Joe Rogan says ban on psychedelics led to decline of American culture, including music and cars: "Everything changed"
Popular UFC commentator and podcasting legend Joe Rogan has always been outspoken about his support for psychedelic drug use and its health benefits. In a recent episode of his ultra-popular podcast Joe Rogan Experience, the 56-year-old MMA personality had famous author and screenwriter Norman Ohler.
Ohler is famous for his book, 'Blitzed: Drugs in Nazi Germany', and has received accolades for his fierce pursuit of the truth. Rogan, being a famous advocate of psychedelic drugs, discussed the topic with Ohler, who extensively researched and studied them in his career.
One interesting bit of the episode was when Rogan and Ohler talked about how the American government tried to stop the psychedelic boom in the '60s and '70s. The popularity of the psychedelic drug LSD (also known as acid) has been attributed to the shift in the mindset of the youth at the time. This caused a stir of anti-war sentiments and the pursuit of powerful creative freedom, amongst many things.
On this, the veteran MMA commentator said:
"They [the US government] wanted to stop this radical shift in society that they were seeing from the 1950s to the 1960s."
Rogan added:
"It's a cycle that repeats itself over and over again. Whenever there's a powerful disruptor, that might be ultimately great for the human race, but bad for the power structures that are in place currently, they step in and they do their best to throw water on it. And what they did between the late 1960s to the 1980s, they radically shifted culture. Everything changed. Music sucked. Cars sucked. Everything sucked."
Watch the full podcast here (timestamped at 1:20:35):
Joe Rogan admits to understanding why the powers that be criminalized psychedelic drugs
Despite his strong support for the use of psychedelic drugs, Joe Rogan ultimately understands why the US government had to do everything it could to stop this movement.
Joe Rogan said (via Joe Rogan Experience on YouTube):
"Yeah I could see how the powers-that-be, I could see how the CIA and the government we like, 'we have to stop this. We have to put a stop to this. This is going to be the downfall of society.' Certainly the downfall of the people who are in control of the government currently. And these people are necessary to be in control of the country because we are in a cold war with Russia [and] we just got out of World War II."
To this, Norman Ohler added:
"Also on a hot war with Vietnam. I mean that war was taking a big toll on the American society and then suddenly there's like young people sh*ting on it saying 'what the f**k, I'm not going there'. So that created a strong counter-reaction by the regime."