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Speaker 1: Hi, I'm Ethan Natalman, and this is Psychoactive, a production

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Speaker 1: of I Heart Radio and Protozoa Pictures. Psychoactive is the

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Speaker 1: show where we talk about all things drugs. But any

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Speaker 1: views expressed here do not represent those of I Heart Media,

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Speaker 1: Protozoa Pictures, or their executives and employees. Indeed, heat as

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Speaker 1: an inveterate contrarian, I can tell you they may not

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Speaker 1: even represent my own. And nothing contained in this show

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Speaker 1: should be used as medical advice or encouragement to use

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Speaker 1: any type of drug. Hello, Psychoactive listeners. You know, we've

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Speaker 1: done quite a number of episodes on the issue of

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Speaker 1: the overdose epidemic in America and the role of Purdue

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Speaker 1: Farm and other firms and promoting this, and we've done

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Speaker 1: someone Mexico and drug trafficking. Today we have somebody who's

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Speaker 1: done some really cutting edge work at the intersection of

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Speaker 1: all this, and that's saying Canonists. He's been a journalist

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Speaker 1: for about thirty five years, including ten years at the

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Speaker 1: Los Angeles Times, well known for his reporting on Mexico

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Speaker 1: and on Mexicans in the US. About six seven years

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Speaker 1: ago he published a book called Dreamland about the opioid

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Speaker 1: crisis in the United States and it won a bunch

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Speaker 1: of awards, and just last year, the end of last year,

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Speaker 1: he came out with a new book called The Least

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Speaker 1: of Us, which really is a sequel to that book.

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Speaker 1: It traces the evolution of the opioid epidemic from the

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Speaker 1: days of pills into heroin, into fentonel and weave it

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Speaker 1: together with the story of meth amphetamy re emerging in

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Speaker 1: parts of the United States where it's almost never been

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Speaker 1: in really scary ways. And he sets all that in

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Speaker 1: the context of parts of America both going through the

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Speaker 1: devastation of drugs and then recovering in various ways, and

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Speaker 1: makes some interesting analogies to other addictions and things like

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Speaker 1: addictions plaguing American society. So, Sam, thanks so much for

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Speaker 1: joining me today on Psychoactive. Very nice to be with you.

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Speaker 1: Thanks very much for how anything. I read your latest

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Speaker 1: book intensely and I found it, I had to say,

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Speaker 1: highly engaging. I learned a lot in it. I think

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Speaker 1: you tell a wonderful story. I also had some issues

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Speaker 1: with the way you presented things and some of your

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Speaker 1: policy solutions and your framing. So we'll get well. I

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Speaker 1: think we'll go back and forth this, we'll mix it

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Speaker 1: up a bit. But why don't I first ask you

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Speaker 1: to say so, if you're summing up the story of

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Speaker 1: this most recent book, The Least of Us, what's your

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Speaker 1: your short version of what this book does? It? Ast

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Speaker 1: oh man, it's about how our opioid epidemic ignited the

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Speaker 1: creativity and the profit mode of the Mexican trafficking world,

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Speaker 1: and along the way, providing us with heroin, they discovered

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Speaker 1: button could be made in a lab. And it's the

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Speaker 1: story too of how they become really just synthetic drug

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Speaker 1: producers mostly now, and that this is extraordinarily a deadly

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Speaker 1: harmful thing for the country of the United States, well

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Speaker 1: Mexico to, I have to say. And at the same time, though,

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Speaker 1: along with that, I find great hope possible, because all

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Speaker 1: of this is really awakening us, I think to or

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Speaker 1: pointing us to the idea that how thoroughly we have

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Speaker 1: shredded a community in this country in many, many ways,

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Speaker 1: and that that's one of the most powerful forces that

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Speaker 1: we have as as human beings. We have evolved to

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Speaker 1: not find it nice to have conan but essential, crucial

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Speaker 1: and without really a substitute and we have certainly the

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Speaker 1: last forty years gone about shredding a lot of that

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Speaker 1: and isolating ourselves and leaving us vulnerable. And what that

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Speaker 1: means is that these epidemics are showing us that is

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Speaker 1: the great defense as community. We we really it's more powerful,

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Speaker 1: I think than dope in a lot of ways, because

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Speaker 1: we find it so essential to our survival we exist

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Speaker 1: as a species. Really because of that. The idea was

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Speaker 1: to draw out those two forces as ways of saying,

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Speaker 1: this is what we have. In this way we can

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Speaker 1: respond if we'll learn from it. Well, you know, I

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Speaker 1: have to say, because I saw some analogy in your book,

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Speaker 1: and you had these stories right of people sort of

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Speaker 1: descending into the depths of drug addiction and then coming

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Speaker 1: out of it and beginning to leave more wholesome and

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Speaker 1: better lives. Not everybody some crash and burn and don't

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Speaker 1: make it. And then you have a similar analogous story

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Speaker 1: around community. So I want to get to that. But

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Speaker 1: let's dig more deeply first into what's gone on with

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Speaker 1: the drug stuff, because many of our psychoactive listeners will

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Speaker 1: have some sophisticate understanding of this stuff. They'll know that

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Speaker 1: there was the history that heroin has parro and epidemics

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Speaker 1: going back in America multiple times, right the era of

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Speaker 1: the sixties and seventies, there's another recurrence. They've know the

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Speaker 1: story about, you know, Purdue farm and the other pharmaceutical

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Speaker 1: companies who will overpromote. They create a wonderful drug, oxy content,

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Speaker 1: which is fantastic for certain types of pain patients, but

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Speaker 1: overpromoted aggressively in ways which are really quite reprehensible and

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Speaker 1: where they may finally be being held to account. We

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Speaker 1: know the sort of crackdown on that. And the story

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Speaker 1: you described in your previous book, Dreamland was about, you know,

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Speaker 1: how that the Mexican traff curse saw this opportunity to

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Speaker 1: get into herowin and not they've been into heroin right

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Speaker 1: oftentimes been the number one one, but they got very sophisticated.

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Speaker 1: It distributed the networks all around America, and that's part

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Speaker 1: of your story, the democratization. But you picked the story

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Speaker 1: up are really around fentanyl and fentanyl you know, as

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Speaker 1: I think many of our listeners know, it's a pharmaceutical drugs.

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Speaker 1: It's a fantastic drug for pain. And in this case

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Speaker 1: we're not talking about fentanyl being diverted from legal channels

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Speaker 1: in America. We're talking about fentanyl that begins to come

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Speaker 1: out of China, and then were the supply shifts to Mexico,

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Speaker 1: And I wonder if you could pick up the story

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Speaker 1: right there. Well, yes, I mean our illicits quantities of

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Speaker 1: supplies of fentanyl came really in the largest supplies first

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Speaker 1: from from Chinese chemical companies who found that it was

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Speaker 1: a decent business proposition to sell it over the dark

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Speaker 1: web or the open Internet, depending on the chemical company,

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Speaker 1: and they began to do this I would say three thousand, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen,

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Speaker 1: certainly sixteen got very into it, and they send it

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Speaker 1: through the mail mostly, you know, just the regular mail,

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Speaker 1: just sending it to in pounds or half kilos or um,

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Speaker 1: you know, a quarter kilo, smallish amounts through the mail.

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Speaker 1: And these were individual chemical companies selling this to people

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Speaker 1: who contacted them on the dark web. I would say

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Speaker 1: the first place that happened was in the state's hardest

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Speaker 1: by the opioid epidemic. I would say, Ohio, West Virginia, Kentucky,

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Speaker 1: where you first began to see these explosions of you know,

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Speaker 1: seventy overdoses in one weekend and that kind of thing.

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Speaker 1: Huntington's Cincinnati, and part of their customer base was the

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Speaker 1: trafficking world in Mexico as well, and they began to

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Speaker 1: send up quantities of method of continel sorry that were substantial,

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Speaker 1: though not anything like what they're doing now. The sign

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Speaker 1: that that was changing comes in about two thousand and seventeen,

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Speaker 1: where it's clear then at that point that Mexicans have

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Speaker 1: figured out or or figuring out, how to make sentinel themselves.

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Speaker 1: So let me stop you right there, because one of

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Speaker 1: the things that I found fascinating your analysis that you

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Speaker 1: describe one of the manufacturers, a guy named Gordon chen

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Speaker 1: j I N. And you said that one of the

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Speaker 1: things he was doing was when he would send the

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Speaker 1: fencinel right And of course it's made sense economically in

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Speaker 1: small packages because it's fifty hundred times more potent per

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Speaker 1: milligram or microgram than heroin. Is he had a real

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Speaker 1: bank for your book. But then when he was sending

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Speaker 1: out he would include the chemical abstract services dedicated number

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Speaker 1: that each drug in the farm of could be a has,

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Speaker 1: just like book in the library has a dedicated a number.

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Speaker 1: And also the nuclear magnetic residents n MR Spectroski test

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Speaker 1: about the purity, which I had never heard about this,

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Speaker 1: and that suggested that there was a level of sophistication

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Speaker 1: in the information that he was providing to the people,

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Speaker 1: the distributors in the US and ultimately you know, initially

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Speaker 1: in Mexico or Canada who were getting this from him,

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Speaker 1: and that seemed to be a piece of the international

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Speaker 1: drug trafficking pie that I had not heard much about before.

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Speaker 1: Level of chemical assistication. I think this was possible because

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Speaker 1: these are chemical companies. They're used to dealing with this data,

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Speaker 1: with these numbers, with this information, and I think in

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Speaker 1: some measure to the people that he was dealing with

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Speaker 1: that I wrote about, not so much, but certainly in

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Speaker 1: some measure he was dealing with people who were used

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Speaker 1: to ordering chemicals through the world chemical market legally and

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Speaker 1: so on, and so providing this information was actually I

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Speaker 1: think second nature and seemed to be kind of a

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Speaker 1: way of quality control. And I think that that was

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Speaker 1: a competitive benefit of dealing with him, and I think

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Speaker 1: others did this as well, though my understanding that was

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Speaker 1: not the only chemical company that provided that information. As

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Speaker 1: if the drug were a normal legal drug that you

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Speaker 1: would buy legally. So initially the Mexicans presumably are importing

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Speaker 1: it from China and it's shipping in and bigger things

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Speaker 1: through the distribution channels into the US. But then when

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Speaker 1: they start, you know, hiring their own chemists, many of

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Speaker 1: the Mexican chemists, some of them foreign chemists. Are they

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Speaker 1: doing the same thing that Jin did? Are they also

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Speaker 1: provided that kind of information? You know? No, they're they're

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Speaker 1: selling it kilo blocks. They're selling it through the normal

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Speaker 1: clandestine trafficking routes that come up through Tijuana into San Diego, Galas,

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Speaker 1: into Nogalis, Arizona, horizontal Aposto, etcetera. There smuggling it there

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Speaker 1: in clandestine ways, and and no, there's nothing to listen

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Speaker 1: about what they're doing. In some cases they're sending it

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Speaker 1: up in powder form or it just kind of kilo

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Speaker 1: blocks of the stuff. In two thousand and seventeen, you

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Speaker 1: begin to see the first seizures of counterfeit pills that

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Speaker 1: are designed, pressed and printed as if they were a

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Speaker 1: pharmaceutical phill. The first ones are oxycodontin eric thirty milligrams

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Speaker 1: and the press blues thirty milligram pills. It sounds me

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Speaker 1: at the beginning stages are cutting heroin with it as well.

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Speaker 1: It's a way to sell market is heroin and stretch it.

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Speaker 1: And then at some point to heroin disappears from the

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Speaker 1: nix and it becomes all fentinyl. Yeah, I think that

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Speaker 1: was happening more locally though, I think that was happening.

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Speaker 1: People would by fentanyl and then mix it. The the

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Speaker 1: guy that I wrote about in the book who sold

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Speaker 1: the fentanyl to Tommy Rao, who eventually the kid I

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Speaker 1: wrote about in the in the book who died, he

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Speaker 1: was mixing it himself. That's where the magic bullet blender

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Speaker 1: becomes part of the story, where this is myth in

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Speaker 1: the underworld that the best way to mix your fentanyl

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Speaker 1: is with a magic bullet blender. I would say, just

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Speaker 1: by way of a side that magic bullet blenders are

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Speaker 1: fantastic little instruments. We own one. It's of course abysmal,

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Speaker 1: a little machine for mixing your fentanyl. And it's that's

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Speaker 1: the case because it's got a blade and fentyel is

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Speaker 1: a powder. Magic bullets mixed liquid very well. They don't

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Speaker 1: mix powders at all. And but yet this idea took

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Speaker 1: hold of narcotics agents began to find the magic bullet

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Speaker 1: blender at different mixed sites that they would raid, particularly

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Speaker 1: early on in certain areas like Columbia, I think was

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Speaker 1: Sapping somewhat, but certainly Ohio, Kentucky was where you see

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Speaker 1: you see this thing show up because it's people who

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Speaker 1: are seeing fentanyl representing lottery like profits. The only problem

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Speaker 1: is to realize those profits, they have to mix funnel

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Speaker 1: with inert powders. Futtonnel is so potent that a few

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Speaker 1: grains the equivalent of a few grains of salt is

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Speaker 1: enough to kill your pain. And a couple more and

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Speaker 1: I'll kill you. And so you can't sell that on

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Speaker 1: the street. That's that's very small amount of drug. You

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Speaker 1: have to mix it to be able to commercially sell it.

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Speaker 1: You have to mix it. And this menth was the

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Speaker 1: first time I think in the in the history of

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Speaker 1: the drug trade where enormous profits are associated with the

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Speaker 1: ability of common, ordinary schmos to to mix this stuff

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Speaker 1: in their mom's kitchen or in their basement or their bathroom.

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Speaker 1: And this myth is perpetrated that has spread that that

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Speaker 1: this is a magnificent thing to do with a magic

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Speaker 1: bullet blender. Because I think one of the reasons was

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Speaker 1: because the magic bullet has a plastic bubble and so

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Speaker 1: you don't have the maybe the same inhalation of fumes

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Speaker 1: and dust that you might just mixing it in a bowl,

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Speaker 1: that kind of thing. But it gives you the idea

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Speaker 1: of how badly that wrote. Yeah, Sam, I have to

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Speaker 1: tell you something. Actually, that piece of in your book

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Speaker 1: about the Magic Philip Lenders was something I had never

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Speaker 1: heard before, and it answered a few questions for me,

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Speaker 1: and it was it was like the entire book. It

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Speaker 1: was the thing that much most jumped out at me

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Speaker 1: because it made the issue also about the sort of

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Speaker 1: inconsistency and supply. One of the things I've been incredibly

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Speaker 1: frustrated with is with a hundred thousand people dying of

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Speaker 1: overdoses last year overwhelmingly opioids, awhelmingly fentonel right now that

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Speaker 1: the National Student Drug Abuse seems to be devoting almost

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Speaker 1: no attention to try and to figure out doing ethnographies

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Speaker 1: that interviewed the dealers, the street dealers, the dealers one

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Speaker 1: level up. Or when cops are locking up huge numbers

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Speaker 1: of people, why aren't we trying to get cops or

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Speaker 1: jailers to offer people who have been locked up opportunity

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Speaker 1: to make some money by being interviewed about what they

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Speaker 1: were doing, you know, in return for not being pressed

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Speaker 1: further charges, so we can find out what that mixing

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Speaker 1: process is and are remember, you know, as cannadas started

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Speaker 1: to become legal and his edibles become became more common,

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Speaker 1: one of the challenges initially was how do you make

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Speaker 1: sure if you're making a Cannabi's chocolate bar that each

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Speaker 1: five grand square has the same amount of cant HC

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Speaker 1: as the other ones? And I think now they've got

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Speaker 1: that doubt and you know, obviously companies know how to

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Speaker 1: do that, but it sounds like in the whole Fentinel

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Speaker 1: area that was a real challenge. And I wonder, do

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Speaker 1: you know, has there been an evolution where you see

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Speaker 1: a lot less of magic blenders these days and a

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Speaker 1: lot more sophistication and eating it out The Mexicans have

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Speaker 1: done that with Yeah, I would say that the magic

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Speaker 1: bullet blender had its moment a few years there and

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Speaker 1: generally has faded. Of course, it was also it was

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Speaker 1: a magic bullet blender that stood out the narcotics say

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Speaker 1: it was also coffee grinders another kind of bizarre machinery

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Speaker 1: that was used to mix. But but um, But I

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Speaker 1: would say that that kind of faded, um and and

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Speaker 1: one reason it faded, I think was that, first of all,

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Speaker 1: the mix was was happening on in Mexico more they

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Speaker 1: were making it, and they were mixing it down there,

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Speaker 1: especially into these counterfeit pills that I mentioned earlier. First

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Speaker 1: it was thirty milligram generic oxycodons. Then it was xan

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Speaker 1: x bars and percocets lookalikes, you know, counterfeits, And so

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Speaker 1: you you don't have the same need to you just

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Speaker 1: buy these pills, you know, why do you want to

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Speaker 1: mix it? And and so I would say that the

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Speaker 1: most most of the mixing when it when it does happen,

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Speaker 1: is still at the local level. And I agree with you. I've,

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Speaker 1: in fact, I've done some of that ethnography to find

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Speaker 1: out but not I'm just one reporter. There's there's I'm

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Speaker 1: not sure you know, entire countries full of people who

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Speaker 1: are doing this. Now, there's many things to learn from

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Speaker 1: from folks who were sitting in jail as I've basically

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Speaker 1: used my entire career, essentially um to find this stuff out.

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Speaker 1: But but I would say that that a lot of

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Speaker 1: that is happening at the local level or the mid level.

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Speaker 1: I don't think it's so much happening down in Mexico anymore.

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Speaker 1: And it makes sense that that would not be the case,

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Speaker 1: because down in Mexico it makes sense to just ship

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Speaker 1: up a kilo of I mean, it's just more efficient. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: the whole story you tell, and the same thing happens

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Speaker 1: when we get into mith amphetamine story. It's an age

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Speaker 1: old story, right. It's the way in which we had

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Speaker 1: to shift from opium to heroin a hundred years ago.

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Speaker 1: And you have the crackdown there, the way in which

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Speaker 1: you saw the shift from opium to heroin, and East

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Speaker 1: Asia when they cracked down an opium production, they shifted

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Speaker 1: to heroin. The shift from a cannabis to cocaine in

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Speaker 1: nineteen eighties with a Caribbean crackdown, the shift from beer

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Speaker 1: and wine to hard liquor during alcohol prohibition. So it's

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Speaker 1: an age old story, right, of the distributors, the manufacturers

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Speaker 1: wanting to get the biggest bank for their buck, to

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Speaker 1: ship the most potent compact products, the least detectable product,

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Speaker 1: and all this thing when the stuff comes into the US.

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Speaker 1: It seems that initially it's the East coast getting hit

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Speaker 1: by fenton al parts of the East Coast more than

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Speaker 1: West coast, even midwest, Midway Midway. I would say that

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Speaker 1: that was the first place that I was aware of,

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Speaker 1: and also two thousand and one was a fourteen or ten.

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Speaker 1: I'm losing track now, but it's the areas that were

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Speaker 1: worst hit by the opioid epidemic in my in my view,

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Speaker 1: is really where that started. Then it goes both directions.

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Speaker 1: It goes out from Ohio and in Kentucky and Indiana,

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Speaker 1: and in Tennessee and West Virginia and those states. It

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Speaker 1: goes to east end and west, but I would say

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Speaker 1: ends up in the West coast. Last, the first real

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Speaker 1: problem that anyone saw with with fentanel was in in California.

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Speaker 1: Was in Chico, I think where they had nine people

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Speaker 1: was at nine or seven I can't remember. People fall

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Speaker 1: out and overdose and they saved I said, they said

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Speaker 1: all of them, actually, But that was the first time anyway,

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Speaker 1: and this was in rural Butte County way up north

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Speaker 1: in California, where they were just not expecting that that

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Speaker 1: at all, And so it began to spread. But I

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Speaker 1: think the first people to buy it where the folks

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Speaker 1: who figured out that they could buy it from these

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Speaker 1: Chinese companies. And then it was this, as I say,

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Speaker 1: lottery like profit were associated with it. They just had

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Speaker 1: to mix it, and when they mixed it, they did

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Speaker 1: a poor job of it. I think you also say

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Speaker 1: that some of them can't believe that it's fifty times

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Speaker 1: more potent than heroin. Is it's almost unbelievable that that

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Speaker 1: infintestinal amount could be getting the saying bang sing bang

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Speaker 1: for the buck. Oh, I think. I think. In fact,

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Speaker 1: if you read the book, you saw the first chapters

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Speaker 1: about the chemist in and Toluca Mexico, who was making

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Speaker 1: with the funding from the sinloa drug cartel, was making

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Speaker 1: the fedinl They thought he wanted They wanted him to

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Speaker 1: make a Federan. He starts making funnel. He clues them

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Speaker 1: in for the first time. That's really the first time

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Speaker 1: in the Mexican drug world. Get got windowed with this

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Speaker 1: thing called funnel. There was a substitute, synthetic substitute for heroin.

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Speaker 1: And he does these tests on his fentinyl and figures

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Speaker 1: out that intell actually take a fifty to one cut,

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Speaker 1: so one kilo will make fifty sailable kilos on the

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Speaker 1: streets of some city in the United States. He sends

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Speaker 1: that information with the people he gives But and my

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Speaker 1: understanding from the agents is that nobody in Chicago believed it.

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Speaker 1: It sounds like a myth, like fifty to one are

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Speaker 1: you people are always over selling their job. They're always saying,

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Speaker 1: oh you can, this is a five to one cut,

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Speaker 1: you can take. This is cut. Five people come in

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Speaker 1: with fifty two one and nobody believe it. So nobody

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Speaker 1: really cut it that much, and that's why you had

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Speaker 1: this massive death pull that came and went with that

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Speaker 1: one lab down in to local Mexico. The other thing

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Speaker 1: I picked up from my networks was that in the

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Speaker 1: early years of fentanyl coming in five, six, seven years ago,

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Speaker 1: that a lot of consumers basically they didn't like the

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Speaker 1: fentinel as much as the heroin. Initially it was a

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Speaker 1: different type of thing, and oftentimes they were getting they

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Speaker 1: were being told they were getting heroin, but it was

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Speaker 1: heroin being cut or displaced by fentonel and was actually

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Speaker 1: happened over the last four or five years as fentanyl

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Speaker 1: has basically displaced heroin in the United States, is that

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Speaker 1: this people now prefer fentanyl. Fentinyl has become the new

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Speaker 1: thing they like, and they get heroin, they almost go like,

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Speaker 1: what's this? Or I don't like it as much anymore.

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Speaker 1: I'm not sure i'd put it that way. I would

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Speaker 1: say they are now addicted to fentyl. You know, to me,

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Speaker 1: that's that's not a preference. That's that control of the

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Speaker 1: brain that really has nothing to do with free will

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Speaker 1: and the choice. The traffickers are saying, were you were

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Speaker 1: giving you funnel? And yeah, today on the streets so

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Speaker 1: many parts of America, heroin was worthless. It will not

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Speaker 1: get rid of the dope sickness. But I was just

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Speaker 1: speaking with the guy from an attict in Maine. He

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Speaker 1: was very clear he doesn't like fentanyl. He doesn't still

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Speaker 1: doesn't like finol. A few reasons for that. One is

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Speaker 1: that at first fentinal was to him and there was

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Speaker 1: no heroine in the area, and he just he was

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Speaker 1: strung out. So we had to use it. So we

375
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Speaker 1: used it, and at first it was like a massive

376
00:19:34,359 --> 00:19:38,119
Speaker 1: financial savings. But eventually, very quickly he got addicted to it,

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00:19:38,359 --> 00:19:43,640
Speaker 1: and very quickly his use tripled because fentinel. The key

378
00:19:43,720 --> 00:19:46,320
Speaker 1: thing about funtinel, the reason it's such a great drug

379
00:19:46,440 --> 00:19:49,040
Speaker 1: for anesthesia, is what makes it a bad drug for

380
00:19:49,119 --> 00:19:51,920
Speaker 1: a user. It's it's quick in and quick out for

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Speaker 1: an anesthesia. That's fantastic. You can do a two hour

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Speaker 1: surgery on somebody and that person could be removed from

383
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Speaker 1: anesthesia and and be lucid. And I happened to me,

384
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Speaker 1: and it's what allowed Fountainel to revolution revolutionized surgery in

385
00:20:05,400 --> 00:20:09,200
Speaker 1: anesthesia in America. But for an addict that meets you

386
00:20:09,280 --> 00:20:12,359
Speaker 1: have to be constantly using it all day long. My

387
00:20:12,480 --> 00:20:14,880
Speaker 1: understanding is the highest end is nice. But the main

388
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Speaker 1: problem I think for a lot of people is there's

389
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Speaker 1: no longer like a six hour period where you're not using.

390
00:20:20,520 --> 00:20:23,200
Speaker 1: You're always This guy told told me I was using

391
00:20:23,280 --> 00:20:25,760
Speaker 1: twice a day, two grams of heroin a day, and

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Speaker 1: with fentinel it was six times a day, five six

393
00:20:28,400 --> 00:20:31,440
Speaker 1: times a day, Uh, seven grams of frontinell. I'm sorry,

394
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Speaker 1: And so you see this, Yeah, just placement. I was

395
00:20:34,000 --> 00:20:36,800
Speaker 1: in a homeless encountment in Nashville where I'm not living

396
00:20:37,480 --> 00:20:40,159
Speaker 1: about was it like around Thanksgiving? And I met a

397
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Speaker 1: guy and he is a longtime heroin addict, and he said,

398
00:20:43,240 --> 00:20:45,919
Speaker 1: there's some guys came by our encampment offering black dar

399
00:20:46,000 --> 00:20:50,320
Speaker 1: heroin straight up legitimate blacked our heron and I told him, man,

400
00:20:50,560 --> 00:20:53,280
Speaker 1: I can't buy that. What's that gonna do? I need frontinel.

401
00:20:53,680 --> 00:20:58,520
Speaker 1: Nobody is so once you get through that period where

402
00:20:58,600 --> 00:21:02,520
Speaker 1: you have survived till you're now addicted to fentanyl, at

403
00:21:02,600 --> 00:21:06,840
Speaker 1: that point heroin it's worthless. And I think that's worth

404
00:21:06,880 --> 00:21:09,640
Speaker 1: seeing that in many parts of the country. Yeah, yeah,

405
00:21:09,960 --> 00:21:12,920
Speaker 1: even though they call it here thing. I've been in

406
00:21:12,960 --> 00:21:15,920
Speaker 1: several parts of Tennessee where they say no about heroin,

407
00:21:15,960 --> 00:21:17,840
Speaker 1: there's no heroin in the stuff. They know there's no

408
00:21:17,960 --> 00:21:20,840
Speaker 1: heroin in it, but they still use it, use the terminology.

409
00:21:21,160 --> 00:21:22,520
Speaker 1: You know. I have to tell you. I just went

410
00:21:22,600 --> 00:21:25,040
Speaker 1: up to record an episode up at the over Those

411
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Speaker 1: Prevention Center, the Safe Injection side through Consumption that just

412
00:21:27,760 --> 00:21:30,600
Speaker 1: opened up in East Carolan, and they're basically the staff

413
00:21:30,640 --> 00:21:33,080
Speaker 1: working they're saying, almost everything's got fentonel in it. And

414
00:21:33,119 --> 00:21:34,720
Speaker 1: then I interviewed one of the clients there and he

415
00:21:34,840 --> 00:21:36,879
Speaker 1: was saying, oh, yeah, heroin sometimes, but it seems like

416
00:21:37,160 --> 00:21:40,240
Speaker 1: exactly what you're saying there. It also raises some questions

417
00:21:40,359 --> 00:21:43,119
Speaker 1: about whether the fentonel things more likely to burn itself out.

418
00:21:43,160 --> 00:21:45,520
Speaker 1: All drugs go through their phases right were able to do.

419
00:21:45,640 --> 00:21:48,680
Speaker 1: The heroin phase burns itself out, and crack particularly was

420
00:21:48,800 --> 00:21:50,960
Speaker 1: one where crack came on like crazy, first in the

421
00:21:51,040 --> 00:21:52,639
Speaker 1: New York in the big cities, and then in the

422
00:21:52,760 --> 00:21:55,320
Speaker 1: smaller cities, and then at some point it burns it

423
00:21:55,359 --> 00:21:57,720
Speaker 1: out and a younger generation turns their back on it

424
00:21:57,880 --> 00:22:00,280
Speaker 1: and just two forties in a blunt and maybe beating

425
00:22:00,320 --> 00:22:02,600
Speaker 1: up crackheads or something like that. And so with fent atyl,

426
00:22:02,680 --> 00:22:05,600
Speaker 1: if it's that drug which doesn't actually make people feel

427
00:22:05,640 --> 00:22:08,280
Speaker 1: as good, especially early on, and if it has to

428
00:22:08,320 --> 00:22:12,000
Speaker 1: be used repeatedly like that, it suggests fentanyl. It's taken

429
00:22:12,040 --> 00:22:15,840
Speaker 1: over for now. But maybe we'll see what But here's

430
00:22:15,880 --> 00:22:18,560
Speaker 1: the thing I mean with fentanyl. Yes, I think that's

431
00:22:18,680 --> 00:22:20,719
Speaker 1: that's it's certainly a possibility, and I think we'd all

432
00:22:20,760 --> 00:22:22,800
Speaker 1: welcome it. The problem is this that this is a

433
00:22:22,920 --> 00:22:26,399
Speaker 1: drug almost entirely from the from a trafficker's point of view.

434
00:22:26,440 --> 00:22:28,440
Speaker 1: It doesn't have anything to do with what the customer

435
00:22:28,880 --> 00:22:31,720
Speaker 1: wants and makes total business sense from a traffickers point

436
00:22:31,720 --> 00:22:33,200
Speaker 1: of view, as I said in the book, and and

437
00:22:33,320 --> 00:22:37,560
Speaker 1: so it doesn't matter what people switched to. We've already

438
00:22:37,600 --> 00:22:40,960
Speaker 1: seen that fentinel can be mixed with it methem fedoman.

439
00:22:41,480 --> 00:22:45,240
Speaker 1: There's some examples, not many, it's rare, but certainly some

440
00:22:45,359 --> 00:22:50,480
Speaker 1: examples of marijuana being adulterated with fentanyl, certainly cocaine. So

441
00:22:50,840 --> 00:22:55,680
Speaker 1: whatever you switch to. Fentanyl is so cheap, it's like

442
00:22:55,800 --> 00:22:58,000
Speaker 1: salt on food, the way we have salt on food,

443
00:22:58,240 --> 00:23:01,480
Speaker 1: and and and so you can put fentinel in anything.

444
00:23:01,560 --> 00:23:04,119
Speaker 1: And the key thing there is once you do that

445
00:23:04,200 --> 00:23:07,520
Speaker 1: a little bit, and pretty soon you replace that occasional

446
00:23:07,640 --> 00:23:11,120
Speaker 1: cocaine user with a daily opioid user, and that person

447
00:23:11,280 --> 00:23:14,399
Speaker 1: doesn't have the ability to choose anymore. That's a that's

448
00:23:14,440 --> 00:23:16,280
Speaker 1: a thing. One of the things I took a little

449
00:23:16,280 --> 00:23:17,520
Speaker 1: bit of issue that you said is at one point

450
00:23:17,520 --> 00:23:19,720
Speaker 1: you said the traffickers after just make creating, you know,

451
00:23:19,800 --> 00:23:22,800
Speaker 1: hiring chemists to make ever more potent substances. And I

452
00:23:23,160 --> 00:23:26,239
Speaker 1: don't think that's quite exactly right, because if that was right,

453
00:23:26,480 --> 00:23:29,520
Speaker 1: car fentanyl would have replaced fentanyl. By now. Car fentels

454
00:23:29,560 --> 00:23:32,080
Speaker 1: many times more powerful than fentanyl. We had that horrible

455
00:23:32,160 --> 00:23:34,800
Speaker 1: cower fentanyl outbreak in Ohio where people were dropping dead

456
00:23:34,880 --> 00:23:37,240
Speaker 1: like flies. Then it stopped and it's not spreading. So

457
00:23:37,359 --> 00:23:39,760
Speaker 1: there's a point which is not really about potency. It

458
00:23:39,960 --> 00:23:42,600
Speaker 1: is a seller's market and they're they're basically looking is

459
00:23:42,680 --> 00:23:45,359
Speaker 1: what's going to make them the most money. And ultimately,

460
00:23:45,520 --> 00:23:47,920
Speaker 1: when you're putting stuff out there you want with the

461
00:23:48,000 --> 00:23:50,080
Speaker 1: consumers are gonna pay for what they're gonna buy for.

462
00:23:50,440 --> 00:23:52,200
Speaker 1: You know, if you shift the incentives, It's just like

463
00:23:52,280 --> 00:23:55,560
Speaker 1: with alcohol prohibition. When that gets repealed, the taste for

464
00:23:55,640 --> 00:23:58,840
Speaker 1: harlequer becomes an every diminishing part of overall alphol consumption

465
00:23:58,880 --> 00:24:01,520
Speaker 1: because lots of people don't want that. And there's another

466
00:24:01,560 --> 00:24:03,920
Speaker 1: thing you were righting. You kept talking about marijuana, this

467
00:24:04,040 --> 00:24:06,440
Speaker 1: high potency marijuana. There is no such thing as recreational

468
00:24:06,520 --> 00:24:08,280
Speaker 1: drug use anymore, and I'm going, what the hell are

469
00:24:08,280 --> 00:24:10,480
Speaker 1: you talking about? Sam, of course is recreational drug use.

470
00:24:10,480 --> 00:24:13,080
Speaker 1: The vast majority people use merrihan are using recreationally. And

471
00:24:13,160 --> 00:24:15,600
Speaker 1: we know when dabbing came along, it's not like everybody

472
00:24:15,640 --> 00:24:19,280
Speaker 1: went to dabbing, which is like the crack version of marijuana. Basically,

473
00:24:19,440 --> 00:24:21,359
Speaker 1: the producers are gonna keep doing what's going to make

474
00:24:21,400 --> 00:24:23,600
Speaker 1: them the most money, and for consumers, it's gonna be

475
00:24:23,680 --> 00:24:26,480
Speaker 1: what works for them. Yeah, and with fentanyl, they've seen

476
00:24:26,520 --> 00:24:29,359
Speaker 1: that fentanyl makes them the most money when it turns

477
00:24:29,480 --> 00:24:33,760
Speaker 1: occasional users into fine ladder. That is what's going on now.

478
00:24:33,960 --> 00:24:37,239
Speaker 1: And so what I meant by that is that there

479
00:24:37,359 --> 00:24:40,679
Speaker 1: is no risk free recreational drug use anymore. You can

480
00:24:40,760 --> 00:24:42,800
Speaker 1: be given a pill at a party and that party,

481
00:24:42,960 --> 00:24:45,360
Speaker 1: that pill can look exactly like a purcoset and maybe

482
00:24:45,520 --> 00:24:48,760
Speaker 1: even seeing a percoset. If you use that pill from

483
00:24:48,800 --> 00:24:52,360
Speaker 1: the trusted friend, it's very likely that I'll have funnel.

484
00:24:52,440 --> 00:24:56,080
Speaker 1: And so the way traffickers work is the way they

485
00:24:56,160 --> 00:24:58,280
Speaker 1: make their most money is by making sure that people

486
00:24:58,359 --> 00:25:01,280
Speaker 1: get addicted to fentanyl. That's what makes them. Yeah, Sam,

487
00:25:01,359 --> 00:25:03,399
Speaker 1: you realize you just made a pretty strong argument for

488
00:25:03,520 --> 00:25:06,280
Speaker 1: legal regulation of these drugs, right. It's the greatest denjer

489
00:25:06,600 --> 00:25:08,600
Speaker 1: is this stuff being adulter and stuff like that. So

490
00:25:08,800 --> 00:25:10,760
Speaker 1: it is truly a risk. But let's shift to your

491
00:25:10,840 --> 00:25:13,920
Speaker 1: story on meth amphetamine, because I think people are where.

492
00:25:13,960 --> 00:25:16,160
Speaker 1: You know, meth amphetamine has been around in some parts

493
00:25:16,200 --> 00:25:19,080
Speaker 1: of the country for many decades before that. You know,

494
00:25:19,160 --> 00:25:21,479
Speaker 1: amphetamie was a common thing in the fifties and then

495
00:25:21,520 --> 00:25:24,200
Speaker 1: it shows a big time in the South, the western places.

496
00:25:24,320 --> 00:25:27,480
Speaker 1: Hawaii's had it for many decades. I remember twenty years

497
00:25:27,480 --> 00:25:29,760
Speaker 1: ago when Alison the meth craze became the big thing,

498
00:25:29,840 --> 00:25:32,080
Speaker 1: and all these mom and pop little meth labs pop

499
00:25:32,119 --> 00:25:34,639
Speaker 1: around the country and people sometimes blowing themselves up. And

500
00:25:35,000 --> 00:25:37,440
Speaker 1: and then we read about the Mexicans kind of like, well,

501
00:25:37,520 --> 00:25:39,960
Speaker 1: we'll take this over instead of your crappy meth, We'll

502
00:25:40,000 --> 00:25:43,200
Speaker 1: start producing high quality meth. But then there's something else

503
00:25:43,240 --> 00:25:45,880
Speaker 1: that happened, which also I knew almost nothing about until

504
00:25:45,880 --> 00:25:48,160
Speaker 1: I read about in your book, which was the evolution

505
00:25:48,680 --> 00:25:52,040
Speaker 1: from Aphedian based meth toisting pete p. Two p. So

506
00:25:52,160 --> 00:25:55,840
Speaker 1: please tell us that story, sure, and m P. Two

507
00:25:55,920 --> 00:25:59,879
Speaker 1: p Based meth is really an old method, Mike and

508
00:26:00,000 --> 00:26:02,480
Speaker 1: action to methem Fedoman began when I was a crime

509
00:26:02,560 --> 00:26:05,200
Speaker 1: reporter in the city of Stockton, California, and there was

510
00:26:05,280 --> 00:26:07,560
Speaker 1: a whole part of Stockton that had a lot of

511
00:26:07,760 --> 00:26:10,200
Speaker 1: methane and it was really still the biker kind of guys.

512
00:26:10,560 --> 00:26:12,399
Speaker 1: That's how you know the Hell's Angels. You see in

513
00:26:12,400 --> 00:26:15,040
Speaker 1: the Gimme Shelter, the documentary of the Rolling Stones, you

514
00:26:15,119 --> 00:26:17,680
Speaker 1: see the Hell's angels, And that's really I think most

515
00:26:17,720 --> 00:26:20,920
Speaker 1: Americans awakening to what methem Fedomen was. And then you

516
00:26:21,200 --> 00:26:23,560
Speaker 1: can't heat with speed kills and all that stuff. And

517
00:26:23,640 --> 00:26:27,120
Speaker 1: that's fifty years ago, basically, that's in the nineteen sixties. Yeah,

518
00:26:27,160 --> 00:26:30,600
Speaker 1: sixty nine is when Altamont took place, right exactly. But

519
00:26:30,760 --> 00:26:33,720
Speaker 1: they made it in this way that was really not

520
00:26:33,880 --> 00:26:35,680
Speaker 1: a good way to make. No one would ever choose

521
00:26:35,760 --> 00:26:38,399
Speaker 1: to make nothing fedom on the PQP method because it's

522
00:26:38,480 --> 00:26:41,159
Speaker 1: very messy, it stinks, it's a lot of chemicals, etcetera, etcetera.

523
00:26:41,320 --> 00:26:44,040
Speaker 1: It's it's more complicated, it's more less efficient. The Federan

524
00:26:44,080 --> 00:26:46,520
Speaker 1: method is far better if you have that opportunity. And

525
00:26:46,960 --> 00:26:51,119
Speaker 1: that's how the Mexican trafficking world industrialized. Metham Fedomen was

526
00:26:51,160 --> 00:26:53,959
Speaker 1: with their federal method for beginning in the late eighties.

527
00:26:54,240 --> 00:26:56,760
Speaker 1: Talk about it in the book. Through the nineties that

528
00:26:56,880 --> 00:27:00,879
Speaker 1: you get these kind of nodes of expertise developing, certainly

529
00:27:00,880 --> 00:27:04,680
Speaker 1: around Guadalajara sent a law to labs at the time,

530
00:27:04,800 --> 00:27:09,840
Speaker 1: we're like twenty poundtound labs that they would produce per

531
00:27:09,920 --> 00:27:12,960
Speaker 1: cook and that kind of thing. And time went on,

532
00:27:13,800 --> 00:27:15,520
Speaker 1: it grew and grew and and and more and more

533
00:27:15,560 --> 00:27:17,480
Speaker 1: people learned how to do it and so on. And

534
00:27:17,560 --> 00:27:21,360
Speaker 1: then in two thousand and eight, the Mexican government really

535
00:27:21,440 --> 00:27:26,040
Speaker 1: responding to a few pressures. One was from a scandal

536
00:27:26,119 --> 00:27:28,639
Speaker 1: that had taken place. I talked about a Chinese fellow

537
00:27:28,680 --> 00:27:31,480
Speaker 1: involved in all this as well, they put regulations on

538
00:27:31,560 --> 00:27:34,840
Speaker 1: the importation of the federan only for certain pharmaceutical companies

539
00:27:34,840 --> 00:27:37,560
Speaker 1: can possess it. And at that point there begins a

540
00:27:37,720 --> 00:27:41,000
Speaker 1: general migration away from the federal method, although it's still

541
00:27:41,040 --> 00:27:42,760
Speaker 1: used from ton of time and I think it's generally

542
00:27:42,840 --> 00:27:45,600
Speaker 1: the meth season in the United States tested by D. E.

543
00:27:45,680 --> 00:27:49,320
Speaker 1: A Chemists is increasingly becoming the meth that is made

544
00:27:49,359 --> 00:27:52,160
Speaker 1: with P two P. P two P has one benefit

545
00:27:52,400 --> 00:27:55,359
Speaker 1: and one benefit only over the traffic over the federal method,

546
00:27:55,480 --> 00:27:58,560
Speaker 1: and that is you can make P two P many

547
00:27:58,640 --> 00:28:01,560
Speaker 1: many different ways. It's it's not difficult to make it

548
00:28:01,640 --> 00:28:05,320
Speaker 1: with a variety of industrial chemicals that are all legal, cheap,

549
00:28:05,760 --> 00:28:08,960
Speaker 1: easily available, et cetera, toxic too, and they begin to

550
00:28:09,040 --> 00:28:11,600
Speaker 1: make it that way. And so whenever the government cracks

551
00:28:11,640 --> 00:28:13,960
Speaker 1: down on this batch of chemicals, well they shift to

552
00:28:13,960 --> 00:28:15,639
Speaker 1: another way of making P two But anyway, what it

553
00:28:15,720 --> 00:28:18,480
Speaker 1: allows them to do if they control the ports. Which

554
00:28:18,520 --> 00:28:21,040
Speaker 1: they do is import all these chemicals and begin to

555
00:28:21,080 --> 00:28:24,000
Speaker 1: make quantities of metal phenom and the federal never allowed

556
00:28:24,040 --> 00:28:26,199
Speaker 1: them to make, and so you begin to see an

557
00:28:26,280 --> 00:28:29,200
Speaker 1: explosion of producers down in Mexico. We think of these

558
00:28:29,240 --> 00:28:32,560
Speaker 1: things as cartels. I don't really, ever, really use the

559
00:28:33,040 --> 00:28:36,600
Speaker 1: term cartels down to describe what's going on down in Mexico.

560
00:28:36,720 --> 00:28:39,080
Speaker 1: That's not what they are. Cartels are like opeque, you know,

561
00:28:39,120 --> 00:28:43,520
Speaker 1: where you control, you constrict product to force price up.

562
00:28:44,040 --> 00:28:46,880
Speaker 1: The groups down to Mexico trafficing organizations down to Mexico

563
00:28:47,000 --> 00:28:51,280
Speaker 1: do the opposite. They charge for permission. So they charge

564
00:28:51,360 --> 00:28:55,120
Speaker 1: for permission to cook or make your drugs in their areas.

565
00:28:55,360 --> 00:29:00,920
Speaker 1: It's basically lots of fiefdoms under a general umbrella. We'll

566
00:29:00,920 --> 00:29:17,080
Speaker 1: be talking more after we hear this ad. You and

567
00:29:17,160 --> 00:29:19,080
Speaker 1: I have the exact same perspective on this. I always

568
00:29:19,120 --> 00:29:22,120
Speaker 1: thought the use of the phrase cartel was bullshit, right,

569
00:29:22,160 --> 00:29:24,320
Speaker 1: because they're not acting acting like opec. Right. He's a

570
00:29:24,360 --> 00:29:26,520
Speaker 1: group's competing they don't have to and and in fact,

571
00:29:26,520 --> 00:29:29,640
Speaker 1: I sometimes wonder if the reason it became popular because

572
00:29:29,680 --> 00:29:31,920
Speaker 1: we didn't used to talk about heroin cartels. I think

573
00:29:31,960 --> 00:29:35,640
Speaker 1: it became popular. This is just my speculation with cocaine

574
00:29:35,720 --> 00:29:39,880
Speaker 1: cartels because of the alliteration. Cocaine cartels had a buzz

575
00:29:39,960 --> 00:29:41,880
Speaker 1: to it, even though it didn't make any sense. And

576
00:29:41,960 --> 00:29:43,760
Speaker 1: then we just got caught with the word. And I'll

577
00:29:43,760 --> 00:29:45,760
Speaker 1: tell you by the way, I just found an example

578
00:29:45,800 --> 00:29:48,280
Speaker 1: of a Mexican cartrtel in the news a couple of

579
00:29:48,360 --> 00:29:51,400
Speaker 1: days ago, where they're acting like a cartel on the

580
00:29:51,520 --> 00:29:54,840
Speaker 1: control of lines. How they were taking over avocados and

581
00:29:54,880 --> 00:29:58,360
Speaker 1: alice go. It turns out there's now cartel action because

582
00:29:58,400 --> 00:30:01,080
Speaker 1: it's coming because it's an agricult true product, because it's

583
00:30:01,080 --> 00:30:03,760
Speaker 1: coming just from one part of Mexico, they actually can

584
00:30:03,840 --> 00:30:06,400
Speaker 1: engage in cartel behavior and they're kicking up the price.

585
00:30:06,560 --> 00:30:08,560
Speaker 1: And it's one of the first examples I see of

586
00:30:08,640 --> 00:30:12,040
Speaker 1: a Mexican cartel actually acting like a cartel. Yeah. I

587
00:30:12,080 --> 00:30:14,200
Speaker 1: just find it interesting that the DA doesn't use that

588
00:30:14,360 --> 00:30:15,960
Speaker 1: term either, by the way they use d T O

589
00:30:16,120 --> 00:30:20,360
Speaker 1: drug traffic organizations. That's a far better descriptive thing. I

590
00:30:20,400 --> 00:30:23,840
Speaker 1: would say that the Colombians were more akin to to cartels.

591
00:30:24,000 --> 00:30:26,040
Speaker 1: There was differences, of course, I don't want to get

592
00:30:26,080 --> 00:30:28,960
Speaker 1: too far into that. But the Mexicans have no resemblance

593
00:30:29,000 --> 00:30:32,240
Speaker 1: to what I would consider having study economics so many

594
00:30:32,320 --> 00:30:35,000
Speaker 1: years ago, decades ago, to a cartel. They are loose

595
00:30:35,120 --> 00:30:39,520
Speaker 1: confederations of fiefdoms and controls of those fiefdoms, change and

596
00:30:39,840 --> 00:30:43,280
Speaker 1: morphin are There's lots of battles for these things. Within

597
00:30:43,680 --> 00:30:47,880
Speaker 1: and without. They benefit from people producing more, not less.

598
00:30:48,040 --> 00:30:51,160
Speaker 1: They benefit in the following ways. They benefit by selling

599
00:30:51,360 --> 00:30:54,360
Speaker 1: permission to be able to make your drugs in their area.

600
00:30:55,120 --> 00:30:58,440
Speaker 1: They benefit by selling you the chemicals. And they also

601
00:30:58,640 --> 00:31:00,520
Speaker 1: some of them, not all of these groups, but some

602
00:31:00,640 --> 00:31:03,440
Speaker 1: of them benefit by charging polls into the United States.

603
00:31:03,720 --> 00:31:07,400
Speaker 1: Chappolzman was huge into that. That's why the tunnels and

604
00:31:07,440 --> 00:31:09,760
Speaker 1: how they would choose you. You pay thirty grand, fifty grand,

605
00:31:09,840 --> 00:31:11,880
Speaker 1: hundred grand, you use the tunnels and under that kind

606
00:31:11,920 --> 00:31:13,680
Speaker 1: of thing. I remember one of the theories around why

607
00:31:13,680 --> 00:31:16,160
Speaker 1: all that violence happened in Sea Atuire is about fifteen

608
00:31:16,240 --> 00:31:18,520
Speaker 1: years ago. You know, it was essentially that's one of

609
00:31:18,560 --> 00:31:20,360
Speaker 1: the one of the groups that had been just allowing

610
00:31:20,440 --> 00:31:23,240
Speaker 1: cannabis to go through and just taxing, just basically controlling

611
00:31:23,280 --> 00:31:25,440
Speaker 1: the cocaine started to crack down and no longer given

612
00:31:25,480 --> 00:31:27,800
Speaker 1: the set of free passage. So yeah, very much consistently

613
00:31:27,880 --> 00:31:29,880
Speaker 1: you're saying right there. Yeah, well, I would say in

614
00:31:30,000 --> 00:31:32,000
Speaker 1: in Quarras it was a little different story though. You know,

615
00:31:32,160 --> 00:31:35,960
Speaker 1: the great tragedy of Mexico is connected to the fact

616
00:31:36,040 --> 00:31:39,560
Speaker 1: that Chappolzman left prison. I have to say, I believe

617
00:31:39,600 --> 00:31:43,640
Speaker 1: that he starts the wars that start everything. He starts

618
00:31:43,720 --> 00:31:47,040
Speaker 1: the wars when he gets out with the Tijuana cartel

619
00:31:47,360 --> 00:31:50,080
Speaker 1: who who he hates. These guys are all from Santa Lo. Okay,

620
00:31:50,240 --> 00:31:52,280
Speaker 1: all the cartels are from Santa Look, except when you

621
00:31:52,400 --> 00:31:55,160
Speaker 1: get down to the used cartel but whatever, down to

622
00:31:55,280 --> 00:31:58,440
Speaker 1: into southern Texas, and then it becomes a whole different world,

623
00:31:58,680 --> 00:32:01,920
Speaker 1: a whole different culture of trafficking organization, which I'm happy

624
00:32:01,960 --> 00:32:03,840
Speaker 1: to talk about. Okay now, but let's let's let's stick

625
00:32:03,840 --> 00:32:06,880
Speaker 1: on the meth amphetamy thing, because you're describing this evolution

626
00:32:07,080 --> 00:32:09,120
Speaker 1: right where the pseudo federant I mean, first the US

627
00:32:09,200 --> 00:32:11,120
Speaker 1: cracks down on it, and China cracks down a sudo

628
00:32:11,160 --> 00:32:13,440
Speaker 1: federan and Mexico cracks down. They shift to P two

629
00:32:13,520 --> 00:32:16,520
Speaker 1: P and you're basically saying that now throughout much that

630
00:32:16,600 --> 00:32:20,080
Speaker 1: we're now seeing meth emerging all around the United states,

631
00:32:20,120 --> 00:32:23,120
Speaker 1: including in places it's never been, including in black communities

632
00:32:23,160 --> 00:32:25,920
Speaker 1: that were never that into meth using before, and of

633
00:32:26,040 --> 00:32:28,760
Speaker 1: a different sort. And so one of your claims, it's

634
00:32:28,760 --> 00:32:31,560
Speaker 1: a more provocative one, and that's hard. And then you

635
00:32:31,600 --> 00:32:34,520
Speaker 1: have good anecdotal evidence on But where people are wondering,

636
00:32:35,000 --> 00:32:38,840
Speaker 1: is this P two P is it something special? Is

637
00:32:38,920 --> 00:32:41,720
Speaker 1: it a new type of meth doing something differently, or

638
00:32:41,800 --> 00:32:44,360
Speaker 1: is it simply that meth amphetamy now, because it's so

639
00:32:44,480 --> 00:32:46,840
Speaker 1: cheap to produce is as you point out, it's much

640
00:32:46,880 --> 00:32:49,360
Speaker 1: more potent and much cheaper than it ever used to be,

641
00:32:49,480 --> 00:32:51,760
Speaker 1: which could also help explain why we're seeing these terrible

642
00:32:51,800 --> 00:32:55,120
Speaker 1: myth problems. All of that could be all of that

643
00:32:55,200 --> 00:32:58,600
Speaker 1: could be possible, I would say that. And again it's

644
00:32:58,640 --> 00:33:00,560
Speaker 1: not been studied. There's no neuroson since I said in

645
00:33:00,600 --> 00:33:02,840
Speaker 1: the book, there's no rating my studies and so all

646
00:33:02,920 --> 00:33:05,800
Speaker 1: of this stuff. But yes, it's everywhere. It's in quantities

647
00:33:05,880 --> 00:33:08,840
Speaker 1: that stagger the mind. And there's no general region any

648
00:33:08,880 --> 00:33:10,760
Speaker 1: way of the country where that where you don't find it.

649
00:33:10,880 --> 00:33:13,600
Speaker 1: And again, yes, absolutely it's in the black community now,

650
00:33:13,640 --> 00:33:16,120
Speaker 1: which has stunned me because I've been doing this work

651
00:33:16,200 --> 00:33:20,320
Speaker 1: for years and years dating back to Stockton, I have

652
00:33:20,480 --> 00:33:25,040
Speaker 1: never known one single Black person to ever buy, sell, use,

653
00:33:25,240 --> 00:33:28,280
Speaker 1: or know anything about methym fuddlement until the last few years.

654
00:33:28,320 --> 00:33:30,960
Speaker 1: And so it's changed. A couple of things on your question.

655
00:33:31,680 --> 00:33:34,360
Speaker 1: One is that it could very well be that this

656
00:33:34,560 --> 00:33:37,840
Speaker 1: is because it's just so potent and so prevalent that

657
00:33:38,000 --> 00:33:42,320
Speaker 1: it is creating or or a accompanied by whatever terminology

658
00:33:42,320 --> 00:33:45,160
Speaker 1: you want to use, very profound symptoms of mental illness

659
00:33:45,640 --> 00:33:49,240
Speaker 1: and then homelessness and then tent encountments with that. However,

660
00:33:49,560 --> 00:33:52,320
Speaker 1: I have found other people and again this is it

661
00:33:52,400 --> 00:33:54,560
Speaker 1: could be that all of this is true, right. It

662
00:33:54,600 --> 00:33:57,120
Speaker 1: could be that in one area they're getting methym fedoment

663
00:33:57,200 --> 00:33:59,760
Speaker 1: from gas in the Law, in another area they're getting

664
00:33:59,760 --> 00:34:05,800
Speaker 1: method fundament from Gallahara Jalisco. And there could be different

665
00:34:05,960 --> 00:34:09,160
Speaker 1: That's why they We need substantial studies on this stuff

666
00:34:09,160 --> 00:34:12,040
Speaker 1: to understand what's going on here. But I have known

667
00:34:12,440 --> 00:34:15,160
Speaker 1: and just was talking with a guy from Michigan who

668
00:34:15,440 --> 00:34:18,600
Speaker 1: who said that he has been in and out of

669
00:34:18,719 --> 00:34:21,920
Speaker 1: meta futomen for a number of years. He remembers distinctly

670
00:34:22,000 --> 00:34:25,320
Speaker 1: when it changed, absolutely he remembers almost The date is

671
00:34:25,440 --> 00:34:28,200
Speaker 1: late Friday in late June and two thousand and twelve

672
00:34:28,400 --> 00:34:29,960
Speaker 1: when he used it, all of a sudden it was

673
00:34:30,000 --> 00:34:32,759
Speaker 1: a party drug before he's gay. He was in the

674
00:34:32,840 --> 00:34:35,480
Speaker 1: gay community where it's a big deal, and all of

675
00:34:35,560 --> 00:34:38,680
Speaker 1: a sudden it became the sinister thing where all these

676
00:34:38,760 --> 00:34:41,759
Speaker 1: demons were chasing him, and it never returned to the

677
00:34:41,840 --> 00:34:44,719
Speaker 1: euphoria of and the party kind of nature of the drug.

678
00:34:44,920 --> 00:34:47,480
Speaker 1: And every time he uses it it happens. So the

679
00:34:47,560 --> 00:34:50,320
Speaker 1: idea that all these people using this a lot always

680
00:34:50,600 --> 00:34:53,560
Speaker 1: always available to them, always, and that's what drives them

681
00:34:53,680 --> 00:34:57,000
Speaker 1: to these expressions of mental illness. On the other hand,

682
00:34:57,040 --> 00:34:59,680
Speaker 1: I think I've remember several people now who are telling

683
00:34:59,800 --> 00:35:02,560
Speaker 1: me this is stuff that that immediately no matter how

684
00:35:02,680 --> 00:35:05,399
Speaker 1: little you use and how rare the uses, it will

685
00:35:05,400 --> 00:35:08,200
Speaker 1: immediately drive you to That's what happened to me. That's

686
00:35:08,239 --> 00:35:11,200
Speaker 1: what they're telling me. So to me, this is as

687
00:35:11,239 --> 00:35:13,520
Speaker 1: I say in the book. Yes, there's no neural science

688
00:35:13,600 --> 00:35:16,000
Speaker 1: on those. I think there is ample evidence of those.

689
00:35:16,200 --> 00:35:18,520
Speaker 1: You know, also, you used the possibility about whether there

690
00:35:18,600 --> 00:35:20,839
Speaker 1: might be a certain adulter rates in the p twop

691
00:35:21,000 --> 00:35:24,560
Speaker 1: that the old pseudo Federan stuff that the meth labs

692
00:35:24,600 --> 00:35:26,560
Speaker 1: they were had all kinds of crap in there. In fact,

693
00:35:26,800 --> 00:35:29,120
Speaker 1: one of the bizarre things is when is when it

694
00:35:29,200 --> 00:35:33,279
Speaker 1: shifted to Mexican production. To some respects, the Mexican myth

695
00:35:33,520 --> 00:35:35,200
Speaker 1: was made with less crap. But you had some of

696
00:35:35,239 --> 00:35:37,960
Speaker 1: the bigger method labs that were higher quality method which

697
00:35:38,080 --> 00:35:41,600
Speaker 1: interestingly were problematic as they were cheaper, but might have

698
00:35:41,640 --> 00:35:44,799
Speaker 1: actually presented a few less consequences for the consumer because

699
00:35:44,800 --> 00:35:46,719
Speaker 1: there was less crap. And I also tell you I

700
00:35:46,840 --> 00:35:48,920
Speaker 1: talked a couple of days ago to somebody who I

701
00:35:49,000 --> 00:35:51,360
Speaker 1: interviewed earlier on Psychoactive a few months ago, who I

702
00:35:51,440 --> 00:35:53,319
Speaker 1: think you interviewed for your bookstand ch at your own,

703
00:35:53,640 --> 00:35:56,040
Speaker 1: who's a university you CSF research And I think he

704
00:35:56,160 --> 00:35:58,319
Speaker 1: just got a grant from Nationals to the drug Abuse

705
00:35:58,400 --> 00:36:00,239
Speaker 1: to look at this P two P issue into see

706
00:36:00,680 --> 00:36:03,520
Speaker 1: was actually going on. Great. Oh really, Oh no way,

707
00:36:03,719 --> 00:36:06,080
Speaker 1: I had not heard that. Yeah. I will be in

708
00:36:06,200 --> 00:36:08,080
Speaker 1: touch with Dan to find out if that's what's going on,

709
00:36:08,239 --> 00:36:10,440
Speaker 1: because to me, that is that is one of the

710
00:36:10,719 --> 00:36:13,800
Speaker 1: great burning questions. And I believe that the methum feedoment

711
00:36:13,840 --> 00:36:17,880
Speaker 1: that's spread from Mexico across this country is a major

712
00:36:18,040 --> 00:36:20,839
Speaker 1: driving force, if not the driving force, behind our mental

713
00:36:20,880 --> 00:36:24,200
Speaker 1: illness that we're seeing in such an intense amounts behind

714
00:36:24,239 --> 00:36:26,920
Speaker 1: the tent encount mons, behind the homeless problem in so

715
00:36:27,000 --> 00:36:30,320
Speaker 1: many areas, not just by the way, in high priced,

716
00:36:30,400 --> 00:36:33,279
Speaker 1: high housing costs, cities like San Francisco, in l A,

717
00:36:33,520 --> 00:36:39,000
Speaker 1: Appalachian towns, rural New Mexico. This is everywhere that meth is. Yeah.

718
00:36:39,360 --> 00:36:41,040
Speaker 1: I will say, there have been people, you know, you

719
00:36:41,120 --> 00:36:44,000
Speaker 1: make the big argument that this meth is driving the homelessness,

720
00:36:44,080 --> 00:36:45,960
Speaker 1: and and talking to some of the researchers out there,

721
00:36:46,200 --> 00:36:48,759
Speaker 1: there are bits and they say, obviously it's problematic, but

722
00:36:48,800 --> 00:36:51,160
Speaker 1: in terms of causal thing. The Losso point out to

723
00:36:51,200 --> 00:36:52,680
Speaker 1: the place like West Virginia has got one of the

724
00:36:52,800 --> 00:36:55,839
Speaker 1: lowest you know, homelessness rates even though it has Oh no, yeah,

725
00:36:55,960 --> 00:36:58,839
Speaker 1: wait wait wait wait, wait, wait, time out. I read that. Okay, guys,

726
00:36:58,880 --> 00:37:03,360
Speaker 1: full of ship, go he should go to West Virginia.

727
00:37:04,080 --> 00:37:09,200
Speaker 1: Do you know the homeless problem there is through the roof.

728
00:37:10,040 --> 00:37:13,920
Speaker 1: Go to Clarksburg, West Virginia, Parkersburg, go to go to

729
00:37:14,000 --> 00:37:16,359
Speaker 1: wheel and go to these places where you hope see

730
00:37:16,719 --> 00:37:19,480
Speaker 1: vast Tenton campts. You will see people out of their minds.

731
00:37:19,960 --> 00:37:21,959
Speaker 1: I swear to God when I read that, I wanted.

732
00:37:23,239 --> 00:37:25,800
Speaker 1: It helps, It helps to actually go to the city

733
00:37:25,960 --> 00:37:28,759
Speaker 1: or the state that you're talking about. That is no

734
00:37:29,040 --> 00:37:33,520
Speaker 1: I'm sorry to get a little well, hold on, hold on,

735
00:37:33,640 --> 00:37:36,360
Speaker 1: hold on. This is you can find in West Virginia

736
00:37:36,760 --> 00:37:41,040
Speaker 1: brand new Florida expressions of homelessness that they, yes, never

737
00:37:41,160 --> 00:37:44,760
Speaker 1: had because people leave people who are from West Virginia

738
00:37:44,760 --> 00:37:47,520
Speaker 1: all over Ohio and Indiana and various places like that.

739
00:37:47,640 --> 00:37:51,719
Speaker 1: Of course, that's exactly what's going on. But nowadays, since

740
00:37:51,840 --> 00:37:55,080
Speaker 1: this methos hit those areas, you were seeing people who

741
00:37:55,280 --> 00:37:58,200
Speaker 1: own their houses. There's no rising housing cost problem in

742
00:37:58,280 --> 00:38:01,680
Speaker 1: West Virginia, and yet these folks are all just go there,

743
00:38:01,960 --> 00:38:05,279
Speaker 1: just go there and do some ethnography as also known

744
00:38:05,320 --> 00:38:07,920
Speaker 1: as reporting, as this guy apparently has not done. When

745
00:38:07,920 --> 00:38:09,840
Speaker 1: I read that, I was like, this guy's an idiot.

746
00:38:09,960 --> 00:38:12,080
Speaker 1: You also make the point though that even this, if

747
00:38:12,120 --> 00:38:13,719
Speaker 1: the P two P is really the way it does,

748
00:38:13,760 --> 00:38:15,920
Speaker 1: where it's knocking people out, where is the old method

749
00:38:15,920 --> 00:38:17,480
Speaker 1: get people up and going. They wanted to do something,

750
00:38:17,480 --> 00:38:19,320
Speaker 1: and they're always talking a mile minute and you know,

751
00:38:19,360 --> 00:38:20,759
Speaker 1: how to be taken care of stuff. That the new

752
00:38:20,800 --> 00:38:23,200
Speaker 1: myth is more almost turning them in that zombie life.

753
00:38:23,239 --> 00:38:27,160
Speaker 1: But really disconnected, dissociated, how to some extent that almost

754
00:38:27,200 --> 00:38:30,600
Speaker 1: helps people are homeless deal with being homeless. Yes, that's

755
00:38:30,680 --> 00:38:33,840
Speaker 1: the other point. That's it pushes you into homelessness and

756
00:38:33,960 --> 00:38:38,120
Speaker 1: allows you to endure the brutality of the situation in

757
00:38:38,200 --> 00:38:41,000
Speaker 1: which you find. And one way it does that is

758
00:38:41,080 --> 00:38:45,080
Speaker 1: from completely separating you from reality. And another way is

759
00:38:45,440 --> 00:38:48,759
Speaker 1: and I found this very ominous honestly to say, but

760
00:38:48,880 --> 00:38:52,279
Speaker 1: it really strips people of their memories, so people don't

761
00:38:52,360 --> 00:38:55,279
Speaker 1: remember major chunks of where they were. Run into this

762
00:38:55,400 --> 00:38:57,080
Speaker 1: over and over. Now, I said in the book, this

763
00:38:57,160 --> 00:39:00,520
Speaker 1: one woman told me a residential treatment center, people guys

764
00:39:00,600 --> 00:39:02,600
Speaker 1: coming up to her all the time, going I can't

765
00:39:02,600 --> 00:39:04,719
Speaker 1: remember why I'm here. How much of the time did

766
00:39:04,760 --> 00:39:08,480
Speaker 1: the judge give me? You know, it strips personality, Its

767
00:39:08,480 --> 00:39:11,239
Speaker 1: strips memory. I mean, if think about memory, memory is

768
00:39:11,320 --> 00:39:13,680
Speaker 1: our personality. I mean, it's a major part of what

769
00:39:13,840 --> 00:39:17,000
Speaker 1: makes us who we are as we remember things. And

770
00:39:17,120 --> 00:39:21,280
Speaker 1: this myth has stripped that also from people very scary

771
00:39:21,400 --> 00:39:23,720
Speaker 1: with the other thing that this myth does that really

772
00:39:23,800 --> 00:39:26,400
Speaker 1: adds to the complications of it all is that this

773
00:39:26,640 --> 00:39:32,040
Speaker 1: meth makes people seriously resist leaving the tent and can

774
00:39:32,120 --> 00:39:35,080
Speaker 1: they they feel that they've found like their community. Of course,

775
00:39:35,200 --> 00:39:39,320
Speaker 1: it's a community of a rewired brain. So it doesn't

776
00:39:39,400 --> 00:39:42,640
Speaker 1: matter how cold it gets, it doesn't matter what risk

777
00:39:42,800 --> 00:39:44,919
Speaker 1: it is there is to my life. I'm still gonna

778
00:39:45,000 --> 00:39:48,239
Speaker 1: stay here. I'm not gonna the offer of shelter, the

779
00:39:48,400 --> 00:39:50,560
Speaker 1: homeless shelter is like the worst place you would actually

780
00:39:50,600 --> 00:39:53,120
Speaker 1: want to be if you're on that math. Sam, let's

781
00:39:53,160 --> 00:39:54,920
Speaker 1: come back to it. Let's tie these two stories to

782
00:39:54,960 --> 00:39:57,879
Speaker 1: get in now. So what you described is basically we're

783
00:39:57,920 --> 00:40:01,240
Speaker 1: coming to a point when you finish the book two

784
00:40:01,320 --> 00:40:06,960
Speaker 1: now we're basically we see myth amphetamine being combined with fentanyl.

785
00:40:07,239 --> 00:40:11,600
Speaker 1: We see myth anthonetamine displacing fentanyl use. We see myth

786
00:40:11,640 --> 00:40:17,160
Speaker 1: amphetamine displacing cocaine used used being used together. Right, I

787
00:40:17,200 --> 00:40:19,080
Speaker 1: mean it really depends. I would say no, no, I

788
00:40:19,120 --> 00:40:21,920
Speaker 1: wouldn't say it's displacing fentonol use and fentanel. When it

789
00:40:22,040 --> 00:40:24,920
Speaker 1: takes over, it thinks over for good. Um, it seems

790
00:40:24,920 --> 00:40:28,360
Speaker 1: to me fentinel was being mixed into these drugs. You know,

791
00:40:28,440 --> 00:40:30,839
Speaker 1: it's mean makes on the cocaine. It's being mixed into

792
00:40:30,960 --> 00:40:33,920
Speaker 1: a nothing phenomen though, What is happening? I found this

793
00:40:34,080 --> 00:40:36,239
Speaker 1: over and over particularly in some of the areas where

794
00:40:36,239 --> 00:40:39,320
Speaker 1: the opioid crisis really hit how hard, like Kentucky. You

795
00:40:39,400 --> 00:40:41,239
Speaker 1: want one area and saw there's a lot is where

796
00:40:41,239 --> 00:40:44,560
Speaker 1: you find people who are using soboxing to control the

797
00:40:44,600 --> 00:40:47,719
Speaker 1: opioid cravings that they how because they went through the

798
00:40:47,760 --> 00:40:50,840
Speaker 1: whole pill the heroin problem. And just for our listeners

799
00:40:50,840 --> 00:40:53,920
Speaker 1: to boxing is bupernorphine, which like method on, is a

800
00:40:54,040 --> 00:40:56,400
Speaker 1: drug that's used for people trying to put a heroin

801
00:40:56,440 --> 00:40:59,239
Speaker 1: addiction behind them because it's a sort of benign, more

802
00:40:59,320 --> 00:41:02,160
Speaker 1: benign form of opioid that it doesn't have the risk

803
00:41:02,200 --> 00:41:04,520
Speaker 1: of street drugs and has less risk of overdose. So

804
00:41:04,680 --> 00:41:09,640
Speaker 1: goodhead Sam. They're using suboxon. And then because suboxon has

805
00:41:09,719 --> 00:41:13,000
Speaker 1: not been used in ways that probably it needs to be,

806
00:41:13,120 --> 00:41:16,040
Speaker 1: which is in conjunction with a variety of therapies that

807
00:41:16,160 --> 00:41:19,440
Speaker 1: help you repair your life, those folks remain in the

808
00:41:19,520 --> 00:41:23,480
Speaker 1: drug world just using suboxon, and that means that they

809
00:41:23,520 --> 00:41:25,879
Speaker 1: were prey to the next big drug that comes along,

810
00:41:25,920 --> 00:41:27,040
Speaker 1: and from the next for a lot of them, the

811
00:41:27,040 --> 00:41:29,239
Speaker 1: next big drug was not from feedomon because it was

812
00:41:29,280 --> 00:41:31,480
Speaker 1: so cheap. Still want to get high, still hanging out

813
00:41:31,480 --> 00:41:33,600
Speaker 1: with the wrong people, etcetera, etcetera, all that kind of stuff,

814
00:41:33,719 --> 00:41:37,000
Speaker 1: and so you get this change in people. So that's

815
00:41:37,080 --> 00:41:39,960
Speaker 1: also when I saw methem feedomon in the black community,

816
00:41:40,000 --> 00:41:44,360
Speaker 1: and when I saw methym fedomen taken together but not

817
00:41:44,560 --> 00:41:48,560
Speaker 1: really together with opioids, that both of those things just

818
00:41:48,680 --> 00:41:50,919
Speaker 1: shocked me. I couldn't believe I was seeing that, because

819
00:41:50,960 --> 00:41:54,120
Speaker 1: you've never really seen. When I was a young crime reporter,

820
00:41:54,560 --> 00:41:58,520
Speaker 1: there were two worlds in the drug world. Basically in

821
00:41:58,600 --> 00:42:01,279
Speaker 1: the Stockton one was a heroine the world and what

822
00:42:01,400 --> 00:42:03,440
Speaker 1: was the meth world, and they didn't like each other

823
00:42:03,520 --> 00:42:05,680
Speaker 1: even you would never see the mix, but you did

824
00:42:05,800 --> 00:42:08,320
Speaker 1: have always heroin and cocaine going together. I mean, the

825
00:42:08,400 --> 00:42:11,719
Speaker 1: speedball is a very common thing that's been going on

826
00:42:11,920 --> 00:42:14,040
Speaker 1: forever and ever and ever about mixing those things once

827
00:42:14,080 --> 00:42:16,000
Speaker 1: and upper ones there and they go better together in

828
00:42:16,080 --> 00:42:18,800
Speaker 1: that respect. And or yet people who use heroin and

829
00:42:18,840 --> 00:42:21,600
Speaker 1: then they'll smoke crack. And sometimes people describe themselves as

830
00:42:21,680 --> 00:42:23,560
Speaker 1: just being a heroin user, just being cracked, but in

831
00:42:23,640 --> 00:42:25,480
Speaker 1: fact you'd see a lot of people who are heroin

832
00:42:25,560 --> 00:42:28,520
Speaker 1: users alsius in the crack because that up down thing,

833
00:42:28,800 --> 00:42:31,719
Speaker 1: you know. I sometimes joke that my legal speedball will

834
00:42:31,760 --> 00:42:34,399
Speaker 1: be after dinner having an espresso with an after dinner drink,

835
00:42:34,680 --> 00:42:36,960
Speaker 1: a little chilling out, a little, you know, the moderate

836
00:42:37,080 --> 00:42:41,239
Speaker 1: legal speedball. What's interesting is this combination. It seems to

837
00:42:41,280 --> 00:42:43,680
Speaker 1: me that a few years ago, I remember somebody I

838
00:42:43,760 --> 00:42:47,320
Speaker 1: had somebody, uh, physician from Rhode Island, Jodie Rich described

839
00:42:47,360 --> 00:42:51,239
Speaker 1: in Rhode Island around twenty six fifteen sixteen, and he

840
00:42:51,360 --> 00:42:53,719
Speaker 1: described this sting where all of a sudden, a half

841
00:42:53,800 --> 00:42:57,480
Speaker 1: a dozen ordinary middle class white people, not known as

842
00:42:57,560 --> 00:42:59,880
Speaker 1: drug users, all of a sudden dropped dead from fed

843
00:43:00,000 --> 00:43:02,400
Speaker 1: at all. And it turned out they got in some cocaine.

844
00:43:02,440 --> 00:43:04,239
Speaker 1: They started the cocaine, and they didn't know it was

845
00:43:04,280 --> 00:43:06,560
Speaker 1: in there. It's not even clear their dealer news in there.

846
00:43:06,920 --> 00:43:08,960
Speaker 1: So it seems like a few years ago you had

847
00:43:09,040 --> 00:43:12,320
Speaker 1: more of the kind of accidental overdose of these drugs,

848
00:43:12,400 --> 00:43:16,000
Speaker 1: either the dealers accidentally putting them together or people not

849
00:43:16,120 --> 00:43:18,279
Speaker 1: knowing what they're doing. But that at this point the

850
00:43:18,400 --> 00:43:22,600
Speaker 1: accidental factor is becoming less and less because it's just

851
00:43:22,760 --> 00:43:26,719
Speaker 1: so on the present now, well, I would say that's true. Yes,

852
00:43:26,840 --> 00:43:28,520
Speaker 1: I think they're more people who are now just fully

853
00:43:28,560 --> 00:43:30,480
Speaker 1: addicted to funnel and they know what they're using them.

854
00:43:30,480 --> 00:43:32,640
Speaker 1: And there's a whole lot of that. On the other hand,

855
00:43:32,960 --> 00:43:35,319
Speaker 1: the pills, the counterfeit pills that are coming up from

856
00:43:35,360 --> 00:43:41,160
Speaker 1: Mexico are aimed at a market generally younger kids. Sold

857
00:43:41,200 --> 00:43:44,279
Speaker 1: on Snapchat, sold on Instagram. That kind of thing sold

858
00:43:44,360 --> 00:43:46,279
Speaker 1: by younger kids too. I mean it's sold by people

859
00:43:46,320 --> 00:43:48,040
Speaker 1: who are not a bunch older than the people are

860
00:43:48,040 --> 00:43:51,279
Speaker 1: selling to. Particularly during the COVID years, you see a

861
00:43:51,320 --> 00:43:53,680
Speaker 1: lot of people on their phones and there these pills

862
00:43:53,680 --> 00:43:56,200
Speaker 1: are so so on the present now and the pills

863
00:43:56,239 --> 00:43:58,640
Speaker 1: aren't combining them or they just one of the other. No,

864
00:43:58,880 --> 00:44:02,680
Speaker 1: the pills have only utonal and and their conterfeit made

865
00:44:02,719 --> 00:44:05,640
Speaker 1: in Mexico by the droppers down to Mexico. They're only funnel.

866
00:44:05,680 --> 00:44:10,040
Speaker 1: They look like percoset bar oxy code on generic thirty

867
00:44:10,040 --> 00:44:12,759
Speaker 1: million ground. That's what they look, perfect replicas. That's why

868
00:44:12,800 --> 00:44:15,160
Speaker 1: I say that there was no such thing as recreational drugging.

869
00:44:15,160 --> 00:44:16,719
Speaker 1: You can't just take one of these as a better

870
00:44:16,800 --> 00:44:19,080
Speaker 1: party anymore. You used it. It was not a good

871
00:44:19,120 --> 00:44:21,200
Speaker 1: idea back then, but people did it. But now they

872
00:44:21,280 --> 00:44:23,200
Speaker 1: dropped dead. And the thing is that too people are

873
00:44:23,239 --> 00:44:25,400
Speaker 1: buying these on the I don't know if that claim wholes.

874
00:44:25,520 --> 00:44:27,680
Speaker 1: You're right about the risk of fentiel. The argument has

875
00:44:27,719 --> 00:44:29,799
Speaker 1: been when it comes to white powdered drugs, you better

876
00:44:29,920 --> 00:44:32,680
Speaker 1: we dan careful when it comes to cannabis, or if

877
00:44:32,680 --> 00:44:34,560
Speaker 1: you're coming from a knowing supply, or if you're doing

878
00:44:34,600 --> 00:44:36,400
Speaker 1: I mean the fact that there is the vast majority

879
00:44:36,400 --> 00:44:38,359
Speaker 1: of people are using the vast majority even if these

880
00:44:38,440 --> 00:44:40,959
Speaker 1: pills without dropping dead or getting killed. But the risk

881
00:44:41,040 --> 00:44:44,799
Speaker 1: has definitely died up. Now the risk is enormous and nationwide,

882
00:44:44,840 --> 00:44:46,880
Speaker 1: I would say too. And that's the thing. Those these

883
00:44:46,920 --> 00:44:49,800
Speaker 1: pills are all over there's like not one area or

884
00:44:49,880 --> 00:44:52,439
Speaker 1: certain areas of a state that you're known to find

885
00:44:52,480 --> 00:44:54,560
Speaker 1: that I think these are that they've exploded. It's a

886
00:44:54,680 --> 00:44:57,920
Speaker 1: thing that that it corresponds to the structure of the

887
00:44:58,040 --> 00:45:05,600
Speaker 1: Mexican Drugs part Drug Drafting Organization world where everybody's free

888
00:45:05,680 --> 00:45:08,480
Speaker 1: to make whatever they want so long as they buy

889
00:45:08,480 --> 00:45:10,600
Speaker 1: the chemicals from us and pay for the permission to

890
00:45:10,680 --> 00:45:12,120
Speaker 1: do it here. And you know that kind of that

891
00:45:12,200 --> 00:45:15,040
Speaker 1: kind of thing. When we look at this broader this

892
00:45:15,200 --> 00:45:18,680
Speaker 1: hundred thousand overdose last year, of which a majority of

893
00:45:18,760 --> 00:45:21,759
Speaker 1: those now involved fentanyl, and a growing percentage of them

894
00:45:21,800 --> 00:45:26,160
Speaker 1: involved fentinyl combined in cocaine or methamphey, So we're seeing

895
00:45:26,239 --> 00:45:28,399
Speaker 1: the polydruig uses out there. Now we know it's even

896
00:45:28,440 --> 00:45:30,799
Speaker 1: more prominent out there. As you're saying, oftentimes people are

897
00:45:30,840 --> 00:45:34,120
Speaker 1: buying maybe cocaine and maybe it feels different because it's

898
00:45:34,120 --> 00:45:36,000
Speaker 1: got fentanyl in or as you and you're making the

899
00:45:36,040 --> 00:45:38,040
Speaker 1: claim that they're also more likely to begetting addicted to

900
00:45:38,080 --> 00:45:40,200
Speaker 1: what they think is cocaine, but it's actually developing an

901
00:45:40,239 --> 00:45:42,719
Speaker 1: opioid addiction. And so what I'm wondering with all of that,

902
00:45:42,880 --> 00:45:47,920
Speaker 1: I've asked people that when you combine fentanyl with cocaine

903
00:45:48,000 --> 00:45:51,479
Speaker 1: or myth amphetamy, does it make you more or less

904
00:45:51,600 --> 00:45:55,320
Speaker 1: likely to overdose? And what people have said to me

905
00:45:55,480 --> 00:45:58,360
Speaker 1: is this hard to say. On one hand, the stimulant

906
00:45:58,400 --> 00:46:01,400
Speaker 1: effect should maybe reduce so likelihood of an overdose or

907
00:46:01,480 --> 00:46:04,520
Speaker 1: to counteract the effect of the fentanyl. On the other hand,

908
00:46:04,719 --> 00:46:08,600
Speaker 1: the physical degradation that goes along with getting addicted to

909
00:46:08,719 --> 00:46:13,120
Speaker 1: myth amphetamine makes you more vulnerable to overdosing from the fentanyl.

910
00:46:13,560 --> 00:46:15,759
Speaker 1: So that's a kind of I would say it's a consensus,

911
00:46:15,840 --> 00:46:18,120
Speaker 1: but it seems to be a logical explanation for some

912
00:46:18,239 --> 00:46:20,640
Speaker 1: of what's going on. What are your thoughts about that? Well,

913
00:46:20,880 --> 00:46:23,840
Speaker 1: my thoughts that this is entirely the what benefits the

914
00:46:23,880 --> 00:46:26,520
Speaker 1: street dealers. The street dealers are gonna add fentanyl to

915
00:46:26,560 --> 00:46:29,759
Speaker 1: their cocaine. It doesn't matter what effect it has on you.

916
00:46:30,680 --> 00:46:33,880
Speaker 1: They don't give it down. They see a customer expansion

917
00:46:34,640 --> 00:46:38,200
Speaker 1: vehicle through in Fentinel, you get someone addicted to fentanyl

918
00:46:38,520 --> 00:46:42,160
Speaker 1: who was occasional cocaine user, could be two or three

919
00:46:42,200 --> 00:46:44,839
Speaker 1: times a week, could be every two weeks, and now

920
00:46:44,920 --> 00:46:47,280
Speaker 1: that person is buying from you every single day, sometimes

921
00:46:47,320 --> 00:46:50,920
Speaker 1: several times a day. Um, it doesn't matter that you

922
00:46:51,840 --> 00:46:54,640
Speaker 1: may risk killing a few people, because it's a there's

923
00:46:54,680 --> 00:46:56,880
Speaker 1: a long history when people in the way into the

924
00:46:56,960 --> 00:47:00,239
Speaker 1: hero own world. You know, for years of people hearing

925
00:47:00,280 --> 00:47:02,239
Speaker 1: of somebody overdosing a certain amount of heroin and going

926
00:47:02,280 --> 00:47:04,600
Speaker 1: to buy that heroin because then what they want that

927
00:47:04,800 --> 00:47:07,200
Speaker 1: big boost that they got when they first used the drug.

928
00:47:07,440 --> 00:47:11,680
Speaker 1: How it benefits you that the customer is secondary. Um,

929
00:47:11,719 --> 00:47:14,080
Speaker 1: and not say that it never is important. I'm just

930
00:47:14,160 --> 00:47:17,800
Speaker 1: saying that it it this, This is the thinking so

931
00:47:18,440 --> 00:47:21,120
Speaker 1: so often among dealers. It is, but I have to

932
00:47:21,200 --> 00:47:23,880
Speaker 1: say it's also dealers in a way are also a

933
00:47:23,960 --> 00:47:26,960
Speaker 1: diverse group of characters. And some of them are just

934
00:47:27,200 --> 00:47:31,080
Speaker 1: fucking bastards and mercenary and they'll sell whatever. And some

935
00:47:31,200 --> 00:47:33,160
Speaker 1: of them are just selling to people, you know, driving

936
00:47:33,200 --> 00:47:35,239
Speaker 1: up to a corner like in the old days. And

937
00:47:35,400 --> 00:47:38,200
Speaker 1: many dealers, though they know their customers, sometimes there are

938
00:47:38,200 --> 00:47:41,120
Speaker 1: people who are quasi friends. There may be relatives. They

939
00:47:41,160 --> 00:47:43,359
Speaker 1: may be selling, and they don't want those people to die,

940
00:47:43,440 --> 00:47:45,760
Speaker 1: not just because they're customers, but because they may actually

941
00:47:45,800 --> 00:47:47,080
Speaker 1: care about them. I mean, we know a lot of

942
00:47:47,160 --> 00:47:49,520
Speaker 1: drug dealing networks are like that, so we know there's

943
00:47:49,560 --> 00:47:52,640
Speaker 1: another human element going into all this stuff. And what

944
00:47:52,760 --> 00:47:55,000
Speaker 1: I'm trying to figure out is, with the over those

945
00:47:55,040 --> 00:47:57,360
Speaker 1: things going so high, it sounds like we've hitting this

946
00:47:57,560 --> 00:48:00,680
Speaker 1: kind of moment where fentanyl is pervasively out there. It's

947
00:48:00,719 --> 00:48:03,200
Speaker 1: now throughout much of the stimulant supply, and it wasn't

948
00:48:03,239 --> 00:48:04,919
Speaker 1: in a way it wasn't even a few years ago,

949
00:48:05,000 --> 00:48:07,040
Speaker 1: and it's coming in pills and other sorts of things.

950
00:48:07,280 --> 00:48:09,440
Speaker 1: On the other hand, I'm also wondering, given what you

951
00:48:09,520 --> 00:48:12,200
Speaker 1: say about P two P being a kind of undesirable

952
00:48:12,280 --> 00:48:14,000
Speaker 1: drug in terms of what it does to you and

953
00:48:14,080 --> 00:48:16,719
Speaker 1: the intensity of it, and also about FINITYL being in

954
00:48:16,760 --> 00:48:20,080
Speaker 1: a way, at least initially less better than Heroin. It's

955
00:48:20,080 --> 00:48:23,960
Speaker 1: suggest for the existing consuming population, we've got to see

956
00:48:24,000 --> 00:48:26,000
Speaker 1: how that plays out with all of them. But in

957
00:48:26,200 --> 00:48:29,640
Speaker 1: terms of the new users people coming in, the question

958
00:48:29,800 --> 00:48:33,239
Speaker 1: is are they really gonna want that stuff? But here's

959
00:48:33,280 --> 00:48:35,000
Speaker 1: the thing that I don't also think that what you

960
00:48:35,160 --> 00:48:37,520
Speaker 1: want is the issue. But I do think it is

961
00:48:37,560 --> 00:48:40,719
Speaker 1: because ultimately, for you, if you're selling something, you want

962
00:48:40,840 --> 00:48:43,320
Speaker 1: something that consumers want. If you can addict them to it,

963
00:48:43,400 --> 00:48:46,040
Speaker 1: all the better. But it's there is some there's a

964
00:48:46,120 --> 00:48:49,239
Speaker 1: supply demand interaction, and people always looking for something new.

965
00:48:49,800 --> 00:48:52,359
Speaker 1: All those kids who are buying them from Snapchat are

966
00:48:52,440 --> 00:48:56,000
Speaker 1: not buying fentonel. They don't think they're buying fentanyl. They

967
00:48:56,040 --> 00:49:00,600
Speaker 1: don't want fentonel. They're being given surreptitially given channel and

968
00:49:01,040 --> 00:49:02,920
Speaker 1: xan x bar and what's something they think is a

969
00:49:03,239 --> 00:49:06,560
Speaker 1: legitimate xan x bar. So to me, it's very difficult

970
00:49:07,000 --> 00:49:10,240
Speaker 1: to I think, when you have this kind of supply,

971
00:49:11,320 --> 00:49:14,680
Speaker 1: this kind of rampant immunity down in Mexico, it is

972
00:49:14,920 --> 00:49:18,439
Speaker 1: very difficult to imagine that this supply won't be used

973
00:49:18,480 --> 00:49:23,000
Speaker 1: again and again to more customers. Whether people want it

974
00:49:23,320 --> 00:49:25,799
Speaker 1: or not. Those kids who are buying those pills don't

975
00:49:25,840 --> 00:49:28,800
Speaker 1: want pentonel. They think they're buying xan x bar benzea

976
00:49:28,840 --> 00:49:32,080
Speaker 1: has a pin. Yeah. I just wonder though about whether

977
00:49:32,120 --> 00:49:34,680
Speaker 1: there's going to be such a big demand among those Look,

978
00:49:34,880 --> 00:49:38,600
Speaker 1: obviously there's a generation now, a younger generation whose parents

979
00:49:38,840 --> 00:49:41,600
Speaker 1: and maybe even grandparents were caught up in drugs from

980
00:49:41,640 --> 00:49:44,640
Speaker 1: broken families and are feeling desperate, and that is a

981
00:49:45,160 --> 00:49:48,839
Speaker 1: continuous opportunity for traffickers to sell drugs that are really

982
00:49:48,960 --> 00:49:51,160
Speaker 1: and that I think remains the market for this sort

983
00:49:51,200 --> 00:49:53,960
Speaker 1: of stuff. But let me go to this next part, Sam,

984
00:49:54,000 --> 00:49:56,080
Speaker 1: which is that one of the things where I really

985
00:49:56,200 --> 00:49:59,360
Speaker 1: liked about your book, and I agree very much, is

986
00:49:59,440 --> 00:50:01,719
Speaker 1: that not only are you lighting up produe farm of

987
00:50:01,760 --> 00:50:05,120
Speaker 1: big opioid producers with the Mexican traffickers, but you're also

988
00:50:05,239 --> 00:50:08,480
Speaker 1: talking about the producers of processed foods, the guys who

989
00:50:08,520 --> 00:50:11,400
Speaker 1: are combining sugar fat salt combinations in ways that have

990
00:50:11,560 --> 00:50:14,640
Speaker 1: led to an epidemic of obesity. Now that is probably

991
00:50:14,680 --> 00:50:17,400
Speaker 1: exacting greater healthcare costs in America. I think it's now

992
00:50:17,760 --> 00:50:20,240
Speaker 1: neck and neck with the cost of smoking in America.

993
00:50:20,320 --> 00:50:22,680
Speaker 1: So we're talking about a massive cost in terms of

994
00:50:22,760 --> 00:50:24,920
Speaker 1: years of life lost and stuff like that. I mean,

995
00:50:24,960 --> 00:50:27,680
Speaker 1: it's hitting people later in life. It's not messing them

996
00:50:27,760 --> 00:50:29,719
Speaker 1: up when they're young, in the same way cigarets don't

997
00:50:29,719 --> 00:50:31,399
Speaker 1: mess you up when you're young, but it's really messing

998
00:50:31,480 --> 00:50:34,520
Speaker 1: them up otherwise. But just I thought you were really

999
00:50:34,680 --> 00:50:39,160
Speaker 1: right onto something there about the nature of American culture, society,

1000
00:50:39,600 --> 00:50:43,880
Speaker 1: the food industry, maybe the gambling industry, the social media industry.

1001
00:50:44,280 --> 00:50:47,160
Speaker 1: Just say a little more about that, because I think

1002
00:50:47,200 --> 00:50:50,480
Speaker 1: you were right onto it. Yeah, it's very easy to

1003
00:50:50,719 --> 00:50:53,600
Speaker 1: vilify send a lower drug cartel, and they deserve it.

1004
00:50:54,480 --> 00:50:58,479
Speaker 1: But we need to understand that there are many many

1005
00:50:59,080 --> 00:51:04,200
Speaker 1: entities around our economy that that really know and spend

1006
00:51:04,880 --> 00:51:07,799
Speaker 1: millions and millions of dollars using the best and most

1007
00:51:07,840 --> 00:51:11,520
Speaker 1: intelligent analysts and engineers they can find to manipulate our

1008
00:51:11,560 --> 00:51:16,240
Speaker 1: brain chemistry reward pathways. And this is why, for example,

1009
00:51:16,520 --> 00:51:20,480
Speaker 1: fast food companies never changed their logos. Those logos have

1010
00:51:20,640 --> 00:51:24,480
Speaker 1: become almost like triggers, and why they try to put

1011
00:51:24,920 --> 00:51:27,680
Speaker 1: at every intersection, on every off ramp on the freeway

1012
00:51:27,800 --> 00:51:30,520
Speaker 1: you'll find fast food, and every seven eleven and every

1013
00:51:30,520 --> 00:51:33,640
Speaker 1: grocery store you'll find the mid alisles packed with sodas

1014
00:51:33,719 --> 00:51:36,880
Speaker 1: and the just the battles for the territory is so

1015
00:51:37,040 --> 00:51:42,279
Speaker 1: important because they understand that we when you haven't activated

1016
00:51:42,320 --> 00:51:45,440
Speaker 1: that reward. So some people buy on impulse and it's

1017
00:51:45,640 --> 00:51:48,239
Speaker 1: very hard for us to stop that. It's extraordinarily hard.

1018
00:51:48,560 --> 00:51:51,520
Speaker 1: And the same with with social media. Same with chicken nuggets.

1019
00:51:51,800 --> 00:51:54,640
Speaker 1: Chicken nuggets almost reminds me like a crack cocaine. You've

1020
00:51:54,680 --> 00:51:57,160
Speaker 1: taken the chicken, which if you eat it regularly, will

1021
00:51:57,320 --> 00:51:59,520
Speaker 1: not have this victman. You reduced it to fat and

1022
00:51:59,640 --> 00:52:02,080
Speaker 1: saw you put it in sugar, the dip and all.

1023
00:52:02,560 --> 00:52:05,600
Speaker 1: And you have taken the coca leaf that you can chew,

1024
00:52:05,920 --> 00:52:08,759
Speaker 1: and you've reduced it to and you've just stripped it

1025
00:52:08,800 --> 00:52:11,040
Speaker 1: of all it's it's nutrients, and it's fibre and all

1026
00:52:11,040 --> 00:52:12,799
Speaker 1: that kind of stuff, and it becomes crack cocaine. That's

1027
00:52:12,800 --> 00:52:15,320
Speaker 1: what to me, that's what chicken nuggets feel like, honest,

1028
00:52:15,360 --> 00:52:17,840
Speaker 1: the gutty. Hey, you're reminded me of Chris Rock, the

1029
00:52:17,920 --> 00:52:20,080
Speaker 1: comedian had a routine. I remember years ago, he goes,

1030
00:52:20,120 --> 00:52:23,279
Speaker 1: I think I discovered the secret ingredient and Crispy Cream

1031
00:52:23,360 --> 00:52:27,560
Speaker 1: donuts cocaine. But it was very much. Really. The place

1032
00:52:27,600 --> 00:52:30,319
Speaker 1: hopened up right near my apartment on seventy seconds three

1033
00:52:30,400 --> 00:52:33,760
Speaker 1: years ago, Chrispy Kreathy and walking by was just to smell.

1034
00:52:33,840 --> 00:52:35,840
Speaker 1: They would they make sure the aroma came out, and

1035
00:52:35,960 --> 00:52:38,560
Speaker 1: it just triggered something in my brain. Absolutely to me,

1036
00:52:38,680 --> 00:52:40,719
Speaker 1: the idea was trying to do with the book was

1037
00:52:40,800 --> 00:52:42,759
Speaker 1: to say, look, yeah, we've got tochple Gosman and we

1038
00:52:42,840 --> 00:52:45,600
Speaker 1: got Minos Sambaba, we got all these these nefarious characters

1039
00:52:45,640 --> 00:52:48,200
Speaker 1: down in Mexico. They're not the only ones who have

1040
00:52:48,320 --> 00:52:51,440
Speaker 1: figured out this very intricate process of our reward pathways

1041
00:52:51,440 --> 00:52:53,680
Speaker 1: in our brain, and that it makes a ton of

1042
00:52:53,880 --> 00:52:59,200
Speaker 1: money to manipulate that and to always get better manipulating.

1043
00:52:59,280 --> 00:53:01,680
Speaker 1: But I also felt in my own one reason was

1044
00:53:01,760 --> 00:53:04,960
Speaker 1: that once I began to understand that, once I began

1045
00:53:05,040 --> 00:53:08,239
Speaker 1: to think logically about it, I began to make more

1046
00:53:08,360 --> 00:53:11,800
Speaker 1: liberating choices in my life. So I don't drink soda anymore.

1047
00:53:12,400 --> 00:53:14,960
Speaker 1: I stopped complete almost completely. Only time I ever drink

1048
00:53:15,000 --> 00:53:16,440
Speaker 1: sodas want to go to a movie theater, and I've

1049
00:53:16,440 --> 00:53:18,600
Speaker 1: done that like twice the last two years. You don't

1050
00:53:18,680 --> 00:53:21,120
Speaker 1: eat the crappy foods I used to eat Snickers bars,

1051
00:53:21,120 --> 00:53:23,400
Speaker 1: and my name's constantly it was overweight. I get a

1052
00:53:23,440 --> 00:53:26,160
Speaker 1: lot more exercise because it's a liberation. The more mobile

1053
00:53:26,200 --> 00:53:29,400
Speaker 1: you are, the more free you are. And this is

1054
00:53:29,520 --> 00:53:31,399
Speaker 1: some of the ideas I wanted to tell people about,

1055
00:53:31,440 --> 00:53:33,640
Speaker 1: just kind of express I guess in my journalistic way,

1056
00:53:33,719 --> 00:53:37,120
Speaker 1: you know, and say that once we know this, we

1057
00:53:37,280 --> 00:53:41,360
Speaker 1: have I believe a certain defense against it, particularly surround

1058
00:53:41,400 --> 00:53:43,520
Speaker 1: people yourself, what people who also believe that way. You know,

1059
00:53:43,640 --> 00:53:46,240
Speaker 1: you're not around people who are constantly recovering from addiction.

1060
00:53:46,280 --> 00:53:48,800
Speaker 1: You get away from people are still in dope. The

1061
00:53:48,840 --> 00:53:50,360
Speaker 1: same thing is true a little bit when you want to,

1062
00:53:50,480 --> 00:53:52,600
Speaker 1: you know, I'm gonna move away from people who are

1063
00:53:52,920 --> 00:53:55,960
Speaker 1: not believing this way as as well. But overall, I

1064
00:53:56,000 --> 00:54:00,080
Speaker 1: wanted to talk about how I see a continuum and

1065
00:54:00,239 --> 00:54:02,280
Speaker 1: at the far end as send a lower drug cartel.

1066
00:54:02,920 --> 00:54:06,399
Speaker 1: Closer to the center is Facebook, software engineers and check

1067
00:54:06,480 --> 00:54:09,759
Speaker 1: the nugget manufacturers and software and soft and soft drink

1068
00:54:09,760 --> 00:54:11,960
Speaker 1: folks and that kind of stuff very very important. I thought,

1069
00:54:12,280 --> 00:54:14,120
Speaker 1: I'll tell you this another point you kept, and I

1070
00:54:14,200 --> 00:54:16,279
Speaker 1: realize there's no way to square the circle of this

1071
00:54:16,320 --> 00:54:18,239
Speaker 1: stuff that you can't fit all in. And so there

1072
00:54:18,280 --> 00:54:20,759
Speaker 1: are ways in which you talk about drugs and community.

1073
00:54:21,200 --> 00:54:23,680
Speaker 1: And one of the points you make, which is true

1074
00:54:23,719 --> 00:54:26,120
Speaker 1: but also not true, is you'll make some broad statements

1075
00:54:26,160 --> 00:54:30,520
Speaker 1: about drugs being antithetical to community, but then you give examples. Right,

1076
00:54:30,640 --> 00:54:32,920
Speaker 1: We know in fact that oftentimes drugs does do some

1077
00:54:33,040 --> 00:54:35,160
Speaker 1: of that. People can isolate into that. But we also

1078
00:54:35,239 --> 00:54:37,360
Speaker 1: know when we look at alcohol, there's a whole drinking

1079
00:54:37,400 --> 00:54:39,080
Speaker 1: culture and bars and all those sorts of things. We

1080
00:54:39,160 --> 00:54:41,120
Speaker 1: know that with cannabis people like to get there. We

1081
00:54:41,239 --> 00:54:43,560
Speaker 1: know that people would go to quote unquote shooting galleries

1082
00:54:43,600 --> 00:54:45,200
Speaker 1: or things like that, or they go to even harm

1083
00:54:45,239 --> 00:54:47,640
Speaker 1: reduction programs not just for the services, but for the

1084
00:54:47,719 --> 00:54:51,360
Speaker 1: sense of community. Even the homeless encampments are a place

1085
00:54:51,400 --> 00:54:53,719
Speaker 1: where people who are all messed up on drugs can

1086
00:54:53,800 --> 00:54:57,880
Speaker 1: find kindred souls who can tolerate their eccentric behavior. So

1087
00:54:58,000 --> 00:55:00,600
Speaker 1: I I don't know if I quite yes it does that.

1088
00:55:01,040 --> 00:55:04,480
Speaker 1: If I'm thinking, if there's any quote unquote drug like

1089
00:55:04,640 --> 00:55:07,520
Speaker 1: a thing out there in America which is promoting isolation

1090
00:55:07,600 --> 00:55:11,200
Speaker 1: and antithetical to community more than any substance out there,

1091
00:55:11,440 --> 00:55:14,720
Speaker 1: it's probably Internet based stuff exact that we're now spending

1092
00:55:14,960 --> 00:55:17,160
Speaker 1: six seven, eight hours in front of our screens that

1093
00:55:17,280 --> 00:55:20,399
Speaker 1: young people, they say, don't read social cues anymore. In fact,

1094
00:55:20,400 --> 00:55:23,239
Speaker 1: sometimes people ask why hasn't marijuana use, Like with all

1095
00:55:23,280 --> 00:55:25,720
Speaker 1: the legalization going on, we don't see adolests and marijuana

1096
00:55:25,800 --> 00:55:28,080
Speaker 1: use increasing over the last eight eight nine years. And

1097
00:55:28,160 --> 00:55:30,560
Speaker 1: I think one of the reasons that maybe marijuana use

1098
00:55:30,600 --> 00:55:33,600
Speaker 1: doesn't go that well with being on the social media

1099
00:55:33,640 --> 00:55:36,120
Speaker 1: all the time. It's it's not that they don't go together.

1100
00:55:36,440 --> 00:55:39,040
Speaker 1: That oftentimes people want to do that stuff socially, and

1101
00:55:39,080 --> 00:55:41,799
Speaker 1: if you're spending less time hanging out, you're less likely

1102
00:55:41,840 --> 00:55:44,960
Speaker 1: to do that stuff. Now what one can do as

1103
00:55:45,000 --> 00:55:48,160
Speaker 1: a matter of control about that, I don't really know. No,

1104
00:55:48,280 --> 00:55:50,080
Speaker 1: I don't either, and you're you're right about that. I

1105
00:55:50,120 --> 00:55:54,560
Speaker 1: would say sometimes of drug users, I'm I'm very skeptical

1106
00:55:55,120 --> 00:55:58,120
Speaker 1: frequently about I'm not a big drinker. Um. I have

1107
00:55:58,239 --> 00:56:03,280
Speaker 1: seen communities of drug user of alcohol drinkers very frequently

1108
00:56:04,040 --> 00:56:08,239
Speaker 1: devolved into not like communities of book readers. I guess,

1109
00:56:08,280 --> 00:56:10,880
Speaker 1: I don't know. I buy your point, though you're you're correct,

1110
00:56:10,960 --> 00:56:13,680
Speaker 1: I don't dispute it. I would say, you have to

1111
00:56:13,760 --> 00:56:16,719
Speaker 1: be careful how far you draw that out, because a

1112
00:56:16,840 --> 00:56:21,120
Speaker 1: tent encamin of methamphetamen users. Think about what that that

1113
00:56:21,320 --> 00:56:24,800
Speaker 1: encountenents about. It's about pimping, It's about living in utterly

1114
00:56:24,880 --> 00:56:28,520
Speaker 1: unhygienic in the middle of winter. Uh, not caring about

1115
00:56:28,600 --> 00:56:32,719
Speaker 1: anybody if that person doesn't have access to dope there

1116
00:56:32,800 --> 00:56:36,080
Speaker 1: might be to the uninitiated. It seems to me some

1117
00:56:36,280 --> 00:56:40,440
Speaker 1: kind of like communal romantic communal aspect to these encountments.

1118
00:56:40,719 --> 00:56:42,480
Speaker 1: If you view them in another way, you view them

1119
00:56:42,520 --> 00:56:45,640
Speaker 1: as as just basically people who are slowly trying to die.

1120
00:56:46,239 --> 00:56:47,520
Speaker 1: You see him, I have to tell you, I mean

1121
00:56:47,719 --> 00:56:51,040
Speaker 1: yes and no once again. Like I just interviewed Philippe Bougua,

1122
00:56:51,200 --> 00:56:53,399
Speaker 1: who's in ethnography, one of the best in American he'd

1123
00:56:53,400 --> 00:56:55,839
Speaker 1: read in a book Righteous Dolphins, and he's spent ten

1124
00:56:55,960 --> 00:56:59,160
Speaker 1: years and another guy almost like spending thousands of hours

1125
00:56:59,239 --> 00:57:02,360
Speaker 1: with a community indrecting drug uses, living in San Francisco

1126
00:57:02,480 --> 00:57:05,040
Speaker 1: under the freeway and such, and what he found there

1127
00:57:05,200 --> 00:57:08,040
Speaker 1: was some of the most reprehensible types of behavior you

1128
00:57:08,080 --> 00:57:10,719
Speaker 1: could possibly imagine, and at the same time some of

1129
00:57:10,800 --> 00:57:13,960
Speaker 1: the most generous. Like, you know, certain norms existed, you

1130
00:57:14,000 --> 00:57:16,400
Speaker 1: didn't give a damn about everybody else. You're hypocritical but

1131
00:57:16,480 --> 00:57:19,040
Speaker 1: if somebody was dope sick, that became a priority either

1132
00:57:19,240 --> 00:57:22,160
Speaker 1: complicated or that even when they would be offered, people

1133
00:57:22,200 --> 00:57:24,520
Speaker 1: would be offered. We know there's research showing that when

1134
00:57:24,560 --> 00:57:28,080
Speaker 1: you offer people supportive housing, housing first programs, it helps

1135
00:57:28,160 --> 00:57:30,720
Speaker 1: a lot to have that kind of availability. But we

1136
00:57:30,880 --> 00:57:33,480
Speaker 1: also know that sometimes when people go into those programs

1137
00:57:33,640 --> 00:57:36,200
Speaker 1: they fall into massive depressions, they missed the community, and

1138
00:57:36,240 --> 00:57:37,920
Speaker 1: then even when some people are offering those programs, they

1139
00:57:37,920 --> 00:57:40,120
Speaker 1: may go back to the homeless encampment even though was

1140
00:57:40,280 --> 00:57:44,360
Speaker 1: you know, cold, miserable, dirty, everything, because of that sense

1141
00:57:44,400 --> 00:57:47,600
Speaker 1: of community there. So it's a tricky thing. I would

1142
00:57:47,640 --> 00:57:50,200
Speaker 1: say that that sense of community is dope and dues.

1143
00:57:50,320 --> 00:57:53,240
Speaker 1: I don't believe that that is actually I think that's

1144
00:57:53,240 --> 00:57:56,840
Speaker 1: a romantic view of the encampment. That is a very

1145
00:57:57,040 --> 00:58:00,240
Speaker 1: very sinister place. It's a very scary place. It's a

1146
00:58:00,280 --> 00:58:05,200
Speaker 1: place where women are constantly raped and constantly pimped. Yes,

1147
00:58:05,320 --> 00:58:08,240
Speaker 1: there is a lot there's there. There may be expressions

1148
00:58:08,280 --> 00:58:12,320
Speaker 1: of human kindness and human decency amid all that, But

1149
00:58:12,960 --> 00:58:15,920
Speaker 1: I just don't see that that is mix up for

1150
00:58:16,920 --> 00:58:20,600
Speaker 1: the harm, the massive harm that those things did. I

1151
00:58:20,680 --> 00:58:24,120
Speaker 1: totally agreed. I'm just kind of adding complicate the variables

1152
00:58:24,160 --> 00:58:26,640
Speaker 1: here to say that that these communities are there. No,

1153
00:58:26,800 --> 00:58:28,920
Speaker 1: I I love it. I love it, and I'm a

1154
00:58:29,040 --> 00:58:32,280
Speaker 1: reporter and I'm I'm constantly trying to complicate my own story.

1155
00:58:32,360 --> 00:58:36,200
Speaker 1: I don't deal in generalities, even though you point to

1156
00:58:36,320 --> 00:58:41,360
Speaker 1: something that's not where I'm living in my journalism. But okay,

1157
00:58:41,600 --> 00:58:44,520
Speaker 1: let me press down this thing. So, in retrospect, Perdue

1158
00:58:44,560 --> 00:58:47,480
Speaker 1: Farm at all those other pharmaceutical companies, others that were

1159
00:58:47,880 --> 00:58:52,160
Speaker 1: massively over promoting, over advertising the opioids. Now we know

1160
00:58:52,400 --> 00:58:55,080
Speaker 1: that when that was at its peak, maybe fifteen years

1161
00:58:55,120 --> 00:58:58,040
Speaker 1: ago or so, that the number of over those fatalities

1162
00:58:58,040 --> 00:59:00,800
Speaker 1: in the country was maybe ten or fifteen percent of

1163
00:59:00,880 --> 00:59:05,560
Speaker 1: what it is now. And it raises the question in retrospect, right,

1164
00:59:06,280 --> 00:59:10,400
Speaker 1: if policy makers hadn't really responded to that, if we

1165
00:59:10,520 --> 00:59:13,200
Speaker 1: hadn't cracked down on those old peways and yes, damn

1166
00:59:13,280 --> 00:59:15,800
Speaker 1: those guys, Dan Richard Sackler and all the family around,

1167
00:59:15,840 --> 00:59:18,280
Speaker 1: and we did that stuff, Dan the Johnson Johnson, Damn damn,

1168
00:59:18,360 --> 00:59:20,120
Speaker 1: damn damn them and let him rod and hell and

1169
00:59:20,160 --> 00:59:22,360
Speaker 1: be sued up to Gazoo for everything. But from a

1170
00:59:22,480 --> 00:59:27,240
Speaker 1: policy perspective, if we had never cracked down on that stuff.

1171
00:59:27,880 --> 00:59:30,160
Speaker 1: Maybe that would have not opened the door for the

1172
00:59:30,280 --> 00:59:34,120
Speaker 1: Mexican traffickers to get first into heroin and then fentanyl,

1173
00:59:34,200 --> 00:59:38,160
Speaker 1: and and maybe FENTONYL might never have really emerged. Maybe

1174
00:59:38,240 --> 00:59:41,440
Speaker 1: if we lived in a country where politicians didn't have

1175
00:59:41,600 --> 00:59:44,600
Speaker 1: to pay attention to what is absolutely on the front

1176
00:59:44,640 --> 00:59:46,640
Speaker 1: of mine, to the people who are who are at

1177
00:59:46,680 --> 00:59:50,040
Speaker 1: their in their churches, or at their state legislatures or

1178
00:59:50,200 --> 00:59:53,400
Speaker 1: all that, you might well be right. I I don't know,

1179
00:59:53,680 --> 00:59:58,480
Speaker 1: but I would say that to suggest, For example, with Ohio,

1180
00:59:59,040 --> 01:00:02,720
Speaker 1: people say, gee, they shouldn't have closed down those pill mills,

1181
01:00:03,320 --> 01:00:08,320
Speaker 1: ghastly places, long lines, doctors are just behaving like debased

1182
01:00:08,480 --> 01:00:12,120
Speaker 1: quacks selling this crep. If they had only not done that,

1183
01:00:12,280 --> 01:00:15,800
Speaker 1: we wouldn't have had X, Y, a variety of other

1184
01:00:15,920 --> 01:00:19,880
Speaker 1: things that came later. And my feeling is there's no

1185
01:00:20,200 --> 01:00:23,640
Speaker 1: chance anybody the mayor on up to the governor of

1186
01:00:23,760 --> 01:00:27,120
Speaker 1: Statable Ohio, and the senators included, and the state legislatures

1187
01:00:28,240 --> 01:00:30,680
Speaker 1: could have or should have done anything else but close

1188
01:00:30,760 --> 01:00:37,080
Speaker 1: those things. It was an affront everything. It was impossible

1189
01:00:37,200 --> 01:00:39,680
Speaker 1: to sit by and say, you know what, ten years

1190
01:00:39,720 --> 01:00:41,920
Speaker 1: from now, we're gonna have, you know, it is. What

1191
01:00:42,080 --> 01:00:44,200
Speaker 1: it isn't. What it really means is that we in

1192
01:00:44,280 --> 01:00:49,320
Speaker 1: the future need to understand that we need to step back,

1193
01:00:49,600 --> 01:00:52,200
Speaker 1: far back from the idea that we have these magic

1194
01:00:52,280 --> 01:00:55,600
Speaker 1: bullet solutions to problems. So the opioid epidemic really begins,

1195
01:00:55,640 --> 01:00:59,120
Speaker 1: in my opinion, because we were proposed this idea that

1196
01:00:59,400 --> 01:01:01,960
Speaker 1: you can cure human pain, you know that deals with

1197
01:01:02,000 --> 01:01:04,400
Speaker 1: the central nervous system in our brains. You can deal

1198
01:01:04,480 --> 01:01:07,680
Speaker 1: with this with one single pill for all human beings,

1199
01:01:07,840 --> 01:01:11,000
Speaker 1: and Americans were bought into that. In fact, we pushed that.

1200
01:01:11,400 --> 01:01:13,760
Speaker 1: A lot of the doctor said, hey, no, these pills,

1201
01:01:14,040 --> 01:01:15,960
Speaker 1: that's probably not right for you. No, no, no, doctor,

1202
01:01:16,000 --> 01:01:17,920
Speaker 1: I want to be cured. You'll give me the damn pill. God,

1203
01:01:18,000 --> 01:01:22,000
Speaker 1: damn it. Let's take a break here and go to

1204
01:01:22,080 --> 01:01:37,560
Speaker 1: an ad Sam if I could, there's a paragraph in

1205
01:01:37,720 --> 01:01:40,280
Speaker 1: your book here and when I would go around giving

1206
01:01:40,280 --> 01:01:42,200
Speaker 1: speeches that I, how do we explain the opiated academic,

1207
01:01:42,280 --> 01:01:44,400
Speaker 1: and I would say, it's complicated, yes, produce farm of,

1208
01:01:44,480 --> 01:01:46,560
Speaker 1: but everything else. And you have a paragraph in there

1209
01:01:46,600 --> 01:01:48,960
Speaker 1: which I thought said it better than almost I've ever said.

1210
01:01:49,000 --> 01:01:50,200
Speaker 1: He I can never see and I just want to

1211
01:01:50,240 --> 01:01:54,080
Speaker 1: read it to our listeners. It's folly to attribute this

1212
01:01:54,160 --> 01:01:57,560
Speaker 1: opiate epidemic to one drug, one company, one family, like

1213
01:01:57,680 --> 01:02:00,120
Speaker 1: the Bad Guys, and some soap opera. So much more

1214
01:02:00,200 --> 01:02:02,960
Speaker 1: went into it. We Americans, so many of us, demanded

1215
01:02:03,000 --> 01:02:06,200
Speaker 1: convenience to be fixed, wanting miracles and unwilling to do

1216
01:02:06,320 --> 01:02:08,919
Speaker 1: the work of wellness, unwilling to change what we bought

1217
01:02:09,000 --> 01:02:12,320
Speaker 1: eight and drank. We insisted doctors cure all our pain.

1218
01:02:12,760 --> 01:02:16,080
Speaker 1: Pills seem to fit the bill. Insurance company stopped reimbursing

1219
01:02:16,160 --> 01:02:18,800
Speaker 1: for therapies that did not involve pills, leaving doctors with

1220
01:02:18,880 --> 01:02:22,480
Speaker 1: fewer tools to address pain. What's more, oxycontent did provide

1221
01:02:22,480 --> 01:02:25,200
Speaker 1: a Sackler Family letters later sent a statement life changing

1222
01:02:25,240 --> 01:02:28,360
Speaker 1: relief from pain for many Americans. It's unconscionable that a

1223
01:02:28,440 --> 01:02:31,200
Speaker 1: two common result of the opioid epidemic is that doctors

1224
01:02:31,240 --> 01:02:33,480
Speaker 1: cut off patients from their pain medication when they have

1225
01:02:33,600 --> 01:02:36,520
Speaker 1: used them without problem for years. But then if purdueing,

1226
01:02:36,600 --> 01:02:39,440
Speaker 1: marketing OxyContin and more restrained way, we might be lining

1227
01:02:39,480 --> 01:02:41,400
Speaker 1: up to praise it. And I thought it was the

1228
01:02:41,480 --> 01:02:44,920
Speaker 1: most nuanced, best presentation of the complexities and the border

1229
01:02:45,040 --> 01:02:48,720
Speaker 1: social cultural context that's out there. But it does lead

1230
01:02:48,800 --> 01:02:52,080
Speaker 1: then to the policy answers here and so here's where

1231
01:02:52,480 --> 01:02:56,400
Speaker 1: you say, I'm sympathetic to legalization, but nah, I'm sympathetic

1232
01:02:56,480 --> 01:03:00,520
Speaker 1: to decriminalization. But nah. And you actually don't even mentioned

1233
01:03:00,560 --> 01:03:02,480
Speaker 1: harm reduction almost at all in the book. It's all

1234
01:03:02,480 --> 01:03:05,240
Speaker 1: about drug courts and pushing people in the role of

1235
01:03:05,360 --> 01:03:09,280
Speaker 1: judges and punitive types of stuff. And so it is

1236
01:03:09,360 --> 01:03:12,120
Speaker 1: not punive. Sorry, then that's not right. It's not punitive

1237
01:03:12,240 --> 01:03:14,640
Speaker 1: to arrest someone from a tent and camera with with

1238
01:03:15,040 --> 01:03:17,920
Speaker 1: syringes who was about to die and put them in

1239
01:03:18,040 --> 01:03:20,120
Speaker 1: jail where they can have a place of a place

1240
01:03:20,200 --> 01:03:22,320
Speaker 1: of recovery. And that's what That's what I was just arguing.

1241
01:03:22,600 --> 01:03:25,400
Speaker 1: That isn't that is compassion the opposite. It's the opposite

1242
01:03:25,440 --> 01:03:27,640
Speaker 1: of compassion to say we're gonna deal with you, We're

1243
01:03:27,640 --> 01:03:30,600
Speaker 1: gonna meet you where you are, and then let you decide,

1244
01:03:31,280 --> 01:03:34,880
Speaker 1: under the influence of these devastating drugs that you're going

1245
01:03:34,920 --> 01:03:38,040
Speaker 1: to decide when you're you'd rather freeze to death then

1246
01:03:38,240 --> 01:03:40,960
Speaker 1: leave the drugs. We're gonna let you decide. That's an

1247
01:03:41,040 --> 01:03:44,240
Speaker 1: insane fair enough, fair enough, But you do make a

1248
01:03:44,320 --> 01:03:46,880
Speaker 1: fundamental mistake I think in the book, which is that

1249
01:03:47,000 --> 01:03:51,080
Speaker 1: you have an entirely uncritical view of drug courts. I've

1250
01:03:51,120 --> 01:03:53,760
Speaker 1: been studying drug courts for twenty years. I gotta tell you,

1251
01:03:53,880 --> 01:03:56,040
Speaker 1: for many years, a majority of drug courts would not

1252
01:03:56,120 --> 01:03:58,440
Speaker 1: even offer meth, and I made it as an option.

1253
01:03:58,800 --> 01:04:00,959
Speaker 1: No drug court judges were off not trained in dealing

1254
01:04:01,000 --> 01:04:03,760
Speaker 1: with addiction. If people were stumbling along the way that

1255
01:04:03,920 --> 01:04:06,160
Speaker 1: if somebody was smoking weed and they've got an off

1256
01:04:06,200 --> 01:04:08,880
Speaker 1: heroin and cocaine, they still had to ultimately sanction them

1257
01:04:08,880 --> 01:04:11,720
Speaker 1: because that was technically illegal. You had judges operating within

1258
01:04:11,840 --> 01:04:14,320
Speaker 1: the setting of the criminal justice system. You had people

1259
01:04:14,360 --> 01:04:17,080
Speaker 1: in imposing that twelve step The twelve step approach was

1260
01:04:17,120 --> 01:04:18,800
Speaker 1: the all on the end all, even though the twelve

1261
01:04:18,800 --> 01:04:21,560
Speaker 1: step approach, even though millions have benefited, doesn't work in

1262
01:04:21,600 --> 01:04:24,120
Speaker 1: the vast majority of cases. Now, of course you're right,

1263
01:04:24,200 --> 01:04:26,240
Speaker 1: drug court judges are changing. The new head of the

1264
01:04:26,280 --> 01:04:29,440
Speaker 1: Drug Court Association is very sympathetic to harm reduction. There

1265
01:04:29,440 --> 01:04:32,240
Speaker 1: are drug court judges around the country embracing needle exchange

1266
01:04:32,240 --> 01:04:35,040
Speaker 1: programs at least his policy. But at the same time,

1267
01:04:35,320 --> 01:04:37,520
Speaker 1: you don't talk about harm reduction programs in the book.

1268
01:04:37,720 --> 01:04:39,560
Speaker 1: And it brought me back to the fact you keep

1269
01:04:39,600 --> 01:04:42,680
Speaker 1: quoting people saying people aren't going to get better unless

1270
01:04:42,720 --> 01:04:45,000
Speaker 1: you force the MC grab them. And it ignores the

1271
01:04:45,120 --> 01:04:47,320
Speaker 1: fact that the very first, one of the very first

1272
01:04:47,400 --> 01:04:51,040
Speaker 1: needle exchange programs in America, Tacoma, Washington. One of the

1273
01:04:51,080 --> 01:04:53,680
Speaker 1: way it established itself and this was proven over and over,

1274
01:04:54,080 --> 01:04:57,400
Speaker 1: was it landed up becoming the number one point of

1275
01:04:57,520 --> 01:05:02,200
Speaker 1: reference recommendation into drug re treatment programs in the city.

1276
01:05:02,640 --> 01:05:04,600
Speaker 1: And the fact of the matter is that, yes, some

1277
01:05:04,800 --> 01:05:07,760
Speaker 1: people benefit by being pushed in exactly the way you're saying,

1278
01:05:08,120 --> 01:05:11,080
Speaker 1: but for other people, it's not what works. For other people,

1279
01:05:11,120 --> 01:05:13,800
Speaker 1: it's about being in a more human environment. Well, I'm

1280
01:05:13,840 --> 01:05:15,760
Speaker 1: saying that today the drugs on the street do not

1281
01:05:15,880 --> 01:05:18,680
Speaker 1: allow for that. The strugs on the street are so deadly,

1282
01:05:18,760 --> 01:05:22,560
Speaker 1: they're so mind tangling and and devastating to the brain,

1283
01:05:22,760 --> 01:05:25,560
Speaker 1: and the Malcolm fuddlement is creating brain damage very clearly,

1284
01:05:25,600 --> 01:05:28,160
Speaker 1: and they're parting the people who work with this. This

1285
01:05:28,360 --> 01:05:30,480
Speaker 1: is not compassion. It's not a way of saying, well,

1286
01:05:30,520 --> 01:05:32,480
Speaker 1: you could do whatever you like and then you come

1287
01:05:32,520 --> 01:05:35,760
Speaker 1: to us when you need some help. Those people are dying.

1288
01:05:36,880 --> 01:05:38,360
Speaker 1: Meet them where they are. I know where they are.

1289
01:05:38,760 --> 01:05:42,080
Speaker 1: I have to I have to call you out on this.

1290
01:05:42,760 --> 01:05:45,080
Speaker 1: You do not use the phrase harm reduction barely in

1291
01:05:45,120 --> 01:05:47,080
Speaker 1: the book. You do not visit a needle exchange your

1292
01:05:47,120 --> 01:05:49,360
Speaker 1: harm reduction program once. You don't go to those places

1293
01:05:49,480 --> 01:05:51,480
Speaker 1: and see how they're working or meet those people. You

1294
01:05:51,560 --> 01:05:54,160
Speaker 1: talk about people using the phrase at one point very nicely,

1295
01:05:54,240 --> 01:05:57,640
Speaker 1: any positive change that's trains coined by a foulader of

1296
01:05:57,680 --> 01:06:00,240
Speaker 1: harm reduction. Dan Big when over those preventions to locks

1297
01:06:00,280 --> 01:06:03,800
Speaker 1: on distribution, the role of harmonduction programs in this and

1298
01:06:03,920 --> 01:06:06,520
Speaker 1: meeting people where they're at, you quote people working in

1299
01:06:06,560 --> 01:06:08,480
Speaker 1: the system saying it's got to be any stuff. It's

1300
01:06:08,520 --> 01:06:12,240
Speaker 1: incremental change, of course, but that's the fundamental idea of harmonduction.

1301
01:06:12,440 --> 01:06:14,960
Speaker 1: And I didn't quite understand why it almost aunt felt

1302
01:06:14,960 --> 01:06:17,120
Speaker 1: like you were giving a cold shoulder to harmonduction and

1303
01:06:17,200 --> 01:06:20,280
Speaker 1: all of this. Well, because I think the drugs on

1304
01:06:20,360 --> 01:06:23,280
Speaker 1: the on the street need to change. Thinking they haven't changed.

1305
01:06:23,320 --> 01:06:26,720
Speaker 1: Thinking the drugs on the street are different from five

1306
01:06:26,800 --> 01:06:30,040
Speaker 1: years ago. Okay, they are very different. They're very damaging,

1307
01:06:30,280 --> 01:06:35,120
Speaker 1: their deadly, and that requires a different approach to wait

1308
01:06:35,200 --> 01:06:37,880
Speaker 1: for people to come to the That woman who froze

1309
01:06:37,960 --> 01:06:41,560
Speaker 1: to death, her mother would brought her a little The

1310
01:06:41,680 --> 01:06:45,280
Speaker 1: title please, this is their child. You have this home,

1311
01:06:45,400 --> 01:06:48,640
Speaker 1: you have this, all of this. This woman wouldn't be

1312
01:06:48,920 --> 01:06:52,040
Speaker 1: convinced there was that's where she is at. Meeting her

1313
01:06:52,080 --> 01:06:54,520
Speaker 1: where she's at, meaning she's willing to freeze their death

1314
01:06:54,600 --> 01:06:57,919
Speaker 1: rather than spend time with her baby. For child to me, Sam,

1315
01:06:58,000 --> 01:06:59,840
Speaker 1: I hear you. But if you haven't been there, and

1316
01:07:00,040 --> 01:07:02,280
Speaker 1: you haven't gone to, if you had gone to dozens

1317
01:07:02,320 --> 01:07:05,240
Speaker 1: of harm reduction problems in Ohio. Harm reduction programs are

1318
01:07:05,240 --> 01:07:07,800
Speaker 1: springing up all around the state and they're dealing with

1319
01:07:07,880 --> 01:07:10,360
Speaker 1: exactly the sorts of people you're talking about, and there's

1320
01:07:10,360 --> 01:07:12,840
Speaker 1: a dynamic and interaction that's going on there that is

1321
01:07:12,920 --> 01:07:16,680
Speaker 1: keeping people alive, saving people's lives, reducing over those, keeping

1322
01:07:16,760 --> 01:07:19,560
Speaker 1: people alive until the next time. And the same thing

1323
01:07:19,680 --> 01:07:21,520
Speaker 1: is true of jails, because people are coming out of

1324
01:07:21,560 --> 01:07:23,320
Speaker 1: jails and one of the most likely times to dive

1325
01:07:23,400 --> 01:07:24,800
Speaker 1: in over those is right when you come at And

1326
01:07:24,840 --> 01:07:27,920
Speaker 1: that's why that's why the jail I talk about uses

1327
01:07:28,200 --> 01:07:31,040
Speaker 1: m AT for the people who are m AT science

1328
01:07:31,080 --> 01:07:33,600
Speaker 1: people are for the vitral and what have you. Of course,

1329
01:07:33,680 --> 01:07:37,360
Speaker 1: there's lots of people stumbling towards solutions. But my feeling

1330
01:07:37,480 --> 01:07:42,360
Speaker 1: is the drugs on the street have changed fundamentally. The

1331
01:07:42,400 --> 01:07:44,880
Speaker 1: approaches and Sham and Sam, I have to tell you,

1332
01:07:45,040 --> 01:07:47,280
Speaker 1: harm reduction programs around the country, in the world are

1333
01:07:47,360 --> 01:07:49,400
Speaker 1: evolving to deal with the drugs are on the streets.

1334
01:07:49,440 --> 01:07:51,480
Speaker 1: When I go and visit the over those preventions that

1335
01:07:51,600 --> 01:07:53,920
Speaker 1: are needle exchange programs, I see people dealing with the

1336
01:07:54,000 --> 01:07:57,880
Speaker 1: population using fentonel, using meth amphetamine, and doing harm reduction

1337
01:07:57,880 --> 01:07:59,560
Speaker 1: in ways that are But I'm just saying I think

1338
01:07:59,640 --> 01:08:02,360
Speaker 1: your book would have benefited really looking into this piece

1339
01:08:02,400 --> 01:08:04,840
Speaker 1: as well, because it's one thing you talk to people

1340
01:08:05,160 --> 01:08:07,160
Speaker 1: drun court judges, and they have their own angle, They

1341
01:08:07,240 --> 01:08:09,600
Speaker 1: know their things, they come from theirn iology. It's good

1342
01:08:09,680 --> 01:08:12,440
Speaker 1: to praise twelve step programs, but it's not the only approach.

1343
01:08:12,840 --> 01:08:15,760
Speaker 1: Method on is pivially important, No, I know that. I

1344
01:08:15,840 --> 01:08:18,240
Speaker 1: know that, And I think what's what's fascinating about the

1345
01:08:18,280 --> 01:08:21,599
Speaker 1: world America today is how these topics are now being

1346
01:08:21,680 --> 01:08:24,479
Speaker 1: debated very hotly, Whereas when I was writing Dreamline, I

1347
01:08:24,520 --> 01:08:27,000
Speaker 1: don't remember any debate over them. There was no one cared.

1348
01:08:27,160 --> 01:08:29,240
Speaker 1: There wasn't no debate. There was just nobody cared. So

1349
01:08:29,360 --> 01:08:30,560
Speaker 1: let's go back where you don't have to get in

1350
01:08:30,560 --> 01:08:32,080
Speaker 1: one of his face so much on this thing. One

1351
01:08:32,080 --> 01:08:34,440
Speaker 1: of the things I did like was what you describe

1352
01:08:34,680 --> 01:08:38,200
Speaker 1: really about the evolution in quote unquote white America. Right

1353
01:08:38,640 --> 01:08:41,880
Speaker 1: when HIV AIDS came around and was devastating people. You know,

1354
01:08:42,000 --> 01:08:44,519
Speaker 1: the notion harmoniction comes around because the old line you

1355
01:08:44,560 --> 01:08:46,559
Speaker 1: have to let people bottom out before they get better.

1356
01:08:46,880 --> 01:08:49,080
Speaker 1: It wasn't just more dangerous drugs like today. That's his

1357
01:08:49,160 --> 01:08:51,680
Speaker 1: bodying out only makes sense. It was HIV AIDS back

1358
01:08:51,680 --> 01:08:53,760
Speaker 1: in the eighties and nineties that wiped out the notion

1359
01:08:53,840 --> 01:08:55,519
Speaker 1: or should have wiped out the notion of bottoed me out.

1360
01:08:55,640 --> 01:08:58,280
Speaker 1: But at that time it was more affecting black people,

1361
01:08:58,360 --> 01:09:00,760
Speaker 1: brown people, and people are and the white people who

1362
01:09:00,760 --> 01:09:04,479
Speaker 1: saw were much more in hiding. Now as opioid juice

1363
01:09:04,560 --> 01:09:06,920
Speaker 1: became much more pervasive among white people and by the

1364
01:09:06,960 --> 01:09:09,760
Speaker 1: way it continued, you know, people would talk about Staten Island,

1365
01:09:09,800 --> 01:09:11,880
Speaker 1: New York, which is mostly white, but they forget the

1366
01:09:11,920 --> 01:09:13,960
Speaker 1: point that the over those rates in the Bronx, which

1367
01:09:14,000 --> 01:09:16,000
Speaker 1: is mostly black and brown, were just as high. They

1368
01:09:16,120 --> 01:09:18,519
Speaker 1: just it wasn't as new. But what you talk about

1369
01:09:18,600 --> 01:09:22,000
Speaker 1: here is an evolution in quote unquote white America where

1370
01:09:22,040 --> 01:09:25,400
Speaker 1: places that are coming to drug courts, which is good

1371
01:09:25,479 --> 01:09:27,599
Speaker 1: for them twenty years after the fact of the other

1372
01:09:27,640 --> 01:09:30,800
Speaker 1: places in the country had becoming more compassionate, and just

1373
01:09:30,920 --> 01:09:34,479
Speaker 1: say something about how you encountered this kind of evolution there, sure,

1374
01:09:34,880 --> 01:09:37,400
Speaker 1: And I would say that that one of the things

1375
01:09:37,439 --> 01:09:39,920
Speaker 1: that struck me was that early on in this I

1376
01:09:39,960 --> 01:09:42,839
Speaker 1: would say during Dreamland, in fact, I came to this idea,

1377
01:09:43,080 --> 01:09:45,280
Speaker 1: saw this at work in Tennessee. In fact, with the

1378
01:09:45,280 --> 01:09:47,559
Speaker 1: great drug court judge Stuff Norman out here in Nashville,

1379
01:09:47,600 --> 01:09:49,800
Speaker 1: now retired, who was telling me this that you know,

1380
01:09:49,920 --> 01:09:53,479
Speaker 1: once once it was their folks getting addicted. Then you

1381
01:09:53,560 --> 01:09:55,360
Speaker 1: all of a sudden, I began to get phone calls

1382
01:09:55,640 --> 01:09:59,360
Speaker 1: from state legislators. Those are the judge talking um saying, hey,

1383
01:09:59,439 --> 01:10:03,320
Speaker 1: can you get my nephew or my my donor's sister

1384
01:10:03,479 --> 01:10:05,880
Speaker 1: or whatever that kind of thing, And you began to

1385
01:10:05,920 --> 01:10:07,639
Speaker 1: see that I would say that this about the opio

1386
01:10:07,840 --> 01:10:10,640
Speaker 1: epidemic on rays. I would say that the opioid epidemic

1387
01:10:11,240 --> 01:10:14,360
Speaker 1: was hidden. People say it only got attention once the

1388
01:10:14,400 --> 01:10:17,639
Speaker 1: white population, middle class white population got it got addicted,

1389
01:10:17,880 --> 01:10:20,639
Speaker 1: And I would say that's not exactly true. I covered

1390
01:10:20,680 --> 01:10:24,200
Speaker 1: the crack epidemic that got huge press for years because

1391
01:10:24,240 --> 01:10:26,519
Speaker 1: it was very public. You couldn't avoid the drive by

1392
01:10:26,560 --> 01:10:28,960
Speaker 1: shootings and and all that stuff, the car jackings. It

1393
01:10:29,080 --> 01:10:32,360
Speaker 1: was just everywhere you couldn't have been open and open yeah,

1394
01:10:33,080 --> 01:10:35,040
Speaker 1: open air bazaars. I covered that all the time in

1395
01:10:35,120 --> 01:10:37,320
Speaker 1: Stockton when I was there for four years. I would

1396
01:10:37,360 --> 01:10:42,439
Speaker 1: say that when this opioid epidemic didn't get pressed because

1397
01:10:42,479 --> 01:10:45,800
Speaker 1: it affected middle class white people, because they didn't want

1398
01:10:45,920 --> 01:10:48,880
Speaker 1: it to be covered. They were from the seventies. Some

1399
01:10:48,960 --> 01:10:50,880
Speaker 1: of the parents may have smoked weed or something, but

1400
01:10:51,520 --> 01:10:54,880
Speaker 1: very few had ever tried heroin, and nobody wanted that public.

1401
01:10:54,960 --> 01:10:56,920
Speaker 1: So you began to see very much like the early

1402
01:10:57,000 --> 01:10:59,920
Speaker 1: days of the AD's epidemic, where nobody wants HIV in

1403
01:11:00,000 --> 01:11:03,519
Speaker 1: their son's obituary. You begin to see died suddenly at home,

1404
01:11:04,400 --> 01:11:06,760
Speaker 1: uh drive of a heart attack twenty seven years or

1405
01:11:06,840 --> 01:11:09,080
Speaker 1: something like that. You begin to see that take place.

1406
01:11:09,400 --> 01:11:13,280
Speaker 1: I would say too, that this dove tails almost exactly

1407
01:11:13,800 --> 01:11:17,240
Speaker 1: with the golden age of neuroscience research, So now we

1408
01:11:17,320 --> 01:11:20,479
Speaker 1: are learning at the same time that this is happening. Really,

1409
01:11:20,520 --> 01:11:23,800
Speaker 1: I was just stayed beginning late like late nineties, certainly

1410
01:11:23,840 --> 01:11:27,120
Speaker 1: into the two thousand's you're seeing huge advances in both

1411
01:11:27,120 --> 01:11:29,360
Speaker 1: of the technology but also the understanding of the brain,

1412
01:11:29,439 --> 01:11:32,679
Speaker 1: and and we're seeing now huge advances during these same

1413
01:11:32,800 --> 01:11:36,040
Speaker 1: twenty years when this opioid epidemic has taken place. I

1414
01:11:36,080 --> 01:11:38,000
Speaker 1: can tell you that when I was in Stockton, and

1415
01:11:38,280 --> 01:11:41,240
Speaker 1: again this is anecdotal, is my my experience, but it

1416
01:11:41,320 --> 01:11:43,200
Speaker 1: was very clear to me Stockton is one of the

1417
01:11:43,200 --> 01:11:46,960
Speaker 1: most integrated cities in California, it was white six percent.

1418
01:11:47,120 --> 01:11:50,400
Speaker 1: Everything else. I do not remember the very large Southeast

1419
01:11:50,439 --> 01:11:54,160
Speaker 1: Asian community and Latino community, sizable black community. Nobody during

1420
01:11:54,160 --> 01:12:00,759
Speaker 1: the crack epidemic, black people, Latinos, anybody wanted treatment. Nobody,

1421
01:12:00,880 --> 01:12:06,519
Speaker 1: there was no constituency for that. This was two. They

1422
01:12:06,680 --> 01:12:11,040
Speaker 1: wanted people thrown in jail. That's it. And so the

1423
01:12:11,280 --> 01:12:15,080
Speaker 1: change that we're seeing now has absolutely something to do

1424
01:12:15,200 --> 01:12:20,760
Speaker 1: with race. In my opinion, it's white people developing a

1425
01:12:20,880 --> 01:12:25,000
Speaker 1: consciousness of how this must have, this feels, and how

1426
01:12:25,200 --> 01:12:28,880
Speaker 1: therefore expecting some Christian charity, as I said in the book,

1427
01:12:29,080 --> 01:12:31,559
Speaker 1: that they didn't express when it was another other groups

1428
01:12:31,600 --> 01:12:34,120
Speaker 1: that were being more more effective than they were. But

1429
01:12:34,240 --> 01:12:36,880
Speaker 1: I would also say it's important understand that we have

1430
01:12:37,000 --> 01:12:40,960
Speaker 1: a revolution in neuroscience understanding in those years, there is

1431
01:12:41,280 --> 01:12:45,479
Speaker 1: nothing remotely comparable in the opioid epic damach of the

1432
01:12:45,640 --> 01:12:47,960
Speaker 1: street violence that was taking place in the crack of item.

1433
01:12:48,120 --> 01:12:51,040
Speaker 1: So you have, you have, yes, you have this fascinating change,

1434
01:12:51,040 --> 01:12:53,880
Speaker 1: particularly in red areas. I would say, it's just amazing

1435
01:12:54,280 --> 01:12:59,280
Speaker 1: transformation of people's thinking because yes, it's their kids, it's

1436
01:12:59,320 --> 01:13:01,920
Speaker 1: their nephews, it's their brothers and sisters and grandparents and

1437
01:13:02,000 --> 01:13:06,080
Speaker 1: whatever that's getting addicted. But I would stop at generalizations

1438
01:13:06,120 --> 01:13:07,960
Speaker 1: about that because there's a lot of nw ones that

1439
01:13:07,960 --> 01:13:11,679
Speaker 1: we're talking about news earlier very correct. Well, well, Samuli,

1440
01:13:11,760 --> 01:13:13,439
Speaker 1: I have like three at reaction. One is I mean

1441
01:13:13,479 --> 01:13:15,040
Speaker 1: you and I both got into this drug issue back

1442
01:13:15,080 --> 01:13:16,640
Speaker 1: in the eighties, so we both go back a long time.

1443
01:13:16,680 --> 01:13:19,200
Speaker 1: And what I recall back then, it wasn't that black

1444
01:13:19,240 --> 01:13:21,600
Speaker 1: people didn't want more treatment. My recollection because I was

1445
01:13:21,680 --> 01:13:24,600
Speaker 1: debating Jesse Jackson, debating Charlie Wrangle on you know, the

1446
01:13:24,720 --> 01:13:26,519
Speaker 1: TV shows and all this sort of stuff back then,

1447
01:13:26,640 --> 01:13:29,240
Speaker 1: and what I found the difference was that those guys

1448
01:13:29,560 --> 01:13:31,560
Speaker 1: they swatted the drug war, but they said, but we

1449
01:13:31,600 --> 01:13:34,120
Speaker 1: also want resources and treatment and blah blah blah, and

1450
01:13:34,200 --> 01:13:37,080
Speaker 1: the Republicans and others were saying, and the hell with treatment.

1451
01:13:37,120 --> 01:13:39,080
Speaker 1: It was almost like lip service, So there was some

1452
01:13:39,280 --> 01:13:41,400
Speaker 1: support for them, but there was also in terms of

1453
01:13:41,400 --> 01:13:43,280
Speaker 1: the opioid issue, there was a kind of anti method

1454
01:13:43,320 --> 01:13:45,840
Speaker 1: on sentiment back then. There was an anti harmonduction sentiment

1455
01:13:45,880 --> 01:13:48,400
Speaker 1: back then, and the black community evolved more rapidly in

1456
01:13:48,439 --> 01:13:50,800
Speaker 1: the white community. The second thing I'll say is that

1457
01:13:50,880 --> 01:13:53,360
Speaker 1: you're right about the neuroscience that breakthroughs in all these

1458
01:13:53,400 --> 01:13:57,000
Speaker 1: important ways. What's sad and disappointing is that with all

1459
01:13:57,120 --> 01:14:01,200
Speaker 1: this neuroscience breakthrough there has been essentially nothing new to

1460
01:14:01,360 --> 01:14:05,240
Speaker 1: emerge in terms of drug train like methanon, entrepreneurphine now

1461
01:14:05,280 --> 01:14:08,280
Speaker 1: treks and I'll go back fifty years nationally a drugging.

1462
01:14:08,320 --> 01:14:10,599
Speaker 1: This is board billions into it with nothing to come

1463
01:14:10,640 --> 01:14:12,800
Speaker 1: out of it, which suggests that when we're looking for

1464
01:14:12,880 --> 01:14:15,320
Speaker 1: the solutions to drug addiction, it may have a lot

1465
01:14:15,400 --> 01:14:17,160
Speaker 1: less to do in neuroscience and a lot more to

1466
01:14:17,240 --> 01:14:19,559
Speaker 1: do with the broader conditions. Part of what explains why

1467
01:14:19,560 --> 01:14:21,479
Speaker 1: we see these problems much less in Europe. Because the

1468
01:14:21,560 --> 01:14:23,800
Speaker 1: last thing I'll say is what really hit me what

1469
01:14:23,880 --> 01:14:27,600
Speaker 1: you're saying about Red America, the white population. It was

1470
01:14:27,760 --> 01:14:31,479
Speaker 1: during the Republican primaries back in sixteen fifteen, maybe a

1471
01:14:31,600 --> 01:14:34,720
Speaker 1: fifteen sixteen, when all of a sudden you saw it,

1472
01:14:34,840 --> 01:14:37,800
Speaker 1: like in the public forum, the opioid issue popping up

1473
01:14:38,080 --> 01:14:42,120
Speaker 1: as a point of discussion in Republican communities, and we're

1474
01:14:42,360 --> 01:14:45,200
Speaker 1: just saying I'm going to shut the border with Mexico

1475
01:14:45,520 --> 01:14:48,240
Speaker 1: no longer was an effective selling point where people were

1476
01:14:48,280 --> 01:14:51,519
Speaker 1: looking for something more. And then fast forward to eighteen

1477
01:14:51,840 --> 01:14:56,800
Speaker 1: when there's no bipartisanship, but actually a relatively decent congressional

1478
01:14:56,880 --> 01:14:59,920
Speaker 1: bill to do with the opioid crisis passes with bipartisans

1479
01:15:00,160 --> 01:15:02,920
Speaker 1: porch and is signed by Donald truck So you see

1480
01:15:03,000 --> 01:15:05,760
Speaker 1: this evolution in a way as you see it in

1481
01:15:05,840 --> 01:15:08,280
Speaker 1: Mike Pett's deciding he's going to support a needle exchange

1482
01:15:08,320 --> 01:15:12,680
Speaker 1: program with So there is that thing. I think there

1483
01:15:12,840 --> 01:15:14,720
Speaker 1: is why when you say that what happened with this

1484
01:15:14,800 --> 01:15:17,640
Speaker 1: thing is it promoted a greater sense of empathy and

1485
01:15:17,760 --> 01:15:20,720
Speaker 1: a greater openness to new ideas In that type of

1486
01:15:20,720 --> 01:15:23,280
Speaker 1: stuff we'd seen in urban America and on the coast

1487
01:15:23,479 --> 01:15:26,160
Speaker 1: and in certain big cities back going back to the

1488
01:15:26,280 --> 01:15:29,240
Speaker 1: nineties and the aughts. We now see happening in these

1489
01:15:29,320 --> 01:15:32,840
Speaker 1: parts of the America and in rural America and suburban

1490
01:15:32,960 --> 01:15:35,400
Speaker 1: and yeah, I mean I remember one person telling me

1491
01:15:35,640 --> 01:15:39,040
Speaker 1: in a rural part of Ohio that his parents he

1492
01:15:39,160 --> 01:15:41,680
Speaker 1: was a cop, but his parents could never get over

1493
01:15:41,720 --> 01:15:43,719
Speaker 1: the idea that there was heron in their in their area.

1494
01:15:43,800 --> 01:15:47,680
Speaker 1: This was something for Cleveland, there was something Chicago. It

1495
01:15:47,800 --> 01:15:50,360
Speaker 1: was that kind of thing. And there in these areas

1496
01:15:50,520 --> 01:15:54,400
Speaker 1: you began to see this. Now, is there a racist

1497
01:15:54,880 --> 01:15:56,760
Speaker 1: component of that? I'm quite sure there is and no

1498
01:15:56,880 --> 01:15:59,760
Speaker 1: doubt about it. On the other hand, how often do

1499
01:15:59,800 --> 01:16:03,080
Speaker 1: you care when a plane goes down in Malaysia? Do

1500
01:16:03,200 --> 01:16:05,720
Speaker 1: we care? No, we didn't know anybody and on that

1501
01:16:05,840 --> 01:16:08,840
Speaker 1: plane in Malaysia, and so you know, it's part of

1502
01:16:09,280 --> 01:16:13,799
Speaker 1: there's a company. I'm I'm reluctant to get too quickly

1503
01:16:13,880 --> 01:16:17,600
Speaker 1: into these like blanket condemnations that that people want to

1504
01:16:17,640 --> 01:16:20,439
Speaker 1: get into, even though I have to say, and I'm

1505
01:16:20,439 --> 01:16:22,680
Speaker 1: gonna say it very immodestly, but i will say it

1506
01:16:22,760 --> 01:16:24,800
Speaker 1: because if I don't defend myself, nobody else has gonna

1507
01:16:25,360 --> 01:16:27,320
Speaker 1: And that is that the first person to report on

1508
01:16:27,400 --> 01:16:30,920
Speaker 1: that very phenomenon was me and my book Dreamland. When

1509
01:16:30,960 --> 01:16:33,880
Speaker 1: I was talking with exactly that. The judge Steth Norman

1510
01:16:33,960 --> 01:16:36,280
Speaker 1: and I went to chapters about how all of a

1511
01:16:36,400 --> 01:16:41,240
Speaker 1: sudden you saw white, rural, white America begin to ask

1512
01:16:41,360 --> 01:16:44,840
Speaker 1: for treatment and you begin to see a change, and

1513
01:16:44,880 --> 01:16:47,240
Speaker 1: all of a sudden, he's the best buddy of the

1514
01:16:47,360 --> 01:16:50,080
Speaker 1: Republican Speaker of the House in Tennessee, and all this

1515
01:16:50,200 --> 01:16:53,280
Speaker 1: kind of stuff. Not that I don't want to report

1516
01:16:53,320 --> 01:16:54,920
Speaker 1: on that I have already. I was the first one

1517
01:16:54,960 --> 01:16:56,960
Speaker 1: to do it. I believe. I would say that that

1518
01:16:57,080 --> 01:16:59,000
Speaker 1: there's a lot of nuance to it too. And I

1519
01:16:59,040 --> 01:17:00,840
Speaker 1: do believe that the neural science was part of it,

1520
01:17:00,920 --> 01:17:03,800
Speaker 1: maybe because now we're able to see the brain in

1521
01:17:03,920 --> 01:17:06,600
Speaker 1: action in a sense, see the blood flows on this

1522
01:17:06,800 --> 01:17:08,840
Speaker 1: drug and on that thing, and on prayer and on

1523
01:17:08,960 --> 01:17:12,200
Speaker 1: storytelling and all the rest. That's an amazing thing to work. Yeah,

1524
01:17:12,200 --> 01:17:13,680
Speaker 1: But I mean it also makes the point that a

1525
01:17:13,720 --> 01:17:16,280
Speaker 1: lot of things we associate with drug use, we see

1526
01:17:16,320 --> 01:17:18,160
Speaker 1: I mean, it's just like the same parts light up

1527
01:17:18,160 --> 01:17:20,640
Speaker 1: when you're watching a TV program or playing tennis. There

1528
01:17:20,640 --> 01:17:22,360
Speaker 1: are all sorts of activities which light up parts of

1529
01:17:22,439 --> 01:17:25,880
Speaker 1: the brain as do drugs. It's why, for example, gambling, right,

1530
01:17:26,080 --> 01:17:29,240
Speaker 1: why gambling and gambling addictions so much resembled drug use

1531
01:17:29,280 --> 01:17:31,880
Speaker 1: and drug addiction. And it's also why, as you say,

1532
01:17:32,080 --> 01:17:34,800
Speaker 1: from the supplier side, the casinos as well as the

1533
01:17:34,880 --> 01:17:37,519
Speaker 1: manager of lotteries, I figured out how to appeal to

1534
01:17:37,600 --> 01:17:40,240
Speaker 1: the addictive personality and all this sort of stuff. So

1535
01:17:40,520 --> 01:17:41,960
Speaker 1: it is that stuff. But so to bring this to

1536
01:17:42,000 --> 01:17:44,479
Speaker 1: a conclusion here on the policy issue, right, so, you know,

1537
01:17:44,600 --> 01:17:46,760
Speaker 1: on the legalization thing, it's funny when people ask me

1538
01:17:46,960 --> 01:17:49,640
Speaker 1: because I'm so much identified as an advocate of legalization,

1539
01:17:49,760 --> 01:17:51,960
Speaker 1: and I say, well, I'm not a libertarian legalizer, and

1540
01:17:51,960 --> 01:17:55,560
Speaker 1: they say, what's your big greatest residency about legalization? And

1541
01:17:55,680 --> 01:17:59,200
Speaker 1: my responses, Look what happened with food. It's exactly what

1542
01:17:59,320 --> 01:18:01,120
Speaker 1: you know I've been saying us for years. The sugar

1543
01:18:01,160 --> 01:18:04,640
Speaker 1: fats all thing to imagine big multinational corporations going to

1544
01:18:04,720 --> 01:18:06,600
Speaker 1: work the way the Mexican drug traffickers are on the

1545
01:18:06,680 --> 01:18:09,519
Speaker 1: underground chemists but at a level of cistication. But on

1546
01:18:09,640 --> 01:18:12,760
Speaker 1: the other hand, there are steps short of legalization. And

1547
01:18:12,840 --> 01:18:15,479
Speaker 1: so you now have a growing discussion, say around British

1548
01:18:15,520 --> 01:18:19,120
Speaker 1: Columbian parts of Canada, around safe supply, and it's basically

1549
01:18:19,160 --> 01:18:21,639
Speaker 1: making the argument, yeah, we can throw people in jail.

1550
01:18:21,680 --> 01:18:23,320
Speaker 1: We could do the drug court, we can offer this

1551
01:18:23,439 --> 01:18:26,040
Speaker 1: in that. But given that there are some people who

1552
01:18:26,040 --> 01:18:29,880
Speaker 1: are absolutely committed to using these drugs from the black market,

1553
01:18:30,280 --> 01:18:33,000
Speaker 1: aren't we better off trying to find a way to

1554
01:18:33,120 --> 01:18:37,040
Speaker 1: allow these people access to the drugs that they want

1555
01:18:37,400 --> 01:18:39,479
Speaker 1: in such a way that without making it available to

1556
01:18:39,520 --> 01:18:43,160
Speaker 1: the broader population. So you're saying, let me ask you, though,

1557
01:18:43,200 --> 01:18:45,400
Speaker 1: are you saying that we should think of ways to

1558
01:18:45,800 --> 01:18:48,680
Speaker 1: providing funnel to people who wanted to me? That's a

1559
01:18:49,520 --> 01:18:51,760
Speaker 1: I'm not. I don't think a lot about legalization. You

1560
01:18:51,880 --> 01:18:53,960
Speaker 1: think all about it all the time. That's great for

1561
01:18:54,040 --> 01:18:56,400
Speaker 1: a lot of reasons. Probably too complicated again too right now.

1562
01:18:57,040 --> 01:19:00,160
Speaker 1: But my feeling is, before we do any of that, uh,

1563
01:19:00,840 --> 01:19:04,040
Speaker 1: I would like to see us legalize marijuana in a

1564
01:19:04,120 --> 01:19:07,880
Speaker 1: way that did not create big pot, right, which is

1565
01:19:07,920 --> 01:19:10,520
Speaker 1: what we're doing right now. But that's that's the impossible,

1566
01:19:10,640 --> 01:19:12,400
Speaker 1: right because I would always saying like I was one

1567
01:19:12,439 --> 01:19:14,719
Speaker 1: of the key people involved in moving the country towards

1568
01:19:14,840 --> 01:19:16,880
Speaker 1: legalization of marijuana with the ballot issues and all that

1569
01:19:16,960 --> 01:19:18,760
Speaker 1: sort of stuff. And my line was, look, I'm not

1570
01:19:18,800 --> 01:19:20,559
Speaker 1: in a favor of the marl borization of bud Wiz

1571
01:19:20,600 --> 01:19:23,160
Speaker 1: zation America. You know, I'm the smallest, beautiful kind of guy,

1572
01:19:23,200 --> 01:19:25,360
Speaker 1: and let's try to make that happen. But we live

1573
01:19:25,439 --> 01:19:28,040
Speaker 1: in the one of the most dynamic capitalist society and history,

1574
01:19:28,320 --> 01:19:30,280
Speaker 1: and it everardy is going to head that direction. I'm

1575
01:19:30,320 --> 01:19:33,160
Speaker 1: happy when I see efforts and you know, my organization

1576
01:19:33,200 --> 01:19:35,080
Speaker 1: I were involved in trying to draft these things to

1577
01:19:35,200 --> 01:19:37,280
Speaker 1: try to limit that, to give a foot up to

1578
01:19:37,400 --> 01:19:40,880
Speaker 1: the small entrepreneurs, to try to have some social equity

1579
01:19:40,880 --> 01:19:42,560
Speaker 1: and all this sort of stuff. But we have to

1580
01:19:42,640 --> 01:19:45,160
Speaker 1: be reasonable, and ultimately, I would say, give me a

1581
01:19:45,320 --> 01:19:48,360
Speaker 1: choice between a marijuana probition world with seven hund thousand

1582
01:19:48,439 --> 01:19:51,559
Speaker 1: people being busted, people at being killed, marijuana unknown potency

1583
01:19:51,600 --> 01:19:54,000
Speaker 1: and purity, people who have medical needs who can't get

1584
01:19:54,040 --> 01:19:57,240
Speaker 1: it safely and responsibly all sorts of or one where

1585
01:19:57,360 --> 01:20:00,800
Speaker 1: even it's run ultimately by big marijuana and there's you

1586
01:20:00,880 --> 01:20:04,559
Speaker 1: have big Starbucks or big alcohol or whatever. I'd say

1587
01:20:04,800 --> 01:20:07,479
Speaker 1: that other one is a lesser evil and there's only

1588
01:20:07,560 --> 01:20:09,720
Speaker 1: so much you can do on that. And when I

1589
01:20:09,760 --> 01:20:12,120
Speaker 1: say legalizing, right, I'm talking about not selling it over

1590
01:20:12,160 --> 01:20:14,599
Speaker 1: the counter, this sort of stuff. The question is, if

1591
01:20:14,640 --> 01:20:17,080
Speaker 1: you look at the heroin prescription programs, that popped up

1592
01:20:17,080 --> 01:20:19,040
Speaker 1: in Switzerland thirty years ago and that are now in

1593
01:20:19,120 --> 01:20:22,680
Speaker 1: Germany and the Netherlands, Denmark, UK, Canada, going to open

1594
01:20:22,760 --> 01:20:24,840
Speaker 1: up in Norway soon. Which is the results they've been

1595
01:20:24,840 --> 01:20:26,880
Speaker 1: studying now for twenty or thirty years, and they are

1596
01:20:26,960 --> 01:20:29,280
Speaker 1: clearly where people go to a clinic, they get to

1597
01:20:29,360 --> 01:20:31,720
Speaker 1: use pharmaceutical great heroin up to three times a day,

1598
01:20:31,720 --> 01:20:33,760
Speaker 1: they have access to services and all the other sorts

1599
01:20:33,800 --> 01:20:36,120
Speaker 1: of things. These are people from whom method on didn't work,

1600
01:20:36,160 --> 01:20:38,759
Speaker 1: who had tried everything else, and you see really impressive

1601
01:20:38,800 --> 01:20:41,519
Speaker 1: results in terms of people stabilizing their lives, sometimes even

1602
01:20:41,560 --> 01:20:44,599
Speaker 1: getting jobs, getting housing, reducing their revival and crime, all

1603
01:20:44,640 --> 01:20:47,280
Speaker 1: that sort of stuff. Now, whether that's possible in some

1604
01:20:47,479 --> 01:20:50,080
Speaker 1: respect with fentanyl, or whether one should look at whether

1605
01:20:50,160 --> 01:20:52,960
Speaker 1: or not people are using fentanyl can be moved into

1606
01:20:53,360 --> 01:20:57,640
Speaker 1: less dangerous forms of opioids in different forms, seems to

1607
01:20:57,760 --> 01:21:00,160
Speaker 1: me one of the options you still have to hold

1608
01:21:00,200 --> 01:21:03,400
Speaker 1: people responsible. I'm not somebody who says you're a drug

1609
01:21:03,439 --> 01:21:05,400
Speaker 1: addict and you're going out and mugging people and therefore

1610
01:21:05,479 --> 01:21:06,760
Speaker 1: just give him a slap on the wrisk and let

1611
01:21:06,840 --> 01:21:09,280
Speaker 1: him go. I don't believe that this is about how

1612
01:21:09,400 --> 01:21:11,320
Speaker 1: you deal with the problem is I would say, I

1613
01:21:11,479 --> 01:21:13,680
Speaker 1: follow what you're saying the following. I think what we're

1614
01:21:13,720 --> 01:21:16,400
Speaker 1: seeing that's played out in in in certain cities of

1615
01:21:16,479 --> 01:21:20,360
Speaker 1: the country, is that executive that's exactly what's happening. Well,

1616
01:21:20,520 --> 01:21:23,759
Speaker 1: you know, a restorative justice a kills a person, Okay,

1617
01:21:24,040 --> 01:21:26,519
Speaker 1: you know. To me, I I don't the way you're

1618
01:21:26,560 --> 01:21:30,400
Speaker 1: explaining it as the policy you with a spouse sounds fine,

1619
01:21:30,439 --> 01:21:32,920
Speaker 1: sounds sounds reasonable, and I'm I have I don't think

1620
01:21:32,960 --> 01:21:35,519
Speaker 1: about these topics too much. People think of me as

1621
01:21:35,560 --> 01:21:38,519
Speaker 1: an opioid reporter. I think of myself is very differently.

1622
01:21:38,960 --> 01:21:41,600
Speaker 1: But I've had other interests in my life that in

1623
01:21:41,720 --> 01:21:44,840
Speaker 1: journalism that goes way away from all this. Okay, so

1624
01:21:44,960 --> 01:21:46,720
Speaker 1: it's not it's not like a major issue for me.

1625
01:21:46,840 --> 01:21:49,400
Speaker 1: But I think that the way this is being laid

1626
01:21:49,479 --> 01:21:54,040
Speaker 1: out in person on the ground, with real world policies

1627
01:21:54,200 --> 01:21:57,120
Speaker 1: is exactly what you just described as that people getting

1628
01:21:57,160 --> 01:22:01,040
Speaker 1: mugged and nobody does anything. People and encounter behaving like

1629
01:22:01,280 --> 01:22:03,439
Speaker 1: just out of their minds, and nobody does anything about

1630
01:22:03,479 --> 01:22:07,160
Speaker 1: these incameras well, because it's a community, it's goal. To me,

1631
01:22:07,280 --> 01:22:09,600
Speaker 1: I feel like this is the issue that that it

1632
01:22:09,920 --> 01:22:12,680
Speaker 1: when you see it played out, you see it on

1633
01:22:12,800 --> 01:22:15,519
Speaker 1: the ground, when you see the real world consequences of it,

1634
01:22:15,920 --> 01:22:20,080
Speaker 1: if you don't develop any constituency for the ideas that

1635
01:22:20,240 --> 01:22:22,559
Speaker 1: you're supporting, yeah, well, I mean, I say, I mean,

1636
01:22:22,560 --> 01:22:25,160
Speaker 1: I'll tell you. I mean probably where I agree and

1637
01:22:25,240 --> 01:22:27,400
Speaker 1: disagree with you, but also agree and disagree with many

1638
01:22:27,439 --> 01:22:29,439
Speaker 1: of my allies in all of this is I have

1639
01:22:29,560 --> 01:22:32,240
Speaker 1: a fairly you know, conservative view. I think that people

1640
01:22:32,360 --> 01:22:34,479
Speaker 1: need to be held responsible for their actions in so

1641
01:22:34,600 --> 01:22:36,799
Speaker 1: far as they harm other people. And if you're stealing,

1642
01:22:36,880 --> 01:22:39,400
Speaker 1: if you're committing violence, if you're hurting other people, you

1643
01:22:39,520 --> 01:22:41,600
Speaker 1: need to be held responsible of that. But at the

1644
01:22:41,680 --> 01:22:44,559
Speaker 1: same time, I'm saying, if the issue is your commitment

1645
01:22:44,600 --> 01:22:47,160
Speaker 1: to using certain types of drugs, well, here, on the

1646
01:22:47,240 --> 01:22:49,639
Speaker 1: one hand, I'm going to give you access to these

1647
01:22:49,720 --> 01:22:51,920
Speaker 1: drugs you want. You want these drugs, I'm gonna give

1648
01:22:51,920 --> 01:22:54,320
Speaker 1: them to you in a pure form, either either there

1649
01:22:54,360 --> 01:22:56,400
Speaker 1: for free or they cost a few bucks or whatever.

1650
01:22:56,680 --> 01:22:59,080
Speaker 1: But here's the drugs. I'm gonna offer you some services,

1651
01:22:59,160 --> 01:23:01,120
Speaker 1: some help so you can get out of this life.

1652
01:23:01,160 --> 01:23:03,360
Speaker 1: Because we know that a lot of people addicted, whether

1653
01:23:03,439 --> 01:23:06,040
Speaker 1: it's cigarettes or whether it's heron or Fantel go through

1654
01:23:06,080 --> 01:23:07,680
Speaker 1: periods where they say, I want to get out of this,

1655
01:23:07,920 --> 01:23:11,360
Speaker 1: and it's really a two pronged approach that says, here's

1656
01:23:11,760 --> 01:23:13,920
Speaker 1: you want all this stuff, here's the good, here's the

1657
01:23:13,960 --> 01:23:16,920
Speaker 1: past services, here's the drugs. But if you hurt people,

1658
01:23:17,040 --> 01:23:20,040
Speaker 1: we hold you responsible. And it's that combination that I think.

1659
01:23:20,640 --> 01:23:23,200
Speaker 1: And here's the thing though, let me just finally, because

1660
01:23:23,200 --> 01:23:25,360
Speaker 1: I do have to leave soon. It's been a great conversation.

1661
01:23:25,479 --> 01:23:27,680
Speaker 1: I really am. I really appreciate it, and I really

1662
01:23:27,720 --> 01:23:30,759
Speaker 1: appreciate your thoughtful reading of my book, and it's it's wonderful.

1663
01:23:30,800 --> 01:23:34,679
Speaker 1: I'm happy to do that. But to me, I don't

1664
01:23:34,920 --> 01:23:39,759
Speaker 1: see some of these harder drugs and particularly mathem foment,

1665
01:23:40,000 --> 01:23:45,000
Speaker 1: as involving any rational desire or not. It's not you

1666
01:23:45,200 --> 01:23:49,120
Speaker 1: choosing anymore to use these drugs. These drugs are completely

1667
01:23:49,240 --> 01:23:52,760
Speaker 1: in charge of your life completely see that. I believe you.

1668
01:23:53,120 --> 01:23:54,960
Speaker 1: All I'm saying is I remember when people said that

1669
01:23:55,040 --> 01:23:57,240
Speaker 1: about heroin and it turned out not to be all

1670
01:23:57,320 --> 01:23:59,679
Speaker 1: that true. I remember when people say that about crast Well,

1671
01:24:00,640 --> 01:24:03,559
Speaker 1: I have not met any heroin. But I'm saying back

1672
01:24:03,600 --> 01:24:06,000
Speaker 1: in the day, right, and so I'm saying, yeah, Fentinel's here,

1673
01:24:06,080 --> 01:24:08,240
Speaker 1: meth famies here. I agree with you. These seem much

1674
01:24:08,280 --> 01:24:12,000
Speaker 1: more problematic. But whether it negates everything that we've learned

1675
01:24:12,000 --> 01:24:15,479
Speaker 1: about drugs over the history of human society, I don't know.

1676
01:24:16,800 --> 01:24:19,479
Speaker 1: We've never known a drug like Sentinel on the streets

1677
01:24:19,520 --> 01:24:21,960
Speaker 1: of the country, and I would say one like math

1678
01:24:22,000 --> 01:24:24,560
Speaker 1: and Fedoman either. I love some of your ideas, I

1679
01:24:24,600 --> 01:24:27,000
Speaker 1: honestly do, and I think that they're very well explained,

1680
01:24:27,000 --> 01:24:30,719
Speaker 1: but I also see what those ideas are translating into

1681
01:24:31,320 --> 01:24:36,000
Speaker 1: and what they then do is undermine any constituency for

1682
01:24:36,680 --> 01:24:38,920
Speaker 1: support for the ideas that you would have, and we're

1683
01:24:38,960 --> 01:24:41,280
Speaker 1: seeing that right now in San Francisco, in l A.

1684
01:24:41,560 --> 01:24:43,479
Speaker 1: But Sam, I gotta, I gotta. I mean in the end,

1685
01:24:43,800 --> 01:24:45,600
Speaker 1: when you're asked where does this all come down to,

1686
01:24:45,960 --> 01:24:48,439
Speaker 1: and at one point you say the solutions will come

1687
01:24:48,520 --> 01:24:51,639
Speaker 1: only when Mexico and US work together, or you say

1688
01:24:51,720 --> 01:24:54,800
Speaker 1: Mexico must stand up and deal with corruption, and I'm look,

1689
01:24:55,000 --> 01:24:57,280
Speaker 1: you gotta be kidding me. When do you I mean?

1690
01:24:57,360 --> 01:25:00,320
Speaker 1: And then maybe the MESSI absolutely what needs to happen.

1691
01:25:01,680 --> 01:25:05,720
Speaker 1: Mexico has been has had endemic corruptions formation and it

1692
01:25:05,840 --> 01:25:08,320
Speaker 1: needs to do with that. But Sean, that's the point

1693
01:25:08,479 --> 01:25:11,040
Speaker 1: you say something has to happen. You're saying, Ethan, all

1694
01:25:11,080 --> 01:25:12,960
Speaker 1: your things, but the politics aren't there. And I'm saying,

1695
01:25:12,960 --> 01:25:15,080
Speaker 1: sand what you come down to like Mexico, you just

1696
01:25:15,160 --> 01:25:17,840
Speaker 1: have to work together, crouching like when like after the

1697
01:25:17,920 --> 01:25:21,400
Speaker 1: Messiah comes the fifth time. I just you have to

1698
01:25:21,479 --> 01:25:24,320
Speaker 1: live in Mexico to know this can can happen. Of course,

1699
01:25:24,400 --> 01:25:27,360
Speaker 1: it does need a totally different perspective from the United

1700
01:25:27,400 --> 01:25:31,920
Speaker 1: States as well. We have to understand the importance of

1701
01:25:32,600 --> 01:25:36,719
Speaker 1: collaboration with Mexico sees with collaboration with the United States,

1702
01:25:37,000 --> 01:25:40,000
Speaker 1: and that that is too many parts of Mexico. That

1703
01:25:40,160 --> 01:25:43,599
Speaker 1: is an enormously beneficial thing. Now there are people who

1704
01:25:43,640 --> 01:25:45,680
Speaker 1: will still go back to the same Yankee go home

1705
01:25:45,760 --> 01:25:49,920
Speaker 1: kind of idea. But to me, this is fundamental, fundamental,

1706
01:25:50,000 --> 01:25:52,960
Speaker 1: It's fundamental from Mexico. The people that will benefit most

1707
01:25:53,040 --> 01:25:58,120
Speaker 1: from those Mexicans, not Americans. I don't see it. And

1708
01:25:58,240 --> 01:26:01,439
Speaker 1: as you point out, we definitely needed a different president

1709
01:26:01,520 --> 01:26:03,400
Speaker 1: than the one we had before. We definitely need a

1710
01:26:03,439 --> 01:26:07,439
Speaker 1: different president charge in Mexico. Yeah, but I say, given

1711
01:26:07,600 --> 01:26:10,360
Speaker 1: as you say, these drugs can be produced anywhere. The

1712
01:26:10,439 --> 01:26:14,800
Speaker 1: materials are widely available underground canvas are. But it's a

1713
01:26:15,000 --> 01:26:17,880
Speaker 1: very different thing. It's a very different thing when those

1714
01:26:17,960 --> 01:26:20,920
Speaker 1: drugs are produced right next to you in a country

1715
01:26:20,960 --> 01:26:22,920
Speaker 1: which which you have a free trade agreement and two

1716
01:26:22,960 --> 01:26:25,840
Speaker 1: thousand mile border. That's a very different thing. We didn't

1717
01:26:25,880 --> 01:26:28,840
Speaker 1: get to mass coverage of the United States with China

1718
01:26:28,920 --> 01:26:31,360
Speaker 1: sending in pounds of funnel through the mail. Yeah, but

1719
01:26:31,520 --> 01:26:33,640
Speaker 1: then again, there is the Internet, and there is the

1720
01:26:33,760 --> 01:26:35,920
Speaker 1: dark net, and there are these ever growing number of

1721
01:26:36,000 --> 01:26:39,200
Speaker 1: designer drugs. Yeah, but you're you're talking about but again

1722
01:26:39,280 --> 01:26:43,439
Speaker 1: you're you're I forgive me even but you're you're sounding

1723
01:26:43,520 --> 01:26:47,040
Speaker 1: now like the people every time there's a mass shooting.

1724
01:26:47,040 --> 01:26:50,120
Speaker 1: I've covered seven mouse shootings, by the way in my career. Okay,

1725
01:26:50,360 --> 01:26:53,000
Speaker 1: every time there's a mass shooting, people proposed we should

1726
01:26:53,000 --> 01:26:54,479
Speaker 1: do this, we do that. And then argument is it

1727
01:26:54,479 --> 01:26:57,840
Speaker 1: will never solve the problem. No, it won't solve the problem.

1728
01:26:58,000 --> 01:27:01,960
Speaker 1: It's not on when zero, or it'll go a long

1729
01:27:02,080 --> 01:27:05,120
Speaker 1: way to curtailing the problem, making it a little bit

1730
01:27:05,200 --> 01:27:09,320
Speaker 1: more manageable. Form and constituencies for more action, etcetera, etcetera.

1731
01:27:09,400 --> 01:27:12,200
Speaker 1: Now you bring up the point you talk about analogy

1732
01:27:12,240 --> 01:27:13,960
Speaker 1: to I think was the tobacco or alcohol, and you

1733
01:27:14,000 --> 01:27:15,720
Speaker 1: point out some one of the people you interview talks

1734
01:27:15,720 --> 01:27:18,040
Speaker 1: about the need to add friction to the system. So

1735
01:27:18,160 --> 01:27:20,240
Speaker 1: we know in the areas of tobacco control and alcohol

1736
01:27:20,280 --> 01:27:22,680
Speaker 1: control that if when you impose higher tax at the

1737
01:27:22,680 --> 01:27:25,400
Speaker 1: time and place restrictions, it actually does make some difference,

1738
01:27:25,840 --> 01:27:28,679
Speaker 1: but the cost of imposing those restrictions are fairly minimal.

1739
01:27:28,760 --> 01:27:31,640
Speaker 1: There's an aggressive effect on people who are heavy consumers,

1740
01:27:31,720 --> 01:27:33,880
Speaker 1: for better and for worse. But when it comes to

1741
01:27:34,200 --> 01:27:38,880
Speaker 1: a prohibitionist system, imposing friction is much less cost free.

1742
01:27:38,920 --> 01:27:40,639
Speaker 1: It not just that it costs a lot of money

1743
01:27:40,720 --> 01:27:43,280
Speaker 1: and that in early drains billions of dollars, but that

1744
01:27:43,400 --> 01:27:45,760
Speaker 1: when you do that, you generate dynamics in the black

1745
01:27:45,880 --> 01:27:48,640
Speaker 1: market that creates also alters their problems as well. And

1746
01:27:48,680 --> 01:27:50,479
Speaker 1: so I'm saying that the notion of that we need

1747
01:27:50,560 --> 01:27:53,000
Speaker 1: to keep the friction of the system, given the evident

1748
01:27:53,200 --> 01:27:56,240
Speaker 1: failures on the supply side for so long, so long,

1749
01:27:56,680 --> 01:27:58,400
Speaker 1: in my view, it seems to me we should be

1750
01:27:58,479 --> 01:28:02,520
Speaker 1: shifting vastly overwhelmingly to the demand side in the harmyduction

1751
01:28:02,600 --> 01:28:05,840
Speaker 1: side of this day that ultimately, with more criminalization, with

1752
01:28:05,920 --> 01:28:09,320
Speaker 1: more legalization, you get more far more use of varied

1753
01:28:09,360 --> 01:28:11,320
Speaker 1: intial struction, and I don't think there's a safe way.

1754
01:28:11,760 --> 01:28:13,360
Speaker 1: There's not. I don't believe it there's a safe way.

1755
01:28:13,520 --> 01:28:16,720
Speaker 1: Actually use sentinel not necessary. Look at marijuana and we

1756
01:28:16,760 --> 01:28:18,760
Speaker 1: don't see atolesta used going up. We see it going

1757
01:28:18,840 --> 01:28:21,639
Speaker 1: up among elder people like people our age, and maybe

1758
01:28:21,680 --> 01:28:24,240
Speaker 1: they're switching it out for alcohol. So it's not necessarily

1759
01:28:24,320 --> 01:28:27,240
Speaker 1: the case that happens. It is to say that a pragmatic,

1760
01:28:27,320 --> 01:28:30,960
Speaker 1: sensible regulatory policy needs a lot more room to run.

1761
01:28:31,120 --> 01:28:34,560
Speaker 1: While we acknowledge the frustration as it may well be.

1762
01:28:34,760 --> 01:28:37,080
Speaker 1: But what I say a hundred percent correct, I don't.

1763
01:28:37,160 --> 01:28:39,479
Speaker 1: I don't. I don't argue with you on that at all.

1764
01:28:39,920 --> 01:28:42,640
Speaker 1: But what I have seen when this gets into the

1765
01:28:42,840 --> 01:28:47,360
Speaker 1: area of real world policy implementation is it's a complete

1766
01:28:47,479 --> 01:28:50,240
Speaker 1: goddamn disaster. Look at San Francisco with the with their

1767
01:28:50,320 --> 01:28:53,080
Speaker 1: d A there, it's just insane what's going on in

1768
01:28:53,160 --> 01:28:55,080
Speaker 1: that town and the guys saying with the guy in

1769
01:28:55,320 --> 01:28:59,320
Speaker 1: in l A. I I don't disagree with the fundamental

1770
01:28:59,600 --> 01:29:02,680
Speaker 1: desire and some of the policies you're talking about, but

1771
01:29:02,960 --> 01:29:05,320
Speaker 1: they have to be implemented in a way that people

1772
01:29:05,400 --> 01:29:07,640
Speaker 1: can point to and say that as a success. I

1773
01:29:07,720 --> 01:29:11,479
Speaker 1: know Iancisco and l I may have gone far too

1774
01:29:11,520 --> 01:29:13,240
Speaker 1: far one way, but when you look at what America

1775
01:29:13,320 --> 01:29:16,559
Speaker 1: did with mass incarceration and response to drunk hysteria, if

1776
01:29:16,640 --> 01:29:20,000
Speaker 1: you look at world correctors, any sorts of things. Anyway, listen,

1777
01:29:20,080 --> 01:29:21,840
Speaker 1: I know you gotta go. I gotta go. I have

1778
01:29:22,000 --> 01:29:25,760
Speaker 1: loved our conversation. I really like to talk with you,

1779
01:29:25,840 --> 01:29:28,200
Speaker 1: Matt sometimes. Well we'll meet in person and have some

1780
01:29:28,479 --> 01:29:31,000
Speaker 1: uh some. I'll have some tea, you have some coffee.

1781
01:29:31,080 --> 01:29:36,599
Speaker 1: I look forward to that, all right. Brother. If you're

1782
01:29:36,720 --> 01:29:40,519
Speaker 1: enjoying Psychoactive, please tell your friends about it, or you

1783
01:29:40,600 --> 01:29:43,040
Speaker 1: can write us a review at Apple Podcasts or wherever

1784
01:29:43,160 --> 01:29:46,240
Speaker 1: you get your podcasts. We love to hear from our listeners.

1785
01:29:46,479 --> 01:29:49,559
Speaker 1: If you'd like to share your own stories, comings and ideas,

1786
01:29:49,720 --> 01:29:52,720
Speaker 1: then leave us a message at one eight three three

1787
01:29:53,360 --> 01:29:59,240
Speaker 1: seven seven nine sixty that's eight three three psycho zero,

1788
01:29:59,840 --> 01:30:03,200
Speaker 1: or you can email us at Psychoactive at protozoa dot com,

1789
01:30:03,600 --> 01:30:06,720
Speaker 1: or find me on Twitter at Ethan Nadelman. You can

1790
01:30:06,760 --> 01:30:10,960
Speaker 1: also find contact information in our show notes. Psychoactive is

1791
01:30:11,000 --> 01:30:14,519
Speaker 1: a production of I Heart Radio and Protozoa Pictures. It's

1792
01:30:14,520 --> 01:30:18,720
Speaker 1: hosted by me Ethan Nadelman's produced by Noam Osband and

1793
01:30:18,800 --> 01:30:23,040
Speaker 1: Josh Stain. The executive producers are Dylan Golden, Ari Handel,

1794
01:30:23,200 --> 01:30:27,400
Speaker 1: Elizabeth Geesus and Darren Aronofsky from Protozoa Pictures, Alex Williams

1795
01:30:27,439 --> 01:30:30,639
Speaker 1: and Matt Frederick from My Heart Radio and me Ethan Nadelman.

1796
01:30:31,080 --> 01:30:34,880
Speaker 1: Our music is by Ari Blucien and a special thanks

1797
01:30:34,960 --> 01:30:52,519
Speaker 1: to Avi Brios, Bianca Grimshaw and Robert Deep. Next week,

1798
01:30:52,880 --> 01:30:56,240
Speaker 1: in celebration of four twenty, I'll be talking with Chef

1799
01:30:56,400 --> 01:31:00,360
Speaker 1: Nicky Stewart, one of America's great cannabis chefs who's been

1800
01:31:00,400 --> 01:31:04,320
Speaker 1: curating dinners for Dave Chappelle, Snoop Dogg and many other celebrities.

1801
01:31:05,040 --> 01:31:07,559
Speaker 1: The relationship with cannabis and food and what I feel

1802
01:31:07,640 --> 01:31:10,160
Speaker 1: like it should be with everyone, even if you're just

1803
01:31:10,600 --> 01:31:14,439
Speaker 1: a novice, is to be able to have cannabis as

1804
01:31:14,479 --> 01:31:19,479
Speaker 1: an ingredient in your pantry, in your home and not

1805
01:31:19,680 --> 01:31:23,400
Speaker 1: be afraid of adding it to food or any sort

1806
01:31:23,479 --> 01:31:29,719
Speaker 1: of wellness regiment in regards to just being a complete, whole,

1807
01:31:30,320 --> 01:31:35,440
Speaker 1: holistic like person and keeping that in the vibe. Subscribe

1808
01:31:35,479 --> 01:31:37,240
Speaker 1: to Psychoactive now see it, don't miss it.