Transcript

Century of Lies: April 15

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DEAN BECKER: The failure of the 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: Hello and welcome to Century of lies. I'm your host Doug McVay editor of drugwarfacts.org. Dr. Mitch. Earleywine is a professor of psychology at the State University of New York in Albany. He's also a widely published researcher and author, he's on The Advisory board for NORML the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws. And he's also the author of Understanding marijuana and the parents guide to marijuana now last week on the show. We featured some material from one of Professor early ones lectures his class on drugs is being held online because the physical classrooms at Suny Albany are all closed due to the shutdown in response to the covid-19 pandemic all his lectures for this semester are being uploaded to his youTube account they can be viewed by anyone. This is a terrific resource that Mitch is making available to the general public and I highly recommend people check them out. Well this week we're going to hear from Mitch. Once again only this time we're going to hear part of an interview that he and I did recently now before any Ado can possibly be furthered.I’ll let Professor Earleywine introduce himself.

DR. MITCH EARLEYWINE: I'm Mitch Earleywine. I wrote the book Understanding Marijuana for Oxford University, press I thought I was Taking an even-handed look at the research literature, and apparently Folks at the office of National Drug control policy said I was Satan and NORML gave me a call and asked me to join the Advisory board, so much for being even-handed. I’ve got a PhD in Clinical Psychology at Indiana University and had a Bachelor's in psychology from Columbia University. And now I'm on the faculty at the University at Albany State University in New York in the clinical psychology program. I run the habits and Lifestyles lab, and we basically study negative Consequences of cannabis use and how they might be misrepresented.

DOUG MCVAY:There is so much that I want to talk to you about. There is so much that you're doing at the lab for instance lets you know, I'm going to go a little bit out of order and because you mentioned it but the huh, tell me about the habits and Lifestyles laboratory.

DR. MITCH EARLEYWINE; Oh we've essentially had grad students focused on cannabis since about oh, 2005 depending upon the interests of the students we look at alleged cognitive deficits so-called addictive potential respiratory illness, some mental health, alleged negative consequences of cannabis and just kind of walk through the relevant literature try to do the studies that are relevant to see if those negative consequences are real or are they a product of poor research design, biases among researchers, biases among NeuroPsych assessors, things like that. And then we also take a look at how the best presentations for minimizing cannabis induced harm or often not the ones that we’re seen out there. So we look at social psychology theories like cognitive dissonance from reactants to show that. Hey guess what? Nobody likes to be told what to do and if you want to help folks minimize their problems in just about any behavior the thing to do is develop a good relationship and let them make choices for themselves rather than wag your finger and try to say what's right.

DOUG MCVAY: Right part of the reason I wanted to start with that is so that we have some context because you are well known as the Weed doc, you know you are an expert on this some in the subject. You didn't start out studying marijuana though. How did you get started on Alcohol and Other Drugs; looking at rather Alcohol and Other Drugs?

DR. MITCH EARLEYWINE: It's kind of a strange narrative and I'm not sure if everybody involved would see it the same way I do but when I was an undergrad at Columbia, I really did want to get into just any psychoactive substance research and one of the guys there was a very intriguing alcohol researcher named Gornstein and I was going to do some neuropsych stuff with alcoholics, but they were two female lab assistants markedly prettier than I was and a bunch of male alcoholics and what a surprise they didn't want to work with me. So I ended up doing a lot of stuff with children with ADHD back then. Attention deficit disorder does kind of covary with alcohol problems later in life. So I made the most of that then got to grad school at Indiana and worked with Richard David Young may his soul rest in peace and got to get a feel for how placebos are administered in the lab and sort of what can we learn about how much of alcohol's effect is really in our own minds. Once I had tenure at USC though. I gotta admit. I felt a lot more brave and ran to the Cannabis literature. I was teaching a course at the time. Where everybody was asking me about cannabis all the time. I had learned a few things in grad school about it and went into that research. I've been lied to for decades. Wrote Understanding Marijuana, brought it back to the class by then they were already interested in ecstasy. So yeah, I realize how capricious and fickle some of that stuff can be but you know really fell in love with not only the plant but the research around it and tried to make the most of that world after being an alcohol researcher from oh the late. 80s to the late 90s.

DOUG MCVAY: and I and part of the reason I wanted to go back there is because well, I just think it's interesting that you have that perspective of looking at other drugs of looking at alcohol and alcoholism and addiction and to go into that, to go into marijuana from there. I just think of course - context now, we're in the midst of the the shutdown because of covid-19. A lot of people are staying at home. Because that's the smart thing to do and you know people are coping in different ways. We have, means, I live in Oregon. So, there's a lot of legal marijuana that's available and those of us who indulge are able to stock up, liquor stores delivered these days out here too. And so people are stocking up on alcohol as well. Illegal drugs are a little trickier, and I'm, I'm wondering. Do you have any thoughts about people coping in the time of covid-19 and the stay home?

DR. EARLEYWINE: Yeah, I don't have a ton of parallels to compare it to but in the in the past Publications on alcohol, at least when we first started having alcohol in a deliverable form folks noted that just having alcohol delivered seem to be not necessarily a symptom of problems

but a high risk marker, so folks who did have alcohol delivered were also more likely to be binge Drinkers and even more likely to report negative consequences of intoxication. With cannabis, we don't have those same data yet. I also note like after 9/11. We saw a big spike after that day in all kinds of problematic use of pretty much anything that could alter Consciousness, cannabis being in some sense the one that had the fewest harmful results. So I kind of wish I did live in a state that had cannabis delivered. I know Nevada, California Oregon places like that. Have you know gotten the chance to have that luxury and I do feel like based on the data available it would be markedly safer than any kind of binge drinking alcohol is really tough drug when it comes to the liver function, even cardiac exposure long term, whereas cannabis, you know, if you're willing to vaporize odds are high you can keep your negative consequences to a minimum particularly if you don't wake and bake.

MCVAY: One of the other reasons I wanted to ask you about alcohol is your course, you're doing that and covid. Um, you're your professor your you're still you're doing your course. I mean, what do you see in the class on drugs? What's the name? What's the title of the class that you're doing?

DR. EARLEYWINE: So formerly it was addictive and compulsive behaviors, the woman who taught it before I got here had got it approved that. I never really changed the name, but informally, we just call it the drug class. It tends to cover pretty much all the psychoactive substances. For the first, you know 4/5 of the semester and then I devote the last 20% or so to all cannabis all the time. I've been accused of sneaking it in just because I want to teach folks research methods and need a motive reading topic and I do have to I do have to confess I make the most of that opportunity to try to train people to be good logical thinkers. But yeah, I do have a YouTube channel and I'm posting those lectures as we go. I'm going to be doing one on psychiatric meds later today and get that posted and you know between April and May I'll probably have just about any topic on cannabis. You’d ever want to learn posted on my YouTube channel.

MCVAY: And these are your, these are your class lectures. I mean these I've been in I've been listening to the I've been listening to you and there I wish I was back in school. And then again, I'm getting, I'm getting the lecture.

DR. EARLEYWINE: Hey I said I'm happy to send it all out for free. I'm grateful. I've won the Chancellor's award for the State University of New York System. I do seem to have something going on that maybe some other lecturers don’t, but more than anything it's that I'm really enthusiastic about these topics and I want to make sure everybody thinks about it from a data perspective rather than whatever they may have learned or not learned in junior high from drug prevention program that may not have any empirical support. So I think of it as public service and I'm delighted for the opportunity. It's a weird silverlining for the covid-19, but why not make it something we could take advantage of.

MCVAY: Well, absolutely, absolutely life gives you lemons, find some water in the pitcher and then make some lemonade. The thing is that, it's the passion that really comes through and what really you’re really excited about, you know, love you, as you know that I have the honor of compiling and editing drugwarfacts.org. It’s a great resource, but the thing is the facts have always supported reform, they've always supported legalization, decriminalization and harm reduction. That's just been true for decades. It's the passion of wanting to actually do something about it, of wanting to pay attention to these things. That's what's needed to make the real change happen and that passion comes through in your lectures. I, just yeah, I'm a fan. I wanted you to know that.

DR. EARLEYWINE: Oh I'm delighted to hear it. I mean I have to admit it's not always effortless to keep fighting this battle and my younger daughter seems to have inherited that sense of justice that can kind of get you in trouble. But truth be told I don't want to just stand idly by while things are so awry and now I've, you know learned enough about psychological theories of persuasion and our own, you know, confirmatory bias is how much we're kind of unwilling to listen to data that are counter to the stereotypes. We've already developed and just doing the best I can to lull folks into an engagement on one topic and hopes of providing as much of an education as I can if that's coming across as enthusiasm. I'm delighted to hear it Doug.Thanks so much.

DOUG MCVAY: You're listening to Century of lies. I'm your host Doug McVay editor of drugwarfacts.org. We're listening to an interview with Professor Mitch Earleywine PhD. He's a professor of psychology at Suny Albany, a widely published researcher and author and an expert on alcohol. Marijuana and Other Drugs will hear more from that in a moment

COMEDIAN: “And nobody cares. There's a secret about the golf course, but the Golf Course is like a little tiny Vegas. You can do pretty much whatever you want. No one ever said even in states where weed isn't legal. No one has ever said **** to me about my incessant use of marijuana whilst on the links and I don't think they would. What would they say? They're gonna go over to the game Marshall. Hey that black guy with dreadlocks has a bag of weed. Yeah. That sounds about right. Right, you got a whiskey and a cigar. I got a blunt, a Diet Coke. It's a beautiful day. We are all having a wonderful time out here. Keep your head down one time. I'm on a link in Sacramento. I got paired up with this random middle-aged white dude, it's me and him on the golf course right around the 3rd hole. It was trying to smooth it out right dial it, in lock it down, right? So I pulled out a fat whoop, I took a couple puffs. I did the neighborly thing. Hey, man, you want a hit? No. Thank you. But do you have any crack? What no sir and might I had I find your presumptuousness somewhat off-putting. Because that's how I talk when I'm mad. I'm very precise.”

MCVAY: The Federal Bureau of Justice statistics recently released its report on the U.S. Jail population, according to the BJS at mid year 2018. There were a total of seven hundred thirty eight thousand four hundred people being held in city and county jails in the US. Now, there are a couple of important points that people need to understand about jails. First only about a third of the people serving time in jail have actually been sentenced or are awaiting sentencing. The other two-thirds are unconvicted. They're in jail awaiting Court action on a current charge or being held for other reasons. So we're confining thousands of people in these unsanitary Petri dishes for no good bloody reason, but that's just the tip of the iceberg loyal listeners will recall that a while back. I interviewed professor John Pfaff from Fordham law school professor Pfaff, of course is the author of “Locked In” the true causes of mass incarceration and how to achieve real Form in that interview. He pointed out that many more people are processed through and held in the nation's jails in the course of a year then are incarcerated in those jails on any one given day. How many you ask? Well according to the Bureau of Justice statistics in 2018 a total of ten-million-six-hundred-seventy-five-thousand-four-hundred 1,675,400 people were admitted to a jail in the United States. According to the BJS jails are used to incarcerate people who Sentenced to terms of a year or less. So how did they process that many people. Well in 2018 on average people spent a total of twenty five point two days in jail. So for some people it's a relatively quick turnaround - days, maybe a few weeks others can spend months even years behind bars and without even getting convicted, you know, it's scary to think that it's taken a deadly pandemic to get people to talk out loud in public. About how we can further reduce the number of people who are stuck behind bars, but what's scarier is that there are still people out there resisting the idea. I mean it's time to stop posturing and to start taking this stuff seriously. We talk all the time about situations being life or death for once that's not an exaggeration and to be clear. I'm not only talking about people who have been arrested on drug charges. There are a lot of people behind bars who shouldn't be. I applaud the Civic leaders, law enforcement leaders and the political leaders who have been speaking out on this and I pray that people hear them.

I know that you hear them because you're listening to Century of Lies, 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 and HealthSystemsFacts.org. I have to climb down off my cross now because they need the wood. So while I'm doing that, let's hear more from that interview. Well, I say interview. I mean it started out as an interview it did but it turned very quickly into an exciting conversation. So let's try that again. Here's more from my conversation with psychology Professor Mitch Earleywine PhD.

Now, I want to for a moment back again to your to the lectures you have up if the the alcoholism lecture, I'm the child of two alcoholics and this is a topic that's of great concern to me and also because in this we’ll keep it topical in the time of covid-19 support groups and treatment. I mean, it's hard right now. Do you have any thoughts, any thoughts about your treatment and support for people with substance use disorders in this time of shut down?

DR. EARLEYWINE: Absolutely it in a time like this what we often see is folks tend to assume similarity. That is if they're at home drinking alone. They think everyone else is too and the beauty of our chance to connect socially, even if physically separated as there are tons and tons of folks who are out there not drinking alcohol in this time of need. I often begin that alcohol lecture with a presentation of the rates of abstinence here in the US about 30 percent of the folks in the U.S.

Either don't drink alcohol or drink it so rarely they can't remember. You know, they all I think I had it on New Years was that last year or the year before and that's a number that can often be quite an eye-opener when you're in front of a few hundred undergraduates as you can imagine and so I do feel like there's a chance to reach out to people and then effort to find the ones who are doing the thing that's not the thing you're doing if it's at all problematic. The data on things like alcohol craving and exercise are pretty compelling right now. So if you just happen to be

sitting on the exercise bike when you're watching Netflix at these times odds are high it's going to pay off in a whole bunch of different ways including reducing any kind of craving you might have for alcohol and then I do note based on some of my own work and some work that folks basically grab these ideas and ran with, the subjective effects of alcohol are really not the same when you're sitting by yourself and are varied depending upon if you are a child of an alcoholic father or your mom and if you have alcoholism in the family, you may be somebody who experiences alcohol is more stimulating than other folks in your house who may see it as sedating. And so this tacit assumption that, oh alcohol is the same for everybody really isn't true.

So I do feel like just because someone's out there making jokes about you know, am I going to join Weight Watchers or AA when this is over doesn't mean you have to get sucked in on either.

MCVAY: That's an important thing too because it's social anxiety is always been a problem for me. I mean really confessional mood today. I was always been a real problem for me and that's the so one would think. Well, where as I'm stuck here at home. I can't go out. I'll be fine because socializing makes me anxious. Except I crave socializing and that's, it's that I want to socialize but I have trouble doing that and therefore the substance, you know, it's a sort of a natural progression. Okay. Well, I can do this and after a little while I'm talking to everybody and embarrassing myself, but let's not even worry about that.

DR. EARLEYWINE: Well, what's that Doug is that at least data from some lab suggest that that's probably an expectancy effect. It's probably a placebo. Rather than a pharmacological one. So I wish I could slip you one of those non-alcoholic beers tell you it's a real one and see if you got more social under the circumstances. There's a important subset of folks who have social anxiety and tend to use cannabis as well as alcohol in an effort to try to combat some of that angst, but I think there are often some tacit cognition some thoughts you have about how social things work that are worthy of challenge in an effort to decrease that anxiety. And if you don't mind I'm happy to get into some of those because the folks who are both anxious and expect certain drugs to decrease that anxiety are the ones who are more likely to use and to use problematically.

MCVAY: If our listeners don't mind, doc. I'm on the couch- talk to me.

DR. EARLEYWINE: Sure. Well, I so far and away one of the most common cognitions and social anxiety is other people think I'm not doing a good job or other people think I'm incompetent in these conversations and although there is certainly a subset of folks who need some of that social skills training need to learn how to take turns with conversation. Learn how to handle eye contact, ask open-ended questions and things like that. You're hardly one of those, man. So I would like to challenge that and also emphasized that you can always check in. If you're having an odd social interaction, you can always say hey man, what's up with you two, you know go to an open-ended question and get the pressure off of you or even say hey. Oh, sorry, if that felt a little weird, as your as your segway and then let the other person respond and almost invariably they offer reassurance and then turn to their favorite topic which is usually their own angst, discomfort and appreciation for you because you called the room you emphasize that this was kind of strange and once you guys get going particularly when you get two topics that you're passionate about Doug the words just flow naturally and make for splendid conversation.

MCVAY: I was gonna say except for the open-ended question part no that was, That's me. I'm glad I faked it and I think that is part of the whole thing is learning how to fake it, that which doesn't and I'm not trying to say I'm not trying to oh, that sounds so bad. Doesn't it?

DR. EARLEYWINE: I mean the point is can I omit the behavior? Right? Can I do the action whether it's comfortable or not? Because truth be told there are things I value in life that are way more important than being comfortable or how we wouldn't be in this business. Right? So why not go ahead and do the action even though it is uncomfortable rather than waiting for it to be comfortable and then do it and this tacit assumption that everybody else is having these social interactions utterly free of distress is really worthy of question odds are high if you're uncomfortable, so is the other person and when you call the room they get to take a sigh of relief.

MCVAY: Yeah, because that is the, that is the problem. I guess that sort of expectations everyone else seems to be doing great. Everyone else seems to handle all this stuff with no trouble. Why am I the only one who has these problems, self-expression or anxiety? And it's, that's not true.

DR. EARLEYWINE: Is it let's just understand what's hilarious is some of the some of the Presentation anxiety so I mean literally if you do a list of phobias and ask people what do they fear? They Fear public speaking more than death, right? Because I mean literally public speaking gets rated higher than death on phobia list. So the point is like if you're going to give a eulogy at a funeral people would rather be in the coffin then give the eulogy like it's nuts. Right and everybody I know who's this stelar presenter invariably has you know upon questioning said, oh, I'm so anxious. I can feel my hands sweating and truth be told this idea that we got to control that or I gotta have these certain thoughts or feel these certain feelings or I can't do it is is really a crack and odds are high if it's something I value if I've got a message I want to get across or if I want to connect to somebody let the sweaty palms be the sweaty palms let the the odd chatter in my head be the add chatter in my head, but go ahead and do the action anyway, and maybe the fear will dissipate maybe it won't but truth be told at the end of the day when I lay my head on that pillow. I can say I did something that mattered to me.

MCVAY: Bottom line. We're not alone.

DR. EARLEYWINE: Not even close.

MCVAY: You'll forgive me if I dobb away a tear here.

DR. EARLEYWINE: Oh, dude it by all means. This is important, important work and I'm glad to be a part of it. I'm honored to be on the call with you.

MCVAY: You're on YouTube. You're on social media. Could you give us some of your social media handles ways to find you online and I want to get some closing thoughts from you.

DR. EARLEYWINE: Oh by all means so everyone is welcome to see my videos on YouTube and if you just search Mitch Earleywine, you'll see a whole bunch of them but a subset of them are really just my channel and I think those are the most focused and in some ways the most organized and easy to learn from the UAlbany website Albany.edu, if you search me you can find both what's up with my lab although My Facebook page, dr. Mitch Earleywine is always looking for fans. That one's more focused on the hallucinogens and links between hallucinogen use and psychopathology. I don't have a ton of room left on my regular Facebook page. But by all means feel free to take a look at that and that one's more cannabis focused and then my book Understanding Marijuana, although it is old is still available any place where you can get a book and I got to admit everything in there is still true. Even though some of the references are decades old. My edited book Pot Politics is also still a very fun read and I also have my edited book for Oxford called Mind-altering Drugs if you want to stretch beyond the world of cannabis. All-in-all. I just feel like as we have these conversations every single one of us can contribute by making sure we spread the word that we're all capable of handling a legal market for psychoactive substances if we're just thoughtful, careful and supportive of others.

MCVAY: Dr. Earleywine I want to thank you very much.

DR. EARLEYWINE: Oh, thank you Doug.

MCVAY: That was an interview with psychology Professor Mitch Earleywine, PHD and noted author and researcher and a member of The Advisory board for the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws. Many thanks to Mitch for all his hard work and for giving so much of his time and for now, that's it. I want to thank you for joining us.

You have 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've been your host Doug McVay editor at Drugwarfacts.org, the Executive producer of the Drug Truth network is Dean Becker. Drug Truth Network programs including this show Century of Lies as well as the flagship show of the drug truth Network Cultural Baggage and of course our daily 420 Drug War News news segments are all available by podcast, the URLs to subscribe run the network homepage at DrugTruth.net. You can follow me on Twitter. I'm @DougMcVay. And of course also @Drugpolicyfacts. We’ll be back in a week with 30 more minutes of news and information about drug policy reform in the failed War on Drugs 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 are kind at the James A Baker III Institute for Public Policy.

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Mitch Earleywine

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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: Hello and welcome to Century of lies. I'm your host Doug McVay editor of drugwarfacts.org on Today's Show part of my conversation with the comedian journalists and activists Ngaoi Bealum, but first, dr. Mitch Earleywine is a professor of psychology at the State University of New York in Albany. He's also a widely published researcher and an author. He's on The Advisory board for NORML the National Organization for the reform of marijuana laws. And he's also the author of understanding marijuana and of the parents guide to marijuana many of you may be familiar with Mitch because of his work on marijuana, but you know Professor Earleywine also has a very Broad and deep knowledge of Substance abuse, addiction, Alcohol and Other Drugs. He teaches a class on drugs at Suny Albany. Now, of course currently schools across the U.S. are physically closed due to the covid-19 pandemic courses are still being taught remotely. Distance learning technology is becoming more widely used which is wonderful and Mitch's drug classes no exception. But what is exceptional is that he's making his lectures available to the public; the content he's producing and posting to his YouTube channel is tremendously interesting. It's informative. It's thought-provoking. I recommend it highly and right now we're going to hear a portion. This is from Professor Mitch Earleywine's class on drugs. The title of this lecture is alcoholism 2.

PROFESSOR MITCH EARLEYWINE: let's take a look at some of the Key activities that are associated with either the 12 steps or the traditions and then see how they relate to some other treatments. We know like behavioral activation. So Key activities literally almost every session of 12-step facilitation focuses on the key notion of getting active. So getting active means going to meetings going to multiple meetings finding a meeting where you eventually feel like you fit in, attending it regularly participating in those meetings, being the person who makes the coffee or you know arranges for things getting active also includes identifying 12-step peers. So you've got folks to also have committed to not using drugs or alcohol finding a sponsor literally getting somebody to commit to having an important kind of relationship with you wear because of some expertise they have their be willing to offer you some guidance and then having some folks talk to having some phone numbers calling the 12-step hotline, Regularly. This is the kind of thing that obviously increases commitment to a sober lifestyle and helps you occupy your day with activities that are essentially incompatible with alcohol consumption. Now when we talked about behavioral activation and when we talk about it again, we talk about depression. This is really just hey, let's make sure I spend my time doing things that are consistent with my values. I don't mean to minimize the spiritual aspects of this and if that is the mechanism we maybe need to find better measures of it, but this is really cool. So whats another level. Well, how about speaking at meetings? There are certain speaker meetings where one or two people are often the key speakers at that time and they go up and sort of tell their tale explaining exactly what happened to them, what they learned or focused on a couple of key steps and how they were instrumental in their recovery. This is really an opportunity to also make a public commitment as we talked about in motivational interviewing and, Oh that stages of change model. What's going to get activity to Really Happen? Well, if I've suddenly told everybody. Hey, I am an alcoholic and by the way, I'm making this public commitment to no longer consume alcohol. That's a pretty impressive kind of public commitment and sets us up for this cognitive dissonance where I no longer going to be able to behave in that way. Without really challenging my beliefs or I have to change my beliefs, what I love about this. Is it really boils down to an intriguing? Quotation that has been attributed to a whole lot of different people but faith without works is dead. It's one thing to say. Oh, yeah. I am making this commitment and I'm going to confess it to myself and a deity that may not be invisible but it's another thing to start walking the walk and as we walk the walk particularly if we take on the identity of someone who is in recovery, we start behaving in that way more and more often and lo and behold as the Days without drinking add up and particularly as we endure challenges without running to alcohol or a drug. This eventually becomes particularly informative and maybe even easier so a few of the 12-step terms that I think in a sense can be translated into behaviorism terms, but really have a nice. Accessibility if you will a certain intuitive appeal that a part of 12-step either Traditions pretty much the Traditions one is including enabling. So anybody who minimizes the negative consequences or facilitates, the drinking of someone else is said to be enabling. So if I know the dean calls me on a Monday and I had my wife answer the phone and say oh Mitch has the flu but really I'm all hungover. We would say she's enabling and that that, the Hallmark of codependency as if that's going to happen in so many ways that you guys know my wife. I do think of the behavioral expression of secondary gain. What does a person get by engaging in this behavior is certainly working on an intriguing set of contingencies and something to look at it from that perspective as well the expression people places and things meaning, who are the folks. Who've been paired with alcohol consumption or drug use, where are the places that have been paired with alcohol use or drug use and what are the things where the couch ramones if you will this is a lot like the Queue reactivity work when we talked about what the opiates were folks would you know shoot up with water or essentially expose themselves to the cues for the drug in an effort to extinguish some of those classically conditioned responses. Truth be told this is not something you want to do on your own and I've told a number of stories where folks kind of inadvertently find themselves in these situations that tend to elicit craving. But if you can identify these and make a relapse prevention plan for running into somebody who used to be when your drinking buddies or eventually ending up near a bar that used to be your hangout that sort of stuff. It's from a cognitive level a great plan. And if you can expose yourself to the idea time and again, and even the spaces under safe circumstances, some of those classically conditioned responses are bounded down. And then the halt expression which is literally hungry, angry, lonely and tired in a sense. These are internal states that have often predicted alcohol consumption in the past. Why not take advantage of that knowledge and either think about this from a cue reactivity perspective or as signs that it's time to, you know, reach out to 12-step buddies or sponsor pray whatever, you know. Being the technique you want I like this because in the sense it's saying let's go ahead and attend to our internal State our own effects etcetera. Whereas people place and things are often a kind of external outside your own body approach fault is really saying hey, we need to learn to attend to our own inner experience and have that be whatever it's going to be. It may not always be pleasant but certainly something I could tolerate and maybe even saver if I let myself, so now if I can have a range of a affect whether it be delighted or depressed can I do that without drinking and under those circumstances take care of myself by intervening when I'm hungry angry lonely or tired in a way that doesn't involve drug use so I don't end up at high risk for relapse, right? Well if you're hungry eat something as we learned in, in, one of my favorite can do any movies if you're angry. Can you work something out? Is there a way to make it a series of requests are you lonesome by all means request some support if you're tired; sleep and it's stunning the number of cognitions we have around each of these. Oh my God, I'm not allowed to eat because -no everybody needs to eat. Oh my God. I'm not allowed to get angry because trust me plenty of things can make you justifiably angry. It doesn't mean you have to behave in a hostile or aggressive way. It just means it's time to intervene. What about being Lonesome? Well, we have individual differences on this. But hey, if you haven't been around folks or if you're around folks in just don't feel connected by all means. Let's talk about building some social skills and making that feeling not only something you can tolerate but something you can intervene with and finally tired this American Butch presentation of oh, I only need five hours of sleep. That's a biological phenomenon. You guys have heard me for celebrate on the love, the Heaven of sleep before so I'll leave that at that. Bottom line is so she'll know these terms for test. If you happen to be taking a test in the class that may or may not be presented related to this material. Those are the definitions your professor might be going for. Curious other set of 12-step terms that I just think are intriguing include moral inventories. These are hard to describe without some sounding judgmental, but they're really about taking a look at pretty much every Behavior. You've ever admitted all you're a prince and saying what were my motivations here? Was this really about genuine contribution or was this some Machiavellian self-gain and if so, what do I want to do about it, building up to essentially one of the steps that's really all about repair. So if I make this inventory and realize inventory and realize hey, there's some folks who I have wronged. I need to get in touch with them and offer to make amends if I can do so in a way that sounds productive and isn't going to essentially create even more trouble why not go ahead and do this. So I like this approach to all of life and got to admit. I have mailed a few checks in my day and made some apologetic calls, and we could all just take a look back at anybody we may have wronged and try to essentially reach out and offer to make amends. What a wonderful approach to life allanon. So if you happen to be related or associated somebody with an alcohol related problem. Is it worth going ahead to connect to that community and talk to those folks and see if they can offer some support and then the slogans as I realize these get minimized and ridiculed frequently, but the method behind the madness and the Delight behind the message is actually pretty intriguing. So the first one is first things first, essentially if I make sobriety less than type priority. What's going to happen odds are high I'm going to increase my probability of at least a laps if not a relapse and the other expression that I don't have on here one drink one drunk. This notion of control drinking is really counter to the disease model. That's Central to the 12-step model. So there isn't going to be a little lapse anything like that should be taken super seriously now my friend stand people who you guys have heard me talk about before has ribbed this whole movement and talked about it as cultish, but I do want to focus on the positive on this at least for now fake it till you make it is unfortunately one of the most misunderstood Expressions, but what we're really saying is act as if you have faith faith will be granted to you, right? If I omit the opperance if I walk the walk even if the chatter inside my head is not consistent. What could possibly go wrong? Right if I don't feel like getting out of bed and staying sober that day and I do it anyway? wow, there's one time when I have challenged a serious set of cognitions dealt with a serious set of negative emotions and in some ways built up some self-control for when these events invariably happen again in the future easy. Does it make you have dose and in parentheses here because that was one of the big Jokes, at least among the real answers was easy dose it but easy does it just means hey, let's make sure consistent with the first things first notion. We take our lives only so seriously, and we only demand reasonable amounts from ourselves each day. I think oh coincidentally if you happen to be dealing with oh a coronavirus and it coronavirus and a national quarantine. It's kind of an American tradition to start sitting outrageous elaborate goals when in fact just getting through this time would be completely delightful and an admirable achievement. There's no need to have to learn a foreign language and master the Ocarina at this time. Right? So let's make sure our goals are reasonable and our expectations for ourselves include plenty of time devoted to self-care and finally turn it over whatever that higher power is and folks who are atheist but you know definitely relish and appreciate nature and the Delights that are inherent in the universe why not appreciate the fact that that is so huge and that my little problems could be turned over to it in a sense. Let me let the reverberations of the Big Bang handle some of this let me let the god I happen to love who I'm praying to when I'm on my knees with my hands as pressed together, handle that and there's an opportunity here to then look upon my problems from more distance treat my own cognitions with a little more flexibility and then behave in ways so that my negative effect isn't a disaster that has to send me towards some kind of negative reinforcement model where I have to consume alcohol.

DOUG MCVAY:You're listening to Century Of Lies. I'm your host Doug McVay. You just heard a portion of a lecture by Professor Mitch Earleywine PhD a psychology professor at Suny Albany and a renowned researcher and author will have part of an interview with Mitch on next week's show Ngaoi Bealum, is a comedian journalists activists good friend and a friend of the show. I caught up with him recently to see how things were going in the shutdown. Here's part of that conversation. What's it like for a for a for a marijuana smoker, down in, down in Cali these days

NGAOI BEALUM:. Well, we're fortunate in that cannabis is considered an essential service so you can find it and I had some stockpiled so I don't really have to leave the house and delivery services will bring it over for you. So that part is not too bad. Of course the challenge of having cannabis and being stuck in the house is you have to ration your snacks because I just found a big chunk a hash and I'm going to smoke part of it, but I know it's going to give me the munchies and not just the munchies the out-of-body experience munchies. And so I have to make sure I have some healthy snacks on hand first and and not eat all the snacks, right, you know, you don't want to kill off all that Honey Nut Cheerios before the end of the of the quarantine.

DOUG MCVAY: That's an aspect that I had never considered but you're right. It's the oh my goodness that a portion control takes on new challenge,

NGAOI BEALUM: right? And you know, what is portion control to a person with the munchies means is that you is that even a thing you just eat to you're not hungry now that can take a minute that could be a whole pizza that could be a pint of ice cream. You never know. You never know what's going to happen. It could be a bunch of Pancakes, the whole loaf of bread.

DOUG MCVAY: There are people who consider it can you know, basically a serving is more like a Boehner so, you know to bottle this is a container it's several glasses.

NGAOI BEALUM: I still have been in Jerry's ice cream where it'll say the Pint will say for is the amount of servings. Nope. I didn't you I've never eaten a fourth of the midi Jerry. I throw the top away. It's not coming back. It's ah, we're gonna eat that whole thing man. That's just how it goes. We're older now. We're a little more responsible. Let me be now we eat half of it. but still he

DOUG MCVAY: and I might actually be the one good thing about the quarantine is I'll drop a couple of the excess pounds that I've put on over the last few, you know, getting old you is the sedentary life thats that,

NGAOI BEALUM: That's the thing. Like I'm more sedentary, you know, I they still let you Golf out here for now. As long as you don't touch anybody. They reconfigured the golf holes. You don't have to touch the flag stick. It just kind of rolls toward the cup and as long as it hits the cup or the flagstick that counts so it's actually improve my score one person to a golf cart and they sanitize all the cards and I carry hand sanitizer with me everywhere I go and I apply Liberally, I handed out to people I throw it on people's faces. Just whatever whatever I think will work. I'm very careful that like careful about these things. But yeah, but yeah, so that's the challenge. I've become a juggler again to so we'll see. Maybe I'll be really good at that again. We'll see how it goes.

DOUG MCVAY: Very cool. Very cool. That Is it, making the productive use and I can imagine I mean we're supposed to remain active. There's some you know, stay indoors stay indoors. But what if you really do only have a small space say a cramped attic room and you just, you know, barely enough space to like, you know stand up and try and do yoga, you know thats tough, right?

NGAOI BEALUM: Yoga, Tai Chi all these things. I guess you could run in place right treat your house like it's a treadmill Pace a lot. I'm a Pacer anywhere, anyway, so he's walking around trying to sit hit your step count in the kitchen in an hour clean your house. That's my advice everybody which I'm not taking to myself do as I say not as I do

DOUG MCVAY: that was part of a conversation with the multimedia Entertainer comedian journalists and activists Ngaio Bealum, you can find him on Twitter and Instagram. He's at Ngaio420. That's at Ngaio420; you're listening to Century of Lies. I'm your host Doug McVay, you know, I was looking through some old files recently looking at old photos and some sound recordings and I found a recording of Ngaio that I thought I'd lost I saw him at Seattle Hempfest back in 2015 doing set and recorded it enjoy.

---- Audio 2015 HempFest ----

NGAOI BEALUM:Let's hear it for New Jersey Weed Man, by the way. Who says people in New Jersey are rude, that was very polite. He brought me a joint and a lighter now. He's going to smoke it for me, right? I will pass through this delicious. Is that a terpenes the listerine, got some purple lean sizzling in there. I can taste the list of reasons that make your breath great. This is great effects of breath. Look at all these old older people. We're all getting old right some of his men here. Here's the thing though. Here's the thing. This is what I noticed we keeps you cute old Stoners are way cuter than old drums. You know, that's what I'm saying. If you do, Jersey- right, Toledo wasn't Toledo window box, George Carlin. Somebody from the old elephant castle. It's the Bellas Fair Bud. Someone swam over the river from Canadia. I don't even know how you get to Canada- practice what everybody's Fancy with the weed now, it's all like, oh, you know everybody like has tasting notes. This delightful train wreck has notes of limonene and Munchies. I don't know people just make, All so crazy who's in charge of naming weed. By the way, do we need we've named Green Crack. Do you want weed that makes you act like crack? That's not cool. Let's change it up Nah man weed after people is also weird. My boy called me up the other day, right? He's like, hey, man, I crossed a white widow with a train wreck. I call it Courtney Love. That joke always kills it Seattle. Oh take your time. Where did he go? There was we named after Charlie Sheen for a minute. Charlie. Sheen is not a weed head. Charlie Stevens a crackhead. Would you smoke weed that makes you act like a crackhead? No, you wouldn't I'm good on the Charlie Sheen. Do you have some Willie Nelson in the back? Perhaps right. Let me get an eighth of the Miles Davis right a half ounces of Jerry Garcia. Right and a couple grams of Snoop because I'm going to a party later and we don't love these hoes. There's Obama kush get you so high you stare off into space like a president. Thank you. We need more minorities in the Cannabis industry by the way. Can you guys work on that? Yeah, you can help me fund my new business. I got a new business we're going to it's a minority staffed cannabis concentrates extraction company- black lives shatter.

I wrote that joke Friday. here I'm hogging somebody I don't want to be that guy right off, weed, the joint and the microphone then I believe that's all right, because I will take your lighter right if I leave the house with three ladders. I come home with three letters. They're not always the same three lighters. You guys don't talk about its conservation of life; lighters are neither created nor destroyed. They just spontaneously generated and liquor stores and Costco's you guys though. I'm getting to that rambly point. See there's probably some hash happened this morning. I just ramble you have a ramp like see I can smoke weed and come out and tell jokes I practice at but has makes me rambley like an old hippie. You know what I mean? You were hanging out with those guys going on, it gets tangential. You know what I mean? You ask them how to make a pie? He'll tell you how to grow a tree. You want my apple pie recipe man. That's great. That's fantastic. We've been friends long enough. I think you're ready. The first ingredient is love. Listen. I know it sounds corny man, but people don't say it enough and everybody acts like it doesn't matter. If you don't start with love is then we're going to taste right? So right there first you start with love and then it's 2 cups of apples. I recommend a cross or a mix of the Fuji and the pink lady the Fuji comes from Japan, Which is interesting. It's one of the older variations that started in because a Christian, which is the birthplace of all apples. I was in Kazakhstan one time after college because I follow the Silk Road on my Vision Quest and it was there and this little hut that I met this cat. I think he was like a cougar r or whoever or whatever but he had this hash. It was all brown and crumbly and delicious and kind of spicy it smell like cinnamon. It's 2 teaspoons of cinnamon. It just went on and on for days and days. let's talk about crust brother. Follow me. I want to show you these seeds I got from my friend Running Bear. I met him at a rainbow Gather in Wyoming a 1982 and we stayed up all night. We did psilocybin mescaline and we hybridize these gluten-free seats, but they keep a flaky crust because the government spiked the food supply and I look what are your intentions with this pot supply of wooing or a pie. It affects the magnets, took a week and a half and it took me five years to actually make, their pie but it was the best pie I've ever had in my life because I was finally ready, for my tree had grown. I'm Glad You Stoners could hang on for the end of that story. I know it's hard out there sometimes wait what how much cinnamon? I'm a good cook though. I love to cook. I'm a good cook because of weed right because I don't have a lot of money. So I will invent food to eat you understand and we have bisquick and peanut butter. We got peanut butter rolls coming in 10 to 12 minutes. You know what I'm talking about 12 to 14. Really I read the box. I looked in the pantry one time. We have marshmallows margarine and Top Ramen. I'm making ramen treats. They were hella good too

----Audio End----

DOUG MCVAY: That was Ngaoi Bealum performing live at Seattle HempFest in 2015 now so far as I know we are still planning for Seattle Hempfest to take place in August this year. I'll keep you informed as things progress as far as schedules or if there are changes and for now, that's it. I want to thank you for joining us. You have been listening to Century of Lies where 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 including this show Centre of Lies as well as the flagship show of the drug truth Network cultural baggage. And of course our daily 420 drug war news news segments are all available by podcast the URLs to subscribe our on the network homepage at drugtruth.net. The drug truth network has a Facebook page. Please give it a like, drugwarfacts.org to give its page a like and share it with friends. Remember knowledge is power you Follow me on Twitter. I'm at DougMcVay. And of course also at drugpolicyfacts 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 are kind at the James A Baker III Institute for public policy.

CULTURAL BAGGAGE

JULY 19, 2018

TRANSCRIPT

DEAN BECKER: I am the Reverend Dean Becker, keeper of the moral high ground in the drug war for the world and this is Cultural Baggage.

Hi, this is the Reverend Dean, please put your ears on. Here we go.

You know, it's been a while since we talked to our next guest. He's a professor at the University of Albany, he's very much an expert on the subject of marijuana, he works high in the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws group, and an old friend ,and I want to welcome, Doctor Mitch Earleywine. Hello, Doctor Earleywine.

MITCH EARLEYWINE, PHD: Thanks so much for having me on the show, Dean, it's delightful to be back.

DEAN BECKER: Well, Mitch, since we last talked there's been a lot going on. I've got a segment today talking about the mayor of New York and many of the high officials in that state are now thinking of legalizing marijuana. It's happened in a couple of states since we last talked. There's some good points, some bad points, some price points, and all kinds of things going on, and, what's your thought? We're making progress, are we not?

MITCH EARLEYWINE, PHD: Indeed we are. I do really hope that the entire state takes a careful look at this, and understands that there's a whole lot to gain and very little to lose. Right now we have a medical program that, in all honesty, is kind of frustrating for a lot of folks so there aren't a ton of approved conditions, and unfortunately there's really no flower available, so if you do go to a medical dispensary here, they have some tincture and they have vape pens that are pretty much just THC or CBD, you don't get the benefit of some of the nice combinations of terpenes and other cannabinoids that are present in some of the flower that we have available out west.

And I know plenty of folks who, you know, could really benefit, who have ailments that are relatively rare or just not on the list, and if we had a taxed and regulated market, there'd be plenty of cash to be made, a whole lot of law enforcement time to save, and a lot of happy people.

DEAN BECKER: Well, and, as kind of an alternative situation, the state of Oklahoma just legalized medical, but they wrote the bill in such a way that it almost parallels what they did in California, where a doctor's recommendation is all that's really required, no specific malady, no other specific hoops to jump through, I guess, but then, the state authorities said, the voters legalize but we're going to curtail it and we're going to prevent flowers from being sold in the stores, kind of like what happened in New York.

MITCH EARLEYWINE, PHD: It's such a heart breaking thing, too, because I know I was not alone in really being [inaudible] when Oklahoma went that route, and it does really seem like everybody's different, each of our illnesses are different, so you work it out with your physician and have it go great guns, and then to pull away the opportunity to have different flowers, different strains, and the chance to really appreciate this neat synergy among all the different terpenes and cannabinoids, just is ending up making folks who could benefit lose out on their chance.

DEAN BECKER: Yes, sir, and, I'm aware of at least a few instances where certain children who have benefited from a certain grow, perhaps their father grew, a neighbor grew, but when they are denied that, when the police stopped them from accessing that one particular strain, they have a heck of a time finding the right mix, finding the right strain, to help them in the same way that they were helped by that prior strain. Your thought there, please.

MITCH EARLEYWINE, PHD: Well, it's such an odd predicament, too, because we are in, you know, this weird single molecule model, where we're accustomed to thinking, hey, if there's one ailment there's got to be one single chemical that's going to provide the relief, and it's -- it's just naive, when you think about something like broccoli is good for you, broccoli's a plant with hundreds of chemicals in it, and we don't need to isolate the individual one, just to go get some broccoli.

We're in that same sort of predicament here with cannabis where, yeah, we do happen to know some of the effects of a handful of cannabinoids, but now we've identified over a hundred of them. Clearly, we could, you know, wait decades and decades and isolate the exact one that might help each individual ailment, or we could just let folks have the freedom to use whatever strain works for them, and save a whole lot of agony in the long run.

DEAN BECKER: Well, you know, I've been doing -- I've been smoking cannabis for over fifty years, and even, I reach back to the old days, when I was first starting out, here in Texas we got, you know, Mexican weed, and mostly you had to smoke a lot of it to feel anything, to be truthful, but, as time went by we, the Mexicans started growing a better strain, we got this stuff that was called Oaxacan, and it was more of a, you know, a Christmas time, if you will, it was very enlightening, bubbly stuff, if you will.

We had stuff come, I heard it was from Panama, Panama Red, and it was almost like a tranquilizer, it would just knock you down in the couch. That, the stuff came in from Thailand, and the Thai sticks, and it was more of a dreamworld, that it would lead you to see mandalas in the trees and all of this kind of stuff, almost hallucinogenic.

And even back then, we saw, we knew, there were these various strains with various components that did various things for your body and your mind, and over the years, the decades, there's been plenty of science looking into these possibilities, these strains, what they do, but the government tries to quash that or at least ignores that when writing the laws. Your thought there, Doctor Earleywine.

MITCH EARLEYWINE, PHD: It's strange, because it's -- the ignorance that leads to the fear, so, a completely harmless terpene like limonene, literally the thing that's present in lemons and oranges and tangerines and things like that, we're slowly discovering that by itself has a nice impact on comfort and can be mildly arousing. What a surprise it's in a lot of the sativa like strains, and seems to be a helpful contributor to making sure you can have, for example, pain relief and a very functional day.

Do we really want to sacrifice that, and just limit folks to no you can only have supplemented THC and that's it? It seems so counterproductive, and, you know, really undermines the whole ideas behind medicine, which is often to get folks functioning again so that that way they can be proud, be happy, do the sorts of things that they enjoy, and get back in the workforce, which puts -- we, you know, we seem to love it in this country so much, generate those tax dollars, make sure you're out there fulfilling obligations as a citizen.

And then to shortchange folks, simply because of these naive notions of a single molecule as a cure for any ailment, it's just naive.

DEAN BECKER: Well, and then there, let's switch over for a moment to the edibles, which I think are allowed in most states, but again I'm certain probably not in some, but, the edibles have other properties, other impacts, on the body and the brain, one that I ought to say it out loud, I think edibles are really great for having sex with because it just enhances the hell out of the experience, but, there are other proponents, components, and other situations. Your thought there, please.

MITCH EARLEYWINE, PHD: Absolutely. So the key issue with edibles is, THC gets into the GI tract, eventually ends up in your liver, and is broken down into what's called 11-hydroxy-THC. 11-hydroxy-THC crosses the blood-brain barrier more rapidly than fine old THC, and tends to create that more dramatic, somatic experience, and tends to have it last a long time, so edibles have a big advantage when it comes to things like sleep aid.

If you really need to make sure you're going to sleep all the way through the evening, nothing like an edible or a tincture right before bed so that it can kick in and metabolize slowly and make that kind of thing happen.

Unfortunately, folks have been frightened of the edibles, in part because of some highly, you know, glamorized, I'm not sure how else to describe it, incidents where folks had a bigger dose than they realized, and we're doing all we can to spread the word that, you know, you want to be super careful about dosage with these kinds of things.

But again, we only have tinctures here in New York, and we've got some hugely talented chefs here in our state who could make some delightful chocolates or cookies or lemon drops, or things along those lines, which I think would be intriguing for folks who don't want to have, you know, every edible experience feel like you're mowing your lawn or something.

And then the hope would be too that if we give folks the opportunity to experiment with these, with different dosages, and get a feel for their own responses, if you had a whole plant extract instead of THC by itself, you'd have a better opportunity for doing more good.

DEAN BECKER: Well, folks, we're speaking with Doctor Mitch Earleywine, he's a professor of psychology at the State University of New York at Albany, and a true expert on marijuana, medical marijuana. Doctor Earleywine, are there any gender specific thoughts we should be discussing as well?

MITCH EARLEYWINE, PHD: It's intriguing because right now my lab is entirely women, so I'm getting into some delightful issues in women's health. We've got new data published on cannabis and PMS, pre-menstrual syndrome, as well as some intriguing data on cannabis and responses related to menopause.

I've got to admit, these were brand new areas for me, but, as many female users have sworn for years and years, we really do have some delightful expectations about how cannabis could help PMS symptoms, for example.

Now, it's kind of a long term joke, but of course, cannabis is not going to intervene on things like over-eating or food cravings, which is sort of stereotypical of PMS, but folks report a lot of good responses to other symptoms related to PMS including some of the moodiness, the discomfort, the tendency to feel bloated, the depression, the insomnia, even some of the joint pain, and it's just delightful to get some confirmation.

We had over a hundred women report on this, and report almost uniformly that cannabis, particularly at the right dosage, is super helpful for PMS and then the extreme version, what they're calling pre-menstrual dysphoric disorder, as well as the menopause crew, so, again, there are, you know, certainly some symptoms where cannabis isn't going to help, but the intervention for that has often been this rather controversial hormone replacement, which, you know, any time you're adding hormones to your body, there -- the potential for some negative health consequences, whereas cannabis is markedly easier on your body for those kinds of things.

It's certainly not going to help things like vaginal dryness, but all the other symptoms that often go with it, including the intensity of hot flashes, some of the discomfort, irritability, joint pain, and swelling associated with the menopause symptoms.

It's, again, we've got over a hundred people reporting, and they claim that this has a ton of potential. It was just really delightful to get into the women's health area with the medical cannabis world.

DEAN BECKER: All right, Doctor Earleywine, now, what am I leaving out? What am I, as I'm just a layman here, what am I forgetting?

MITCH EARLEYWINE, PHD: Well, so what's intriguing, it's kind of an intense story, but my student Rachel Luba lost her father recently to cancer, and it was super sad, but she really turned it around and tried to make good use of it, and ended up gathering data on cannabis in end of life care.

And, what we all sort of knew was that everybody thought, certainly on our very last days, we ought to have access to whatever we can have in order to just make things easier, and she found almost uniformly, folks who are really in the thick of it there, folks who do that end of life care, which is an admirable task and I've got to admit I'm not sure I could do it, they almost to the person think that cannabis availability would be just a big plus for folks who are really nearing the ends of their lives.

But they emphasize that it's just not available, and not available in an easy way, for folks who are, you know, literally stuck in hospice. And, it's, you know, it's great to know that people are recognizing that this could be helpful, but it was also super sad to realize how hard it is for anybody in hospice to get access to a plant that could really make their last days so much better.

DEAN BECKER: Well, and it brings to mind a situation, a couple of years back, a woman who lives in Tennessee was here on my show, emailed me, asked me if I would help her brother who lives down near Galveston. He's dying, he's about 84 years old, he's got brain, bowel, and liver cancer. He's on his way out.

And, but, she convinced me, and she actually drove down, and I met her, and we met her brother, and I brought them some cookies and some cannabis and some butter. And --

MITCH EARLEYWINE, PHD: Ah, man, what a great deed.

DEAN BECKER: And he -- he had been on the opiates, and he didn't want to die on his couch, you know, incapacitated so to speak. He switched over to cannabis. He only lived two more weeks, but he died on the living room floor playing with his great granddaughter, and I just -- I take great pride in helping that man reach that situation.

MITCH EARLEYWINE, PHD: That really warms my heart, I mean, what a pleasant way to envision going out, when the contrast would have been really sad, of him, you know, stuck in some hospital bed around people he doesn't know and who may not care a whole lot for him. So, that's a really, a charitable act on your part, man, I've got to tip my hat to you.

DEAN BECKER: Well, it still feels good, thinking about it, what I heard from his sister. I --

MITCH EARLEYWINE, PHD: Sure.

DEAN BECKER: In the end, he couldn't eat the cookies, but he could still take a little spoonful of butter, and --

MITCH EARLEYWINE, PHD: Oh, good.

DEAN BECKER: And, I don't know. Compassion. We talk about --

MITCH EARLEYWINE, PHD: Exactly.

DEAN BECKER: -- compassionate conservative Christians. Where are they, really? That's what comes to mind.

MITCH EARLEYWINE, PHD: Well, I understand the fear, and unfortunately the biases against both cannabis and people who use it are still there. One of my grad students, who was here for years but who now has a lab or her own, out at University of the Pacific, has started studying what she calls marijuana stereotypes "jadar," as we used to call it, when High Times used to run that portion of the magazine.

And she's showing that neuropsych assessors and just lay people tend to have these stereotypes about anybody who they think might be a cannabis user, and they tend to think that their short term memory's going to be poor, or their working memory isn't going to be as good, and then unfortunately it shows up then on the way they seem to administer some of these memory related tasks, so that the subtle communication of this bias actually shows up in some of the scores on these neuropsych tests.

So by all means, if you are a cannabis user and you're in a situation where you're going to be tested for anything, I hate to say it, but do all you can to make it so you're not with somebody who could be basically biased against you.

DEAN BECKER: And that's, you know, there's so many weird complications. I think I was working for a major oil and gas company, they wanted to hire me full time, I was doing contract, but I had to take a urine test. And, I tried my best, I drank water, I took the kidney rinse from the head shop, all of this stuff.

I was actually getting paychecks. Two weeks later, they kicked me out. I couldn't even get my stuff out of the desk, Mister Becker you've failed your urine test. The next week, someone from that same company called me back and hired me back on a contract basis.

The -- that still hurts. That still hurts. Just to realize that my work is good enough, but my urine is not. It's just -- it's --

MITCH EARLEYWINE, PHD: It's heartbreaking. So, I have a colleague who literally was just joking about giving an edible to a manager after he had returned from the west coast, and the next thing he knew, he got an intention to distribute meeting with human resources, and lost the job.

And I'm thinking, wow, you know, this is the twenty-first century, and we're still judging people by, you know --

DEAN BECKER: Nineteenth century.

MITCH EARLEYWINE, PHD: -- casual references and jokes.

DEAN BECKER: Yes, sir. Well, friends, we've been speaking with Doctor Mitch Earleywine. Again, he's a professor of psychology at the [State] University of New York at Albany. Doctor Earleywine, is there anything you'd like to share with the audience as we part ways here, perhaps a website?

MITCH EARLEYWINE, PHD: Folks are always welcome to check out my website at the University at Albany, State University of New York, but, what I'm really hoping to do is have folks head to amazon, if they're willing, and check out my book Understanding Marijuana by Oxford University Press, and I'm just hoping it's the kind of thing you might hand off to somebody who may be riding the fence, whether they can decide do they want to support us or not.

By all means, have them read a chapter or two, and I bet you they'll come to our side.

DEAN BECKER: It's time to play Name That Drug By Its Side Effects! Clammy skin, pinpoint pupils, shallow or absent breathing, dizziness, sedation, loss of consciousness, nausea, vomiting, weak or absent pulse, heart failure, death, thousands of deaths. Time's up! Designed to sedate adult elephants, this drug is one hundred times more deadly than fentanyl, ten thousand times deadlier than morphine, a portion smaller than a grain of salt can be fatal, the drug lord's dream fulfilled: carfentanyl.

The following comes to us out of New York City, courtesy Spectrum News.

NICK REISMAN: New York Department of Health released the results of a long awaited report concerning marijuana legalization, findings that say the positives far outweigh the negatives. From taxation, prospects in proper regulation, Governor Cuomo is on board. Supporters are also happy as they say it will further erode [sic] policing policies and arrests that unfairly target communities of color if the legislature follow through on the recommendations.

Joining me now from New York City is Chris Alexander. He is the policy coordinator with the New York policy office of Drug Policy -- of the Drug Policy Alliance, he's here to talk more about these findings and what they mean for New Yorkers. Chris, welcome, thanks for being here.

CHRIS ALEXANDER: Thanks for having me.

NICK REISMAN: So, what I found very interesting about the report was it didn't kind of go deeper than just simply we are going to recommend, you know, the legalization of marijuana for recreational, commercial purposes. It kind of goes into, you know, kind of the business side of this, the taxation of something like this, hypothetically, what this could mean potentially in terms of revenue for the state.

When you looked at this report, what -- what sort of conclusions did you draw from what the DOH found?

CHRIS ALEXANDER: Well, I mean, I think the first thing is that it made very clear that the state is concerned about a lot of things, but they also did their due diligence, not just looking at the other states who are regulating marijuana currently for adult use, but really taking a deeper dive into what's the certain lessons that have been learned from those states.

You know, what are the challenges that they've had and how do we address those head on here in New York?

NICK REISMAN: So, what sort of challenges have we seen in other states? I mean, you know, one issue that I've heard from some state lawmakers is how it was rolled out, say, in Colorado, where there was some concern about just how a commercialized recreational marijuana program there had occurred, and how there was some concern about people who had imbibed and then had gotten behind the wheel of a car.

I know a lot of people are watching Massachusetts, what Massachusetts is ultimately going to do here, just, what sort of lessons should New York learn in terms of, were this to be allowed to happen in New York, what New York could do differently.

CHRIS ALEXANDER: Absolutely. I think one good example that came up in the report was, a good deep look at what happened in Oregon as it relates to tax rates. You know, Oregon was one of those states that set a pretty high tax rate initially for marijuana that was coming to the market, and they realized that, you know, individuals saw that it wasn't cost effective, and so they continued to visit the illicit market to access their marijuana.

But when they dropped the tax rate a bit, they saw a lot more people coming into those stores, they saw their revenue jump, but they also saw the illicit market side shrink.

[sic: This is incorrect. Prior to implementation of the law, Oregon lawmakers changed the system from an excise style tax imposed on producers, based on weight, to a percentage sales tax paid by the consumers. The initial rate was set at 25 percent to be lowered after a short period of time to 17 percent with the option of an additional 3 percent imposed by the local city or county government.]

And those were one -- that was one of the key things, that kind of thing came up. I think related to public safety, what is evidenced in the report was that the sky hasn't fallen. That roads are no less safe, that, you know, there's no increase in crime in our communities and in communities across the state where marijuana's being regularly -- regulated and legally sold.

And so I think that also was a concern but something after some research, the state has concluded is not as harmful as prohibition has been on our communities.

DEAN BECKER: This pot's so good that when I smoke it, the government freaks out.

HEATHER FAZIO: I'm Heather Fazio, I'm the coalition coordinator for Texans for Responsible Marijuana Policy, which is a diverse group of individuals and organizations working to advance sensible changes to our marijuana laws here in Texas.

And, in just a few weeks, August 10 through 12, we're hosting the first statewide marijuana policy conference. It's going to hosted in Austin, Texas, downtown near the capitol at the Sheraton. And we're looking forward to a full weekend event featuring keynote speakers, breakout sessions, and an awards banquet where we look forward to honoring the legislative sponsors who have championed sensible and compassionate reforms to marijuana laws here in Texas.

The public opinion on this issue has shifted dramatically over the years, and we're seeing Texas is no exception. We just saw the University of Texas and Texas Tribune release the results of their recent poll, where they found that 53 percent of voting Texans are in favor of repealing prohibition entirely.

And that is exciting news for those of us who know that prohibition has failed, and we need to replace it with sensible regulation so that it can be a market that is regulated, much like other markets for responsible adult consumption.

But what maybe is more exciting is the consensus that we're seeing built around at least stopping the bleeding when it comes to prohibition. Let's stop arresting people for low level possession. Not only are 70 percent of Texans in favor of that, according to the UT poll, but we just saw the Republican Party of Texas include in their platform for the first time a call on the legislature to replace criminal penalties for low-level marijuana possession with simple civil penalties, making it a ticketable offense, and eliminating the threat of arrest and jail time, and most importantly getting rid of the criminal record that's currently associated with even small amounts of marijuana.

And that means that we're going to be able to mitigate the harms caused by this offense, and the collateral consequence that currently come with it, with regard to hindered access to education, employment, housing, a person's driver's license is currently suspended, and their license to carry, their right to self defense, is suspended for five years even just upon being charged with a marijuana possession case under current law.

And we're seeing people coming together and calling for a change to these laws. We've seen momentum building in the legislature. And 2019 is going to be a great year for people uniting on an issue upon which we agree, which is reducing penalties for low level possession of marijuana.

DEAN BECKER: All right folks, once again we've been speaking with Heather Fazio, she's with Texans for Responsible Marijuana Policy, and I guess the main driver of this forthcoming conference. Please, tell the folks the details, when where and how they can get involved, please.

HEATHER FAZIO: The conference is going to be over the weekend of August 10 through 12. The website with more information including discounted registration earlybird prices is TexasMarijuanaPolicyConference.org. And again, that's August 10 through 12, the TexasMarijuanaPolicyConference.org is the website.

DEAN BECKER: Pulling the plug on the prison industrial complex, DrugTruth.net.

The following courtesy ABC Denver.

MARC STEWART: Using pot may be legal, but a Colorado widow and her children are paying the price, denied thousands of dollars in death benefits because her late husband legally smoked marijuana.

ANNE TRUJILLO: And she reached out to Contact Seven, and tonight, Chief Investigative Reporter Tony Kovaleski introduces us to Erika Lee, and her fight to protect her family's financial future.

ERIKA LEE: I'm very scared. I have no idea how we're going to make it.

TONY KOVALESKI: She's a widow, a teacher, and a mother.

ERIKA LEE: We don't even know if we'll get any money at all.

So, I'm looking at right now, maybe just trying to survive. I'm very frustrated with the system.

TONY KOVALESKI: A frustrating journey that started 20 months ago.

DISPATCHER: Loveland Valley CPR in progress.

TONY KOVALESKI: Her husband Adam died on the job, an electrician at the Loveland Ski Area.

AMBULANCE DRIVER: Georgetown, Medic One, confirming, he's stuck in the magic carpet.

TONY KOVALESKI: He was crushed under the ski conveyor belt.

ERIKA LEE: He got caught in the magic carpet, and when the magic carpet stopped, they just started it again, and again, and again, and again, seven times total.

TONY KOVALESKI: The pain of losing her husband magnified when she learned that a state law will now greatly impact her monthly family budget.

I mean, the story here is your husband's smoking of legal marijuana is now hurting your family.

ERIKA LEE: Yeah.

TONY KOVALESKI: Does that make sense?

ERIKA LEE: No.

TONY KOVALESKI: Let's take a moment to really understand this issue. Toxicology reports after Adam's death here at the Loveland Ski Area showed high levels of marijuana in his system. But here's the critical point: current science and the testing were unable to confirm if Erika's husband was impaired or intoxicated at the time of his death.

Despite that critical fact, current Colorado law allows state workers comp to cut Erika's benefit in half.

DEAN BECKER: So, which is worse, the harms of marijuana, or the harms of marijuana prohibition. I remind you once again that because of prohibition you don't know what's in that bag. Please, be careful.

Drug Truth Network transcripts are stored at the James A. Baker III Institute, more than 7,000 radio programs are at DrugTruth.Net, and we are all still tap dancing on the edge of an abyss.