Madison Margolin and Abdullah Saeed talk about the ongoing cannabis and psychedelic movements and whether or not these cultures can become mainstream without being sterilized.
Abdullah Saeed is a Pakistani-American writer, comic, and cannabis media maker based in Los Angeles. He produced and hosted several TV shows and documentaries for Vice, including Bong Apétit, and was a writer and actor on the HBO Series High Maintenance. Abdullah is also the co-host of the Great Moments in Weed History podcast. You can follow him on Twitter and Instagram.
Erasing the Lines Between Food, Drugs, and Medicine
Madison welcomes Abdullah and asks for the CliffsNotes on his life story. Abdullah shares how he became interested in cannabis, and how his hope is to erase the lines between food, drugs, and medicine. They discuss the psycho-spiritual goal of getting high, the role of the psychedelic revolution in the history of cannabis, and how psychedelic culture is hidden in plain sight.
“I like to think of myself as a person who tries to erase the lines between food, drugs, and medicine, you know, in the minds of people, because we’ve been conditioned to really look at the world in an odd way. I also think I’m fortunate to be part of a wave… I happen to be a cannabis enthusiastic person who lives at this time where, you know, there’s a wave of understanding, there’s a real change in the way people look at it.” – Abdullah Saeed
Francesca Maximé and Sandor Iron Rope explore the use of sacred plant medicines in ReRooted Ep. 61
The Psychedelic Mainstream (19:50)
Madison and Abdullah dig deeper into how the spirit of substances like cannabis and psychedelics are hidden in plain sight. They talk about how lucky they feel to be around for this moment in history when both cannabis and psychedelics are becoming so popular and more mainstream, but they worry about how this popularity is being exploited by our capitalist culture.
“Rather than make psychedelics mainstream, why not make the mainstream a little more psychedelic.” – Madison Margolin
Alan Watts explores the question of drugs in Being in the Way Ep. 7
Spiritual Interactions (44:30)
Madison and Abdullah discuss how cannabis and psychedelics can become more mainstream without being sterilized and the need to emphasize the spiritual aspect of interacting with these substances. Ultimately, neither of them believe that cannabis or psychedelics will fix the world, but they do provide people with a shred of hope for the future.
“Now, as far as being incorporated into the system, looking at what happened with cannabis right now, we wanted cannabis to change capitalism, not for capitalism to just co-opt cannabis as another commodity.” – Abdullah Saeed
Madison Margolin speaks with Rick Doblin about legalizing psychedelics in Set and Setting Ep. 3
