Speaker 1: Hi, I'm Ethan Edelman, and this is Psychoactive, a production
Speaker 1: of I Heart Radio and Protozoa Pictures. Psychoactive is the
Speaker 1: show where we talk about all things drugs. But any
Speaker 1: views expressed here do not represent those of I Heart Media,
Speaker 1: Protozoa Pictures, or their executives and employees. Indeed, heed, as
Speaker 1: an inveterate contrarian, I can tell you they may not
Speaker 1: even represent my own. And nothing contained in this show
Speaker 1: should be used as medical advice or encouragement to use
Speaker 1: any type of drugs. Hello, Psychoactive listeners. Uh you know,
Speaker 1: I know I say sometimes that, well, this episode is
Speaker 1: gonna be a real treat, But I mean this one
Speaker 1: really is going to be a treat. And I'll tell
Speaker 1: you why. Uh Back, this goes back a ways to
Speaker 1: w and I was a young assistant professor at Princeton
Speaker 1: and had written a few articles about the drug war
Speaker 1: being totally out of control and doing more harm than good.
Speaker 1: And this mayor, young mayor in Baltimore, pops out saying
Speaker 1: somewhat the same sorts of things. That's our guest today.
Speaker 1: His name is Kurt Schmoke. He's currently the president of
Speaker 1: the University of Baltimore. Before that, he was a dean
Speaker 1: of Howard Law School. He held a range of other positions. Um.
Speaker 1: But he was also the chief prosecutor of Baltimore in
Speaker 1: the nineteen eighties and then got elected mayor in late
Speaker 1: nine seven, served three terms until nine uh in Baltimore.
Speaker 1: Uh and uh, you know, really a garnered national attention
Speaker 1: with a very brave thing that he did back then. So, Kurt,
Speaker 1: thanks so much for joining me and psychoacted great to
Speaker 1: be with you. And Uh, I guess my biggest claim
Speaker 1: to fame is that I read your articles while I
Speaker 1: was mayor. We helped a great deal. Well, it's very
Speaker 1: generous to you. But I I you know, as I
Speaker 1: reflected on occurred, I also think that but for your
Speaker 1: having stepped out, I I think my life might have
Speaker 1: been totally different. Now for the first thing, I have
Speaker 1: to say, you know, I was thinking time does fly,
Speaker 1: and we're talking about it was a period when the
Speaker 1: drug war was in a period of national hysteria in America,
Speaker 1: number one issue in public opinion polls. Uh. You know,
Speaker 1: just you know, both Democrats and Republicans jumping on the
Speaker 1: drug war band. But wagon, it wasn't just Ronald Reagan
Speaker 1: and Nancy Reagan, all the Republicans. It was Jesse Jackson,
Speaker 1: the most prominent African American political leader in America at
Speaker 1: that time, Charlie Wrangle, the influential Harlem congressman who was
Speaker 1: chairing the House Select Committee on Narcotics. But really just
Speaker 1: I mean, there was almost a national con census behind
Speaker 1: something I've oftentimes talked about as as basically, McCarthy is
Speaker 1: um on steroids. You know. I at that time, I
Speaker 1: write this article in Foreign Policy magazine saying the drug
Speaker 1: Wars failed. It's a bust. The title was the US
Speaker 1: drug policy a bad export. A few weeks later, there's
Speaker 1: the Economist magazine, the famous British magazine comes out with
Speaker 1: editorial saying more or less the same thing and maybe
Speaker 1: even going further in terms of embracing full legalization, which
Speaker 1: I've been hedging on, and that gets a little attention.
Speaker 1: And then I'm sitting in my office is you know,
Speaker 1: and then my first year teaching at Princeton and I
Speaker 1: get a phone call from some reporter I think in
Speaker 1: Baltimore saying, so, do you have any comments about what
Speaker 1: our new mayor just said? And I said, what did
Speaker 1: he say so, well, you better see this. He stood
Speaker 1: up at the National Conference of Mayors. They were having
Speaker 1: a joint meeting with the police chiefs of America, and
Speaker 1: he basically slammed the hell out of the drug war
Speaker 1: and said, we need to put all options on the table. So, Kurt, okay,
Speaker 1: I'm bringing you back. It's it's April nineteen eighty eight.
Speaker 1: You've been elected mayor five months before after serving as
Speaker 1: chief prosecutor of Baltimore for many years. What was it
Speaker 1: that prompted you to do that? Absolutely outrageous, um but
Speaker 1: also extraordinarily courageous thing. Well, thanks very much, Ethan for
Speaker 1: taking us a little bit down memory lane. But it
Speaker 1: does set a context. Yeah, I've been a prosecutor actually
Speaker 1: um eight years a prosecutor, three as an assistant U
Speaker 1: S Attorney, and then five as the chief prosecutor, the
Speaker 1: state's attorney in Baltimore. And as you recall, I had
Speaker 1: a good friend of mine who was working undercover as
Speaker 1: a police officer who was killed and uh during it
Speaker 1: was Marcellous Ward, Marty Ward, and and it was unfortunately
Speaker 1: a botched drug operation. They were trying to capture a
Speaker 1: guy who was transporting drugs from New York, and the
Speaker 1: the person who was the recipient in Baltimore unfortunately figured
Speaker 1: out that Marty was a police officer shot and killed him.
Speaker 1: And Marty was wearing a body wire at the time.
Speaker 1: So as State's attorney, I had to listen to his
Speaker 1: his death and to make a decision about how I
Speaker 1: was going to prosecute. And at that time, Maryland had
Speaker 1: a death penalty law and had to decide whether to
Speaker 1: seek the death penalty or not. But in any event,
Speaker 1: Marty's death started for me, started to trigger a lot
Speaker 1: of thinking about the about the drug war, and I
Speaker 1: had an opportunity. I was invited to be a speaker
Speaker 1: at this joint meeting of the U S Conference of
Speaker 1: Mayors and National Chiefs of Police. A speech was written
Speaker 1: for me. Took a, you know, a look at it
Speaker 1: and I decided, nope, I'm not going to give this
Speaker 1: you know, traditional speech. And I took a look at
Speaker 1: a memoir that the chaplain at Yale University wrote a
Speaker 1: memoir and it was entitled Once to every Man is
Speaker 1: based on Him of the Church, and the hymn goes,
Speaker 1: you know, once to every Man comes a moment to
Speaker 1: decide and I thought about it for a while and
Speaker 1: I set up this is my moment. Uh am I
Speaker 1: going to do the traditional I'm going to tell him
Speaker 1: what I really I think and and hopefully start a debate.
Speaker 1: And that's what I was trying to do. In the speech,
Speaker 1: I said we had to debate the question of whether
Speaker 1: we should decriminalize drugs. And uh, by the time I
Speaker 1: got back from Washington where the speech was, you know,
Speaker 1: it's only forty five minutes away from Baltimore. But by
Speaker 1: the time I got back, the AP was running headline, uh,
Speaker 1: Baltimore mayor supports legalizing drugs. Um So that started me
Speaker 1: and involved in a discussion that continued for the twelve
Speaker 1: years that I was in office and beyond. Yes, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's for sure. Now, I think it's important for our
Speaker 1: listeners to realize that back in you know, what happened
Speaker 1: was if you just called for a debate about the
Speaker 1: harms that the draw Gore was doing, you were more
Speaker 1: or less instantly labeled legalizer and conflated with a libertarian
Speaker 1: legalized and so that attack that Kurt You're out there
Speaker 1: arguing for legalizing Uh, it was very hard when that's
Speaker 1: onslaught came in the media. Uh, you know what, what
Speaker 1: what was your first reaction. I knew that there would
Speaker 1: be strong reaction locally. I didn't realize that I would
Speaker 1: be involved in a firestorm throughout the country. I knew
Speaker 1: the how the local reaction was going to play out.
Speaker 1: And the reason was there was a consensus throughout the
Speaker 1: country that the drug problem was primarily a crime problem
Speaker 1: and that the way to address it was through the
Speaker 1: criminal justice system. Uh. And locally, for me in Baltimore,
Speaker 1: I could tell having talked to my constituents, white black, Um,
Speaker 1: we did not have a large Latino population at the time,
Speaker 1: primarily whites and blacks in Baltimore, And to a person,
Speaker 1: they believed that, uh, we should solve this problem more police,
Speaker 1: more incarceration, that that was the best way to do it.
Speaker 1: So just even raising the question about an alternative, UH
Speaker 1: seemed totally heretical. And UM, I had a number of
Speaker 1: people that wanted me to, you know, go to the
Speaker 1: train station and be under the train uh time. But
Speaker 1: you know, through a great deal of conversation back and forth,
Speaker 1: you know, slowly but surely, people's minds began to change.
Speaker 1: But you know, one thing I did learn in the
Speaker 1: process that one of the reasons that a number of
Speaker 1: national figures, congress people, for example, who supported a debate,
Speaker 1: one of the reasons they didn't say anything that they
Speaker 1: run every two years, and so it's so easy to
Speaker 1: demonize a person. And I had the luxury of having
Speaker 1: a four year term, so I could talk to people
Speaker 1: about this over you know, the next three and a
Speaker 1: half years before I faced reelection, and that made all
Speaker 1: the difference in the world, you know. And I'll say it,
Speaker 1: I mean, obviously these memories are going to be even
Speaker 1: more vivid for me than for you because it places
Speaker 1: it's a prominent role in my life. But you know,
Speaker 1: I'm thirty one, you know, assistant professor, finishing my first
Speaker 1: year of Princeton teaching your thirty eight, barely into your
Speaker 1: first year as mayor, and I remember our first conversation. Um,
Speaker 1: you and I had both been invited to go on Nightline,
Speaker 1: Ted Copple's Nightline show, which was the most famous and
Speaker 1: widely watched you know TV political show, you know, really
Speaker 1: in the late twentieth century in America, and we were
Speaker 1: going to be debating Charlie Wrangle, the you know, Harlem
Speaker 1: congressman who was saying that what we were saying was outlandish.
Speaker 1: And soon you and I had a preliminary talk, and
Speaker 1: the first time we actually saw one another was actually
Speaker 1: on camera in May for that Nightline episode, you and
Speaker 1: I debating, debating wrangle. But what I'm curious about is
Speaker 1: did you ever contemplate walking it back? I mean, you
Speaker 1: must have lots of advisers saying, Kurt, roll this thing back.
Speaker 1: I mean, you know you gotta go. Yeah, this is
Speaker 1: going to destroy your political career, this is gonna be whatever.
Speaker 1: Did you ever consider that? No. Once I was out there,
Speaker 1: I knew that, uh, you know, I had made an
Speaker 1: important decision. And I certainly knew that I had made
Speaker 1: a career decision, and that I had cut off some
Speaker 1: options for myself in terms of future political career. But
Speaker 1: I believe very strongly in this. It was tearing our
Speaker 1: community apart. And uh, I knew that the status quo
Speaker 1: wasn't acceptable, so there had to be a different way.
Speaker 1: What I didn't know at the time, uh, And and
Speaker 1: I did criticize myself with this, UM I should have
Speaker 1: initially proposed an alternative approach. It was much later that
Speaker 1: I started you know, learning about what was happening, you know,
Speaker 1: with the Dutch and and the Portuguese and things like that,
Speaker 1: and what was going on in Zurich that they're they're
Speaker 1: in fact were alternatives, except many of those barely existed,
Speaker 1: you know, I mean even talking about a kinder, gentler
Speaker 1: drug war, which was a little bit about what we
Speaker 1: were doing. I mean you may not know this, but um,
Speaker 1: this past summer, I had a very precocious kid named
Speaker 1: Joey Kaufman who was my intern for the podcast, and
Speaker 1: he got an interest in the drug issue in part
Speaker 1: because he was in some contest that Kennedy Library in
Speaker 1: Boston does this Profiles Encourage contest um, where you know,
Speaker 1: high school kids pick out somebody and write an essay
Speaker 1: about them. And actually you were very generously agreed, yet
Speaker 1: you let Joey interview you. Last year he wrote a
Speaker 1: very good essay. It turned out nobody had ever submitted
Speaker 1: your name for Profiles of Courage before, but this past year,
Speaker 1: in fact, two of the fifteen semifinalists were both essays
Speaker 1: about you. Kurch smoke at the Kennedy Center. So I mean,
Speaker 1: it's nice to know that, you know, there's a new
Speaker 1: generation coming up that can kind of look back and
Speaker 1: appreciate the courage that you showed in doing what you
Speaker 1: did back then. No, I certainly didn't know that. And uh,
Speaker 1: as I said, you know, what I was trying to
Speaker 1: do was to stimulate the oak A debate. I just
Speaker 1: knew what we were doing then was not working. And
Speaker 1: not only wasn't it working, it was causing more harm
Speaker 1: than good. But I really didn't have a solution. But
Speaker 1: at the time that I was being criticized for my statements,
Speaker 1: I kept thinking about a quote from mary O Cuomo. Uh,
Speaker 1: then Governor Cuomo once said that politician must distinguish between
Speaker 1: ideas that sound good and ideas that are good and sound.
Speaker 1: And I've just criticized myself for not um having a
Speaker 1: good and sound alternative to the war and drugs at
Speaker 1: the time that I made the critique, right, Well, I mean, look,
Speaker 1: let's let's get into this a bit, because when I'm
Speaker 1: thinking back to that period, you know, you and I
Speaker 1: go on Nightline. It's and you were, in some respect
Speaker 1: is becoming nationally known. You know, people are going, you know,
Speaker 1: what's that mayor schmoke been smoking or smoking or something
Speaker 1: like that. Um, But you know. Then. I remember I
Speaker 1: was on Larry Kane debating a senator to motto, the
Speaker 1: Republican senator from New York. You are on a hundreds
Speaker 1: of TV shows. You and I both land up on
Speaker 1: Donna Hue, The New York Times, Washington Post, Front Page, Time, Magazine, Newsweek.
Speaker 1: I mean, the major media outlets, all in the midst
Speaker 1: of all their drug war coverage, they took a little
Speaker 1: break to say, and here's a small host of characters
Speaker 1: who are stepping out. And now we weren't alone. I mean,
Speaker 1: the fact of the matter is you and I were
Speaker 1: the two most prominent people stepping out, but there was
Speaker 1: a few police chiefs, former police chief Joe McNamara who
Speaker 1: had been in Kansas City and San Jose Anthony Booza,
Speaker 1: So we weren't totally alone on this stuff. Yet on
Speaker 1: the other side, I mean, it was just monumental opposition,
Speaker 1: you know, Ted Copple. Besides, after having us on a
Speaker 1: few months later to do a big old our Town Halls,
Speaker 1: I imagine national television, major network, a three hour, four
Speaker 1: hour special on this issue, and you and I are
Speaker 1: on there. I think you were on my video and
Speaker 1: I was on there William Buckley, the Commissioner Customs, Jesse Jackson.
Speaker 1: Then they brought on a whole host of other characters,
Speaker 1: including Charlie Wrangle and Alan Dershowitz and you name it.
Speaker 1: And I remember I'm sitting between Jesse Jackson and Charlie
Speaker 1: Wrangle and I hear one of them say to the
Speaker 1: other boy, that's a one term may or if I've
Speaker 1: ever seen one. And I kind of say, I said,
Speaker 1: don't don't bet on it, don't bet on it. And
Speaker 1: then there was, of course the congressional hearing that happened
Speaker 1: in that fall where Charlie Wrangle you would call for
Speaker 1: congressional hearings. Charlie Wrangle felt obliged to have a hearing.
Speaker 1: As you might expect, he loaded the entire first two
Speaker 1: hours when the cameras were there with all the antis,
Speaker 1: gave you a brief moment while interrupting you. But in
Speaker 1: all of that, did you have any direct relationships? I mean,
Speaker 1: did did Wrangle and You ever speak directly apart from
Speaker 1: on the media. Did Jesse Accident you ever speak directly?
Speaker 1: We did other prominent American politicians at the time ever
Speaker 1: speak directly with you about the issue. Um not in
Speaker 1: that the first three and a half years after you know,
Speaker 1: after my statement, In fact, my my congressman, um who
Speaker 1: you know, a protocol when you have hearings in Washington,
Speaker 1: your congressman or senator usually introduces you and my congressman
Speaker 1: then KWASI and fumy Uh did let them know my name,
Speaker 1: but he's spent most of the time making sure they
Speaker 1: understood that he didn't share my views on the the issue.
Speaker 1: The only time I talked to any of the national
Speaker 1: politicians was in a debate type setting. UM. No kind
Speaker 1: of quiet um a discussion, you know, or somebody saying
Speaker 1: to me, you know, what what do you mean by this? Uh?
Speaker 1: Because as you recall, the country and the national political
Speaker 1: scene was moving towards um A crime bill that was
Speaker 1: going to be very, very harsh. So there was still
Speaker 1: basically a feeling that we can prosecute our way out
Speaker 1: of this problem, and it just needed you know, more
Speaker 1: police resources, more incarceration, more for the d e A. UM.
Speaker 1: So there was not uh an opportunity from a much
Speaker 1: debate and and I must say that Ethan, looking back
Speaker 1: on it, I remember going on uh some of those
Speaker 1: national TV shows, and I just felt that we really
Speaker 1: weren't having a discussion that in some way, uh, we're
Speaker 1: just being kind of ambushed on the programs. And so
Speaker 1: I had one invitation several months into my discussion from
Speaker 1: a young woman in Chicago named Oprah Winfrey was having
Speaker 1: a show about this, and much to Masha Grant, I
Speaker 1: turned down that infotation. Oh my god. Well, the one
Speaker 1: that I remember, well, the one, the one you didn't
Speaker 1: turn down was Phil Donna You. And for our listener
Speaker 1: to understand, Phil Donna You was the most prominent talk
Speaker 1: show host back for decades, and you and I are there.
Speaker 1: I remember Lester grin Spoon from Harror Medical School was
Speaker 1: on there, and I remember, you know, both of us
Speaker 1: were struggling to find the right language to talk about this, right.
Speaker 1: You know, you didn't want to talk about legalization to
Speaker 1: something said. I didn't like the language of legalization either,
Speaker 1: although people kept tagging me because that people instantly associated
Speaker 1: with a free for all and a free market, and
Speaker 1: you know, you'd be talking about decriminalization sometimes, you you know,
Speaker 1: try to get into the medicalization language. And I remember
Speaker 1: that Donna You show somebody I don't know whether Donna You,
Speaker 1: who was on our side, but maybe he was provoking
Speaker 1: you or some of the audience, and all of a
Speaker 1: sudden you started going in with the analogy used to
Speaker 1: alcohol prohibition, and you started sounding kind of radical. Uh,
Speaker 1: And I mean I could see it was always you know,
Speaker 1: on the one hand, you understood that most of this
Speaker 1: was a problem created by prohibition. But I remember worrying
Speaker 1: about you at that Dot A U show. I said, boy,
Speaker 1: Kurt's getting more heat I've ever seen him. He's getting
Speaker 1: more radical I've ever heard on. But when I think
Speaker 1: about your struggling with to finding the right words and
Speaker 1: the right language to put your views out there, do
Speaker 1: you recall your evolution or your thoughts about that at
Speaker 1: the time. Well, I do, because I was getting a
Speaker 1: bit frustrated that people weren't engaging in debate. They were
Speaker 1: just throwing conclusions at me, and I was trying to
Speaker 1: come up with a way that would get folks to
Speaker 1: really see that there were multiple sides to this problem,
Speaker 1: that it wasn't just strictly a crime problem. And you know,
Speaker 1: and I recall um at one of those shows saying
Speaker 1: that four thousand people died last year from smoking cigarettes
Speaker 1: and there were no known deaths recorded for smoking marijuana,
Speaker 1: just for inhaling marijuana. And of course somebody got up
Speaker 1: from the audience and said that his daughter had died
Speaker 1: by an automobile accident of somebody who was smoking marijuana
Speaker 1: and drove into her, and that was completely different point.
Speaker 1: But uh it got you know, applause and uh people,
Speaker 1: you know, failing to really hear what I was I
Speaker 1: was trying to say. And over time even I came
Speaker 1: up with this idea of going to what I thought
Speaker 1: would be skeptical audiences and asking them three questions. And
Speaker 1: that that's how I came to that of uh, you know,
Speaker 1: going in and not saying I want to talk to
Speaker 1: you about reform right now. I simply go to the
Speaker 1: audience and I'd say, do you think that we've won
Speaker 1: the war on drugs? Do you think that we're winning
Speaker 1: Do you think that doing more the same over the
Speaker 1: next decade will win the war and drugs? And I said,
Speaker 1: if you can't answer yes to any of those questions,
Speaker 1: would you consider alternatives? We'll be talking more after we
Speaker 1: hear this ad h. I think you also, maybe we're
Speaker 1: the originator of the line. If we're going to have
Speaker 1: a war on drugs if should be headed not by
Speaker 1: the Attorney general but by the surgeon general. That was
Speaker 1: a good one. But you but you did reference the
Speaker 1: prohibition analogy from time to time, or I did. That
Speaker 1: was one way of getting people to to understand it. It.
Speaker 1: I find though, that the prohibition analogy has become more
Speaker 1: credible in the twenty one century with the opioid problem,
Speaker 1: when more and more Americans are seeing neighbors like themselves
Speaker 1: with a drug problem. So I see more of an
Speaker 1: acceptance of the that analogy, uh now than I did
Speaker 1: what way back in Now, you know, apart from UM
Speaker 1: the national stage, where it's obvious these guys were not
Speaker 1: talking with you directly, UM locally, they had to be
Speaker 1: talking with you directly, and you were dealing with members
Speaker 1: of your cabinet, You were dealing with leaders of the
Speaker 1: black churches, I think, including when you're related to UM,
Speaker 1: you're dealing with law enforcement. So you know, what was
Speaker 1: it like dealing with folks in Baltimore in those early years. Well,
Speaker 1: fortunately for me, I had to really outstanding health commissioners
Speaker 1: uh Dr Maxie Collier UM and then Dr Peter Billinson,
Speaker 1: and both of them were very supportive of UH, the
Speaker 1: idea of treating this as a public health problem rather
Speaker 1: than a criminal justice problem. They were strong advocates for
Speaker 1: public health intervention and they helped me to come up
Speaker 1: with some ideas that I could present UH to UH
Speaker 1: our local legislators about a different approach to the problem.
Speaker 1: And as you know, Ethan, I began to explain to
Speaker 1: UH local legislators that, UM, when we talked about the
Speaker 1: drug problem, it wasn't just a matter of addiction. UH. Yes,
Speaker 1: there's the criminal aspect, but also AIDS was a huge issue.
Speaker 1: And I indicated that, you know, with the help of
Speaker 1: our public health commissioners, that one of the things that
Speaker 1: we could do to address the AIDS issue was to
Speaker 1: have a needle exchange sterile syringe exchange program in Baltimore.
Speaker 1: And that is how I started to engage UH state
Speaker 1: and local elected officials because our health commissioners, UM and
Speaker 1: I really wanted to have this needle exchange program to
Speaker 1: reduce the spread of AIDS in Baltimore, and we felt
Speaker 1: that we could do it without increasing drug use. But
Speaker 1: that was a discussion that we had to have with
Speaker 1: the state legislators because there was a state law that
Speaker 1: prevented having a needle exchange program. Um and it, you
Speaker 1: know again, took us three years to convince people to
Speaker 1: give us the pilot authorization for a pilot program. But
Speaker 1: without the help of our health commissioners, I'm not sure
Speaker 1: I could have ever persuaded them. People were skeptical. Most
Speaker 1: folks thought that there was a crime problem. But it
Speaker 1: took quite a while to persuade even my own staff
Speaker 1: that this was a direction that we should go in.
Speaker 1: And once again without Maxi Colli, Dr Collier and Dr
Speaker 1: Balance and it would have been an uphill battle for me.
Speaker 1: What about the church leaders were you were you getting
Speaker 1: invited into explain yourself at churches in Baltimore? I was.
Speaker 1: I was getting invited to the churches. The ministers were
Speaker 1: generally opposed. I had some small support for the idea
Speaker 1: of reform because there were two things that were going on. One,
Speaker 1: they were starting to see this increase in incarceration of
Speaker 1: black men and the disruption that that was causing to
Speaker 1: family life, so that was a concern. And then a
Speaker 1: number of people indicated that they were burying Uh they were,
Speaker 1: you know, having more funerals for younger and younger people
Speaker 1: because of AIDS. And so those two things started to
Speaker 1: get some you know, different thinking on this, but generally
Speaker 1: I was invited to just to to give my point
Speaker 1: of view. So that was important that they would at
Speaker 1: least let me come in to have conversations even when
Speaker 1: they disagreed. And and ultimately though UH, as you know Ethan,
Speaker 1: it was because of a change in opinion of the
Speaker 1: leading clergy organization UH in town after about three years
Speaker 1: of debate, that they came down with me to Annapolis
Speaker 1: to testify in favor of giving us the authority to
Speaker 1: have a needle exchange program. It had a huge impact
Speaker 1: on the legislators and was one of the reasons that
Speaker 1: we were able to get that pilot program implemented. Yeah, well,
Speaker 1: you know, so now we were not alone back then
Speaker 1: in another sense, apart from the small handful barely one
Speaker 1: handful of of other elected leaders and others who were
Speaker 1: stepping out, there was the creation of an organization called
Speaker 1: the Drug Policy Foundation. Remember their first meeting I went
Speaker 1: to in London in nineteen eighty seven, founded by Arnold
Speaker 1: tree Back who was an academic at American University, and
Speaker 1: he was had been born in late twenty late twenties
Speaker 1: and you older than us. And then the other his
Speaker 1: partner in this was Kevin Z's and a lawyer who
Speaker 1: had been the briefly the head of Normal in earlier years,
Speaker 1: and they organized the Drug Policy Foundation. Remember that first
Speaker 1: conference in night in d c Uh. There actually were
Speaker 1: a few members of Congress, and they helped bring together academics,
Speaker 1: they bring some emerging activists. People came in from Europe
Speaker 1: who were beginning to introduce the harmonduction ideas, and in Liverpool,
Speaker 1: in the Netherlands, etcetera like that. And I, Karl, I'll
Speaker 1: tell you, Um, I actually was scrolling around last night
Speaker 1: online and I found your speech to that first conference
Speaker 1: is un c span you can dig it out. In fact,
Speaker 1: I had introduced you, um, and I remember you're saying,
Speaker 1: my guy, this is like the first friendly audience, the
Speaker 1: first chance I get to to preach to the choir
Speaker 1: on all of this. So I imagine that must have
Speaker 1: felt nice to at least find some receptive company who
Speaker 1: regarded you, you know, like I did, as a leader
Speaker 1: and a hero in all of this. Well, I don't
Speaker 1: recall exactly what I said, but I do remember that
Speaker 1: it was totally refreshing to actually have people talking about
Speaker 1: the pros and cons the complexity of the problem. That
Speaker 1: was really refreshing, rather than they have people take, you know,
Speaker 1: just one view and dismissed, you know, an opposing view. Uh.
Speaker 1: And like you mentioned about the European situation on needle exchange,
Speaker 1: we had the chief of police from Rotterdam come to
Speaker 1: testify at our legislature and to explain to people how
Speaker 1: his program operated in the in fact that it did
Speaker 1: not increase the number of people using drugs, nor did
Speaker 1: it increase crime in Rotterdam. And so, you know, getting
Speaker 1: the global perspective was extremely important, uh in making some
Speaker 1: progress and drug policy reform in this area. Hmm. Well,
Speaker 1: so let me have another issue here, which is that
Speaker 1: I remember later in a eight I get a phone
Speaker 1: call from a ex former District attorney of Philadelphia, a
Speaker 1: guy named ed Rendell uh. And ed Rendell subsequently lands
Speaker 1: up running from mayor Philadelphia, becoming two time mayor Philadelphia,
Speaker 1: governor or two time governor of Pennsylvania, the head of
Speaker 1: Democratic Government Association. So he becomes very very prominent in
Speaker 1: he had just finished being d a. He was, you know,
Speaker 1: not particularly prominent. He calls me up on that Princeton,
Speaker 1: and he says, you know, we're gonna have a form here,
Speaker 1: and I think Southeast Philly with a black part of Philly,
Speaker 1: and we have Kirchmo coming. But he asked me to
Speaker 1: call you because he felt it would be good to
Speaker 1: have an ally there. And so you and I show
Speaker 1: up there and it must have been fifty people from
Speaker 1: that part of Philadelphia, I think I and one or
Speaker 1: two of the other speakers. It was an entirely black
Speaker 1: audience apart from us, and people were standing up there
Speaker 1: and saying, may or smoked, you bring that stuff to Philadelphia.
Speaker 1: We're gonna run you out of here on a rail.
Speaker 1: And what I when I look back, what I realized
Speaker 1: is that the language you and I I don't think
Speaker 1: you did. I don't think I did. Back in the
Speaker 1: late eighties, early nineties, we did not talk about this
Speaker 1: as a racial justice issue, right. I mean, if you
Speaker 1: look at what Black lives matter, when you know, one
Speaker 1: of the great things about Black Lives Matter is that
Speaker 1: when they emerged some years ago, and for me, it's
Speaker 1: this incredibly refreshing thing because finally you have a kind
Speaker 1: of black you know, new generation civil rights group that
Speaker 1: is embracing drug policy reform, and many of the arguments
Speaker 1: that they were saying were remarkably similar to what we
Speaker 1: had been saying back before they were born, when they
Speaker 1: were just you know, infants. But we did not use
Speaker 1: the racial justice argument. And I know that in my case,
Speaker 1: you know, if I did, you know, it would be like,
Speaker 1: what do you you know, you white Princeton intellectual. No,
Speaker 1: what do you know about drugs doing our community? The
Speaker 1: fact that you were out there, as a black man,
Speaker 1: former chief procedutors saying this was powerful. But I don't
Speaker 1: recall you framing this as a racial justice issue for
Speaker 1: at least the first number of years. I wanted to
Speaker 1: reflect on that for a bit. Yeah, that that's absolutely correct,
Speaker 1: And um, I guess I won't say it was a
Speaker 1: failure to raise that issue because I thought that what
Speaker 1: I was talking about substantive change in drug policy was
Speaker 1: you know, where are needed to focus. But I was
Speaker 1: struck at a conference much later. It was after I
Speaker 1: was out of office. I was actually dean at the
Speaker 1: Howard Law School, so that had to be two thousand
Speaker 1: four or five. I was on a program with Michelle Alexander,
Speaker 1: the author and the new gym crew and UM. One
Speaker 1: of the statements that she made on the panel was
Speaker 1: that there were no no African American politicians UH speaking
Speaker 1: about the need to reform drug policy. And I kind
Speaker 1: of looked at the moderator of the panel and UH,
Speaker 1: I didn't say anything. I said, well, maybe she met
Speaker 1: somebody who was currently in office. But later on it
Speaker 1: was clear to me that she was unaware of comments
Speaker 1: that I had made as mayor because I didn't frame
Speaker 1: the issue in the way she framed it most succinctly
Speaker 1: and clearly UH in her outstanding book. But I certainly
Speaker 1: didn't frame the discussion in that same way. But at
Speaker 1: the time, you know, I thought the most important thing
Speaker 1: was to getting people's mind those three questions, to get
Speaker 1: them the question whether the drug war made sense, and
Speaker 1: whether they were open to consider some alternatives. UH. That
Speaker 1: that was what I thought was most important at the time.
Speaker 1: And I think one reason we didn't use the racial
Speaker 1: justice frame is because so many black leaders and others
Speaker 1: at that time would basically reject it. They were arguing
Speaker 1: that we need the drug war, we need more cops,
Speaker 1: we need more of this, and needle exchange is not
Speaker 1: the right thing in all of this, and so I
Speaker 1: mean you were dealing with that in Baltimore right in
Speaker 1: your face all the time. Well, that's correct. And when
Speaker 1: you look at the number of people, particularly Congressman who
Speaker 1: voted for the crime bill, although uh so many of
Speaker 1: them twenty years later said they regretted it, but at
Speaker 1: the time they were reflecting the very strong views of
Speaker 1: their constituents, and they were looking at the drug problem
Speaker 1: is mainly a supply issue. That is, drugs were being
Speaker 1: brought into the community. They were being supplied from others,
Speaker 1: whether it was other countries or people from other states,
Speaker 1: and that law enforcement, if they really wanted to, if
Speaker 1: they really had the resources, could stop that supply. That
Speaker 1: was that was the primary viewpoint as supposed to looking
Speaker 1: at the appetite for uh the drugs that demand aside,
Speaker 1: and we have proportionately a very few resources going into
Speaker 1: dealing with demand and trying to get people treatment. So
Speaker 1: at the time it was difficult to raise this as
Speaker 1: a racial justice matter when the census white and black
Speaker 1: than others. Was it was a crime problem. Let's put
Speaker 1: more resources in the criminal justice slowly but surely a change. Now.
Speaker 1: I want to bring up with you one little touchy
Speaker 1: issue that happened. Right, So now you're eleven years in office.
Speaker 1: You got one year ago. Peter bill Andsen is still
Speaker 1: your health commissioner. Been doing a great job helping moving
Speaker 1: forward the harm reduction stuff. I organized a meeting in
Speaker 1: my office is in U and it's a meeting about
Speaker 1: trying to get heroin prescription trials going in the US,
Speaker 1: because by that time, first to switch and then then
Speaker 1: then the Dutch and the Germans and others were starting
Speaker 1: programs like methanon maintenance, but allowing people for whom methanon
Speaker 1: didn't work, to come into a clinic like a high
Speaker 1: end methodon clinic and get pharmaceutical heroin. And you had
Speaker 1: been out there publicly putting putting that out as an
Speaker 1: example of one of the things that could be done.
Speaker 1: Peter comes to our meeting, he's all gung ho. He
Speaker 1: goes back and he gives an interview and he says,
Speaker 1: we got to start something like that in Baltimore. And
Speaker 1: I remember what happened he said we, And people said, well,
Speaker 1: that must mean the Smoke administration. And when when Peter
Speaker 1: was actually talking about we, the city of Baltimore, in
Speaker 1: the universities here, and I remember you had to rope
Speaker 1: him in and pull them back. So at that point
Speaker 1: it was tricky, huh. It was still sensitive. And what
Speaker 1: I said to Peter was that it's taken us a
Speaker 1: long time from to get people to agree with us
Speaker 1: that there needs to be drug policy reform. But Baltimore
Speaker 1: had a long history after World War Two with heroin,
Speaker 1: and it was older people. It was some older criminal
Speaker 1: gangs really that had died out over time, but there
Speaker 1: was still among older voters recollection about heroin. And I
Speaker 1: just said, Peter, you're getting ahead of me, and that
Speaker 1: people who were starting to be supportive of the direction
Speaker 1: that we're moving in will stop and and neither reverse
Speaker 1: course or at least um won't let us continue our
Speaker 1: efforts because heroin scares them. And that's what I said. So, yeah,
Speaker 1: that I did have my uh finger and the wind
Speaker 1: sometimes on political issue. I admit that that I didn't
Speaker 1: blame you for it. Then I got it. I mean,
Speaker 1: it was really something that JOHNS Hopkins University of Maryland
Speaker 1: should have been doing, and even in Europe, and it
Speaker 1: started off not with mayors taking the lead, but oftentimes
Speaker 1: with research institutions and such doing those trials first before
Speaker 1: it ever became a real policy. I was very fortunate
Speaker 1: to have great health institutions downtop in School of Public
Speaker 1: Health UM really did a wonderful job and studying our
Speaker 1: needle exchange program because, as you know, at the time,
Speaker 1: the federal government still had a law that prevented institutions
Speaker 1: that were receiving federal dollars from running needle exchange programs.
Speaker 1: Where they they were the group that did the study.
Speaker 1: And after the pilot period, which was a four year period,
Speaker 1: we were able to go to the legislature with the
Speaker 1: Hopkins School of Public Health data and show them the
Speaker 1: dramatic impact of reducing the spread of AIDS and not
Speaker 1: increasing the number of drug or intravenous drug users. And
Speaker 1: so uh they passed legislation allowing us to continue the
Speaker 1: needle exchange program. And I think it's important for people
Speaker 1: to know that when we got the pilot program, we
Speaker 1: were able to get it with uh just one vote
Speaker 1: that made the difference. Uh there um in in the
Speaker 1: legislature when we went back after four years, everybody voted
Speaker 1: force except for one person. So UM, it was a
Speaker 1: dramatic it was based on applied research I remember the
Speaker 1: Congressional Black Caucus that you know, one year is calling
Speaker 1: a needle exchange genocide or something, and a few years
Speaker 1: later is calling for the resignation of the drugs are
Speaker 1: if he won't support needle exchange. So you did see
Speaker 1: that major transition the nineties. One thing you may not know, Kurt,
Speaker 1: is that even back when you were mayor, JOHNS. Hopkins,
Speaker 1: together with Columbia University in New York and Wayne State
Speaker 1: in Detroit, were three universities in America that actually were
Speaker 1: giving heroin to people in their research trials. They had
Speaker 1: gotten permission from the D eight and imported from Europe.
Speaker 1: They were they were paying people who were illicit drug
Speaker 1: heroin users to come live at a clinic for a
Speaker 1: few weeks and then be tested for what heroin was
Speaker 1: doing to them. So, in some respects, you know, all
Speaker 1: of the obstacles about giving heroin to human subjects about
Speaker 1: importing it had been resolved. It was just the idea
Speaker 1: of doing an experiment where it wasn't just to evaluate
Speaker 1: the impact of heroin and the human body, but to
Speaker 1: see if a maintenance trial could actually help people stabilize
Speaker 1: their lives in the way that it was clearly working
Speaker 1: in Europe. That was the really difficult thing to cross.
Speaker 1: And it's something that no American university to this day
Speaker 1: has done. Even its has become standard operating procedure and
Speaker 1: half a dozen European countries and Canada. You know, So hey, listen,
Speaker 1: let's go back to the political thing here. You know,
Speaker 1: I remember like thinking, okay, well maybe, and people were
Speaker 1: saying you've cut off your chances for statewide office here. Um,
Speaker 1: but I remember just wishing you had a senator, Senator Sarbanes.
Speaker 1: It was a respected senator, but it wasn't lighting the
Speaker 1: place on fire, and just wishing that he would retire
Speaker 1: so that you could run for Senate because I mean,
Speaker 1: I was among a huge number of people who thought
Speaker 1: you would have made a fantastic member the U. S. Senate.
Speaker 1: I mean, how much did you enter that possibility back?
Speaker 1: The Senate was the only office that beyond the mayor,
Speaker 1: that I contemplated pursuing. I spent some time in when
Speaker 1: there was an open governor's seat in Maryland. My wife
Speaker 1: and I went around throughout the state just taking a
Speaker 1: look at the issues that the governor has to deal with.
Speaker 1: But I decided, uh, No, that's not what I wanted
Speaker 1: to pursue. That if I have an opportunity, I would
Speaker 1: like to become involved in setting national policies, and of
Speaker 1: course drug policy being one of them. So um my
Speaker 1: um last election was so I was leaving office in
Speaker 1: December nine and I thought that there was a possibility
Speaker 1: that Senator to Cebring's was not going to run again.
Speaker 1: Then that the next Senate race was two thousand, but
Speaker 1: then he decided to do another term. And so that's
Speaker 1: when I decided to pursue, uh, some other interest that
Speaker 1: I had in the academy, and fortunately I was able,
Speaker 1: after a brief stint in the law firm, to get
Speaker 1: the job as dean of the Howard University School of Law.
Speaker 1: Let's take a break here and go to an ad
Speaker 1: You fast forward in the years two thousand and there
Speaker 1: was some meeting of mayors at the White House with
Speaker 1: Bill Clinton, and one of the other mayors who was
Speaker 1: there was a real drug warrior, Richard Daily, the son
Speaker 1: of the other famous Daily, you know, the Daily family
Speaker 1: that kind of ran Chicago for a big chunk of
Speaker 1: the twentieth century. And I think you raised a little
Speaker 1: contrary viewpoint there. I was wondering what got into you
Speaker 1: because you weren't talking quite as much about the drug
Speaker 1: issue at that point. I mean, your frame had really
Speaker 1: been I want to make Baltimore the city that reads.
Speaker 1: You wanted to make literacy. You're real focused, you wanted
Speaker 1: to really put that out front. But nonetheless, what got
Speaker 1: into you there again, what was happening, uh, was a
Speaker 1: lack of debate really about what was going on. And
Speaker 1: so we had a moment. There was a little luncheon
Speaker 1: and Mayor Daily made a comment to President Clinton and
Speaker 1: then I've raised my hand and I said, the miss President,
Speaker 1: do you realize that this conference is being sponsored by
Speaker 1: a tobacco company? And you should have seen the look
Speaker 1: on Mayor daily space when I said that. But President
Speaker 1: just looked at me, and I said, I've raised that
Speaker 1: because of the fact that you have done an outstanding
Speaker 1: job over the last few years in reducing the level
Speaker 1: the number of people who smoke in the United States,
Speaker 1: and you've done that using public health strategies. I said, sir,
Speaker 1: if I'm standing here in in my left hand holding
Speaker 1: a green leafy substance that your CDC says killed four
Speaker 1: thousand people um last year and in my right hand
Speaker 1: is a green, leafy substance that there are no known
Speaker 1: deaths from smoking that, which one do you think ought
Speaker 1: to be criminalized? And um, he just kept looking at me,
Speaker 1: and so, I you know, which is okay? Smoke, keep
Speaker 1: talking and then sit down. Um, so I said, of course,
Speaker 1: the left hand has tobacco, which has killed four hundred
Speaker 1: thou people year, and right hand is marijuana, which no
Speaker 1: known deaths from smoking. So I said, sir, I just
Speaker 1: urge you to consider using the public health strategies that
Speaker 1: have been so effective that with the tobacco, to use
Speaker 1: that rather than criminal justice m the marijuana. He finally
Speaker 1: got up to speak and started the launching into a
Speaker 1: discussion about his brother, Roger. I believe his name was
Speaker 1: who did go to jail? Bill Clinton's Bill Clinton's brother
Speaker 1: Roger that went to jail because of a drug charge.
Speaker 1: And he believed that that drug sentence actually saved his life.
Speaker 1: But you know, so it was it was a very
Speaker 1: political response. Of course, nobody expected me to speak at that.
Speaker 1: I wasn't on the program to speak, but I was
Speaker 1: just prompted because of the fact that, you know, it
Speaker 1: was just ironic that there we were at a conference
Speaker 1: dealing with substance abuse, and it was sponsored by a
Speaker 1: tobacco company. Yeah, yeah, no, no, no kidding Clinton. I
Speaker 1: think he really wanted to do the right thing in
Speaker 1: those first six months in office, and then I think
Speaker 1: he looked at members of Congress Democrat members of Congress,
Speaker 1: and they basically weren't going for it. I think they said, hey,
Speaker 1: you have anybody told us, don't let the Democrats get
Speaker 1: out flanked by the Republicans on being tough on drugs
Speaker 1: and tough on crime. Well, let me ask you. Maybe
Speaker 1: this is a bit of a source subject, but your successor,
Speaker 1: I believe his mayor, who then became governor was Martin
Speaker 1: O'Malley and who tried to run for president. And I
Speaker 1: will say I was no fan of him. I remember
Speaker 1: there was time when he was governor and he had
Speaker 1: promised deep in the legislature he would sign some very
Speaker 1: moderate sentence and reform bill and the last minute he
Speaker 1: basically broke his promise, I think, persuaded by a bunch
Speaker 1: of prosecutors he had hired as his chief aids. But
Speaker 1: what was your relationship like with good old Martin O'Malley. Well,
Speaker 1: we didn't really talk a great deal about policy matters.
Speaker 1: I tried to give him a very good transition. I
Speaker 1: did a report form that he could kind of follow
Speaker 1: the um policy developments easily in the city. But to
Speaker 1: a great extent. He ran for office criticizing my approach
Speaker 1: to public safety and specifically focused on our police commissioner,
Speaker 1: guy named Tom Fraser. So there really wasn't much to
Speaker 1: talk about and h and that that first term. It
Speaker 1: was later when he started making, you know, indicating that
Speaker 1: he definitely was going to run for president, that we
Speaker 1: had good conversations about policy. But during his first term
Speaker 1: as mayor, uh, we hardly spoke. So, Kurt, if you
Speaker 1: were writing a memoir, what illicit drug use would you
Speaker 1: be admitting to other than has at the time, um,
Speaker 1: when I was a student at Oxford, that that would
Speaker 1: be about it. So only outside the country, a little
Speaker 1: like William Buckley on his infamous sailboat, you know, off
Speaker 1: the coast. You know, so he wasn't an American jurisdiction.
Speaker 1: Uh huh. You know. Well, and listen around those early
Speaker 1: two thousands, this TV show comes out the Wire, which
Speaker 1: at the time it never won an Emmy, but it's
Speaker 1: since gone down in history as one of America's greatest
Speaker 1: television shows. David Simon, you know, the creator, and somebody
Speaker 1: who was a guest on this podcast and referred to
Speaker 1: you as sort of a you know, a prophet before
Speaker 1: your times or maybe that. I guess the prophet is
Speaker 1: always before their times, but some some language like that.
Speaker 1: But what did you think of The Wire? Now? I
Speaker 1: I really thought it was an excellent show. I know
Speaker 1: my successor hated it, thought that it just put Baltimore
Speaker 1: in such a bad light. But I thought what David
Speaker 1: and Ed Burns, who is his um you a co creator,
Speaker 1: former policeman, that they were trying to say to the country, Um,
Speaker 1: this is a really complex problem. Yes it's in this city,
Speaker 1: but we're really not focused on Baltimore. We're focused on
Speaker 1: the drug issue. So I took it, uh that way.
Speaker 1: I know it was a very popular show in Europe
Speaker 1: because I I was asked once to write an article
Speaker 1: for The Guardian comparing the real Baltimore to The Wire,
Speaker 1: which I did. But I know for many many people
Speaker 1: in our city they started to not have a lot
Speaker 1: of pride in that show because when they left town
Speaker 1: and go and would go visit people all they would
Speaker 1: talk about related to Baltimore with the wire, So it
Speaker 1: did have somewhat of a negative impact as it related
Speaker 1: to our tourism industry. But I thought it was very important,
Speaker 1: uh show, and I appeared on it a couple of
Speaker 1: times because, as you know, David at a little impish
Speaker 1: sense of humor, so he had me, uh as the
Speaker 1: health commissioner to the mayor. I played the health commissioner
Speaker 1: to the mayor, for which I had to join the
Speaker 1: screen actors guilts. I'm a union member. Yeah, yeah, Well,
Speaker 1: I think also you had a line in there, right.
Speaker 1: It was Charlie Wrangle back in the day had called
Speaker 1: you the most dangerous man in America. And I think
Speaker 1: one of your lines was the guy playing the mayor
Speaker 1: while you're playing health commissioner. Uh, you know, has this
Speaker 1: little there's this little police experiment Hamsterdam, a kind of
Speaker 1: needle park in Baltimore, and your line to him was
Speaker 1: to the mayor was better watch al Clarence will be
Speaker 1: calling you the most dangerous man in America. I gotta
Speaker 1: kick out of that little play on Charlie Wrangle's assault
Speaker 1: on you there. Yeah. I think you also made the
Speaker 1: point that it was, you know, excellent fantastic TV show,
Speaker 1: but that people, you know, should no more assume that
Speaker 1: was a real life depiction of all of Baltimore than
Speaker 1: they would watch The Sopranos and imagine that was a
Speaker 1: real life depiction of all of New Jersey. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: the earlier show that David did, uh, homicide Life in
Speaker 1: the Streets, had a scene in which the actor comedian
Speaker 1: Robin Williams played a tourist to Baltimore along with his
Speaker 1: wife and they we're going to a baseball game and uh,
Speaker 1: the wife gets shot in the TV show and I
Speaker 1: was mayor at the time. Uh, and our phones just
Speaker 1: get rang off the hook. The people thought that they
Speaker 1: had been a murder at Oriole Park and so yeah, sometimes, uh,
Speaker 1: those TV shows get a little close to a reality there.
Speaker 1: So yeah, no exactly. Well, look just to jump for
Speaker 1: more more recent years, I mean, for our listeners to know,
Speaker 1: you know, Kurt stayed involved. He joined the board of
Speaker 1: the Drug Policy Foundation when then that merged with my
Speaker 1: organization the nineties linusmiths Inner create Drug Policy Alliance. Kurt
Speaker 1: stayed on the board of directors for many years remained
Speaker 1: a major commitment when he stepped off, he joined the
Speaker 1: honorary board. The organization now has an award that is
Speaker 1: jointly named for him and another leader for accomplishment in
Speaker 1: the field of law. So I mean, Kurt will be
Speaker 1: forever associate it with this now. The last time we
Speaker 1: saw one another, it's very vivid for me. It was
Speaker 1: January seventeen, five years ago. It was the day before
Speaker 1: I was about to tell my board that I was
Speaker 1: stepping down as executive director and the chairman the board
Speaker 1: I were lass year. We had agreed. You know, we've
Speaker 1: been playing this out for five months. We kept it
Speaker 1: very secret. But there you were. I hadn't seen you
Speaker 1: in a year or two. We're having a two hour
Speaker 1: coffee one morning, and I remember confiding in you. You
Speaker 1: were the only one of the only people I knew
Speaker 1: who I had told beforehand, having been sworn into secrecy.
Speaker 1: We haven't seen each other since that time. But a
Speaker 1: couple of years ago, I get a phone call from
Speaker 1: my buddy Rick Doblin, the head of MAPS and Multiple
Speaker 1: Discitary Associated Psychologic Studies, which is leading the way on
Speaker 1: the legalization of m d m A for PTSD, Ethan,
Speaker 1: can you introduce me to Kirt smoke. Well, what's that about. Well,
Speaker 1: there's this fellow named Bob Parsons. So I organized the
Speaker 1: conference call and you and Rick Doblin and I had
Speaker 1: a very nice call and just say a little something
Speaker 1: about Bob Parsons and what if anything is coming to that. Well,
Speaker 1: Bob Parsons, people will know his company, but he's a
Speaker 1: co founder of the Internet domain UH company, Go Daddy.
Speaker 1: Bob is from Baltimore. He's a graduate of the University
Speaker 1: of of Baltimore and Uh he was a marine Vietnam
Speaker 1: veteran who has overcome an awful lot because of that
Speaker 1: experience in Vietnam and has been a proponent of psychedelics
Speaker 1: and the treatment of PTSD and UH, Bob continued to
Speaker 1: be a very strong supporter of the University of Baltimore.
Speaker 1: Asked me to meet and to see if any of
Speaker 1: our professors would be interested in research in that area,
Speaker 1: and uh they are. And then so we have some
Speaker 1: research going on at the University of Baltimore, but we're
Speaker 1: looking into it and working um with Rick and at
Speaker 1: the request of about Parsons, who is a very strong
Speaker 1: supporter of this. I think that's great, cart I mean
Speaker 1: Rick may also mentioned that some of your faculty and
Speaker 1: students have actually gone through the MAPS training so that
Speaker 1: they can become psycholic assisted psychotherapists, when in fact the
Speaker 1: f d A approves this treatment hopefully. Uh, I guess
Speaker 1: if not the end of this year, then sometimes next year.
Speaker 1: So there's no fully escaping your attachment and connection to
Speaker 1: this issue. Um. But Karl, I I just had to say,
Speaker 1: I've loved this kind of romped down through memory lane.
Speaker 1: But I think that what you did was really truly
Speaker 1: did make history, and it really is. I mean, I
Speaker 1: know I embarrassed you by saying this, but you know
Speaker 1: I stood up at this conference in Baltimore in front
Speaker 1: of hundreds of people just recently and I said, you know,
Speaker 1: I think about my heroes. You know, we think, you know,
Speaker 1: I have the same famous heroes many people though, you know,
Speaker 1: you know, you know Mark Marl Luther King and Nelson
Speaker 1: Mandela and uh vak Lov Hovel, you know, the famous
Speaker 1: check playwright in First President and Um but I put
Speaker 1: Kurt Smoke in that group simply because what he did
Speaker 1: in stepping out and sticking to his guns back at
Speaker 1: a time of mass national estheria. You know, it's like
Speaker 1: you look at the one person who voted against the
Speaker 1: Vietnam War back in the day, the one person who
Speaker 1: voted against the you know, invasion of Iraq or whatever.
Speaker 1: I mean, what you did had a moral equivalence to that,
Speaker 1: you know. Bless you, and thank you for the courageous
Speaker 1: leadership that you showed on that and also for the
Speaker 1: partnership that we had for so many years. Well, thank you, Ethan.
Speaker 1: It's great talking to you. And uh, as I've said
Speaker 1: to people many times, you know, without your writing and research,
Speaker 1: which I felt this though, I was just an ambassador
Speaker 1: for some of your ideas and uh very fortunate um
Speaker 1: to connect with you and uh uh connect with the
Speaker 1: organizations that are bringing about reform. And I oftentimes wonder
Speaker 1: that my life might have been quite different but for
Speaker 1: your stepping out the way you did and adding an
Speaker 1: element of real world political legitimacy to it. I don't
Speaker 1: know that this thing would have taken off, you know,
Speaker 1: either my own personal life or more broadly so now.
Speaker 1: It really was historically of great significance. So thank you
Speaker 1: ever so much Kurt for joining me and my listeners
Speaker 1: on Psychoactive. All the best to you, if you're enjoying Psychoactive,
Speaker 1: please tell your friends about it, or you can write
Speaker 1: us a review at Apple Podcasts or wherever you get
Speaker 1: your podcasts. We love to hear from our listeners. If
Speaker 1: you'd like to share your own stories, comments and ideas,
Speaker 1: then leave us a message at one eight three three
Speaker 1: seven seven nine sixty that's eight three three psycho zero,
Speaker 1: or you can email us at Psychoactive at protozoa dot
Speaker 1: com or find me on Twitter at Ethan Natalman. You
Speaker 1: can also find contact information in our show notes. Psychoactive
Speaker 1: is a production of I Heart Radio and Protozoa Pictures.
Speaker 1: It's hosted by me Ethan Nadelman is produced by noaham
Speaker 1: Osband and Josh Stain. The executive producers are Dylan Golden,
Speaker 1: Ari Handel, Elizabeth Geesus and Darren Aronofsky from Protozolla Pictures,
Speaker 1: Alex Williams and Matt Frederick from my Heart Radio and
Speaker 1: me Ethan Edelman. Our music is by Ari Blucien and
Speaker 1: a special thanks to a Brio s f Bianca Grimshaw
Speaker 1: and Robert Deep. Next week I'll be talking with the
Speaker 1: award winning journalist, author and documentary filmmaker Martin to go
Speaker 1: about his book Bop Apocalypse, Jazz raised the beats and
Speaker 1: drugs are the misconceptions that you know, people have about
Speaker 1: heroin and jazz is that these guys would shoot dope,
Speaker 1: get on the stand and like be high out of
Speaker 1: their minds and play. No, that's not what was going on.
Speaker 1: What was going on with that, there's drug which had
Speaker 1: created this metabolic need for it was being satisfied, and
Speaker 1: so that's what would allow them the kind of stability
Speaker 1: to be anchored, you know, back again in their music.
Speaker 1: Subscribe to Cycleactive now see it, don't miss it.