Category: Cannabis

“On a balmy Texas Saturday, I sat among a motley crew of people watching three very disturbing facts show across the screen in front of us.

Veterans commit suicide at a rate two times higher than the general population. More U.S. Veterans have killed themselves than have died in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Twenty-two U.S. veterans take their own lives every day.

We were watching the short film Soldiers of the Vine: Healing War Trauma with Plant Medicine. This documentary is a journey into the hearts and minds of six veterans as they travel to Peru seeking sacred plant medicine to heal their Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.”

Surrender to being.  Your true nature is pure energy and that energy is infinite love.  You can not die.  Your energy can only be transformed and transmuted.  You are the wave having a particle experience. You do not know where and when you will pop up next. You live in the dance of infinite superposition which is full possibility until an observer observes.  The multiplicity is in the unity.  This is the mystical level where all is connected in one wave.  Observe yourself as the One who observes All.   The observing One, the one being observed, the observation, are all ONE!

Bia Labate live interviews with Panama combat veteran Ian Benouis at the Students for Sensible Drug Policy Regional Mini-Conference.

Bia Labate live interviews with Gulf War combat veteran Eric Glover. He shares his story about healing his trauma with plant medicines.

Bia Labate live interviews Afghanistan combat veteran Matt Kahl about the therapeutic potentials of plant medicines to treat PTSD. “Ayahuasca: a call for action!

In this episode my guest is Ian Benouis who is a West Point graduate, former Blackhawk helicopter pilot, US Army officer and combat veteran who participated in Operation Just Cause in the Republic of Panama. He is an activist for the beneficial use of plant medicine, especially for veterans with PTSD. Ian is also a Muslim and a psychonaut.

Very few people have such an interesting story as Ian Benouis.  As for being relevant to the plant medicine sphere, Ian’s life experience is about as diverse at it can get.  

From Blackhawk helicopter pilot fighting against drug cartels in Panama to a representative of the disastrous prescription drug epidemic to a supporter of the psychedelic medicine movement, Ian’s story is sure to both entertain and educate.  

In this episode, Daniel and Ian discuss Ian’s life story, how it all comes together to make an impact on the veteran suicide and addictions crisis in the USA, and some philosophical questions on war, culture and the so-called war on drugs.  Tune in and enjoy!

“Yeah, let’s transition from the bullet war to the meme war. I’ve been really moved by the responses from the Soldiers of the Vine screenings. I’m like “Wow, I built a field of dreams, and people actually showed up!” People are getting whatever they need out of it, versus our own self criticisms about what could have been better. That’s the real amazing thing about it. Share the message with people, and people will self-organize and self-activate. There’s no cult, there’s no dogma, it’s just spreading the love of healing and then people will naturally do whatever it is they feel they were created to do.

I think ultimately these plant medicines are psychic mirrors: they give the opportunity for greater self-reflection. Used ceremonially together, you get an intensification from all those spheres online together, mirroring each other. We all need to shut up and take our medicine and do our work. My personal belief is that the universe is a superorganism that makes up a mirror for the divine, where the ego is a construct that creates the illusion of separateness so that we have a game to play, and it’s the best game ever.

And that’s our potential salvation, and how our planet is getting hooked up into an electronically supported superorganism platform for communication. I think we’re trying to all connect each other up to heal ourselves, to unify as a planet, and then on to whatever’s supposed to be next. I don’t know what that is any more than the next person, but I have an open heart and open arms and trust that the universe knows what it’s doing.”