Dad vs. Joe Rogan

At breakfast on Sunday, my sons and I were at a hippie breakfast joint in Yellow Springs, Ohio.

It's a small Midwest town, with plans to build one of the largest Cannabis grow facilities in the state.

And thus the conversation with my twenty-somethings, of course, led to pot.

One son pointed to its medicinal uses, like treating anxiety and PTSD. I took that well; remembering articles about marijuana's evident ability to ease the symptoms of PTSD among veterans and other patients.

He informed us that Cannabis should be available to anyone, anywhere. That we should all be free to self-prescribe since it was harmless (and evidently multi-purpose). He was adamant that Cannabis could stack up against virtually anything Big Pharma might produce.

'Hmmm,' I thought. He must spend serious time on ResearchGate for that level of subject matter and pharmacological expertise. Or learned it all somewhere else. I think I knew where.

My other son disagreed. "Look, the only way to treat PTSD is through extensive one-on-one psychotherapy. Not drugs. Not if you want to completely cure it."

Here we go.

"And you heard that where?" I asked. Of course, I already knew the answer. Hint: he'd wear a Joe Rogan t-shirt, earbuds in, listening to his podcast constantly if his girlfriend would only allow it.

"Joe Rogan?" I offered.

"Well...yeah," he allowed. "He had a really well-known expert on PTSD on his show, a psychologist who said it's the only way to treat it successfully."

"So, this psychologist... He found that in peer-reviewed research studies... or in his practice?"

"Well, I think he said that's what he learned from his experience with patients. And he specializes in it." He added, "Dad, you can't always fix things with big pharma."

Oh, that again. Fair enough.

I actually like The Joe Rogan Experience. At times, it's incredibly informative. He's smart and disruptive and funny. He's the same guy who hosted the worm-eating reality TV show way back when. Rogan is a favorite UFC expert and color announcer at the big fights. He seems fair and intuitive in a bro-science way. And he's #7 on the top 10 most listened-to podcasts.


Obviously, the Joe Rogan Experience is captivating and informative. Beloved by millennials. But it's entertainment. Which means it's not research.

And at #7, millennials are listening and listening. Podcast demographics show that his audience is predominantly young men. Rogan reports that his 1-4 hour podcasts are downloaded 30 million times each month.

Back to breakfast.

I asked my boys, "So how do we help all the people, all the veterans, the first responders, the people in the community who can't - or won't - enroll in intensive one-on-one therapy? Would medications help them? Which meds? How do we address issues in the real world of PTSD and behavioral health? How do we slow the suicide rate of veterans?'

I asked them, "Have you thought about whether cannabis or therapy really is better? Or some other drug? It's an important question. A societal question. Because answers don't come from podcast guests."

"I'm just saying, drugs aren't always the answer." Fair enough.

I just want my sons to seek answers in literature. Science. In research studies. I want them to be their own critical thinkers. To reason for themselves. Not to just rationalize via download.

I don't know. Maybe you can't always fix things with pharma. But maybe you can't always help people with therapy. And maybe Cannabis isn't just medicinal.

But I do know this. You can't learn everything from a podcast.