Not much farther to libya. Over the last three millennia, malta has been conquered or colonized by just about every world power. bells ringing most of the 500,000 people here are catholic, a tradition that started early. The apostle paul is said to have been shipwrecked here in 60 a. D. But as youll see, today, the proud maltese are dealing with accusations that are far from holy. ticking few people can say they have ever played at the super bowl. This year, shakira added her name to that list. We went to spain to watch the an ther ofdra stary work, mix a gerard pique, on his toes. He said, im going to win the world cup. Okay. laughter ticking im lesley stahl. Im bill whitaker. Im anderson cooper. Im jon wertheim. Im scott pelley. Those stories, tonight, on 60 minutes. ticking if your dry eye symptoms keep coming back, inflammation in your eye might be to blame. Looks like a great day for achy, burning eyes overthecounter eye drops typically work by lubricating your eyes ha these drops probably wont touch me. Xiidra works differently, targeting inflammation that can cause dry eye disease. What is that . Xiidra, noooo it c p lastielf. Xiidra is the only fda approved treatment specifically for the signs and symptoms of dry eye disease. One drop in each eye, twice a day. Dont use if youre allergic to xiidra. Common side effects include eye irritation, discomfort or blurred vision when applied to the eye, and unusual taste sensation. Dont touch container tip to your eye or any surface. After using xiidra, wait 15 minutes before reinserting contacts. Got any room in your eye . Talk to an eye doctor about twicedaily xiidra. I prefer you didnt xiidra. Not today, dry eye. Ara nacker . A motivating a dog slacker snacker . Or a midnight movie attacker watcher snacker . Sargento balanced breaks are a perfectly balanced snack any time of day. Sargento. 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Ask your doctor about the pill first prescribed for ra more than seven years ago. Xeljanz. An unjection™. Cooper for most of cooper for most of us, psychedelic drugs conjure up images of the 1960s hippies tripping out on l. S. D. Or magic mushrooms. But, as we reported last fall, these powerful, mindaltering substances are now being studied seriously by scientists inside some of the countrys foremost medical research centers. Theyre being used to treat depression, anxiety and addiction. And early results are impressive, as are the experiences of the studies volunteers, who go on a six hour, sometimes terrifying, but often lifechanging psychedelic journey deep into their own minds. Carine mclaughlin people ask me, do you want to do it again . I say, hell, no, i dont want to go do that again. Cooper it was really that bad . Mclaughlin oh, it was awful. The entire time, other than the very end and the very beginning, i was crying. Cooper Carine Mclaughlin is talking about the hallucinogenic experience she had here at Johns Hopkins university, after being given a large dose of psilocybin, the psychedelic agent in magic mushrooms, as part of an ongoing clinical trial. Roland griffiths we tell people that their experiences may vary, from very positive, to transcendent and lovely, to literally hell realm experiences. Cooper hell realm . Griffiths as frightening an experience as you have ever had in your life. Cooper thats scientist Roland Griffiths. For nearly two decades now, he and his colleague Matthew Johnson have been giving what they call heroic doses of psilocybin to more than 350 volunteers, many struggling with addiction, depression and anxiety. Can you tell who is going to have a bad experience, whos going to have a transcendent experience . Griffiths our ability to predict that is almost none at all. Cooper really . Matthew johnson about a third will, at our at a high dose, say that they have Something Like that, what folks would call a bad trip. But most of those folks will actually say that that was key to the experience. Cooper Carine Mclaughlin was a smoker for 46 years, and said she tried everything to quit before being given psilocybin at holast yea psilocybin itself is non addictive. Do you remember what, like, specifically what you were seeing, or . Mclaughlin yes. The ceiling of this room were clouds, like, heavy rain clouds, and gradually they were lowering. And i thought i was going to suffocate from the clouds. Cooper that was more than a year ago. She says she hasnt smoked since. The study she took part in is still ongoing, but in an earlier, small study of just 15 longterm smokers, 80 had quit six months after taking psilocybin. Thats double the rate of any overthecounter Smoking Cessation product. Griffiths they come to a profound shift of world view. And essentially, a shift in sense of self that i think cooper they they see their life in a different way . Griffiths their world view changes and and they are less identified with that self narrative. People might use the term ego. And that creates this sense of freedom. Cooper and not just with smokers. Jon kostakopoulos beer usually, cocktails, usually, vodka sodas, tequila sodas, scotch and sodas. Cooper Jon Kostakopoulos was drinking a staggering 20 cocktails a night, and had been warned he was slowly killing himself, when he decided to enroll in another psilocybin trial at new york university. During one psilocybin session, he was flooded with powerful feelings and images from his past. Kostakopoulos stuff would come up that i havent thought of since they happened. Cooper so, old memories that you hadnt even remembered came back to you . Kostakopoulos i felt, you know, a lot of shame and embarrassment throughout one of the sessions, about my drinking, and how bad i felt for my parents to put up with all this. Cooper he took psilocybin in 2016. He says he hasnt had a drink since. Do you ever have a day where you wake up and youre like, man, i wish i could have a vodka right now, or beer . Kostakopoulos never. Cooper not at all . Kostakopoulos not at all, which is the craziest thing, because that was my favorite thing to do. I want you to lie back, put the eyeshade on, and the headphones, and let the music carry you now. Cooper using psychedelic drugs in therapy is not new. There were hundreds of scientific studies done on a similar compound, l. S. D. , in the 1950s and 60s. It was tested on more than 40,000 people, some in controlled therapeutic settings like this one. But there were also abuses. The u. S. Military and c. I. A. Experimented with l. S. D. , tients knowledge. Fear over rampant drug use and the spread of the Counter Culture movement, not to mention harvard professor Timothy Leary urging people to turn on, tune in and drop out, led to a clampdown. President nixon this nation faces a major crisis in terms of the increasing use of drugs, particularly among our young people. Cooper in 1970, president Richard Nixon signed the controlled substances act, and nearly all Scientific Research in the u. S. Into the effects of psychedelics on people stopped. It wasnt until 2000 that scientist Roland Griffiths won f. D. A. Approval to study psilocybin. Griffiths this whole area of research has been in the deep freeze for 25 or 30 years. And so as a scientist, sometimes i feel like rip van winkle. Cooper and once you saw the results . Griffiths yeah. The red light started flashing. This is extraordinarily interesting. Its unprecedented, and the capacity of the human organism to change. It just was astounding. Cooper it sounds like you are endorsing this for everybody. Griffiths yeah, lets be really clear on that. We are very aware of the risks, and would not recommend that people simply go out and do this. Cooper griffiths and johnson screen out people with psychotic disorders, or with close relatives who have had schizophrenia or bipolar disorder. Study volunteers at Johns Hopkins are given weeks of intensive counseling before and after the sixhour psilocybin experience. The psilocybin is given in a carefully controlled setting, one to three times. To date, they say theres not been a single serious adverse outcome. Mary cosimano so, im going to tuck you in. Cooper we were told we couldnt record anyone participating in the study while they were on psilocybin, because it might impact their experience, but we were shown how it begins, without the psilocybin. Cosimano questions . Cooper nope. You lay on a couch, with a blind fold to shut out distractions. Cosimano put the headphones on. Cooper and headphones playing a mix of choral and classical music. A psychedelic soundtrack with a trained guide, mary cosimano, watching over you. Cosimano okay, so, give me your hand. So, im going to take your hand. Cooper everything is done the same way it was for the l. S. D. Experiments scientists conducted in the 1950s and 60s. Some of the most dramatic results have been with terminal Cancer Patients struggling with anxiety and paralyzing depression. Kerry pappas i start seeing the colors and the geometric sign and its , h, lovely, and, anenom onbega ooper kerry pappas was diagnosed with stage iii lung cancer in 2013. During her psilocybin session, she found herself trapped in a nightmare her mind created. Pappas an ancient. Prehistoric. Barren land. And theres these men with pickaxes, just slamming on the rocks. So cooper and this felt absolutely real to you . Pappas absolutely real. I was being shown the truth of reality. Life is meaningless. We have no purpose. And then i look, and im still, like, a witness. A beautiful, shimmering. Bright jewel. And then it was sound, and it was booming, booming, booming. Right here, right now. Cooper that was being said . Pappas yes. You are alive. Right here, right now, because thats all you have. And that is my mantra, to this day. Michael pollan it seemed so implausible to me that a single experience caused by a molecule, right, ingested in your body, could transform your outlook on something as profound as death. Thats thats kind of amazing. Cooper author Michael Pollan wrote about the psilocybin studies in a bestselling book, called how to change your mind. As part of his research, he tried psilocybin himself with the help of an underground guide. The kind of things that Cancer Patients were saying, like i touched the face of god. You were skeptical about when you hear phrases like that . Pollan yeah. Or, love is the most important thing in the universe. When someone tells me that, im just like, yeah, okay. Cooper so you dont go for some of the phrases that are used . Pollan no. It gives me the willies, as a writer. And i really struggled with that, because during one of my experiences, i came to the earthshattering conclusion that love is the most important thing in the universe. But its thats Hallmark Card stuff, right . And, so cooper and yet, while you were on it, and afterward pollan it was profoundly true. And it is profoundly true. Guess what . Cooper theres a reason its on a Hallmark Card. Pollan there is a reason. And one of the things psychedelics do is, they peel away all those essentially protective levels of irony and, and cynicism that we, that we acquire as we get older, and youre back to those kind of oh, my god. I forgot all about love. laughs cooper pollan said he also experienced what the researchers describe as ego loss, or in our heads. Pollan i did have this experience of seeing my ego burst into a little cloud of postit notes. I know it sounds crazy. Cooper and what are you are without an ego . Pollan youre laughs you had to be there. Cooper researchers believe that sensation of identity loss occurs because psilocybin quiets these two areas of the brain that normally communicate with each other. Theyre part of a region called the default mode network, and its especially active when were thinking about ourselves and our lives. Pollan and its where you connect what happens in your life to the story of who you are. Cooper we all develop a story over time about what our past was like and who we are. Pollan right. Yeah, what kind of person we are. How we react. And the fact is that interesting things happen when the self goes quiet in the brain, including this rewiring that happens. Cooper to see that rewiring, Johns Hopkins scientist Matthew Johnson showed us this representational chart of brain activity. The circle on the left shows normal communication between parts of the brain. On the right, what happens on psilocybin. Theres an explosion of connections, or crosstalk, between areas of the brain that dont normally communicate. The difference is just startling. Johnson right. Cooper is that why people are having experiences of seeing, you know, repressed memo, or pt memo, ople win and even the perceptual effect, sometimes the synesthesia, like, the the seeing sound. Cooper people see sound . Johnson yeah, sometimes. Cooper i dont even know what that means. Johnson right, yeah. laughs its its pollan maybe the ego is one character among many in your mind. And you dont necessarily have to listen to that voice thats chattering at you and criticizing you and telling you what to do. And thas very freeing. Cooper it was certainly freeing for kerry pappas. Though her cancer has now spread to her brain, her crippling anxiety about death is gone. Pappas yeah, its amazing. I mean, i feel like death doesnt frighten me. Living doesnt frighten me. I dont frighten me. This frightens me, but. Cooper this interview frightens you, but death doesnt . Pappas no cooper it turns out most of the 51 Cancer Patients in the Johns Hopkins study experienced significant decreases in depressed mood and anxiety after trying psilocybin. Twothirds of them rated their psilocybin sessions as among the most meaningful experiences of their lives. For some, it was on par with the birth of their children. Pappas to this day, it evolves in me. Cooper its still alive in you. Pappas its still absolutely alive in me. Cooper does it make you happier . Pappas yeah. And i dont necessarily use the word happy. Comfortable. Like, comfortable. I mean, ive suffered from anxiety my whole life. Im comfortable. That, to me, okay, i can die. Im comfortable. laughs i mean, its huge. Its huge. ticking now, simparica trio simplifies protection. Ticks and fleas . See ya heartworm disease . 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U. s Fastest Growing economies, priding itself on this surge and its plucky personality. But along with old charms and new construction, malta was earning a reputation for rampant corruption and dubious dealings. And then theres the matter of the assassination of a journalist Daphne Caruana galizia whose revelations cut a little too close to the heart of power. Malta sits as a sundappled speck in the mediterranean, three small islands a short ferry ride from sicily and not much farther to libya. The Southern Gateway to europe. It can be hard to get your bearings here. Over the last three millennia, malta has been conquered or colonized by just about every world power, and each has left its mark. bells ringing most of the 500,000 people here are catholic, a tradition that started early. The apostle paul is said to have shipwrecked here in 60 a. D. Mark Anthony Falzon i find this to be a good metaphor of maltese culture. Wertheim mark Anthony Falzon is an anthropology professor and local newspaper columnist. Falzon the story is that saint paul converted the maltese to christianity. So that would mean that malta was one of the first places to be converted to christianity, even before rome. So we would be the original and the best christians.