Buck Mulligan: Author of 'Adventures on Drugs' a teetotaler world traveling to experiment with drugs

About this episode

Vance Crowe interviews Buck Mulligan, an Irish author raised in a teetotal "pioneer" tradition (a Catholic Irish anti-alcohol movement dating to the early 1900s, passed down through his family) who set out, after a breakup, to travel to the countries most associated with particular drugs and try each for the first time — chronicled in his book "Adventures on Drugs." He walks through vivid firsthand accounts: cocaine in Panama (originally planned for Colombia, abandoned amid the visible poverty and open drug use near Escobar's grave), the intense but shallow confidence-high of cocaine versus the profound, connection-oriented experience of LSD and mushrooms (a formative moment at Stonehenge for winter solstice, and an LSD trip with a woman in Golden Gate Park that catalyzed real emotional disclosure). Mulligan is deliberately skeptical of the popular psychedelics-as-therapy narrative, arguing most advocates ("anywhere people," secure and educated) generalize their own comfortable experience while ignoring that most drug use happens among the poor and unstable, and that the real societal harm is the black-market funding of cartels and violence, not individual use. He and Crowe compare US "war on drugs" education (the DARE program, debunked acid-flashback myths) with more successful decriminalization models (Portugal), and debate Illinois-style licensing-cartel dynamics versus a more libertarian legalize-and-tax approach. The conversation closes on his skepticism toward polyamory as an "adolescent daydream" (with a pointed evolutionary-psychology framing of male/female sexual asymmetry), an evolutionary-psychology take on depression, anxiety, and obesity as evolved-mismatch problems, and his admission that after all his travel and drug experimentation, there was no tidy "hero's journey" transformation — he came back essentially the same person, having concluded lifting weights changed his brain chemistry more than any drug did.

“I had spent most of my life and never even drank alcohol. I thought it would be an interesting thing to do where if I went to the six countries most associated with particular drugs and try those drugs for the first time for the purposes of the book.”

“So there was all across the western world... groups started saying, okay, now we're gonna abstain from alcohol... My grandfather was one, my father was one, and then I ended up taking the pledge as well.”

“You take it and it's like where people give you the description... but you can't describe LSD unless you've taken it. You can't understand it. Nothing you've read, nothing you've seen on television. You have to take it and you have to experience it.”

Key moments

• ~0-2%: Cold open — the felt difference between cocaine ("what you'd expect... confidence up to 100") and LSD ("you can't describe it unless you've taken it").
• ~9-15%: Origin of the Irish "pioneer" teetotal movement and Mulligan's family lineage in it.
• ~20-30%: Abandoning the plan to do cocaine in Colombia amid visible poverty near Escobar's grave; doing it instead in Panama.
• ~40-50%: LSD/mushrooms at Stonehenge and Golden Gate Park — the "everything is connected" experience and a moment of real emotional disclosure with a stranger.
• ~55-65%: Skepticism toward the psychedelics-as-mental-health-panacea narrative; debunking the "acid flashback" myth and DARE-style drug education backfiring.
• ~75-80%: The "anywhere people" critique — secure, educated advocates generalizing their comfortable drug use while ignoring who actually bears the costs.
• ~85-95%: Polyamory as "adolescent daydream," evolutionary psychology of male/female sexual drive asymmetry, depression/anxiety/obesity as evolved-mismatch signals.
• ~95-100%: No hero's-journey transformation — honest admission the trip didn't fix him; weightlifting changed him more than any drug.

Notable quotes

“Cocaine is more or less what you expect. It is confidence up to 100... You can't describe LSD unless you've taken it. You can't understand it.”

“These drugs are fine for me, so it should be fine for everybody... the legislation needs to fit me and my group of friends.”

“I don't believe acid flashbacks are actually a thing... it's a bit of anti-drug propaganda.”

“Nothing has changed my mindset more, has changed the chemistry of my brain more, than lifting weights.”