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Psychoactive substances have been ingested by human beings for millennia. But for a few decades at the end of the 20th century, many were banned in the U.S. as part of a cultural backlash manifesting itself in the disastrous War on Drugs. Now that’s slowly changing, as the medical industrial complex reconsiders the use of psychedelic drugs like MDMA, psilocybin, and LSD for treating depression, anxiety, PTSD, substance use disorders, and much more. Joe and Mark discuss the history of psychedelics, their therapeutic use in psychotherapy, and why they might be game changers for the many people for whom existing treatments and medications just don’t work. (Taping date: December 5, 2025.)

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A few years ago, we all started hearing about how gas ranges, which have been popular in our country for at least a century and are favored by professional chefs, were dangerous to our health and should be replaced by electric or induction cooktops. That revelation begs a couple of obvious questions about how such an unsafe appliance became so ubiquitous in the first place, and why we’re only hearing about its dangers now. Mark and Joe recount how natural gas became the go-to power source in our kitchens, how Big Gas suppressed safety concerns in a way that would make Big Tobacco proud, and what we can do to mitigate the perils of cooking with gas. (Recorded November 7, 2025.)

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Back in its early days, this podcast explored the cultural and economic juggernaut that is Christmas. Time now to take a gander at Halloween. It’s unique among American holidays in that it’s neither religious nor patriotic nor sentimental, yet it’s hugely and increasingly popular for kids and grown-ups alike. How did that come to be? Attention, trick-or-treaters—Joe and Mark leave this sweet offering for you: a tale about how Halloween’s centuries-long metamorphosis from pagan festival to secular holiday embodies America’s boundless power to assimilate seemingly contradictory cultural traditions and make them its own. (Recorded October 24, 2025.)