#34 Drug Use for Grownups

David tracks the messy evolution of his act, from joking about kratom and morphine drips to nearly launching a debate show on illicit substances. Along the way he revisits a live “Armchair Expert” set that almost tempted Dax Shepard off the wagon, questions why certain highs are illegal, and brainstorms a future lineup that jumps from psychedelics to tennis and gambling. 

Book mentioned: Drug Use for Grownups by Dr. Carl L. Hart

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Transcript

Embracing Imperfection

David 0:00

Welcome to Starting Stand-Up . My name is David Walton . This is a podcast about my journey to become a stand-up comedian , but it's a mess . The whole thing is a mess and that's okay . It's okay to be a mess , it's okay to screw up in public , and I'm learning that . And I'm feeling way more , way better about just being a mediocre podcaster Because , at the end of the day , I am increasingly feeling connected to you , the listener . I'm feeling increasingly ready to just bare my soul to you , you complete stranger . No , I just don't care anymore About most things , and it's a little scary , but it's also really fun and freeing . And so today's episode is going to be about something I love so dearly . It's a huge , huge part of my life . It makes me happy , I find it fascinating

The Drugstore Pilot Project

David 1:06

, and that's just illegal drugs . It's something that I've tried to make funny . It's widely considered a hack subject , a very difficult subject to make funny on stage , but I don't care . And so let's go Ready , let's start some stand-up . I'll tell you a quick story .

David 1:51

The first podcast all the equipment I'm recording this podcast on was gifted to me , not gifted was bought by Wobby Wob . Wobby Wob excuse me is the producer of a podcast called Armchair Expert hosted by Dax Shepard Maybe four years ago . Dax , who directed me in a show I was on , called About a Boy , we became fast friends . I love him . He's obviously extremely funny , talented and successful man and he's sober , and he was always fascinated with me because I was undeniably not sober but seemingly able to handle everything that he wasn't able to handle , and so we both would spend the majority of our free time just talking about all the insane stuff he'd done with his life , all the trouble he'd gotten into . I would tell some stories that were less hardcore , but clearly we both had twinkles in our eyes for stories of basically doing things that aren't good for you but are still worth it . And at one point I went on his podcast and I don't remember exactly what I said . It was a live show in Santa Fe , exactly what I said . It was a live show in Santa Fe and I started talking about drugs and I started talking about how they were misunderstood or that everyone's kind of just foolish about them , that we categorize them all into this one big evil thing like don't do drugs , just say no . But ultimately there are obviously substances that have improved lives , and I think my thesis in general was that drugs are good . His response was that he had never been more tempted to go off the wagon than after I said those things . And so a conversation started about doing a show about drugs . It morphed into something called the Drug Store .

David 3:59

I made a couple pilots , but basically the premise was that I was pro-drugs , my wife was anti-drug , and we would debate and bring drug people on to kind of discuss who was right you know , to remove myths and each episode would be about a specific drug . Um , I worked hard on this . We did a lot of versions and ultimately it was a massive lift because it was like it was just a lie because my wife loves drugs no , that's not true , but it was just like we were forcing something . That's not true at all , for the record . But she's very open-minded . She never was upset with my enjoyment and experimentation , and so we were kind of lying about it just to like satisfy this premise of a podcast pilot . I bring this up because I really enjoy talking about drugs . My friends who know me would probably be annoyed . My family would be annoyed at I'm kind of a

Kratom and Misunderstood Substances

David 5:10

know-it-all . Because of this podcast I did so much research about every single drug and not only chemical makeup , but how to do it properly . You know how to do it like an adult , how to do it safely , how to do it responsibly . And it was weird because basically I was like all right , I'm doing research for this podcast , let me see what Kratom is about .

David 5:35

Kratom K-R-A-T-O-M if you haven't heard of it , is a plant that grows in Southeast Asia and it has a really very pleasant effect . It's sort of quasi-legal . You can order it from Idaho right now . I'll put a link in the bio . No , I'm just kidding . I'm not going to start pushing Kratom , but it's one of these things that you know is misunderstood . It's not truly mainstream , so some of you might know what it is , but you mix it into a glass of water and you chug .

David 6:13

It will have anywhere from a kind of amphetamine kind of upper feeling , or the one that's really amazing is this sort of combo where you feel , let's say , you feel like you've had a painkiller and an upper like maybe a little bit of cocaine , so you're so , you're kind of in this pocket where you're relaxed , but you're alert and you feel the warm and fuzzy , almost like an opiate . I've never done heroin , but I've certainly had a morphine drip . After surgery , I had a fentanyl drip and it was glorious . I mean , I completely understand why people love it . Everyone is so sort of gets their skirt in a bunch about heroin , of course , but if you've ever pressed the button for a morphine drip in a hospital , you've had heroin . You've had that same effect . So everyone can just relax . Anyway .

David 7:18

The point I'm trying to make is my stand-up routines are generally wanting or gravitate . There's a there's a gravitational pull to drugs , sex , alcohol , and when I started out I was doing that stuff and it was kind of I would listen back and it was lame . And now , six months later , I'm kind of like , well , how do I enjoy this ? I mean , why am I trying to write things that I don't enjoy talking about ? So this is all to say that there's going to be a lot more drug talk on this show , because that's what I like to do . Oh yeah , I'm just kidding , I'm not doing cocaine right now , but I'm not doing any drugs right now . I'm not doing anything

Rethinking Drug Legalization

David 8:32

right now .

David 8:33

I had one idea for this podcast who knows what will happen , but maybe we can do a hybrid but it was this idea that I would do an interview on a drug , an illegal drug . But I would have done it very properly and I would conduct an interview on this drug . Now , when I say a drug , I'm talking about like , okay , I'm going to do an interview on LSD , I'm going to do an interview on mushrooms , I'm going to do an interview on cocaine , I'm going to do an interview on kratom , I'm going to do an interview on marijuana the big boys , right . And at the end the thing was you had to guess what I was on and I would tell you in the big , like you know , reveal would be this was the dosage . This is how I did it .

David 9:27

Now , the problem with this idea is you wonder if your door is going to get knocked down by the fbi or the dea . I rather you wonder the ripple effect on my children . You wonder if your door is going to get knocked down by the FBI or the DEA . I'd rather you wonder the ripple effect on my children . I don't know how many sleepovers we'd be having after that . And yeah , like , why would I want to put that out there in the world ? And I'll give you a little bit of a taste of why .

David 9:57

I just think people are idiots . I don't think people know what's really going on with these things . I just not idiots . I think people are ignorant . There's just so much ignorance about it , and I don't think drugs should be illegal for legalization of everything I don't know . I've never heard a good argument for why we allow cartels to dominate an insatiable need to get fucked up . Now it's a tricky one to get your head around right . How on earth are we gonna make cocaine legal ? Can you imagine driving up to northern Maine and next to every cannabis shop is just a blow shop . I think it would have to be very different than cannabis . You know , I now that I think about it . I don't think you can make cocaine legal . But if there's still a black market trade for cannabis and you basically have 17 cannabis legal stores around you and there's still black market cannabis use , I mean , of course cocaine is going to have black market .

David 11:10

I would read Carl Hart's book If you're curious about what I'm talking about . I would buy on Kindle or in the flesh Drug Use for Grownups by Carl Hart , who is the head of neuropsychopharmacology at Columbia . He is a tenured professor at an Ivy League school and is very open with the fact that on a pleasant Saturday night he and his wife will line up a little rail of heroin to enjoy together . It's a fascinating book . Epidemic and all the kind of oblique and very obvious racism and other forces that have shaped your your perception of drugs and the evils of them . I encourage everyone to read Drug Use for Grownups by Carl Hart . It's fascinating .

David 12:14

You know , as we build this podcast into whatever the fuck we're going to build it into , you know there's a there's a part of me that really wants to expand into other areas of interest

Expanding the Podcast's Future

David 12:25

, not just stand up . You know you could take lop off , stand up and just call starting and everything is just about starting a new interest or starting a new little quest . And this podcast , which I really do enjoy , can become something else and I'll lose people and gain people . Maybe the podcast becomes a podcast about drug use , tennis , backgammon , sex , spirituality and AI and friendship and golf , with a little bit of skiing and venture capital and working out and relationships and personal development and marriage and child rearing and death and mindfulness and gambling . I think that's a great pitch for a podcast .

David 13:27

Let me know what you think in the comments . I love you . Let me know what you think in the comments

Closing Thoughts and Farewell

David 13:30

. I love you . Well , aren't you a sweetheart for making it to the end ? If you know another sweetheart who would enjoy this , go ahead and text it to them .

David 13:41

You can also support the show by just subscribing or downloading or even leaving a comment . If you feel tremendously generous , you can also just text this to your friend who's a DEA agent . They might be curious about who I am and where I live . And anyway , in the meantime , I really do . I genuinely hope you have an incredible day , the rest of your day and such a fun week . And it's summertime and it's all about having fun and having so much connection and picking up a just a 30 rack of dcl's delicious coors lights and consuming them when you wake up on many , many summer weekends , just to take a little bit of the edge off of the night before . This is not medical advice , but I do think that it's very underrated to have a light , light lager at breakfast , wishing you so much love , so much peace , so much adventure and fun and connection , and I'll see you next week . Bye for now .