Organizations

09/04/19 Chris Conrad

Program
Cultural Baggage Radio Show
Date
Guest
Chris Conrad
Organization
Conscientious Objectors

Chris Conrad, Mikki Norris and Paul Stanford report from Mexico City's "Expo Weed" + Atty Will Hutson "Is it Hemp or Is it Weed" for the nation & DA Kim Ogg of Houston, speaks at major Marijuana Conference.

Audio file

TRANSCRIPT

CULTURAL BAGGAGE

SEPTEMBER 4, 2019

DEAN BECKER: Hi folks, this is Cultural Baggage, the unvarnished truth about the drug war. I am your host, Dean Becker, the Reverend Most High. Today’s show is very marijuana-centric. We’ve got international and national reports. Let’s get to it.

Alright folks you know we try to focus on things locally and nationally but today we’re going to talk to some folks that are down in Mexico City. They are attending a conference down there, I think it’s called, “Expo Weed” or “Salon Medicinal” or something to that effect. We’ve got three of our friends down there. I think first up we’re going to speak with our good friend the cannabis expert, Mr. Chris Conrad. Hey Chris.

CHRIS CONRAD: Hi Dean and hello to all of your listeners and greetings from Mexico.

DEAN BECKER: Well and I hear all kinds of good things coming out of Mexico. They want to legalize marijuana, hell they might even want to legalize all drugs. What has it been like so far, Chris?

CHRIS CONRAD: Well this event has been quite exciting because you know the new stance by the World Health Organization towards CBD and medical cannabis and what we’re expecting to be ungas has increased national interest in the subject down here and so this event is the 4th annual expo here. Actually I think they have more than one a year but the expo they are putting on to try to make sure we get some progress, and right now as you’ve mentioned in less than two months the country is supposed to be putting out a new policy on cannabis and so this is an opportunity first for us to educate border leaders. Unfortunately more of the national leaders are not here at the event but we’re putting out the information and getting in to their hands anyway.

DEAN BECKER: Well and as I understand it the major media, certainly the T.V. cameras wanted to get your opinions before we talked, did they not?

CHRIS CONRAD: Yeah they did and I think that the situation here is pretty good. There are two senators who spoke. Unfortunately I missed their presentation, so I can’t quote what they said, but they do have some government officials here.

DEAN BECKER: Now Chris, give me quick summary. What did you present at this conference?

CHRIS CONRAD: The history and the cannabis movement in the United States and how we’ve made our progress and how important it is and to have this opportunity just now for Mexico to move forward and you know we’ve been strongly encouraging Mexico to take very courageous and strong steps because you know China is looking at getting in to these markets, too and we just feel like the Mexicans’ relationship with America over cannabis is been actually ultimately very positive over the years. People talk about the drug gang aspect of it, but most of it has just been small groups of people bringing in small amounts of marijuana and they helped to supply our market a long time before the domestic industry got going so we have a special relationship with Mexico that we would like to see develop. Like I said, in the case of China, they should move soon. That’s one of the things they are telling them. The other thing they are telling them, Dean, is to not make these crazy mistakes that we’re seeing in the United States of over-regulating things to where it forces people to go back to the underground market, the traditional market because if you want to really bring this above board you need to have enough retail outlets and you need to have ways that people who are currently making money off the underground market and the traditional market can transition into the aboveground lawful market and so this is something that we hope that Mexico doesn’t make the kind of mistakes we are seeing happen throughout the United States where they instead end up taking the business away from the people who developed the industry and handing it to corporate executives who don’t know very much about it and the plan is to make money because for many of us the use of cannabis has a spiritual realm in the creation of communities that makes us so connected with each other. We don’t want to lose that to commercial interests.

DEAN BECKER: Well alright friends, again as I said we got three of our good friends down there in Mexico City attending the expo weed conference. Chris, could I speak with your wife, Mikki Norris, please?

CHRIS CONRAD: Yeah, so here is my lovely wife, MIKKI Norris, and she’s right beside me at the expo.

DEAN BECKER: Thank you, Chris.

MIKKI NORRIS: Hi, Dean.

DEAN BECKER: Well hello, Mikki. Been a while since we talked as well. I want to get your impressions. How big a crowd--what was the response there? What do you think is going to happen?

MIKKI NORRIS: There is a lot of interest here. I think they’ve had a couple thousand people coming through here. There are vendors, it’s the beginning of a little bit of an industry. There’s activism happening here with the Regulación Por La Paz, people who are working with the government to try to advise them on how best to regulate the policies of the industry and also personal and it’s very exciting. There’s a lot of excitement here and a lot of people wanting to change course and go forward with cannabis legalization here but they are a little here – sounds like a very complicated situation. We’ve gotten very educated on what’s going on here in Mexico in terms of the different aspects that they have to take under consideration going forward here. They asked me to talk about Mujer de Cannabis, (Women and Cannabis), so I basically wanted to inspire women to get involved in the movement and to show that they have a role to play because they are saying that this culture here is very machismo and the women are afraid to come forward. They afraid to consume in public, they are afraid to show any signs of using cannabis because traditionally it’s been associated with a lower class and stigmatized group of people so I wanted to show them what women are doing in the United States and how they use cannabis and how they can plug in also here and there, but that we need to support each other. I showed lots of cases of women in the U.S. who are already doing things from the movement to the industry to entrepreneurs to researchers and educators, but to show them basically, hopefully inspire them to come out and get involved because I know that there is a great desire to so here.

DEAN BECKER: Well and I thank you for that, Mikki. I have been noticing as of late, I have seen some headlines coming across that once again they are trying to frighten mothers that they shouldn’t get pregnant, they shouldn’t breastfeed babies if they’re using cannabis. They present a “fear” but they don’t really produce any evidence. Just the thought that it might be a horrible situation. Your response there, Mikki?

MIKKI NORRIS: Yeah. I just saw that today that the Surgeon General is warning against using it because it’s not safe but they are not releasing any evidence that it’s unsafe really. I mean anything significant that we need to be concerned about, so I tell people during pregnancy if they feel like it’s helpful to them – if they have intractable vomiting or different things like the horrible morning sickness that’s probably worse for them than anything that the cannabis would do to them. I know many women who have used during pregnancy and have nursed during pregnancy and their babies are fine. In fact they are more than fine, many of them are exceptionally intelligent and creative people so I don’t know if the cannabis did that or if it came to them that way but any way it has not created the harm that they are trying to scare people about right now.

DEAN BECKER: Nope.
MIKKI NORRIS: That did come up during my talk because I did want to show people how specifically women have used it traditionally for menstrual cramps or endometriosis and other things and now people are using it--there’s products/topicals that are coming out for sexual enhancement to help women enjoy sex more. So it’s been very interesting but more than that I really wanted to make women feel safe that they is a role for them to play and they should step up.

DEAN BECKER: Yeah.

MIKKI NORRIS: They need to start coming out of the closet because it is so stigmatized here and the only way really to counter that is to tell their stories as to how they use the medicine here, or that they are good people and they just use it. I also touched on spiritual use of cannabis to provide something that we’re starting to explore as well. It’s been really eye opening here.

DEAN BECKER: Look, Mikki, I thank you. I thank you all for going down there and sharing your knowledge and experience with those good folks and as I understand it, we have one more person that’s down there in Mexico City, he was a guest on our show a few weeks back. He’s based up there in Oregon. Mr. Paul Stanford, are you with us, Paul?

PAUL STANFORD: Hello.

DEAN BECKER: What was the event like for you, Paul?

PAUL STANFORD: You know this is actually my fourth time to come to Expo Weed and this one was bigger and better and the Supreme Court of Mexico just ordered the President and the legislative government to reschedule marijuana in the next 180 days. So it was a very timely event given that that just happened two weeks ago.

DEAN BECKER: Yeah.

PAUL STANFORD: So their facility here has just been packed. Every seat is filled and amazing to see the movement growing here in Mexico and across Latin America and the world.

DEAN BECKER: You know, I want to come back to a thought that Chris had relayed to me. He was trying to relay that he was trying to inform the folks that it’s necessary to prevent too many restrictions, too much big marijuana, too much big government in the industry once it gets regulated and controlled. Right?

PAUL STANFORD: Yeah.

DEAN BECKER: But I think I’m gonna go to Oklahoma, which now has I think the most lax standards possibly in the country. Your thoughts there, Paul?

PAUL STANFORD: I think the medical marijuana program in Oklahoma is perhaps the best in the country and it’s grown incredibly in its first year.

DEAN BECKER: But it comes back to this; I’m here in Texas, I can’t grow one plant.

PAUL STANFORD: That’s right.
DEAN BECKER: You know, have that experience. Green thumb opportunity and the truth is most Americans these days I think have that opportunity or at least the opportunity to go to a dispensary and that’s the majority of Americans and yet the minority are threatened with a cage. Your thought there, Paul Stanford?

PAUL STANFORD: You know everybody should be able to grow a plant especially cannabis, it’s the oldest crop. You know people have been cultivating it for twenty-five thousand years or more and so to take the oldest crop away from the people I think is wrong. I think the laws will change there in Texas pretty rapidly once the Federal laws change.

DEAN BECKER: Okay and to close out our discussion here once again, we’ve been speaking first with Chris Conrad, then Mikki Norris and now Paul Stanford down there in Mexico City at the Expo Weed, and Paul as we wrap it up here I want you to I don’t know, what is the pulse? What do you anticipate is going to happen in Mexico, how are they going to regulate and control?

PAUL STANFORD: Well you know it’s hard for me to predict exactly what the legislature will do here but I hope that they allow farmers to grow hemp for seed and fiber without undo regulation, without determining the THC level. I think you know THC has been wrongfully demonized so we’ll see. I am hopeful that they’ll have a more equitable market here in Mexico soon.

It's time to play Name That Drug By Its Side Effects! Problems breathing, enlarged breasts, bearded women, 2-year olds entering puberty, decreased sperm count, increased risk for prostate cancer, swelling of the ankles leading to a heart attack and death. Time’s up! Then answer from Abbvie, Inc., AndroGel for low testosterone.

Singing: Remember, don’t say that it’s weed. Is it hemp or is it weed, is the THC over .3, you don’t know you’re not a testing facility, could be hemp unless you call it weed. Nobody knows –

DEAN BECKER: Alright folks you just heard a portion of a song written by a couple of Waco lawyers, a Mr. Will Hutson and his partner, Chris Harris. It deals with marijuana, it deals with hemp and the distinction and the reasons to maybe don’t even talk about it. With that I want to welcome one of the authors – one of the talented attorneys, Mr. Will Hutson, how are you, sir?

WILL HUTSON: I am very well. How are you today, Dean?

DEAN BECKER: Oh, I am real good. Man I see you guys are making a big splash on the internet. The stories hitting the whole country. What’s your response to that thought?

WILL HUTSON: Well you know we’re just pleased that people like our message and we always try to give good advice and help out folks when they’ve got questions regarding whether its criminal or civil law that our biggest splash have been with on the subject of cannabis and most recently the change in the definition of marijuana in the state of Texas.

DEAN BECKER: Right and that’s what – I’m not going to say a complication, I think it’s a relief in a way that for 100 years or nearly so, they’ve been trying to stop people from using this plant and now they’re going to allow it in one instance, but not in the other. But they seem to want to maintain that righteousness factor somehow that they can’t tell who’s high on the road. They gotta have a dog to find the stuff. They don’t know exactly what the result of smoking pot should be. Should it be a drunken behavior? How are they going to know – and it’s just been a ball of confusion for all of these decades, has it not?

WILL HUTSON: Yeah, it has and honestly I think they’ve complicated their own problem because now in Texas cannabis is defined – or excuse me, marijuana is defined as Cannabis Sativa L with a THC content greater than .3%, and hemp is defined as Cannabis Sativa L with concentration of .3% or less, man you know dogs can’t tell the difference, police officer’s noses can’t tell the difference. The only thing that would be the difference is if a person admitted that it was marijuana rather than hemp, and you don’t know and I mean that is the whole reason we wrote the song, “Nobody Knows if its Pot or if its Hemp”.

DEAN BECKER: You’re not a scientist. How do you know?

WILL HUTSON: Exactly. That’s exactly right.

DEAN BECKER: And that’s the whole point, Will, is that again, it’s this nebulous fear that somehow marijuana is going to destroy the nation and I guess it’s my hope here, Will, is that they will eventually pull their heads out and look around and say, “The sky is not falling – it hasn’t fallen in Denver, California, Washington, Oregon – what in the hell are we afraid of?” Your response to that Will Hutson?

WILL HUTSON: Well I agree. I think the hope is that they’ll realize that they have – that this problem they’ve created is gonna cost the state, as you said, hundreds of thousands of dollars to buy equipment to test this stuff and as you’re probably very well aware many if not the majority of prosecutors, whether they’re district attorneys or county attorneys, they’ve kind of tapped the breaks on this in many jurisdictions, saying we’re either not gonna accept cases from law enforcement or we’ll bring the cases in but we’re not gonna prosecute until such time as we can test and if there is a huge backlog – if there is a huge backlog of cases, a huge backlog of people trying—or labs trying to get the equipment in they may just end up throwing their hands up and saying why are we fighting this and maybe listen to the vast majority of Texans who believe that at the very least, marijuana should be decriminalized.

DEAN BECKER: Well for me, you know I am an old hippy. I try to look at it – I am out on the road, I’m smoking some hemp I see those lights flashing, I pull over – there’s smoke drifting out the window. In the old days the cop would immediately say, “I smell weed, get out of the car”—and look and search and look up our rears and whatever, but the point is now he cannot make that determination. He can see a big bag of weed sitting on the dashboard of some kind of cannabis sitting on the dashboard, but that still doesn’t give him justification to search that bag, to search me or my car. This is just my hippie perspective. They no longer have probable cause because they can’t test that stuff out there on the side of the highway, either. Your response there, Will?

WILL HUTSON: Well that’s the question. The question is whether or not the odor of marijuana gives instant probable cause to search a car. There have been a couple of states that have said that the odor of marijuana no longer gives probable cause to search. Now that is not Texas yet and I am sure there’s gonna be a fight over that and it’s gonna take some litigation to make that determination. I don’t know which way it’s gonna go, honestly. I don’t really have a feel for it but I do imagine that’s gonna be the next big fight as far as probable cause to search is concerned because if we can’t—like if said, if we don’t know whether its marijuana or hemp any more, than we don’t know that what is burning or what was burning or what the cop thinks he smells in the car is actually a controlled substance because it no longer is defined as a controlled substance strictly.

DEAN BECKER: I have seen stories of hemp producers in one state shipping a batch on a semi-truck going to another state and that truck getting pulled over and being accused of hauling regular marijuana. A lot of truck drivers jailed, the contents impounded, etc., etc., there’s a big fight in that to head here isn’t there?

WILL HUTSON: Oh absolutely. Absolutely and it’s anybody’s guess how it’s gonna go, everything is kind of state by state these days. The states that have legalized or decriminalized possession are probably going to be in favor of –you know, we’re not gonna do that—we’re not gonna say that that equals probable cause. States like Texas, the more conservative red states – that there’s gonna be more of a fight. Like I say, I think that will be the next thing.

DEAN BECKER: Will, the fact of the matter is you know, the vape pens—that’s gotta be one subject that’s got to be determined because some of those vape pens have CBD and very little THC. But the real telling point I think is in edibles because it only takes about one half gram of marijuana to make a viable dose within a cookie or a brownie or whatever and it just seems that that’s been extrapolated, overblow, over penalized that it is an automatic felony. I want to get your thoughts in that regard, please?

WILL HUTSON: Well it is—you’re correct, Dean. Under Texas law if anybody is out there making edibles this is what they need to know; Texas law allows law enforcement prosecutors to consider the entire weight of the edible, not just the THC content, not just the contraband, so to speak, that is contained in it so maybe the best way to explain it would be to watch our video called, “Pot Brownies”, which you can find on YouTube, and as I explained in the forward of the video, if you take a little bit of THC, cannabis, whatever and infuse it in to anything, they get to measure the entire weight of the product so if you have a pound and a half tray of pot brownies that’s treated as if it’s a pound and a half of heroin and that would be a first degree felony and you could get life in prison. It’s not about the THC content – it’s about the entire weight of the product and that is something that still has to be worked out even under this new definition of hemp vs. marijuana because if you read closely, that legislation actually talks about they have to have what is called the dry weight of the product—of the THC. Now I don’t know how you dry out a vape pen to figure that out and I recently went to a law seminar put on by the Texas District and County Attorneys Association, so this was the prosecutor’s seminar on legislation that had changed, it was their legislative update. If they were shrugging their shoulders not knowing what dry weight means. It sounds like it’s very easy to define – dry weight is dry weight. Well, is drying out the cannabis then going to increase the concentration of THC? There are several questions that are unanswered and they are unanswered nationwide. No one knows. So it’s going to take litigation, it’s going to take really good advocacy on the part of defense attorneys to put their best foot forward and try to figure this mess out.

DEAN BECKER: Been speaking with Mr. Will Hutson, Will is there a website and any closing thoughts you’d like to share?

WILL HUTSON: Yeah, sure. I appreciate it. Our website is www.centraltexaslegal.com, and you can link to some of our videos there. We’ve done videos on—probably our biggest one is, “Don’t Eat Your Weed”, and also another one popular called “Pot Brownies”, and we have some that deal with civil law as well and you can always find us on YouTube, you can search Hutson and Harris, and you can see all of our videos there. Dean, I appreciate the time that you’ve given me today, and you can call me any time.

DEAN BECKER: Alright then. The folks there, they remind me a bit of the Smother’s Brother’s. I think you’ll agree.

WILL HUTSON: Laughter

Music – Nobody knows if its pot or if its hemp, they’ve got to show the THC content. Is it pot or is it not, is the THC a little or a lot, nobody knows, nobody knows, YOU DON’T know, nobody knows, ESPECIALLY you.

DEAN BECKER: Labor Day weekend, a major marijuana conference was held in Austin, Texas. The keynote speaker was the District Attorney of Houston, Harris County, Texas and friend of the show, Kim Ogg.

KIM OGG: --And when the legislature legalized hemp, good for them! They cut a big fiscal note that had been attached to that bill. Anybody who’s done legislature work knows when you propose a law in Texas, Texans want to know how much it’s gonna cost them, and there it was as I understand it, another 37 million dollar fiscal note attached to the legalization of hemp proposal. So the Department of Public Safety and the other folks who are responsible for lab testing of drugs, DNA and other physical evidence in Texas weren’t ignorant, they weren’t caught off guard. They were prepared and they told legislators how much it would cost and our legislature ixnayed that idea and so we got legalized hemp, but we got a new standard on marijuana. Now, when laws are applied differently in different jurisdictions that confuses people. Again, especially our young people and I think it puts us in a position of trying to defend a patchwork of application of laws that can’t be equal if we’re not applying them equally and if we have different policies in different counties as the D.A.’s, it creates uneven application of the law. Remember, I am against that. So I called a lot of D.A.’s starting with Judge Wilson and went for Cruz up in Dallas, Gonzales in San Antonio, Moore, and Estimeet here in Austin, Gonzales in Nueces County, Middleton in Fort Bend County – I called my friends and I said, “I think we should do something collectively”. Three of them agreed and so from Harris County down in Corpus Christi – from Corpus to San Antonio and back through Fort Bend you’ve got an agreement among D.A.’s that without testing, marijuana cases are not going to be filed. With testing they will be filed. Now in the felony amounts I can tell you we all agree because nobody wants to sanction the delivery and dealing of drugs especially when it comes through by the 18-wheeler full. We’re not gonna be for that. So we’re gonna help law enforcement find solutions and find money to test large quantities of drugs moving through our counties. Delivery of marijuana—you’re mine but simple possession—go in peace. Go after the legislature in terms of law changes. You know how to do it, you are organized, you have lobbyist, you have human interest stories that I can’t compete with. The Veteran’s at this conference—the Veteran’s that I meet all the time, we need to help you. It only seems fair and you know it does. You kept our country safe, you still do. So we need some compassion in our law. We need some reasonableness, we need some responsibility and you need to elect people with the political will to do your will.

DEAN BECKER: What will it take to motivate you to speak of what’s before your eyes. Exactly why I do what I do and again I remind you because of prohibition, you don’t know what’s in that bag. Please be careful.

12/26/18 Dean Becker

Program
Cultural Baggage Radio Show
Date
Guest
Dean Becker
Organization
Conscientious Objectors

Cultural Baggage for New Years: Drug Truth Network producer Dean Becker for the half hour with music from Becker's band Shotgun Lobotomy

Audio file

CULTURAL BAGGAGE

DECEMBER 26, 2018

TRANSCRIPT

[music]

All right, I am Dean Becker, the Reverend Most High, this is Cultural Baggage, and it's our New Year's show. It will be early in Houston, but later up into Canada and the west coast, I suppose. And I want to do this differently today. I want to share some music with you, music that I wrote, that I played drums on, or some would say I attempted.

And, give you my editorial perspective on where we are at now, on where I hope you are, or want to go, and where we all need to go.

Because we own the moral high ground. There is not one of these high echelon officials, no way to put it, experts, the powers that be, the top dogs, the ones in DC, the US attorney, the head of the FDA, DEA, ONDCP, the big dogs. They don't want to come on this show.

Because the drug war is over. They just don't want you to know it yet. So that's what I do. I can't scream about gay frogs or whatever it is on InfoWars. I'm restricted. I have to tell the truth. I cannot put forward any ideas, any constructs, for which, you know, I can be accused of demeaning somebody or ruining our youth or something.

So, I stick to the truth. It's not that exciting, I guess, to too many folks, you know. I know there are millions of you who have heard this truth, who know this truth, but do nothing with it, because you're afraid. You're afraid at work, you're afraid at school, you're afraid at the store or the neighborhood or maybe even in your own home.

Because you don't want to be demeaned, or, you know, cast aside, or, you know, people wonder, what's wrong with her? She likes drugs, you know, you made -- nobody really likes drugs, I guess. Eh, it's more of an occasional, you know, embrace, I think, for most people.

Some people get distracted, but I think most of that distraction, most of that distancing, comes from the prohibition itself. It's one thing to have a drunk dad, you know. You put up with it, you try to help him, get him to AA, but it's not a total reputation destroyer in the neighborhood, because everybody knows alcohol's around and it is a problem.

But when it's drugs, oh my god, my lord, put the children in, you know, under the bed, hide every -- the dishes, I don't know.

Drug users, they've been demonized, they're put in movies like, you know, they are automatic killers, give them a ten dollar bill, they'll use it to buy heroin, it will -- dopers. Not to be trusted. You know? Easily, what's the word, damn it? Unconditionally exterminable.

You know, hell, if he died he died, he's a druggie. It's all right.

But, to further elaborate on the show, that was Shotgun Lobotomy, the band, for which I played drums. That's John Campbell doing the singing, I'm sorry I can't find the other people's names, you know, went through a lot of changes, wound up with a band called Cultural Baggage. Imagine that. And that's where the website came from, when I got the radio show, and that's where many of you listening found us out there on the web.

You know, seventeen years we've been at this. I wouldn't say I'm buddies with, but I think there's some respect between me and the district attorney. Some of her high echelon folks, the sheriff, you know, we don't talk every day or nothing, but, and the police chief, who comes on this show on a more regular basis.

But the point being, you know, it hasn't hurt me. I made, you know, my million, it's all gone, don't get me wrong, but, you know, doing audit work for Chevron and Texaco and Transco, back when they were there. I was a contact auditor, and the good thing was, they didn't give a dang what my pee contained, so I was able to work for them, and I was considered to be a miracle worker many times.

I led teams of CPAs though I've never had one hour of accounting. And, I like to think it's because of a blessing given to me. You know? A proper perspective in life, that I am able to attain, a means by which, you know, I have an okeh life. I'm no millionaire. But the point I'm getting at is this. I feel it is a blessing that I derive from the use of cannabis.

I think it is attainable through other drugs, as well, but for me, I have tried all the drugs. I have ascertained that for me, cannabis provides me with a sense of focus, a means to reexamine my life, to give a perspective that has led me to this progress, and I believe it is my god given American right.

I have shared that thought with these same politicians, with every politician I meet. I am not afraid to say so, and I guess what I'm leading to, folks, is that you -- you could do the same. You could talk to your neighbor, try it out on, you know, folks at the grocery store.

You know, I wear shirts that say "legalize heroin, ask me why". You know, years ago, people would always ask, oh, what are you talking about? Nowadays, people look at you and just, you know, scratch their head a little bit, or give you that wink like, not a wink, just a look, of okeh, I'll think about it.

And we all have thought about it, and I think if you make that -- open that discussion with your neighbor, with your, maybe your boss, someday, they'll say, well, you know, most folks are afraid to talk about that, but yeah, you're right, the drug war is stupid, what in the heck are we doing?

You'll be a hero, rather than a goat. That's my promise to you, more times than not, and the more we do that, the more we allow the truth to unfold, for politicians to stop their incremental changes to the law, to finally respect the truth that the drug war has failed, it will forever fail, and that we must end it forthwith.

Tax, regulate, control these supposedly controlled drugs.

VOICE 1: Get out of here, Dewey.

VOICE 2: What are y'all doing in here?

VOICE 1: We're smoking reefer, and you don't want no part of this s***.

VOICE 2: You're smoking reefers?

VOICE 1: Yeah, of course we are, can't you smell it?

VOICE 2: No, Sam. I can't.

VOICE 3: Come on, Dewey. Join the party.

VOICE 1: No, Dewey. You don't want this. Get out of here.

VOICE 2: No, but I don't want no hangover, I can't get no hangover

VOICE 1: It doesn't give you a hangover.

VOICE 2: Well, would I get addicted to it or something?

VOICE 1: It's not habit forming.

VOICE 2: Okeh, well ... I don't know. I don't want to overdose on it.

VOICE 1: You can't OD on it.

VOICE 2: It's not going to make me want to have sex, is it?

VOICE 1: It makes sex even better.

VOICE 2: Sounds kind of expensive.

VOICE 1: It's the cheapest drug there is.

VOICE 2: Huh.

VOICE 1: You don't want it.

VOICE 2: I think I kind of want it.

VOICE 1: Okeh, but just this once. Come on in.

DEAN BECKER: As we end the year 2018, start up 2019, the people of America are taking a new look at their criminal justice system.

Over this past century, began to persecute drug users, considering them in need of control, putting together a means to supposedly control substances when the actual goal was to control people who use substances, and to try every way to punish, to redirect, to distract, and to punish.

To bend the will of people, mostly youth, who are looking for a thrill, who mostly never hurt anybody, not even themselves. People who are punished because of fears put forward that hundred years ago by charlatans posing as moralists who convinced ignorant and susceptible politicians to prohibit these drugs.

And in so doing, they managed to create means of opportunity, of commerce, means where they could profit from escalating the methodology, the punishment, the intrusion into the rights of America's citizens.

And these politicians have gone that hundred years, and finally we're compelled to look over the edge of the abyss where they were throwing the lives of tens of millions of Americans.

The futures they were destroying, the families they were destroying, the progress they were denying these victims of drug war, and having stepped up to the edge, and having seen this, and having realized that history will show them to be in alignment, in perspective, in comparison, somewhat similar to other leaders with grandiose plans of success that actually led to abuse, to misery, and death.

Pol Pot. Stalin. Hitler. It becomes compulsory to want soul to do something once you have looked over that abyss and seen that misery decreed to last for eternity, and to realize that you may have something within you, the means or the mechanisms or the knowhow to do something as well.

And that is what has begun, this process, whereby we have the first step judicial endeavor, to begin to undo the mandatory minimums and the three strikes laws, and to end the perspective, the treatment, that drug users are just unconditionally exterminable.

Outcasts, to be denied respect and rights and freedoms, like normal folks, like us.

Twenty years ago, I began closing one of my radio shows with the phrase "still tap dancing on the edge of an abyss." That still holds true, the thought, the reality, the misery. Take a good look into that pit, and see if maybe there's something you can do in 2019.

On the day the new farm bill was signed, a lot of folks were wondering why no politicians were stepping forward and proclaiming they were the savior, they were the ones bringing hemp back, they were the ones that were changing things.

For the most part, politicians didn't even mention that the hemp bill was included. And so folks were asking me what that might mean. I told them that with the signing of this bill, I told them it's not hard to understand these politicians' silence at all.

Reversing the hemp bill just begins to unwind the quote "logic" of drug prohibition, more than eighty years of stupid laws. Nearly fifty million arrests. Our eternal support of terrorist cartels and gangs, we've given them fifteen trillion dollars. My lord, domestic spending has been about three trillion for criminal justice and demonization and pretense and postulation and pontification.

And now, they want to slowly, ever so slowly, maybe another eighty years, unwind the rationale of drug war with this hemp bill and the First Step bill they took.

Drug prohibition, it's a ludicrous concept that pretended we can rid the world of certain plant products, undo the law of supply and demand, protect the children and just say no. So yeah, there is a reason they don't want to mention hemp, just as there's no politician on planet earth who wants to come on this radio show to defend the drug war. It cannot be done.

And what they did to hemp was way past irrational, and wrongheaded. It was stupid, and they know it. Same holds true for every aspect of the drug war. There never was, there is not now, and there never will be any benefit to it whatsoever.

Undoing a century of lies will be tough for these poor, ignorant, bassackward politicians, but I say tough. Time's up on your devious, demented, god damned evil ways. End this drug war.

Quit pussyfooting. Quit stalling. Just pull the plug and end this god damned drug war. History will not be kind, you bastards.

All right, here's another song from twenty years ago, the band I was with, Shotgun Lobotomy, the song a product of our age.

[music]

DEAN BECKER: So upbeat, so easy to dance to. Here's more editorial.

Carry this wonderful perspective with you. There's nobody on the other side that has any credence, that has any nexus with reality, who can stand the truth of this matter.

So, be bold. You know, I feel able to say this, and to share this with you, that's why I do this, is so you can understand. Hell, I traveled between the walls, kind of like a tunnel, in a prison in Cochabamba, Bolivia, to talk to prisoners, to find out what was up with them, they're living in cells that are eight feet by eight feet by four feet tall. There's no room to even stand.

Be not afraid. You can help end this madness, just with a few words, especially if you talk to one of these politicians, now that the session is starting there in Austin. They know the truth. They know much of it. They kind of walk over it and avoid it, because it's taboo, afraid to lose votes, nah, steer clear.

Don't let them steer clear any more. That's what we've got to do is tell them that we know the truth, you know the truth. Let's deal with this truth. Let's end this madness. Let's stop funding terrorist cartels and gangs. Let's drop that number of overdose deaths by a hundred to one.

Let's take away this enticement to our children to join gangs selling drugs to one another. There's a hundred other reasons I could throw in there, but any one of them should sway the opinion of that politician. And you can do it with a smile on your face, and a heart that shows love, rather than fear.

Because that's what we have to do, is to stop trying to control the people by pretending to go after the substances. It's a diminution of our American and god given rights. It's something that we must protect. It's part of who and what we are, and what we're supposed to be.

These drugs are not that bad. They don't jump up and bite you. We have to actually control the controlled substances.

We don't need to listen to these ignorant, and I say that because these politicians don't read the medical studies, they've got no idea of what they're talking about. Educate yourself. Go in there, own the conversation, and change the direction of this. We, the citizens, own this.

We don't need controlled, we do need to control the substances so we are safe, and then let us decide for ourselves what the hell we want to do with them.

[music]

Every improvement, every retrenchment, in the drug war, every step backwards, every incremental little thing, is wonderful. It's good, it will save lives, it will save futures, save money. And I'm all for it.

But more than that, I'm all for ending the madness. I'm all for recognizing, looking at, examining, making a fresh and scientific and intelligent observation, redetermination, you know, where do we need to go?

I feel blessed. I've spent the last twenty years looking at this one subject. Talking to scientists and doctors and politicians and authors and cops and prosecutors and, oh, coroners, prisoners, patients, a lot of folks. Growers, I think, nah, I left that out.

And I have a very -- and a few drug czars, come to think of it, along the way, you know, some foreign leaders. I think that's worth noting. Some designers of drug programs. The chairman of GW Pharma, selling that Epidiolex, I think it is, now.

And, oh, I've been around. I have a well rounded education, perspective, and for twenty years, I've basically been challenging, the head of the FDA, the DEA, the US Attorney General, the state attorneys general, any and everybody whose opinion, whose authority, is taken as, you know, worthy of respect and endorsement, and I've challenged each and every one of these people to a debate, to stand tall, to show that I'm wrong, that I shouldn't be on the airwaves, I shouldn't have a book, I shouldn't have traveled with leaders from other countries trying to share that knowledge within the United States, a seven thousand mile journey.

I shouldn't have been invited to speak to the European Monitoring Centre on Drugs and Drug Abuse for my perspective, for my understanding of this drug war. I shouldn't have been invited to speak with the drug czar of Portugal.

But I am respected. Just not in the USA.

The point I'm getting at is, these politicians, these people in positions of authority, these so-called leaders and knowledgeable experts, need to have the plug pulled on this drug war. I need to embarrass them. I need to show they are shills, in essence servants of the cartels and the cops.

They are frauds, and it will be easily proven, and that's why they hide from me. I don't have the bluster of InfoWars. I have my soul, I have my intelligence, and I am damned ready for that debate, and I'm hoping that you, listening, will find ways to show your support for what I want to do.

I hope you have trust in me that I'll get it done, because I've certainly been working for that day. I promise, I won't stop until it's over.

All these incremental adjustments? The drug lords' dream fulfilled.

It's time to play Name That Drug By Its Side Effects! Nausea, stomach pain, indigestion, vomiting, constipation, gas, weakness, tired feeling, increased appetite, unpleasant taste, headache, insomnia, unusual dreams, deranged behavior. Time's up! The answer, from Pfizer Laboraties: Chantix, to quit smoking cigarettes.

Fact is, after seventeen years of broadcasting, four years after writing the book that could have swung the cat, progress is at best slower than molasses in December. With a new, recycled Bush type attorney general on the horizon, we may soon be going in reverse.

I am seventy years old, maybe got a decade or two left to go, but fact is, I could croak tomorrow and folks would say I made a nice stab at changing things, that in truth he was good at pointing out the problem, but so inept at changing things.

Online, at the studio, protests, any damn event I go to, folks pat me on the back and thank me for the work I do, and I appreciate that. What eats at me is that most of these same folks are afraid to utilize my advice, to openly proclaim themselves to be drug users, to open the discussion at home, at work, in their churches, in schools.

I understand that with the modern situation, it means a reputation can be destroyed in an instant. And so I hold no grudge. My biggest dream is that someday I win the lottery. Millions of dollars. And then I assemble a dream team comprised of those I consider to be knowledgeable proponents of ending this eternal drug war.

Folks I have met over the years who have dedicated their lives to exposing the fraud and misdirection of this second prohibition.

Folks like Neill Franklin, who heads up LEAP, originally named Law Enforcement Against Prohibition; Ethan Nadelmann, the founder of the Drug Policy Alliance; Paul Armentano, the Deputy Director of NORML, who focuses on weed but knows fully the history and hysteria of the drug war; and importantly I would like to use the services of my ally, Doug McVay, the editor of Drug War Facts.

Next step is to buy a full page in newspapers around the country, challenging the US Attorney General, the leaders of the US Senate and House, along with the head of the ONDCP and DEA, to a national debate. The topic of discussion: the benefits of drug war.

Likely we'd do some warm up debates, challenges in major cities, before the showdown in DC. We can challenge governors, state attorneys general, and major players to a debate in Chicago, San Francisco, Houston, and elsewhere, to defend the policy as well.

Just before the debate in DC, we buy airtime on all the major networks for broadcast around the USA, indicating that if the US Attorney General and the heads of the chosen agencies show for the debate, that we will donate one hundred thousand dollars each to the charities of their choice, and if they all show for the debate, we will double those donations to two hundred thousand dollars each.

Rough guess: The total potential cost would be less than five million dollars, but I expect there will be nobody showing up for the debate, so the cost would be lower by half to a million dollars.

The good part, if they show up, would be that we blast their logic, their whole evil construct, to smithereens, and likely a better solution, they fail to show up. That would expose their whole rotten scheme as evil as the Third Reich.

My dream team will provide powerful, gentlemanly, respectful presentations while I stand ready to rip the heart from any drug war proponent brave enough to defend this eternal misery and death.

It's umpty-million to one that I win the lottery, but George Soros, Elon Musk, or some other billionaire with a conscience could easily make my dream come true and end this eternal war on logic.

That's today's final editorial. Merry Christmas, happy new year. I hope you'll join us on a regular basis in 2019. We're going to be getting back with the cops and the scientists and the authors, and showing you just how easy it is to undo the quote "logic" of these drug warriors, the servants of the cartels and the cops.

Now more than ever, there are drugs that might be in that bag you're purchasing that can kill you in an instant, so I urge you to please, be careful, in 2019.