Shadowing Practice: S10 E1: Train Derailment & Psychedelic Assisted Therapy: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver - Learn English Speaking with Video
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I'm John Olligan, thank you so much for joining us.
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We are back after three long months and what has been one very busy week,
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especially for Fox News, a network whose very name is a lie in that it provides neither news nor, indeed, Foxes.
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Now, you may remember they're currently being sued by Dominion Voting Systems, the company at the center of Trump's election conspiracy theories,
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theories which were repeatedly amplified by hosts on Fox.
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And in a legal filing made public this week, we got a glimpse at Fox's internal communications during that time.
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Privately, top anchors and executives mocked
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Trump's lies, calling them ludicrous, really crazy stuff, and totally off the rails.
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Even as those same hosts went on the air arguing completely otherwise.
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All right, these election challenges are still going on, and disturbing irregularities have been found and must be investigated to the fullest.
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Wow.
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If I were a Fox viewer, I'd feel pretty betrayed by that.
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This is like finding out that
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Big Bird regularly texts Elmo, and Elmo, fuck them kids, and Elmo agrees.
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This filing shows the extent to which
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Fox hosts did not believe the shit that they were selling, which is completely fine if you work for QVC
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and you have to fill an hour on why a bejeweled squatty potty will change your life,
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but it's a bit more concerning when you pretend to be the news.
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But perhaps the most fascinating thing is how terrified major
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Fox figures were of losing their audience to more conspiracy -friendly networks like Newsmax, with Tucker Carlson at one point saying,
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an alternative like Newsmax could be devastating to us.
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They seem to understand that acknowledging
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Biden had won was alienating their viewers.
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Sean Hannity wrote to a producer after the network called the election for Biden, respecting this audience, whether we agree or not, is critical.
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Fox has spent the month spitting at them.
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To which the producer replied, right, our best minutes from last week were on the voting irregularities.
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Which, remember, they all knew were bullshit.
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And look, on one hand, I kind of get it that we also face pressure to maintain our audience.
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It's just that we do it the old -fashioned way, by having integrity, self -respect, and the blind fortune of airing right after hit,
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prestige dramas, that people actually want to watch.
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It's not difficult.
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But multiple Fox hosts seem to see telling the truth as a potentially existential threat.
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After Fox News reporter Jackie Henrich fact -checked a Trump tweet about votes being destroyed, Tucker Carlson texting his colleagues, Please get her fired.
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Seriously, what the F?
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It's measurably hurting the company.
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The stock price is down.
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Look, as egregious as that is, it does definitely track,
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as the list of fireable offenses at Fox News seems to be making stock price go down
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or being a sexual monster for decades, parentheses, but only if people outside the company find out about it.
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But instead of going deeper into that sewer, we're gonna turn to the continuing fallout from the train deal raiment in East Palestine, Ohio.
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As you probably know, two weeks ago, a Norfolk Southern freight train went off the rails, releasing large amounts of hazardous chemicals.
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And the situation continues to be troubling.
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Tonight, outrage growing.
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Less than two weeks after that massive train derailment
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and the controlled burn of hazardous chemicals sent up a toxic plume of black smoke in East Palestine, Ohio.
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Residents demanding answers, complaining of burning eyes, nausea, headaches, and a pungent odor, and reporting dead animals.
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Officials confirming 3 ,500 fish killed by the chemicals.
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Don't tell me it's safe.
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Something's going on if the fish are floating in the creek.
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Right.
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That frustration makes sense, because unless that train was carrying a bunch of small, loose, already dead fish, that looks bad.
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This has been a nightmare for local residents.
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Initially, many were evacuated before a controlled release of the train's contents, which looked like this.
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Then just two days later, they were told that it was safe to return, despite the fish cemetery that was now actively floating downstream.
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And initially, they were given just a $1 ,000 check as an inconvenience fee.
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It's frankly no wonder a meeting on Wednesday night quickly got contentious.
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Outrage poured over at a town hall in East Palestine last night, as anxious residents grilled state and local officials.
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Yeah, of course they weren't.
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And one of the reasons that fire chief was the one getting yelled at was
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because no one from Norfolk Southern showed up, with the company later explaining their absence, citing.. the growing physical threat to their employees.
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And you know what?
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You certainly would not want those employees exposed to that level of toxic anger.
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Not without at least giving them a $1 ,000 check first.
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You know, for the inconvenience.
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And look, the National Transportation Safety Board is conducting an investigation into the causes of this crash,
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so we don't yet have answers on exactly what went wrong.
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That said, some of the things Norfolk Southern workers are telling reporters about that train are pretty worrying.
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CBS News has learned
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that some of the company's employees had previously expressed concern over the excessive size and weight of the 151 -car train,
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which was 9 ,300 feet long and weighed 18 ,000 tons.
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They say it had suffered at least one breakdown on its route before it derailed in East Palestine.
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That's not great.
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And it should say something, that employees were raising concerns about the 18 ,000 -ton combustible centipede that the company was operating,
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because that's not something you can just brush off, like me being told, I think you should show your parent company a little more respect.
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I'll do that if you can tell me who the fuck it actually is right now.
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Then I'll give my deadbeat business daddy the exact amount of respect that they deserve.
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And troublingly, this is part of a larger trend of trains getting longer and heavier, even as companies have operated with smaller staffs.
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And workers have claimed that this was widely known as a difficult train to run, and that while its official name was 32N,
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it had a nickname among some rail workers of 32Nasty, which sounds like a bra size that was on sale at Victoria's Secret until,
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like, two years ago.
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The thing is, this accident is exposing much more than just chemicals.
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It's exposing some much broader, big issues in how freight trains like 32Nasty are regulated, one of which even seemed to startle Ohio Governor Mike DeWine.
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This train apparently was not considered a high -hazardous material train.
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Even though some railcars did have hazardous material on board, and while most of them did not,
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that's why it was not categorized as a high -hazardous material train.
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Frankly, if this is true, and I'm told it's true, this is absurd.
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Oh, come on, Mike.
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What are you really so confused about? everyone knows it's not dangerous if only part of something can kill you.
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That's why Russian Roulette is a great activity for a child's birthday party.
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It's the new pin the tail on the donkey.
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Where have you been?
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They love it.
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It's fine.
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And I will say, I don't know exactly how to regulate or classify hazardous materials on trains, but a key question for me would be,
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if it derails, will authorities have to turn it into an apocalyptic mushroom cloud to try and mitigate the damage?
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Because if the answer's yes, I don't know, So, maybe slap that hazardous label on it just to be on the safe side.
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Another issue that's now being discussed is antiquated braking systems,
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as on many trains, each rail car receives the stop signal one after the other instead of all at once, costing valuable seconds.
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And a lot can happen in even small amounts of time.
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For instance, a few minutes ago, you were excited to see this show come back, weren't you?
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Not so much now.
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The Obama administration actually took steps to address this,
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issuing a rule in 2015 requiring railroads to use electronically controlled pneumatic brakes on especially dangerous trains,
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which, remember, the East Palestine train supposedly wasn't.
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But train companies lobbied against it, Congress held it up, and the Trump administration finally killed it.
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And it's not like people weren't warning us about the risks of doing that.
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Because here is a rail accident investigator in Ohio at that time.
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Controlled pneumatic braking system could make a big difference versus what these have now.
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There have been fires, explosions, all caused because they're using this ancient, 150 -year -old braking system.
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It's been available for at least 20 years, and they don't want to put it in because it costs money.
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Exactly.
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And that is pretty frustrating, because a train's ability to stop is kind of important.
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It's in the top three things that trains need to do, along with go and teach children their only value to society, is having a job.
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And again, we don't know yet exactly what caused this crash in Ohio.
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Maybe classifying that train as hazardous and requiring those brakes would have helped, maybe not.
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But in general, it sure seems like we need to be tightening things up going forward.
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Train worker unions have been warning us about safety issues for a long time, and it really feels like we should maybe start listening more
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to the people who actually run these trains rather than just those who profit from them.
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Because if you ask yourself whether this is an acceptable way to run a vital national industry.
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If I may quote the people of East Palestine, the answer should pretty clearly be...
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Exactly.
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And now, this.
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And now, Jim Cramer will not shut up about his Brioni suits.
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You can talk about that, but I want to talk to you about how nice you're looking in that suit.
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I don't know who makes that suit, but...
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That's a Brioni.
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Yeah, look at this.
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That's a nice Brioni.
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You look amazing, by the way.
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Well, isn't that what the dollar is telling you at this point?
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The dollar's saying, don't be so gloomy.
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Go to Italy and go buy Brioni suits.
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Who wears black shoes with an olive suit?
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It's a, first of all, it's a Brioni suit.
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It's worth a lot more than you.
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I mean, I'm on the back and forth here with Milan and Brioni.
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No, this is a super 180 Brioni.
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I know.
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I got this in Milan.
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You only wear 180.
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40 % off.
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I want to get one Brioni.
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We both wear Brioni.
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Oh, I don't know if he wears Brioni.
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This, by the way, is a Brioni.
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I wear Brioni.
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Brioni.
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They have the Brioni Men's Super 150 two -button -notch lapel suit.
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David, this is the first time this has ever happened.
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I'm buying with one click on air.
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You're not buying a Brioni suit on Amazon.
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This used to be a $2 ,100 suit.
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They have it for $2 ,004.
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This is a saving of $100.
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Add to cart and then during the...
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No way, no way.
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I just added it to the cart, David.
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Don't do it.
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That's stupid.
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You can't buy Brayomi's soup on Amazon.
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What's wrong with you?
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Oh, God.
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All right, let's move on.
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Moving on.
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Our main story tonight concerns drugs.
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You know, the substances that gave us most music, seasons one and two of The West Wing,
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and this spectacular clip of a BBC reporter getting inadvertently wasted.
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Burning behind me is eight -and -a -half tons of heroin, opium, hashish, and other narcotics.
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He -he -he -he.
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Burning behind me.
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You're gonna...
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Shh.
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Quick, quick, quick, quick.
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We just need one more.
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Exquisite.
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That deserves the Pulitzer Prize for reporter on most drugs.
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I'm not sure what my favorite part is there, his little giggle, the idea that someone thought,
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let's put a guy downwind from an eight -and -a -half -ton pile of burning narcotics,
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or the fact that his main effect on him seems to be to turn him into a total sweetie pie.
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Specifically, we're gonna talk about psychedelics, a category that includes drugs like psilocybin, LSD, and MDMA.
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And let me first say, I know anyone with my face, voice, and generally off -putting
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Aura, who talks about drugs, is usually warning you about the devil's lettuce.
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But I'm no fucking narc.
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In college, I've practically majored in herbology with a minor in gangeneering.
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They called me
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Sonic the Hedgehog, because I rolled tightly.
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Also, I've done a blow -on tour with Ozzy Osbourne, who's also my dad, by the way, so I'm in the scene, okay?
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I get it.
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The truth is, lots of people use psychedelics, some for spirituality, some for healing, and some, like A $AP Rocky, just for fun.
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The first time that he did LSD, it started to kick in just as he was having sex, with some surprising consequences.
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No lie.
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A rainbow shot out of my dick.
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And it had a sound with it, like.. like a piano or some shit.
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I had no idea why there was a rainbow coming out of my penis.
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I don't even like rainbow.
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Excellent.
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Every sentence is better than the last there.
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A rainbow shot out of my dick, fantastic.
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It had a sound with it like a piano or some shit.
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I love it.
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I have no idea why there was a rainbow coming out of my penis.
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Now he's introduced suspense to the story.
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I don't even like rainbows.
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What a way to stick the landing.
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Also, I'm pretty sure that A $AP Rocky just gave Skittles their next commercial.
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Skittles takes the dick, Rainbow.
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But tonight, we're gonna focus on one particular use of psychedelics in therapy.
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It's a field that you may have heard about recently in stories featuring testimonies from some very satisfied patients.
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I had all this access to my mind, and I could control where I was thinking and going.
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It connected me back to my body.
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Like, I could feel my body again.
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It made me feel more comfortable with living, you know, because, uh, you're not afraid of dying.
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It's like doing therapy while being hugged by everyone who loves you in a bathtub full of puppies licking your face.
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Wow!
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Now, that is a pretty powerful endorsement.
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He makes it sound pretty nice there.
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It would sound nicer if a rainbow also shot out of your dick,
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but that's only because A $AP Rocky has now raised the bar on what constitutes a pleasant human experience.
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That last guy is a veteran who claims that psychedelic treatment not only helped him with PTSD, but saved his life.
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And he is not the only vet who has benefited.
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I had three experiences at full dosage, but the effects after the first treatment were profound.
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I would have said a 60 % reduction in my symptoms immediately.
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I felt a mighty change had occurred.
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60 % immediately.
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It is not often you see those kind of results after your first therapy session, especially now that so much of it happens over Zoom.
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Usually, day one is spent for introductions and trying to figure out what the fuck that thing behind your therapist's head is.
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That can't be what I think it is, right?
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It just can't be.
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And look, it's not just anecdotal.
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A recent clinical trial of MDMA -assisted therapy found that for those suffering from PTSD, just two months after treatment,
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67 % no longer qualified for a PTSD diagnosis.
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And that is not even getting into the promise that psychedelics have shown in treating conditions like addiction and depression.
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The fact is, all of this is hugely encouraging.
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But it is worth knowing we've actually been here before with psychedelics, and we fucked it up.
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And if we are not very careful in the years ahead, we could go backwards again.
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So tonight, let's talk about psychedelic therapy.
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Its history, its potential, and what the pitfalls ahead might be.
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And let's begin by acknowledging a lot of these medicines, especially psilocybin, are nothing new to indigenous communities.
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They've been conducting rituals involving mushrooms, peyote, ayahuasca, and other ceremonial medicines far longer than Western civilization has.
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But interest in psychedelics outside of indigenous communities really picked up around the middle of the last century.
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LSD was first synthesized in a Swiss lab in 1938, and a banker at J .P.
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Morgan named R.
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Gordon Wasson popularized magic mushrooms after hearing about an indigenous Mexican woman named Maria Sabina,
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who used them in healing ceremonies and tracked her down in 1955.
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After several attempts, he finally convinces
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Maria Sabina to let him taste the magic mushrooms, as they came to be called.
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He comes back and writes an account of his adventure that is published in Life magazine of all places.
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Now, this is astonishing.
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This is 1957 when it comes out.
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Thousands of words in the biggest magazine in America.
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This article, when it's published, is a sensation.
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It's true.
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Wasson was basically the very first white guy who did shrooms and then made it his entire personality.
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That article started a stampede of hippies and celebrities into Maria Sabina's village
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that turned her neighbors against her to such a point that they burned her house to the ground.
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So you can add magic mushrooms to the list of things completely ruined by finance bros, along with vests, dating apps, and the middle class.
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But it wasn't just bankers and hippies drawn to the power of these substances.
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The US military actually conducted experiments to see if they could be dropped on enemy troops to incapacitate them.
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And lucky for us, they filmed those experiments for posterity.
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Here is a group of normal soldiers responding correctly to a series of routine drill commands.
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After receiving a small dose of LSD, they're confused and undisciplined.
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Yeah, you really got them there.
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Those soldiers went from tightly choreographed parade to tourists trying to decide where to have lunch.
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And all it took was a tiny bit of chemical warfare.
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It's brilliant.
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But even as the army was dicking around trying to invent a literal love bomb,
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some researchers were using LSD as a mental health treatment. In 1966,
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CBS News actually followed a man who received LSD as part of his treatment for alcoholism and reported on its startling results.
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Six months after treatment with LSD, six months after his release from the Alcoholics Ward at Spring Grove Hospital, Arthur King has started over.
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At the age of 33, he has gone back to school, something he talked about doing for years.
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In evening classes, he's studying accounting.
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Have you had anything to drink, for example?
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No, I haven't.
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Nothing at all.
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And I haven't had any desire to drink anything.
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That is incredible.
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But also, that guy is 33?
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I know that I'm hardly one to talk as a legal 45, but a spiritual octogenarian.
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But holy shit, people sure aged a lot worse back when we painted everything with lead and let people smoke in the delivery room.
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Unfortunately, by the late 1960s, psychedelics became increasingly associated with the counterculture, and as the government cracked down on that movement,
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they began an era of anti -psychedelic hysteria, and it was intense.
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Junk studies made dubious but terrifying claims, like that LSD could warp your chromosomes,
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films and education films, employed a wide range of tones and scare tactics like these.
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This is a fetus from a mother not receiving LSD, a normal fetus.
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This is a fetus from the mother receiving LSD.
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I know doctors, and I know lawyers,
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and I know the most stable people in the world that have taken trips on LSD and are still waiting to return.
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Unfortunately, these dreamy, psychedelic trips are very often one way.
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Okay, okay.
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That is quite the smear campaign there, from the hamster fetus that looks like Dido nuggets,
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to the woman screaming at you about all the doctors and lawyers she knows, to the hearse that apparently makes house calls.
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And while all of that was nonsense, I do kind of miss the days
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when we used to get.. dressed up to watch our drugged -out relatives get carted off to the morgue.
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Honey, they'll be hauling
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Jimmy's body to its final stop before hippie hell.
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Quick, where's my tie clip?
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Helen, tie clip!
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The neighbors may see you.
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They're gonna think we're poor.
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Get it together, Helen, and find my tie clip.
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The boy is dead!
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Tall tales about LSD ran rampant.
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At one point, a Pennsylvania state commissioner claimed half a dozen tripping Pennsylvania college students stared at the sun
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so long that they went completely blind but the truth is, he made it up.
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He later admitted the hoax, saying that he'd attended a lecture on the use of LSD by children
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and became so concerned he wanted to scare people away from the drug.
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But the hysteria hit its absolute peak when Nixon passed the Controlled Substances Act, which placed LSD and psilocybin in the most restrictive legal category possible,
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alongside drugs like heroin, essentially stopping medical research dead in its tracks.
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One researcher described the work as being put in the deep freeze.
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And when scientists started working with MDMA, it too got swept up into the panic with a journal
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Science alleging that just one use can cause permanent brain damage in monkeys.
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A study that got a lot of attention before being retracted after it was found
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that the monkeys hadn't actually taken MDMA at all, but instead had been given meth.
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And that is a very different drug.
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Any study's result is gonna change if the independent variable is suddenly and unexpectedly fucking meth.
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We've studied the vaccine for COVID and the participants are going apeshit for it.
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But in recent years, perceptions have finally begun to shift, with the FDA granting breakthrough status to support the study of MDMA for treating PTSD,
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and doing the same for psilocybin to treat depression.
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And at this point, let's talk about exactly why psychedelics can be so effective.
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Different ones can work in different ways but for instance, research shows that MDMA dampens the response in the amygdala,
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which is the threat -detecting center of the brain, meaning that you're able to confront and process trauma that you can't otherwise face.
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Here is one researcher explaining how it works with a story about taking MDMA recreationally in his younger days.
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I can remember one time, after a rave, all of us lying around, all loved up, and somebody said, oh, wow, this is amazing,
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it's so beautiful, everything's so perfect.
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And someone said, let's think of the worst possible thing we can imagine.
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And someone said, let's imagine our mums dying.
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And then someone said, it's not that bad.
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And I didn't know it then, but that really was what MDMA does.
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It allows you to think about and go to those dark,
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difficult, forbidden, avoidant memories that you normally wouldn't be able to touch.
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That is fascinating.
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And I'm so glad that that worked out for him but let's imagine our mom's dying doesn't sound like an amazing time
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It sounds like a rave DJ by Werner Herzog life is fleeting
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Let's imagine our mom's dying as a solemn reminder that all we have is tonight now
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Wave your hands in the air as if our slow passage towards oblivion makes you just not care
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Now, to be clear, psychedelic therapy involves much more than just taking a pill.
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These drugs alone don't automatically produce results.
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Usually, treatment entails multiple sessions lasting most of the day,
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in which you may take MDMA or psilocybin under the supervision of medical professionals and then follow up with processing and aftercare.
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They are not a replacement for conventional talk therapy.
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They just seem to make you significantly more receptive to it.
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Just watch this former firefighter narrate a video of himself undergoing MDMA -assisted therapy.
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This is your first medicated treatment session?
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Correct.
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This is the beginning of some interesting revelations on this video.
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And are you feeling completely conscious and you're in control?
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Yeah.
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And I felt like I was able to relax, even when I was talking through probably my most traumatic memories.
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I don't think I had seen a dead person until then.
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The first one was gruesome, too.
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It was like being able to take a big breath, you know, uh, after being stuck underwater for a long time.
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Yeah.
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And you can see the utility of having two people either side of that man talking him through the experience.
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And if it sounds like I'm treating having two people to talk to about your feelings like a radical idea,
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you do have to remember that I was born, tragically and medically, British.
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What is interesting is, though, it is not just that your fear is muted.
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Your brain's ability to make other connections and forge new neural pathways is also heightened,
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meaning that these sessions can fundamentally alter the way you process things.
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That is thought to be one reason why psychedelics are so promising for treating conditions like addiction and depression,
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and why they are proving especially useful for dealing with trauma.
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That is what makes this form of therapy particularly appealing to veterans, as PTSD is an urgent issue for them.
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In 2019, over 6 ,000 veterans died by suicide, a rate substantially higher than the general population.
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And it's not like the VA's current treatment methods are particularly effective.
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Remember the guy from earlier who compared psychedelic treatment to a bathtub full of puppies?
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Listen to describe the mental health care from the VA that he initially received.
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I drove to Womack Army Medical Center at Fort Bragg.
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And I said I was gonna kill myself.
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They gave me six Xanax, told me not to take them all at the same time, because it might kill me.
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They asked if I had guns at home, and I said, I said, yes, a lot.
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They asked if I had ammo.
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I said, yeah, plenty.
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They said, okay, when you get home, give all your guns to a neighbor.
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This is, like, four o 'clock in the morning.
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And they said, come back after the holidays.
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Okay, I knew the VA's mental health services were subpar, but I didn't know they stooped to, here's a bunch of ways to kill yourself,
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but on a system, don't.
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And anyway, see you after the saddest time of the year.
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Thankfully, that guy saw such a profound change from MDMA therapy,
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that he is now helping to lead a movement to allow psychedelics to be used to treat conditions like PTSD,
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eliciting help from Democratic lawmakers like AOC, and even Republican lawmakers like
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Rick Perry and Dan Crenshaw.
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And that kind of bipartisan consensus has brought us to the tipping point that we're at right now, because so far in the US,
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these drugs have only legally been available to people in clinical trials.
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But over the next year, it is widely anticipated that the FDA will approve MDMA for clinical use,
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with psilocybin expected to follow a few years later, and maybe even LSD one day,
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meaning that we may be about to finally realize some of the huge potential of psychedelics, which is great.
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But it is worth being very careful at this point to make sure that we don't repeat past mistakes or, indeed, make new ones.
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And those who work in this field point to a few big areas for caution.
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The first concerns how psychedelics are administered and by whom, because while people have used these drugs recreationally forever, and will continue to at parties,
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at raves, in nature, or to really liven up a baptism.
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Psychedelic -assisted therapy is not for everyone.
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For example, anyone with a history of schizophrenia or psychosis may want to steer clear.
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And even if you are a good match, because these drugs can put you in an incredibly vulnerable state,
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experts emphasize the importance of trying them in a controlled setting, which ideally would involve two people present at all times, and even videotaping the session,
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like that one that you just saw earlier.
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They advise this not just for your own safety, but also because for all their potential benefits, these drugs aren't always a bathtub full of puppies.
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We tell people that their experiences may vary from very positive to transcendent and lovely to literally hell -realm experiences.
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Hell -realm, as frightening an experience as you have ever had in your life.
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Now, that does sound bad, although, to be fair, you don't need to take drugs to get to the Hell Realm.
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After all, that is why airports have Sbarro's.
401
But it is important to note that even those in studies who've reported
402
Hell Realm -type experiences have often still felt that they benefited from the treatment.
403
But safety is not the only worry here.
404
There are also concerns over accessibility.
405
These treatments are likely to be very expensive, and there are some players angling to make them even more so.
406
Just look at Compass Pathways, a for -profit psychedelic company backed by Peter Thiel.
407
It sought and obtained patents to protect its formulations of psychedelic compounds, which already seems pretty aggressive for a drug that,
408
remember, has been around for thousands of years.
409
And Compass's executives seemed pretty defensive when they were pressed about this.
410
Do you really believe that your form of psilocybin is novel and non -obvious?
411
Well, it doesn't really matter what we believe.
412
Um, what does matter is what the U .S.
413
Patent Office believes, what the U .K.
414
Patent Office believes, what Germany, what
415
Hong Kong believes.
416
And all of them believe that, actually, it is because we have the granted patents.
417
Okay.
418
But we shouldn't necessarily trust the U .S.
419
Patent Office as an arbiter of good judgment.
420
This is the same place that issued patents for an umbrella for your beer, a tricycle with a lawnmower attached to it, and a stick.
421
That's it.
422
Just a stick for animals to play with.
423
Someone in the Patent Office saw that and said, and we've never seen a stick before, approved.
424
So take what they believe is important with a big pinch of salt.
425
And look, it is not just the drug formulation.
426
Compass has also tried to patent other aspects of what's often called the set and setting of treatment, from the room comprising soft furniture,
427
or being decorated using muted colors, to the subjects lying on a bed or on a couch,
428
or a therapist responding to things a patient is saying, which is just the entire fucking concept of therapy.
429
It'd be like me panting the concept of wearing a suit while sitting at a desk.
430
I'm clearly not the only person who does this.
431
Now...
432
If I were to patent the concept of doing that
433
while making you wonder why the fuck your TV is still on after
434
The Last of Us has ended, then yeah, that would be uniquely my thing.
435
Now, those set and setting patent applications are still pending, but the very facts
436
they applied for them at all is a pretty clear sign
437
of just how aggressive companies in this space intend to be going forward.
438
And it is not like these treatments are going to be cheap to start with.
439
Experts project a course of psychedelic therapy is likely to cost upwards of $15 ,000.
440
And given that, as we've discussed before on this show, there is currently a massive shortage of mental health professionals in this country,
441
due in part to how fucked up our health insurance system is, you can see how this could quickly and easily become a big mess,
442
or only accessible to the wealthiest Americans.
443
So there is a lot to figure out here even before you get into questions like, who will regulate psychedelic therapy?
444
Because the FDA is in charge of drugs, but it doesn't regulate the practice of medicine.
445
Now, state laws could cover it, state regulatory agencies could, or professional organizations might.
446
But someone has to.
447
Because if they don't, people are likely to get hurt,
448
which could then send us all the way back to fear -mongering bans and research getting put on ice,
449
which is the last thing that we should want to happen.
450
Because there is massive potential here.
451
These treatments have shown that they can sometimes have lasting effects.
452
Remember the world's oldest 33 -year -old that you saw earlier, whose LSD treatment seemed to have curbed his alcoholism?
453
CBS caught up with him a quarter century later to see how things were going, and the answer was.. pretty well.
454
LSD allowed me to see my own mind.
455
There was a problem that I had to resolve, and I faced it, and it disappeared.
456
As far as I'm concerned, I wouldn't take a million dollars for the peace of mind that I obtained from this therapy.
457
It was that good, that refreshing, that rejuvenating.
458
And that enduring.
459
Exactly.
460
30 years later, he was still feeling benefits from the treatment, which is striking.
461
And you would think that we'd have acted on evidence like that,
462
but instead, it seems we've spent the last half century terrifying people with bogus science and giving meth to monkeys.
463
But the good news is we are finally moving forward, and hopefully, we will do that with real caution and real care.
464
Because if we do, maybe, just maybe, one day, you will see ads for psychedelic therapy on TV with a voiceover warning you
465
that side effects may include visits to the hell realm and rainbows shooting out of your dick. And now, this.
466
And now, a retirement tribute to NBC4 Washington's beat poet, Pat Collins.
467
That bittersweet goodbye for our News 4 family.
468
After 50 years in journalism, our friend and colleague, Pat Collins, is retiring.
469
J .P.'s, a gentleman's club in Glover Park.
470
Tonight, no gentlemen.
471
Tonight, no ladies.
472
Tonight, just a lot of nothing.
473
This is how it goes.
474
Are you all right, sir?
475
Do you need some help, sir?
476
Do you need to get something out of your car before we steal it, sir?
477
Look at the list.
478
Look at the list.
479
Look at the list.
480
Aisle number nine.
481
Aisle number nine.
482
Attention, major shoplifting job on aisle number nine.
483
Why is this man running?
484
And why is he running with one shoe on and one shoe off?
485
Wait a minute.
486
Here's his other shoe.
487
It's in this bag.
488
And then, and then, not long after the takeoff of that
489
United 767 plane, a passenger leans back in his seat into the lap of another passenger.
490
There's a fight, and the pilot decides to turn the plane around.
491
They scrambled two F -16 fighter jets from Andrews
492
and they flew above the United plane escorting it back as it landed here in Dulles
493
because you never can be too sure.
494
That's our show.
495
Thanks so much for watching.
496
We'll see you next week.
497
Good night.
498
No comment from the school about this case or any disciplinary action they dish out to a student.
499
But when you think about it, you might see their point.
500
It starts with a banana, then all of a sudden you have an apple and an orange
501
and maybe a grape and before you know it you have fruit salad at the schools.
502
We can't have that.
503
Hehehe
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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson
This speaking lesson is built on the video “S10 E1: Train Derailment & Psychedelic Assisted Therapy: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver”. This video has 503 sentences and 5935 words to shadow. The speech runs for 34:11. The speaker talks at a natural 174 words per minute, close to everyday conversation. Only 80% of the words are among the 3,000 most common in English, so the vocabulary is demanding.
Key vocabulary in this video
15 words from the video worth learning, with pronunciation and meaning:
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| patent noun | /ˈpeɪtənt/ | An official document granting an appointment, privilege, or right, or some property or title; letters patent. |
| hazardous adjective | /ˈhæ.zɚ.dɪs/ | Risky; dangerous; with the nature of a hazard. |
| rail noun | /ɹeɪ(ə)l/ | A horizontal bar extending between supports and used for support or as a barrier; a railing. |
| brake noun | /bɹeɪk/ | A device used to slow or stop the motion of a wheel, or of a vehicle, usually by friction (although other resistive forces, such as electromagnetic fields or… |
| clip noun | /klɪp/ | Something which clips or grasps; a device for attaching one object to another. |
| mushroom noun | /ˈmʌʃˌɹuːm/ | Any of the fleshy fruiting bodies of fungi typically produced above ground on soil or on their food sources (such as decaying wood). |
| fetus noun | /ˈfiːtəs/ | An unborn or unhatched vertebrate showing signs of the mature animal. |
| assist verb | /əˈsɪst/ | To help. |
| reporter noun | /ɹɪˈpoɹ.tɚ/ | Someone or something that reports. |
| involve verb | /ɪnˈvɑlv/ | To have (something) as a component or a related part; to comprise, to include. |
| shoe noun | /ˈʃu/ | A protective covering for the foot, with a bottom part composed of thick leather or plastic sole and often a thicker heel, and a softer upper part made of… |
| substance noun | /ˈsʌbstəns/ | Physical matter; material. |
| indigenous adjective | /ɪnˈdɪd͡ʒənəs/ | Native to a land, especially before colonization. |
| monkey noun | /ˈmʌŋki/ | A member of the clade Simiiformes other than those in the clade Hominoidea containing apes, generally (but not universally) distinguished by small size, tails… |
| puppy noun | /ˈpʌpi/ | A young rat. |
Phrasal verbs you will hear
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| come back verb | To return to a place. | |
| figure out verb | To come to understand; to discover or find a solution; to deduce. | |
| going forward adverb | In the immediate future and beyond. | |
| brush off verb | To disregard (something), to dismiss or ignore (someone), as unimportant. | |
| come out verb | /ˌkʌm ˈaʊt/ | To be discovered; to be revealed. |
| find out verb | To discover, as by asking or investigating. | |
| go back to verb | To stem from; to originate in. | |
| go down verb | To descend; to move from a higher place to a lower one. |
Sentences worth repeating
Short, complete lines from the video that you can reuse in everyday conversation:
- What are you really so confused about?
- What's wrong with you?
- Have you had anything to drink, for example?
- Quick, where's my tie clip?
- This is your first medicated treatment session?
Grammar in this video
The structures the speaker uses most, with the exact words from the video:
| Structure | In the video |
|---|---|
| Conditional sentences if + clause, will/would + verb — a condition and its result | If I were a Fox viewer, I'd feel · if it derails, will authorities |
| Present perfect continuous have/has been + -ing — an action that started earlier and is still going on | have been warning · They've been conducting |
| “Used to” used to + verb — a past habit or state that is no longer true | used to be · used to get |
| Present perfect have/has + past participle — a past action that still matters now | has been · have been found · has spent |
Pronunciation to watch
The speaker uses 93 contractions and reduced forms, such as don't, I'm, gonna. Say them the short way, as you hear them.
- The “th” sounds: pathway /ˈpæθˌweɪ/, bathtub /ˈbæθtʌb/
- The “sh” and “zh” sounds: mushroom /ˈmʌʃˌɹuːm/, shoe /ˈʃu/, addiction /əˈdɪkˌʃən/, caution /ˈkɔːʃ(ə)n/, commissioner /kəˈmɪ.ʃə.nəɹ/
- Long words — get the stress right: indigenous /ɪnˈdɪd͡ʒənəs/, experiment /ɪkˈspɛɹ.ə.mənt/, conspiracy /kənˈspɪɹəsi/, inconvenience /ɪnkənˈvinjəns/, necessarily /ˌnɛs.əˈsɛɹ.ə.li/
How to practise with this video
- Listen to the whole video once without speaking and note the words you do not know.
- Start at 0.75× speed, shadow it sentence by sentence, then go back to normal speed once it feels easy.
- Record yourself and compare with the original, paying attention to words like patent, hazardous, rail.
What is the Shadowing Technique?
Shadowing is a science-backed language learning technique originally developed for professional interpreter training and popularized by polyglot Dr. Alexander Arguelles. The method is simple but powerful: you listen to native English audio and immediately repeat it out loud — like a shadow following the speaker with just a 1–2 second delay. Unlike passive listening or grammar drills, shadowing forces your brain and mouth muscles to simultaneously process and reproduce real speech patterns. Research shows it significantly improves pronunciation accuracy, intonation, rhythm, connected speech, listening comprehension, and speaking fluency — making it one of the most effective methods for IELTS Speaking preparation and real-world English communication.