CULTURAL BAGGAGE

JULY 8, 2016

TRANSCRIPT

DEAN BECKER: Broadcasting on the Drug Truth Network, this is Cultural Baggage.

DR. G. ALAN ROBISON: It is not only inhumane, it is really fundamentally un-American.

CROWD: No more! Drug war! No More! Drug War! No More! Drug War!

DEAN BECKER: My name is Dean Becker. I don't condone or encourage the use of any drugs, legal or illegal. I report the unvarnished truth about the pharmaceutical, banking, prison, and judicial nightmare that feeds on eternal drug war.

Hi, folks, this is Dean Becker. Thank you for being with us on this edition of Cultural Baggage. Got a great show lined up for you. A bit later, we'll hear from Matt Elrod out of Canada about what in the hell's going on up that way. We'll hear from Dr. Sanjay Gupta about the hypocrisy of what's going on in this drug war. But first:

Well, the state of Colorado has a lot of attractions these days. Certain cities have great housing prices, and they have the access to just the nature that this state is chock full of. And there are other reasons that sometimes bring people here, things like the legalization of cannabis. I don't know if that's the rationale used by our next guest, but I'm privileged to be speaking with former Texas House Representative Mr. Ron Waters. Mr. Waters, I want to ask you, you've been living in this state approximately a year, correct?

RON WATERS: Right. Last September.

DEAN BECKER: And, you know, up here, we meet all kinds of people, but there's seniors that are needing cannabis, and I think that's an attraction for a good group of folks. Would you concur?

RON WATERS: Oh, yes. And not just seniors, but children need it, you know, this, cannabis and THC in particular, and a particular form of it, is very helpful to young people who have epilepsy, so, it goes across the age spectrum.

DEAN BECKER: Yes, it does. Now, I want to address Texas with you. We have for decades been one of the most, for lack of a better word, draconian states in regards to our drug policy. Would you agree with me on that, sir?

RON WATERS: Oh, most definitely. We had one of the most draconian drug laws when I ran for the legislature, it was an issue in, you know, my campaigns down there. In that time, you could get life for a -- an average sentence was over 9 years for possession of any amount, even a seed. And we had many cases, political cases, of people serving 99 years for possession of less than a joint, you know, so, it was very draconian, but we did have a brief window in the early 70s, with the reform legislature, that looked at it and didn't go as far as I wanted to with decriminalizing it, and that kind of thing, but at least lowered the penalties to a more practical level, where it's a misdemeanor, you know, for under a certain amount, and that kind of thing. And eventually -- or even considering, and I think this last session of the legislature even passed a very narrow law that allows certain forms of epileptic seizures to be treated by medical marijuana in the state. So it's been a long, slow road, and we had a brief moment of practicality back in the 70s, and hopefully we'll get there again, soon.

DEAN BECKER: Yes sir. Now, I think back, there was an infamous case, a black gentleman showed up at a rally. There were four white men passing a joint. He stepped in, took a hit, and then was charged with distribution. His name was Leotis Johnson.

RON WATERS: That's right.

DEAN BECKER: Sentenced to ten years for passing that joint. We have in Texas now many politicians that are seeing the light, so to speak, but they can't quite speak of what they know, because of reputation, legacy, history of what they had said and done before. How do we break that jinx, Representative Waters?

RON WATERS: I don't know if I know the answer, except to do what you were elected to do and stand up for what's the right thing to do, and all of the knowledge, all of the information, all of the science is on the side of if you were on the opposite side in the past, to change on this, this issue, and there are new information that you could use, besides the financial issues that are involved in legalizing it.

DEAN BECKER: You mentioned financial issues, and that is really a big component of what's going on here in Colorado. There are I think in your city alone 9 cannabis shops selling cannabis. There are, I would imagine, dozens if not scores of mostly young kids with jobs as budtenders and otherwise working for these companies. It is, it's a bonanza for this state, it could be a bonanza for Texas or any other state, could it not?

RON WATERS: Oh yes. This city is a good example of that. This is a wonderful old historical city, Trinidad, and it did not go along with the law when it first was available to them. The city council decided not to allow recreational shops. But they reversed themselves, and they expected to take in a couple hundred thousand dollars the first year, they took in $800,000, and now over a million and a half on an $8 million or $10 million a year budget. This is substantial. It's allowed the city to start renovating there structures, you know, their infrastructures and things that needed to be worked on, and help putting people back to work, besides the new industry, people being drawn to this new industry, so, it has been a boon to this city. A life saver, in many ways.

DEAN BECKER: And, Representative, how many, what's the population of this city?

RON WATERS: Roughly 10,000 people.

DEAN BECKER: So, $800,000 raised for a city of 10,000. That, wow, that could extrapolate huge across Texas, could it not?

RON WATERS: Oh yeah, more like two million, now, out of 10,000 people. But, a lot of that, by the way, is tourist money that comes through here, this is not just a stop anymore for gas and food, but it's the, you know, first place that people can stop and experience that kind of freedom, so it is -- and then they go on, you know, so it's not like they're lingering here and that kind of thing, so, it's been good for this, and it would be as -- much better, on a much bigger scale, in Texas.

DEAN BECKER: I can only imagine, yes, sir. And now, in traveling around Colorado, you know, I do have this sense of freedom. You know, because I've smoked pot for 50 years. I just like the idea that, by god, if I want to, I can smoke a joint and nobody's going to give a dang. And, yet, when I leave, south, across the border, go into New Mexico, I don't have that freedom anymore. What's your thought, sir? I mean, this is America, it's supposed to be about freedom. Why have we clung to this idea that marijuana is the devil's weed?

RON WATERS: Again, you have to ask the people who still cling to it, because there's plenty of new reasons not to. Oh, I think that's just people who haven't come, you know, around on their thinking, but I know the feeling that you're talking about, and I'm having to experience that too when I still go back to Austin, and Texas, so, it is nice to have that open feeling that you get here from doing something that, you know, should be allowed all across the country. In fact, I think someone should question legally. I don't know of any other medicine in this country that you can't get in any other state that you have been prescribed for in another state. If you need your diabetes medicine, and you forgot it at home, and you go to another state, the federal law allows you and interstate commerce requires that they recognize that, and so I think it's a, you know, a good lawsuit, that ought to be filed by people, you know, that look into these things, on that kind of question, you know, because you're denying American citizens the right that they have for medicine in one state to use or get, acquire in another state. And it is their medicine, prescribed by a doctor, and it is legitimate, and it has been scientifically proven, so why is it not allowed to be transferable?

DEAN BECKER: I hear you, sir, and I often think, I don't know, there's so much corruption involved on the illegal side, you know, with the cartels and the gangs and the street corner vendors and all that. But I often wonder how much corruption is on the other side, with the judges, the DAs, the bail bondsmen, the prison builders, et cetera, that want to maintain this because, hell, it's a bonanza for them. Your thought, there, Representative.

RON WATERS: Well, I don't know if I would call it corruption, but it is part of a drug war culture, and system, that has grown up and that a lot of people in this country are dependent on, you know, and, from prisons on down, to law enforcement, local law enforcement, who confiscate property and get to use it for their SWAT teams and stuff like that, so, there is that angle to it.

DEAN BECKER: Yeah. And it's quite a tough one to break. I, many times have asked, you know, people in higher positions, judges in Texas, or district attorneys. I had the police chief come on my show, declared the drug war a miserable failure, but the new police chief, the new sheriff, they won't take my calls. And I guess the question I have for you, sir, is, they probably know the truth too, they're just afraid to speak it. What's your thought, sir?

RON WATERS: Well, I probably agree with you on that. I think that, as I was saying, there's just a system that has come up that is useful to them, and even though they know that it's based on erroneous facts, it still brings in revenue and it brings in jobs, and it brings in stature, and it brings in promotions, and so it's hard to let go of, of that old system. And it's easier to talk about the way it really is when you're not benefiting from it on a daily basis, so, I understand their conflict of interest.

DEAN BECKER: Sure. Well, Representative Waters, here in Trinidad, you know, that freedom is available, it's obvious, the people are -- couldn't care less about marijuana, I guess, is the best way to put it, it's just part of life now, in your city. Am I right?

RON WATERS: Yes, it's really, you know, I hate to mix issues, but people here have discovered, they even, I think, many of those who were reluctant or opposed to it coming here, now see that it has not brought higher crime, all the crime statistics show that all the crime is going down, major crimes are going down, the only small crime issue I've heard that there may be is kids who get stuck here, you know, were hitchhiking, and stop and spend their money here instead of moving on, but, overall, it has been helpful to fighting the crime here.

DEAN BECKER: It allows the police to focus their efforts on the violent people, the ones that do us harm.

RON WATERS: Right. And people here have seen that, and accepted it, and now say, you know, well, it was no big deal, like we thought.

DEAN BECKER: I want to thank you for your time, heck, it's booming so good here. What I'm going to try to take back to Texas, and hope to achieve, is, perhaps you've heard of the LEAD organization, Law Enforcement Assisted Diversion. I want to see if I can't get the police chief, the sheriff, the mayor, the district attorney, to band together and speak a little more accurately in this regard, because I think if there's just that fear of not getting reelected that keeps many of them from telling the truth. Your thought there, sir.

RON WATERS: I agree with you, and I think that's a good first step toward getting people more comfortable with the new reality, the new science, and the new knowledge that's available to them. And I think that they will find their constituents are much, maybe, ahead of them, than they think on this issue. So, be not afraid.

DEAN BECKER: I want to once again thank former Texas Representative Ron Waters for his courage and commitment to change, and I'm serious about wanting to lead the LEAD project in Houston, Law Enforcement Assisted Diversion. If you or your organization would like to take part in making this change, please contact me, dean@drugtruth.net.

It's time to play Name That Drug By Its Side Effects! Dizziness, nausea, chest pain, numbness, tingling, ringing in your ears, irregular heartbeat, shortness of breath with pain spreading to arm and shoulder, loss of vision, painful penis. Time's up! The answer, from Pfizer, Incorporated: Viagra, for erectile dysfunction.

You know, over the years I've depended on a lot of folks within the drug reform community, but one I have absolutely depended on for, hell, over 10 years now, certainly, is an activist up in Vancouver, or near Vancouver, I'll have him explain exactly, but, a man who works in the trenches and on the technical side of this as well, my computer guru, my man who makes it possible for these shows to be distributed around the country, hell, around the world. My friend, Matt Elrod. How you doing, sir?

MATT ELROD: I'm all right, Dean, how are you?

DEAN BECKER: I'm well. Matt, you're in Canada, near Vancouver, correct?

MATT ELROD: That's right. I grew up in Vancouver. I now live just outside Victoria, the capitol of BC, on Vancouver, Island, just across the strait from the mainland.

DEAN BECKER: And, I hear all kinds of things are going on up there. You're going to legalize, but you're still arresting people. People are going to get out of prison but they're still going to prison. What the hell is going on in Canada?

MATT ELROD: It's confusing for everyone. You know, the Trudeau government campaigned on a promise to legalize cannabis, and none of the opposition parties feel it. New Democratic Party had campaigned on a promise to decriminalize cannabis, and not legally regulate, and of course, most cannabis activists were in favor of the first plan, full legalization and not decriminalization. But, you know, the government said that our intention is to form a task force to study the issue for a while, look at what's going on in Colorado and Washington, consult with experts, provincial, municipal, come up with some recommendations, and then last 4/20, our Health Minister announced at a talk she gave to the UN that they intend to introduce their new legislation in the spring of next year.

Calls have been made to them since by the NDP and others to, you know, put a moratorium on arrests for simple possession if not for personal growing, and to maybe also lay off arresting, busting, raiding the dispensaries and the compassion clubs that are operating in a sort of gray zone across the country. But, oddly, the federal government has said, well, we don't want to do that, decriminalization, because that would be a boon to organized crime, and we think legalization is way better than decriminalization. And of course, they're right on the second point, but they're wrong on the first one.

We know that, for jurisdictions that have decriminalized, that it makes no difference whatsoever to the demand, to usage rates, so there's no reason to believe that, you know, not arresting people for possession while we wait for this task force to do its thing and the legislation to make its way through the House and the Senate, to continue to arrest people for possession. So, you know, it's an odd thing. I sort of fear that because the opposition party had been calling for it, maybe the ruling party, the Liberals, have decided not to do it just on principle. That is, we wouldn't want us to be seen backing down on this point, even though it's not a justified point to begin with.

What's odd about it is that it could take up to a year to get a court case, so if you happen to get busted with possession next Christmas, odds are you're not going to get a date in court before it's legalized. And as I recall, when I-502 passed in Washington state, just when it passed that November, it called for the government to have one year to implement legalization as described in I-502. Nonetheless, the prosecutors in Washington state dropped all their pending cases of possession right on the spot, seeing the futility of it. And, there are several mechanisms by which we could decriminalize very quickly and very easily. They could, for example, just remove the possession offense from our Controlled Drugs and Substances Act with a stroke of a pen. Or, they could, as they have in the states, instruct prosecutors across the land to stop prosecuting possession cases. And if they did that, the police would obviously follow suit because what's the point in busting people for possession if prosecutors aren't going to follow through with charges?

DEAN BECKER: It's a real conundrum. I don't know, it's the desire of those in power who have had that power to arrest and convict and jail. It's hard for them to break that cycle, their belief in the process. Am I right?

MATT ELROD: Yeah, I mean, it's what I'm calling the business as usual policy on the part of Ottawa, and, yeah, I think part of it is that they still are under the delusion that the law prohibiting possession is accomplishing something valuable.

DEAN BECKER: Well, yes.

MATT ELROD: That it's somehow suppressing usage rates, and again, there's very little evidence to support that.

DEAN BECKER: And you mentioned they were leery of decrim because it would empower the sellers, the vendors?

MATT ELROD: Their argument that, yeah, it would be a gift to the black market not to criminalize their customers.

DEAN BECKER: I just came from Colorado, and I'm astounded by that logic, because in Colorado, the wholesale price of marijuana is falling and falling, and it's running some people out of the business because the profits are not what they had hoped for. And I would put forward that, you know, as we move into the future, the price will continue to fall the more it is legalized and controlled, because it's just a weed. Your thought there, Matt Elrod.

MATT ELROD: Well, we can hope the price drops. You may be aware of Mark Kleiman, you know, who's one of the most sought-after pundits in the states on this matter, and he's convinced that we need to keep the price of cannabis artificially high to discourage chronic use, and what he calls cannabis use disorder, or marijuana use disorder. The point being that, I guess, teens and chronic consumers are more sensitive to the price. But, I think on balance we should let the price drop through the floor, because the incentive to undermine the regulated market is driven by the high street value, as they call it, and the incentive to, you know, push marijuana, if that's your fear, Kevin Sabet's Big Marijuana 2.0 boogeyman, is all about the motivation to hook kids and get people using large quantities, and all of that incentive comes from the high street values.

Similarly, you know, if we allow people to have a few plants in their back yard, a personal grow, there's the risk that the neighborhood kid is going to rip your grow and sell it, because he can get, whatever, $10 a gram on the street for it. But if that price drops to something more akin to oregano, or parsley, or tomatoes, or, you know, or even a fraction of what it is now, then that incentive to steal, to do grow rips, because you can flip it quickly on the street for a lot of money, will evaporate.

So I think on balance we should allow the price to drop. And, I don't anticipate that having a large effect on the rates of problematic use or teen use. I mean, what, you know, study after study has shown is that usage rates rise and fall with no statistical relationship to anything we do. And it's a hard thing for governments to accept, but the fact is, usage rates seem to be more driven by fashion, by social customs and mores, than anything the government does. So.

DEAN BECKER: Yeah. Well, the fallacy, the futility of all this, is becoming more obvious to more politicians, but, boy, they sure cling to the ancient hysteria as well, as if it still had some merit. It's puzzling.

MATT ELROD: Yeah, well, I, in a way, I sort of predicted back in the 90s that when we legalize, it would be done by a politician who would stand up and say we really need to hurt the criminals and protect the kids, and that's why we need to legalize. That it wouldn't be a politicians standing up saying, hey, I love pot, it's great stuff, more people should do it. It wouldn't be a pro-pot argument per se, it would be a pro-control argument. And that's exactly what we're seeing out of Trudeau and the Canadian government.

And they just announced the formation of their task force. It has a couple of good people on it, some I'm not so sure about. The head honcho of the task force was formerly in charge of our medical marijuana program, and she made a mess of that, so that's a little discouraging. But again, there are a couple of good people on it, so we'll see how that pans out. But when they announced the task force, they also issued the discussion paper, and they invited all Canadians to give them feedback on their ideas.

And in that discussion paper, they said they were worried about the normalization of marijuana, that they feared normalization would lead to more widespread use, and they pointed out that our tobacco regulations are intended to discourage it, not eliminate tobacco, whereas our alcohol regulations are only intended to reduce the harms associated with alcohol. And they prefer the former for cannabis, and not the latter, and I think one of the first things that we as activists need to do is explain to the task force that they've got that wrong, that normalization is actually a good thing, because, as I mentioned before, it's the social customs and mores that really control, well, prevent use from becoming abuse.

You know, as I said before, I can demonstrate to my kids how to use alcohol responsibly with a glass of wine at the dinner table, but I dare not smoke a joint in front of them because they'll report it to the DARE officer at school. Prohibition drives a wedge between parents and kids, and teachers and students, doctors and patients, police and their communities. By removing prohibition we can allow those social customs and norms to evolve, and I think that more than anything else is what reduces drug related harm.

DEAN BECKER: All right, friends, there you have it, my good friend, my computer guru, and just drug reformer extraordinaire, Mister Matt Elrod. Matt, is there any closing thoughts, a website you might want to point folks toward?

MATT ELROD: Well, your listeners might want to check out drugsense.org, that's the primary website that I work on, and we have a lot of subprojects off of that, such as the Media Awareness Project, our news clipping service, at MAPINC.org, and, yeah, I'd welcome any visitors.

DEAN BECKER: The following segment with marijuana expert Dr. Sanjay Gupta is courtesy CNN.

SANJAY GUPTA, MD: We do tend to have a bit of an ethnocentric point of view when it comes to our science. If it's not U.S.-based science, we often don't pay attention to it. When we say there's no good studies out there, what we're really saying is there's no good studies coming out of brand-name institutions in the United States. There are good studies out there. You go look at some of the literature out of Israel, for example, which is where we spent a lot of time, you'll see some good studies. You'll see good studies even out of England, looking at conditions that people didn't even possibly consider. Spasms, for example, with multiple sclerosis, very challenging to treat. So there's some good data out there. The other part of this is that it's very hard to study a schedule one substance in this country.

If it is a schedule one substance, it is essentially pre-ordained as having no medical benefit. So, it's already called a substance that has no medical benefit, how do you get approval, funding, resources, all that, to study this? And that's been the problem. I think that is absolutely part of the problem, I think people will look at medical marijuana, look at cannabis, and say, this is just a foothold for people who want to legalize this recreationally. That is, there's probably some degree of truth to that, although I think that, you know, when you look at any of these types of situations, and we've looked at all sorts of different medical advancements throughout history, the question is always, are we denying people who could potentially benefit from this something that could help them? I mean, that's the real balance here.

You know, am I willing to deny something that could be beneficial to a population of people because I'm worried about the hypothetical risk of this becoming used recreationally, or becoming legalized recreationally? I don't, I, in all the reporting we've done, I've treated this as a potential medicine. This is a potential medicine that could potentially benefit people, and should be studied like any other medicine.

DEAN BECKER: The end of this madness is just over the horizon. I urge all politicians to get on the right side of this issue. And as as always I remind you, because of prohibition you don't know what's in that bag, please be careful.

To the Drug Truth Network listeners around the world, this is Dean Becker for Cultural Baggage and the unvarnished truth. Cultural Baggage is a production of the Pacific Radio Network. Archives are permanently stored at the James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy. And we are all still tap dancing on the edge of an abyss.