Speaker 1: Hi, I'm Ethan Natalman 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 his medical advice or encouragement to use
Speaker 1: any type of drug. Welcome Psychoactive listeners. Today's guest is
Speaker 1: somebody who's playing a really pivotal role in the evolution
Speaker 1: of American criminal justice, hopefully in a more progressive, thoughtful,
Speaker 1: evidence based direction. His name is Larry Krasner. He is
Speaker 1: the District Attorney of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Uh. He was elected
Speaker 1: four years ago in a shocking victory, and then recently
Speaker 1: one re election in the Democratic primary, which means he
Speaker 1: has a very good shot of being the district attorney
Speaker 1: for the next four years. So Larry, thanks so much
Speaker 1: for joining us. Signed Psychoactive. You know I am always
Speaker 1: happy to be on Psychoactive. Okay, well, we'll get into
Speaker 1: that issue a little more deeply soon, but let me
Speaker 1: set the context for the listeners. Right, So, Philadelphia. Philadelphia
Speaker 1: is one of the oldest cities in America. It's about
Speaker 1: the sixth largest city, like Phoenix or San Antonio, a
Speaker 1: million and a half people. It's one of the poorer
Speaker 1: cities in America. It's probably I think roughly forty black,
Speaker 1: forty percent white, tent other Asian, Latino, etcetera. It's also
Speaker 1: a city which has among the higher homicide rates in
Speaker 1: America and among the higher overdose fatality rates in America.
Speaker 1: So it's the city struggling with a lot. And in
Speaker 1: that context, you have been well, you were, you know,
Speaker 1: a public defender and a civil rights attorney for thirty
Speaker 1: years right twenty seventeen, and then launched what appeared to
Speaker 1: be a quixotic effort to become the district attorney and
Speaker 1: lo and behold you one. So I'm curious, first, why
Speaker 1: did you decide to do that back four years ago? Well,
Speaker 1: you know, the personal history of that is that I
Speaker 1: was a very active trial lawyer defending indigent meaning broke
Speaker 1: people in criminal matters for a long time. But I
Speaker 1: also did civil rights work and in my civil rights work,
Speaker 1: I usually represented broke people, black people, brown people who
Speaker 1: had been in some way mistreated or treated illegally by police.
Speaker 1: Though that was really kind of what I did, and
Speaker 1: you know, I tried hard. I got good results. But
Speaker 1: the way I felt, at age fifty six, having made
Speaker 1: this my life's work, was that I had gotten justice
Speaker 1: for individuals, but the entire time the system had gotten worse.
Speaker 1: You know, being in court four and five days a week,
Speaker 1: you don't just do your own cases. You see all
Speaker 1: of these other cases that are happening while you wait
Speaker 1: to do yours. And the sense I had was that
Speaker 1: I was watching this slow motion car wreck, that the
Speaker 1: people who were in control, we're up for that wreck,
Speaker 1: and they were just going to keep driving into that wreck,
Speaker 1: and that there needed to be somebody else who was
Speaker 1: actually driving this car if we were to go a
Speaker 1: different direction. M hm. You know it's funny, I when
Speaker 1: you talk about the people you're representing, I mean everything
Speaker 1: from poor black and brown folks and and poor white
Speaker 1: folks getting busted and hurt, but also act up the
Speaker 1: AIDS advocacy organization and move on folks on. And then
Speaker 1: you know, were you and I met or re met.
Speaker 1: I just remember a few years ago, the University of
Speaker 1: Pennsylvania Law School did this big conference on the War
Speaker 1: on Drugs, and I did the opening keynote address, and
Speaker 1: you are in the panel right after that, and you
Speaker 1: surprised me and everybody else, but you said, you know, actually, Ethan,
Speaker 1: you may not remember for this, but we met thirty
Speaker 1: years ago. And it was actually back in around nine
Speaker 1: ninety four where I was still teaching at Princeton and
Speaker 1: had brought my class down a drug policy class, down
Speaker 1: to Philadelphia, down to the you know, down and out
Speaker 1: Kensington neighborhood to observe and participate on a local semi
Speaker 1: legal I think it was needle Exchange program, and you
Speaker 1: were the attorney representing prevention point to needle exchange program.
Speaker 1: So I mean this going back to our earliest years
Speaker 1: of me as an advocate, and you're working as a
Speaker 1: public defender and lawyer. So you've really been on the
Speaker 1: right side of these things. But let me go further
Speaker 1: back than that. Why did you decide to become a
Speaker 1: public defender? I mean, you're interesting, Like your mom was
Speaker 1: a devout Christian, your dad was a secular Jew who
Speaker 1: among other things, wrote crime novels and had among his
Speaker 1: admirers the famous detective story writer Ray Chandler. But what
Speaker 1: was it that caused you to say I'm going to
Speaker 1: become a public defender back in the mid A So
Speaker 1: when I came out of law school, I was really
Speaker 1: fascinated by criminal justice. I've been fascinated by crime since
Speaker 1: I was probably twelve or thirteen. I think a lot
Speaker 1: of people are a lot of people go home from
Speaker 1: their day jobs and they watch crime fiction, you know,
Speaker 1: they watch c s I, or they watch films, dramatic
Speaker 1: films they have to do with crime. Well, I was
Speaker 1: interested enough that I wanted to do it as a lawyer.
Speaker 1: But coming out of law school, I was really open
Speaker 1: to the possibility of being a prosecutor or a public defender.
Speaker 1: I was not really interested in being a private attorney
Speaker 1: doing this work, much more interested in being within the
Speaker 1: public sphere, where I thought the people really were and
Speaker 1: the activity really was. So I interviewed for both, and
Speaker 1: I had offers from both. But what I found in
Speaker 1: seven as I interviewed, including interviewing at the Philadelphia DA's office,
Speaker 1: which I now run, is that I felt much more
Speaker 1: of a connection to the public defenders. You know, I
Speaker 1: walked out of the interview. There was humor, there was compassion,
Speaker 1: there was grace, and I walked out of the interviews
Speaker 1: with most to the prosecutor's offices, and it was it
Speaker 1: was this very sort of driven approach directed at retribution,
Speaker 1: which didn't feel right to me. So I, you know,
Speaker 1: I chose to be a public defender, not because I
Speaker 1: thought it was immoral to ever put somebody in jail.
Speaker 1: I don't think that, But I chose to be a
Speaker 1: public defender because at that time, I think that was
Speaker 1: being on the side of justice. And it's really the
Speaker 1: same reason why I chose to try to become a
Speaker 1: prosecutor at age fifty six, after I've done that work
Speaker 1: for thirty years, and one way or another, I just
Speaker 1: felt like being on the side of justice in meant
Speaker 1: trying to be a part of a grassroots movement for
Speaker 1: progressive criminal justice reform that was all over the country,
Speaker 1: a movement in which Philadelphia was wanting to participate. But
Speaker 1: they needed somebody, you know, they needed a technician, which
Speaker 1: is really all I am, and that's really all that.
Speaker 1: You know, some people I admire very much, like Kim
Speaker 1: Fox in Chicago, or Eric Gonzalez in Brooklyn, or you know,
Speaker 1: I could go on and on, but you know, we're technicians,
Speaker 1: were technicians for a grassroots movement that right now in
Speaker 1: the United States has elected and re elected progressive prosecutors
Speaker 1: in ten percent of uh, you know, all of its
Speaker 1: voting area, by which I mean ten percent of all
Speaker 1: voters have at this point chosen a progressive to make
Speaker 1: decisions about criminal justice. And that number is up from
Speaker 1: basically zero, and it's up from basically zero in a
Speaker 1: short period of time. So it is definitely where we
Speaker 1: are all going. Yeah, I mean, Larry, you mentioned this
Speaker 1: broader progressive prosecutor movement, and you mentioned Kim Fox in Chicago.
Speaker 1: There's you know, Mosley in Baltimore, There's Rachel Rawlins in Boston,
Speaker 1: Suffolk County. So this really is a growing thing. You know.
Speaker 1: For me, I think part of why I do what
Speaker 1: I do is my consciousness of my own father being
Speaker 1: born in Berlin and Hitler come into power when he
Speaker 1: was five and having a flee Germany when he was
Speaker 1: eleven with his family to save his life. But you know,
Speaker 1: I was asking you before, you know, you have a
Speaker 1: mother who's a devout Christian and a father who I
Speaker 1: think you described just being secular and moral. But when
Speaker 1: you look at who you are what you are, do
Speaker 1: you see them and who they were as having played
Speaker 1: this helping explain why Larry Krasner is who he is
Speaker 1: in terms of both the public defense thing and the
Speaker 1: progressive prosecution. Really easy for me to psychoanalyze you, Ethan,
Speaker 1: but are harder to do it to myself. I'm sure
Speaker 1: did play a role. Yes, you know, the values in
Speaker 1: the home were more about people than they were about money.
Speaker 1: For example, the values in the home were more about
Speaker 1: being known for doing good things because you did good things,
Speaker 1: then pretending you did good things. It was more about compassion,
Speaker 1: you know that it was in some ways about competition
Speaker 1: with other people. And the fact is, you know, because
Speaker 1: my dad was the child of immigrants from uh the Ukraine,
Speaker 1: there were Russian Jews, there was that, you know, being
Speaker 1: chase out of a country with torches and pitchforks leaves
Speaker 1: an impression. Because he and basically an entire group of
Speaker 1: sixteen male cousins nearly all served in World War Two,
Speaker 1: they pretty strong feelings as people who were coming from
Speaker 1: Jewish culture, and in some cases who were religious, they
Speaker 1: had pretty strong feelings about having one group of people
Speaker 1: trying to exterminate them from the planet. So, you know,
Speaker 1: you do pick up those things. But the other thing
Speaker 1: that happened, um, there many things happened, but my father
Speaker 1: became physically disabled later in his life and it very
Speaker 1: much affected his ability to bring home money. And the
Speaker 1: consequence was that we had public benefits at certain times. Right,
Speaker 1: So when you go through that, you experienced that. You know,
Speaker 1: I was in public schools and they made some wise choices.
Speaker 1: So I ended up in public schools in inner city St.
Speaker 1: Louis and public schools outside of Philadelphia that were excellent
Speaker 1: public schools. But when you grow up under those circumstances,
Speaker 1: you come to understand that, how do I put it,
Speaker 1: poverty is not a flaw. And that's kind of where
Speaker 1: this starts. I mean, I saw that either in your
Speaker 1: book or this is a wonderful documentary Philly d a
Speaker 1: about you and your office in the campaign and trying
Speaker 1: to implement these changes, which I highly recommend to our listeners.
Speaker 1: And I guess mad it's the book where you talked
Speaker 1: about having gotten and involved and maybe even met your
Speaker 1: wife working on access to housing services in New York,
Speaker 1: So I could see you had that progressive orientation early on.
Speaker 1: But let me ask you this, and if you can't
Speaker 1: answer it, I understand. But one of the other things
Speaker 1: that shape me was going to college and starting a
Speaker 1: smoke weed and wondering why I was a criminal for
Speaker 1: that or the occasional mushroom trip. Did you also have
Speaker 1: these experiences in high school or college? I mean, were
Speaker 1: you were you doing drugs? You're a few yars younger
Speaker 1: than me, but this was, you know, the late seventies,
Speaker 1: it was a pretty liberal time. What was your own
Speaker 1: experience with this sort of illicit behavior that seemed harmful? So,
Speaker 1: you know, I had my first beer, my first alcohol
Speaker 1: in college. It's actually the day I arrived at college.
Speaker 1: My uncle, who was a dean of physics, gave me
Speaker 1: a beer. And I never smoked weed. All the way
Speaker 1: through high school or college. I never did it. People
Speaker 1: used to gather in my dorm room and they would
Speaker 1: smoke weed while I was studying because they were my friends.
Speaker 1: I had no problem with it. I thought that the
Speaker 1: notion that this was, you know, illegal, was absurd frankly,
Speaker 1: but I was you know, for whatever reason, maybe it's
Speaker 1: partly just being kind of broke, but for whatever reason,
Speaker 1: it was just nothing that I did during that period
Speaker 1: of time. Uh huh. Well listen, So you become a
Speaker 1: public defender in the late eighties with the drug war
Speaker 1: is just taking off like wildfire, right, and people are
Speaker 1: getting locked up in droves and prison popiers and is
Speaker 1: growing enormously. You make the switch to prosecutor to d
Speaker 1: a uh in seventeen as there is a growing movement
Speaker 1: for criminal justice reform, and there's even some other folks
Speaker 1: in Philadelphia. I mean, the mayor is making some noises
Speaker 1: and pushing to some in the right direction. Your your
Speaker 1: predecessor as this your attorney had, you know, made some
Speaker 1: indications of softening up on marijuana stuff. What was the
Speaker 1: political climate like f I mean, how did you see
Speaker 1: the drug war in seventeen as you were becoming chief
Speaker 1: prosecutor of the city. You know, I had been both
Speaker 1: a public defender for a few years in Philippi County
Speaker 1: where there were a ton of drug prosecutions, and then
Speaker 1: I was a federal public defender. I did actually federal
Speaker 1: criminal work, and much of that was cases involving drugs
Speaker 1: for twenty five years, so I had a pretty front
Speaker 1: row seat on the war on drugs from seven on.
Speaker 1: I thought the whole thing was a disaster and the
Speaker 1: consequences were ridiculous. You know, you saw relatively young people
Speaker 1: getting life sentences in federal court because they had a
Speaker 1: couple of prior convictions of certain types, and the weight
Speaker 1: of drugs they were involved with with fifty six other
Speaker 1: people was high enough that they were supposed to spend
Speaker 1: their entire lives in jail and die or become prolific rats.
Speaker 1: And then we had to rely on the mercy of
Speaker 1: a prosecutor to say less than life is okay judge,
Speaker 1: while some judge, probably a surly one, acted like life
Speaker 1: really made more sense. Right, So I had, I had
Speaker 1: watched that whole thing, and um I came into office
Speaker 1: and early with every intention of never prosecuting anyone again
Speaker 1: for possession of marijuana. Some of that road was already laid.
Speaker 1: The mayor in Philadelphia before I got into office, had
Speaker 1: advocated for the use of a ticket, essentially a very
Speaker 1: low level offense, which was a fine for possessing marijuana,
Speaker 1: And so he had pushed that point with a lot
Speaker 1: of resistance, and the d a's office previously had been
Speaker 1: prosecuting about five to six thousand people a year for
Speaker 1: simple possession of marijuana. We're not talking about dealing drugs.
Speaker 1: We're not talking about possessing enormous amounts that someone else
Speaker 1: is going to deal later. We're talking about simple possession.
Speaker 1: So by the time I went in, that was much better.
Speaker 1: About eight of those cases were no longer being prosecuted.
Speaker 1: Police were just giving out a ticket. We're down to
Speaker 1: maybe a thousand to fifteen hundred marijuana possession cases a year.
Speaker 1: We came in and said, no, we're not going to
Speaker 1: do this anymore. This doesn't make any sense. Were we
Speaker 1: need to deal with shootings, We need to deal with
Speaker 1: gunpoint robberies, We need to deal with first greefelony apes,
Speaker 1: the kind of crimes that actually tear apart society, Traumatized people,
Speaker 1: traumatized communities. We have to deal with that. We do
Speaker 1: not have time to mess around with a substance that
Speaker 1: is safer for you than the beer that basically every
Speaker 1: judge and every cop is going to consume after they
Speaker 1: get home from work. Well beer or brown liquor. If
Speaker 1: you want to talk about dangerous stuff, you know. So
Speaker 1: that's what we did, and of course there was a commotion,
Speaker 1: you know, in the same way the mayor suffered all
Speaker 1: kinds of commotion. We had all kinds of commotion over that,
Speaker 1: and then people adapted. Culture changes, people adapt. As we
Speaker 1: look around right now in Philadelphia, we have a governor who,
Speaker 1: as soon as he got elected to a second term,
Speaker 1: started to advocate for the recreational adult use of marijuana.
Speaker 1: We already had medical use of marijuana under limited circumstances,
Speaker 1: but as soon as he locked in his second of
Speaker 1: two terms, the governor started to say, yeah, this is
Speaker 1: a good idea. We should allow recreational adult use marijuana.
Speaker 1: We should tax the hell out of it, use the
Speaker 1: tax for good purposes. And as I sit here right now,
Speaker 1: Democrats want it. They're in the minority and the legislatures
Speaker 1: to the Republicans control the legislature, and believe it or not,
Speaker 1: Republicans want it. They can't agree on any kind of
Speaker 1: reasonable gun regulation, they can't agree on whether people's votes
Speaker 1: should count. But Republicans and Democrats in Pennsylvania agree there
Speaker 1: should be recreational day use marijuana. They're just having a
Speaker 1: different tug of war, which is that Republicans wanted all
Speaker 1: those taxes to cut other taxes, including taxes for rich people,
Speaker 1: and Democrats want all those taxes to do what they
Speaker 1: did in a place like Colorado, which is they wanted
Speaker 1: to float under funded public schools, especially under funded public
Speaker 1: schools in places like Philadelphia where you have a high
Speaker 1: rate of educational failure despite a lot of good teachers,
Speaker 1: where you have investment in students that is less than
Speaker 1: half of the investment in students in suburban areas that
Speaker 1: are right over the city boundary, for example, the suburban
Speaker 1: area where I was able to attend a public school.
Speaker 1: So you know, that's how I felt at the time.
Speaker 1: I think history is entirely on our side when it
Speaker 1: comes to marijuana. Yeah, I mean in a way, Pennsylvania
Speaker 1: is gonna maybe move faster because you're now becoming an outlier.
Speaker 1: I mean, just in the last six to nine months,
Speaker 1: I think New York legalized, New Jersey legalized, Connecticut legalized,
Speaker 1: Virginia quite surprisingly legalized you know, Delaware, Rhode Island, the edge,
Speaker 1: Massachusetts done it. So I think the embarrassment of being
Speaker 1: an outlier and the fact that Pennsylvania's are now going
Speaker 1: out of state and paying taxes to neighboring states to
Speaker 1: either weed should hopefully, you know, get the pressure up.
Speaker 1: But I guess in a way, right, the leverage you
Speaker 1: had in that is to basically say to the police,
Speaker 1: We're not going to prosecute these cases anymore if you
Speaker 1: arrest people. Is that basically right? Is that where the
Speaker 1: leverage comes from. The leverage in Philadelphia is that we
Speaker 1: have complete discretion about what we're going to charge or not.
Speaker 1: There are locations where police get to determine what has charged,
Speaker 1: but the way it works in Philadelphia is they present
Speaker 1: to the district attorney's office their recommendation of charges and
Speaker 1: then a packet that is essentially documents summarizing the evidence,
Speaker 1: and then we make a decision, you know, and the
Speaker 1: vast majority of cases they submit to us, we are
Speaker 1: going to charge someone with many of the charge they recommend,
Speaker 1: or maybe all the charge they recommend. But you know,
Speaker 1: what are the beauties of being an elected district attorney
Speaker 1: in many jurisdictions is it's an executive position where you
Speaker 1: don't have the log role with anybody, so we get
Speaker 1: to say yes or no, I'm going to charge this case,
Speaker 1: yes or no. I'm going to pursue the death penalty,
Speaker 1: yes or no. We're gonna seek a high sentence or
Speaker 1: we're gonna seek probation. We get to make that decision unilaterally. Uh,
Speaker 1: and more specifically, I get to make that decision unilaterally.
Speaker 1: So there's power there. You think most people, I mean
Speaker 1: most of the cops and prosecutors and judges in Philadelphia
Speaker 1: would now vote for legalizing marijuana. Are we going to
Speaker 1: count the retired ones? If you count the retired ones,
Speaker 1: I would say no, no, But the current ones probably is.
Speaker 1: I think that there are subgroups, maybe younger officers, probably
Speaker 1: officers of color, who would vote for it. I think
Speaker 1: overall they would vote against it, And to be honest,
Speaker 1: they have a specific financial interest in voting against it
Speaker 1: because they don't simply get paid to arrest people for
Speaker 1: whatever it is, having your grass too long, you know,
Speaker 1: having a turn signal on your car that has chipped.
Speaker 1: They don't just get paid for doing that job. They
Speaker 1: get overtime, and they get a lot of overtime for
Speaker 1: going to court to testify when they're not on shift.
Speaker 1: There are officers who are making more money and overtime
Speaker 1: than they are making for their salary. I mean, honestly,
Speaker 1: I think if they could arrest people for blue shirts.
Speaker 1: I'm wearing a blue shirt today, some of them would
Speaker 1: be mercenary enough to say, hey, it sounds like a
Speaker 1: good plan. Let's arrest people for blue shirts. I want
Speaker 1: a beach house, and they would do it. It's not Look,
Speaker 1: it's not your average officer. There's a you know, there's
Speaker 1: a lot of great cops in Philly who actually do
Speaker 1: think about issues at a level of policy and at
Speaker 1: a level of a wholesome society. But they have a
Speaker 1: vested financial interest, just as our public prison industry and
Speaker 1: our private prison industry have a vested financial interest in
Speaker 1: locking up everybody for everything forever. We'll be talking more
Speaker 1: after we here this ad. I saw you quoted as
Speaker 1: saying it's nice to have the power instead of the outrage.
Speaker 1: And you said, we're taking the movements aggressive prosecutor progressive
Speaker 1: criminal just movement inside, right, So there's real power. And
Speaker 1: you pointed out that the district attorney is the most
Speaker 1: powerful player in the criminal justice system, so you have
Speaker 1: all this leverage. You've accomplished some great things around juvenile justice,
Speaker 1: and going after bad cops and and pushing back and
Speaker 1: all this petty bullshit arrest and all of these sorts
Speaker 1: of things. But you're dealing with a police department, you're
Speaker 1: dealing with judges, you're dealing with the state legislature. You're
Speaker 1: dealing with the bail industry. That I guess has been
Speaker 1: the fundamental tension you've had to deal with. You have
Speaker 1: this power, You had an upfront seat for thirty years
Speaker 1: to how powerful the d A and his full office
Speaker 1: could be. Yet at the same time you must be
Speaker 1: incredibly aware of how limited that power has given all
Speaker 1: the other players. I am definitely aware of the limitations.
Speaker 1: But let me tell you why I don't feel too
Speaker 1: bad about it. All Right, So, we've actually been in
Speaker 1: office now for three and a half years, and we
Speaker 1: made clear in our campaign some of the things we
Speaker 1: cared about. One of them was to try to take
Speaker 1: a bite out of mass incarceration, meaning having far too
Speaker 1: many Americans in jail. America is the most incarcerated country
Speaker 1: in the world, which is kind of strange when you
Speaker 1: claim to be the land of freedom, the beacon of liberty,
Speaker 1: and Philadelphia in particular has a long history of significance
Speaker 1: in terms of documents and historical events that are around
Speaker 1: freedom and there are around liberty. So there's kind of
Speaker 1: like a fundamental disconnect, right, So, what have we actually
Speaker 1: been able to accomplish despite the resistance from the judiciary,
Speaker 1: despite a legislature that is often, you know, looking out
Speaker 1: for the financial interests of counties that have state prisons.
Speaker 1: What is our actual achievement Well before the pandemic hit.
Speaker 1: And I say that because all the statistics are off
Speaker 1: due to the pandemic. Pandemic effectively shut down courts, and
Speaker 1: I'm not going to take credit for that because I
Speaker 1: think that would be unscientific. But before the pandemic hit,
Speaker 1: we our administration, our d A's office, because of its
Speaker 1: recommendations for sentencing, because of its negotiations, because of its
Speaker 1: charging practices. We had cut future years of incarceration that
Speaker 1: we're coming out of the court system by in just
Speaker 1: three years and one of the most incarcerated big cities
Speaker 1: in the United States. What about supervisional in probation and parole,
Speaker 1: which is a closely related issue because minor violations of
Speaker 1: probation and parole put you back in jail. Well, we
Speaker 1: were able to cut the future years of supervisional approbation
Speaker 1: and parole by two thirds. You know, Yes, we saw
Speaker 1: big declines in our county jail population before the pandemic hit,
Speaker 1: the sharpest declines that had been seen in a long
Speaker 1: process of success going back several years to reduce it.
Speaker 1: That tells you a little bit. But really what you
Speaker 1: need to know is what's happening in five years and
Speaker 1: what's happening in ten years. And what we know is
Speaker 1: that we have cut all those future years in half
Speaker 1: in just that period of time. That's power, Okay. It's
Speaker 1: also power when you say we're gonna have a unit
Speaker 1: to make sure immigrants are treated fairly and you do it.
Speaker 1: It's also power when you do not pursue the death
Speaker 1: penalty in any case, any new case, or any case
Speaker 1: on appeal. That's power. It's not absolute power, but we
Speaker 1: should not have absolute power. It is my hope that's
Speaker 1: going to happen here is that people who are excited
Speaker 1: enough to vote when they wouldn't vote before, because they
Speaker 1: care about criminal justice in a way they haven't cared
Speaker 1: about politics for a long time. It's my hope that
Speaker 1: they'll look at the success in all these different cities,
Speaker 1: and they won't just elect more progressive prosecutors, but they'll say,
Speaker 1: you know what, we need to elect a progressive mayor
Speaker 1: who's going to appoint a progressive police chief, a progressive
Speaker 1: police commissioner. We want somebody like that police commissioner in
Speaker 1: the Twin Cities who took the stand and who testified
Speaker 1: that what his officer did was wrong, that it was
Speaker 1: against policy, and supported the position that what one of
Speaker 1: the people he supervised did was a crime. That's what
Speaker 1: we want. So we're gonna allow to progressive mayor. And
Speaker 1: you know what else we want. We're a little sick
Speaker 1: of all these judges fighting what we want. We're a
Speaker 1: little sick of being the most incarcerated country. So with that,
Speaker 1: and we're going to be able to collect the report
Speaker 1: card on some of these judges, and when they come
Speaker 1: up for election, if they don't have a life's history
Speaker 1: that says they're gonna do a good job, don't vote
Speaker 1: for him. And when they come up for retention, because
Speaker 1: many judges who are elected come up for retention, they
Speaker 1: come up for another term every six years or every
Speaker 1: ten years. And we're gonna take the success that we've
Speaker 1: had and putting progressive prosecutors in a position to do
Speaker 1: some good things. But we're gonna give them some partners.
Speaker 1: We're gonna give them police chiefs through mayors, We're gonna
Speaker 1: give them judiciary through paying attention and not just throwing
Speaker 1: buttons for names we've never heard of. And we're gonna
Speaker 1: hold our legislators accountable as well. And what you're gonna
Speaker 1: see when that happens, when you go from progressive prosecutor
Speaker 1: as a one point oh two progressive criminal justice partners
Speaker 1: is a two point oh is you're gonna see sweeping
Speaker 1: change all over the country, massive declines in future years
Speaker 1: of incarceration, and you're gonna see a path over a
Speaker 1: decade or two to actually get out of us and
Speaker 1: to a much better place. Yeah. Now, it seems to
Speaker 1: me one of the greatest threats to the continuing progress
Speaker 1: of this movement, which we both support. Full disclosure here,
Speaker 1: you know I do support Larry. I sent him a little,
Speaker 1: you know, some money for his campaign reelection. So I'm
Speaker 1: a huge fan and advocate. But you know, you look
Speaker 1: at what's happening with homicide rates right in Philadelphia, in
Speaker 1: my city of New York, and many other places in
Speaker 1: Philadelphia ranks among the top cities in the country. I
Speaker 1: don't know about the increase in homicide rate, but in
Speaker 1: terms of the number of people, your homicide rates are
Speaker 1: very high. And when people feel fearful, and I know
Speaker 1: you're I mean I saw you on TV a few
Speaker 1: days ago and there was a whole bunch of shootings
Speaker 1: and killings of Philadelphia. I saw you getting emotional about
Speaker 1: this stuff. We know, people, even if other crimes, even
Speaker 1: if petty crimes are not going up, when they see
Speaker 1: and feel that, they start to freak out. That emotional
Speaker 1: resistance kind of bubbles up and boils up. But what
Speaker 1: can you as the d A actually do about high
Speaker 1: levels of homicide? I mean, how much power do you
Speaker 1: have to deal with that issue? Which it seems like
Speaker 1: a policing issue, It seems like a power of the issue.
Speaker 1: It seems like a lack of aging. I mean, all
Speaker 1: these other things. What can you actually do with your powers? So,
Speaker 1: you know, the situation that we see nationally is kind
Speaker 1: of fascinating, and it takes us back to a narrative
Speaker 1: that we have to shake, which is essentially that no
Speaker 1: matter what happens, you need to be quote tough on
Speaker 1: crime unquote. I call it stupid on crime. But no
Speaker 1: matter what happens, you need to hang them high. No
Speaker 1: matter what happens, you need to put them in jail
Speaker 1: and throw away the key. These are phrases that we
Speaker 1: all recognize that we live with in the United States
Speaker 1: because we've heard them for so long. So if crime
Speaker 1: is coming down, and it's been coming down for thirty years,
Speaker 1: then that's just proof if you listen to conservatives that
Speaker 1: being tough on crime work. If crime is going up
Speaker 1: after thirty years of tough on crime, well that means
Speaker 1: we need to be tougher and logic this is called
Speaker 1: a tautology. It basically is that no matter what happens,
Speaker 1: we come to the same conclusion, just get tough on crime.
Speaker 1: That is nonsense. The reason part of the reason that
Speaker 1: Philadelphia has been chronically high in violence. I've been in
Speaker 1: the area for fifty years, but let's just go back
Speaker 1: my career, which is thirty three years now. The reason
Speaker 1: it has been chronically high is poverty. Philadelphia is the
Speaker 1: sixth largest city, but it's got the fourth largest police force,
Speaker 1: and it has a politics that in many ways have
Speaker 1: been dominated by cops ever since the cop became the
Speaker 1: mayor of the city Philadelphia named Frank Rizzone some time ago,
Speaker 1: with a system of policing that was brutal and racist,
Speaker 1: that's what he was all about. And the legacy of
Speaker 1: those essentially thirty years of quote tough on crime unquote
Speaker 1: approaches rather than addressing poverty, has been chronically high. Violence
Speaker 1: in the sixth largest city with the fourth largest police
Speaker 1: departments analogus in many ways to Chicago, where you have
Speaker 1: another outsized police department. The police department proportionately is bigger
Speaker 1: than the population of the city. And yet in Chicago,
Speaker 1: which does not have identical poverty problems, that's a much
Speaker 1: more prosperous city, but it has pockets, It has neighborhoods
Speaker 1: where violence is quite high, where the poverty is very
Speaker 1: similar to what we're seeing in Philadelphia. What is clear
Speaker 1: from these two cities is that just having more police
Speaker 1: officers and just putting an infinite amount of money into
Speaker 1: policing doesn't solve these problems at all, and so we
Speaker 1: have to look at something that will actually work. There
Speaker 1: is no doubt in my mind, and there's at this
Speaker 1: point no doubt in the minds of more than two
Speaker 1: out of every three Philadelphias. And I say that because
Speaker 1: that's what the vote was in May, in a showdown
Speaker 1: between basically conservative approaches to prosecution of policing and our approach,
Speaker 1: and we overwhelmingly won. There's no doubt that what people
Speaker 1: believe in is prevention. What they believe in is serious
Speaker 1: investment in community based organizations. And they believe in this
Speaker 1: even in the face of record high numbers of killings
Speaker 1: with guns and record high numbers of shootings in Philadelphia. Now,
Speaker 1: what's happening in Philly has actually happening all over the country.
Speaker 1: Of the fifty largest cities, the average increase in gun
Speaker 1: violence last year was incredibly high. Philadelphia was slightly less
Speaker 1: than that. Actually we were slightly less than that terrible
Speaker 1: average increases. There are cities even this year where they're
Speaker 1: experiencing a one plus increase in gun violence. Philadelphia right
Speaker 1: now is having a terrible time. We're up about there's
Speaker 1: one city that's at close to and it's increase in
Speaker 1: gun violence. The important thing to recognize is many of
Speaker 1: the cities with the highest increases have traditional prosecutors and
Speaker 1: traditional approaches to policing. There is absolutely no correlation and
Speaker 1: no connection whatsoever between the policies of these prosecutors and
Speaker 1: what's happening in terms of the level of increase of crime.
Speaker 1: The crime increases endemic all over the country, even in
Speaker 1: rural areas, even in suburban areas, although to a lesser
Speaker 1: extent as you might expect. But you know, I think
Speaker 1: that that in many ways should illustrate for everyone that
Speaker 1: prosecutors have very little impact on the currents of homicides.
Speaker 1: The truth is that police have a lot less impact
Speaker 1: on the occurrence of homicides than many of their chiefs
Speaker 1: or their mayors would like you to think. Rudy Giuliani
Speaker 1: didn't fix anything, and frankly, it's a good thing they
Speaker 1: took away his law license. He never should had it.
Speaker 1: But he didn't fix anything with illegal stopping first all
Speaker 1: over the country. He just made it worse by breaking
Speaker 1: relationships between communities and police, so police can't get witnesses
Speaker 1: anymore for all kinds of cases. I do sort of
Speaker 1: look forward to the data. Rudy Giuliani is behind bars, Larry,
Speaker 1: But let me, I want to get into the drug
Speaker 1: stuff for the rest of the this thing. But the
Speaker 1: one last question on the homicide thing. You know, there's
Speaker 1: this article that was published recently by the former judge
Speaker 1: and now law professor Paul Cassell about the Minneapolis Effect,
Speaker 1: and he makes the argument that if you look at
Speaker 1: these dramatic jumps in homicides and shootings around the entire country,
Speaker 1: that one significant explanation is that basically the cops are
Speaker 1: kind of like, you know, saying, hey, with all the
Speaker 1: Black Lives Matter stuff, defund the police. We're just not
Speaker 1: going to be sticking our next out on all this
Speaker 1: rough policing. And we're dealing with rough on men and guns,
Speaker 1: and if you don't have our back, we know we're
Speaker 1: gonna take it easy. And that helps explain why you
Speaker 1: see substantial jumps. What's your response to that, to Cassell's
Speaker 1: argument to that? You know, I actually know a little
Speaker 1: bit about Paul Cassell. I think we went to the
Speaker 1: same law school a couple of years apart. As best
Speaker 1: I can tell, he's dedicated his career to uh authoritarian
Speaker 1: approaches to policing. He spent most of his early career
Speaker 1: trying to get rid of Miranda, which is laughable at
Speaker 1: many levels. And now and now what Now it's Um,
Speaker 1: it's the fault of Black Lives Matter that we have
Speaker 1: poverty in major cities. It's the fault of Black Lives
Speaker 1: matter that when black people are killed, cops can't solve
Speaker 1: those cases. Sure, Paul, Okay, whatever you say, you don't
Speaker 1: detect that at all in the department. I mean, if
Speaker 1: you're asking me, do I think that there are some
Speaker 1: bums in uh in police departments who will look for
Speaker 1: any excuse not to work and get paid. Yeah, there are.
Speaker 1: I mean, I'll tell you something right now, in Philly,
Speaker 1: we have a crisis of police officers who are gaming
Speaker 1: the system to claim that they are injured on duty. Somehow, magically,
Speaker 1: the Philadelphic Police Department has gone from a rate between
Speaker 1: two and four of police officers being so injured on
Speaker 1: duty that they cannot work to oh my goodness, what happened?
Speaker 1: And when you start to dig into it, what you
Speaker 1: find is that they're financially better off if they don't work.
Speaker 1: And what you find is there's no accountability coming from
Speaker 1: the doctors who screened these things and from the union
Speaker 1: that has been unaccountable in Philly forever. Yeah, there are
Speaker 1: some cops who are bumps. Okay, there are some prosecutors
Speaker 1: who are bumps, including prosecutors in my office right now.
Speaker 1: But the notion that we should all pander two police
Speaker 1: officers who are paid to serve the community by making
Speaker 1: sure no one talks about their rights too loudly, because
Speaker 1: oh my goodness, what if the people who are supposed
Speaker 1: to protect us exercise right they don't have, which is
Speaker 1: to not do the work and take the money home.
Speaker 1: I mean, I just I just don't get that. That's
Speaker 1: called being afraid of the people who serve you, as
Speaker 1: opposed to expecting something from the people who serve you.
Speaker 1: Let's take a break here and go to an add Okay, well,
Speaker 1: let's let's get into drugs now, um a little more deeply. Obviously,
Speaker 1: I watched that Philly DA. Virtually the first words out
Speaker 1: of your mouth are about let's cut marijuana arrest and
Speaker 1: let's stop even the possession arrest for small amounts of
Speaker 1: other drugs. So you know, you get this stuff. You're
Speaker 1: about decriminalization, You're you're doing the right thing. You're describing
Speaker 1: what you know, mass supervision. The problem probation system is
Speaker 1: the evil twin and mass incarceration and the drug stuff
Speaker 1: and drug type. I mean, I really admire that. But
Speaker 1: what I really admired is that even today, when you
Speaker 1: talk to people in the criminal justice system about harm reduction,
Speaker 1: the basic public health human rights, you know, pragmatic approach
Speaker 1: dealing with drugs, a lot of criminal justice folks don't
Speaker 1: even know harm reduction. And you provided a leadership role
Speaker 1: when the discussion started to happen around setting up a
Speaker 1: safe injection side or supervised injection facility or or what's
Speaker 1: now called over those prevention centers, which for our listeners
Speaker 1: they should know, they're basically like a needle exchange with
Speaker 1: a back room with a nurse where people can safely
Speaker 1: inject drugs that they're still buying on the black market.
Speaker 1: I mean, you became a powerful advocate for that and
Speaker 1: really moved this issue forward. Why well, that goes back
Speaker 1: to when you and you and I were both little
Speaker 1: kids playing out there in the street. It goes back
Speaker 1: to nineteen probably something like that, maybe early. It goes
Speaker 1: back to a period of time when I became interested
Speaker 1: in activists who are working around issues of HIV and
Speaker 1: AIDS during the crisis that we all suffered at that time,
Speaker 1: a public health crisis. The time when we had to
Speaker 1: talk about harm reduction in terms of stopping the spread
Speaker 1: of that virus. Look where we are now, right back
Speaker 1: in a similar position. And because HIV and AS were
Speaker 1: spreading so quickly among intravenous drug users, some very idealistic
Speaker 1: people took a lot of risks and formed something called
Speaker 1: prevention point. It wasn't a needle exchange, and yes it
Speaker 1: was illegal in the minds of most people at the
Speaker 1: time that that was occurring. The Attorney General of Pennsylvania,
Speaker 1: the statewide prosecutor of Pennsylvania, was swearing he was going
Speaker 1: to arrest them, indict them, and lock them up, which
Speaker 1: is why I was there as a criminal defense attorney,
Speaker 1: meeting with clients, seeing what they were doing, so that
Speaker 1: I could understand how to defend them. The whole story
Speaker 1: gets more ridiculous because he went to jail and they
Speaker 1: didn't because he liked bribes, whatever, you know. But there
Speaker 1: was also some good news, which is a rather centrous
Speaker 1: mayor at the time named Ed Rendell, now a mainstay
Speaker 1: of the Democratic National Committee, an old friend of Bill Clinton.
Speaker 1: He understood this, and to his credit, he supported as
Speaker 1: mayor that prevention points should exist and that it should
Speaker 1: be normalized that we're going to give out clean needles
Speaker 1: so we can stop the spread of HIV and AIDS.
Speaker 1: And that is what has happened in Philadelphia. Prevention points
Speaker 1: still exists. It's in a building now, it's not at
Speaker 1: a card table anymore. It gives out millions of needles.
Speaker 1: It hasn't ended drug addiction by any means, but there
Speaker 1: have been waves and waves and waves of infection with
Speaker 1: HIV and AIDS that have been prevent it as the
Speaker 1: direct result of that kind of activity. And you know,
Speaker 1: and in my mind, that is sort of an encapsulated
Speaker 1: version of what harm reduction can be. Obviously, another step
Speaker 1: in this, and I've had the good fortune to be
Speaker 1: able to travel with a bunch of other progressive prosecutors
Speaker 1: to British Columbia, to Berlin, actually to Portugal and to
Speaker 1: see it. But another step in this is to recognize
Speaker 1: that when we're dealing with opioids in particular, and we're
Speaker 1: dealing with fentanyl, which has changed the game in many
Speaker 1: ways when it comes to fatal overdoses because it is
Speaker 1: so toxic and it it is so frightening, and how
Speaker 1: it's used at the street level when we're dealing with that.
Speaker 1: I mean, I can't escape the reality that four people
Speaker 1: die every day in Philadelphia. Every day. I used to
Speaker 1: say three, Now I say four. How is it possible
Speaker 1: to say, yeah, let's not do anything. Let's just let
Speaker 1: them die behind dumpsters by themselves, stop breathing, Let's let
Speaker 1: their brains cook from lack of oxygen. Let's say that's
Speaker 1: that's okay. Uh. You know, we have to prevent harm.
Speaker 1: People cannot get into treatment reclaim their lives. They can't
Speaker 1: do that if they die. It's really not complicated. You
Speaker 1: have to try to keep people alive. They may not
Speaker 1: be your children, but there's somebody's kids. M you know.
Speaker 1: I mean, I like the way that you went abroad.
Speaker 1: I mean I think I saw you shortly after you
Speaker 1: came back from Lisbon. A little side on this thing.
Speaker 1: As I was prepping for this interview, I came across
Speaker 1: the fact that your father actually co authored a report
Speaker 1: fifty years ago whatever called Drug Trip Abroad about American
Speaker 1: drug users living in London and Amsternam back in the seventies.
Speaker 1: It was a funny little thing. And then thinking about
Speaker 1: you going to these other places. But I'm curious did
Speaker 1: these trips to these other places have a significant impact
Speaker 1: on you or did they basically confirm things that you
Speaker 1: already knew. I would say both. The book you're referring to,
Speaker 1: Drug Trip Abroad, was actually a book that my father, who,
Speaker 1: when he wasn't being an author, was trying to make
Speaker 1: a living as a freelance writer. It's something that he
Speaker 1: wrote for a couple of University of Pennsylvania professors a
Speaker 1: very long time ago. I guess this would have been
Speaker 1: in the mid nineties seventies probably, But um, the ideas
Speaker 1: that we're talking about now are not brand new. They
Speaker 1: were ideas that were out there quite some time ago.
Speaker 1: You know. I think when you walk into Insight, which
Speaker 1: is one of the locations where people who use drugs
Speaker 1: can go to use it under the watchful eye of
Speaker 1: someone who's going to make sure they don't overdose, or
Speaker 1: if they do overdose, it's gonna make sure they get
Speaker 1: medical treatment. Right when you go in there and you
Speaker 1: see it, it's not this scary thing. Part of what's
Speaker 1: difficult in the United States. They've never seen it, so
Speaker 1: they imagine there aren't evil doctors who are coming up
Speaker 1: to inject you when you can't even inject yourself. You know,
Speaker 1: what you actually see when you go and looks kind
Speaker 1: of like a hair salon. You have a whole bunch
Speaker 1: of stainless steel booths that are kept clean where people
Speaker 1: come in on a schedule. They bring the drugs that
Speaker 1: they would otherwise use on the street behind a dumpster,
Speaker 1: you know, in some flaphouse by themselves. They bring it
Speaker 1: into the space and they go and they use their
Speaker 1: drugs themselves while somebody keeps an eye on them. And
Speaker 1: if they start to nod off, they start to fall asleep,
Speaker 1: they start to have restricted breathing. The first thing that
Speaker 1: the person who was there, who has trained the insight
Speaker 1: employee will do is they'll go and they'll rub their
Speaker 1: shoulders or shake their shoulders try to wake them up.
Speaker 1: If that doesn't work, they're gonna rub their stardom to
Speaker 1: try to wake them up. If that doesn't work, they're
Speaker 1: gonna bring oxygen, you know, like football players use on
Speaker 1: the sidelines in America. They're gonna bring them oxygen over
Speaker 1: and if that is not working, and there's still a
Speaker 1: problem because for example, with these you know, street dealers
Speaker 1: putting together wild mixes of who knows what and who
Speaker 1: knows what proportions they have ingested far too much for
Speaker 1: their system. Then there will be no lockso nar can
Speaker 1: There will be you know, a chemical inhalent or injection
Speaker 1: which can bring them right back by blocking the opioid receptors,
Speaker 1: or you're gonna have an ambulance calm and take them
Speaker 1: to the emergency room. In many ways, this is nothing
Speaker 1: more than a lobby for the emergency room. But it
Speaker 1: just makes sure that where it's not necessary to be
Speaker 1: in the emergency room, we take care of it out here.
Speaker 1: You know, people don't die in these places. Simply put.
Speaker 1: It's like people die in the street the time, but
Speaker 1: they don't die in supervised injection sites, or as I
Speaker 1: call them, harm reduction centers. Some of these centers you
Speaker 1: can actually walk upstairs and there is detoxification when you're
Speaker 1: ready for it and when you want it. You know,
Speaker 1: this is not just a way of saving lives, it's
Speaker 1: also a way of reducing harm to the outside community
Speaker 1: by providing services like toilets and by making sure that
Speaker 1: you know, certain diseases are not spreading unnecessarily. But it's
Speaker 1: also a really good way to get people into treatment.
Speaker 1: It is a positive all around. And that's why if
Speaker 1: you talk to cops in Vancouver, the older ones, the
Speaker 1: ones who were there when there were so many fatalities
Speaker 1: in the street and they had to move so many
Speaker 1: fatalities themselves, will tell you they but some of the
Speaker 1: younger police officers who never saw how horrible it was,
Speaker 1: some of them don't get it. Yeah, I mean for
Speaker 1: our listeners, you know, when Larry's talking about nobody's dying
Speaker 1: in one of these over those prevention centers. And also
Speaker 1: the fact that they reduce public nuisance and they've used
Speaker 1: them that as you know, syringes being left around the neighborhood.
Speaker 1: It's all grounded in dozens of scientific studies, peer reviewed,
Speaker 1: published and taught journals. Larry, I'll tell you when I
Speaker 1: was traveling around Europe at some points in visiting a
Speaker 1: whole bunch of these safe injection sites. I went to
Speaker 1: the one in Zurich and one of the sites was
Speaker 1: actually on the second floor of a building where the
Speaker 1: first store was a police station. And I asked a
Speaker 1: few of the harm induction folks I was with, I mean,
Speaker 1: what do you think about that? And they said, it's great.
Speaker 1: The police are supportive of us. You know, it was
Speaker 1: it was a different sort of context, you know, Larry Uh.
Speaker 1: I mean, obviously, you just won this big victory and
Speaker 1: the Democratic primary two to one. It's almost certain you'll
Speaker 1: become re elected for d A. Obviously running for mayor.
Speaker 1: I mean, you can't say I'm gonna run from Alior
Speaker 1: now because You've still gonna win your re election here.
Speaker 1: But it is pretty clear that to be in that
Speaker 1: position would allow you the opportunity to hire the police chief.
Speaker 1: I mean, you would not control the d AH, you
Speaker 1: would not control the judges, but it does have the
Speaker 1: capacity to address at an even bigger level the issues
Speaker 1: and the reasons why you became a d A. Yes, well, look,
Speaker 1: I'm a car mechanic. I'm not the only good car
Speaker 1: mechanic out There. Are so very dedicated and and actually
Speaker 1: very progressive people in city government now, and you know
Speaker 1: a few of them would like to be mayor. And
Speaker 1: then there's some people with a much more traditional centrist
Speaker 1: or conservative viewpoint and want to be mayor. What I
Speaker 1: really need is a friend to the causes we are
Speaker 1: pursuing as mayor. What I really need is a legislature
Speaker 1: where we have friends who are trying to do the
Speaker 1: right thing instead of trying to fill up their state
Speaker 1: prisons for their own economic benefit and their own political benefit.
Speaker 1: That's what we really need. This is far too much
Speaker 1: for any one of us to do. A lot of
Speaker 1: good car mechanics out there. I'm looking for my NASCAR team.
Speaker 1: We need a whole bunch of good car mechanics. And
Speaker 1: when we get that going, we're gonna win the race. Okay, well,
Speaker 1: last question. That was very politic answer. But here's my
Speaker 1: last question for you. And I know this is funny
Speaker 1: moment in Philly, DA where you're you're being interviewed together
Speaker 1: with your wife and there's a question to you about
Speaker 1: what something was like, and you got us giving this
Speaker 1: technical answer you and you describe yourself a technician, and
Speaker 1: your wife goes, hey, Larry, they're talking about emotion here right, Well,
Speaker 1: here's the question. I mean, here you are on the
Speaker 1: other side, public defender, civil wise layer for thirty years,
Speaker 1: and now you're the chief prosecutor, and you've got to
Speaker 1: put people behind bars, and not just people committing murders,
Speaker 1: but you know, you've got to represent the interests of
Speaker 1: law enforcement. Maybe there's even people your office is prosecuting
Speaker 1: who you used to represent personally, And I want to know.
Speaker 1: I mean, I related. It's a psychoanalysis sort of question.
Speaker 1: But when you sit back and you think, how has
Speaker 1: Larry Krasner changed over the last four years? I mean,
Speaker 1: your passion, your progressive sentiments are obvious their parents, You're
Speaker 1: never giving that up. But are there subtle ways you
Speaker 1: think in which you've evolved as a human being, or
Speaker 1: in your viewpoints, or what tugs at your heart as
Speaker 1: a result of these past four years in the in
Speaker 1: the d A C. You know, I think there are
Speaker 1: I think that I came to the office as an
Speaker 1: experienced advocate, but I was the outsider advocate. I was
Speaker 1: against I was against a bad system. I was against
Speaker 1: a bad decision. I was against a bad policy. And
Speaker 1: you can speak in what you know, as you refer
Speaker 1: to as a prophetic voice. When you're doing that, you
Speaker 1: can be very absolutist. When you actually have to make
Speaker 1: decisions and the clock is ticking and you know that
Speaker 1: four people could die today from overdoses, that's tricky. Now
Speaker 1: you have to be strategic. Now you have to push
Speaker 1: it out too far. Maybe the you know, the sweeping
Speaker 1: comment you wanted to make is when you cannot make,
Speaker 1: that gets difficult. I also came with really no experience
Speaker 1: in politics other than helping some people win. When you're
Speaker 1: in politics, I mean, sometimes you discover how wonderful people are.
Speaker 1: Sometimes you find out how petty they are, how actually
Speaker 1: you have to be transactional in a way that's not
Speaker 1: your nature because you haven't lived as a transactional person
Speaker 1: for many, many years. You know, that's something I have
Speaker 1: had to learn. It's something I am learning and trying
Speaker 1: to tell the difference between the ones who are transactional
Speaker 1: and need to be addressed in a certain way and
Speaker 1: the elected leaders who actually are more transformational. They're trying
Speaker 1: to do things and you have common ground with them.
Speaker 1: That gets But you know, it's like anything else. I
Speaker 1: suppose in a perfect world you could have been in
Speaker 1: a position to do this thirty years ago, but the
Speaker 1: country wasn't ready, and frankly, I wouldn't have known what
Speaker 1: to do. It's the thirty years of actually doing this
Speaker 1: thing that made it possible for me to try to
Speaker 1: change this thing. You know you mentioned may or a
Speaker 1: minute ago. Well, okay, we can take someone who actually
Speaker 1: knows what the hell of criminal justice system is about,
Speaker 1: and is it a position to play with it? Or
Speaker 1: we can take that person and make him a generalist
Speaker 1: who is dealing with all sorts of things he knows
Speaker 1: very little about, because that is actually what mayors do,
Speaker 1: and it's what U. S. Senators do, and it's what
Speaker 1: presidents do. They have to walk into waters where they
Speaker 1: really know nothing and they have to rely on other people.
Speaker 1: You know, to me, not a surprise that most people
Speaker 1: dislike politicians because they think that they're not so concerned
Speaker 1: about the issue. They're more concerned about their own advancement.
Speaker 1: They're happy to say two things at the same time, etcetera.
Speaker 1: I feel pretty comfortable being in a position where I
Speaker 1: know something about the topic from thirty years of being
Speaker 1: at it. I have a short runway when I can
Speaker 1: try to fix it, and hopefully I can gather some
Speaker 1: friends for this cause and then I can get out
Speaker 1: of the way and they can continue to make progress. It's,
Speaker 1: you know, I don't really have enough years ahead of
Speaker 1: me to try to change in all sorts of profound ways,
Speaker 1: but I'll try to change fast enough to get something done. Well, Larry,
Speaker 1: you know, I see progressive prosecutors around the country facing
Speaker 1: re election challenges and all that, and your two to
Speaker 1: one victory in the primary not long ago was just inspiring.
Speaker 1: It seems like a vote of confidence from people in Philadelphia.
Speaker 1: Uh so, I hope that bodes well. And quite frankly,
Speaker 1: what you're doing. I mean, you really are one of
Speaker 1: my heroes out there, so I so much appreciate it.
Speaker 1: I wish you all the best of luck and four
Speaker 1: more years of really changing the city as best you
Speaker 1: can and providing some forms of leadership for the rest
Speaker 1: of the country. Thanks so much for being on Psychoactive
Speaker 1: with me. You are too kind. Ethan. You're my hero too.
Speaker 1: Actually you're my hero first, but okay, well listen, thanks
Speaker 1: a lot, really appreciate it. Psychoactive is a production of
Speaker 1: I Heart Radio and Protozoa Pictures. It's hosted by me
Speaker 1: Ethan Naedelman. It's produced by Katcha Kumkova and Ben Cabrick.
Speaker 1: The executive producers are Dylan Golden, Ari Handel, Elizabeth Geesus
Speaker 1: and Darren Aronovski for Protozoa Pictures, Alice Williams and Matt
Speaker 1: Frederick for iHeart Radio, and me Ethan Nadelman Our music
Speaker 1: is by Ari Belusian and a special thanks to a
Speaker 1: Vivit Brio, Sef Bianca Grimshaw and Robert Beatty. If you'd
Speaker 1: like to share your own stories, comments or ideas, please
Speaker 1: leave us a message at eight three three seven seven
Speaker 1: nine sixty. That's one eight three three Psycho zero. You
Speaker 1: can also email us as psychoactive at protozoa dot com
Speaker 1: or find me on Twitter at Ethan Nadelman. And if
Speaker 1: you couldn't keep track of all this, find the information
Speaker 1: in the show notes. Tune in next time for my
Speaker 1: conversation with Patrick rad and Kief, whose recent book Empire
Speaker 1: Sane exposes how the opioid crisis really got going. So, Patrick,
Speaker 1: I mean OxyContin hits the market roughly seven or so.
Speaker 1: What was so special about it? So, OxyContin was a
Speaker 1: powerful opioid pain killer. It's released in ninety six. It
Speaker 1: was pure oxycodone, which is a very strong opioid, but
Speaker 1: with a special coating which allowed it to disperse into
Speaker 1: your blood stream slowly over the course of a number
Speaker 1: of hours. And so what this meant is that you
Speaker 1: can have quite big doses and you start to see
Speaker 1: problems almost right away. People are abusing OxyContin by crushing
Speaker 1: the pills, and you can thereby kind of override that
Speaker 1: slow release mechanism and get the full dose all at once.
Speaker 1: But people are also in a doctor's care just finding
Speaker 1: that they're becoming addicted to the drugs. Subscribe to Cycleactive
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