect. Let me take those things. They’re not yours. They don’t serve you anymore. And literally, Ryan, they were gone. I felt I was forgiven. I felt so much lighter and happier, and then I got up. He’s like, you good? I’m like, yeah. He’s like, let’s go. Let me show you what you can do. And it was just the most incredible experience of my life. But that stuck with me, yeah, I don’t make imperfect things every one of us. Man, I don’t care if you’re fucking Jeffrey Dahmer, Vladimir Putin, you were born with a piece of that infinite love and light, this shit, this shell, this ego, hate, war, poverty, rich, poor, this build up, this shit builds up, and what the the medicine does for just about everybody is it knocks this layer off, and it shows you underneath who you truly are. I did my own podcast about this, probably not the most popular one, but, man, I probably would have volunteered to go work on Florida’s death row to, like, pull the trigger. Yeah, you know who needs this medicine? Do criminals who are going on parole reset you who you were before is gone? Yeah, let me, let’s scrub the shit and reset you to your default state, which is actually good. I guarantee you, the rate of recidivism would go down to nearly zero. It was that transformational.”

[RYAN ROBERTSON]

AND THAT’S YOU’RE TRYING TO BRING BACK, YOU KNOW, TO BRING THIS BACK TO THE FOUNDATION THAT THAT EXPERIENCE IS SOMETHING THAT OBVIOUSLY EARTH SHATTERING, GROUNDBREAKING FOR. YOU, AND NOW YOU’RE TRYING TO BRING THAT TO YOUR YOU KNOW, BROTHERS AND SISTERS IN ARMS, SO THAT THEY CAN ALSO LIVE A MORE FULL LIFE.

[MATT BUCKLEY]

“I went downstairs Ryan the next morning. I said, this is how we’re going to end veteran suicide, yeah, period. So I got home and I said, Susie, this is how we’re going to end veteran suicide. So I try and go on just about every retreat that I can. I’ve missed a couple for scheduling issues, but I’ll tell you, Ryan, the retreats I’ve missed. I’ve gotten five to seven text messages after those retreats. Whiz, I don’t want to kill myself anymore. Yeah, you can’t put a $1 I can’t when I see those, when I get those texts, I have a folder I keep them in if I’m having a bad day, I reread those things. So this is how we’re going to end veteran suicide. But this is a We the People movement. Man, let me tell you, I went to DC. What a pit man behind closed doors, Republican congressman who shall remain nameless, Wiz, I love what you’re doing. Okay, great. You’re gonna have a problem. What with the Big Pharma and the alcohol and tobacco folks? I’m like, What do you mean? I’m gonna have a problem. Dude. Isn’t that your job? So we’re, we’re kind of pushing the rope uphill right now a little bit. This is, this ain’t going to come from them down. This is going to come from we up. And, you know the, I love my my hippies and the drug rugs and the mala beads, but the first psychedelic revolution, you know, Timothy O’Leary, hey, let’s put it in the water. Probably went a little too far. Yeah, this psychedelic revolution, Navy SEALs, Navy fighter pilots, athletes. Maybe, if Mom and Pop walking down the street like, holy shit, this guy was a Navy fighter pilot and healed his trauma with that stuff, maybe I’ll listen to him again, not slight my hippie brothers and sisters, but maybe this psychedelic revolution, this time around, G od just kind of chose some different disciples, you know?”

[RYAN ROBERTSON]

YEAH. WELL, I MEAN, I LIVE IN IOWA, AND MEDICAL MARIJUANA IS LEGAL HERE, AND I’VE SEEN A LOT OF GRANDMAS WITH MEDICAL CARDS. SO, YOU KNOW, I THINK MOVING THINGS ARE CHANGING. RIGHT? DIFFERENT GENERATION COMING INTO POWER.

[MATT BUCKLEY]

“You are, right? Man, I’ve met the most anti Drug Law and Order Republicans or whoever, and I’ll give them my five minute story, and they’re like, Whoa, I can people can shift pretty quickly. They know it’s not recreational. You’re not taking eyeball gain and going to a club, Man, you ain’t taking Ibogaine and going anywhere for a weekend. So it’s not, this isn’t fun, right? Like, let me It’s medicine. Yeah, it’s medicine, right? A drug is made in a lab coat with a beaker. A medicine that God put on this planet for us to heal is not a drug. And that’s what’s really frustrating to me. You know, Joe Rogan had Governor Perry on a couple weeks ago, talking about Ibogaine and he steals my line, man, Governor prairie is like, Dude me Republican meat eating, knuckle dragon pro, you know, anti criminal. If I heard me talking about advocating for psychedelics, I kicked my own ass. But he’s gone from the most that to the most this, mainly because, you know, Marcus lived in the governor’s mansion with him, and he’s seen the transmission. So we’re, we’re, we’re getting there. You’re right, we’re but, you know, I should celebrate this, but it pisses me off. A month and a half ago, the VA announced a $1.5 million study in the second yay. No, yay. The federal government spends $6 million a minute. Yeah, it’s 15 seconds of funding over five years. Yeah, buddy, if you had given the our foundation a million half bucks, I probably knock half the people off my list. I don’t need a study over five years. So I think the VA kind of threw a little, you know, through a penny at us to go see you type of people we are going to do something about this. It ain’t enough, but thank God. Pete hegseth, he was on Sean Ryan recently. And Sean Ryan’s a Ibogaine veteran. And Pete HEG says, like, Dude, I’ve heard a lot of my bros. I’m behind it. JD, Vance marine was on Joe Rogan. Joe Rogan had to give him a little tutorial on veterans and psychedelics. And he said, Wow, this sounds like something I would get behind. And obviously RFK Jr going to HHS. If you’ve never seen it, Google his little two, three minute clip when he’s asked about psychedelics, it’s a tear jerker because he’s like, I’m a recovering alcoholic and heroin addict. When people when talk to psychedelics, I’m like, they are replacing one bad thing for another. And then my wife took her life in 2012 and one of my boys was done when his mom left. He left too, and then a buddy of his dragged in. And Peru did ayahuasca, and he came home, and soon as I saw him, I got my son back. So RFK is another one that went from this to this, because Richard Nixon, hopefully he’s in heaven and repented the war on drugs with psychedelics was going after political opponents, anti war. Wait, you did these mushrooms, and it makes you love people in Vietnam. Well, now they’re a felony, and here’s your rifle. So we are still fighting that stigma, but like you alluded to, we’re getting there, man, a journey of 1000 miles begins with the first, first couple steps,”

[RYAN ROBERTSON]

YOU BET. AND THAT, YOU KNOW, MY LAST QUESTION FOR YOU IS, IS, YOU KNOW, WHAT DOES THE NEXT FEW YEARS LOOK LIKE FOR THE FOUNDATION, AND WHERE ARE YOU HOPING TO GROW AND SO LIKE, WHAT DOES THE NEXT COUPLE OF YEARS LOOK LIKE? IT LOOKS LIKE THE YOU KNOW, THE TABLE MIGHT BE SET FOR SOME POSITIVITY. BUT YOU KNOW, WHAT DO YOU THINK?

[MATT BUCKLEY]

“Let me lead with this. My mission, objective for the next three to five years with the foundation is to go away. There shouldn’t be a no fall arrows foundation. There should not be one veteran non profit period. How about the government? The VA, the DOD, keep the promises. I went from one day having a top secret SCI clearance, flying the premier fighter aircraft in the world to the next day, being a liar to the next day. Va, to the VA, saying, We don’t believe any none of this. What are you talking about? You just trusted me. No, now it’s a court case. Now we don’t believe you. What do you talk I gave up after three years. I didn’t need it was a matter of principle for me. I didn’t need the money or the benefits. I’m like, Fuck you, man. I earned this three years later. Now I know why a dude would sit in a parking lot and put a bullet in his head. It’s a shit show. So let me lead with that. I don’t want to be doing this. I shouldn’t be doing this, but I guess I mean, I do want to be doing this, since the government is isn’t so we should go away, period. But as I alluded to and if Trump, Vance, RFK, hegseth don’t move the ball forward, I will take a flamethrower to them too. I am non partisan about this stuff, but as opposed to Democrats who are paying lip service to it. Oh, sure, peace, love. And turns out when, when I was in DC, they’re, first of all, they’re pro war. Right now, everything’s reversed right in the 60s, they were anti war and anti government and big pharma. They are pro Pharma. They while they were paying lip service, oh yeah, psychedelics, you were the party that should already be there. They’re not. So when I hit Republicans with it, they’re like, Wait, this is healing our veterans. Boom. I’m in for it. So we should see some movement in this direction. And then finally, if it ain’t happening at the federal level, I just had a great meeting two days ago up in Palm Beach, literally near Mar a Lago, with my commissioners to decrim at the state level or legalize at the state level. Ron DeSantis, if you’re listening, you’re failing. You’re a fellow Navy officer veteran, and you’re failing. I think was it California, Texas and Florida have the most amount of veterans? Where are you? Thank you. Colorado and Oregon and jersey. I think jersey at least decrimmed. I don’t think they legalized. Massachusetts voters. You suck. It got close and fail. I think they needed 60% whatever happened in mass, I don’t know California, Gavin. Where are you? You would think California would be super pro psychedelics. Every year it gets close to Gavin, and for whatever reason, it fails. So we need efforts at the state level, right? You know, technically, with the stroke of a pen, Trump could reclassify something from a schedule one drug, which is Ibogaine, to a schedule three, which is a doctor’s prescription, but calling a skit Ibogaine, the definition of a schedule one drug is no therapeutic use and a high risk of addiction. That’s a cigarette and that’s alcohol, yeah, they are legal. Yeah, Ibogaine is anti addictive. I couldn’t drink for a year. Made me want to vomit, and it was the most therapeutic thing in my life. So they’ve labeled Ibogaine the exact opposite of what it is. But bro, you know, well, as I do our government agencies, the DEA sinks their teeth. It’s a jobs program. It is an absolute jobs program. So that sounded like a rant, but take all of that rant and turn it to the other direction, and if those things don’t happen, we’re moving the ball forward. But I’m very hopefully. You can tell I’m very passionate about this, because we’re losing gals and guys in the hour. And you and I talked a couple people checked out. It’s so hard. So I can’t forgive me for being, you know, overly motivated. But when you lose buddies to suicide, you’re like, What the fuck are we waiting for? Let’s go.”

[RYAN ROBERTSON]

RIGHT, BECAUSE EACH DAY. DON’T GO. IT’S 22 MORE PEOPLE, AT LEAST GONE, RIGHT?

[MATT BUCKLEY]

“What is it? 100 it’s more. Since 911 we’ve lost 150,000 veterans to suicide. Yeah, what? At same time, it was like nine. I should know the number, God, please forgive me, eight, 9000 in combat. We’re losing the war at home, man. And before we go, let me say this, these medicines are not for everybody, please. There are so many different healing modalities, yoga, hot yoga, meditation, breath work, walking on the beach, climbing a mountain in Nepal, knitting, I don’t care, cold plunges. There are so many different healing modalities. This is one of them, but I’ll leave you with this radical trauma might need radical healing. And getting your ass kicked on a mattress in Mexico can be some radical healing. But I said I’d leave you this. But one more sentence. If I heard five years ago me, heard me say this sentence, I give me a wedgie and take my lunch money, the medicine calls to you, if you listen to all this and you went, that sounds like the dumbest thing in the world. It ain’t calling to you, if you listen to any of this and went, huh? Let me open a tab and Google something. It might be calling to you. And I’m here as a resource. Man, I am an open book. And you know, I have my max so I’d love to have you on mine, my max afterburner podcast, I interview all of our grant recipients, first responders and family members and vets that we heal. And that’s you want to talk about something funny, man, we have active duty law enforcement officers, state troopers and stuff like that, doing the medicine under the radar. That should tell you something about where we are and current air I’ve airline pilot brothers and sisters, current captains and First Officers. I’m going to drop a week of leave at American and go to Mexico and UN fornicate myself, and they go home, and they’re different human beings. So it’s kind of sad that we have to do this stuff under the radar, but the world’s going to be a much better place if people heal.”

[RYAN ROBERTSON]

YEAH, WELL, AND IT’S, IT’S LIKE A IT’S A POINT OF GETTING TO A CRITICAL MASS, IF THERE’S ENOUGH PEOPLE ALL FLYING UNDER THE RADAR, AND THEY REALIZE, WAIT A MINUTE, THERE’S MORE OF US FLYING UNDER THE RADAR THAN NOT, YOU KNOW, THEN THERE MIGHT BE A HUGE, GREAT AWAKENING.

[MATT BUCKLEY]

“You know? What’s funny is, there was a couple team guys. They weren’t in our foundation. They were working with another one. They admitted they were working for an alphabet agency in whatever form they had to renew on. They’re like, yep, did this, yeah, they got a call. And I’m like, oh shit. They’re like, No, no, we got a call from a guy that was like, hey, what’s the name of the clinic and what’s the number? They didn’t get in trouble. They were they were honest. I mean, Uncle Sam said, All right, thanks for being honest. And how can I do that?”

[RYAN ROBERTSON]

YEAH, YEAH, YEAH. GET SOME REFERENCES, RIGHT?

[MATT BUCKLEY]

“Exactly.”

[RYAN ROBERTSON]

WHIZ. REALLY APPRECIATE YOUR TIME. WE WILL PUT UP ALL OF YOUR CONTACT INFORMATION ON THE WEBSITE WHEN WE WHEN WE POST THIS STORY. REALLY APPRECIATE IT, MAN, AND HOPEFULLY WE CAN MEET, MEET UP DOWN THE ROAD, CHAT IN SIX MONTHS OR SO, AND GET A PROGRESS REPORT AND SEE WHERE WE’RE STANDING. SOUND GOOD.

[MATT BUCKLEY]

“Awesome, my brother. God bless and thanks for having me. I appreciate it. Appreciate it there. Thank you. You.”

[RYAN ROBERTSON]

ALRIGHT FOLKS, THAT’S GOING TO DO IT FOR US THIS WEEK. AS A REMINDER, PLEASE DON’T FORGET TO LIKE AND SUBSCRIBE TO OUR SOCIAL MEDIA FEEDS TO STAY UP TO DATE ON ALL THE LATEST FROM THE SHOW. ALSO, LIKE I MENTIONED DURING THE INTERVIEW WITH WHIZ–WE HAVE LINKS TO THE NO FALLEN HEROES FOUNDATION ON OUR WEBSITE SAN.COM

WHICH KIND OF LEADS ME TO MY WRAP TOPIC FOR THIS WEEK…WHICH IS A SHORT ONE.

WHEN IT COMES TO WHAT WE IN MODERN SOCIETY CONSIDER MEDICINE–I THINK IT MAY BE TIME TO EXPAND OUR HORIZONS A BIT–AND TAKE A CUE FROM OUR ANCESTORS.

LIKE CANNABIS, OR PSILOCYBIN MUSHROOMS–IBOGA WAS IN USE FOR GENERATIONS BEFORE THE UNITED STATES WAS EVER FOUNDED. IT’S TIME OUR LEADERS STOP CLUTCHING THEIR PEARLS EVERY TIME THESE SUBSTANCES GET BROUGHT UP IN A MEDICAL DISCUSSION.

WILL THESE TREATMENTS WORK FOR EVERYONE? PROBABLY NOT. BUT THE DATA IS THERE PROVING THESE TREATMENTS CAN MAKE AN IMPACT ON A PERSON’S POSITIVITY AND OUTLOOK ON LIFE. SIMPLY PUT–THESE TREATMENTS CAN SAVE LIVES–AND AFTER PUTTING THEIRS ON THE LINE FOR US–THIS COUNTRY OWES IT TO OUR SERVICE MEMBERS TO GIVE THEM EVERY CHANCE TO SUCCEED.

FOR SENIOR PRODUCER BRETT BAKER, VIDEO EDITOR BRIAN SPENCER AND GRAPHICS ARTIST DAKOTA PITEO–I’M RYAN ROBERTSON WITH STRAIGHT ARROW NEWS, SIGNING OFF.

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