Joe sits down with Jordan Kronick, the director, writer, and producer of Peaking: Psychedelics and the Pursuit of Happiness, a new documentary now rolling out in theaters city by city. The film covers six substances (psilocybin, LSD, ayahuasca, ibogaine, MDMA, and 5-MeO-DMT from the toad) and puts cameras inside the dosing room. Viewers follow first-time users before, during, and after their experiences.
Jordan's path into this work goes back to 2003, when he produced Ecstasy Rising for Peter Jennings at ABC News. That primetime documentary challenged the government's "holes in your brain" campaign, and the scientist behind the flawed study retracted it before the film aired. Rick Doblin credits that moment with helping open the door to MAPS' first MDMA for PTSD research.
Joe and Jordan talk about brain injury in pro sports, including Daniel Carcillo's story and a planned Johns Hopkins study on concussions. They cover the film's "big tent" approach and how Jordan found subjects through Heroic Hearts Project and Beond in Cancun. Joe raises his concerns about toad sustainability and safety. From there they get into the drug war's echoes from the 1960s to the 1980s, the Starck Club in Dallas, and Michael Clegg, the man credited with naming ecstasy. They close on today's bipartisan support for psychedelics, the road to FDA approval for Compass Pathways and Lykos, and the strange prospect of psychedelics becoming federally legal before cannabis.
About Jordan Kronick
Jordan Kronick is a documentary filmmaker who began his career at ABC News as a producer for Peter Jennings Reporting, where he made Ecstasy Rising (2004). He later worked at HBO's Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel, reporting on psychedelics in sports in 2020. Peaking premiered in June 2026 at Dances With Films at the TCL Chinese Theatre in Los Angeles.
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