Joe Rogan has an unconventional proposal for achieving world peace: gather the leaders of nuclear-armed countries in one room, give each of them seven grams of psychedelic mushrooms and replace traditional summit chairs with beanbags.
The podcast host suggested the idea during an Oct. 14 episode of The Joe Rogan Experience featuring actor Michael Douglas, who advocates for nuclear disarmament.
Their discussion shifted to whether Russian President Vladimir Putin would ever give up his nuclear weapons. Rogan then proposed a negotiation tactic unlikely to make it onto any official diplomatic agenda.
“Get them all in a room together, give them each 7 grams of mushrooms,” he joked.
He added psychedelic music and beanbags to complete the scene.
Beneath the humor lies a serious debate over arms control. The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute estimated that nine nuclear-armed countries held approximately 12,187 warheads at the beginning of 2026, including 4,012 deployed with operational forces. All nine continued modernizing their nuclear arsenals in 2025.
Five days after the episode aired, U.S. President Donald J. Trump said he was willing to consider a trilateral meeting with Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping to discuss nuclear disarmament.
“We would have it to talk about nuclear weapons and denuclearization,”
Trump told reporters outside the White House on Oct. 19, according to Reuters.
Rogan’s joke also touches on a scientific finding. A 2024 meta-analysis published in Scientific Reports found that classical psychedelics, including psilocybin, increased emotional empathy among participants. However, the study found no significant gains in cognitive empathy, or the ability to understand another person’s perspective.
Meanwhile, the New START treaty, the final legally binding agreement restricting U.S. and Russian strategic nuclear arsenals, expired on Feb. 5. Its expiration ended the last binding restrictions on the two countries’ deployed strategic nuclear weapons.
