Afternoon Pint
Afternoon Pint is a laid-back Canadian podcast hosted by Matt Conrad and Mike Tobin. Each episode, they invite a special guest to join them at a pub or microbrewery to get to know them a bit better. Conversations cover a wide range of topics, including Entrepreneurship, business, Arts, pop culture, music, science, society, Life stories, experiences, you get the idea...
Our aim is to create a show for everyone (even non-Canadians.) We create a welcoming atmosphere where guests can share their perspectives with transparency. Essentially, Afternoon Pint is like heading to the pub after work to catch up with some friends through your headphones or stereo. We are Nova Scotia's #2 podcast, but we pretend we are number 1!
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Afternoon Pint
Dave Muise - Transforming Mental Health with Psychedelic Assisted Therapy (VP of Business Development at NuVista Psychedelic Medicine)
The world of psychedelic medicine is transforming mental health treatment and we welcome Dave Muise, VP of Business Development at NuVista Psychedelic Medicine, to help us understand what their company is out to accomplish. Dave shares insights into how ketamine is now being harnessed to combat PTSD, depression, and anxiety, particularly when these conditions stem from trauma.
Kimia Nejat of Kimia Nejat Realty
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Cheers, cheers. Welcome to the Afternoon Pint. I'm Mike Dobin, I'm Matt Conrad, and who do we have with us today?
Speaker 2:I'm Dave Muse, VP of Business Development from NuVista Psychedelic Medicine.
Speaker 1:Wow, that's a long title. Could you say that one more time and slow it down? Psychedelic Medicine.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so VP of NuVista, sorry VP of Business Development for NuVista Psychedelic Medicine.
Speaker 3:Cool, that's awesome. Yeah, so there's a whole lot to unpack here. We've been trying to get you on for a little while now. Yeah, you're a busy guy.
Speaker 2:I am on the road a lot. So, yeah, I'm here in Halifax. I live in New Brunswick, but yeah, so I'm here for two days and then tomorrow I drive straight to PEI. I'm there until Thursday or Friday and then back home. So yeah, I'm on the road quite a bit. Unfortunately, when I do come to Halifax I'm jam-packed, so it has been hard to fit this in, but I'm very happy we're here doing it today.
Speaker 3:Yeah, cool. Well, thank you for making the time. We really appreciate it. I think it's something that's pretty interesting to kind of talk about. You know what, instead of me explaining it, why don't you explain kind of a high level and we'll dive down into it? Why? Don't you explain a high level what you guys do.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so we're treating individuals who are suffering from PTSD, depression, high levels of anxiety, and a lot of that really stems or has an underlying issue of trauma. And what we've been treating our individuals with who are suffering from these diseases is we're using ketamine medicine or S-ketamine, so primarily we're using a nasal spray version of ketamine. Some of our clinics do offer lozenge as well and some of our clinics do offer it through IV, but really, what we've learned is this this medicine is is rapid acting. Um, our many of our clients are seeing very positive results, uh, very early in the treatment process and, um, some of the feedback that we're getting is they're coming back and telling us that it's been absolutely life-changing and it's it's brought them back to who they were, um before cool.
Speaker 3:That's yeah, that is life-changing and like do these studies are they?
Speaker 1:are they North American in origin or do you know? I'm just kind of curious.
Speaker 2:Honestly, all over the world. Yeah, there is a lot of research going on in North America right now, but England's also huge in this space right now as well.
Speaker 3:Cool, and for anyone who doesn't know, can you, can you explain just kind of again you don't have to have a biology degree or anything but what ketamine is?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so ketamine was discovered I believe it was in the early 60s. It originated as an anesthetic, so it is used every day in the ER, the operating room, for sedation. It happens a lot with, in particular, children who come into the ER, maybe unfortunately in their car accident or something, and a lot of times physicians are using ketamine to sedate. And what happened many years ago is a lot of these physicians were discovering that, you know, post-operation or if they had to reset a bone, whatever it may be, a lot of these kids or individuals are coming in, they're they're in a good mood afterwards. Um, so that's kind of where the research stemmed from and what we've come to know is that this medicine, it has some really positive effects on the brain. It helps to create new neural pathways and just really open us up and and give us a new perspective on life.
Speaker 1:Okay, cool, I love the concept. Now, as those neural pathways open up or whatever, though, do they stay or do they start to erode over time without the ketamine? That's always like a concern or thought I'd have.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So what this is designed to do is again open you up, start to create those new neural pathways and really give you the tools in your toolbox to move forward in life and have a different perspective instead of oh poor me, this happened to me. It's okay, this happened to me. How do I move on in life? How do I figure out how to have a more impactful life or a better life? To answer your question, yeah, the effects of the medicine does eventually wear off. So we do have individuals who come in for what we call a top-up or a booster, but again, it's not designed to be something that you have on a regular basis. It's let's open you up, let's create some new neuropathways and then give you those tools moving forward for the rest of your life.
Speaker 3:So how long would a treatment be? How long would someone have to do this before you? Kind of like, let them kind of go on their own.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so our clients are typically in clinic for about two hours or so, so there is a brief medical examination when they come in. We want to make sure that everything's safe to go the day of before we administer the medicine. Then they're under the effects of the medicine for about 45 minutes to an hour and then again we're doing some brief medical afterwards, after the medicine, to ensure the clients are safe to discharge. Essentially, we're looking to get vitals back to baseline and really just make sure that they're good to go afterwards.
Speaker 1:Now can they drive home back home that day? I think if I come in and get a treatment, can I just take my car drive home like a couple hours later.
Speaker 2:No, so it is. We do recommend 24 hours before you do drive and we do ensure that you have a someone picking up a lot of our times. Our nurses will even walk you at the door if you, if you need some help or something walking.
Speaker 3:But yeah, we always make sure you you have a drive home so so, like that two-hour process like is is that like all it takes, kind of thing, or is like your people scheduled like monthly for a little while, or like, or is it just like two hours and then away you go, maybe a night to top up like what does it look like?
Speaker 2:yeah, so we have three different programs. Um, and I guess to answer your question quickly, then I'll explain a little bit. Um, some clients, yeah, they've come to us and said after one session it's completely changed their life. That's rare, um. And then, on the the other hand, we have a couple of individuals who, you know, they don't really feel any true effects until much deeper in the program. So it's not scientific. To that aspect Everyone is different, but we do have three different plans or three different ways we're administering right now. So one is a lozenge. What that program looks like is six ketamine sessions, usually once a week, followed up by therapy within 48 hours. And the reason we want to introduce therapy is, again, we've created new narrow pathways, we've taken down those walls and barriers that we've put up and then when we jump in there with a therapist, you know we can better equip you with all those tools.
Speaker 1:Is there therapy, ramping up to the ketamine intake, or like, do you kind of get people to understand what demons are going to tackle, or whatever?
Speaker 2:So what we'll do is we'll have an intake process kind of some prep sessions and really just it's an opportunity for our therapists to get to know the client and get a better understanding of you know. What are we trying to achieve here? So? So no, they're not diving in deep pre, uh medicine, it's it's afterwards that they do a deeper dive.
Speaker 2:Um, the second way we administer is an IV, um very similar program. It is six sessions once a week, um similar process. And then, um, the one that we're really starting to introduce in the majority of our clinics now is, uh, it spray, it's called Spravato, and that's a little bit deeper dive. So that's 20 sessions in total For the first four weeks. The client's in twice a week. So we like to spread that out within, you know, 48 hours. So if you come in on a Monday you're not backing until at least Wednesday. So again, for the first four weeks you're in twice a week, and then it tapers down to once a week, biweekly, and then monthly, and then from there we just kind of gauge, you know, does this individual need the top-up or the boosters?
Speaker 3:Cool, okay, yeah, so is it like only hetamine that you guys are working on? Have you guys worked like kind of diving into like the psilocybin, any of that stuff yet?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so through a partnership with a company out of Vancouver called Apex Labs. So they're working on using psilocybin to treat PTSD in veterans. We have had one individual come to our clinic. We had to go through a special access program through Health Canada it's about a 300-page document to be able to treat this one individual psilocybin as part of a trial. That went really well. So right now we're working on a much larger scale trial with them as well. So I think there's about 15 to 25 clients who are going to be administering psilocybin. For each one of those we have to go through the SAP program and that 300-page document. But yeah, that's coming very soon. Can I do it? Are you a veteran?
Speaker 1:No.
Speaker 2:No, so unfortunately that trial right now is only for veterans.
Speaker 3:It's just for veterans, okay, cool.
Speaker 1:Be fun to try. Yeah, let's just be real.
Speaker 3:The other thing I guess. I kind of wanted to uh kind of ask about the um, because you were talking about the process and everything is and you're also, you know, developing, you're the new business development, uh guy, so do you find it's a bit of an uphill battle, because I know sometimes ketamine can have a little bit of a stigma to it, as well as the others too Not only with people, but also how is it dealing with government and trying to open it? Because I know you're opening multiple clinics and things like that. You're having trouble there. What's the uphill battle? Look like.
Speaker 2:Honestly, it's been surprising. Obviously we've met some resistance but honestly it hasn't been as bad as I personally expected. We're very much in an education phase right now. For sure, you know, there's a lot of physicians or therapists or just the general public, you know, maybe they've heard of this before but they don't know a lot about it. So, yeah, very much in that education phase. But as pure pushback it honestly hasn't been as much as I anticipated.
Speaker 3:Oh, that's good. I mean, I do think that the general population is starting to come around a lot of the other ways of doing things right. I think everyone learns differently and I think everyone heals differently, right. So I think, having a bunch of options, as long as it's not completely hazardous to people, why not explore those things?
Speaker 1:Have you had any forms of the therapy yourself? Tried it out?
Speaker 2:Yeah, and maybe that's a good place to circle back to is kind of my origins in this field. So to do that we have to kind of rewind to about 2007. I was living here in halifax, going to university and playing hockey, and I was also a competitive soccer player and at the time I guess 2007 and second year of university I had my sixth or seventh concussion playing hockey and from there I obviously I had a year of hockey eligibility left. I couldn't play, couldn't play soccer anymore, went to go see a neurologist and basically he recommended that I take a year off university. I was struggling reading and writing. I always had trouble reading and writing anyway, but this made it worse, right. So I took that year off university. I wasn't playing sports anymore. I wasn't really going out with my friends as much, so I fell into a bit of a depression from there and for the next 10 to 12 years or so, I self-medicate with alcohol.
Speaker 2:And it was 2019, if we fast forward. I was listening to a podcast, a retired NHL player talking. Riley Cote was the player talking about his post-career and very similar. He was a fighter in hockey, multiple concussions, and he was self-medicating with alcohol and drugs and he was talking about his experience through microdosing with psilocybin and how that really changed his life. So I was thinking, hey, I had tried mushrooms a couple times in university and really enjoyed that experience.
Speaker 1:So sorry in the book. So the book what year was this that this happened? Do you think in the timeline of his story? The NHL player.
Speaker 2:Not really sure. No, no, yeah.
Speaker 1:Was it. Is this modern or is it?
Speaker 2:from oh yeah, riley Cote retired probably, I don't know. I want to say 2015.
Speaker 1:Okay cool.
Speaker 2:So it's pretty recent, real recent Okay cool so yeah I I decided I would give this a shot and start microdosing with psilocybin, and very quickly realized that there's some healing power in this medicine sorry, I just want to ask for, like our listeners and you don't have to answer this did you do this with without therapy?
Speaker 1:you just did this on your own, tried it, tried it out like kind of yeah, so tried it on my own initially.
Speaker 2:Um, this was very early on kind of this renaissance of psychedelics. So you know, there was information out there but I wasn't diving in too deep yet, sure. So yeah, I started microdosing and again, very early I realized that there was some healing power in this. So at the time I was in the financial planning industry and I simply just started researching companies out there to buy their stocks.
Speaker 2:You know, I kind of wanted to catch that next cannabis wave it didn't work out, so I was researching companies and the more I kind of dove in to this new field, the more I realized that there is truly healing power in these medicines. So I started, I dove in deeper and I actually started working on a business plan to open clinics here in Atlantic Canada, thinking, you know, we're usually 10 years behind the rest of the country. No other company's looking at coming here. So this was about 2020-ish. I was about two months into my business plan and I realized that there was a company coming to Fredericton opening a ketamine clinic. The company is called Fieldtrip Health. They're based out of Toronto. At their peak they had about 15 clinics, so they were in Toronto, vancouver, la, new York, houston, san Diego, chicago, amsterdam, and then they were putting one in Fredericton Cool, weird but cool, Like it's a strange place to pick out of you know all of Canada or anywhere.
Speaker 1:I guess it's a lot different than LA, for sure, yeah.
Speaker 2:So, kind of learning this, I said, oh shit, kind of pushed my business plan to the side and out of nowhere I just decided to cold call the CEO of Fieldtrip, said this is who I am, what I do, why I'm interested and you're going to find a role for me. So about two weeks later I left my 11-year career in financial planning and joined Fieldtrip and I was with them until probably May or March, I think, of 2023, running the Fredericton Clinic, unfortunately. So at one point they were the largest ketamine company in the our company in the world. Uh, they had raised 123 million dollars. Wow, um, fast forward to march of 2023, kind of all that money was gone and they were. They were going under no way. Yeah, wow, um.
Speaker 2:So still having that passion and and living in the world and seeing the effects that it had on people, I wanted to keep this alive. So kind of dusted off the business plan, reached out to an ER physician, a friend of mine in New Brunswick, dr Hanif Shator, and said, hey, would you be interested in kind of diving into this with me? He has some knowledge in ketamine just using the ER, but outside of that it wasn't a thing he was really following too closely. But he jumped on board and we started working on a business plan to A keep the Fredericton Clinic alive. And then, you know, how do we grow it from here? And very early on we realized, you know, we need a bigger, better partner. And I kind of figured there were some people, other groups out there who are looking to take over the, uh, the Fredericton field trip location and uh.
Speaker 1:so business was good, is what you're saying? It was just the finance, financials.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So the Fredericton clinic with field trip was was doing pretty well. Um, some of the other clinics who had very high over rent I know there's a couple of clinics that but their monthly rent was about 30, $30,000. So, yeah, so the cash burn was real there. Yeah, so yeah, realizing that we needed a better partner, I reached out to a group and an individual, dr Mark Johnston, who's a psychiatrist here in Nova Scotia. He primarily works with veterans and first responders. I kind of had a hunch that he may be looking to take over that clinic. So I reached out to him and he was interested to have a conversation. Not only is he a psychiatrist, but he also owns 15 psychology clinics.
Speaker 3:Wow Okay.
Speaker 2:Yes, so they're called True North and they're basically they're spread from Nova Scotia all the way to Alberta.
Speaker 1:I'm familiar with the organization. Yeah, I know the name, yeah, yeah, of scotia all the way to alberta.
Speaker 2:I'm familiar with the organization. Yeah, I know the name, yeah, yeah, so mark, uh, mark's a great guy, very, you know, client first and his goal is to create the first um mental health network that spans coast to coast under his uh true north psychology clinics, um. So we, we reached out to him, um dr chateau, and I had a conversation with him and uh, we said, hey, let's do this. And uh, so we kind of joined forces and we started with the Fredericton location. We're now in, obviously, fredericton. Still, we're in Halifax, greenwood, we have a location St John's, newfoundland, and within a week or two or maybe three weeks, we're opening in PEI in Charlottetown Wow, and Gander, newfoundland, as well.
Speaker 1:Gander Wow, yeah, and like so to this day. Just to go back to your story, you know the alcohol. I don't think you drink anymore, that's correct.
Speaker 2:You told me that.
Speaker 1:right yeah, Before we met and so, like, what are your concerns? I mean, you have to be careful with this stuff, because I mean you know whether you tried mushrooms there's, I mean, or whatever however you want to say it, there's good trips, there's bad trips. Not everybody reacts the same way. I might have a great experience and the next person might have a terrible one, right? How do you possibly manage that that people don't have a negative experience? Is it through microdosing, or how does the science work behind that?
Speaker 2:Yeah. So there's a couple different factors in there, and I guess I'll start. You know we're not naive to know or to think that people aren't out there microdosing psilocybin or you know they're finding ketamine on the street and one thing I would say is just be very safe with that. As I mentioned, I jumped right into the psilocybin on my own without, you know, really doing too much research. I'm pretty novice to where I think I am today.
Speaker 2:But what I've learned is, you know there's a lot of underlying medical issues that maybe we were aware of or we're not aware of that these medicines can affect you. So that is one thing that we're big on is screening. We want to make sure that this is safe for you. So any client who's interested in coming through our program, the first step is meeting with one of our psychiatrists. They do a psych evaluation to make sure it's a good fit for you. They're looking to see if you've tried other methods, because this by Health Canada, this is kind of an alternative, so it's kind of a last resort. So we do need to see that you've tried other things.
Speaker 2:An alternative so it's kind of a last resort. So we do need to see that you've tried other things. So, again, from a psych standpoint, we psychiatrist screening and then you would meet with a nurse practitioner, you do a medical screening, again looking for those underlying medical issues that we may or may not be aware of.
Speaker 1:So the process must be long just to get in the door, is it not? Not?
Speaker 2:necessarily. You know we can. We can hammer out those first couple of sessions pretty quick, within a week or two, wow, okay. And then so, once that screening process has been approved by our medical team, and then, depending on which way you're going through our program, it's, you know which way of method of administrating. Again, it's different programs, as I mentioned earlier, but most people right now are going with the nasal. So again, you would have you'd meet your nurse practitioner to do the medical screening and then, when you come in to the clinic the day of medicine, one thing you'll notice is our clinics are beautiful, so set and setting is very important. So we want to make sure that when you walk into our clinic you know there's nothing that's dark and gloomy. So, for example, our Fredericton location has live moss all over the walls.
Speaker 1:Live. What Moss?
Speaker 3:I thought you said moths, I hate moths. I'd have a terrible experience. Green walls Okay, green walls are fine, yeah, so absolutely beautiful.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so, absolutely beautiful. And then also your mindset when you come in. If you've had a bad morning or afternoon or whatever maybe you know you had a fight with your spouse or traffic was horrible and it's got you all tense might not be the best time to take this medicine, right? So those bad trips happen A when we probably shouldn't be having the medicine anyway. Fair enough yeah. Right or we're in a bad setting.
Speaker 1:There's a real discomfort is probably what most people I imagine have a bad trip right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, 100%. So you know, if we date back to the time we've been with Field Trip to where we are now, you know that's four years or so. We've done a few thousand of these sessions. Honestly, I would say we've had no real bad trips, definitely no medical issues. One thing that's not common, but you know there's probably been five times we've had to intervene with our medical team and it was just kind of a panic attack.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:Because what this medicine can do is bring up some emotions. And if we're not willing to let go and just let the medicine do all the work and take us through what we need to go through and we fight that. That's when you you know we can kind of have a panic attack or something bad could happen. So that's that's part of our prep work as well is just let the medicine do the work don't fight it, and you guys have nurses and staff on site to assist with that.
Speaker 2:From what I understand, yeah, so when you come in for your your ketamine session, you would again be screened. The day of it's very common that blood pressure may be elevated day of just a little bit of anxiety. We have everything on site that we would need in the event of a medical emergency. But again, medical happens the day of just to be sure that everything's good to go. During their whole session, the clients are hooked up to a medical monitoring device that tracks their vitals the entire time, and then we have, for every four clients we're treating, we would have a nurse, practitioner and an RN on site as well.
Speaker 3:Oh, okay, for every four. Okay, how many people, so how many? How much staff do you have per clinic?
Speaker 2:It varies. So a lot of our staff they work elsewhere. So this is kind of a oh okay. So a lot of our staff they work elsewhere.
Speaker 3:So this is kind of a oh okay, so you kind of contract them, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2:So I think all of our staff, our medical staff, are contractors, so we kind of hire a few nurses and then just we get their availability and then we schedule them accordingly.
Speaker 3:Nice, oh, okay. Well, that works out really well. Yeah, because that way we're not, like you know, losing other medical staff that we need to also have.
Speaker 1:Well, yeah, Well, like partner Andrea, she works about 35 hours a week, so she'd be perfect to maybe come in and do a shift here or there. Yeah, so exactly.
Speaker 2:That's what the majority of our nursing staff would look like from their scheduling standpoint. No, I will say, after they've been with us for a few months, we're starting to get some comments or some, you know, calls like hey, like, do you think I could leave Nova Scotia Health and come work for you guys full time?
Speaker 1:Yeah, of course. Yeah, yeah, sure, I'm sure it sounds like an amazing job we're helping people in a totally innovative way. A hundred percent yeah.
Speaker 2:It's very rewarding. Unfortunately, I'm not around the clients as much, I don't you know. I don't get to live that experience like they do, but when I am around clients I get to see the positive results and hear how it's affected them. It is amazing.
Speaker 1:So they're lucky they did it. Primarily veterans now and folks with PTSD that you're helping out. What other I mean? I know this is a careful question, but what other? Ailments. Do you hope to help in the future?
Speaker 3:That's one thing. And to add to that, because your personal story, you were talking about hockey and concussions. I mean, I, I played football, so I've had I know I've had at least three decent concussions from football. Right, do you see this at all being able to help with, like CTE?
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's funny. So one of our we have veteran ambassadors. They're individuals who've gone through the program and you know it's completely changed their life. So they want to be out there helping their brothers and sisters and, you know, educating them. And unfortunately when he was in the military he had a very severe crash and had some brain trauma to him and you know that's really affected his life. And it's funny enough. This week or last week he sent me an article and I can't remember if it was. I think it was ketamine or psilocybin. They're now researching quite heavily for CTE and brain damage for sure, that would be huge.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that would be huge.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so yeah, right now we're treating mainly PTSD treatment, resistant depression. That's what Health Canada considers on label. What we also know that it's rapid affecting for anxiety. And then you know, if we look at anxiety, depression, PTSD, it's all a lot of it is a baseline of trauma underneath the issue. So we do know ultimately it does treat trauma as well, but there's a lot of research going into many different things that this can help with right now.
Speaker 1:How about ADHD?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so there is some research going on that right now. Personality disorder I recently read an article that it's producing some of the best results ever for individuals who are suffering from personality disorder.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:Interesting, yeah, of the best results ever for individuals who are suffering from personality disorder. Okay, yeah, alcoholism and nicotine um, I think in the last 12 months or so there's a study out on each and the results were right around 80 percent of the participants um um sustained from those two substances for 12 months, which is, uh, for nicotine was by far the best results ever wow wow, yeah, yeah quitting smoking is the hardest thing in the world.
Speaker 1:I used to smoke and man oh man for 12 months, which is for Nick's team, was by far the best results ever Wow, wow. Yeah, yeah. Quitting smoking is the hardest thing in the world. I used to smoke and man oh man. It took me forever to give it up, and now he's addicted to mints. No, no, well, no, these are regular mints.
Speaker 3:Regular mints, yeah, but I always kind of interesting, I mean, when we look at, when we talked about this a little bit on, we had someone on who does cannabis therapy, right, so we talked a little bit with this.
Speaker 1:I thought it was yeah with Angela. Angela worked with you. Actually we should to some extent, Is that correct? Yeah?
Speaker 2:We never went anything official. We were definitely in some conversations of what we could do together.
Speaker 3:So I'm actually originally from yarmouth and she's from yarmouth originally, okay. So, yes, small world, yeah, yeah, so we, we talked a little bit on this too, because I watched a, uh, I watched a documentary about, um, addiction and I thought it was really interesting the connection that people who were addicts or had some kind of, like you know, psychological problems due to the addiction or they were addicted because of some of the psychological issues, anyway, the common thread that they talked a little bit about, but I didn't think they really like focused on it enough, is that these guys are all pepperheads, so they all eat extreme, extreme hot peppers and they've all managed to give up their addictions by having these hot peppers, by eating them competitively. You'd almost say they replaced the addiction with hot peppers. But the capsaicin, which is the thing that makes you feel the heat, right, we have capsaicin receptors in our mouth and, depending on how sensitive they are, it depends on how much you feel that heat. Right, we have receptors in our capsaicin receptors in our mouth and, depending on how sensitive they are, it depends how much you feel that heat and whatever.
Speaker 3:Anyway, through this whole thing is, a lot of these pepper heads were people who had addiction issues and the capsaicin, like they basically were able to go like give up cold turkey their addictions, and I thought that was really interesting, because this is kind of in the same world, I guess, of where you guys are, because it's something that's maybe not have been originally intended and now all of a sudden we're seeing this weird side effect of something. So I don't know, I find that really really interesting and I don't know if you guys are ever going to explore further, like the hot pepper room it's like.
Speaker 3:This is the mushroom room. Yeah, they're going to make pizzas eventually.
Speaker 1:Treatment would you prefer? I would take the hot peppers, please.
Speaker 3:Yeah, exactly, but I don't know if there's something more to it. But I kind of feel like there should be more something to explore there. I mean, you know, I'm someone who rarely, rarely ever gets sick you know, almost never, honestly and I eat a lot of insane tense like hot spicy food kind of thing and I at this point, you know, being around my wife, gets sick all the time and then, you know, my son gets sick. I'm just coasting along and I'm just kind of like there has to be something to this.
Speaker 1:Maybe it's just you believe bullshit right. And you just believe, like made something up in your mind, like I think, like I never thought, like that. A little olives and peanut butter. You know, you know they were my favorite snack before bed, like you know, maybe have a little bit of that Olives and peanut butter. Keeps my skin. Maybe keeps my skin nice, you know, I just think, maybe that's a thing.
Speaker 3:Maybe, but that doesn't sound like a good combination.
Speaker 1:It sounds odd but you never know right. It could help my skin out. Are you sure you're not pregnant or high? No, sober, I've been doing this since I was 16. I'll put olives on the peanut butter on a cracker. Okay, it's one of my favorite nighttime snacks.
Speaker 3:Sure, it tastes fantastic. I didn't know this about you. I learned something about you. I've known this guy for 20 years.
Speaker 1:You got to try this out sometime.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I'll try it. I'll try it. I think it's the reason I feel. So you, my secret snack, do you feel good? Maybe not all the time, anyway, I don't know it. We get a real sidetrack there, but that's, that's fine, that's good for a good, for a laugh. Um, do you with these? So I mean obviously you're expanding, so that's really great. Um, do you see yourself being able to? I mean, obviously, hopefully you do, because it's your job to expand but the? Do you see these in like every kind of city, town kind of thing? Because I mean, you know, obviously, traveling all the time, it's not always convenient for someone. If someone had to go from Yarmouth for, say, to come all the way here three hours is not convenient and they can't drive right. So, yeah, do you see a market like kind of having these clinics spread throughout the province, throughout the country? I do throughout the province, throughout the country I do.
Speaker 2:Accessibility is a huge issue in this platform right now. As you mentioned, you know there's getting to the clinic, getting from the clinic, the travel distance For many people there is a cost barrier. For sure I don't know if I necessarily see it in every town, but you know definitely pockets that you know we're definitely more accessible to the general public than maybe we are today. But like, for example, if we look at our clinic in Greenwood, you know not too far from Yarmouth it's a two-hour drive. But yeah, that is ultimately. The goal is we want to be coast to coast um in the next couple years or so, um, and so I already mentioned we're opening pei and gander this month, but beyond that we're already looking at um monkton, um sydney, cape, breton, uh, we are opening in new minus um as well even though we're in greenwood.
Speaker 2:um, it's, it's been doing very well there. Uh, we're looking at St John in Brunswick and then you know, once we've got Atlantic Canada secured, yeah, we're heading west.
Speaker 3:You're hitting. I mean I know because you said you do a lot of stuff with veterans. So I mean at least you're kind of hitting those spots where you would see a high concentration of veterans, I mean obviously Greenwood, fredericton, being so close to Oromato here, you know we have a lot of military in Halifax, so it makes a lot of sense actually, where you guys are strategically kind of putting. So I mean that kind of makes sense if that's where your focus is going to be. I mean, do you see things? Obviously you can do non-veterans for at least the ketamine stuff, not for the psilocybin.
Speaker 2:Yet yeah, so right now, only our Fredericterton location can see non-veterans, okay, um, the reason for that is where it is a schedule one drug. Um, you know, there's certain protocols that we have to follow, um, which the biggest one is it has to be in a safe behind a locked door that's continuously monitored. Um, to put that in all of our clinics, it's about a fifty thousand dollar investment. Wow. So our theory is let's just go in, let's see if this is successful. Yeah, let's get it built and then we'll make the investment into the rest of our clinics to make sure that we can see the general public. It definitely is unfortunate that we're not able to treat everyone today, but ultimately that is a goal of ours. We do get a lot of questions and people interested in the program and, just as today again, it's only our federal location that can see civilians.
Speaker 3:Cool, and you did mention a cost to that kind of thing, so is this something that's covered by insurance of any sorts?
Speaker 2:Each individual's plan is obviously different. Some people for sure it's covered, for others it's not. So I do recommend you do reach out to your individual insurance provider. For a lot of people the nasal spray Spravato is covered. There is a copay there on it, obviously, but again, it's just best to reach out to your own individual insurance provider.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and I mean, if anyone's looking, I don't know, you probably have like obviously just different treatment plans, but what is like?
Speaker 2:cost range from like kind of roughly yeah, so for a non-veteran um to go through our program in in frederton um the program includes the psych evaluation, the medical evaluation um the prep work to make sure that you're fully prepared for the program six ketamine sessions and therapy. It's about 6,600.
Speaker 3:Okay, all right. Honestly, I thought it was actually going to be more than that. Like not to sell the like, oh, that's cheap, but like, honestly, like medical procedures can be costly oh, it's like audrey, yeah, yeah, so that was a big goal of ours, yeah sorry, that was a big goal of ours when we when we started this.
Speaker 2:Um, so again we look back at field trip, their program is about eight thousand dollars. Um, so that was a big thing is we want to be accessible, um, on our locations and then our price point as well. Um, you know, there's's a lot of people out there suffering from mental health. It's a huge crisis.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's a huge crisis and they, quite frankly, don't have enough people to help. Right Problem right now.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely so. That was we want to make it more accessible and honestly, I know it sounds expensive and it is, but you look at the cost of paying for physicians. If you're getting the IV treatment, if you're getting the lozenge, we have to pay nurse practitioners, nurses.
Speaker 1:Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2:It's a high overhead, so our margins aren't as sexy as you may think. We would love for it to be cheaper, and maybe we will one day find a way to get there. Just this is where we are today.
Speaker 1:Okay, so is it best people go on your website to kind of explore more? How's the best way to kind of start uncovering this for themselves, if they think it's right for them?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so there's a couple different avenues they can take. So clients can self-refer, they can be referred by their physician, psychologist, psychiatrist yeah, Just NuVista psychiatrists. Yeah, just NuVista Psychedelic Medicine. Or if you're on the True North website, there's a way to get to us from there, Cool yeah. So just if you Google NuVista Psychedelic Medicine, you'll find us. It kind of brings you to the Fredericton homepage, but all of our clinics kind of funnel through Fredericton for booking et cetera. We're also on Facebook, Instagram. So yeah, we're also on Facebook, um, Instagram, Um. So yeah, we're, we're easy to find.
Speaker 3:Easy to find Cool the uh, and I know we have some some fun questions here. But, uh, I just want to like mention one thing before we moved into the fun stuff Um the uh, even though this is coming out later, this yesterday was Remembrance Day, so in a weird kind of way, I know we've been trying to get you on for a while, but seeing how that you're doing so much work and we talked a lot about veterans and how much work you're trying to put in to help them, I don't know it feels like it might've been almost kind of meant to be to sit here and talk to you but the day after remembrance day and talk so much about what you're doing for uh, for our vets that go through a lot.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and it's here. I was a little worried about being late. I was trying to get ready and honestly, I had about I want to say about 10 calls or messages through our paid social media from veterans, you know, asking about our program, trying to learn more, and I don't think that's a coincidence. I think for a lot of people, yesterday was a tough day. So, yeah, unfortunately, you know, we had a lot of people reaching out today and you know it's you got to feel for those individuals. I don't think we'll ever truly understand what they've gone through and what they're currently going through, right, and respect the bravery of reaching out for help too.
Speaker 1:That's a huge thing it is so many people suffer in silence man. Yeah, 100% it is a generational thing, I mean one good thing about the younger generation. Sometimes we're critical, but I think they're better at realizing they might need help.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah and then I think if you look at the military itself, you know it is vastly men.
Speaker 3:It is yeah and.
Speaker 2:I'm going to generalize here, but usually, you know, we have big egos, we don't think we need help. So, yeah, just taking that step of reaching out is huge for them.
Speaker 3:I think there is. I mean I served three years in reserves. I mean there is a certain machoism that comes along with being in the military. I was army, I was like I was infantry, so very much in that world. So yeah, there definitely is that. So I think that you know, the more we can get the message out that like it's okay to get help.
Speaker 2:Yeah, right, yeah. And one thing we've done to overcome that barrier is we've created a team of veteran ambassadors, which I touched on earlier. So I think we have about five individuals they're all veterans, even retired RCMP, in there as well who've gone through a program and you know, again, it's changed their life, and not only them that are saying that it's their spouses or their kids or their parents that this program changed you. So what we've done is for those individuals who they're a little weary of the program. You know they've heard bad things about psychedelics or ketamine. It's an opportunity to reach out to one of our ambassadors. You know it's a brother or sisterhood in the military and you know a veteran is more likely to listen and be open to another veteran opposed to me who is you know, not a veteran, I've never lived their world, so it's that team of veteran ambassadors have already helped a lot of people.
Speaker 1:Cool, all right, that's awesome. Let's get to fun questions. These questions mean nothing, right? And sometimes we say if you don't want to answer the question, have a sip of your water right, these are really easy, though I don't think you'll have trouble answering them. Okay, Number one Leafs or Canadians.
Speaker 2:Dallas Stars. Okay, what's the relationship there?
Speaker 3:real quick, um just grew up in mike banana and I've been obsessed with him since I was 10 years old, right on cool, one of the best american hockey players ever?
Speaker 2:probably no.
Speaker 3:He's the best cool, I was gonna. I was leaving out for debate, but sure, go ahead buddy uh favorite book tuesdays with maury tuesdays with more like that about so true story Individual.
Speaker 2:I think it was university teacher. He's a sports columnist now for ESPN. His favorite prof was diagnosed with ALS and they lost touch over time. Long story short the diagnosis, and then the author of the book goes to visit him, I think every week and just for the next few years, and you know, they just they bond it and it was kind of just a whole story of life lessons.
Speaker 1:Cool, All right Question. Number three favorite movie. It could just be a great movie you always want to go back to for any reason.
Speaker 2:I'd probably say well, the thing that Trolls, Trolls 2.
Speaker 1:Any of the Trolls. 2. Probably Wedding Crashers. Wedding Crashers, oh okay, that's awesome.
Speaker 2:The number of one-liners in there.
Speaker 3:That's a fantastic movie. That's a fantastic movie. It never dies. Nor does Step Brothers dude. No, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:We can still watch Step Brothers come time again at Home and Laugh every single time. Absolutely Classic, Classic.
Speaker 3:All right, let's see here. That's one, two, that's it. Oh, that was it?
Speaker 2:Okay, we have four. We have four questions. Oh, it's only four. Okay, sorry, we have the other one here. So what's one thing?
Speaker 1:everyone can do to make the world a better place. Love each other.
Speaker 3:Love each other. All right, that's a in that realm. It's right in that realm, right in that same pocket though, man.
Speaker 1:So thank you so much for coming with us and sharing this information. We really appreciate it.
Speaker 3:And I hope that if you're suffering, you check out the services they provide. Yeah, check out any services if you know, because they can handle certain things, but anytime, anyone if you have anything obviously go like get the help you need.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. Life's too short to sit there in silence and suffer.
Speaker 2:Absolutely, and thanks for having me guys. I really appreciate it. Thanks, man, thank you, cheers.
Speaker 3:Cheers, cheers, cheers, cheers.
