iHeartMedia, the No. 1 podcast publisher globally according to Podtrac, and Protozoa Pictures, the production company of Academy Award-nominated filmmaker Darren Aronofsky, announced a partnership to launch a new original podcast "PSYCHOACTIVE," making this Aronofsky and Protozoa Pictures' first entry into the podcasting space. The podcast is hosted by Ethan Nadelmann, founder of the Drug Policy Alliance and known as "The Godfather of Drug Policy Reform," who will get to the bottom of our nation's strange relationship to drugs by talking with scientists, politicians, activists and celebrities.


"PSYCHOACTIVE" is more timely than ever, with psychedelic research and start-ups booming, new synthetic drugs being created weekly, overdose fatalities reaching unprecedented levels, an awakening to racial inequity and mass incarceration, new marijuana policy reform around the country, illicit drug markets moving rapidly online, disruptive technologies transforming the tobacco industry and the federal government at last beginning to support harm reduction programs. "PSYCHOACTIVE" will be the first of its kind-a home for honest and informed conversations about drugs.


Ethan will sit down with former President of Colombia and Nobel Peace Prize recipient Juan Manuel Santos on the international drug war and crafting drug diplomacy with President Obama; Dan Savage on how psychoactive drugs can benefit relationships...including his own; bestseller Dr. Andrew Weil on the health benefits of psychoactive substances; legal scholar and Pulitzer winner James Forman Jr. on the impact of the Drug War on the Black community; Dr. Nora Volkow, Director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse at National Institutes of Health on crafting government drug research policy under the last four presidents; lifestyle writer Tim Ferriss on mental health and the future of psychedelics; writer Michael Pollan on his new book This Is Your Mind on Plants; investigative journalist Patrick Radden Keefe on his investigations into Purdue Pharma and the Sackler family; and many more.