I pledge allegiance to the flag
Of the United States of America
And to the republic for which it stands
One nation… under God and undivisible...
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Broadcasting on the Drug Truth Network, this is Cultural Baggage.
“It’s not only inhumane, it is really fundamentally Un-American.”
“No more! Drug War!” “No more! Drug War!”
“No more! Drug War!” “No more! Drug War!”
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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.
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Oh yes, welcome to this edition of Cultural Baggage. I am Dean Becker. A bit later we’re going to hear from Mister Ethan Nadelmann the Director of the Drug Policy Alliance on this nearing forty year anniversary of this war on drugs.
I am really to have with us, a man of national renown, an author. A couple of his books, Several Ways to Beat Addiction, another, Addiction Proof Your Child and with that I’d like to welcome, Doctor Stanton Peele. Hello, sir.
Doctor Stanton Peele: Dean, how good to be here. Thanks for having me.
Dean Becker: Doctor Peele, We talked a couple of weeks back and the evidence that we’ve been doing this wrong is just getting to be overwhelming, isn’t it?
Doctor Stanton Peele: Uh, what do you mean, Dean?
Dean Becker: Well, every aspect of the Drug War, I suppose, but the way we’re dealing with addiction I think in particular to – you know, too many marijuana users are being called addicts, forced into treatment, taking those beds that others, could perhaps more justifiably use.
Doctor Stanton Peele: Well… perhaps. I guess that’s not the best use of my particular slant on things. Um, the way come to addiction is that … when we view addiction as a disease or an inevitable consequence of any drug.
We have an attitude towards drugs that really runs against the idea that people can be responsible for their own behavior and that we have society organized around individuals who need to take charge of their own bodies and make their own decisions about drugs.
Dean Becker: Right, right and all too often it’s just thrown out of kilter that the impetus or the outrage, if you will, over any kind of drug use is well beyond what is necessary. Correct?
Doctor Stanton Peele: Well… you’re back on that marijuana addiction thing? Is that—
Dean Becker: No sir, I’m saying that adults, on occasion, use drugs. It’s not something to be overly concerned about without, you know, a propensity or a proclivity or whatever to do.
Doctor Stanton Peele: Well, I’m getting at something else, Dean. How do you feel, the idea that addiction causes – the drugs cause a disease called addiction that impacts our willingness to examine our drug laws. You tell me.
Dean Becker: My perception is that i used nearly every drug on the planet in my youth. I was able to walk away from them once I realized I was going to be a father and you know, made the determination that they weren’t for me anymore. Your thought there, sir?
Doctor Stanton Peele: Well that’s an important piece data and I agree with you 100%. We find that remarkable true. And do you know about the Disease Theory of addition? Do you know about AA? Have you ever heard of them, Dean?
Dean Becker: I have, when I quit alcohol, now, almost twenty six years ago. I went Alcoholics Anonymous and I had relatively good luck and the stories being told did help me to get focused on my own problem. Um—
Doctor Stanton Peele: Do you still go to AA? Do you still—
Dean Becker: No, sir. Six months in, I mentioned that I still smoking an occasional bit of marijuana that seemed to help and they said, “Oh, no. You can’t say that here.” And in effect, drove me out of the organization.
Doctor Stanton Peele: So, the good of was that it was helpful to you and the bad of it was that they kicked you the hell out because of behavior that you felt was helpful to you or wasn’t harmful. Is that a good summary?
Dean Becker: Yes, sir.
Doctor Stanton Peele: Why did they insist that not be allowed to smoke marijuana?
Dean Becker: Well, that it was I guess a bad influence on the others. I don’t know, sir.
Doctor Stanton Peele: You don’t know? It’s because they have– Dean, I’m so glad I came on your show.
Dean Becker: (Laughs)
Doctor Stanton Peele: You don’t know about the Disease Theory. They view addicts as being inevitably predisposed to addiction, so, that use of any substance pushes them in that direction and when you say, “Well, I just don’t have a problem with marijuana. I’m worried about my alcohol use.”
They say, “No can do,” they deny your experience in favor of their vision of the world. Their vision of the world also runs against what you said, Well, you cleaned yourself up when you had some children and, you know, life carried on. That’s – do you think that happens very often, Dean?
Dean Becker: I think that happens a lot. I’ve heard similar stories. Yes, sir.
Doctor Stanton Peele: And what do you think AA says about that?
Dean Becker: A rarity, I suppose.
Doctor Stanton Peele: They say it’s an impossibility. They say people can’t look around and say this isn’t working for me or my life is changing and I need, you know, clean up my act.
They say that can’t be done. Do you see how their message counteracts the underlying – it demonizes substances in a way that makes it impossible for us to contemplate how to have a realistic attitude towards drugs and alcohol?
Dean Becker: Sure, almost like a magic spell that can’t be broken, right?
Doctor Stanton Peele: Exactly. Well put. Well put. So, this is very important, Dean. I want you to remember it from here on in.
Dean Becker: Okay.
Doctor Stanton Peele: When we fight drug laws and drug attitudes — I mean, there’s certain things you can do – that we can do based on marijuana, medical marijuana legislation, although, I know that you’re aware that in some states that they’re trying to revoke those.
Dean Becker: Yes.
Doctor Stanton Peele: What’s really crucial are the underlying attitudes towards drugs and alcohol, because you can’t pass laws to change them and if those remain biased or determined by the disease imagery, then we’ll always be swimming upstream. If you know what I mean, don’t you?
Dean Becker: Sure, always battling the fear.
Doctor Stanton Peele: Yeah, in other words if the inherent logic is, “Well, if people drink or take drugs they’re going to become addicted and then can’t control themselves.” Then when you say, “Calm down a little here, a lot of people drink.”
We know that already and you know a rather large number of people that think marijuana, you know, we can’t just keep running scared all the time. We have to think, well, how do people resist or outgrow these problems? If you have this image of this monster that’s totally dominate against or totally overwhelming to people, then you can’t take that calm rational attitude.
Dean Becker: Now, this brings to mind and I don’t know if this is something you want to talk about but in the last week or so, there’s been so much hoopla in the media about Charlie Sheen’s “addiction,” and yet he tested clean. What is your thought about that scenario?
Doctor Stanton Peele: Well naturally, I was very interested when – you know Charlie Sheen has been having trouble with drugs and alcohol for quite a long time, twenty years— whatever he says that he finally got off of AA.
Dean Becker: (Laughs)
Doctor Stanton Peele: He said that was the thing that cleared him up to allow him to get off of drugs. Interesting point of view. Now, he still does seem to be a little kooky. I’m going to have to confess.
Dean Becker: Yeah.
Doctor Stanton Peele: So, I mena, having him as a spokesman again the Disease Theory leaves me a little bit uneasy, if you know what I mean.
Dean Becker: Well.
Doctor Stanton Peele: On the other hand, he is testing negative, which is a good thing – for drugs and alcohol. he does – he says he shows up for work on time and that seems to be true.
So, I’m happy to have his voice out there raising the question, although very often I was on Good Morning America last Saturday, they had a typical addiction expert that came on and sneered at him and said, “Oh, he’s going to cure it on his own. Ha, ha ha. That’s proof.” That he was in denial you see. You’ve got to understand, I hope you’re with me, Dean.
Dean Becker: I am, sir.
Doctor Stanton Peele: That attitude actually reinforces our irrational polices and visions about drugs and alcohol that because if you believe that – I mean, when I look at you, okay, when you quit alcohol because you went to AA but then you smoked marijuana and they sneered at you.
They said you can’t do that and you said, “Well, I really feel that I’m in control of my life here and I’m headed in the right direction” and I got more out of you when you talked about your life that, “I got more that way when I had kids because I’m responsible human being I don’t want to mess my life up and their life up” and they’ll tell you, you can’t do that. They’ll mock you for that and – do you know what word they used when claimed that?
Dean Becker: Some sort of denial, I would suppose.
Doctor Stanton Peele: Right. When you don’t do – when you don’t agree with them and worse when you don’t do, ironically, you did stay out of trouble with substances. So, you might think they’d say, “We’re proud of you,” or you might think they’d say, “We changed our minds.”
Doctor Stanton Peele: Did people in AA do that, Dean?
Dean Becker: No. (Laughs) Not to my knowledge.
Doctor Stanton Peele: Why not? You know about AA. You’ve been to AA.
Dean Becker: Well, it’s a framework from which one just can’t deviate.
Doctor Stanton Peele: Right. They have a thing, right – you put it so well, I couldn’t have said it better, Dean.
Dean Becker: I wanted to bring this up that, you know, I had my problems with alcohol and it complicated my life.
Doctor Stanton Peele: That’s why we like you.
Dean Becker: (Laughs)
Doctor Stanton Peele: We want somebody who has had problems with substances that can still get their head around it. Go ahead.
Dean Becker: Well, I was going to say I got busted I hesitate to say this, thirteen times back in my youth. Nine times for being drunk with drugs in my pocket of course they always focused on the drugs. They forgot about the alcohol, once they found the little bag if whatever.
Doctor Stanton Peele: So, you are going tell me we are more rational about the drugs than we are about the alcohol.
Dean Becker: (Laughs) No. No, what I’m saying is that it was an irrational fear, you know, a couple of miles over the speed limit or in some cases, just driving while young—
Doctor Stanton Peele: Well.
Dean Becker: Which was the case back in my youth.
Doctor Stanton Peele: Well, you’re not going to get me to go there with you, Dean. I mean, in other words, their concept is that we don’t while young people driving while drunk because that’s a fairly risky behavior. So, what’s the answer to that?
Dean Becker: Well—
Doctor Stanton Peele: We could raise the drinking age and then make sure that nobody ever. What was? What was – were you an underage drinker in some of these events?
Dean Becker: No, actually I didn’t drink until I was aged twenty five. My marriage broke up and I thought, “Well, I’ve got to drink.” (Laughs)
Doctor Stanton Peele: Interesting concept, what background did you come from religious-wise?
Dean Becker: Uh, you know, Disciples of Christ, you know.
Doctor Stanton Peele: Did they abstain from alcohol?
Dean Becker: No, The truth of it sir, in my youth, I liked marijuana and LSD and even speed. Alcohol seemed like an old man’s thing to me, once I had that.
Doctor Stanton Peele: What do you teach your children about alcohol?
Dean Becker: That it’s just ugly stuff. It’s just to be avoided.
Doctor Stanton Peele: Is that sort of what you learned in the disciples?
Dean Becker: I don’t remember that far back, what I was trying to—
Doctor Stanton Peele: Why didn’t you drink until you were twenty five?
Dean Becker: Because I enjoyed the other drugs so much more.
Doctor Stanton Peele: Well, you’re an interesting case; I’ve got to admit, Dean. So, you think it’s a good policy, you, who wants to revise our attitudes and regulations about drugs, you think it’s a good policy to tell your children that alcohol is ugly stuff and they should stay away from it? That strikes you as a good and sensible approach?
Dean Becker: Well, it’s to be recognized as a potential for great harm is what – mostly what I teach them. Yes, sir.
Doctor Stanton Peele: And how do you teach them about drugs?
Dean Becker: For the most part, I haven’t taught them. They learned on their own.
Doctor Stanton Peele: Dean, you’re useless. You’re a guy on radio that wants to revise drug policies—
Dean Becker: What?
Doctor Stanton Peele: And you teach kids that alcohol is something to be feared and you don’t tell them anything about drugs? We’re not going to change of our attitudes, if everybody’s like you.
Dean Becker: Well, the fact of the matter is, when my kids were growing up, I wasn’t on radio, I wasn’t doing any reform work and they’re older now. So, we didn’t—
Doctor Stanton Peele: How old are they now?
Dean Becker: Thirty five down to twenty eight, at this point.
Doctor Stanton Peele: How many do you have?
Dean Becker: Three boys.
Doctor Stanton Peele: How do they drink?
Dean Becker: Um, to some degree. I think they have binges, like all kids of that age, they tend to—
Doctor Stanton Peele: So, you produced three binge drinkers?
Dean Becker: (Laughs) I guess I did. Yes, sir.
Doctor Stanton Peele: Dean, so let’s review, okay?
Dean Becker: Okay.
Doctor Stanton Peele: You had a negative attitude towards alcohol. You taught your kids a negative attitude towards alcohol and all three became binge drinkers. Does that sound like a good policy to you?
Dean Becker: No, sir.
Doctor Stanton Peele: And what do you think would be a more sensible way? Let’s jump ahead. You probably figured that somewhere along the road, they were going to drink alcohol. Didn’t you?
Dean Becker: Yeah.
Doctor Stanton Peele: With a lot of them, that’s basically the way it works out. Then the question becomes: how will they learn to drink? And what was your answer to that question?
Dean Becker: Well, I think for the youngest, well actually, for the oldest one too, they had the chance to observe the mayhem of alcohol, as they were growing up between me and my first wife and me and my second wife. There was, well—
Doctor Stanton Peele: Dean, that’s not a good educational technique. I’m sorry to tell you.
Dean Becker: No, sir. I agree that is why I have, since that point in time, tried not to say, “You can’t drink,” or “I won’t allow it. I think it is horrible.” I just try to recount the horrors that it has inflicted in my life and what I have observed.
Doctor Stanton Peele: Well, you seem pretty close to getting – well, how about you’re telling – how does that work for you? You’re telling me it didn’t work. You see, when you just say negative things. Aren’t you a lot like the Drug War?
Dean Becker: (Laughs)
Doctor Stanton Peele: Isn’t there approved education about drugs to get on the schools and say, “This is marijuana.” I went to the drug education night at my neighboring school and this is a story that a DARE officer told.
“A kid and his girlfriend took some marijuana and they didn’t realize that it was laced with horse tranquilizer and then they were walking along and his girlfriend freaked out. So, he rushed over to a patio to get help and get the police and he smashed his hands through the patio window and he bled to death.”
Dean Becker: Hm.
Doctor Stanton Peele: That’s a typical DARE story. So, they think that makes sense. And I know you would think that’s—you know that’s idiotic what he said, right Dean?
Dean Becker: Well, I preach for moderation. I ask for moderation. Is what I do. I don’t say—
Doctor Stanton Peele: Oh, you’re changing your story, Dean.
Dean Becker: When they reaching eighteen to twenty-one—
Doctor Stanton Peele: That’s what you’d tell me, if I were a— it’s a little late when they’re eighteen, Dean. I’ve got bad news for you. You know a lot of kids drink before that. Okay, tell me what you would tell me if I was you’re—if you were raising this child right now, about alcohol. What would you say to him?
Dean Becker: Well, that a lot of these ads on television are not what you think they should be. Miller Light is not the “elixir of life” and it’s something that—
Doctor Stanton Peele: You’re so negative towards – you’re a perfect example of drug policy, Dean. I hate to tell you this.
Dean Becker: (Laughs)
Doctor Stanton Peele: You’re so negative. You say, “We’ve got to be more rational about substances. We’ve got to think more clearly about them but I’ll ever say about alcohol is negative things.”
Dean, I want you – you know what – at the beginning of this show. You said you “don’t endorse anybody to take any substance illegal or illicit.” Do you know that the dietary – you know how the government is against drugs and they’re really been against alcohol, quite — you heard of prohibition, Dean?
Dean Becker: Yeah, I’ve heard of it.
Doctor Stanton Peele: Do you know the US dietary guidelines for America says something unbelievable in the 2010 edition that came out just last month? People who drink alcohol more moderately live more than abstainers.
Dean Becker: Well, they don’t have a liver like mine. (Laughs) So, I’m not so sure about that one.
Doctor Stanton Peele: Dean?
Dean Becker: Yeah?
Doctor Stanton Peele: You’re like a guy— see you’re like a disease guy. I had – they come to schools. Have you ever seen them, Dean? They come to schools, “You should never drink or take drugs. I took drugs and look what happened to me! I killed my dog! I broke my car!”
Dean Becker: (Laughs)
Doctor Stanton Peele: You’re just like them, Dean!
Dean Becker: (Laughs)
Doctor Stanton Peele: In other words, you’re a temperance lecturer, “This is what happened to me, therefore the substances are bad.”
Dean Becker: Well, it was not the alcohol it was the speed that messed with my liver, to be honest with you, sir. But—
Doctor Stanton Peele: Well, alright.
Dean Becker: But—
Doctor Stanton Peele: Well, the problem is here is that there are three things that you’re doing wrong. You know Dean, you come on the radio and I hate to tell you this Dean, but it’s just my nature.
Dean Becker: (Laughs)
Doctor Stanton Peele: You’re doing three things that prolong and exacerbate the things that you claim that you’re against. Do you want me to tell you what the three things are?
Dean Becker: Please do.
Doctor Stanton Peele: You say well, “Drugs should be looked at more rationally but alcohol, that’s evil.” So, you make a distinction between alcohol and drugs and if you come down on alcohol and that’s like, that will make it more like – people will be more about drugs because they – alcohol is tolerated and drugs aren’t. So, that’s the first than that you’re doing wrong.
The second thing that you’re doing wrong is that you’re only – your attitude towards how to educate people about substances, in the case of alcohol, is to say negative things about it, which is just like Drug Free America. You’re – you can go, you can be like Chris Farley and go up as a motivational lecturers and say, “Don’t do substances look at what they did to me!”
The third way in which you’ve gone wrong, that despite the fact that your approach and your attitudes created sons that are binge drinkers, you’re unrepentant. You still have the same exact approach. You say, “You know, that almost proves what I said about alcohol. I told them not to use it. I told them how dangerous it was and look! They became binge drinkers.”
So, your approach, your show which you claim is trying to rev up, revoke, revise and maybe even revolutionize American’s attitudes towards drugs and alcohol, you’re actually digging a deeper hole, Dean.
Dean Becker: You’re absolutely right and I tell you what, I stand severely chastised. I’m hoping we can continue this again in the very near future, because maybe I—
Doctor Stanton Peele: There’s just one question I want you to ask Ethan Nadelmann.
Dean Becker: Alright.
Doctor Stanton Peele: Ethan, you expect that people who are diseased proponents are going to jump on your band wagon about legalizing or decriminalizing certain substances.
Dean always— Ethan likes to brag about how people like William Cope Myers, uh, William Cope, uh – what’s that guy from Hazelden? What’s his last? Moyers. William Cope Moyers has really cooled and is ready to join in and he’s a big deal at Hazelden Treatment program.
He came out against marijuana and you know why? He’s an ex-addict. Don’t you see how 100% logical that is? Because of that,“well, look how much it hurt me I couldn’t control it, therefore I want you to keep it restricted.” So, I want you – all the things that I’ve been talking about, I want you to present to Ethan. Do you hear me?
Dean Becker: I will, I actually –
Doctor Stanton Peele: I’m going to come back and I’m going to haunt you in you sleep, Dean. Do you hear me?
Dean Becker: No, you come back on the show soon and we will continue this.
Doctor Stanton Peele: Bye, bye Buddy.
Dean Becker: Okay, thank you. That was Doctor Stanton Peele, author of Addiction Proof Your Child, Seven Tools to Beat Addiction and Love and Addiction.
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(Game show music)
It’s time to play: Name That Drug by Its Side Effects.
Body odor, headaches, thinning hairline, decreased sex drive, depression, mood disturbances, agitation, high blood pressure, severe anxiety and rage, kidney and liver disease, suicidal thoughts, rape, murder and war. Nearly 50% of the world’s population produces large amounts of this drug and seeks to inject into the remaining population.
(Gong)
Time’s up!
The answer: Testosterone. It’s in the bag.
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Dean Becker: We’re speaking with Mister Ethan Nadelmann. He’s the Executive Director of the Drug Policy Alliance. We caught him in an airport on one of his many junkets on behalf of common sense, if you will, in this Drug War. Ethan, where are you at now?
Ethan Nadelmann: Well, I’ll tell you Dean, I’ve just been in California and in San Francisco and in Denver, Colorado. In both places, they engaged in planning with potential ballot initiatives in 2012 to try and push forward our ending marijuana prohibition in each of those states.
Dean Becker: Well Ethan, it seems that the major media, if you will, is beginning to get it and is beginning to fully explore this policy and to put forward ideas and alternatives. The Seattle Times has been featuring an ongoing series of op-eds and editorials calling for an outright legalization of marijuana, correct?
Ethan Nadelmann: Well, that’s right. I mean, in Seattle it was very interesting. They just hammered it home with four of five op-eds and editorials and the Drug Czar responded. I think he’s flying out there. Remember, that’s where he was police chief was before he became Drug Czar, to they and derail that. It is true.
You see more and more of the big city newspapers stepping out on this issue. We’re not at the point yet where the [New York ]Times or the Washington Post has come out or the LA Times is ready to do it but I think they’re sort of waiting for the others to test the waters before maybe they go there themselves.
Dean Becker: Now, probably the story of today is that President Felipe Calderón of Mexico has come to Washington DC to meet with President Obama. They both said that legalization is a legitimate subject to discuss but the thought is: Will they? What do you think?
Ethan Nadelmann: Well, I don’t think they did. I don’t think they’re going to. They both said it with some reluctance when they were both pressed by a questioner. I think the value of each of them saying that is that it opened up some running room for people to say, “Look, this debate is now legitimate, “and it made it that much harder for people like the US Drug Czar, Gil Kerlikowske, or the Mexican equivalent to say, “We’re not going to talk about it.”
It’s a lot harder to say that when your President has explicitly said it that it was a legitimate subject of debate. With that said, I think that either one of them knows that if they were ever quoted expressing sympathy for legalization or even really openly promoting it that it would be front page news and it’s not thesort of news that they would want today.
On the other hand, I think they also sort of know that their basically like the proverbial cat chasing it’s the tail when it comes to cracking down on the Drug War. The best they can hope for is sort of a Columbia-like solution, where you get a handle on the large scale violence but meanwhile the drug markets and all that continue and continue to be a major criminal problem.
Dean Becker: Well Ethan, I just spoke with Benny Avni, he’s with The New York Post and he had an op-ed or a column recently, Why Mexico is losing its Drug War and he kind of took the whole scenario to task, did he not?
Ethan Nadelmann: Well. I have to say, I was pleasantly surprised to see Benny Avni’s column with it’s legalization punch line appear in the The New York Post because the The New York Post has been among the worst of the worst. Whereas, the Wall Street, well, it used to be the Wall Street Journal and the The New York Post were among the worst when it came to the editorial page. I’ll tell you when you see The Post run this op-ed with issues very usual to see in their pages, I wonder if that abdicated a little bit opening at The Post, not unlike what we saw at the Wall Street Journal a number of years ago.
Dean Becker: Well, you talked about Kerlikowske, the Seattle Police Chief. We’re going to be talking to Norm Stamper, another Seattle police Chief on the Century of Lies show. We’re also bringing in Mister Charles Minn, who has produced a movie about the situation in Mexico. It’s called Eight Deaths per Day. It’s time to look at this whole scenario isn’t it?
Ethan Nadelmann: Well, sure is and there’s another documentary that is either out or coming out about Juarez just across the border and I should give you a head’s up, later this year I think we’re going to see two spectacular documentaries coming out. One by Brazilian filmmaker and which features former President Cardoso in it an another one is by the filmmaker Eugene Jarecki, who just was getting a lot of attention a couple of weeks ago because he’s the one who did the HBO documentary of Ronald Reagan on the occasion of Ronald Reagan’s hundredth birthday.
So, there’s going to be more and more of this stuff coming out. I think, it’s not going to happen by itself but there is a sense in which mainstream media in which – would gather in momentum and I think we’re getting that much closer to critical a mass. One thing I am sure you will be back on your show talking about it, Dean is this year is the fortieth anniversary of Nixon’s war on drugs. The Drug Policy Alliance is trying and turn this fortieth anniversary of adding up the fatalities and the cost and failures of the last forty years of Drug War, but ultimately getting the critical mass to say, “Enough is enough. Let’s move in a new direction.”
Dean Becker: You mentioned all of those Latin American former presidents and I was surprised just last week the author Carlos Fuentes, very influential, was on Charlie Rose sounding very much like a LEAP [Law Enforcement Against Prohibition] member. Your thoughts?
Ethan Nadelmann: Well, I have to say, Carlos Fuentes has been out there for a number of years. There’s this new Global Commission on Drug Policy which is a successor to the Latin Commission, with commission chairs of three former presidents, Cardoso, Gaviria, and Zedillo, from Brazil, Columbia and Mexico.
Now, there’s a new Global Commission and Carlos Fuentes. I am not sure if it was the Latin American Commission, he is on this Global Commission. He is speaking out together with other leading, you know, another member Mario Vargas Llosa, another Nobel Prize winner and a very respected person. So, the number of people who think this way and the percentage of people who are actually stepping out and saying so publically, just keeps growing.
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Dean Becker: Alright, once again that was Mister Ethan Nadelmann, the Executive Director of the Drug Policy Alliance. Their website is: drugpolicy.org.
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(Sound of a can opener followed by water sounds)
Opening up a can of worms
And going fishing for truth
This is the Drug Truth Network.
drugtruth.net
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Dean Becker: Alright, yeah, I hope you enjoyed the show. I want to thank Ethan Nadelmann for that great discussion. It was prerecorded, so I wasn’t able to ask Doctor Stanton Peele’s question.
I also want to thank Doctor Peele for kind of waking me up. I am a little biased against the use of alcohol. I’ve seen a lot of car wrecks and beating and domestic violence and children neglected because of alcohol use but as he said, alcohol used in moderation is good for you, I guess. I don’t know. It’s almost twenty six years since I put a drop of it into my mouth.
Be sure to tune into this week’s Century of Lies program. Our guest will be Norm Stamper, the former Police Chief of Seattle, Charles Minn producer of a great movie about Eight Deaths per Day in the city of Ciudad Juarez.
You guys have to do your part too. I appreciate you listening but I would appreciate it more if you wrote your Congressman, if speak up around the water cooler, if you would do your part to bring this Drug War crashing to the ground. And as always, I remind you that because of prohibition, you don’t know what’s in that bag. Please be careful.
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To the Drug Truth Network listeners around the world, this is Dean Becker for Cultural Baggage and the Unvarnished Truth.
This show produced at the Pacifica studios of KPFT, Houston.
Drug Truth Network programs are stored at the James A. Baker III Institute for Policy Studies.
Transcript
Transcript
Cultural Baggage / March 06, 2011
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(A child’s voice)
I pledge allegiance to the flag
Of the United States of America
And to the republic for which it stands
One nation… under God and undivisible...
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Broadcasting on the Drug Truth Network, this is Cultural Baggage.
“It’s not only inhumane, it is really fundamentally Un-American.”
“No more! Drug War!” “No more! Drug War!”
“No more! Drug War!” “No more! Drug War!”
-----------------------
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.
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Oh yes, welcome to this edition of Cultural Baggage. I am Dean Becker. A bit later we’re going to hear from Mister Ethan Nadelmann the Director of the Drug Policy Alliance on this nearing forty year anniversary of this war on drugs.
I am really to have with us, a man of national renown, an author. A couple of his books, Several Ways to Beat Addiction, another, Addiction Proof Your Child and with that I’d like to welcome, Doctor Stanton Peele. Hello, sir.
Doctor Stanton Peele: Dean, how good to be here. Thanks for having me.
Dean Becker: Doctor Peele, We talked a couple of weeks back and the evidence that we’ve been doing this wrong is just getting to be overwhelming, isn’t it?
Doctor Stanton Peele: Uh, what do you mean, Dean?
Dean Becker: Well, every aspect of the Drug War, I suppose, but the way we’re dealing with addiction I think in particular to – you know, too many marijuana users are being called addicts, forced into treatment, taking those beds that others, could perhaps more justifiably use.
Doctor Stanton Peele: Well… perhaps. I guess that’s not the best use of my particular slant on things. Um, the way come to addiction is that … when we view addiction as a disease or an inevitable consequence of any drug.
We have an attitude towards drugs that really runs against the idea that people can be responsible for their own behavior and that we have society organized around individuals who need to take charge of their own bodies and make their own decisions about drugs.
Dean Becker: Right, right and all too often it’s just thrown out of kilter that the impetus or the outrage, if you will, over any kind of drug use is well beyond what is necessary. Correct?
Doctor Stanton Peele: Well… you’re back on that marijuana addiction thing? Is that—
Dean Becker: No sir, I’m saying that adults, on occasion, use drugs. It’s not something to be overly concerned about without, you know, a propensity or a proclivity or whatever to do.
Doctor Stanton Peele: Well, I’m getting at something else, Dean. How do you feel, the idea that addiction causes – the drugs cause a disease called addiction that impacts our willingness to examine our drug laws. You tell me.
Dean Becker: My perception is that i used nearly every drug on the planet in my youth. I was able to walk away from them once I realized I was going to be a father and you know, made the determination that they weren’t for me anymore. Your thought there, sir?
Doctor Stanton Peele: Well that’s an important piece data and I agree with you 100%. We find that remarkable true. And do you know about the Disease Theory of addition? Do you know about AA? Have you ever heard of them, Dean?
Dean Becker: I have, when I quit alcohol, now, almost twenty six years ago. I went Alcoholics Anonymous and I had relatively good luck and the stories being told did help me to get focused on my own problem. Um—
Doctor Stanton Peele: Do you still go to AA? Do you still—
Dean Becker: No, sir. Six months in, I mentioned that I still smoking an occasional bit of marijuana that seemed to help and they said, “Oh, no. You can’t say that here.” And in effect, drove me out of the organization.
Doctor Stanton Peele: So, the good of was that it was helpful to you and the bad of it was that they kicked you the hell out because of behavior that you felt was helpful to you or wasn’t harmful. Is that a good summary?
Dean Becker: Yes, sir.
Doctor Stanton Peele: Why did they insist that not be allowed to smoke marijuana?
Dean Becker: Well, that it was I guess a bad influence on the others. I don’t know, sir.
Doctor Stanton Peele: You don’t know? It’s because they have– Dean, I’m so glad I came on your show.
Dean Becker: (Laughs)
Doctor Stanton Peele: You don’t know about the Disease Theory. They view addicts as being inevitably predisposed to addiction, so, that use of any substance pushes them in that direction and when you say, “Well, I just don’t have a problem with marijuana. I’m worried about my alcohol use.”
They say, “No can do,” they deny your experience in favor of their vision of the world. Their vision of the world also runs against what you said, Well, you cleaned yourself up when you had some children and, you know, life carried on. That’s – do you think that happens very often, Dean?
Dean Becker: I think that happens a lot. I’ve heard similar stories. Yes, sir.
Doctor Stanton Peele: And what do you think AA says about that?
Dean Becker: A rarity, I suppose.
Doctor Stanton Peele: They say it’s an impossibility. They say people can’t look around and say this isn’t working for me or my life is changing and I need, you know, clean up my act.
They say that can’t be done. Do you see how their message counteracts the underlying – it demonizes substances in a way that makes it impossible for us to contemplate how to have a realistic attitude towards drugs and alcohol?
Dean Becker: Sure, almost like a magic spell that can’t be broken, right?
Doctor Stanton Peele: Exactly. Well put. Well put. So, this is very important, Dean. I want you to remember it from here on in.
Dean Becker: Okay.
Doctor Stanton Peele: When we fight drug laws and drug attitudes — I mean, there’s certain things you can do – that we can do based on marijuana, medical marijuana legislation, although, I know that you’re aware that in some states that they’re trying to revoke those.
Dean Becker: Yes.
Doctor Stanton Peele: What’s really crucial are the underlying attitudes towards drugs and alcohol, because you can’t pass laws to change them and if those remain biased or determined by the disease imagery, then we’ll always be swimming upstream. If you know what I mean, don’t you?
Dean Becker: Sure, always battling the fear.
Doctor Stanton Peele: Yeah, in other words if the inherent logic is, “Well, if people drink or take drugs they’re going to become addicted and then can’t control themselves.” Then when you say, “Calm down a little here, a lot of people drink.”
We know that already and you know a rather large number of people that think marijuana, you know, we can’t just keep running scared all the time. We have to think, well, how do people resist or outgrow these problems? If you have this image of this monster that’s totally dominate against or totally overwhelming to people, then you can’t take that calm rational attitude.
Dean Becker: Now, this brings to mind and I don’t know if this is something you want to talk about but in the last week or so, there’s been so much hoopla in the media about Charlie Sheen’s “addiction,” and yet he tested clean. What is your thought about that scenario?
Doctor Stanton Peele: Well naturally, I was very interested when – you know Charlie Sheen has been having trouble with drugs and alcohol for quite a long time, twenty years— whatever he says that he finally got off of AA.
Dean Becker: (Laughs)
Doctor Stanton Peele: He said that was the thing that cleared him up to allow him to get off of drugs. Interesting point of view. Now, he still does seem to be a little kooky. I’m going to have to confess.
Dean Becker: Yeah.
Doctor Stanton Peele: So, I mena, having him as a spokesman again the Disease Theory leaves me a little bit uneasy, if you know what I mean.
Dean Becker: Well.
Doctor Stanton Peele: On the other hand, he is testing negative, which is a good thing – for drugs and alcohol. he does – he says he shows up for work on time and that seems to be true.
So, I’m happy to have his voice out there raising the question, although very often I was on Good Morning America last Saturday, they had a typical addiction expert that came on and sneered at him and said, “Oh, he’s going to cure it on his own. Ha, ha ha. That’s proof.” That he was in denial you see. You’ve got to understand, I hope you’re with me, Dean.
Dean Becker: I am, sir.
Doctor Stanton Peele: That attitude actually reinforces our irrational polices and visions about drugs and alcohol that because if you believe that – I mean, when I look at you, okay, when you quit alcohol because you went to AA but then you smoked marijuana and they sneered at you.
They said you can’t do that and you said, “Well, I really feel that I’m in control of my life here and I’m headed in the right direction” and I got more out of you when you talked about your life that, “I got more that way when I had kids because I’m responsible human being I don’t want to mess my life up and their life up” and they’ll tell you, you can’t do that. They’ll mock you for that and – do you know what word they used when claimed that?
Dean Becker: Some sort of denial, I would suppose.
Doctor Stanton Peele: Right. When you don’t do – when you don’t agree with them and worse when you don’t do, ironically, you did stay out of trouble with substances. So, you might think they’d say, “We’re proud of you,” or you might think they’d say, “We changed our minds.”
Doctor Stanton Peele: Did people in AA do that, Dean?
Dean Becker: No. (Laughs) Not to my knowledge.
Doctor Stanton Peele: Why not? You know about AA. You’ve been to AA.
Dean Becker: Well, it’s a framework from which one just can’t deviate.
Doctor Stanton Peele: Right. They have a thing, right – you put it so well, I couldn’t have said it better, Dean.
Dean Becker: I wanted to bring this up that, you know, I had my problems with alcohol and it complicated my life.
Doctor Stanton Peele: That’s why we like you.
Dean Becker: (Laughs)
Doctor Stanton Peele: We want somebody who has had problems with substances that can still get their head around it. Go ahead.
Dean Becker: Well, I was going to say I got busted I hesitate to say this, thirteen times back in my youth. Nine times for being drunk with drugs in my pocket of course they always focused on the drugs. They forgot about the alcohol, once they found the little bag if whatever.
Doctor Stanton Peele: So, you are going tell me we are more rational about the drugs than we are about the alcohol.
Dean Becker: (Laughs) No. No, what I’m saying is that it was an irrational fear, you know, a couple of miles over the speed limit or in some cases, just driving while young—
Doctor Stanton Peele: Well.
Dean Becker: Which was the case back in my youth.
Doctor Stanton Peele: Well, you’re not going to get me to go there with you, Dean. I mean, in other words, their concept is that we don’t while young people driving while drunk because that’s a fairly risky behavior. So, what’s the answer to that?
Dean Becker: Well—
Doctor Stanton Peele: We could raise the drinking age and then make sure that nobody ever. What was? What was – were you an underage drinker in some of these events?
Dean Becker: No, actually I didn’t drink until I was aged twenty five. My marriage broke up and I thought, “Well, I’ve got to drink.” (Laughs)
Doctor Stanton Peele: Interesting concept, what background did you come from religious-wise?
Dean Becker: Uh, you know, Disciples of Christ, you know.
Doctor Stanton Peele: Did they abstain from alcohol?
Dean Becker: No, The truth of it sir, in my youth, I liked marijuana and LSD and even speed. Alcohol seemed like an old man’s thing to me, once I had that.
Doctor Stanton Peele: What do you teach your children about alcohol?
Dean Becker: That it’s just ugly stuff. It’s just to be avoided.
Doctor Stanton Peele: Is that sort of what you learned in the disciples?
Dean Becker: I don’t remember that far back, what I was trying to—
Doctor Stanton Peele: Why didn’t you drink until you were twenty five?
Dean Becker: Because I enjoyed the other drugs so much more.
Doctor Stanton Peele: Well, you’re an interesting case; I’ve got to admit, Dean. So, you think it’s a good policy, you, who wants to revise our attitudes and regulations about drugs, you think it’s a good policy to tell your children that alcohol is ugly stuff and they should stay away from it? That strikes you as a good and sensible approach?
Dean Becker: Well, it’s to be recognized as a potential for great harm is what – mostly what I teach them. Yes, sir.
Doctor Stanton Peele: And how do you teach them about drugs?
Dean Becker: For the most part, I haven’t taught them. They learned on their own.
Doctor Stanton Peele: Dean, you’re useless. You’re a guy on radio that wants to revise drug policies—
Dean Becker: What?
Doctor Stanton Peele: And you teach kids that alcohol is something to be feared and you don’t tell them anything about drugs? We’re not going to change of our attitudes, if everybody’s like you.
Dean Becker: Well, the fact of the matter is, when my kids were growing up, I wasn’t on radio, I wasn’t doing any reform work and they’re older now. So, we didn’t—
Doctor Stanton Peele: How old are they now?
Dean Becker: Thirty five down to twenty eight, at this point.
Doctor Stanton Peele: How many do you have?
Dean Becker: Three boys.
Doctor Stanton Peele: How do they drink?
Dean Becker: Um, to some degree. I think they have binges, like all kids of that age, they tend to—
Doctor Stanton Peele: So, you produced three binge drinkers?
Dean Becker: (Laughs) I guess I did. Yes, sir.
Doctor Stanton Peele: Dean, so let’s review, okay?
Dean Becker: Okay.
Doctor Stanton Peele: You had a negative attitude towards alcohol. You taught your kids a negative attitude towards alcohol and all three became binge drinkers. Does that sound like a good policy to you?
Dean Becker: No, sir.
Doctor Stanton Peele: And what do you think would be a more sensible way? Let’s jump ahead. You probably figured that somewhere along the road, they were going to drink alcohol. Didn’t you?
Dean Becker: Yeah.
Doctor Stanton Peele: With a lot of them, that’s basically the way it works out. Then the question becomes: how will they learn to drink? And what was your answer to that question?
Dean Becker: Well, I think for the youngest, well actually, for the oldest one too, they had the chance to observe the mayhem of alcohol, as they were growing up between me and my first wife and me and my second wife. There was, well—
Doctor Stanton Peele: Dean, that’s not a good educational technique. I’m sorry to tell you.
Dean Becker: No, sir. I agree that is why I have, since that point in time, tried not to say, “You can’t drink,” or “I won’t allow it. I think it is horrible.” I just try to recount the horrors that it has inflicted in my life and what I have observed.
Doctor Stanton Peele: Well, you seem pretty close to getting – well, how about you’re telling – how does that work for you? You’re telling me it didn’t work. You see, when you just say negative things. Aren’t you a lot like the Drug War?
Dean Becker: (Laughs)
Doctor Stanton Peele: Isn’t there approved education about drugs to get on the schools and say, “This is marijuana.” I went to the drug education night at my neighboring school and this is a story that a DARE officer told.
“A kid and his girlfriend took some marijuana and they didn’t realize that it was laced with horse tranquilizer and then they were walking along and his girlfriend freaked out. So, he rushed over to a patio to get help and get the police and he smashed his hands through the patio window and he bled to death.”
Dean Becker: Hm.
Doctor Stanton Peele: That’s a typical DARE story. So, they think that makes sense. And I know you would think that’s—you know that’s idiotic what he said, right Dean?
Dean Becker: Well, I preach for moderation. I ask for moderation. Is what I do. I don’t say—
Doctor Stanton Peele: Oh, you’re changing your story, Dean.
Dean Becker: When they reaching eighteen to twenty-one—
Doctor Stanton Peele: That’s what you’d tell me, if I were a— it’s a little late when they’re eighteen, Dean. I’ve got bad news for you. You know a lot of kids drink before that. Okay, tell me what you would tell me if I was you’re—if you were raising this child right now, about alcohol. What would you say to him?
Dean Becker: Well, that a lot of these ads on television are not what you think they should be. Miller Light is not the “elixir of life” and it’s something that—
Doctor Stanton Peele: You’re so negative towards – you’re a perfect example of drug policy, Dean. I hate to tell you this.
Dean Becker: (Laughs)
Doctor Stanton Peele: You’re so negative. You say, “We’ve got to be more rational about substances. We’ve got to think more clearly about them but I’ll ever say about alcohol is negative things.”
Dean, I want you – you know what – at the beginning of this show. You said you “don’t endorse anybody to take any substance illegal or illicit.” Do you know that the dietary – you know how the government is against drugs and they’re really been against alcohol, quite — you heard of prohibition, Dean?
Dean Becker: Yeah, I’ve heard of it.
Doctor Stanton Peele: Do you know the US dietary guidelines for America says something unbelievable in the 2010 edition that came out just last month? People who drink alcohol more moderately live more than abstainers.
Dean Becker: Well, they don’t have a liver like mine. (Laughs) So, I’m not so sure about that one.
Doctor Stanton Peele: Dean?
Dean Becker: Yeah?
Doctor Stanton Peele: You’re like a guy— see you’re like a disease guy. I had – they come to schools. Have you ever seen them, Dean? They come to schools, “You should never drink or take drugs. I took drugs and look what happened to me! I killed my dog! I broke my car!”
Dean Becker: (Laughs)
Doctor Stanton Peele: You’re just like them, Dean!
Dean Becker: (Laughs)
Doctor Stanton Peele: In other words, you’re a temperance lecturer, “This is what happened to me, therefore the substances are bad.”
Dean Becker: Well, it was not the alcohol it was the speed that messed with my liver, to be honest with you, sir. But—
Doctor Stanton Peele: Well, alright.
Dean Becker: But—
Doctor Stanton Peele: Well, the problem is here is that there are three things that you’re doing wrong. You know Dean, you come on the radio and I hate to tell you this Dean, but it’s just my nature.
Dean Becker: (Laughs)
Doctor Stanton Peele: You’re doing three things that prolong and exacerbate the things that you claim that you’re against. Do you want me to tell you what the three things are?
Dean Becker: Please do.
Doctor Stanton Peele: You say well, “Drugs should be looked at more rationally but alcohol, that’s evil.” So, you make a distinction between alcohol and drugs and if you come down on alcohol and that’s like, that will make it more like – people will be more about drugs because they – alcohol is tolerated and drugs aren’t. So, that’s the first than that you’re doing wrong.
The second thing that you’re doing wrong is that you’re only – your attitude towards how to educate people about substances, in the case of alcohol, is to say negative things about it, which is just like Drug Free America. You’re – you can go, you can be like Chris Farley and go up as a motivational lecturers and say, “Don’t do substances look at what they did to me!”
The third way in which you’ve gone wrong, that despite the fact that your approach and your attitudes created sons that are binge drinkers, you’re unrepentant. You still have the same exact approach. You say, “You know, that almost proves what I said about alcohol. I told them not to use it. I told them how dangerous it was and look! They became binge drinkers.”
So, your approach, your show which you claim is trying to rev up, revoke, revise and maybe even revolutionize American’s attitudes towards drugs and alcohol, you’re actually digging a deeper hole, Dean.
Dean Becker: You’re absolutely right and I tell you what, I stand severely chastised. I’m hoping we can continue this again in the very near future, because maybe I—
Doctor Stanton Peele: There’s just one question I want you to ask Ethan Nadelmann.
Dean Becker: Alright.
Doctor Stanton Peele: Ethan, you expect that people who are diseased proponents are going to jump on your band wagon about legalizing or decriminalizing certain substances.
Dean always— Ethan likes to brag about how people like William Cope Myers, uh, William Cope, uh – what’s that guy from Hazelden? What’s his last? Moyers. William Cope Moyers has really cooled and is ready to join in and he’s a big deal at Hazelden Treatment program.
He came out against marijuana and you know why? He’s an ex-addict. Don’t you see how 100% logical that is? Because of that,“well, look how much it hurt me I couldn’t control it, therefore I want you to keep it restricted.” So, I want you – all the things that I’ve been talking about, I want you to present to Ethan. Do you hear me?
Dean Becker: I will, I actually –
Doctor Stanton Peele: I’m going to come back and I’m going to haunt you in you sleep, Dean. Do you hear me?
Dean Becker: No, you come back on the show soon and we will continue this.
Doctor Stanton Peele: Bye, bye Buddy.
Dean Becker: Okay, thank you. That was Doctor Stanton Peele, author of Addiction Proof Your Child, Seven Tools to Beat Addiction and Love and Addiction.
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(Game show music)
It’s time to play: Name That Drug by Its Side Effects.
Body odor, headaches, thinning hairline, decreased sex drive, depression, mood disturbances, agitation, high blood pressure, severe anxiety and rage, kidney and liver disease, suicidal thoughts, rape, murder and war. Nearly 50% of the world’s population produces large amounts of this drug and seeks to inject into the remaining population.
(Gong)
Time’s up!
The answer: Testosterone. It’s in the bag.
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Dean Becker: We’re speaking with Mister Ethan Nadelmann. He’s the Executive Director of the Drug Policy Alliance. We caught him in an airport on one of his many junkets on behalf of common sense, if you will, in this Drug War. Ethan, where are you at now?
Ethan Nadelmann: Well, I’ll tell you Dean, I’ve just been in California and in San Francisco and in Denver, Colorado. In both places, they engaged in planning with potential ballot initiatives in 2012 to try and push forward our ending marijuana prohibition in each of those states.
Dean Becker: Well Ethan, it seems that the major media, if you will, is beginning to get it and is beginning to fully explore this policy and to put forward ideas and alternatives. The Seattle Times has been featuring an ongoing series of op-eds and editorials calling for an outright legalization of marijuana, correct?
Ethan Nadelmann: Well, that’s right. I mean, in Seattle it was very interesting. They just hammered it home with four of five op-eds and editorials and the Drug Czar responded. I think he’s flying out there. Remember, that’s where he was police chief was before he became Drug Czar, to they and derail that. It is true.
You see more and more of the big city newspapers stepping out on this issue. We’re not at the point yet where the [New York ]Times or the Washington Post has come out or the LA Times is ready to do it but I think they’re sort of waiting for the others to test the waters before maybe they go there themselves.
Dean Becker: Now, probably the story of today is that President Felipe Calderón of Mexico has come to Washington DC to meet with President Obama. They both said that legalization is a legitimate subject to discuss but the thought is: Will they? What do you think?
Ethan Nadelmann: Well, I don’t think they did. I don’t think they’re going to. They both said it with some reluctance when they were both pressed by a questioner. I think the value of each of them saying that is that it opened up some running room for people to say, “Look, this debate is now legitimate, “and it made it that much harder for people like the US Drug Czar, Gil Kerlikowske, or the Mexican equivalent to say, “We’re not going to talk about it.”
It’s a lot harder to say that when your President has explicitly said it that it was a legitimate subject of debate. With that said, I think that either one of them knows that if they were ever quoted expressing sympathy for legalization or even really openly promoting it that it would be front page news and it’s not thesort of news that they would want today.
On the other hand, I think they also sort of know that their basically like the proverbial cat chasing it’s the tail when it comes to cracking down on the Drug War. The best they can hope for is sort of a Columbia-like solution, where you get a handle on the large scale violence but meanwhile the drug markets and all that continue and continue to be a major criminal problem.
Dean Becker: Well Ethan, I just spoke with Benny Avni, he’s with The New York Post and he had an op-ed or a column recently, Why Mexico is losing its Drug War and he kind of took the whole scenario to task, did he not?
Ethan Nadelmann: Well. I have to say, I was pleasantly surprised to see Benny Avni’s column with it’s legalization punch line appear in the The New York Post because the The New York Post has been among the worst of the worst. Whereas, the Wall Street, well, it used to be the Wall Street Journal and the The New York Post were among the worst when it came to the editorial page. I’ll tell you when you see The Post run this op-ed with issues very usual to see in their pages, I wonder if that abdicated a little bit opening at The Post, not unlike what we saw at the Wall Street Journal a number of years ago.
Dean Becker: Well, you talked about Kerlikowske, the Seattle Police Chief. We’re going to be talking to Norm Stamper, another Seattle police Chief on the Century of Lies show. We’re also bringing in Mister Charles Minn, who has produced a movie about the situation in Mexico. It’s called Eight Deaths per Day. It’s time to look at this whole scenario isn’t it?
Ethan Nadelmann: Well, sure is and there’s another documentary that is either out or coming out about Juarez just across the border and I should give you a head’s up, later this year I think we’re going to see two spectacular documentaries coming out. One by Brazilian filmmaker and which features former President Cardoso in it an another one is by the filmmaker Eugene Jarecki, who just was getting a lot of attention a couple of weeks ago because he’s the one who did the HBO documentary of Ronald Reagan on the occasion of Ronald Reagan’s hundredth birthday.
So, there’s going to be more and more of this stuff coming out. I think, it’s not going to happen by itself but there is a sense in which mainstream media in which – would gather in momentum and I think we’re getting that much closer to critical a mass. One thing I am sure you will be back on your show talking about it, Dean is this year is the fortieth anniversary of Nixon’s war on drugs. The Drug Policy Alliance is trying and turn this fortieth anniversary of adding up the fatalities and the cost and failures of the last forty years of Drug War, but ultimately getting the critical mass to say, “Enough is enough. Let’s move in a new direction.”
Dean Becker: You mentioned all of those Latin American former presidents and I was surprised just last week the author Carlos Fuentes, very influential, was on Charlie Rose sounding very much like a LEAP [Law Enforcement Against Prohibition] member. Your thoughts?
Ethan Nadelmann: Well, I have to say, Carlos Fuentes has been out there for a number of years. There’s this new Global Commission on Drug Policy which is a successor to the Latin Commission, with commission chairs of three former presidents, Cardoso, Gaviria, and Zedillo, from Brazil, Columbia and Mexico.
Now, there’s a new Global Commission and Carlos Fuentes. I am not sure if it was the Latin American Commission, he is on this Global Commission. He is speaking out together with other leading, you know, another member Mario Vargas Llosa, another Nobel Prize winner and a very respected person. So, the number of people who think this way and the percentage of people who are actually stepping out and saying so publically, just keeps growing.
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Dean Becker: Alright, once again that was Mister Ethan Nadelmann, the Executive Director of the Drug Policy Alliance. Their website is: drugpolicy.org.
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(Sound of a can opener followed by water sounds)
Opening up a can of worms
And going fishing for truth
This is the Drug Truth Network.
drugtruth.net
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Dean Becker: Alright, yeah, I hope you enjoyed the show. I want to thank Ethan Nadelmann for that great discussion. It was prerecorded, so I wasn’t able to ask Doctor Stanton Peele’s question.
I also want to thank Doctor Peele for kind of waking me up. I am a little biased against the use of alcohol. I’ve seen a lot of car wrecks and beating and domestic violence and children neglected because of alcohol use but as he said, alcohol used in moderation is good for you, I guess. I don’t know. It’s almost twenty six years since I put a drop of it into my mouth.
Be sure to tune into this week’s Century of Lies program. Our guest will be Norm Stamper, the former Police Chief of Seattle, Charles Minn producer of a great movie about Eight Deaths per Day in the city of Ciudad Juarez.
You guys have to do your part too. I appreciate you listening but I would appreciate it more if you wrote your Congressman, if speak up around the water cooler, if you would do your part to bring this Drug War crashing to the ground. And as always, I remind you that because of prohibition, you don’t know what’s in that bag. Please be careful.
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To the Drug Truth Network listeners around the world, this is Dean Becker for Cultural Baggage and the Unvarnished Truth.
This show produced at the Pacifica studios of KPFT, Houston.
Drug Truth Network programs are stored at the James A. Baker III Institute for Policy Studies.
Transcript provided by: Ayn Morgan of www.eigengraupress.com
Tap dancing… on the edge… of an abyss.