Speaker 1: Clayton. What if I told you a medical doctor could
Speaker 1: prescribe legal drugs and be charged as a drug trafficker.
Speaker 1: A doctor like you're talking about a real doctor? Yeah,
Speaker 1: medical doctor, not a dealer. A doctor not a dealer.
Speaker 1: A new law means doctors are now only able to
Speaker 1: write a prescription for a three day supply of opioids, or,
Speaker 1: if medically necessary, seven days. Well, I mean, the thing
Speaker 1: is that relying eighty percent of the people who are
Speaker 1: getting in trouble are not prescribed these drugs. Directer regulations
Speaker 1: aimed to stop people from misusing prescription drugs are leaving
Speaker 1: patients who use opioids responsibly with greater challenges to get
Speaker 1: their medication. But we have made it much worse and
Speaker 1: more people are dying. If I didn't have just a
Speaker 1: little bit that I can, I can't even imagine what
Speaker 1: I would do. I understand that people overdosed and died,
Speaker 1: but I didn't do any of that, and I actually
Speaker 1: need the medicine. I'm Greg Glode, and this is the
Speaker 1: war on drugs playing. What's going on? Man? What's up? Greg? Doing? Great?
Speaker 1: Really excited about this topic. I mean, one of the
Speaker 1: things that we've learned is the drug war. You don't
Speaker 1: have to be a drug addict, you have to be
Speaker 1: in the criminal justice system, you don't have to be
Speaker 1: involved in this stuff like it's going to impact you.
Speaker 1: And Yeah, we were chatting before and talking about like
Speaker 1: being back in high school and starting to hear about
Speaker 1: like people taking pills and like these things. You're like,
Speaker 1: what is it? And um, you know, I grew up
Speaker 1: in a pretty white suburb, you know, outside of Annapolis, Maryland,
Speaker 1: And was that your same experience within like the black
Speaker 1: community as well, Like listen to this or like how
Speaker 1: did this all? When was the first time you heard
Speaker 1: about like oxy and opiates? And um, I'm trying to
Speaker 1: think back when I first realized what was going on.
Speaker 1: I guess as far as like opioid epidemic, you know,
Speaker 1: the crack epidemic. Saw that you knew about that it
Speaker 1: was prevalent, it was heavy in the black community, and
Speaker 1: the opioid like, I don't guess I knew they were opioids.
Speaker 1: I just knew people popped pills. Yeah, pill popping. Yet
Speaker 1: for me probably going into high school, oxycodon I remember
Speaker 1: those never partook, but remember those being a thing very
Speaker 1: popular all this stuff around codeine, and then I guess
Speaker 1: I didn't realize, like for black people, you know, sir
Speaker 1: lean codeine, that's that's also opioid. I think a lot
Speaker 1: of times we associate, oh, that's white people's strugs. It's like, no,
Speaker 1: it's the same thing. Just want to just liquid it.
Speaker 1: It might taste a little bit better. Yeah, yeah, over
Speaker 1: ice in a styrofoam cup. It's a slushy. It is delicious.
Speaker 1: I have to heat the summer. Have you tried lean? Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: it'll definitely be a little way in here first. Man,
Speaker 1: I would highly uh not recommend going out. I don't
Speaker 1: know if I knew it was an epidemic, but I
Speaker 1: knew something was going on with as far as people
Speaker 1: pill popping and like being a problem. When it was
Speaker 1: a kid at my school, I think he wrote my
Speaker 1: bus and he was on something, and I think somebody
Speaker 1: asked what he was on. He told everybody that he
Speaker 1: took the medicine that was for his cat, like it
Speaker 1: was a cat trying. I don't know what it, but
Speaker 1: I'm like, come on, man, you're gonna grow whiskers. You
Speaker 1: don't know what's gonna happen. Man, you're gonna start licking yourself.
Speaker 1: It's gonna be weird. So I knew then. I was like,
Speaker 1: you may have a problem if you're taking medication that
Speaker 1: was prescribed for your cat. Maybe they're getting a good
Speaker 1: ship and we're listen, it's probably the same who's making
Speaker 1: cat medicine. Nobody's making separate medicine for cats. That's a myth,
Speaker 1: but it is like one of those things where like
Speaker 1: you think it's something and then you start to learn
Speaker 1: about it more and it's something else, because like I
Speaker 1: think we all know some of the stories of like
Speaker 1: Produe Pharma. They're marketing these opioids, are pushing and pushing
Speaker 1: and saying they're not addictive. It can be addictive, and
Speaker 1: how people are are using so much when they don't
Speaker 1: need to just for the problem. And then you're kind
Speaker 1: of like, all right, well let's stop prescribing these things, right,
Speaker 1: But what we always do is like instead of just
Speaker 1: solving that little problem with a little scalpel, we bring
Speaker 1: the fucking machete and we just started hacking everything to bits.
Speaker 1: And so now people who actually need this medication to
Speaker 1: just function can no longer get it because we have
Speaker 1: no idea how just to like solve one problem not
Speaker 1: exacerbate another. And so we're going to talk to my
Speaker 1: Salabates today. She's an amazing, amazing expert on this issue,
Speaker 1: has her own real life experience recovering from addiction and
Speaker 1: now works to allow people to understand like what addiction means,
Speaker 1: what it is. And she's going to talk about a
Speaker 1: lot of the complications now with the regulations and prohibition
Speaker 1: of prescription opiates and how that's impacting people. Yeah, there's
Speaker 1: gonna be people to abuse everything, and it's just a
Speaker 1: shame that some of the people that need it most
Speaker 1: got to suffer. And I think you don't have to
Speaker 1: be a drug dealer for the port on drugs to
Speaker 1: affect you. Yeah, I'm getting a little bit older, Clayton.
Speaker 1: I'm sure you've woken up out of bed a couple
Speaker 1: of times with you know, backs or something like that.
Speaker 1: Are we just one, you know, fenderbender away from needing
Speaker 1: some sort of prescription like this? And how's that going
Speaker 1: to impact you? You never knowe to you put in
Speaker 1: that situation or it's one of your loved ones, right,
Speaker 1: you gotta watch an unbearable pain. Yeah, Like I said,
Speaker 1: really really excited about this interview myself. It's is one
Speaker 1: of the foremost experts on addiction in the world. We're
Speaker 1: lucky enough to be able to interview for the War
Speaker 1: on Drugs. So everyone, I really appreciate you all listening
Speaker 1: and tune in. Let's let's get to it. Welcome to
Speaker 1: the War on Drugs Podcast by I'm really great to
Speaker 1: have you here. Welcome, Thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 1: I think we're living in this almost twilight zone time
Speaker 1: with the opoid epidemic, and I see so many parallels
Speaker 1: with so many other wars that we fought within narcotics,
Speaker 1: but this one's a little bit more unique because you know,
Speaker 1: it's actual pharmaceuticals are being created by private entities that
Speaker 1: are within those medical communities. I think a lot of
Speaker 1: people are familiar with how when oxycon came out, people
Speaker 1: were kind of misled on the potential complications of it.
Speaker 1: It was seen as a less addictive opioid, which doesn't really,
Speaker 1: you know, necessarily exist. Actually, the thing that is so
Speaker 1: messed up about our narrative about this is that, like
Speaker 1: every piece of it is problematic, right, it is the
Speaker 1: case that longer acting opioids cause less reinforcement than shorter
Speaker 1: acting ones. Right, when people have to do it every
Speaker 1: five minutes, it's really a lot more reinforcing, which is
Speaker 1: why the fentinels, which are more shorter acting, are much
Speaker 1: more dangerous than something like methodon. So okay, Perdue lied,
Speaker 1: and they also claimed that OxyContin acted for twelve hours
Speaker 1: when it actually only works for eight, which was an
Speaker 1: outright lie. But the thing that people really misunderstand about
Speaker 1: the opioid crisis is that eighty percent of people who
Speaker 1: misuse prescription opioids do not have a prescription for them. Right.
Speaker 1: Eighty percent of the people who are getting in trouble
Speaker 1: are not prescribed these drugs. So it wasn't like, oh,
Speaker 1: I went to my doctor and my doctor turned me
Speaker 1: to an addict. That is not what happened in the
Speaker 1: vast majority of cases. The other reason that this is
Speaker 1: the case is because ninety percent of addiction starts when
Speaker 1: people are in their teens or early twenties, and most
Speaker 1: people with chronic pain, speaking in broad generalities, are middle
Speaker 1: aged or older. If you've gotten to the point of
Speaker 1: being middle aged or older without developing any addictions, your
Speaker 1: odds of developing one are indeed less than one percent.
Speaker 1: The reality is people have different levels of risk, and
Speaker 1: the level of risk that you experience in medical care
Speaker 1: when you are older and don't have a prior addiction
Speaker 1: is very different from the risk that is encountered by
Speaker 1: people who are using drugs recreationally. And so if you
Speaker 1: look at people who try heroin, the addiction rate there
Speaker 1: is about ten to twenty percent. And why is that?
Speaker 1: It's partially because who tries heroin People who are serious
Speaker 1: risk takers, people who have just given up. So you're
Speaker 1: already selecting for people who are at high risk before
Speaker 1: they even take the drug. It's really important to recognize this,
Speaker 1: not to say that like, oh, people in pain can
Speaker 1: never get addicted. No, it's just to say addiction is
Speaker 1: much more than exposure, and if we continue to see
Speaker 1: it as exposure, we will end up doing exactly what
Speaker 1: we're doing, which is we have cut the medical opioid
Speaker 1: supply by sixty percent or more, and we did most
Speaker 1: of that by cutting off people who were on high
Speaker 1: doses for long term. And what do we find out
Speaker 1: when we do that to people? They are four times
Speaker 1: more likely to die of overdose or suicide. So we
Speaker 1: have made it much worse. And if you just look
Speaker 1: at the numbers, opioid prescribing starts falling significantly in twenty eleven.
Speaker 1: If you look at the line on the graph of
Speaker 1: overdose death, it's going way up as the medical supply
Speaker 1: goes down. In fact, more people are dying somewhere right
Speaker 1: and so like right exactly, and we're following in the
Speaker 1: same cycles that we always have. When the crack epidemics
Speaker 1: started coming off, it's like, there's a problem. Things are happening.
Speaker 1: What are we going to do about it. Let's get
Speaker 1: rid of essentially treatment and just cracked on these people
Speaker 1: and throw them in prison. You saw this in the
Speaker 1: nineteen twenties with hair when doctors are pleading, please let
Speaker 1: us continue to prescribe to these individuals or we're just
Speaker 1: gonna have millions of addicts. And you're seeing the exact
Speaker 1: same thing with this opiated epidemic. And yeah, may if
Speaker 1: you could kind of like talk about that shift. Because
Speaker 1: we did see that opioid overdoses were going up, we
Speaker 1: started blaming the pharmaceutical companies and oxycoton being out there
Speaker 1: and how that was a gateway into all these other
Speaker 1: worst behaviors. And you slowly started seeing states put together,
Speaker 1: you know, inventory lists of who's prescribing how much. Well,
Speaker 1: I mean, the thing is that we're lying. We are
Speaker 1: claiming that now that it's white people who we see
Speaker 1: as addicted, we're not using the criminal justice system, and
Speaker 1: that's not true. What you see is we're not criminalizing
Speaker 1: people directly. We're just cutting off their source of medical opioids.
Speaker 1: So the people who were going to pill mills mostly
Speaker 1: did not get arrested. The people who ran the pill
Speaker 1: mills did get arrested, but the customers were just left.
Speaker 1: That created this disaster. Some of the reporting in this
Speaker 1: area focuses on how when the pill mills got shut down,
Speaker 1: a lot of gangs began introducing heroin to rural areas
Speaker 1: where it previously hadn't been. Yeah, we had a golden
Speaker 1: opportunity every time we shut a pill mill down to
Speaker 1: prescribe medical opioids, just to keep people from entering withdrawal
Speaker 1: until we can stabilize themselves. Like you had all these
Speaker 1: people's names, you have a database, you shut down a
Speaker 1: pill mill, it's like these are the people that are
Speaker 1: on these pills, like right here, Yeah, Like it's it's
Speaker 1: like you know, you don't usually get a list of
Speaker 1: customers from Yeah, yeah, yeah, a ledger, and the ledgers
Speaker 1: aren't releasing Christian names of all the clients. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: don't believe either. Yeah. And another thing that you said
Speaker 1: was the pain patients just turning into heroin buyers or whatever.
Speaker 1: That's actually more dangerous for them. If you're a person
Speaker 1: who suffers from pain, now you're going to go into
Speaker 1: a situation where people know you have money. You probably
Speaker 1: can't fight back the best. You may even be getting
Speaker 1: a check from the government every month, like you're a
Speaker 1: piggy bank rolling up to shark confested waters. It's crazy.
Speaker 1: So what often happens in that instance is that the
Speaker 1: pain patients don't turn to the illegal market, but turned
Speaker 1: to a gun and die. And I have heard many
Speaker 1: horrible stories. One of them I remember specifically where this
Speaker 1: guy got cut off by his doctor and his wife
Speaker 1: held his hand while he shot himself because she knew
Speaker 1: that he couldn't live like that. It's just who has
Speaker 1: helped by this. It's all about let's get the numbers down.
Speaker 1: It has nothing to do with let's actually help people.
Speaker 1: And you know they think, like, well, we can show
Speaker 1: that we reduced opioid prescribing by x percent. Right, well, great,
Speaker 1: do the patients die? Yeah? The thing that's always never
Speaker 1: brought up is patient outcome, is that becoming better with
Speaker 1: these things? And I kind of want to nail down
Speaker 1: on that because you mentioned the reductions and prescriptions. What
Speaker 1: is causing this vast reduction and prescriptions, Like, what are
Speaker 1: the actual factors going into denying people essentially the care
Speaker 1: that they Yeah, well, so what basically is happening is
Speaker 1: that the law is really vague. According to a nineteen
Speaker 1: nineteen Supreme Court decision, it is not legitimate medicine to
Speaker 1: prescribe for the comfort of somebody with addiction. It's fine
Speaker 1: to prescribe for their comfort if they have pain, but
Speaker 1: not if they have addiction. And this is sort of
Speaker 1: made into the Controlled Substances Act. And right now we
Speaker 1: have doctors who are literally being prosecuted, you did, for
Speaker 1: prescribing to people when they believed that they were treating pain.
Speaker 1: But the DA says it's overex dose, which was in
Speaker 1: the CDC guidelines, and therefore it's not legitimate medicine, and
Speaker 1: they are unconsciously becoming drug dealers. So the easy way
Speaker 1: to deal with this is just not prescribe. And what
Speaker 1: doctor is going to risk their license or their freedom
Speaker 1: because some of these really difficult patients that they don't
Speaker 1: really want to deal with it anyway, because chronic pain
Speaker 1: is really hard to treat. We can just you know,
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, we don't use opiods anymore. Go to a
Speaker 1: pain management clinic and they have waiting lists and are
Speaker 1: not available locally in a lot of places. And also
Speaker 1: if you're a patient and you travel to get your
Speaker 1: pain care, that's a red flag. So the prescription drug
Speaker 1: monitoring thing will flag you, and the pharmacists will say
Speaker 1: I won't feel your prescription because you went to a
Speaker 1: doctor in California instead of New York. It's terrified a
Speaker 1: lot of doctors who would otherwise just maintain these patients
Speaker 1: into cutting them off and just getting them out of
Speaker 1: their practice. However they can. You know, I've heard about
Speaker 1: quite a few good doctors who thought they were doing
Speaker 1: the right thing. Sometimes they got fooled by people with addiction.
Speaker 1: But doctors don't have a wide detector anymore than police
Speaker 1: people do. Right, But again, if I fool you and
Speaker 1: get drugs from you and going overdose. Why is that
Speaker 1: your fault, right MAYA. One of the things that sticks
Speaker 1: out to me is how you make a separation between
Speaker 1: what you say are the high risk drug users addicts
Speaker 1: versus people who actually have pain and need some type
Speaker 1: of relief. And I think when people hear about the
Speaker 1: world drugs, they think, you know, that doesn't have anything
Speaker 1: to do with me. I'm not a drug user. We're
Speaker 1: in the suburbs, My kids are good. You know what
Speaker 1: I'm saying. The only thing I'm addicted to it Starbucks. Yeah,
Speaker 1: lock those people up for as long as you can,
Speaker 1: throw away the key, take away their drugs anyway necessary.
Speaker 1: But I think everybody, at some stage in their life
Speaker 1: it is going to come to a point where you
Speaker 1: might have somebody in your family who has cancer. You
Speaker 1: might have somebody who suffered like we spoke about earlier
Speaker 1: tragic accident. And this is when I kind of realize, like, oh,
Speaker 1: the War on drugs affects everybody, just it may not
Speaker 1: have affected you yet. And this is one of those
Speaker 1: instances where you can kind of clearly see that absolutely,
Speaker 1: I mean, prescribing of opioids for terminal cancer has fallen
Speaker 1: by forty during this period, and the CDC guidelines explicitly
Speaker 1: exempted both cancer and sickle cell and you can be
Speaker 1: prone to having strokes if you have that, and people
Speaker 1: go into hospital and they are having a stroke and
Speaker 1: the doctors think they're overdosing and they don't treat the stroke,
Speaker 1: and if they don't have an advocate there, they can
Speaker 1: die of that. I hear from these people all the time,
Speaker 1: like from people with chronic pain and people with terminal pain,
Speaker 1: where the pharmacist laughs at them. And one of the
Speaker 1: things I've really tried to do is connect the harm
Speaker 1: reduction addiction community with the chronic pain patient community, because
Speaker 1: we really should be both on the same side. Right.
Speaker 1: It's not that the people with addiction want nobody to
Speaker 1: ever have opioids. I mean, one of the things that
Speaker 1: I think is crazy is that like, Okay, you're in
Speaker 1: the hospital, you get opioids. You're not going to grow
Speaker 1: a drug dealer on the way out, right, Like, you know,
Speaker 1: it's not the exposure to euphoria that turns people into
Speaker 1: people with addiction. It's the lack of stuff in the
Speaker 1: rest of their life exactly. Clayton wasn't cheap to get
Speaker 1: so we had to cut a couple commercials. We'll be
Speaker 1: right back. Somebody got a payment. Hi. I'm Jason Flam
Speaker 1: CEO and founder of Lava for Good podcasts, Home to
Speaker 1: Bone Valley, Wrongful Conviction, The War on Drugs, and many
Speaker 1: other great podcasts. Today, we're asking you, our listeners, to
Speaker 1: take part in a survey. Your feedback is going to
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Speaker 1: dot com slash survey and participate today. Thank you for
Speaker 1: your support. The War on Drugs podcast is sponsored by
Speaker 1: Stand Together, the philanthropic community that partners with America's boldest
Speaker 1: change makers to tackle the root causes of our country's
Speaker 1: biggest problems. More than twenty five years ago, Alice Marie
Speaker 1: Johnson experienced personal difficulties that led to single parenthood and unemployment,
Speaker 1: all while grieving her son's death in a motorcycle accident.
Speaker 1: Although she had never previously possessed or sold an illegal substance,
Speaker 1: faced with foreclosure on her family home, Alice made a
Speaker 1: mistake and was charged in a drug conspiracy. She was
Speaker 1: sent to life without parole plus twenty five years for
Speaker 1: a first time non violent offense. However, her face sustained
Speaker 1: her through her daunting and draconian life sentence, during which
Speaker 1: she helped other women and became a certified hospice worker,
Speaker 1: ordained minister, and playwright. After serving twenty one years, an
Speaker 1: advocacy campaign led to Alice's sentence commutation in twenty eighteen
Speaker 1: and an official pardon in twenty twenty. Today, Alice works
Speaker 1: tirelessly in the fight to reform the criminal justice system,
Speaker 1: helps others earn and receive a second chance, and she
Speaker 1: serves as the CEO of Taking Action for Good. To
Speaker 1: learn more about stand Together their Partners or how you
Speaker 1: can partner will stand Together, go to Stand Together dot org.
Speaker 1: Can you talk a little bit about your journey year
Speaker 1: experience and you know what worked for you and what
Speaker 1: do you think is the most critical aspect that I
Speaker 1: think they'll be helpful for people to really realize like
Speaker 1: what works and what doesn't. A very short version would
Speaker 1: be that I was a really geeky, kind of aspy
Speaker 1: sort of kid, and I felt really disconnected from people
Speaker 1: and Drugs were the first interest that I had. Like
Speaker 1: previous ones involved things like opera and science fiction, drugs
Speaker 1: were a thing that other people actually did want to
Speaker 1: hear me talk about. In fact, they still do, you know.
Speaker 1: So that led to some issues, eventually led to me
Speaker 1: getting arrested, getting expelled from Colombia, and all kinds of
Speaker 1: things like Columbia, the college, not the country. I was
Speaker 1: about to say, if you got expelled from Colombia for cocaine,
Speaker 1: you had quite a done. Yeah, maya were you? Were
Speaker 1: you in the Cinelo cartel? No, I'm just kidding. I'm
Speaker 1: just kidding. No, No, I mean I was definitely selling
Speaker 1: coke in the eighties at Columbia, but not in Colombia.
Speaker 1: So anyway, when I got to college, I would is
Speaker 1: just like, what do I do with all these prep
Speaker 1: school people that I just feel I can't connect to.
Speaker 1: I feel like completely less than and unable to figure out,
Speaker 1: you know, a way to get together. But if I
Speaker 1: had cocaine, I got invited to the parties and all
Speaker 1: of the things. You know. Then I got suspended from school,
Speaker 1: and then I decided I'd already ruined my life, so
Speaker 1: I may as well do heroin, and that did not help,
Speaker 1: although at first it seemed like it helped. Because part
Speaker 1: of the reason that we have our own brain opioids,
Speaker 1: indogenous opioids in our heads, is to make social connections soothing, right,
Speaker 1: And so when you feel like the warmth of a hug,
Speaker 1: or you look at a cute baby, or you see
Speaker 1: your beloved person, that's opioids. That's our natural opioids doing
Speaker 1: their natural job and making you feel warm, safe, loved,
Speaker 1: and comfortable. And so somebody who doesn't have that social
Speaker 1: connection and feels really isolated suddenly experiences that at not surprisingly,
Speaker 1: they're going to love it, and not surprisingly, it can
Speaker 1: cause a problem. And so I basically declined from there.
Speaker 1: I got arrested. I continue to use for another two years. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I was like shooting up forty times a day. At
Speaker 1: the end, I weighed eighty pounds. I looked terrible, I
Speaker 1: felt terrible, and I eventually just realized that I am
Speaker 1: addicted and I need help, and so I called my
Speaker 1: parents and got into treatment. Basically, I had to stop
Speaker 1: at court because I had a court date that day
Speaker 1: and I knew my dad would be there, and I said,
Speaker 1: I'm getting help. This is not working, and I then
Speaker 1: chose to go to treatment, and they have been in
Speaker 1: recovery since. The thing is that we can't base policy
Speaker 1: on anecdote. The treatment that I went through was your
Speaker 1: traditional twenty eight day, twelve step based treatment, and I
Speaker 1: was told this is the only way, and if you
Speaker 1: don't do this, the only alternative is jails, institutions, and death.
Speaker 1: So I did this and I managed to stay in recovery.
Speaker 1: And one of the things that really does help people
Speaker 1: get into recovery is social support. And I got a
Speaker 1: lot of social support from those programs, which I attended
Speaker 1: every day for at least five years. So am I
Speaker 1: going to say, well that's what everybody should do, no,
Speaker 1: because that really doesn't work for a lot of people, right.
Speaker 1: And I mean, if you weren't at Columbia or other places,
Speaker 1: if you were just a kid in Harlem or Queens
Speaker 1: or something else and you get arrested, you know, you're
Speaker 1: not getting the opportunities to even deal with any of
Speaker 1: this stuff. And you know, I was extremely lucky. One
Speaker 1: of the reasons that I do the things that I
Speaker 1: do is because when I got arrested, I was facing
Speaker 1: fifteen to life a felony under the Rockefeller Laws for cocaine.
Speaker 1: And I'm a white woman, and I was also at
Speaker 1: an Ivy League school, and I had family, and I
Speaker 1: could show the judge after I came out of treatment,
Speaker 1: I went from this sort of eighty pound, very scary
Speaker 1: looking person covered with acts to somebody who had hope
Speaker 1: in my eyes again. And she saw that, and she said,
Speaker 1: I want to try to keep you out of prison,
Speaker 1: and she went to bat for me, even though the
Speaker 1: prosecutors were kind of like, well, we're not locking enough
Speaker 1: white people. So oftentimes, because this thing dragged out out
Speaker 1: of a four or five years, oftentimes I would be
Speaker 1: the only white defendant in the courtroom. And it's just
Speaker 1: fucked up. I'm sorry. I hope I'm allowed to say that.
Speaker 1: It's just like wrong, and I feel that like everybody
Speaker 1: should have the opportunities that I had, and that taking
Speaker 1: stuff away from people is the exact opposite of what
Speaker 1: you need to do, when basically addiction is a cry
Speaker 1: for help right here, already down like you're already trying
Speaker 1: to scratching claws. I think, let's say it's a situation
Speaker 1: where you're in poverty, that's one hole you're in. Now
Speaker 1: you're addicted to drugs. That's another hole that you're in.
Speaker 1: Now you get a resident, you get a felony on
Speaker 1: top of that, and like, now, what jobs are you
Speaker 1: gonna get? What chance do you have out of getting
Speaker 1: out of any of these holes? When your three holes
Speaker 1: deep and then you've got something stamped on you that
Speaker 1: basically prevent you from ever being able to make anything
Speaker 1: out of yourself. Well, I'm happy to speak to this.
Speaker 1: So right now, Colorado decided to create a felony for
Speaker 1: possession of fentanyl. And what that means is you have
Speaker 1: all kinds of disabilities in the future because it makes
Speaker 1: it really hard to get a job, It makes it
Speaker 1: really hard to get housing, It makes it really hard
Speaker 1: to find a partner, It makes it hard to do
Speaker 1: all of the things that we do that can actually
Speaker 1: get us out of addiction. It makes it much harder
Speaker 1: to recover. It increases self hatred, it stigmatizes you, and
Speaker 1: it adds all of these things such as not being
Speaker 1: allowed to get housing and not being allowed to get
Speaker 1: food stamps. And it's infinite punishment. And we're in the
Speaker 1: midst of the spentel crisis. We have felonized drug possession
Speaker 1: in many states for many years. It did not work.
Speaker 1: It does not work. This is not what works, and
Speaker 1: yet we're still pushing back into this ancient, harmful stuff. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I got a question. I'm sure you said a lot
Speaker 1: of times you were the only white person in these courtrooms.
Speaker 1: What was something white defendant? That's yeah, it was white.
Speaker 1: But on the other side of now we hang out
Speaker 1: of court, right, So, um, what was something that was it?
Speaker 1: Anything that you noticed in the difference of how you
Speaker 1: were handled in the courtroom as opposed to some of
Speaker 1: the other defendants that were there that might have been
Speaker 1: black or brown. Well, that's I mean, that's the thing.
Speaker 1: I just saw people hugging their families and going away
Speaker 1: for like fifteen years. It was horrible. Most of the
Speaker 1: court appearances that I had were what's known as calendar dates,
Speaker 1: and you basically just have to sit there and wait
Speaker 1: through other people's cases till they get to yours. And
Speaker 1: so yeah, like I mean, I had a private lawyer.
Speaker 1: I just had an enormous amount of privilege, and it
Speaker 1: just like it just broke my heart to see this.
Speaker 1: It just wasn't right. And the court that I was
Speaker 1: in actually was a special narcotics court, so most of
Speaker 1: the people there were just being sent for dealing. It
Speaker 1: was just horrifying. The whole system needs to be started
Speaker 1: in a better way from the ground up, because this
Speaker 1: is not justice. It's just prejudice. Right. It wasn't some
Speaker 1: kind of medical decision that went into, Okay, we'll make
Speaker 1: cigarettes legal and we'll make marijuana illegal, because you couldn't
Speaker 1: make a science based decision on that. That had to
Speaker 1: be racism, because it's just crazy, like one of those
Speaker 1: drugs kills fifty percent of its long term users. The
Speaker 1: other drug is not associated with reductions in lifespan at all,
Speaker 1: and that's the one that's illegal. I guess the thing
Speaker 1: I think about is the opioid epidemic. We touched on
Speaker 1: it a little bit. I know people in the black
Speaker 1: community like, oh, it's an epidemic now because it's affecting
Speaker 1: those people. But I think if it's getting people's eyes
Speaker 1: and is making people that ordinarily weren't looking at drug
Speaker 1: addicts or users as human beings, then in a strange
Speaker 1: kind of messed up way, it's almost a good thing.
Speaker 1: It's almost a good thing. If we could get these
Speaker 1: conversations open. If we could get these these talks going
Speaker 1: about you know, harm reduction and actually helping people, I
Speaker 1: think that's one good thing that's coming out of the negativity. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and I mean I'm glad you said that, because it's
Speaker 1: if we get towards more compassionate and caring and respectful
Speaker 1: treatment for people with addiction, not only will we have
Speaker 1: a more humane society, we will also have more effective treatment. Well. Well, Maya,
Speaker 1: this has been amazing. Again. I think we could have
Speaker 1: talked to you for another three hours. This could have
Speaker 1: been its own podcast series just on this. I want
Speaker 1: to thank you again for your time and sharing your
Speaker 1: story with us and your expertise on this issue. And
Speaker 1: you just don't realize the consequences of some of these
Speaker 1: issues and how the people that really need help and
Speaker 1: assistance are just not getting it anymore. Again, thank you, Bye,
Speaker 1: I really appreciate this. And yeah, hopefully well to sing
Speaker 1: it against in. Thank you, Thank you so much. We
Speaker 1: have a few bills to pay, so we're gonna go
Speaker 1: to a couple of commercials right now. Wow, Right off
Speaker 1: the bat, the thing that's stuck with me since that
Speaker 1: interview was the story about the man and his wife
Speaker 1: holding each other's hands as he put a gun to himself,
Speaker 1: till himself because he was aggressively weaned off of opiates,
Speaker 1: the only thing that was actually giving him a quality
Speaker 1: of life for chronic back pain after a car accident. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and he didn't go the illegal route, which was something
Speaker 1: that she said, She said, most of them don't turn
Speaker 1: to the legal route. They turned to the gun, and
Speaker 1: he turned to the gun. And this is prime example.
Speaker 1: Like we say, this affects everybody, and it impacts everybody,
Speaker 1: and so much of the stuff we've been talking about
Speaker 1: has been addicts, and we look at these people as
Speaker 1: drug users and criminals, and I think this one just
Speaker 1: kind of hits home. You know, sometimes we don't really
Speaker 1: have names or faces to go with these people, and
Speaker 1: we were able to, you know, find obituary for j. O. Lawrence,
Speaker 1: age fifty eight, of Hendersonville, Tennessee, passed away suddenly on
Speaker 1: March second, twenty seventeen. And you know, I think it's
Speaker 1: important just to say who he was to the people
Speaker 1: that cared about the most. I mean, he was a
Speaker 1: proud father, devoted husband, He has daughters, he has brothers,
Speaker 1: he has This is a person that was important to
Speaker 1: the people in his life and is survived by his wife,
Speaker 1: Meredith Lawrence, who was arrested for assisting in his suicide
Speaker 1: on probation. That's the craziest thing. Yeah, she literally has
Speaker 1: just lost the love of her life, the person that was,
Speaker 1: you know, trying to support their family this and she
Speaker 1: got caught up in the crone because of that. I mean,
Speaker 1: if you don't think that's just screwed up, that's a
Speaker 1: double blow to that family. And both blows came from
Speaker 1: the war on drone. Yeah, instead of being like what
Speaker 1: is happening where we allowed for that to be the
Speaker 1: most logical decision for this man in his head and
Speaker 1: his family. Right, So we said, oh, okay, the problem's
Speaker 1: not the laws. The problem is this woman who held
Speaker 1: her husband's hand while I shot himself because he was
Speaker 1: in too much pain. Yeah, it's insane, definitely backwards man.
Speaker 1: It's it just gets frustrating and like it's like this
Speaker 1: one any of us could be in this situation easily,
Speaker 1: car accident, bad injury, sports, bicycling, whatever, picking up a
Speaker 1: frigging box like woral world is shipping now claying Like
Speaker 1: I wake up with stuff and I'm like, why is
Speaker 1: why is that sort like what's going on here? And
Speaker 1: I'm not doing anything like yeah my joints. Craig very loud, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I thought I got shot this morning. It was my shoulder. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'd lay down. Yeah. I mean I read this quote
Speaker 1: from the doctor to that guy and the last thing
Speaker 1: he said was my patient's quality of life is not
Speaker 1: worth risking my practice or my license. Over we're forcing
Speaker 1: doctors to essentially remove a quality of life because they
Speaker 1: feel that they're going to be heliable and they will.
Speaker 1: I mean doctors have been criminally charged, not ones that
Speaker 1: are trying to run pill mills or anything, just trying
Speaker 1: to prescribe care. And we have these guidelines, and you know,
Speaker 1: the guidelines we're supposed to be just kind of like
Speaker 1: advisory for doctors to kind of show, and though obviously
Speaker 1: became law and a lot of states, and we're allowed
Speaker 1: to essentially target doctors who were prescribing above those guidelines,
Speaker 1: around those guidelines, but cops can get at those lists
Speaker 1: of people that have PC. That's a crazy thing too,
Speaker 1: Like you think you're you're here medical informations like protected. No,
Speaker 1: it ain't. The FEDS think that they can get it regardless,
Speaker 1: and then a couple states require a warrant, but the
Speaker 1: other ones it's just we know what you're being prescribed,
Speaker 1: who's prescribing it, and the last thing you want to
Speaker 1: be is on the top of that list as a doctor.
Speaker 1: It's crazy. And so luckily they're trying to change some
Speaker 1: of the laws around that, and also the CDC stopped
Speaker 1: labeling guidelines for like amounts and they just said doctors
Speaker 1: use your caution and discretion to go about this. And
Speaker 1: then that allows for prosecutors if someone's running a pill
Speaker 1: mill and has intent is acting like a drug dealers
Speaker 1: selling is off, then they're still able to prosecuting. They
Speaker 1: don't need this at all. It just makes it easier.
Speaker 1: We just have to figure out this line at some point.
Speaker 1: And I want to thank Maya for coming out and
Speaker 1: talking to us and taking the time to hopefully educate
Speaker 1: a lot of you all on this, because I think
Speaker 1: there's misconceptions about opiates and how they need to be utilized,
Speaker 1: and I think, you know, people went crazy when they
Speaker 1: first came out and they were pumped down the system,
Speaker 1: and then we try to go complete the other way,
Speaker 1: and we're seeing the effects of that, and the CDC
Speaker 1: can change their guidelines, but states still have the laws
Speaker 1: in there. Prosecutors are still going to use these to
Speaker 1: prosecute doctors. It's going to have a chilling effect on prescriptions.
Speaker 1: I mean, terminally ill cancer patients can't get opiates last
Speaker 1: thirty days of the life. They're just in immense pain, right,
Speaker 1: you know, coming to terms with the final days and
Speaker 1: reconciling with their family, are saying goodbye and everything. If
Speaker 1: if you could make it to where I could talk
Speaker 1: to my family in these last few days without being
Speaker 1: in excruciating pain, are being extremely exhausted, that's the least
Speaker 1: you can give those people, all right, Well, on that
Speaker 1: real happy note, like all our episodes and not all
Speaker 1: our episodes in like the beginning of up. But it's okay,
Speaker 1: we'll try, we'll try together, we'll try to throw something
Speaker 1: in there a little bit more. But with that, you know,
Speaker 1: I'm I'm Greg Glad, I'm Clayton English and thanks for listening.
Speaker 1: Make sure you follow the War on Drugs podcast so
Speaker 1: you don't miss any new episodes or any of our
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Speaker 1: mess with the algorithm a bit. We'll see. Just give
Speaker 1: it a shot. What's what's the harm? But we'll be
Speaker 1: back next week with another episode of War on Drugs.
Speaker 1: Until then, thanks for listening. Executive producers for War on
Speaker 1: Drugs are Jason Flam and Kevin Wards. Senior producer is
Speaker 1: Michael Epstein. Editing by Nick Massetti and Michael Epstein, Associate
Speaker 1: producer and mix and mastering by Nick Massetti. Additional production
Speaker 1: by Jeff Clapburn and Anna mcintee. Be sure to follow
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Speaker 1: for good. You can follow me on Twitter at Greg Gloud.
Speaker 1: That's it great, that's it. There's nothing, there's nothing fancy
Speaker 1: about me. It was available, it always will be. No
Speaker 1: one wants to go out in there. Yeah, so you
Speaker 1: never have to go one. Two, You never have to
Speaker 1: go to Greg Glove, never having in my life. Yeah yeah,
Speaker 1: it's me and my dad are the only two Greg
Speaker 1: lads in an entire world. Is your dad's Gregory Glood
Speaker 1: doesn't have a Twitter. Oh he even gets crazier than that.
Speaker 1: So oh yeah, he doesn't have Twitter. Yeah, he couldn't
Speaker 1: get on Twitter. He tried. But the nice thing was
Speaker 1: I never had to buy a triple A membership when
Speaker 1: I was growing, right because I just used my dad's
Speaker 1: name for everything, any membership or anything that he had
Speaker 1: if I got in trouble, Hey, greg Old right here. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's been perfect right, you be grown not since you
Speaker 1: were six? Yeah, exactly. Why does this kid have his
Speaker 1: own Costco card? You have Twitter, Instagram where he didn't
Speaker 1: work with, you know, just just Instagram over here. Man.
Speaker 1: You know I don't have a Twitter. Okay, you know
Speaker 1: how I feel about that. I know how you feel. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but you can definitely follow me at Clayton English on Instagram.
Speaker 1: Warren Drugs is a production of Lava for Good Podcasts
Speaker 1: in association with Signal Company Number one. I'm Greg Glaude
Speaker 1: and I'm Clayton English. Thanks for listening. M