PT 662 - Jordan Kronick - PEAKING

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.

In this episode

• Making a six-substance documentary in 19 months, from March 2024 to October 2025
• How Ecstasy Rising debunked the MDMA neurotoxicity campaign
• Psychedelics, concussions, and CTE in the NHL, NFL, and MMA
• Daniel Carcillo and a planned Johns Hopkins study on brain repair
• Following veterans to the Amazon with Heroic Hearts Project
• Ibogaine for opioid addiction at Beond in Cancun
• Toad in the California desert, plus Joe's caution on sustainability and the myth of ancestral use
• Clinical versus experiential approaches to psychedelic work
• How the 1980s MDMA crackdown mirrored the 1960s
• The Starck Club, Michael Clegg, and why ecstasy spread so fast
• Rick Perry, veterans, and bipartisan support for ibogaine
• Compass Pathways, Lykos, patents, and what FDA approval would and wouldn't legalize
• Psychedelics leapfrogging cannabis

Chapters

• 00:00 Intro
• 04:15 Meet Jordan Kronick and Peaking
• 05:38 From the LA premiere to a city by city theatrical release
• 08:39 Ecstasy Rising and the "holes in your brain" campaign
• 13:01 Following the renaissance, and psychedelics in sports at HBO
• 19:33 Can psychedelics repair the brain?
• 22:19 Designing a "big tent" film
• 26:05 Witnessing transformation in the dosing room
• 28:10 Finding the subjects
• 32:47 Toad: wild edges and real concerns
• 38:46 Access in Oregon and Colorado
• 41:12 The drug war, 1960s and 1980s
• 47:58 Rick Doblin's role
• 49:30 Archival footage and early research
• 51:08 Michael Clegg, Texas, and the Starck Club
• 56:30 Bipartisan support and ibogaine in Texas
• 58:16 What's next with the FDA
• 1:02:36 Psychedelics before cannabis?
• 1:04:40 Where to see Peaking