TRANSCRIPT

CENTURY OF LIES

JULY 8, 2018

DEAN BECKER: 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.

DOUG MCVAY: Welcome to Century Of Lies. I'm your host Doug McVay, editor of DrugWarFacts.org.

Well, we're going to be speaking with Ngaio Bealum, my friend the comedian, writer, and now a TV star. He has a show on Netflix called Cooking On High. We'll be talking with him about that new show and some other stuff in just a moment. But first ....

On July Sixth, in the United Kingdom's Parliament in the House of Commons, there was a discussion on drug safety testing at music festivals. The question was raised by Member of Parliament for Bristol West Thangam Debbonaire. Here is the Honorable Thangam Debbonaire.

THANGAM DEBBONAIRE, MP: I start by letting all honorable and right honorable Members know that this is not today a debate about legalizing drugs. We could have that debate, but not today.

This is about how we can put safety first, take dangerous substances out of circulation, save lives, make festivals safer and more pleasant places, and probably undermine drug dealers as well, and why would we not want to do that?

In May this year, in Bristol, the much loved annual Love Saves The Day festival came to town. It was sunny, loads of people enjoyed themselves, and nobody died. I believe that this is in part because the festival organizers worked with Avon and Somerset police and with Bristol City Council to ensure that the Loop drug safety testing project, with its trained scientists and their drug counselors, were able to operate on-site.

MARK TAMI: Will the Member give way?

THANGAM DEBBONAIRE: I will happily give way.

MARK TAMI: Thank you, also thank you for giving way. And, she makes the most important point. Nobody died. And if you look at so many other festivals, there are so many young people that are losing their lives.

THANGAM DEBBONAIRE: Indeed, my honorable friend makes exactly the point that I am coming on to, which is the contrast between Love Saves The Day and another festival, was that nobody died in Bristol while at the other festival there was no drug safety testing, and sadly, tragically, two people did die and 15 others were hospitalized.

The Loop operates a model called MAST, multi-agency safety testing, that was developed by Dr Fiona Measham, professor of criminology at Durham University, co-director of the Loop, and I pay tribute to her and to all the people who work with her, and to others who help make this possible, as well as to Love Saves The Day, of course.

JEFF SMITH: [inaudible]

THANGAM DEBBONAIRE: Of course I'll give way.

JEFF SMITH: I'm very grateful to you for giving way, and delighted to join her in paying tribute to Fiona Measham, who is a constituent of mine, and her organization the Loop. And I spoke at their training day recently and I was very struck by the professionalism, the hard work, the dedication, and just how highly trained the scientists and medical practitioners were that do that job on a voluntary basis because they believe it keeps people safe.

THANGAM DEBBONAIRE: Absolutely. My honorable friend makes an excellent point. This is about safety, and it's done with skill and care.

So the Loop introduced multi-agency safety testing to the UK in the summer of 2016. Prior to this, from 2010 onwards, Professor Measham had shadowed academics, police and Home Office scientists who tested drugs on site at festivals primarily for evidential and intelligence purposes.

She saw the value of extending that forensic testing to reduce drug-related harm on site through the provision of front-of-house testing or drug checking, as has happened for decades in other European countries.

So in 2013, the Loop conducted a halfway house testing, whereby some samples of concern were obtained from agencies on site at festivals and nightclubs, and test results were then reported back to all agencies in order to inform their service provision, but also better monitoring local drug markets, which is so important if we're going to protect people.

This went further in 2016 with the introduction of MAST at the Secret Garden Party and Kendal Calling -- and for honorable Members who are not aware, those are festivals -- adding the general public to this information exchange. Although this was the first time that a drug safety testing service was available in the UK at a festival, it was built on evidence from similar services that have been running successfully in the Netherlands, Spain, Switzerland, and Austria for a number of years.

It's a multi-agency collaboration. Small samples -- sorry, samples of substances of concern are provided by on-site agencies such as the security, or the festival organizers, or even the police, or individuals who are intending to consume those substances.

They are given a unique identifier number and they return about half an hour later to get the results of the tests. Those substances are tested by PhD chemists, highly qualified and trained, as my honorable friend has said. They're using four types of forensic analyses, they're linked to a computer database containing a regularly updated reference standard library of all known legal and illegal substances, including the new psychoactive substances, the NPSes, also known as legal highs.

People return with their unique identifier number and are given the test results as part of a 15-minute individually tailored brief intervention by an experienced healthcare worker. Harm reduction information is contextualised with their own medical and drug-using history, as well as the test results.

No drugs are returned to service users. I just want to emphasize this: the service users do not receive drugs back from the Loop. Almost all samples are destroyed during the testing and any leftover particles that are not disposed of by -- any leftover particles are then disposed of by the police at regular intervals throughout the festival. And I have seen the sort of complicated bits of kits they use to ensure that absolutely no one gets their hands on something.

A police presence is welcomed in the Loop lab throughout the day. This allows the Loop to share information and intelligence onsite. That can also help to spread messages about dangerous substances in circulation. But for this to work, the police and local authorities such as Bristol City Council agree to a tolerance zone of non-enforcement just around the testing venue, in and around the testing venue.

SANDY MARTIN: I [inaudible]

THANGAM DEBBONAIRE: I will happily give way.

SANDY MARTIN: I thank my honorable friend for giving way. Does she agree with me, that with drugs at festivals, as with a whole range of issues, taking the attitude that we should just say no, and refuse to acknowledge that there is anything we could or should do apart from that, is abrogating our responsibility to keep our citizens safe?

THANGAM DEBBONAIRE: I thank my honorable Friend for giving way, and I certainly agree that the policy of just say no has got a huge number of limitations, one of them being it doesn't seem to be working. And if we also take the sort of corresponding parallel example of just say no for sexual abstinence, which was promoted as a method of keeping teenagers from pregnancy in America for many years, that has demonstrably failed, and there are similar examples of why it doesn't work for drugs either.

So, allowing the non-enforcement zone just around the testing venue allows service users to engage fully and productively. Drug safety testing does not assist in the supply of drugs or condone or encourage drug use, and I want to reiterate that right now. There is no safe level of consumption of any drug, and that includes the legal ones of alcohol and tobacco. Giving information is what helps make safer choices.

All those who use this service are, by definition, they're already in possession of a substance. Either the drug is not tested, in which case the person concerned will consume that drug probably without any information at all, whatsoever. Or if it is tested, then they may consume it if they have more of the same substance, but with more information about what is in it to make a safer choices; or they may consume a smaller dose than they would have done otherwise; or they may not consume it all.

And in many cases, they will hand in more of the same substance, along with possibly very helpful intelligence for the police and drugs agencies about it.

TONIA ANTONIAZZI: Will my honorable friend give way?

THANGAM DEBBONAIRE: I will happily give way.

TONIA ANTONIAZZI: I thank my honorable friend for giving way, and one of the things that concerns me is, on the streets of our city centers. Would my honorable friend agree that many police forces would actually welcome the opportunity to explore safety testing in city centers across the UK, particularly on student nights out or at weekends, for example?

THANGAM DEBBONAIRE: I thank my honorable friend for that intervention, she's absolutely right. I would dearly love there to be provision in the center of Bristol, in the center of Swansea, in the center of Manchester, drug safety testing so that people who are intending to take substances -- they're going to do this -- can have safety information, make safer choices, and as I've said, often that takes dangerous substances out of circulation and disrupts drug dealers’ business models, and I'm very keen, Mister Deputy Speaker, on disrupting drug dealers' business models.

The Loop usually finds that one in 10 tested substances are not at all what the user thought they were, and unfortunately, substances that they out to be include concrete, boric acid, and various other very unpleasant substances.

One in two of the service users, after hearing about the strength of their sample and its dosage, state that they will take a smaller quantity of that drug in future. One in five dispose of further substances in their possession, and that's so important, Mister Deputy Speaker, taking something dangerous out of circulation that would otherwise otherwise have remained not just in circulation but it would have been consumed.

JEFF SMITH: Would you give way?

THANGAM DEBBONAIRE: Yes, I will happily give way.

JEFF SMITH: I'm very grateful to her, she's been very generous with her time. Does she share my concern that although drug use in this country is relatively static, more or less at the same level, drug deaths are actually rising? And that can only be attributed to an increase in toxicity of those drugs, and this is the information that we need young people to have. If they are going to be taking drugs, we need them to be aware that the drugs they take may be toxic.

THANGAM DEBBONAIRE: Yes, I will happily -- I absolutely agree with what my honorable friend's just said. Drug use is not increasing, but drug-related deaths are. They're the highest they have ever been, according to VolteFace, the campaigning organization, and I find that very troubling, that young people are taking things when they don't know what's in them, and that message of “just say no” is clearly not working. We need to think again about how we keep young people safe.

Now I don't want to go into detail here in the time available about the various aspects of the 1971 Misuse of Drugs Act that I would like to see changed, that's for another day, but clearly, some police forces, local authorities, and festival organizers are finding ways to have a formal agreement and memorandum of understanding about the Loop providing drug safety information. But others are not so clear, and that means that there are people, not just young people, there have been people who've died of drug -- drug-related deaths at festivals who are more my age than some of the younger people, but it's tragic whatever age that happens.

Now whatever -- according to data provided to me by the Loop, one in three people at dance -- at clubs and festivals take illegal drugs, so as my honorable friend, the honorable Member for Gower has said, this is also about clubs and city centers.

One in twenty 16 to 24-year-olds have used MDMA, also sometimes known as ecstasy, in the past year. MDMA is the majority of what we're talking about here, drug safety testing at festivals, 55% of all drugs tested at Love Saves the Day in Bristol were MDMA. But the strength of that MDMA and the potential risks of death and serious harm are rising alarmingly, as my honorable friend from Manchester Withington has said.

This was confirmed by Bristol City Council’s drugs lead, Jody Clark, and again I thank Jody for his pioneering work, his bravery, and his commitment to the safety of young people.

As my honorable friend has said, drug use is not increasing yet drug-related deaths are. But, as I've already said but really need to reiterate, at Love Saves the Day, nobody died.

That same month, at another festival where there was no drug safety testing, there were 15 hospital admissions due to drugs and two young people died, and that's happened at other festivals as well.

In a Bristol nightclub earlier this year, where there is again no drug safety testing currently, there was a death from a Tesla MDMA tablet, and again, others at other clubs at other times across the country. Tesla pills are particularly high-potency, 240 milligrams compared with the current average of 120 milligrams, which compares in turn with the 1990s dosage, which was about 50 to 80 milligrams at an average.

Wouldn't it be better, wouldn't it be better, Mister Deputy Speaker, if we could prevent that harm? If the parents of those young people, and they were mostly young people, never had to hear the words of every parent’s nightmare? Is it really enough just to say “just say no”?

Preaching abstinence, as I've said, in sexual activity as a means of preventing pregnancy demonstrably fails. Preaching abstinence in relation to drug use is also not working, and neither is the advice that I have to say I'm afraid to say I heard a minister give in this chamber last July, that one should never take anything that you can't buy in a high-street chemist.

Well for a start, heroin can and is prescribed in high street chemists under certain circumstances, and indeed consumed. Other very strong, very addictive, very dangerous drugs, such as Tramadol and Fentanyl, are also prescribed in high street chemists. So just saying that what's provided and prescribed in a high street chemist is safe and everything else isn't, this is not helpful information for young people. They can work this stuff out.

And alcohol, entirely legal, is provided in this very place, Mister Deputy Speaker, yet it is deadly for many. It is a leading cause of breast and bowel cancer -- cause, not correlation, Mister Deputy Speaker, a cause, and a contributing factor to violence and depression. But at least with alcohol there is information and regulation. For consumers of illegal substances this does not exist. But people, I believe, would prefer to know what they were consuming rather than not.

And ironically, drug safety testing, such as that the Loop, means that people intending to consume illegal drugs at festivals are given much more safety information and many more informations for referral to treatment than those consuming the legal drug of alcohol at festivals.

Now, drug safety testing -- I would like that to be corrected as well, but that is for another day. Drug safety testing takes dangerous substances out of circulation, it reduces risk, it prevents harm, and it makes festivals and clubs safer and nicer places to be.

All drugs, legal or otherwise, have risks, but people still use them. When they know what is in a substance they are intending to take, this gives them information. And again, this applies whether they are legal or illegal. When an illegal substance is tested a project like the Loop, by trained scientists, they can't get that sample back, as I said, but instead, they get accurate information about drug contents and safety.

Giving everyone clear information about the substances they intend to consume does not make it easier to take illicit substances and nor does it eliminate all risk. Alcohol licensing and labeling still don't prevent all alcohol-related harms. But providing information about illegal drugs can be done within our current laws, the Bristol experience has shown us.

Other police forces, councils and festivals are not clear on how to do this, however, and here the Government can help. There is no need to change or review the law, simply to remove the grey -- to provide clarity on the grey areas that some police forces are finding difficulty with, to provide formal recognition of the status quo, and ensure that all relevant parties -- police forces, festival organizers and local councillors, the licensing bodies -- know this.

I believe that clubs, night clubs, could also be asked to contribute to the drug safety testing in city centers that we wish to see, certainly my colleagues and I wish to see. And that could be a part of their licences that they should work with the police, the council, and drug projects to help save lives and take dangerous substances out of circulation, and I would say, perhaps by contributing to the funding for that as well, also with public health.

In an ideal world, what I would like, and I would like the Minister to consider, is that all licences for such festivals, and if possible all clubs, are only made on condition that there is drug safety testing available, and for licence holders to work with the police, public health, the night time economy, drug treatment and safety organisations to fund and ensure this.

But the Government needs to get behind it, not stand on the side lines, because drug safety testing deserves Government clarity and support. Young people deserve that clarity and support, and the parents of those young people also deserve that clarity and support.

And so I therefore, Mister Deputy Speaker, conclude by asking two, I hope, simple questions for the Minister, which I hope he'll able to answer today, or if not I would be very willing to meet him to discuss them further.

I ask him will he commit to supporting formal recognition that drug safety testing is a matter for local police forces, and that the current system of local memorandums of understanding between the police, the testing organization, the event management and other stakeholders is an appropriate and adequate mechanism for service delivery? And will he issue guidance to that effect?

But also, Mister Deputy Speaker, I ask him if he would consider exploring how this model could be more widely extended, particularly to nightclubs on the weekends, as honorable Members have mentioned, but perhaps elsewhere as well? I know that the legislation may need clarification. It is not my intention today to be prescriptive about how it's done, but my understanding is that existing legislation is sufficient but that there needs to be clarity.

Mister Deputy Speaker, drugs cost lives, legal or otherwise, and information helps save lives. Why would we not provide life-saving information? I say it's time to test. Thank you.

DOUG MCVAY: That was Thangam Debbonaire, Member of Parliament from the Labour Party, speaking in the House of Commons on July Sixth about drug safety testing at music festivals. If only we had members of Congress who had the courage to speak out about their convictions in the same way that members of the UK Parliament do. Hopefully some day soon.

You are listening to Century of Lies. We're a production of the Drug Truth Network for the Pacifica Foundation Radio Network, on the web at DrugTruth.net. I'm your host Doug McVay, editor of DrugWarFacts.org.

Well, I had the chance to speak with my good friend Ngaio Bealum recently. He is a comedian, he's a writer, he's a political activist, and he is a brilliant, brilliant guy and a very good friend. Let's just get to that interview, shall we?

So this new show you've got, Cooking on High.

NGAIO BEALUM: Yeah.

DOUG MCVAY: It's a -- it's a weed cooking show. What --

NGAIO BEALUM: Yeah, it's almost like Chopped with cannabis.

DOUG MCVAY: Okeh, so you -- you are the chronnissuer of the -- ?

NGAIO BEALUM: I am the chronnissuer. I'm the maitre d'ganja. The weedmaster. I introduce the strains that chefs will be using that day, and I talk about the effects and the flavors and the taste, and then I sit in with the judges and the cooks and discuss food and marijuana, which are two of my favorite things.

DOUG MCVAY: And, and so the -- you have a couple of competing chefs. Is it a progressive competition, are people eliminated through the thing, is it just like cook-offs, how does it work?

NGAIO BEALUM: It's like a cook-off. It's a fifteen minute episode, so it's not very long so we don't have to, like, Chopped's an hour long so those guys do three or four different dishes. We don't have very long, so we introduce a theme, maybe it's Mexican food, or fast food, or munchies, or what about breakfast, wake and bacon, and then the chefs -- then we introduce the strain that they're going to use, and the chefs start cooking. And we talk, and joke, and have a good time, and then we eat food, and decide a winner.

DOUG MCVAY: Okeh, so, the judges, where do these folks come from, what kind of judges have you got?

NGAIO BEALUM: They come from a variety of different spots, we have a bunch of comedians, we have a few rappers, and musicians. It's mostly musicians, mostly rappers and comedians, so Ramone Rivas is on the show, he's hilarious. Warm Brew, a hip hop group out of Los Angeles. Mod Sun, a white boy rapper, you heard me, white boy rapper out of LA, is on the show. Holly -- what's her name? -- Holly [sic: Heather] Pasternak is also on the show, she's very funny as well. And just a bunch of different people, we have a variety of folks.

DOUG MCVAY: And, the chefs, where do these folks come from, where are you getting your chefs from?

NGAIO BEALUM: They come from all over. Chef Mike has been a mainstay on Cannabis Planet, which is a show I used to be on, for years and years and years. Andrea Drummer lives in Los Angeles, and she does cannabis infused dinner parties, and she's a great, great chef. Brandon Coates went to the Cordon Bleu, and he's an LA chef. They mostly come from the LA area, because that's where we shot it, but these guys, they're all fantastic. Some of them have even been on Chopped, and other TV shows, and they're all great chefs, and the cooking is very top notch.

DOUG MCVAY: Very cool. I've seen a couple of episodes. Informative, you're going into some of the bits about cannabis, and explaining to folks CBD versus THC. Tell me more about your role.

NGAIO BEALUM: Like I said, so, I'm like the weed professor. So, they introduce the theme, and then I show up with the marijuana, and I'll say something like, this is an Amnesia Haze, full-bodied sativa, it will give you the buzzy effect, it's not known for couch lock. Look for notes of pinene, maybe just a hint of lemon in it, and then we talk about it like that.

DOUG MCVAY: Very cool. Oh, can't forget the host. The host?

NGAIO BEALUM: Josh Leyva.

DOUG MCVAY: That's him.

NGAIO BEALUM: Hilarious, and he's buff. You ever seen that guy with his shirt off? Oh my god. He's a Youtube sensation, he does a lot of sketches and things on Youtube. They got him for the show. He's excellent. Big fan.

DOUG MCVAY: Very cool. Very cool. Yeah, if folks haven't seen it yet, it's Cooking On High, it's on Netflix, and it's funny. And it's very cool. It's not as much food porn as some of the cooking shows, you're not going to see quite as much of the -- you talk more about that one ingredient than the rest, but that's -- there's plenty of food porn out there. This is a different variety.

NGAIO BEALUM: Yeah, you know, in a lot of ways, it's just like a kick back with good cooking. I mean, it's definitely a competition, like, people want to win and everybody cooks hard, but it's not the crazy high-pressure countdown clock. You know, we're all kind of stoned and laid back, so we're all going to get it done, but we're not really going to stress out about it. But the cast do go very hard. It's a really good time. Very funny, very informative, especially if you don't know anything about weed, or even if you know a little bit about weed, we still try to create a good form of edutainment, I guess would be the way to put it.

DOUG MCVAY: Very cool. Well, congratulations again, it's a great show. I'm glad to see you doing it.

NGAIO BEALUM: Thanks, man. I really appreciate it. Please, everybody watch the show. Watch the episodes all the way through because it helps the algorithm. We're trying to get a second season.

DOUG MCVAY: Terrific. Now, while I've got you --

NGAIO BEALUM: Yeah.

DOUG MCVAY: California is --

NGAIO BEALUM: California.

DOUG MCVAY: California is your home, and July First, everybody was supposed to have their shelves cleared of untested -- basically, well, basically everybody had to clear their shelves on July First. What the heck is going on -- what's going on down there?

NGAIO BEALUM: Well, they're trying to make sure that every shop has tested marijuana. Right? Because you don't want anyone smoking marijuana that hasn't been tested, besides the fact that people have been smoking untested marijuana for decades without harmful effects.

I mean, one of the reasons that California's marijuana industry boomed so much in the '70s was the DEA was spraying paraquat on the fields in Mexico and other places, and so California growers didn't want to smoke chemically laced weed, so they started growing more weed up in Humboldt County and all around the state.

But that's the deal, is they -- there's new packaging regulations, is one of the things, right? So, you can't really do it deli style anymore, where you have the big jar of marijuana and you could smell it, and they'd pull out a couple of nugs for your eighth or your gram or whatnot.

So everything has to be prepackaged, and everything has to be tested, and so they didn't want anyone selling any untested marijuana. It's kind of ridiculous, and so, anyone who has any untested marijuana left after July First has to "destroy" it. I say that in quotes, because we all know the best way to destroy marijuana is to place it in your portable incendiary pot eradicator, commonly referred to as a pipe, and burn it, many small bits at a time.

That's probably the best way to do it. And so all the clubs have been scrambling to get their stock back up. Right? Because the -- as you can imagine, all the labs have a backlog, because everyone is trying to get their marijuana on the shelves, and there's not enough labs to deal with all the marijuana that they're trying to get -- or cannabis that they're trying to get into the stores, and so it's been a little bit of a bottleneck, not quite a cluster-f, but definitely a bottleneck and a slowing.

I mean, half of me is really upset, it's ridiculous, I think that the BCC [Bureau of Cannabis Control] has kind of gone out of their way to make everything as difficult as possible. It's almost like they're trying to recreate prohibition through over-regulation, or perhaps making it so that only people with vast amounts of time and money can follow these new strict rules correctly.

And half of me is also like, listen you guys, we're all spoiled now. Right? There's -- you go to a place and if they only have eight different kinds of weed, and you get upset like those guys only had eight different kinds of pot. Hey, man, and I'm sure you know, Doug, when we were younger and the weed man came over, there were two different kinds of weed. There was take it, and there was leave it. And that's all you had, so, I mean, the stores still have marijuana.

They still have, maybe not the bounty that they had before, but if you were paying attention, you -- everybody had a fire sale, man, the clearance sales were crazy. Weed was flying off the shelves prior to July First because everybody was trying to sell off their last inventory before they had to destroy it. So, I mean, there's a yin and a yang, but I think the BCC could be doing a better job.

We don't want to end up like Washington state or Colorado, for crying out loud, we're California.

DOUG MCVAY: So, what other stuff do you have on your radar, what kind of things are happening? I know you're going to be at Hempfest coming up on August 17, 18, and 19, of course, up in Seattle.

NGAIO BEALUM: Yes.

DOUG MCVAY: What else you got going?

NGAIO BEALUM: I'll be there. I'll be at the International Cannabis Business Conference in Portland September 28th and 29th. I have various comedy shows up and down California this month and next. I will be in Nashville at the end of July at Zanies in Nashville, with my good friend Brian Posehn. That will be a fun and stony time.

And just all various other stuff. Find me on the social media, @NGAIO420, and that will put -- you'll be able to keep in touch on Instagram or Twitter or Facebook, and all those other good things. And watch my show on Netflix, Cooking On High!

DOUG MCVAY: Very cool. Again we've been speaking with Ngaio Bealum, he is a comedian, a journalist, an activist, and a brilliant, brilliant guy, and --

NGAIO BEALUM: Oh.

DOUG MCVAY: And I'm proud to call him my friend. When you get up to Portland, we're going to go out and have a, at least a beer, or possibly a coffee. Or possibly both.

NGAIO BEALUM: At least a beer and a coffee, and some weed. We'll just do the holy trinity of soft drugs.

DOUG MCVAY: That works for me.

NGAIO BEALUM: The triumvirate. It's my new favorite word. You've got it, man. It'll be great. All right, thanks a lot, Doug, I'll talk to you soon, man.

DOUG MCVAY: Thank you, Ngaio. Cheers.

NGAIO BEALUM: Take care. Bye.

DOUG MCVAY: Again, that was my interview with Ngaio Bealum. He is a star on a new Netflix TV series called Cooking On High. It's a funny show, and it's entertaining and it's informative. You should check it out.

For now, that's it. You've been listening to Century of Lies. We're a production of the Drug Truth Network for the Pacifica Foundation Radio Network, on the web at DrugTruth.net. I’m your host Doug McVay, editor of DrugWarFacts.org.

The executive producer of the Drug Truth Network is Dean Becker. Drug Truth Network programs are available via podcast, the URLs to subscribe are on the network home page at DrugTruth.net.

The Drug Truth Network is on Facebook, please give its page a like. Drug War Facts is on Facebook too, give its page a like and share it with friends. Remember: Knowledge is power. Follow me on Twitter, I'm @DougMcVay and of course also @DrugPolicyFacts.

We'll be back next week with thirty more minutes of news and information about drug policy reform and the drug war. For now, for the Drug Truth Network, this is Doug McVay saying so long. So long!

For the Drug Truth Network, this is Doug McVay asking you to examine our policy of drug prohibition: the century of lies. Drug Truth Network programs archived at the James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy.