Ep2 Jaz Cadoch - Building Ethical Psychedelic Businesses: A Leadership Framework for Integrity

Jaz Cadoch  0:00  
Are you creating a psychedelic business, or are you building a business psychedelically? Let's take a moment to inquire, what does it look like to build a business in a psychedelic way?

Dr. Sandra Dreisbach  0:13  
Welcome to psychedelic source where wisdom meets practice in the evolving landscape of psychedelic medicine. I'm your host, Dr Sandra Dreisbach, and I'm here to help you navigate the complex intersection of ethics, business and personal growth in a psychedelic space, whether you're a practitioner, therapist, entrepreneur, or simply curious about this transformative field, you found your source for authentic dialog, practical resources and community connection in each episode, we'll dive deep into the stories, strategies and ethical considerations that matter most to our growing ecosystem. Let's tap in to our inner source of wisdom and explore what it means to build a sustainable and ethical psychedelic future together.

VO  1:06  
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Dr. Sandra Dreisbach  1:37  
Well. In this episode, I had the opportunity to talk with jazz Kadosh, and she's also a friend that I met through, mainly through the Global psychedelic society. Jazz is a Moroccan Jewish woman, and I apologize for mispronunciation there, dedicated to relearning her lost traditions of her own lineage, and as a cultural and medical anthropologist, she spent the past, I believe, like nine years, studying the integration of psychedelics into modern Western policy, medicine and culture. Her work spans community leadership, teaching, curriculum development, ethical business consulting, including focusing on responsible and equitable practices within this transformative field. So I just, I just really also get inspired by jazz as a sort of what I would consider, sort of like this next generation of leadership, and maybe someone would critique me for what exactly I mean by that. I loved working with her when we were at global psychedelic study, doing some of the initial work together around, you know, the ethics around the organization, and how she led the sort of more decentralized way of organizing the values and the principles and coming to conclusions around them. So, and it's hard to even really capture, right? Because, you know, we would, we would work around there like a Google Doc, all together at the same time, and it was after we done a survey. And I've done surveys with people in the past. So for me, it was really refreshing to see how she approached these same sort of challenges and and I found it really inspiring, you know, having her lead lead the community of leaders. Right? Many of the people who I've been talking to so far are leaders of leaders and and I hope you get that sense from her in our conversation today, you get a sense that she's not only trying to be a leader in her own life, but a leader in her community and helping to support other leaders and doing the same and and you'll get you, hopefully, you get a little of the edge of our our friendliness towards one another and each other's work. I think sometimes people get this concept that what it means to do work in the psychedelic space is about competition, or about, you know, who's going to have, you know, who's going to be the one person who's known for X and and I feel that just may agree with me, and I realize she can't comment on this right now, but I really do feel that it's about community more than than competition. And I hope you see, at least in terms of both of us doing work around ethical practice, around leadership and communities, that we really do support one another and are really curious and supporting and learning from each other. And I love what she brought to the table around a decentralized and equitable access in her perspective on what it meant to do psychedelic business, psychedelically. Well, hi, jazz. I am so grateful to have you on the show, on one of our earliest episodes, and maybe you could say a little bit more about you and your work and what inspires you. In terms of, like, connecting people in community and resources.

Jaz Cadoch  5:04  
Yeah, thank you, Sandra, thanks for having me. Really excited to chat with you today. Yeah. So by trade, I'm a cultural and medical anthropologist. I've been studying, really how the modern western world is integrating psychedelics into its modern practices, and so that includes modern policy, medicine and culture. And so I kind of look at, you know, this like what I call a three fold paradigm shift occurring when it comes to bringing psychedelics into the mainstream, so to speak. And yeah, just really have, like, a curiosity around what it looks like to do that in an ethical way. And I remember when I first started my masters, I had that question, and it's like, how do you integrate psychedelics into the Western world ethically? And my supervisor was like, that's not a thesis. And just like, that's just way too broad. And I'm like, Okay, I will just get more narrow there. And it's funny that, um, yeah, nearly eight years later, like I'm still finding myself asking that question, and to me, I would say, like, there's many ways to do that. Of course we'll get into today. But overall, you know, my mission in in this work is to democratize access to education and various resources, and so in my many roles that I hold in the psychedelic space, that's really what I'm working towards, is democratizing access to education so that We could really ensure a more, yeah, well rounded movement as we move forward. No,

Dr. Sandra Dreisbach  7:05  
I love that, and I want to pick up on on two different things you just shared there, one of which is this idea of a paradigm shift. So maybe you could help our listeners understand, like, Why? Why does there need to be a paradigm shift in the way people approach this work.

Jaz Cadoch  7:23  
I mean, that's a great question. I don't even know if it there needs to be a paradigm shift, but it's happening nonetheless that. I mean, I do think we need paradigm shifts, like, our paradigms to be shifting, you know, like, because, like, our systems are kind of broken in a lot of ways, right? Absolutely, we're seeing over and over, just our systems need changing. And so I really look at this from like a systems change perspective, but yeah, in terms of, like, why it's like it's happening, whether we want it or not, the introduction of psychedelics into into policy reform and into modern medicine systems is going to inherently cause shifts and changes, just if you look at psychedelic therapy models, they are operating from a non directive and inner healer approach, right, which is pretty counter intuitive to you know, contemporary practices, of of of regular therapy, like if you look at Freudian psychoanalysis, for example, it's definitely not a non directive approach. And so just that, in and of itself, is shifting our narratives and our understandings of how to do so much of this work. So yeah, that's funny how I see

Dr. Sandra Dreisbach  8:56  
it, yeah. And I think, I think a lot of people talk about, I think in general, there's at least in terms of the mindset, of how I perceive the psychedelic community and the sort of global north, is this thinking that non directive approaches is the more ethical way to go. But how would you define non directive for you?

Jaz Cadoch  9:22  
I remember when I first started doing my research in the space, and I was interviewing some ketamine therapists, and they mentioned to me, they said this piece, that that stuck with me, which was, you know, I'm not the expert on you right now, you're the expert on you. I only know like what you choose to bring to this room, and ultimately, like you're the one with the with the experiences that you've had and and you're the one who knows yourself best. And so ultimately, he said, My role is to facilitate a relationship. Between you and your inner healer. And so that was really interesting, because that helped me understand how, how much unlearning is involved with doing psychedelic therapy. But also, you know, even beyond, like psychedelic therapy models, like the medical models of how to use psychedelics. Like, when we take psychedelics, we've we've found that there are, like, inherent, recurring themes that occur, like, for example, like connectedness with nature and like a un a unifying sense of like we are all one, and it's all about love, right? And they may be cliche, but they are pretty like consistent tropes, if you might say. And so that, in and of itself, is just like, kind of breaking down like what we were taught and and building a little bit of a different relationship with self and with nature and with the folks around us. You know, I love

Dr. Sandra Dreisbach  11:01  
that you shared that it was both not just the idea of non directive in the idea of supporting one's own journey and connecting to one's own sourcing inner healers you mentioned, and I should give props to Kylea Taylor for supporting that term and proposition of that term, but also the idea not just the inner healer, but also connecting to our natural environment or our, you know, Earth and other forms of relationship, right? So I love that you bring that into the equation. I want to get back to the second thing that you mentioned at the at the beginning, which is about democratizing the information and access to this work and this information or this I mean, maybe I'll have you clarify what you mean by that. But what, what can you tell us more about what democratizing this work means for you, or how you would define that for people? How would people know if we've democratized? How we know if we're successful?

Jaz Cadoch  12:03  
Well, when I first started doing this work, and I was researching how people are using psychedelics while in like, active recovery from substance use, I remember Googling, you know, psychedelics and addiction. At the time, I didn't know that addiction is kind of, like, not the best word to use,

Dr. Sandra Dreisbach  12:26  
but tendency, we'll say substance dependency,

Jaz Cadoch  12:30  
yeah, and, and there was, like, nothing on Google. Like, there was no, I couldn't find it anything. Like, I had to dig through, like, archives, and I had to, like,

Dr. Sandra Dreisbach  12:43  
find what showed up when that Google search at that time, you know, like, really,

Jaz Cadoch  12:46  
not much at all. This was 2017 so it was, you know, before pollen and before, you know, we really had, for example, psychedelics and recovery. It was there, but it was subtle, and I only really found my way through, yeah, like going to San Francisco psychedelic society and seeing the work that Danielle was doing, and then getting connected with, you know, Kevin Francia, who's also doing psychedelic recovery work, you know, and it was really about, like, the network that I built that really taught me things. And as an anthropologist, that's very traditional for our work is really about getting in the field and speaking with the people. But that's like, not accessible, like for the most part, right? It's like, I am so privileged to have the network that I have, and to have also been, you know, given a life that was privy to psychedelic conversations. You know what I mean? And when you think about like the average person, and they look around them like they're not talking about psychedelics with their friends, I mean, now things have changed, especially if you're in places like Colorado. But that's kind of what I mean by democratizing access to the conversations is like, how do we expend, like, the possibility of people being able to get this information? And now you go online and there's an overwhelming amount of information on there, which which can really be intimidating to people, right? So then they'll go to events, and they'll go to conferences, and they'll see Rick Doblin on stage, and then it's like not everybody could go talk to Rick and have all their questions answered. So how do we make it in a way that everybody's questions can be answered? Is kind of that question to me, and that barometer of whether we've been successful in democratizing education. And to me, the answer is that is to that is community based organizations that are that are local. So with the global psychedelic society, which is some of the work that I. I am honored to steward we have 300 community based organizations around the world that are building their own organizations and communities to support their their locales and to be able to provide that information and those resources to their local people. And that's really how we democratize, because it's like, I can't reach millions of people on my own, but I can support these 300 leaders who each of their societies have 1000s of members, right? And then that's how you reach we actually have an estimated reach of 2.4 million people. Amazing.

Dr. Sandra Dreisbach  15:43  
I just want to sit with that for a minute, like, 2.4 million, I mean. And I also want to pick up a little bit more on, you know, sounds like you're saying that it's not just about the access to information, right? Because we can, you know, as you said, like we have more access to information, and there's lots of different information sources these days, and now we even have AI tools, etc, but sounds like the other piece isn't just the access, it's also discernment, right? Like, how do you or even having a community of relationship, right? Like, you know, what? What do you really get from being, you know, in the in your local like psychedelic society, right? It's, it's information plus relationship, then I'm speaking from my own experience, right? Information plus relationship plus people who have different levels of experience, right? And you mentioned psychedelics and recovery, but maybe you want to tell me a little bit more about your own relationship to democratizing access, like you've been doing work with GPS, maybe, and GPS is short for listeners or for global psychedelic society, and you have this large reach. What do you feel is your role in that? Personally? Yeah, I feel like, with the global psychedelic society, what my role is, is to provide, like, leadership, um,

Jaz Cadoch  17:16  
like role model ship. You know what I mean is, is is to give the other leaders like, a place to go of like, you know, hey, none of us have ever done this before. This is new. And it's not only just me who gives the leadership role model ship, but they give each other, you know what I mean. And when we create a network like we get to learn from each other and what mistakes each other have made. And so I really love the opportunity that I have to support leaders in in having a really strong foundation and confidence that, like, this is something that they can do. Um, but you know, beyond that, like, there's other ways that I that I work on democratizing access to education, and that's you know, through policy work, for example. And ensure you know, I worked on Colorado's natural medicine Health Act, and I was really honored to be part of the folks who were pushing for the protection of personal use in that bill. And that bill was, I mean, well, the ballot initiative was supposed to just be regulated access, like what we see in Oregon, and

Dr. Sandra Dreisbach  18:32  
before you see more, maybe, maybe you can give our listeners a little bit of a background in context on Colorado, because that's I love that you're bringing this up because it's very much on people's minds right now. And lot, a lot of there's a lot of misunderstanding even about what's happening in Oregon. Currently, there's still some people who think it's just given everyone legal access to psilocybin, which is not the case, and let alone the extra confusion that it was decriminalized, and now it's been recriminalized. And so I'll just say like, you know, right now in Oregon, you can only get it through a service center that's been certified through the state of Oregon and pays the fees and facilit with facilitators who've been trained and certified. And I know Colorado has a lot of those elements, yeah. Or maybe you could say a little bit more about what, what do you think makes Colorado unique, and then speak to a little bit more about why, why that personal access was important for you to advocate for and and now that fits into your vision.

Jaz Cadoch  19:32  
Yeah, so right now what Colorado has is they're, they're literally tying up the rules and regulations, uh, process right now of figuring out exactly what goes into the process of somebody becoming licensed by the state to offer services, psilocybin services, to an individual, which would be all kind of regulated under the state model. And so real soon, we're going to start having. Training programs that are training facilitators to to to get their their licensure and to be able to offer those services. But at the same time, we also decriminalized personal use in there, and the reason for that was because, especially in a place like Colorado, which is, which is native land of nearly 48 different tribes or more, actually, and primarily the you the Cheyenne and the Arapaho. But it was really, you know, California and Colorado both used to be Mexico, and it wasn't that long ago that it's shifted over to the ownership of the United States and and so as a result, we have a lot of indigenous communities here. And you know, I come from Canada, where indigeneity is a very different story than what indigeneity looks like in in a place like Colorado. So we'll have folks from from Mexico who came here, even relatively recently, and be able to claim indigeneity to the land, because it's very possible that their ancestors traversed here as well. And so as a result, we have a lot of like mass attack folks who's who are really close with psilocybin traditional use, and we felt it was just would be really strange to only offer psilocybin under a regulated model that cost nearly $3,000 for somebody to get access to. And in a way, I do have to admit, you know, medical or regulated access does expand access, right? Because then folks like my mother, who wouldn't work underground, or my grandmother would feel comfortable, because it's like now that, like, this is somewhere that's by like, in a biomedical kind of framework, it's safe for me. There's a nurse at the front desk. There's somebody wearing some kind of white coat, somebody's taking my vitals. You know, these are all indications for us that this is safe. And this is something I learned in medical anthropology, that the biomedical system is also a cultural understanding of healing, right? Very often we'll think like cultural understandings of healing are related to magic or something like that, but it's like the biomedical and scientific system is also a cultural understanding of healing. It's not just objective science, right? And so, yeah, it's a bit of a tangent, but I would say that like medical and regulated access, does expand access to people who would never think about psychedelics before, which is awesome. But then there's also all the people who have been using psychedelics and the legacy and in the legacy network, in the underground and in indigenous communities, who don't need regulated models, who don't need to be regulated by the state, because they've been doing this for so long. So how do we make space for both of these, these models, to occur, and it was through the protection of personal use. And just to get back to your question of like, how does this contribute to my mission? That's really how we do democratize access, because then we have access for the medical people, and then we also have access to the for the indigenous folks who have been stewarding these medicines for time immemorial. Yeah,

Dr. Sandra Dreisbach  23:27  
and I think that's a really good point, and I think it's it really points out a very clear ethical issue in the space about not just democratizing access, like you're saying, but also, how do we if there is going to be government regulation on psychedelic and plant medicine use? Well, actually, there already is, like, I don't even know if that's really a question for me to say, because making it illegal is still making a legal stand on it, and preventing people from using their traditions and making it illegal, or even destroying it through, you know, cultural genocide and things like that, is also a way to make a stand on those those traditions, right? So, but I love that you bring up that we want to be able to find a way to support traditional use, however that's defined by their tradition, while still finding ways to support access to those who have a cultural what would you say, cultural medical

Jaz Cadoch  24:29  
the clocks are not understanding. Yeah,

Dr. Sandra Dreisbach  24:31  
of of way of looking at healing. Because I think sometimes people say like, Oh no, um, the the global north doesn't actually have a tradition or culture around these things? I'm like, No, you know, we do. It's just, it's just, when you compare it to the richness of some of the other ways of thinking, it's, it's a actually gets us back to paradigm shift. It's a paradigm shift and a different mindset on what constitutes healing, what constitutes. Safety, what constitutes democratized access, what's actually supportive for healing? Because we're using the same words often, and I'm already assuming English right now, you know worth recognizing all the languages that exist in first nations across the world that even the word democratizing for us, right, which is useful for us to say is it ends up creating unique issues around you know, what does that really mean to hold space, even focusing on the personal versus like the community is a particular mindset of I would, I would personally, at least argue, as a western mindset, but we're coming from where we're coming from, right, and democracy and the sort of supporting of the idea of individual access as has been so important and is Definitely a value that a lot of us support. What do you what are the pain points for you and training? Obviously, you did a lot of advocacy for Colorado. It's still, as you mentioned, the rules are being still finalized, and we really don't know exactly how much it's going to cost for people, but it would still be an improvement from where we're at currently. Right? What what have been, what were the challenges, either in that process, or what do you see as the challenges currently for yourself or others in the space trying to improve access to psychedelics and plant medicines in an ethical way? Right? There's lots of ways to give people access, and according to their inner, inner dealer, or their or their inner resources, as you say, right? Because we're not just looking at external ways of creating that access, but internal ways of creating that access,

Jaz Cadoch  26:56  
yeah, I see this really interesting tension that is recurring in the space. I've worked in some startups and psychedelics, and I've I'm now shifting into like consulting for business ethics. And what I see very often is, you know, as I mentioned earlier, there are like these tropes that occur with, right within psychedelic work. And of course, every experience is very different, but overall, it's like, you know, we can agree that it does, like create a sense increases, sense of empathy and connection to others and connection to earth, right? If we can, if we could, speak in these, like, generalities. And and so then I find there's so many people who have these life changing experiences, right, and they're like, oh my god, I'm going to leave my corporate job, right? And I'm going to start a practice, either like doing psychedelic therapy, or I'm going to open a company that does XYZ, or a tech company, or whatever it may be, right? And they're like, I want to dedicate my life to this work. And there's a series of things that happen when that occurs, but I'll start. I'll start with, oh gosh, I don't even know where to start, because there's many things will

Dr. Sandra Dreisbach  28:21  
help you out here. So like you mentioned, now that you're doing more psychedelic ethics consulting, and you're talking about people who have these transformative experiences and then want to go into business or leave a business, yeah, and that automatically foregrounds in my mind, at least business ethical issues, yeah. So, so if someone's coming to you as you know, looking for business ethics consultation. Yeah, right. What kind of problems are people coming to you with? Yeah, and, and, what are the sort of like? What kind of general advice could you give someone you know who, who is faced with these sort of dilemmas, whether it's from a journey perspective or as a business perspective? Yeah,

Jaz Cadoch  29:01  
yeah, thank you for that. And it's like, it's like they have these experiences, everything kind of shifts. But then the models with which we and like the tools with that we have to build businesses are in contradiction with each other, with with, like the lessons that we learn from the medicines and then like the systems, like they don't work hand in hand, right? Because when we're talking about, like the general well being of the world, it doesn't work for investors. And we're currently operating in a capitalist system. So I often see people struggling like, Okay, how do I ethically engage in capitalism while building a psychedelic business? Because, you know, there's so many people who get this message of, like, I'm not supposed to sell psych like, my, my, I'm not supposed. The cell ceremony, I should not receive money in exchange for ceremony, right? That's like something, or even further,

Dr. Sandra Dreisbach  30:06  
saying that there's no ethical practice under capitalism that exactly

Jaz Cadoch  30:10  
right, and, and, and this, the system itself is like, is not working in our favor to set these things up in a way that is in conjunction with the lessons that we've learned from psychedelics, right? And so, so we have these people who may come from corporate worlds that they're like, I want to work in this space and I want to do things, but they're still operating in those systems that we've been trained in, right? And then, even if you're not operating in those systems, there's not many alternatives, right? So I come to folks with this inquiry, first and foremost, you know, are you creating a psychedelic business, or are you building a business psychedelically? Is really that question of like, let's take a moment to inquire, what does it look like to build a business in a psychedelic way?

Dr. Sandra Dreisbach  31:07  
Now, I love that, and I believe I've heard you share that before, and maybe I should ask you to even say a little bit more about what, what is it what really defines approaching business psychedelic or or, or the psychedelic mindset, or the values? Because really, what I hear in that, you know, obviously, coming from my ethics mindset, is like that, there's certain values that are a part of doing work psychedelically. And if they're shifting either their business practices to be more psychedelic, or they're creating a psychedelic business, I probably also psychedelically, right, right? Then, yeah, yeah. Then there's certain things that that like, what, like, what would you know? What would be a way to either indicate to you that someone Yes, you are doing business psychedelically, or or something that would flag you to say, No, you're definitely not, you know, and feel free to use an example, because I love that you brought up in the beginning about how we should be the examples as leaders, right? You know, maybe there's a particular business example, or you can think of that you see as as doing work psychedelically, or a business that is run psychedelically, that could help us understand in a very specific, grounded context. But what you know, but you're the anthropologist, you tell

Jaz Cadoch  32:30  
me, it's funny, because I feel like we're still in the inquiry stage. And I you know, as an anthropologist, I can't prescribe, you know, what is right for whatever cult you know, for whoever I'm speaking to, because different cultures need different things and have different needs, but also, like different eco business ecosystems have different needs as well. And so when I started my consulting work, I was like, I'm gonna tell them what to do. And it's like, no, that's not how it works. It's actually, I'm gonna ask them a bunch of questions. And it's really encouraging the founders of these companies to be in the inquiry of of the why and the how, and, yeah, and like, what that really looks like, and what it looks like to be an integrity, and so how, so, really, being in that inquiry with each founder and saying, you know, or asking, like, What, what are your the values of the organization, okay? Like, have you done, have you done, gone through figuring out what the values are. Because, like, I don't know what your values are. Like, I'm not gonna prescribe them to you, though. Like, secretly, I have opinions. But really, it's a it's an inquiry. Okay, so All right, so these are what your values are, great. So how do these values reflect in the way that you're governing your organization? Okay, so you have these systems in place, does that reflect the values?

Dr. Sandra Dreisbach  34:11  
Right? Right? And I think that's so important. I couldn't agree more with not just the idea of inquiry as being essential. I know my philosophy side showing but we won't give you, we won't give you answers, only questions, but, but the value of even being an open, you know, open, curious, inquiring, but then also doing that, that sort of psychedelic style of of inquiry, where you're doing that introspection or interoception, you know, coming to understanding, not only you know what, why are you doing business? How are you doing business? What are your values? How does that align? And I can definitely see how that could be a psychedelic business, like it's not, it's not just saying, like we're absolutely right and we have all the answers, but open working. Curious and being supported as sounds like, what you do is you support their inquiry process and encourage them on their terms, not necessarily on your terms. Exactly, you know, even though, obviously they're coming to you for a good reason and helping them through that, that value inquiry to create, because I would assume then, like, once you've created some clarity for them on their values, then then you help them to, like, come into alignment with those values.

Jaz Cadoch  35:26  
Yeah? And it's also, like, the same inquiry of like, well, how have psychedelics been supportive for you? Right? Because, again, like, yeah, we have the tropes that we could turn to, and I'll probably see recurring themes occur, like happen, but at the end of the day, like, they've had their psychedelic experience that encouraged them or, or maybe not encouraged, but inspired them to build this company, right? And so it's like, Okay, tell me about your psychedelic experience, like, what came up for you, what became important to you. Great. Now, how do we align that with the values of your company? I

Dr. Sandra Dreisbach  36:05  
love that because like that bridge is not just the questions about what is the company value, but what the individual valued from that experience that they had, and how they're integrating it, not just literally in their own lives, but into their business and into their business practice, yeah,

Jaz Cadoch  36:22  
form of integration, yeah, yeah.

Dr. Sandra Dreisbach  36:25  
I love that. I love that. Now, now I will say, so you do have we care about democratization, right? Because, like, we're on the democratization but everyone, right, we're on the democratization boat and and we care about the personal inquiry. So how do you you know, when you're trying to work in integrity and practice, how do you bring that part of the conversation to the table that's important to you and your mission?

Jaz Cadoch  36:51  
Well, as the ethicist, I would love for you to ask you, how do you define integrity?

Dr. Sandra Dreisbach  36:59  
Well, you know, um, it's funny because, like, there's, there's the element of integrity for myself that is personally defined, right? Like, if it's important for me to be in integrity, to spend time with my kids, right? And you don't have kids that doesn't, you know, make sense for me to say, like, well, you're out of integrity, right? So, there's, there's always going to be a personal element to me, or cultural element to me, or what's important to you, even at that time of your life or in your relationships. But for me in general, it's basically what, what you value, what you say, what you do are what you actually do. So if I can, if I say, for example, I believe it to be an integrity is to be honest and I'm dishonest, that would be out of alignment, out of integrity, right? If I say that being an integrity is to treat people with respect and similarly, right? And that could be disagreement, right? Like, let's say I do something and you say, Oh no, Sandra, that was really disrespectful, right? No, right. I think this is important in community, right? I love the fact that you asked me a question, and maybe, maybe I should ask a different question for you about because we both care about ethics in this work, and that's part of the reason why we're having this conversation and and and part of the reason you know why we care about, you know, people being well well resourced in the non extractive sense of the term, and providing access and being in integrity. What? What do you feel I should be doing better to be in better integrity? Yeah,

Jaz Cadoch  38:43  
yeah, yeah. I mean, I don't think I get to say what that is for you, you know, and it's like I have my values and what I would have the future that I want to see come forward, but it might be a different future than you and I remember, like, when I was working on the ballot initiative in Colorado, there were a lot of people who were trying to tell me, like, whether or not I was in integrity and I'm just like, but you don't know what my values are. So how do you know what's in integrity for me? You know? Like, Oh, so you're telling me that we have different values that, okay, let's move from there,

Dr. Sandra Dreisbach  39:25  
that I'm not integrity for your values of what integrity is, not based on what my values of integrity are, or even assuming that we have a universal sense of what integrity is, right, anyone right? That any disagreement is automatically someone not being in integrity,

Jaz Cadoch  39:43  
right? And it's kind of, it's really a question of like, are you values aligned? It's so the global psychedelic society is a really great example of what it looks like to be values aligned. We operate in a teal form of organizing. Which is based off of Ken Wilber spiral dynamics theory and and it comes from a book called reinventing organizations, which basically teaches organizations how to operate in a decentralized form of governance or organizing. And so what that means is we're not working on consensus, right? And somebody may be leading a project that I'm not involved with, but it's decentralized decision making, and so I need to be able to trust that they're going to make a decision that's in line with what I think the organization is leading towards, right, and the way to do that, and to ensure that that happens, is to be values aligned. And so at the core of teal organizing is if there's a disagreement, then it's because some values are not cleared up. And you know, there could be people who are like, Oh, I wouldn't have made that decision. But ultimately it fits in within the values, and that's okay. And so when we're looking at like, what is, what is an ethical business for like, from an objective standpoint, it's really checking in with what the values are of the individuals and then what the values are of the organization itself.

Dr. Sandra Dreisbach  41:19  
Yeah. And I both want to, like, say yes, and I also want to push you a little bit on some of this too. So, like, you know, right, right? But I love that you bring you highlighting the individual versus the organization, right? Like, the values aren't aligned, right? And you said, like, if there's a disagreement, there's a disagreement on values. But could it be that the disagreement isn't about values, but about which values are more important? And maybe you're saying that is a disagreement of values, right? Like, if I say, like, let's go back to like, my honesty example, and, you know, like, and I say, like, honesty is the most important thing, and transparency and having that, and then someone else says like, well, yes, I value honesty, but we also need to be able to keep certain information private, and that's not being dishonest. So it could be that we're actually agreeing about honesty, but we're disagreeing about what does it mean to be in alignment with honesty and the implementation. Or if I give a counter case, we can, we can talk on that one. Or we could say, like, well, we we care about honesty and we care about democratizing access, but we're finding it difficult to both democratize access and be honest to the same level, like, well, like, Well, I think the democratizing access should be a higher priority. And how we should fund things, let's just say, then funding transparency mechanisms for the community, right? So we may even have agreement on democracy, democratization and on honesty, but then when we come into financial decisions, right? Then we're pushes coming to shove in particular ways. So what do you think about that?

Jaz Cadoch  43:14  
I mean, I think you're right.

Dr. Sandra Dreisbach  43:16  
Well, I appreciate that. I also think you're right too, right? Saying, like, yes, and let's go with the yes, yeah and yes and ethics, right? We should probably call it out here, no, because, like, right? If you don't know what those values are of the organization, if you don't know what the individual's values are, and you don't know where they align and where they don't align, you're definitely going to have disagreement. Right, exactly.

Jaz Cadoch  43:42  
And ultimately, it really just comes down to making sure that discussing values is at the forefront of, you know, of how things are happening and and how decisions are being made, yeah. And to me, like, just on a, you know, that's the global psychedelic society, which is a community based organization, right? Which very different, has very different things to consider than, like a tech company, for example, right? Um, but yeah, so, so it's like, if we were to look at like a tech company, for example, and there's like, you know, you're talking about, like, Okay, well, how do we prioritize each value, it's like, Well, the question before that is, like, what has the company had conversations about values,

Dr. Sandra Dreisbach  44:27  
right? Right? So let's say they've had the conversation. We've had all the meetings. We've done the teal process.

Jaz Cadoch  44:37  
You don't have to be teal. I'm just using it, just because,

Dr. Sandra Dreisbach  44:39  
like, that's an example. It doesn't even matter what the model is, right now. But model is, right now. But like, let's just say it was teal, just for the sake of argument, right? You know, we've used the teal process. We have clarity on our values. We know where we stand in relationship to the organization, and we run into a problem. What do you generally advise people to do in order to be able. To help support, you know, I mean, I realized maybe this is too abstract. This is maybe too abstract. Maybe it needs to be more concrete, you know, maybe that's unfair, but maybe you could give an example of a problem you've helped without, you know, disclosing anything you're not allowed to disclose. Maybe give us a case study of something that we could look at that our audience could get value out of and helping them when they are facing their own challenge with values, either with an organization or community.

Jaz Cadoch  45:32  
I feel like I would love an example of like, what kind of challenge? Well,

Dr. Sandra Dreisbach  45:38  
I'll give you one that you had, and I'm only laughing because, like you mentioned earlier in our conversation about Colorado and personal use, and I know there are a lot of challenging conversations in Colorado around that, what, what? What were some of the ways you were able to advocate for personal use, and in that conversation to explain to people from different perspectives why that's an important thing to value based on many perspectives that you're trying to consider. Yeah, I have

Jaz Cadoch  46:11  
to, like, go back to 21 when whole process started around

Jaz Cadoch  46:19  
the natural medicine Health Act in Colorado, and, like, remember how we navigated that? And it was,

Jaz Cadoch  46:27  
it was a lot of, like, push and pull. And I think ultimately, what happened in that process, you know, I'll just be real and I'll, I'll name things. I mean, you know,

Dr. Sandra Dreisbach  46:40  
you say whatever fills in layman for you. Like, you know, you don't have to share thinking on new shit, but like, but maybe, maybe even sharing, like, what are you the most proud of having done in that in that time period? Like, when you look back and at 2021, and you think about those conversations, and I definitely was hearing about a lot of those conversations, you know. And I know it was challenging, even from an outsider's perspective. What are you most proud of now, you know, what? What have you integrated from that experience? That's that that's shown up because, you know, like you're grateful for the kind of example you were as a leader and in terms of your ethics and in terms of personal use,

Jaz Cadoch  47:21  
yeah, I think just to go back to like, the the like, what went wrong, like, what had occurred that we missed was, you know, when, when new approach did come to Colorado, there weren't, there wasn't a conversation about values, and there wasn't an agreement of, like, what are we trying to achieve here? So that was unclear from the get go, and everybody was kind of coming at the project with different goals. And so as a result, what that led to was like, well, that's not what I signed up for. And, oh, well, that's not what I signed up for. And like, nobody was clear, because there was this really, really quick timeline of like, well, we need to submit this now. And so as a result, like, lots of people fell behind and didn't get to be part of certain conversations. And some people moved forward. And I, for whatever reason, happened to have been one of the people that moved forward. And, you know, some people chalk it up to me being tokenized for being a brown woman, you know, and I push back on that perspective, because to assume that I'm being tokenized kind of takes away my agency as a brown woman. And it's like, well, you don't even know that you're that you're being used. And it's like, or how about like, I made my decision to join this team and to contribute in the ways that I want to contribute. You know what I mean? And it's like, well,

Dr. Sandra Dreisbach  48:52  
Toto that actually pushes you in a position of a power down position, and says that you must have been in a power down position in relation to this, and that you weren't empowered enough to be able to make a good power dynamic decision in relation to new approach, or those other relationships. And just for the context of listeners, new approach is a political action committee that has done a lot of legal advocacy work across the United States in particular, originally doing a lot of work in cannabis, and now has been involved in a lot of the psychedelic legal advocacy work. And full disclosure here, like I also was involved, you know, in supporting some of the advocacy work in California. So even though I'm not a part, wasn't privy to what fully happened in Colorado. But yeah, and maybe we want to take a pause here to make sure we we recognize you and how you want to identify yourself in this conversation. I know I would have given the bio at the top of this podcast, but I want to give you the opportunity now, since the. Has been accused of you to be able to recognize yourself and how you want to be identified.

Jaz Cadoch  50:09  
Thanks. Sandra, sweetie. Um, you know, one of the core values I have is standing in the both and, and, and sometimes that means, like, I go in a direction that is very confusing to people, because they're used to putting me in this box of like, well, she's this, right? And, and then sometimes, like, I'll move over to the other side, and then people will be like, wait, what I thought? I thought you were this. And like, Yeah, I'm also that. I'm all these things, and it's really confusing for folks. And, and I also have a certain privilege, well, privilege, we can call it a privilege, but having been Canadian or being Canadian, I wasn't able to vote on the ballot, so I had the opportunity to not take a side, because I couldn't, I couldn't say yes or no on the ballot, you know, and and so as a result, like the role I took was being that middle. And so what that means is sometimes people will disagree with you on this side, and sometimes people will disagree with you on this side, and you end up getting it kind of from both directions. And truly, I believe, like, if I, if I look back to your question of like, what am I proud of from 21 is, well, first of all, ensuring that we had that we were ethically advertising. What the initiative was that was a big thing for me, because I felt there was misinformation being shared in various components of the like spreading of of the bill, there was a little bit of misinformation. And so I really took it upon myself to adjust that and raise that, raise attention to that fact. I also shared a lot of information with people who were not in the inside meetings. And so I opened up a window into closed door conversations with fellow activists who were on the ground. And then I also really learned a lot from that experience about systems and also about not having to agree with everybody, like this values thing, you know? And I'm just like, for a really long time, I was like, okay, okay, how do I please everybody? How do I be the savior here, or something like rescue

Dr. Sandra Dreisbach  52:46  
or the people pleaser? I'm very familiar with these, right?

Jaz Cadoch  52:52  
Pisces, too. I've got five Pisces.

Dr. Sandra Dreisbach  52:54  
Oh, we can talk about that. I'm Pisces rising. So, yeah, I'm with you,

Jaz Cadoch  52:58  
like, a very emotional person who gets very affected by other people's effects, emotions and and at some point I had to realize, like, oh, you know what? There's gonna be people who don't agree with what I'm doing, and that's okay. And actually, that's what makes a leader. A leader is seeing what their goal is and checking in with the people around. Okay, I heard you, I heard you, I heard you. Okay, cool. I've gathered this information, and these are the steps I want to take forward. And if you guys want to come with me, that's great. And if you don't, then that's okay too. And actually that's really, like, helped me in multiple areas of my life, like, for example, and this may be a huge side, what's, what's the word derailment, but I'm also a Moroccan Israeli, and my mother was born in Israel and was raised in a really Zionist home. And I'm also really somebody who believes in social justice and the protection of all human lives. And I also had a really huge awakening with my ancestors after Academy and experience to come back to Judaism before October 7 occurred. And so it was really challenging for me to reckon with, like, Okay, how do I be a proud Jew and also see the atrocities that are occurring in my name? Right? And so I had a lot of people like I saw just who weren't capable of seeing the nuance in between, yeah, of what it is to be a brown Jew, an Arab Jew. Well, I'm not, technically my my lineage is it predates the Arab empire within Morocco. But anyways, I digress, but it was really helpful, like what I experienced in Colorado's initiative and learning. Like, okay, there's gonna be lots of people who don't agree with your perspective. What is an integrity for you? Jazz, right? And I had to, like, continue to come to that question of like, well, what is my what is an integrity for me? What are my values? And one of those things is being in the both end, right? And it's that constant inquiry, and we could bring this back to what I was talking about before. And I did digress, but I'll bring it back. No, but

Dr. Sandra Dreisbach  55:24  
I think that's the immediate in terms of what you said in the you know, having your individual values and knowing where you are in relationship to the larger organization or cause, as it were, I think you're actually just proving your point and why that's so important. And I have to say I agree in

Jaz Cadoch  55:39  
the inquiry, right? Like, of inquiry with ourselves, because sometimes we will make mistakes, and sometimes and often we will, you know, and and the question is, when you make a mistake, what do you do about it? That's right, that constant inquiry of like, well, what are my values and what is an integrity for me. And then when we, when somebody comes up to us and it's like, you're not in integrity, it's like, actually, no, I've asked myself that question. And this is what integrity looks like to me. If you don't agree with my values, that's fine, right? And then, then we could name, okay, we have different values,

Dr. Sandra Dreisbach  56:16  
right? And I love also that you brought the idea of disagreement, right? That there's like, some sort of weird, I don't want to say necessarily, toxic positivity or toxic ethics. Concepts around that to be ethical means we all agree or and holding space for like you mentioned, being a leader and collecting and gathering and listening to people who you're working with about what their values are, and holding space for that disagreement, right, and not forcing a particular agreement, because that would imply, based on even what you've been sharing about the individual versus, you know, community or others, is that it would do a sort of, I mean, I'll even say the word violence to that inner resourcing that they could have for themselves by assuming that your values or are the or your way of saying integrity is the way everyone's integrity should be. And I also appreciate thank you for sharing a bit about your positionality and your background and your intersectionality in terms of these issues. Because I think, even though you know, I think a lot of people are, you know the what's happening in Gaza and to really the world, if you ask me, I deeply appreciate you bringing that to the conversation

Jaz Cadoch  57:44  
too. Yeah, and it's like, you know, what are we doing if we're not blending all of these things together? Because we are all experiencing like dismay and pain and suffering and depression and hopelessness, right? Like seeing all the atrocities of what we're experiencing, even like the climate disasters, right? Like that is not necessary. Well, yeah, it is connected to humans, but, but what are we doing, as in our psychedelic work, if we're not blending all these things together as like, part of a larger whole, and seeing like, okay, like. And this brings us back to this paradigm shift concept, right, of like, okay, well, let's shift what we're doing. And that's what psychedelics allow for us to do, if we look at, you know, the default mode network and and what it does for our brains when we look at how it supports somebody's mental illness or depression, or, you know, whatever it may be, it gives us a moment to write new narratives of who we are and what we are, right? Because the default mode network, what it what it does for the listeners, is when we take psychedelics, it quiets the default mode network. And the default mode network is typically what, what our mind is engaged in when we're not really like doing anything in particular. So it's like when you're kind of just sitting there in thought, is when you kind of repeat those stories of, who am I? What are my dreams? What is it that I want to be doing? And when we take psychedelics, what we've seen in some studies is is that it quiets that part and it gives us an opportunity to imagine new things, new stories, new realities. And that's why so many people will leave a psychedelic experience of like, I need to do this with my life now having this big revelation. But then so then I am thinking, you know, great that we could do this on the individual level, but what if we started doing this on the systemic level and actually change the systems that we're in? And I kind of feel like seeing that point and that opportunity,

Dr. Sandra Dreisbach  59:57  
yeah, and I love that because, like, what I. If you're just, if you're just doing it, just to have the wild, crazy ride. Is that really a sufficient justification for having the experience, right? If you're not bringing it into your life, into this world, into our lived experience, into, you know, like, what making the world literally a better place? And, you know, I don't care if it's a trope, you know, I don't care, you know, like, I'm definitely all about love, I'm unapologetic. I'm definitely about community and supporting one another. So maybe this is a good time to kind of come to, sort of our question, for for some of our listeners, and for sort of, like, the takeaway message, the moral of the story, as it were, but really, like you know, ways people can be better resources or for each other, for themselves, or a call to action. So what? What would you say? What would you love for a listener to be able to do after listening to your share today or about your work. What? What? What should someone actually do, if it's not just talking the talk and it's walking the walk and living by example, like you, like you do, what? What should other people do? Or what would you inquire or encourage them to inquire about, to support, perhaps maybe democratizing or entering their experiences or bringing into the real world.

Jaz Cadoch  1:01:26  
Yeah, yeah. I just want to take a moment to say thank you for giving me space to move across the many, many different topics into today. And was really illuminating to kind of look at the 30,000 foot view of what is like to be in integrity and to do ethical work in the space, right? And I, I like to believe that one of the most selfless things that we can do is to work on ourselves, and it's like the the most, the largest gift that you can give to your community is knowing yourself, knowing your boundaries, knowing your edges, and knowing what you're good at, knowing what you're not good At, because then, when we come up against conflict, or when we come up against something that is not so cozy, we know ourselves, and so then we can better navigate those situations. And so my call to action is to continue to do the work on ourselves and to always be in that self inquiry of what is an what is integrity for me, what are my values? Because when we know that, then we can meet people, you know where their values are. And I remember somebody saying, like, boundaries are really just like this, the the land at which, like, we can meet each other on we can know where each other's boundaries lie. And so when we know ourselves better, then we become a better community member, and then we become a better leader as well. I love

Dr. Sandra Dreisbach  1:03:13  
that, especially with my bias towards philosophy. And it always calls me back to the Oracle of Delphi. And you enter, they had a few different adages inscribed at the entrance as they would go to see the Oracle. And one of them was, know thyself and and that that before you enter into the the darkness of the cave, into the into the journey, into the experience. But it sounds like you're not saying, like not just going within when you're when you're having the journey. But as you come out, continue to inquire, continue to know yourself. Don't stop asking the questions. The journey never ends well. Thank you so much. Jazz. You're such you know a pleasure and a delight to talk with. I love being in community with you. It's been, it's it's been an adventure, just you know, knowing you as a friend, as another community leader and and inquiring with you today together. So thank you. Thank

Jaz Cadoch  1:04:14  
you so much for having me, Sandra, this was a really sweet conversation.

Dr. Sandra Dreisbach  1:04:19  
One of the themes I hope you start to get from some of these earlier episodes, is this notion, not just of ethical practice, but how that's combined with leadership and community, that there isn't really this sense of separation that we have, the illusion of having sometimes when we think about what it means to do this work is like, Oh, it's just your specialist in, let's say pharmacists, right? You're a pharmacist, and that's all you do, right? But it doesn't often approach the sort of intersectionalities, these, these intersections of our own life, the living aspect of of what it means to you. Not just do work in community, to do our own shadow work in relationship. What it really means to be a leader in and when we're trying to really innovate and heal a lot of the challenges that have happened in the past and even currently, right in an ongoing way. So these first two people who I've had conversations with, both, both jazz and Dr Lola, are leaders in their own right, and connected their own lineages, in their own histories and relationship, and really unique and really beautiful and and you can see how also for me, at least, what's important in terms of one of the things that's important for me in terms of me in terms of diversity, equity and inclusion, is realizing that, you know, we're not trying to create homogeny, we're not trying to create sameness, that real diversity is going to require difference, and If there's going to be differences, the unique, beautiful differences, just like you know different works of art, you know, each culture, each community, each leader, each person in the space, really adds to our value, and no one really is taking away, and the more We can lean into having not just open, honest conversations, but but the difficult conversations, allowing space for conflict, right? There's going to be conflict that that shouldn't be seen as something negative about our work, right? That should be seen as growth that that agreeing all the time, you're more likely to go into like, spiritual bypassing, or, you know, um, ethics washing and pretending that everything's okay when, when there really are difficulties. We really have differences and, and it's and, and if we want to celebrate these differences and this unique aspects of our culture, of our psychedelic practice of plant medicines, of the unique ways we people have relationship, whether it be First Nation, whether it be, you know, the Western global north, whether it be the sort of, you know, some of the newer models that are coming out. I hope you see from just these couple of conversations that we can hold space for different ways of leading, that that may not be the same and they have in the different backgrounds, that that actually enrich us, that enrich the conversation, that enrich the community, that allows us to explore aspects of ourselves and Our relationship that maybe we couldn't access any other way. And and I also, you know, I'm thinking right now about something Dr Lola was sharing about how we we need to realize that no one is untouched by the sort of Western, global North influence that even from her experience, from where she was in Nigeria, that that was always present. And so for her, it was very natural to bridge both worlds, because both worlds were co present and and while I can't really speak to what it's like for her or or what it's like for jazz to try and, you know, connect to the lineages, or remain connected to the lineages, right? We have a kind of a contrast here in both these episodes, where we have one, one who's trying to reconnect and and re establish those connections in relationship, and another who's born into those relationships and connection and in community and and and how both are working towards building greater community, greater relationship, greater understanding, as well as support for their communities of origin and the different challenges that they are facing both whether you're looking at sort of like the their lineage traditions and trying to keep them preserved, or whether you're looking at in terms of like, how do they do this work? How did they show up in an ethical way for them, in their leadership, in their work, in their communities, in their teachings and trainings or education that they're doing and and for me, at least, I just love that that we're starting here, that that these are the two leaders that we're paying ATTENTION TO and learning as resources, both unique, individual, complex and and supporting the same sort of ideas, but very differently. And that's not to dissuade their uniqueness. The uniqueness and way that they're serving and showing up is very much to be valued. So hopefully. Really as we start building, sort of like some of the messaging that we can kind of gather as we we build this podcast going forward, that that we start with this sort of openness and really listening to to people as they have come and continue to come into greater relationship and and build the sort of psychedelic community that is well resourced and well supported. Hope you enjoyed the first few episodes and looking forward to continuing the journey with you. Thank you for joining me on psychedelic source. If you found value in today's episode, please subscribe wherever you get your podcasts and share with others in our community. And if you're a psychedelic practitioner, therapist or coach looking to identify blind spots in your practice or determine next steps for moving it forward, take the first step by visiting psychedelic Source podcast.com Until next time, remember, start low, go slow and stay connected to your source. You.