Century of Lies March 21, 2010
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The failure of Drug War is glaringly obvious to judges, cops, wardens, prosecutors and millions more, now calling for decriminalization, legalization, the end of prohibition. Let us investigate the Century of Lies.

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Dean Becker: Hello my friends welcome to this edition of Century of Lies. We got a really busy show for you today and I think we’re going to jump right in to it. Last week I was out in California attending the Students for Sensible Drug Policy conference. And there I met the president of the Front Range Community College chapter of SSDP, Mr. Christopher Pezza and he’s such a knowledgeable young man I wanted to bring him on to the show to show you who an example of who and what these SSDP’ers are. Christopher are you with us?

Christopher Pezza: I am Dean how are you doing?

Dean Becker: I am well sir. Thank you for joining us. Christopher, it was amazing. Four hundred and fifty I think paid attendees at that SSDP conference and probably another fifty or a hundred that crowded in if you will. Now you guys tell quickly if you will what is SSDP?

Christopher Pezza: Well Students for Sensible Drug Policy is an organization that focuses on empowering young people to get involved in the political process in their local community. So it’s very different depending on which chapter, which state you’re operating in. but you know students get involved in changing legislation on a campus level and then working to lobby politicians on the state level to have an impact on their local communities. So SSDP really just brings young people together to provoke a discussion about the drug war and how we can impact it in a positive direction and repeal counterproductive policies.

Dean Becker: Well Christopher I don’t know how much you got to hear or if you did hear, I was doing an interview with Houston constable Victor Trevino. We were talking about how necessary it is that the people the public do their part, they contact their officials, that they let them know their feelings in this regard and that’s what SSDP is all about, right?

Christopher Pezza: Yeah totally and it’s awesome to do that on a college level because you’re empowering college students to learn about the legislative process, learn how to properly lobby politicians, get involved with their local media, host events on their campus so it’s really it’s cool because it’s a microcosmic level of where you can start to have a political impact.

And when you’re a college student you know I think that young people have some of the best energy and opportunity to make an impact out there so any organization like SSDP that brings us all together and you know gets the ideas flowing really can have a powerful impact on their communities so.

Dean Becker: You bet.

Christopher Pezza: …yeah it’s awesome. I mean you saw the energy last weekend. It was out of control, it was seeing that many young activists together really inspires everybody who’s involved.

Dean Becker: It does and it gives me high hopes that those changes are forthcoming asap really because the logic of changing these drug wars is starting to really sink in at every level you know the legislature on down to the average Joe. And the fact is that we we have but to open the discussion as we’re hoping to do here in the gulag city with a ongoing series of local officials to just broach the subject see if there isn’t a little wiggle room, a chance for change.

We’re speaking with Mr. Christopher Pezza. He’s president of the Front Range chapter of SSDP. Now you’re based in Colorado. And it’s my understanding that Colorado’s starting to parallel many of the same scenarios if you will in regards to medical marijuana. You want to give us a summary of what’s going on up there?

Christopher Pezza: Yeah well Colorado has had a huge expansion in its medical marijuana community lately. Almost ten years ago amendment twenty passed which is our law that allows for medical use of marijuana. And the only problem really with the law is there’s a lot of ambiguities in there. They don’t really talk about dispensaries or care givers. It doesn’t require patients to assign a caregiver; it doesn’t put caps on the number of patients caregivers can provide for.

So soon as these dispensaries started popping up everywhere and people were able to start getting recommendations from doctors for medical marijuana. There’s a huge variance and there’s a lot of differences between how different dispensaries are operating and there’s concern in the community you know about how legitimate they are if they are protecting patients interest and their safety.

So it’s expanding like crazy but now with the expansion we are you know there’s more of an ongoing debate in the medical marijuana community about how to regulate these dispensaries and how to best protect the patients who are involved. So that’s the big key to debate in Colorado right now. Tomorrow a bill is going to go to discussion at the capitol bill house bill 1284 and that proposes a lot of new regulations that dispensaries would have to deal with. So we’re going to see in the next few weeks here how Colorado reacts to this bill.

Dean Becker: Alright well Christopher as I understand it Breckenridge has full out legalization of up to one ounce for adults, is that right?

Christopher Pezza: It is correct yeah they voted to legalize it and just completely decriminalized it on the municipal level last year. And I mean I think that’s awesome. It’s really a statement that some communities out there are ready for full out legalization. And they spoke up and did it.

Dean Becker: Well yeah and last week at the SSDP conference you had California representative Tom Amiano talking about his bill to do something similar for the whole state, right.

Christopher Pezza: Yeah absolutely I think that that would be amazing. I hope California is ready to make that decision and give marijuana legalization a chance. I do believe that it would be an incredible economic stimulus for them. And medical marijuana has been operating so long in California now that I think they are not afraid of the culture and that they don’t expect that you know hey if we legalize marijuana it’s not like everybody is going to you know that usage is going to double or anything. It’s not going to have a great impact on usage. So I think that California’s ready for it. Hopefully they do it this fall.

Dean Becker: Well I think the biggest impact is going to be seventy percent reduction in the profits made by the cartels down in Mexico. That’s what I understand, they sixty to seventy percent of their profits comes from weed. It seems preposterous to just keep funding them.

Christopher Pezza: Oh absolutely I mean what’s going on in Mexico right now if we don’t do something as far as drug policy regulation in the US. You know we’re the main purchasers of all those drugs. So we’re funding these cartels down there. And Mexico has pretty much lost control of its government at this point.

No city official in Mexico can speak out against the cartels without fearing for his life and his family’s lives and that’s just a horrible scenario. So I hope that the United States will start to see its degree of responsibility in that situation and hopefully move towards a legalization and regulation so that we can shut those cartels down.

Dean Becker: Well yeah and even the press. They just won’t report the stories anymore. Too many people shot in their cars going to and from work so the truth of the matter is probably best understood on this side of the border because the reporters can’t report it on that side. It’s outrageous.

Christopher Pezza: Mhmm. Yeah you guys must feel the impact of that being in Texas too so close to the border. I mean I would imagine that at a certain point that that crime would start to spill in to the US.

Dean Becker: Well yes and we luckily there’s some of the major newspapers here in Texas, notably the El Paso Times, the Houston Chronicle are giving great focus to this and alerting you know the residents of Texas to how near and you know how deadly these guys are. And it is bringing focus to bear on this.

I tell you what, due to the fact that we got a lot of segments, we got just a couple of minutes left here and I want to give you a chance to recruit some other college students out there. Tell them why they should set up a SSDP chapter.

Christopher Pezza: Oh well I mean setting up an SSDP chapter just gives you that opportunity to stand out in your community and speak out to everybody and like I am getting to do right now, thank you dean. And you’ll get be educated in lobbying, in media outreach, how to mobilize people and how to start provocative discussions that then can actually have an impact on your local laws, really reaching out to your local politicians and making a change you know.

There’s so many young people in the country who have been negatively affected and been victims of the drug war. When I was teenager I was arrested with a small possession amount of marijuana. And because of that I was prevented from getting financial aid in college and that provoked my whole entry in to this organization.

And SSDP successfully in 2006 force congress to scale back the higher education elimination penalty. So now only felony drug charges will make you lose your financially aid. But it’s really important you know when you have been negatively affected or you see people you love be negatively affected by these drug laws that you get involved in the political process and you speak out to your politicians.

And SSDP provides you with that support network. We have you know two hundred chapters world wide, nine different countries now. And that whole network that is focusing on this common goal of reducing the harms caused to society based on counter productive drug war policies. So getting involved in this organization really will provide you with the support network you need to start making an impact and a change on your society.

Dean Becker: Alright once again we have been speaking with Christopher Pezza of SSDP. Now I wanted to point out just recently there was a law passed I don’t know through the house now headed to the senate where they changed the disparity in the crack versus powder cocaine laws. It’s no longer a hundred to one racially disparate; it’s now twenty to one. See hardly seems like improvement, does it?

Christopher Pezza: Yeah it’s one of those marginal steps like you were saying incremental.

Dean Becker: Incrementalism is a killer. I that’s just my theory. I tell you what Christopher we’re going to have to let you go for now but we’ll get back with you before this year is over and get an update from SSDP. Give folks your website please.

Christopher Pezza: Absolutely it’s ssdpboulder.wordpress.com. Our national website is www.ssdp.org. and thank you very much Dean for having me on.

Dean Becker: Well you guys keep up the good work. I look forward to hearing from you.

Christopher Pezza: Awesome.

Dean Becker: Bye bye.

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Dean Becker: This is Life, Liberty and Happiness featuring advice and instruction from the professors of Oaksterdam University.

Richard Lee: Here at Oaksterdam University we very much believe in being involved in the politics, that we do need to end cannabis prohibition, get the people out of prison who shouldn’t be there, stop the violence, stop the environmental damage. So politics and history of prohibition is a prerequisite. You have to take that class before you can take any other classes on growing or cooking or hash making.

So with that said we’ll start with our basics that we cover in the politics class. Which is that first of all prohibition started during very racist times. In fact cannabis prohibition is based on racism in large part. The first state marijuana laws against marijuana were passed around 1913 1914 in the west and the south. And in the west you had Pancho Villa coming across the border. And so people used cannabis you know they actually got the word marijuana from a Mexican folk song called La Cucaracha. And so it’s meant to be a derogatory slang term for cannabis the word marijuana is.

So if you go through the early part of 1900s you have states making it illegal, using it as a tool to beat up on like African Americans in the south and Hispanics in the west to the point where the federal government wants to get involved. They start lobbying to pass the 1937 marijuana tax act which is a strange name for making something illegal. Sounds like you want to tax it and legalize it.

But actually the way the law worked is they made it impossible to get the tax stamp. So they made them so expensive that you couldn’t afford them. And so then when you didn’t have the tax stamps then that made the cannabis illegal that you had. That’s how federal law started against cannabis and that worked through the 1960s.

And what happened was in 1969 was timothy Leary got busted and he challenged the law. Said you know this is can’t be constitutional if you can’t follow it. And so the Supreme Court agreed with him. And throughout the federal prohibition on cannabis. Unfortunately the congress got busy and wrote the controlled substances act of 1970 which the courts upheld as legal. And they placed cannabis in schedule 1, no medical use and high potential for abuse.

And that’s where it remains today even though there’s been lots of documentation that cannabis has lots of medical uses and that it doesn’t have a high potential for abuse but it’s not as addictive alcohol, cigarettes or even coffee. So I guess we’ll just wrap up there as a quick introduction to our politics and history of cannabis prohibition. And if you’d like to take the whole class you can come to Oaksterdam University. We have a number of locations and you can go to oaksterdam.com. So this is Richard Lee for Oaksterdam University. Thank you very much.

Dean Becker: This has been Life, Liberty and Happiness from oaksterdamuniversity.com.

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Dean Becker: Alright my friends it’s changing across this country especially on the west coast. It will change in your city and your state when you get involved. We’re speaking with Mr. Irvin Rosenfeld. He’s a stock broker down in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Irv I saw a notice that came out yesterday indicating that a pioneering but much delayed cannabis based medicine for multiple sclerosis is now on track to win regulatory approval and in Britain and Spain in the second quarter of this year. What do you know about that sir?

Irvin Rosenfeld: Well following GW pharmaceuticals closely for the last ten years. I applaud what they are trying to do and what they finally looks like going to accomplish to do. Basically it’s a company that has taken the natural extract of cannabis from marijuana. They have made a sublingual spray out of it and you spray under your tongue.

This thereby getting around the aspect of smoking or vaporizing or marijuana itself not being a medicine yet a natural spray is. It’s going to be benefit for the company. It’s going to be a benefit for patients who need this medicine, multiple sclerosis patients. And it’s going to be once it’s approved in England it will be followed by approval I think in all of the EEU which is very positive.

As far as our situation with smoked marijuana I think it is a very positive step also. Because right now when I talk about medical cannabis, medical marijuana and I talk that you know it works for me, it should be a medicine used for a myriad of disorders all throughout the country the United States. They go wait a minute, marijuana’s not a medicine it’s a schedule one drug. OK that’s what the government has it so that’s what they come back with in my face.

However once Sativex is approved in this country which will happen , they are doing studies right now for adjunct medicine for cancer patients. If you’re on Oxycontin and you take cannabis well you take Sativex with it and it enhances the effects of the of the opiods then it’s working.

And it will be approved in this country in the next two to three years I believe for that matter. And what that will mean is at that point the natural plant cannabis will be called a medicine but in spray form. Well that gives me a better soap box to stand on to say wait a minute now if you are saying the natural plant in spray form is a medicine then the natural plant is a medicine. Whether it’s vaporized, whether it’s smoked, whether it’s made in to an edible, it’s still the same plant. So I think that’s a benefit because people in this country the federal government has done a good job scaring people.

Now not for our listeners but if you think about, when our listeners think about it if the average person would visit the doctor and the doctor says look you have got anti nausea for chemotherapy and none of these drugs will work. I think you should use marijuana. They are going to think the doctor is crazy. What do you mean? Marijuana is horrible, it’s this, it’s that, whatever. That’s what they want them to believe from the rhetoric of the government federal government. But first that same doctor would want to try out for your anti nausea try Sativex. And patients will go sure doctor no problem.

Dean Becker: Irv you have a particular set of knowledge that’s not too widely known but you are provided with some three hundred marijuana cigarettes what is it every twenty-eight days by the federal government. Is that correct?

Irv Rosenfeld: It’s every twenty-five days and I do receive three hundred, approximately three hundred cannabis cigarettes every twenty-five days from the federal government. I am one of the four people in the country. And so yes I am in a unique situation because I know how well marijuana works.

And so therefore Sativex is natural marijuana. It’s just in a sublingual spray. And I don’t think the sublingual spray is the best delivery system because some of it you end up swallowing which goes down to your liver whatever. But it’s still a big benefit a big move forward you know for medical cannabis and for the company. You know again it is a public company so I do believe that it it can definitely you know further the company itself too.

Dean Becker: And do you do not have multiple sclerosis as do many medical marijuana patients if you will have a variety of maladies for which they have found benefit, correct?

Irv Rosenfeld: Oh that’s correct. I have bone tumors on the end of long bones. And the cannabis for me serves as a muscle relaxant which also helps MS patients. It serves as an anti inflammatory. It keeps the bursar sack of fluid over all of my tumors less inflamed, less chance of a malignant. And it works as an analgesic for pain. And for me it’s kept my tumors from growing when they should be growing. I haven’t had a tumor grow or one develop in thirty-four years.

So it’s very, very fortunate to be one of the federal patients. and of course just to show people the way it is. I have got a book that’s been coming out towards the end of April that’s called My Medicine. And if anybody’s interested right now they can go to my website potluckrx.com and they can say they want to purchase one.

Dean Becker: You will be attending the Patients Out of Time conference in Rhode Island next month, am I correct?

Irv Rosenfeld: Yes my organization Patients Out of Time hold a every two years a conference on we bring in the top physicians, scientists, nurses, patients on medical cannabis from around the world. And they present their findings the last two years. And it’s a fantastic conference. It’s going to be in Warwick, Rhode Island on April 15 th through 17 th and yes I will attending.

Dean Becker: Well you know Irvin I just saw a segment on CNBC. They were chuckling a little bit but they were very serious about the progress of marijuana around this country. Any closing thoughts you’d like to relay?

Irv Rosenfeld: Well I saw this I saw the first part of that. I didn’t get to see the second part so I didn’t realize it was the second part and I went downstairs to take my medicine. So I’m happy to see that people realizing that a we’re wasting money prosecuting non violent criminals. And b that maybe they should look at the aspect of it as far as the social aspect of it as far as the economical aspect.

What I realized and what I like to say is that you know the the legalization or decriminalization whatever you want to call it of marijuana in this country still a battle to be fought. But the fact is that we have fought the battle for medical marijuana. And fourteen states have passed laws, more states are going to. Over eighty percent of the United States population is in favor of medical marijuana. So that battle has been fought and that battle has been won. So like our organization Patients Out of Time says patients don’t have time, they’re out of time and that’s how we need the medical aspect of it immediately.

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Margaret Dooley Samuelly: I am Margaret Dooley Samuelly. I am the deputy state director for southern California and with the Drug Policy Alliance the nation’s leading organization working to end the war on drugs and build in its place a health oriented approach to our drug problem.

Dean Becker: Margaret the news is just wide spread I think in nearly every newspaper in America this ongoing battle this war this this physical altercation going on in Mexico that has killed thousands of our neighbors. Your analysis of this this problem.

Margaret Dooley Samuelly: Well what we’re seeing in Mexico is absolutely tragic. It’s also evidence of what we already know that in the drug war violence begets violence. You know the amount of money in the illegal drug trade dwarfs the amount of money that Mexico that even the US government can invest in an actual militarized war against the black market for drugs.

Unfortunately as Mexico invests more money in a violence campaign to fight drug traffickers they’re just being matched and exceeded with violence. And of course the people suffering are innocent or they’re very low level drug dealers. So these are people that unfortunately drug traffickers see as expendable that the Mexican government seems to be only recently really being concerned with as we saw with killings of so many young people recently at a party.

And so we’re seeing that community stand up and say we need to do something different. We need the Mexican government to do something different. And there really are alternatives and that’s really what what Mexico and the US need to invest in is the demand reduction and smarter less violent supply reduction strategies.

Dean Becker: Margaret I have seen reports that there are more than one hundred thousand soldiers if you will employed by these barbarous cartels. Fact is that many are camped out on the US side now awaiting orders from some of these cartel leaders to carry out these acts of barbarism in Mexico and occasionally in the United States. Your thoughts there.

Margaret Dooley Samuelly: That’s exactly it that there’s a lot of money. There’s vast sums of money in the black market for drugs in the illicit drug trade internationally. It can only swamp government efforts to fight it through military efforts. There will be no end of people who are poor enough or desperate enough to take on this kind of work or be paid enough to be willing to become mercenaries on behalf of the illicit drug trade. This kind of violence will not subside. It cant and unless we change the way we take money away from the illicit drug market and take the market away from illicit drug trade.

Dean Becker: Well it seems to me these cartels need the cycles of violence to maintain their power base and to justify their exorbitant prices. Your thoughts there.

Margaret Dooley Samuelly: You know the price of drugs does have a lot to do with the fact that they’re illegal. right the higher the risk to supply the greater the price that you can you can get. However you know nobody in the illicit market benefits from violence for violence’s sake. Like any business minded you know entrepreneur what they’d prefer is to is to have dominance in the market and to supply it.

And in fact what we see is when there’s a clear owner of the market so when you know one cartel has a huge part of the market or clearly you know protected part of the market they are not engaged in the kind of violence that we see now. Violence actually increases when drug traffickers and drug cartels are fighting for market share. So when you cut the head off of a cartel and and it breaks in to pieces those pieces begin to fight each other just as they begin continue to fight suppression efforts by the government. So the more disorderly the illicit market the more violence you see.

When you stop the violence that’s not a result of the drug trafficking or the drug market going away. In fact it’s evidence of someone or a few cartels successful dominance in that market.

Dean Becker: There are some who say that if America were able to staunch the flow of these drugs that it would cripple the cartels but it’s my opinion that even if all Americans quit using these drugs there’s still ninety-five percent of the earth’s population that’s not the answer.

Margaret Dooley Samuelly: It’s not a helpful exercise to think too much about what would be the case if all Americans stopped using drugs. Americans have been a consis… among many other you know people in the world have been consistent consumers of illicit substances. Any drug policy needs to acknowledge this and to factor that in to a balanced effective drug policy.

For example California is considering taking the profit some of the profits away from the illicit drug trade by regulating a legal system of marijuana sales for adults age twenty-one and older. We know that marijuana sales are account for a huge portion of the profits. Taking those profits away from the drug dealers would do a significant amount to limit things like how many guns they can buy.

Dean Becker: Once again we have been speaking with Margaret Dooley Samuelly. She’s with the Drug Policy Alliance. Margaret if folks wanted to learn more about this, you’re website has plenty of information, does it not? Would you point them in the right direction?

Margaret Dooley Samuelly: Anyone is more than welcome to visit the website at drugpolicy.org.

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[song]
To live outside the law
You must be honest
If you want to get high
You got to be willing to try
To stand up to the law
Cause it’s a broken saw
To live free
You must be willing
To die

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Dean Becker: OK Margaret Dooley Samuelly had some great thoughts for us and I wanted to ask you how many times must we hear these stories of death, disease, destruction, madness and mayhem? Over the decades of the drug war has been waged the cycles of violence and relative calm ebb and flow both in the US and Mexico but we have never examined the why for this violence. The violence is a result of the prohibition not adult drug use.

If America was able to staunch the flow or convince all Americans to stop using these drugs the cartels would still have ninety-five of the earth’s population as customers. How many years? How many cycles will we chase the law of supply and demand like a dog chasing its tail? The cartels and most of the cops demand an eternity.

As always my friends I wanted to tell you there is no truth, justice, logic, scientific fact, no medical data, no reason for this drug war to exist. We have been duped. Please visit our website, endprohibition.org.

Prohibido istac evilesco.
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For the Drug Truth Network this is Dean Becker, asking you to examine our policy of drug prohibition.

The Century of Lies

This show produced at the Pacifica studios of KPFT, Houston