From Badge to Breakthrough: A Cop’s Journey into Psychedelic Healing

Covered by: The Reasonable Adjustment
Published: July 30, 2025
Source: The Joe Rogan Experience

A former law enforcement officer—whose career spanned Boston nightclub security, patrol duties, and therapeutic training—has shared his deeply personal and professional transformation on The Joe Rogan Experience. His powerful journey into the world of psychedelics highlights the profound need for mental health reform in policing, especially around trauma.

He started as a student of psychology, religion, and philosophy, drawn to understanding human nature. While working security in the 1990s Boston nightclub scene, he observed the cultural shift brought about by the arrival of MDMA (ecstasy): “People stopped being hostile. They were smiling, high-fiving, hugging. It changed the whole dynamic.”

Fast forward a decade, and he’s a police officer being introduced to the world of psychedelic therapy at the International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP) conference. There, he stumbles into a near-empty room where Rick Doblin of MAPS is presenting groundbreaking results from Phase 2 clinical trials on MDMA-assisted psychotherapy for treatment-resistant PTSD. The results? A staggering 67% of participants entered sustained remission after only a few sessions.

“I was in the front row, shaking,” he recalled. “I jumped on stage and said, ‘I have to help.’” That conversation led him to become one of the first law enforcement professionals trained in psychedelic-assisted therapy through MAPS (Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies).

He later participated in federally sanctioned MDMA sessions as a “healthy normal,” to better understand the experience from the inside—training that helps therapists support patients more effectively. What started as curiosity became a mission: to support first responders suffering from PTSD, depression, and suicidal ideation.

“More officers are dying by suicide than in the line of duty,” he warns. “And we are still upholding a lie about these substances having no medical value.”

This candid, often emotional conversation with Joe Rogan underscores the psychological toll of law enforcement careers, the stigma surrounding mental health treatment in policing, and the urgent need to shift outdated drug policy that blocks therapeutic access.

Written by Kieron JH for The Reasonable Adjustment