# Herbal Ecstasy & The Billion Dollar Smart Drug Boom - Shaahin Cheyene Page: https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-psychedelic-podcast-221919/herbal-ecstasy-the-billion-dollar-smart-drug-boom-shaahin-cheyene Text version: https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-psychedelic-podcast-221919/herbal-ecstasy-the-billion-dollar-smart-drug-boom-shaahin-cheyene.md Podcast: [The Psychedelic Podcast](https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-psychedelic-podcast-221919) Published: 2026-03-23T08:00:00+00:00 Episode link: https://thethirdwave.co/podcast/episode-348/?ref=278 Audio file: https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/psychedelia/Podcast_348_Shaahin_Cheyene.mp3?dest-id=459512 Processing state: not_requested JSON: https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/the-psychedelic-podcast-221919/episodes/herbal-ecstasy-the-billion-dollar-smart-drug-boom-shaahin-cheyene Duration seconds: 4323 ## Resource Herbal Ecstasy & The Billion Dollar Smart Drug Boom In this episode of The Psychedelic Podcast, Paul F. Austin sits down with entrepreneur Shaahin Cheyene, creator of the controversial 1990s supplement "Herbal Ecstasy," which helped launch the legal smart-drug movement. Find full show notes and links here: https://thethirdwave.co/podcast/episode-348/?ref=278 Shaahin shares how he built a multimillion-dollar business at just fifteen by creating a legal herbal alternative to MDMA during a shortage in the rave scene. The conversation explores 1990s rave culture, the ethics of prohibition, and how natural supplements intersect with psychedelics, entrepreneurship, and personal freedom. They also discuss his later ventures in Amazon commerce, podcast media, and YouTube. Shaahin Cheyene is the creator of Herbal Ecstasy, a supplement that helped spark the legal smart-drug movement in the 1990s. He built the business as a teenager into a multimillion-dollar company. Over the past three decades, Shaahin has become an award-winning entrepreneur, Amazon expert, inventor, author, and filmmaker whose ventures have generated over a billion dollars in revenue. He is the founder of PodcastCola and Viral Mirage. Through his businesses, Shaahin continues to mentor entrepreneurs and develop health and wellness products focused on optimizing human performance. Highlights: Creating Herbal Ecstasy at age fifteen The MDMA shortage that created opportunity Rave culture and the 1990s club scene Natural supplements as legal alternatives Freedom, regulation, and drug policy debates Health and wellness entrepreneurship Building product brands in emerging markets Podcasting and YouTube as influence platforms Episode Links: Shaahin's website PodcastCola Billion: How I Became King of the Thrill Pill… ## Actions - request_transcript: `POST https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/the-psychedelic-podcast-221919/episodes/herbal-ecstasy-the-billion-dollar-smart-drug-boom-shaahin-cheyene/transcription-requests` — Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode. - read_markdown: `GET https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-psychedelic-podcast-221919/herbal-ecstasy-the-billion-dollar-smart-drug-boom-shaahin-cheyene.md` — Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource. A page view does not enqueue transcription. Agents should invoke `request_transcript` explicitly when they need this episode processed. ## Transcript Full transcripts are not published on public pages unless there is a clear rights basis.