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

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Speaker 1: of iHeart Radio and Protozoa Pictures. Psychoactive is the show

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Speaker 1: any type of drug. Hello, Psychoactive listeners. Today, I decided

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Speaker 1: to invite somebody out who I have known for close

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Speaker 1: to thirty years, Keith Strap. Now, Keith has been associated

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Speaker 1: with the Marijuana Reform Organization nor NORMAL for a very

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Speaker 1: very long time. He founded the organization back in nineteen

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Speaker 1: seventy and ran it for most of the nineteen seventies,

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Speaker 1: and that's what we're primarily going to be talking about here,

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Speaker 1: and then he came back in the nineties as first

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Speaker 1: the president and chair and his continue to play a

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Speaker 1: role with Normal, you know, even right up to today.

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Speaker 1: But I wanted to take this opportunity really to in

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Speaker 1: a way go down memory lane but also to recall

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Speaker 1: a period the nineteen seventies when there was a lot

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Speaker 1: of dynamism and breaking of a lot of shiblists around marijuana.

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Speaker 1: So Keith, you were central to that, and I just

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Speaker 1: want to welcome you and thank you for joining me

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Speaker 1: on Psychoactive. All leads a pleasure, Ethan, Nice to see you, okay.

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Speaker 1: So Keith, you know, for a lot of people who

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Speaker 1: are aware around marijuana reform, the movement around medical marijuana,

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Speaker 1: marijuana legalization in the US, you know, we tend to

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Speaker 1: date that history back to really i'd say nine six,

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Speaker 1: the first successful medical marijuana initiative of in California, and

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Speaker 1: I often described that as the moment at which the

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Speaker 1: nascent drug policy reform movement first showed it could play

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Speaker 1: ball in the major leagues of American politics. But there

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Speaker 1: was a period in the nineteen seventies when there was

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Speaker 1: enormous dynamism and if wanted asked anybody about who's the

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Speaker 1: person you most associated with marijuana, even with marijuana reform um,

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Speaker 1: it would have been Keith Strap. And it's that what

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Speaker 1: I really what I really want to talk with you

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Speaker 1: about Keith today. So just to start off, why was

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Speaker 1: it that you started normal in nineteen seventy. Well, let

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Speaker 1: me say this that, although I recognize that I'm i

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Speaker 1: think fifteen years older than you, my perspective on your

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Speaker 1: introduction I would amen slightly. That is that I considered

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Speaker 1: nineties six the beginning of the second phase of legalization,

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Speaker 1: and then two thousand and twelve, when we picked up

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Speaker 1: Washington in Colorado for full legalization, as the third phase.

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Speaker 1: But the first phase, and it's a phase that most

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Speaker 1: people I think have generally either forgotten about or never

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Speaker 1: paid much attention to. Actually was the period when the

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Speaker 1: Marijuana Commission came out in the early seventies. And to

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Speaker 1: understand the environment of that time, you have to go

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Speaker 1: back and realize we were in the sixties and the

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Speaker 1: early seventies. It was the height of the Vietnam War.

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Speaker 1: Males who were eighteen or over. If you were not

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Speaker 1: a full time student, you were drafted. And so that

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Speaker 1: was an enormous incentive, of course, to keep a lot

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Speaker 1: of us in school and going to grad school and

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Speaker 1: going to law school. And I was one of those people.

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Speaker 1: I thought I wanted to go to law school anyway,

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Speaker 1: but after I had a couple of fraternity brothers. As

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Speaker 1: an undergraduate who were drafted and came home in body bags.

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Speaker 1: I began to realize this was a war that I

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Speaker 1: didn't understand. I sure as hell didn't want to die

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Speaker 1: for some war that seemed to make no sense. In

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Speaker 1: the late sixties and early seventies, the anti war demonstrations.

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Speaker 1: There were hundreds of thousands of people at some of

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Speaker 1: those demonstrations, and interestingly, when you went to those demonstrations,

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Speaker 1: they were of course focused on stopping the war in Vietnam,

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Speaker 1: but as a symbol to suggest that we were sort

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Speaker 1: of thumbing our nose at the establishment. There was open

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Speaker 1: marijuana smoking throughout those and for the older Americans who

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Speaker 1: didn't smoke, they understood it was a symbolic gesture. So

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Speaker 1: you just took a hit if you're a smoker, and

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Speaker 1: passed it onto the person sitting to your right. And

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Speaker 1: marijuana was a major part of every anti war demonstration

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Speaker 1: during the late sixties and in early seventies. In fact,

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Speaker 1: if you remember when the draft war movement, or the

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Speaker 1: draft resistance movement, I should say, began to get very active,

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Speaker 1: the scene you saw on the evening news was frequently

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Speaker 1: of a draft age individual standing in the park and

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Speaker 1: he would be burning his draft card as a protest,

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Speaker 1: and he would almost always be smoking a joint. And

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Speaker 1: so for those of us who were against the war

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Speaker 1: and were anti war resistors or draft dodgers, and they

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Speaker 1: liked to call us at the time, that seemed reinforcing

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Speaker 1: to us, although later I've realized that for a lot

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Speaker 1: of other Americans who supported the war, uh, they begin

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Speaker 1: to identify marijuana as being somehow unpatriotic, that if you

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Speaker 1: smoke marijuana, you didn't love your country, you were sort

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Speaker 1: of a traitor and a draft resistor, et cetera. And

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Speaker 1: I think that held us back during the eighties and

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Speaker 1: early nineties. But back to your original question, my involvement

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Speaker 1: was because I was trying to stay out of the

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Speaker 1: war in Vietnam. Um I was looking for an excuse

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Speaker 1: that would qualify me for some sort of deferment. There

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Speaker 1: weren't many, but there were a few categories, and I

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Speaker 1: ended up going to the National Lawyer's Guild, who had

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Speaker 1: a team of lawyers set up that would voluntarily advise

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Speaker 1: draft resistors of what options that might be available to them.

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Speaker 1: In my case in particular, they first offered me that

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Speaker 1: they could put me in touch with some psychiatrists in

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Speaker 1: Baltimore who would say that I was gay, And back

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Speaker 1: then it wasn't don't ask, don't tell if you were gay,

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Speaker 1: they didn't want you in the military, So that seemed

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Speaker 1: like a fairly easy out for me. At the time. However,

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Speaker 1: I was married, I had a young daughter, and my

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Speaker 1: wife was not about to put up with my going

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Speaker 1: public saying I can't be drafted because I'm gay, so

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Speaker 1: I passed on the option of using the psychiatrist. Secondly,

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Speaker 1: they offered to put me in touch with some solid

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Speaker 1: folks in Canada who would welcome me and help me

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Speaker 1: get resettled if I chose to leave the country. There's

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Speaker 1: a long history of Americans retreating to Canada when they

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Speaker 1: were trying to stay out of the military in this

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Speaker 1: country at different times, and Canada was usually quite receptive

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Speaker 1: to that. There were whole communities of American expatriots at

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Speaker 1: the time. The problem was you were never certain you

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Speaker 1: would ever be allowed back in the country. And as

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Speaker 1: someone who at the time was you know, in my

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Speaker 1: early mid twenties, the idea of never being allowed back

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Speaker 1: in my country seemed awfully extreme. But what finally happened

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Speaker 1: is I had been offered a job as I got

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Speaker 1: near the completion of Georgetown Law School, where I attended

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Speaker 1: from sixty five to sixty eight, and right near the end,

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Speaker 1: I had been offered a job by a new presidential

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Speaker 1: commission called to National Commission on Product Safety. It sounded

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Speaker 1: very important. It wasn't nearly as important as it sounded.

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Speaker 1: But by that point, my draft board, and you never

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Speaker 1: changed your draft board. My draft board was back in

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Speaker 1: rural southern Illinois, and there was a good bit of

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Speaker 1: resentment on my draft board because rich kids from the

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Speaker 1: city and from other parts of the country, We're finding

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Speaker 1: lots of ways to stay out of the draft, but

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Speaker 1: a lot of country folks didn't have those options, and

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Speaker 1: so they were being drafted, and it was largely those

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Speaker 1: people who were coming back in body bags. So they

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Speaker 1: actually had told my father at some point that if

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Speaker 1: I could come up with a reasonable excuse, that they

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Speaker 1: would be happy to give me a deferment. So, with

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Speaker 1: the help of the National Lawyers guilt lawyers, we applied

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Speaker 1: for what was called the critical skills deferment, which suggested

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Speaker 1: that the work you were doing on the home front

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Speaker 1: was so important that we shouldn't interrupt that. So I

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Speaker 1: ended up spending the two years I would have been

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Speaker 1: in the military between sixty eight and seventy working at

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Speaker 1: six and K right down in the heart of Washington,

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Speaker 1: d C. For this Presidential Commission. And it was a

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Speaker 1: commission that was created because of the work of consumer

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Speaker 1: advocate Ralph Nader. Nader had come to town. He had

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Speaker 1: published a book called Unsafe at Any Speed, and he

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Speaker 1: had started defined the concept of public interest law, where

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Speaker 1: you use your law degree to impact public policy rather

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Speaker 1: than to represent individual clients. And so for those two years,

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Speaker 1: we go up to Ralph's office two or three times

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Speaker 1: a week and go through his mail to determine which

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Speaker 1: products were dangerous. Because most Americans had never heard of

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Speaker 1: the National Commission on the Product Safety, but they knew

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Speaker 1: of Ralph Nader because of his media coverage, and so

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Speaker 1: we would go through his mail, identify unsafe products, and

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Speaker 1: go back and establish hearings for the Commission so they

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Speaker 1: could recommend to the Congress laws that were needed to

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Speaker 1: protect the public safety. Now that's a long way to

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Speaker 1: go about the fact of explaining that by the time

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Speaker 1: that commission ended, it was a two year Commission. I

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Speaker 1: was then twenty seven years old and too old to

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Speaker 1: be drafted. Back then, you could be drafted up until

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Speaker 1: you were twenty six. So at that point, for the

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Speaker 1: first time in my life, I had the choice of

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Speaker 1: what I wanted to do with the rest of my life,

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Speaker 1: or at least what I wanted to try to do.

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Speaker 1: And I was truly exhilarated by this concept of public

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Speaker 1: interest law. But I wasn't that enamored by products safety.

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Speaker 1: But what I really had learned to be exhilarated about

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Speaker 1: was smoking marijuana. I had first started smoking when I

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Speaker 1: was a freshman at Georgetown Law School in nineteen sixty five,

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Speaker 1: so by this point I had been smoking for five

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Speaker 1: or six years, and I couldn't understand why it was

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Speaker 1: considered a rhyme and why so many people were having

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Speaker 1: their lives wrecked. To me, it was just a milder

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Speaker 1: version and a safer version of using alcohol. And again

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Speaker 1: it was in my culture it was identified with thumbing

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Speaker 1: your nose at the establishment. And so I thought, let's

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Speaker 1: start a lobby to legalize marijuana. I pulled a few

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Speaker 1: friends together and in the October of nineteen seventy we

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Speaker 1: farmed Normal, and because of my work with Ralph Nader,

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Speaker 1: we farmed it as a consumer lobby, and the consumer

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Speaker 1: in this case, of course, it's the marijuana smoker. So

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Speaker 1: NATA really provided sort of the inspiration and model for

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Speaker 1: what you were doing with Normal. Without question, there's no

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Speaker 1: way I would have ever started Normal but for those

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Speaker 1: two years working around Ralph Nader. Now there was somebody

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Speaker 1: else I've heard you talk about, and that was the

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Speaker 1: former Attorney General in the last years of the Lyndon

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Speaker 1: Johnson administration, Ramsey Clark. I just say a bit about

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Speaker 1: him in his Impact. Yes, indeed, Ramsey Clark, for those

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Speaker 1: who don't remember, his father had been Adjustment of the U. S.

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Speaker 1: Supreme Court, and when Lyndon Johnson appointed Ramsey as Attorney General,

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Speaker 1: in fact his father had to step aside from the

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Speaker 1: court and take senior status so there wouldn't be a conflict.

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Speaker 1: Ramsey had written a book in nineteen seventy called Crime

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Speaker 1: in America that I had read at the time I

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Speaker 1: was starting Normal. I was reading every book I could

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Speaker 1: find that had anything to do with marijuana legalization, and

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Speaker 1: I was particularly impressed at this farmer attorney generally, who

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Speaker 1: hadn't been that far removed from office, was now advocating

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Speaker 1: to legalize marijuana. So I thought, here's somebody I really

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Speaker 1: have to go see. And partly I wanted to see

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Speaker 1: him because I needed a little reinforcement myself that I

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Speaker 1: wasn't taking a terribly self destructive step. You know, here

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Speaker 1: I am. I'm a country boy. I finally got through school.

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Speaker 1: I made it through Georgetown Law School, and now I

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Speaker 1: was about to do something which obviously had the potential

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Speaker 1: and it might destroy my career. Are are certainly limit

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Speaker 1: the opportunities I might have available, So I I after

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Speaker 1: several attempts, I managed to convince Mr Clark's secretary that

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Speaker 1: it was good faith effort and I really needed to

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Speaker 1: meet him and talk to him about this, And so

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Speaker 1: he became an early adviser. And the first time I

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Speaker 1: met with him, I said, first off, should I do this?

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Speaker 1: You know, is this crazy or not? And he said, no, no,

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Speaker 1: you absolutely should. It's important, it needs to be done.

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Speaker 1: And he said do it while you're young, because if

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Speaker 1: you make a mistake and fall on your face, you're

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Speaker 1: still young enough you can pick yourself up and and

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Speaker 1: find another second life. But he mainly stressed that it

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Speaker 1: was a high minded effort and that he would do

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Speaker 1: what he could do to help me make it successful. Well,

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Speaker 1: I mean I left Ramsey Clark's office and my feet

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Speaker 1: were barely touching the payment. I was so elated. Now

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Speaker 1: in reality, because of the civil rights work he was

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Speaker 1: doing at the time, for the first couple of years

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Speaker 1: he felt he couldn't officially join our advisory board. He

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Speaker 1: did after a couple of years, and for about ten

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Speaker 1: years he was an active member of the board. And

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Speaker 1: he certainly was a key player in Normal. He was

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Speaker 1: the one, for example, who uh introduced me to Hugh

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Speaker 1: Hefner in and had a lot to do with the

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Speaker 1: fact that Hugh Hefner and Playboy Foundation became our largest funder.

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Speaker 1: But again Ramsey, like Ralph Nader, neither of them were

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Speaker 1: marijuana smokers. But both of them had an enormous impact

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Speaker 1: on my decision to found Normal. And in nineteen seventies

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Speaker 1: Oldo the year you get the Controlled Substances Act. You know,

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Speaker 1: when Congress passes the new federal law to basically regulate

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Speaker 1: all drugs, and embedded within that Control Substance Act is

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Speaker 1: the authorization to create a National Commission on marijuana and

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Speaker 1: drug abuse, which is you know, lands up having some

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Speaker 1: significant implications. So what I want to do now is

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Speaker 1: just jump to nineteen seventy two, right, because seventy two

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Speaker 1: really seems to be a pivotal year and some of

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Speaker 1: this stuff literally is almost exactly fifty years ago. Keith,

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Speaker 1: you know, uh, you know when you go back to

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Speaker 1: the origins of this thing, and there's a moment I

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Speaker 1: think you say on July tenth, seventy two, and I'm

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Speaker 1: not sure it's when you meet these three guys, but

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Speaker 1: three names pop up, and I want you to talk

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Speaker 1: about each of them. One is Hunter Thompson, one is

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Speaker 1: Abby Hoffman, and the last is Tom Fourcade. So you

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Speaker 1: want to switch one? Do you want to start with? Where?

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Speaker 1: Have I met them? All at the same place? So

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Speaker 1: it doesn't matter. It was at seventy two Democratic Convention

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Speaker 1: in Miami. And for a little history here for the

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Speaker 1: younger listeners they probably have no perspective on this, but

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Speaker 1: the prior Democratic convention had been a riot in Chicago.

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Speaker 1: I don't mean a riot in a good way. I

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Speaker 1: mean it was a riot, and there was a police riot,

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Speaker 1: and there were hundreds and hundreds of people who were

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Speaker 1: beaten up by the police and sent to the hospital

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Speaker 1: and the rested and sent to jail. So by the

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Speaker 1: time we get to seventy two, the next convention UM,

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Speaker 1: a lot of us who had just come of age,

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Speaker 1: realized we needed to be there. We weren't sure why exactly,

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Speaker 1: other than we thought that something positive might happen there.

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Speaker 1: There would be an opportunity. From the normal standpoint, I

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Speaker 1: thought it would be an opportunity for me to introduce

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Speaker 1: the concept of a marijuana smoker's lobby. Two thousands of

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Speaker 1: activists who are going to be there to pursue their

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Speaker 1: own cause. So I hopped in my Volkswagen bus and

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Speaker 1: along with Margaret Standish, who was ahead of the Playboy Foundation.

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Speaker 1: By then we were beginning to get some money from Boy,

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Speaker 1: we drove down to Miami and we had five or

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Speaker 1: six of us staying in one hotel room because we

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Speaker 1: didn't have the funding to stay in private rooms. And

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Speaker 1: we got up in the first day and we went

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Speaker 1: to the Durrell Hotel that was the headquarters of George McGovern.

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Speaker 1: Now again I realized George McGovern is a name away

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Speaker 1: from the past, but at the time he was a

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Speaker 1: very Progressive senator from South Kota, I think, and he

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Speaker 1: was someone we all admired because he was so strongly

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Speaker 1: an outfront anti war. Now he ended up getting the

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Speaker 1: nomination and only winning one state in the election. I

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Speaker 1: think it was maybe he want to, but it wasn't

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Speaker 1: such a smart move, apparently for the Democratic candidates at

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Speaker 1: the time. But at any event, here we weren't at

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Speaker 1: Durrell Hotel and I have four or five of my

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Speaker 1: colleagues and we have some normal literature, and we're standing

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Speaker 1: in the lobby literally and all the sudden, I'm smelling

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Speaker 1: marijuana smoke. I'm thinking, where the hell is that coming from?

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Speaker 1: And then somebody taps me on the shoulder and offers

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Speaker 1: me a joint. And it was Abby Hoffman. Now I

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Speaker 1: didn't know Abbey at the time, but I certainly knew

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Speaker 1: who he was. And with him was Jerry Ruben and

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Speaker 1: a couple of their friends and colleagues, and they were

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Speaker 1: just smoking a joint because they felt like smoking a

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Speaker 1: joint and they saw normal and I guess they realized

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Speaker 1: when we were a marijuana smoking group. So they just

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Speaker 1: handed me the joint, and of course, like a youthful

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Speaker 1: person with no fears, I took the joint and smoked

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Speaker 1: it and passed it on, etcetera. So my first meeting

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Speaker 1: with Jerry Ruben and Abby Hoffman was literally smoking a

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Speaker 1: joint and the openly in the lobby of the Daraal Hotel. Now,

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Speaker 1: that first night of the convention. Back then, they had

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Speaker 1: a certain section of the convention hall they would leave

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Speaker 1: open for the public, and if you were willing to

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Speaker 1: put up with the crowds and stand in line, you

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Speaker 1: could go sit in the bleachers and see what was

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Speaker 1: going on. It was long before social media, but they

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Speaker 1: were televised, of course, but all you saw when it

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Speaker 1: was televised was what was happening on the stage. So

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Speaker 1: I'm sitting in the bleachers that night, listening to the

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Speaker 1: early openings of the convention, and again, I'm smelling marijuana.

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Speaker 1: Now again. And in those years it was not uncommon

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Speaker 1: that you would smell marijuana at certain when you had

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Speaker 1: a certain gatherings going on. But it was always a

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Speaker 1: little risky because lots of people were still going to

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Speaker 1: jail for long periods of time for nothing more than

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Speaker 1: announcer less of marijuana, and certainly public smoking would land

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Speaker 1: you in jail. Almost for sure. So I looked down

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Speaker 1: underneath the bleachers, and uh, I saw this gangly, tall,

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Speaker 1: kind of geeky looking guy smoking a joint, looked like

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Speaker 1: he was talking to himself. And that's doctor Hunter S. Thompson.

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Speaker 1: And the only reason I knew again, I'm just a

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Speaker 1: farm boy from southern Ilinois. I had never met Hunter Thompson,

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Speaker 1: but he had just come out with a serialized version

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Speaker 1: of his Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, which was

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Speaker 1: his first big successful book, and Rolling Stone had serialized it,

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Speaker 1: and they had photos of Hunter, and so I recognized him,

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Speaker 1: and I worked my way under the bleachers and walked

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Speaker 1: up to him and stuck out my hand and introduced

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Speaker 1: myself and said, I'm running a new marijuana legalization lobby.

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Speaker 1: And he was kind of startled because he thought he

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Speaker 1: was down there by himself. And once he realized that

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Speaker 1: I wasn't there to cause any trouble, of course, he

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Speaker 1: reached out and offered me a hit off the joint,

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Speaker 1: and we began a friendship that lasted until the time

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Speaker 1: of his death. He became a major supporter of Normals.

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Speaker 1: He came to our first two or three national conventions.

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Speaker 1: He was a brilliant man, so that I met Hunter there. Now,

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Speaker 1: the third guy of Tom for Side you mentioned. Tom

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Speaker 1: fer Side was a marijuana smuggler who literally used to

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Speaker 1: fly his own jet plane in and out from Mexico

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Speaker 1: or South American Central America and smuggling large amounts of

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Speaker 1: marijuana into the US. And he had been busted at

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Speaker 1: a time or two, but he had always managed to

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Speaker 1: mainly stay out of jail um And at some point

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Speaker 1: he started the underground Press Service, which was an interesting idea.

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Speaker 1: It was like a p or U p I, but

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Speaker 1: it was a connection for all of the community newspapers,

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Speaker 1: the weekly newspapers, the anti established newspapers around the country,

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Speaker 1: and almost every major city had at least one of those. Well,

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Speaker 1: what the authorities had done in Miami is based on

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Speaker 1: the bad experience four years earlier in Chicago when they

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Speaker 1: had literally riots and police resting and beating up people.

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Speaker 1: They didn't want that scene repeated in Miami, so they

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Speaker 1: set aside an area that was called a People's Park,

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Speaker 1: and it was literally a park, and it was about

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Speaker 1: two blocks from the convention, but it gave them a course,

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Speaker 1: a way to keep all of the troublemakers or there

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Speaker 1: would be trouble makers a couple of blocks away, and

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Speaker 1: as long as you stayed in what they were calling

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Speaker 1: People's Park, you could start to do what you wanted.

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Speaker 1: And so there are all kinds of people doing drugs

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Speaker 1: and getting high and having a good time in People's Part.

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Speaker 1: And so at one time I walked over there and

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Speaker 1: I was asking somebody, I wonder where we can score

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Speaker 1: some weed, because I'm sure there was a lot of there,

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Speaker 1: a lot of people selling it there. And somebody said,

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Speaker 1: go over to the people's pot tree, and they pointed

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Speaker 1: me in the direction. And there was this one tree

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Speaker 1: where for Sad was up in the tree, maybe ten

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Speaker 1: or twelve feet higher than you would be on the ground,

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Speaker 1: and he had a string and a clip and he

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Speaker 1: would lower it and you would give him whatever the

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Speaker 1: money was. Let's say it was a hundred dollars an

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Speaker 1: ounce or something at the time. Back then that was

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Speaker 1: a lot of money today that wouldn't get you an

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Speaker 1: eighth probably, But he would lower his his rope and

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Speaker 1: you would put your cash on the clip, he'd take

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Speaker 1: it up, and then he would lower the marijuana from

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Speaker 1: the pottery. And so I scored marijuana the first, I

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Speaker 1: think today maybe the second day I was in Miami

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Speaker 1: from Frasad and got to know him as well. As

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Speaker 1: a week went on, and a few years later, in

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Speaker 1: seventy four for Sidewood found High Times Magazine, and the

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Speaker 1: fact that we had met in that earlier occasion, of

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Speaker 1: course was very uh fortuitous for Normal because again as

396
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Speaker 1: we got our major funding during the seventies from Playboy magazine,

397
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Speaker 1: beginning in seventy four, we began to get some your

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Speaker 1: editorial support and funding from High Times magazine as well,

399
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Speaker 1: and in fact from High Times. Normal will continue to

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Speaker 1: get funding up until about I don't know, six or

401
00:24:11,119 --> 00:24:13,879
Speaker 1: eight years ago, when they sold their magazine to some

402
00:24:14,320 --> 00:24:17,199
Speaker 1: corporate interests and they have no interest in politics, so

403
00:24:17,560 --> 00:24:20,119
Speaker 1: we haven't now for the last decade, gotten any funding

404
00:24:20,200 --> 00:24:38,639
Speaker 1: from them. We'll be talking more after we hear this ad, no,

405
00:24:38,720 --> 00:24:40,960
Speaker 1: I mean High Times right after a little while. I

406
00:24:40,960 --> 00:24:43,280
Speaker 1: think at some point it's selling what a million copies

407
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Speaker 1: of months. I mean, it comes in incredibly successful publication

408
00:24:47,000 --> 00:24:49,720
Speaker 1: with huge reach and probably one of the most effective

409
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Speaker 1: ways of Normal making its identity and yourself known to

410
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Speaker 1: a broader you know, a broader range of millions of

411
00:24:55,800 --> 00:24:59,960
Speaker 1: marijuana consumers around the US well, and it gave us credibility.

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Speaker 1: He too, because High Times very quickly caught on as

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Speaker 1: among marijuana smokers as the only publication that was really

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Speaker 1: entirely focused on the joys of getting high. Everything that

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Speaker 1: you wouldn't dare read in any other publication, High Times

416
00:25:19,040 --> 00:25:22,120
Speaker 1: was proud to run. And so not only did they

417
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Speaker 1: give us money, but they gave us free ads in

418
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Speaker 1: the magazine every month, and any time we would get

419
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Speaker 1: some poor guy out of jail who had been locked

420
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Speaker 1: up on a marijuana offense, they would publicize it. And

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Speaker 1: so over the decades, there's no doubt that the High

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Speaker 1: Times sort of EMBRACEI normal was very important. Now, unfortunately,

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Speaker 1: I think it was seventies seven that for Sad killed

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Speaker 1: himself and God only knows for what reason he decided

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00:25:52,480 --> 00:25:56,560
Speaker 1: to to shoot himself, and he did so. Unfortunately for

426
00:25:56,680 --> 00:25:59,840
Speaker 1: Sad left us as well. So for I think there

427
00:25:59,880 --> 00:26:01,560
Speaker 1: was some line where he said, when you're when it

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00:26:01,560 --> 00:26:04,560
Speaker 1: comes to marijuana dealers, there's only two types, those who

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00:26:04,600 --> 00:26:08,040
Speaker 1: need forklifts and those who don't, and it was very

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00:26:08,080 --> 00:26:10,600
Speaker 1: clear that he was in the first category. And I

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00:26:10,680 --> 00:26:14,480
Speaker 1: think he also encouraged you right to raise money, not

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Speaker 1: just from High Times, which was a legitimate outfit, or

433
00:26:18,040 --> 00:26:21,439
Speaker 1: from the you Heffner's Playboy Foundation, which was funding civil

434
00:26:21,440 --> 00:26:24,240
Speaker 1: liberties and civil rights and including marijuana reform. But I

435
00:26:24,240 --> 00:26:26,600
Speaker 1: think he pushed you also to raise money from other

436
00:26:26,720 --> 00:26:30,159
Speaker 1: marijuana dealers. And I want to say, what was that like,

437
00:26:30,240 --> 00:26:33,359
Speaker 1: I mean, raising money from guys who were clearly you

438
00:26:33,359 --> 00:26:36,439
Speaker 1: know where the money was illegal. Did you worry about it?

439
00:26:36,440 --> 00:26:39,160
Speaker 1: Did you get a lot? We didn't get a lot,

440
00:26:39,320 --> 00:26:42,040
Speaker 1: but we did get a little. And when we got it,

441
00:26:42,119 --> 00:26:45,040
Speaker 1: I was always nervous because you know, you knew you

442
00:26:45,080 --> 00:26:48,160
Speaker 1: were subject to some money laundering charge if it were

443
00:26:48,200 --> 00:26:51,360
Speaker 1: found out. You knew that the same dealer who thought

444
00:26:51,440 --> 00:26:53,760
Speaker 1: he was doing a good thing by giving you money,

445
00:26:54,000 --> 00:26:57,040
Speaker 1: if he got busted next month, uh, he might well

446
00:26:57,160 --> 00:26:59,200
Speaker 1: cut a deal with the government where he stayed out

447
00:26:59,200 --> 00:27:03,120
Speaker 1: of jail by implicating normal. So, yes, it did make

448
00:27:03,160 --> 00:27:06,320
Speaker 1: me nervous. But I should tell you the one incident

449
00:27:06,359 --> 00:27:11,000
Speaker 1: that was most typical of dealing with for side. We

450
00:27:11,080 --> 00:27:14,840
Speaker 1: had a relationship for those few years in which if

451
00:27:14,880 --> 00:27:18,440
Speaker 1: I really felt short of money, which I frequently did,

452
00:27:18,480 --> 00:27:20,639
Speaker 1: where I was trying to meet payroll or trying to

453
00:27:21,040 --> 00:27:23,840
Speaker 1: pay for a press conference or get some travel money

454
00:27:23,880 --> 00:27:26,399
Speaker 1: to go out and visit someone in prison. I would

455
00:27:26,440 --> 00:27:31,320
Speaker 1: oftentimes call for side and say, Tom, can you help me.

456
00:27:31,680 --> 00:27:35,280
Speaker 1: I could use five grand or ten grand, occasionally maybe

457
00:27:35,280 --> 00:27:38,800
Speaker 1: twenty grand. And so one of those times came up

458
00:27:38,840 --> 00:27:40,680
Speaker 1: and I called him and he said, I'm going to

459
00:27:40,880 --> 00:27:44,600
Speaker 1: leave a bag out front of your office on Sunday

460
00:27:44,640 --> 00:27:49,400
Speaker 1: morning and whatever time, and I'll ring the doorbell or whatever,

461
00:27:49,520 --> 00:27:52,320
Speaker 1: and uh, you know, come down and pick it up. Well,

462
00:27:52,440 --> 00:27:57,240
Speaker 1: I that happened, and I went downstairs, and sure enough

463
00:27:57,280 --> 00:28:00,879
Speaker 1: there was this ominous looking black bag sitting in front

464
00:28:00,920 --> 00:28:04,080
Speaker 1: of the normal office, and I grabbed it and closed

465
00:28:04,080 --> 00:28:06,320
Speaker 1: the door and went inside, and sure enough I opened

466
00:28:06,320 --> 00:28:07,919
Speaker 1: it up, and I don't know. I think it was

467
00:28:07,960 --> 00:28:10,240
Speaker 1: five grand. It might have been ten grand, but either way,

468
00:28:10,280 --> 00:28:12,880
Speaker 1: it was money that I needed and was happy to have.

469
00:28:13,359 --> 00:28:16,679
Speaker 1: But there was a note with it, and the terms

470
00:28:16,720 --> 00:28:20,560
Speaker 1: of Tom's gift in this case was I had to

471
00:28:21,000 --> 00:28:24,640
Speaker 1: release this note to the press and others. I had

472
00:28:24,680 --> 00:28:28,760
Speaker 1: to be part street theater, and so I went ahead

473
00:28:28,760 --> 00:28:30,080
Speaker 1: and went through it. Now, by the way, if you

474
00:28:30,160 --> 00:28:33,200
Speaker 1: tried to do that kind of thing in the modern day,

475
00:28:33,600 --> 00:28:38,200
Speaker 1: you would be investigated immediately and indict in lots of way.

476
00:28:38,320 --> 00:28:41,560
Speaker 1: But I called the Washington Post and I think the

477
00:28:41,720 --> 00:28:44,680
Speaker 1: Star in a few weather places, and they came over

478
00:28:44,720 --> 00:28:46,960
Speaker 1: to the office and I showed them the note, and

479
00:28:47,000 --> 00:28:50,000
Speaker 1: it said something like this is from the dealers of

480
00:28:50,040 --> 00:28:55,000
Speaker 1: the world. We appreciate your work legalized marijuana, you know,

481
00:28:55,160 --> 00:28:58,480
Speaker 1: and let's move forward or something. So it was clear

482
00:28:58,520 --> 00:29:01,120
Speaker 1: from the note itself that I was taking money that

483
00:29:01,280 --> 00:29:04,920
Speaker 1: was illegal money. But at that back in those innocent

484
00:29:05,040 --> 00:29:08,360
Speaker 1: years or innocent times, I guess I should say, of course,

485
00:29:08,400 --> 00:29:10,840
Speaker 1: there was a big story in the Washington Post, in

486
00:29:10,880 --> 00:29:14,160
Speaker 1: the Washington Star and all these other places around the country,

487
00:29:14,840 --> 00:29:18,600
Speaker 1: factor or even pictures of me with that note. Yet

488
00:29:18,920 --> 00:29:21,600
Speaker 1: I was never questioned about the police about it, never

489
00:29:21,640 --> 00:29:24,600
Speaker 1: got any trouble, But it was kind of like the

490
00:29:24,680 --> 00:29:27,600
Speaker 1: wild West back then. I was reading your memoir when

491
00:29:27,640 --> 00:29:29,760
Speaker 1: you were about ten years ago, and numerous times you

492
00:29:29,800 --> 00:29:33,480
Speaker 1: talk about, you know, getting arrested or pulling some pranks

493
00:29:33,560 --> 00:29:36,480
Speaker 1: or somethings like that, and talking about, yeah, those were

494
00:29:36,600 --> 00:29:39,240
Speaker 1: things that probably today we would really get in a

495
00:29:39,320 --> 00:29:41,680
Speaker 1: lot of trouble with or land up behind bars or

496
00:29:41,720 --> 00:29:43,360
Speaker 1: not just what you were doing. But you know what,

497
00:29:43,440 --> 00:29:45,840
Speaker 1: Hunter Thompson was doing other people, you know. On On the

498
00:29:45,880 --> 00:29:49,400
Speaker 1: other hand, you know, you talk about people in Texas

499
00:29:49,480 --> 00:29:53,880
Speaker 1: and other states going to prison for you know, sometimes

500
00:29:54,040 --> 00:29:57,560
Speaker 1: decades for minor offenses. So it was kind of on

501
00:29:57,600 --> 00:30:00,560
Speaker 1: the one hand, that's kind of open marijuana of smoking

502
00:30:00,560 --> 00:30:03,440
Speaker 1: in certain political environments, and on the other hand, it's

503
00:30:03,480 --> 00:30:07,600
Speaker 1: incredibly punitive thing of locking people up for petty convictions.

504
00:30:07,640 --> 00:30:09,800
Speaker 1: I mean, these sort of two extremes that seemed to

505
00:30:09,840 --> 00:30:12,680
Speaker 1: be juxtaposed. As you're getting out there is head of

506
00:30:12,720 --> 00:30:14,840
Speaker 1: normal in the seventies and is that is that right?

507
00:30:15,000 --> 00:30:17,160
Speaker 1: Was it this kind of back and forth an element

508
00:30:17,160 --> 00:30:20,320
Speaker 1: of fear therefore when people were being open and sort

509
00:30:20,360 --> 00:30:23,280
Speaker 1: of horror that people were getting locked up for things

510
00:30:23,280 --> 00:30:26,600
Speaker 1: that millions of Americans were doing. Well, there's no doubt

511
00:30:26,640 --> 00:30:31,240
Speaker 1: that we were always nervous when we went into spicely

512
00:30:31,360 --> 00:30:37,200
Speaker 1: into rural parts of states. Um, the attitude towards marylanda

513
00:30:37,240 --> 00:30:41,200
Speaker 1: smoking in most of rural America during those years was

514
00:30:41,320 --> 00:30:43,800
Speaker 1: it was a serious offense. It was treated like a

515
00:30:43,880 --> 00:30:47,800
Speaker 1: violent crime, and even growing a plan or two would

516
00:30:47,840 --> 00:30:50,440
Speaker 1: get to three or four or five years in prison

517
00:30:50,480 --> 00:30:52,840
Speaker 1: in a lot of rural parts of the country. Now,

518
00:30:52,920 --> 00:30:56,520
Speaker 1: in some of the cities. You began to feel a difference.

519
00:30:56,560 --> 00:30:59,360
Speaker 1: It began to be one of these things where it

520
00:30:59,480 --> 00:31:01,959
Speaker 1: was more than a slap on the wrist. But they

521
00:31:02,000 --> 00:31:05,720
Speaker 1: wouldn't always arrest somebody for smoking a joint. Sometimes they

522
00:31:05,720 --> 00:31:09,320
Speaker 1: would just confiscate their marijuana and send them on their way.

523
00:31:09,360 --> 00:31:13,920
Speaker 1: But yes, it was a strange phenomena when you mentioned

524
00:31:14,000 --> 00:31:16,760
Speaker 1: somebody going away for ten or twenty years. At the time,

525
00:31:16,840 --> 00:31:19,760
Speaker 1: we went to Missouri and managed to get a young

526
00:31:19,840 --> 00:31:22,400
Speaker 1: colleague student out of prison who had been He had

527
00:31:22,400 --> 00:31:25,240
Speaker 1: been home on vacation. His name was Jerry Mitchell, and

528
00:31:25,600 --> 00:31:29,000
Speaker 1: he was down in the Ozarts in Missouri, frankly, not

529
00:31:29,120 --> 00:31:31,120
Speaker 1: far from where I grew up, across the river in

530
00:31:31,160 --> 00:31:34,720
Speaker 1: southern Illinois. He'd come home on spring break, and so,

531
00:31:34,840 --> 00:31:37,680
Speaker 1: you know, they go out and drinking on the on

532
00:31:37,720 --> 00:31:40,280
Speaker 1: the night, and there was some young guy who kept

533
00:31:40,280 --> 00:31:42,720
Speaker 1: bugging him, can't you help me get a couple of joints?

534
00:31:42,720 --> 00:31:45,200
Speaker 1: And he blew him off for the first night or two,

535
00:31:45,200 --> 00:31:46,920
Speaker 1: and finally, just to kind of get the guy to

536
00:31:47,000 --> 00:31:49,520
Speaker 1: leave him alone, he said sure. So he goes over

537
00:31:49,560 --> 00:31:52,760
Speaker 1: to a third person's house and helps him score a

538
00:31:52,800 --> 00:31:55,320
Speaker 1: couple of joints. Well, it turns out this guy was

539
00:31:55,360 --> 00:31:58,600
Speaker 1: an undercover agent. He just looked like a kid. And

540
00:31:58,680 --> 00:32:03,720
Speaker 1: Jerry Mitchell, who who had two blind parents, had never

541
00:32:03,800 --> 00:32:07,280
Speaker 1: been arrested before in his life, was a college student,

542
00:32:07,880 --> 00:32:10,080
Speaker 1: was sentenced to I think it was ten and a

543
00:32:10,200 --> 00:32:15,080
Speaker 1: half years in prison for helping that undercover age at score,

544
00:32:15,600 --> 00:32:20,080
Speaker 1: I think less than the court of announce I'm sure that. So, yeah,

545
00:32:20,120 --> 00:32:23,240
Speaker 1: it was scary as hell. Now we ended up frankly.

546
00:32:23,960 --> 00:32:27,280
Speaker 1: I brought in some terrific lawyers. Jerry Goldstein worked on

547
00:32:27,320 --> 00:32:32,280
Speaker 1: the case from San Antonio and Mike's opinion from San Francisco.

548
00:32:32,360 --> 00:32:35,400
Speaker 1: At normal, I had the advantage that we early on

549
00:32:36,000 --> 00:32:41,880
Speaker 1: attracted a network of fairly radical criminal defense lawyers who

550
00:32:42,000 --> 00:32:47,120
Speaker 1: opposed prohibition. They were used to helping the downtrodden, and

551
00:32:47,200 --> 00:32:51,600
Speaker 1: so whenever I could identify a really difficult case, it

552
00:32:51,760 --> 00:32:54,719
Speaker 1: just cried out for somebody to step in. But usually

553
00:32:55,240 --> 00:32:58,320
Speaker 1: know nobody had resources to pay the lawyers. We were

554
00:32:58,400 --> 00:33:01,360
Speaker 1: usually able to find some lawyers to step in and

555
00:33:01,360 --> 00:33:03,720
Speaker 1: do it, and we did it with Jerry Mitchell, And

556
00:33:03,840 --> 00:33:06,600
Speaker 1: when he got out of prison, it was covered in

557
00:33:06,840 --> 00:33:09,720
Speaker 1: I think a two or three page article in the St.

558
00:33:09,760 --> 00:33:14,520
Speaker 1: Louis Post dispatched their biggest paper, and uh, for a

559
00:33:14,640 --> 00:33:18,400
Speaker 1: lot of Americans, it was when they saw normal in

560
00:33:18,560 --> 00:33:23,400
Speaker 1: that environment. Frankly, my own parents until that time, I

561
00:33:23,440 --> 00:33:26,640
Speaker 1: think my parents were embarrassed to talk about what I

562
00:33:26,760 --> 00:33:29,640
Speaker 1: was doing. In fact, probably didn't talk about it, but

563
00:33:29,720 --> 00:33:32,200
Speaker 1: when they heard about it that they were embarrassed. It

564
00:33:32,280 --> 00:33:35,920
Speaker 1: was only after they saw that we had helped this

565
00:33:36,040 --> 00:33:40,280
Speaker 1: young college student get out of prison who otherwise would

566
00:33:40,280 --> 00:33:43,440
Speaker 1: have been in for another decade, that they finally began

567
00:33:43,480 --> 00:33:47,000
Speaker 1: to realize we were really working towards personal freedom. It

568
00:33:47,080 --> 00:33:51,000
Speaker 1: wasn't just about getting high. In the early years of Normal,

569
00:33:51,280 --> 00:33:54,520
Speaker 1: A lot of the credibility we began to develop was

570
00:33:54,600 --> 00:33:58,600
Speaker 1: because we identified victims and in some cases victims that

571
00:33:58,720 --> 00:34:01,400
Speaker 1: we were able to help about. Yeah. So, I mean

572
00:34:01,400 --> 00:34:04,240
Speaker 1: talk about your parents at the right. Your dad Republican,

573
00:34:04,400 --> 00:34:07,840
Speaker 1: your mom Southern Baptist. I mean, did they fully come

574
00:34:07,840 --> 00:34:11,839
Speaker 1: around or My parents were both Southern Baptists. They were

575
00:34:11,920 --> 00:34:15,319
Speaker 1: quite religious. We used to go to the church on

576
00:34:15,440 --> 00:34:19,120
Speaker 1: Wednesday night and Sunday morning and Sunday night, and during

577
00:34:19,160 --> 00:34:21,600
Speaker 1: the summer we'd go every night for two weeks to

578
00:34:21,719 --> 00:34:24,840
Speaker 1: a tent revival of you know, a few miles away

579
00:34:25,480 --> 00:34:28,160
Speaker 1: so by the time I got to high school and

580
00:34:28,239 --> 00:34:31,160
Speaker 1: was old enough to make my own decisions, I had

581
00:34:31,200 --> 00:34:34,440
Speaker 1: really given up on religion. It just didn't seem relevant

582
00:34:34,480 --> 00:34:37,359
Speaker 1: to my life. So I was just wanting to get

583
00:34:37,360 --> 00:34:39,560
Speaker 1: the hell out the Midwest and get away from there.

584
00:34:39,640 --> 00:34:43,080
Speaker 1: So I'm sure my parents resented that, and I think

585
00:34:43,520 --> 00:34:47,440
Speaker 1: our relationship was pretty shaky during most of that time.

586
00:34:47,520 --> 00:34:51,399
Speaker 1: But after they began to see the results that we

587
00:34:51,440 --> 00:34:55,160
Speaker 1: had were beginning to have. I don't say they totally

588
00:34:55,440 --> 00:34:58,360
Speaker 1: came around in the sense that they thought it was

589
00:34:58,400 --> 00:35:00,560
Speaker 1: smart to me to be a merriw on a smoker,

590
00:35:00,680 --> 00:35:03,920
Speaker 1: or to be proselytizing the use of marijuana, but they

591
00:35:03,960 --> 00:35:07,840
Speaker 1: at least did recognize that we were talking about something

592
00:35:07,840 --> 00:35:10,200
Speaker 1: where you were having, you know, six hundred seven hundred

593
00:35:10,280 --> 00:35:12,920
Speaker 1: thousand people a year being arrested and sent to prison

594
00:35:13,680 --> 00:35:18,480
Speaker 1: and something like were for non violent possession offenses. They

595
00:35:18,520 --> 00:35:23,239
Speaker 1: were simply marijuana smoker. And so yes, they did come

596
00:35:23,320 --> 00:35:25,880
Speaker 1: over to my side on that part of the issue,

597
00:35:25,920 --> 00:35:28,279
Speaker 1: and I think by the time my parents died, I

598
00:35:28,280 --> 00:35:30,800
Speaker 1: think they were to some degree proud of my work.

599
00:35:31,440 --> 00:35:34,960
Speaker 1: And even beforehand, you talked about the people's potry at

600
00:35:35,000 --> 00:35:37,680
Speaker 1: the nineteen seventy two Democratic Convention. But there was the

601
00:35:37,719 --> 00:35:40,959
Speaker 1: People's Pot Party, right, which was probably not the best

602
00:35:41,040 --> 00:35:44,200
Speaker 1: name for an advocacy organization. So you had these other

603
00:35:44,440 --> 00:35:47,359
Speaker 1: organizations that were doing things and in fact actually got

604
00:35:47,400 --> 00:35:51,600
Speaker 1: an initiative on the ballot in California in nineteen seventy

605
00:35:51,680 --> 00:35:55,880
Speaker 1: two right to try to decriminalize marijuana. You know, I mean,

606
00:35:55,960 --> 00:35:59,440
Speaker 1: I I think that the Medical Marilinas California may have

607
00:35:59,440 --> 00:36:01,640
Speaker 1: been the first to notorious one, but there were a

608
00:36:01,640 --> 00:36:04,040
Speaker 1: couple one or two medical marijuana issues in Oregon in

609
00:36:04,120 --> 00:36:06,399
Speaker 1: late eighties with John sage O led, and then there

610
00:36:06,520 --> 00:36:09,000
Speaker 1: was that one back in seventy two in California, which

611
00:36:09,040 --> 00:36:10,680
Speaker 1: I think only got a third of the vote. But

612
00:36:10,719 --> 00:36:13,239
Speaker 1: what was your perspective on that ballot initiative when that

613
00:36:13,320 --> 00:36:17,400
Speaker 1: was happening, Well, there was no doubt that the culture,

614
00:36:17,480 --> 00:36:21,240
Speaker 1: the marijuana smoking culture was coming above ground. It wasn't

615
00:36:21,320 --> 00:36:23,799
Speaker 1: just those of us at normal. As you pointed out,

616
00:36:24,280 --> 00:36:27,719
Speaker 1: you had the Beat generation and Alan Ginsburg founding a

617
00:36:27,760 --> 00:36:31,080
Speaker 1: group called lemar. Mostly it was in upstate New York,

618
00:36:31,719 --> 00:36:33,719
Speaker 1: although I think they branised out and had a few

619
00:36:33,800 --> 00:36:38,000
Speaker 1: chapters in some other states. Then they morphed into a morphia,

620
00:36:38,440 --> 00:36:42,080
Speaker 1: and then a morphia emerged with normal. Um. So it

621
00:36:42,560 --> 00:36:47,160
Speaker 1: was it was the time people were tired of being oppressed,

622
00:36:47,320 --> 00:36:50,120
Speaker 1: they were tired of being treated like criminals and looked

623
00:36:50,120 --> 00:36:54,319
Speaker 1: down on. And because of the anti war movement and

624
00:36:54,400 --> 00:36:57,400
Speaker 1: the progress that had been made on that, I think

625
00:36:57,440 --> 00:37:01,440
Speaker 1: a lot of us were idealistic. We felt it was possible,

626
00:37:01,640 --> 00:37:05,319
Speaker 1: maybe to affect change that a few years earlier might

627
00:37:05,360 --> 00:37:10,080
Speaker 1: have seemed unrealistic. But yes, Normal was lucky. I think, frankly,

628
00:37:10,120 --> 00:37:13,480
Speaker 1: in some ways it might have been that the acronym

629
00:37:13,760 --> 00:37:17,040
Speaker 1: was the best acronym. There was a local group here

630
00:37:17,080 --> 00:37:20,640
Speaker 1: in d C that farmed about the same time, and

631
00:37:21,000 --> 00:37:24,120
Speaker 1: they were called the Drug Offenders Reichs Committee, which their

632
00:37:24,160 --> 00:37:29,040
Speaker 1: acronym was DORK. I always I always laughed that of

633
00:37:29,160 --> 00:37:32,000
Speaker 1: the two extremes, I'm certainly glad I went with normal

634
00:37:32,200 --> 00:37:35,640
Speaker 1: rather than DORK. It reminds me of one time I

635
00:37:35,680 --> 00:37:37,600
Speaker 1: was thinking about what we should when we're going through

636
00:37:37,640 --> 00:37:39,920
Speaker 1: transition and coming up with the name Drug Policy Alliance

637
00:37:39,920 --> 00:37:42,160
Speaker 1: and playing around with names, and one of the names

638
00:37:42,160 --> 00:37:45,400
Speaker 1: they came up was was was the Drug Users Union.

639
00:37:45,719 --> 00:37:50,839
Speaker 1: The acronym would have been do you. I think that's

640
00:37:50,880 --> 00:37:53,680
Speaker 1: kind of repealing it is kind of appealing, but probably

641
00:37:53,719 --> 00:37:56,239
Speaker 1: not the one right one to build respectability with it.

642
00:37:56,280 --> 00:37:59,600
Speaker 1: All that so, no, I think part of the challenge

643
00:37:59,640 --> 00:38:03,359
Speaker 1: Ethan during those years was we were all tending to

644
00:38:03,400 --> 00:38:06,560
Speaker 1: engage in a good bit of street theater in order

645
00:38:06,600 --> 00:38:10,560
Speaker 1: to get attention, you know. Otherwise we were all minor players,

646
00:38:10,600 --> 00:38:13,160
Speaker 1: and it was only once in a while when we

647
00:38:13,200 --> 00:38:16,000
Speaker 1: could do something that grabbed the attention of the media

648
00:38:16,280 --> 00:38:19,799
Speaker 1: that people even knew we existed. And the challenge was,

649
00:38:20,440 --> 00:38:23,400
Speaker 1: can you engage in street theater or can you do

650
00:38:23,560 --> 00:38:27,400
Speaker 1: these kinds of stunts but still have some credibility of

651
00:38:27,440 --> 00:38:31,480
Speaker 1: being taken seriously. And there's certainly are times where I think, I, well,

652
00:38:31,600 --> 00:38:34,160
Speaker 1: no doubt about it, where I went too far over

653
00:38:34,200 --> 00:38:36,960
Speaker 1: into street theater. And I think that was the temptation

654
00:38:37,400 --> 00:38:40,239
Speaker 1: of all of the groups because we were coming out

655
00:38:40,239 --> 00:38:42,759
Speaker 1: of the anti war movement. Well, I think you said that,

656
00:38:42,800 --> 00:38:44,799
Speaker 1: you know, Ramsey Clark, when you went to see him

657
00:38:44,840 --> 00:38:47,960
Speaker 1: and you told him you'd create an organization normal national

658
00:38:48,040 --> 00:38:51,839
Speaker 1: organizations for the repeal of marijuana laws. He says, why

659
00:38:51,840 --> 00:38:55,600
Speaker 1: don't you tinker with that name a little bit? Right, Yeah,

660
00:38:55,640 --> 00:38:58,640
Speaker 1: that's right. If someone else would have suggested to me

661
00:38:59,080 --> 00:39:02,160
Speaker 1: that I changed the name from the original name. I

662
00:39:02,200 --> 00:39:04,759
Speaker 1: don't think I would have paid any attention. But when

663
00:39:04,760 --> 00:39:07,080
Speaker 1: when Ramsey Clark said to me, look, I could get

664
00:39:07,080 --> 00:39:11,440
Speaker 1: behind this, but I'm telling you that if you use repeal,

665
00:39:11,560 --> 00:39:14,080
Speaker 1: it's gonna sound radical. It's going to turn off a

666
00:39:14,120 --> 00:39:17,960
Speaker 1: lot of people who might otherwise be supportive. If you

667
00:39:18,080 --> 00:39:22,840
Speaker 1: say reform, the acronym still works. It's National Organization for

668
00:39:22,960 --> 00:39:26,120
Speaker 1: the Reform of Marijuana Laws instead of the repeal. I

669
00:39:26,120 --> 00:39:28,719
Speaker 1: didn't like it as well, to be honest, but I

670
00:39:28,760 --> 00:39:32,440
Speaker 1: wasn't about to ignore Ramsey Clark's advice. And over the years,

671
00:39:32,560 --> 00:39:35,480
Speaker 1: you know, I realized that he was obviously he was right.

672
00:39:36,239 --> 00:39:39,600
Speaker 1: You know. In fact, during the first four or five years,

673
00:39:39,680 --> 00:39:44,120
Speaker 1: without question, I used to say, we do not advocate

674
00:39:44,160 --> 00:39:47,840
Speaker 1: the use of marijuana. We simply opposed treating marijuana smokers

675
00:39:47,880 --> 00:39:51,799
Speaker 1: like criminals. We were very careful to position ourselves as

676
00:39:51,840 --> 00:39:57,239
Speaker 1: a civil liberties organization, not a pro marijuana organization. And

677
00:39:57,600 --> 00:40:01,040
Speaker 1: I would generally if we're pressed on and somebody said, well,

678
00:40:01,080 --> 00:40:04,839
Speaker 1: do you smoke, I would minimize my involvement and say, well,

679
00:40:04,920 --> 00:40:08,360
Speaker 1: sure I've I've smoked marijuana. But our job is to

680
00:40:08,440 --> 00:40:11,479
Speaker 1: change the laws and not to turn people on. Now,

681
00:40:11,520 --> 00:40:13,919
Speaker 1: I do notice when I went back at some point

682
00:40:14,040 --> 00:40:18,240
Speaker 1: I was had some occasion to review a Playboy interview

683
00:40:18,280 --> 00:40:21,840
Speaker 1: that Hugh Hefner assigned to do on myself back in

684
00:40:22,000 --> 00:40:26,399
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy seven. Yesus, by that point I was out

685
00:40:26,400 --> 00:40:30,239
Speaker 1: of the closet because in that Playboy interview I talk

686
00:40:30,320 --> 00:40:35,360
Speaker 1: about getting stoned a lot. So I had sometime, I guess,

687
00:40:35,960 --> 00:40:40,759
Speaker 1: decided that if you're gonna advocate for legalization and going

688
00:40:40,800 --> 00:40:44,080
Speaker 1: to have any real credibility, you've got to be willing

689
00:40:44,160 --> 00:40:46,680
Speaker 1: to stand up and say, of course I smoked marijuana,

690
00:40:46,960 --> 00:40:49,600
Speaker 1: but I was always careful to say, but I don't smoke.

691
00:40:49,640 --> 00:40:51,440
Speaker 1: We are I want to drive a car, I don't smoke.

692
00:40:51,480 --> 00:40:54,040
Speaker 1: Were I want to fly an airplane. You know we're

693
00:40:54,120 --> 00:40:56,960
Speaker 1: saying use it if you're home alone. I mean, if

694
00:40:56,960 --> 00:40:59,960
Speaker 1: you're home and you're watching television and you want to relax.

695
00:41:00,120 --> 00:41:03,600
Speaker 1: There's absolutely no difference between smoking the joint and having

696
00:41:03,640 --> 00:41:08,600
Speaker 1: a drink of alcohol. But yeah, I'll tell you you.

697
00:41:08,640 --> 00:41:10,560
Speaker 1: I mean I think about I think with Lester Grinspoon.

698
00:41:10,640 --> 00:41:12,680
Speaker 1: I think when Lester was asked that question he would

699
00:41:12,719 --> 00:41:15,560
Speaker 1: refuse to respond, and when he was asked why, he

700
00:41:15,600 --> 00:41:18,440
Speaker 1: would say, well, because if I say I do smoke marijuana,

701
00:41:18,480 --> 00:41:20,520
Speaker 1: you'll choose I'm biased. And if I say I don't,

702
00:41:20,600 --> 00:41:22,680
Speaker 1: you'll say I don't know what I'm talking about. And

703
00:41:22,719 --> 00:41:26,080
Speaker 1: then I think about another ally of ours, Kevin Zeez,

704
00:41:26,120 --> 00:41:28,320
Speaker 1: who was the co founder of the Drug Policy Foundation

705
00:41:28,360 --> 00:41:31,399
Speaker 1: in ninety four, and he used the double entendre when

706
00:41:31,440 --> 00:41:33,799
Speaker 1: he was asked. He would say, I can't say that

707
00:41:33,840 --> 00:41:38,600
Speaker 1: I have right And then and my line would be, well,

708
00:41:38,760 --> 00:41:41,520
Speaker 1: not recently. Now in my mind, you know, I might

709
00:41:41,520 --> 00:41:44,840
Speaker 1: have smoked last night, but that wasn't recently. So I

710
00:41:44,880 --> 00:41:48,640
Speaker 1: think we all use our various kind of linguistic subterfuges

711
00:41:48,680 --> 00:41:51,160
Speaker 1: to deal with this, and that partially as we changed,

712
00:41:51,320 --> 00:41:55,600
Speaker 1: partially as the atmosphere and the kind of the nature

713
00:41:55,680 --> 00:41:57,880
Speaker 1: of the of of the debate changed, I think the

714
00:41:57,920 --> 00:42:00,400
Speaker 1: way we describe these things changed as well. I remember

715
00:42:00,400 --> 00:42:02,080
Speaker 1: when I first I used to not talk about my

716
00:42:02,080 --> 00:42:04,520
Speaker 1: own psycholics uson. Then at some point I found a

717
00:42:04,560 --> 00:42:07,160
Speaker 1: way to come out about that. Yet at the same time,

718
00:42:07,200 --> 00:42:10,080
Speaker 1: with normal, even as you got more out there, you

719
00:42:10,160 --> 00:42:13,920
Speaker 1: did have people who were reassuring, right, you had people

720
00:42:13,960 --> 00:42:17,359
Speaker 1: who joined your advisory board. Right, I mean who were

721
00:42:17,440 --> 00:42:19,640
Speaker 1: very establishment, and I think maybe you could just talk

722
00:42:19,680 --> 00:42:21,720
Speaker 1: I remember two people I I've heard you talk about.

723
00:42:21,719 --> 00:42:24,840
Speaker 1: One was named Dr Dorothy Whipple and another one was

724
00:42:24,920 --> 00:42:28,960
Speaker 1: John Finlater. Just talk about them as examples of people

725
00:42:28,960 --> 00:42:32,080
Speaker 1: who helped to reassure the mainstream. Yeah, they were both

726
00:42:32,200 --> 00:42:36,680
Speaker 1: terrific people, and Deer became dear friends during the nineteen seventies.

727
00:42:36,760 --> 00:42:39,880
Speaker 1: Dorothy Whipple was when I met her, I think she

728
00:42:40,000 --> 00:42:45,280
Speaker 1: was a seventies seven year old pediatrician, grandmother practicing pediatrician.

729
00:42:45,600 --> 00:42:47,600
Speaker 1: And in fact, I was so impressed Buyer as I

730
00:42:47,640 --> 00:42:51,160
Speaker 1: got the knower that I had Dorothy Whipple become the

731
00:42:51,280 --> 00:42:54,680
Speaker 1: pediatrician from my daughter. But she had published a book.

732
00:42:54,680 --> 00:42:56,879
Speaker 1: I'm sorry I forget the name of it right now,

733
00:42:56,920 --> 00:43:00,359
Speaker 1: but it was a book that basically argued we ought

734
00:43:00,440 --> 00:43:03,120
Speaker 1: to legalize marijuana. And here was this gray hair in

735
00:43:03,200 --> 00:43:07,520
Speaker 1: seventy seven year old, a wonderful, wonderful woman, and she

736
00:43:07,640 --> 00:43:11,440
Speaker 1: became one of the people that after the Marijuana Commission

737
00:43:11,480 --> 00:43:14,680
Speaker 1: report came out, we took her, along with John Finnlater

738
00:43:14,760 --> 00:43:17,680
Speaker 1: and several others. We'd take him from state to state.

739
00:43:17,840 --> 00:43:22,000
Speaker 1: Those state elected officials we're not going to be particularly

740
00:43:22,080 --> 00:43:27,239
Speaker 1: persuaded by what some young pot smoking advocate was going

741
00:43:27,280 --> 00:43:29,680
Speaker 1: to say. But let me tell you, when a seventy

742
00:43:29,760 --> 00:43:34,239
Speaker 1: seven year old grandmother pediatrician said the same thing, they

743
00:43:34,280 --> 00:43:38,400
Speaker 1: perked up. And John finnlater was a spatially weird. He

744
00:43:38,400 --> 00:43:42,120
Speaker 1: he was a nice man. He had been deputy director

745
00:43:42,239 --> 00:43:45,719
Speaker 1: of the d e A, the Drug Enforcement Agency, and

746
00:43:46,000 --> 00:43:48,080
Speaker 1: I didn't even know who he was. I mean, i'd

747
00:43:48,120 --> 00:43:50,880
Speaker 1: seen his name at time or two, but he was

748
00:43:51,040 --> 00:43:53,799
Speaker 1: set to retire some time along. I don't know if

749
00:43:53,880 --> 00:43:56,399
Speaker 1: it was seventy four or seventy five or something. So

750
00:43:56,600 --> 00:44:02,440
Speaker 1: he retired. In fact, John Mitchell Gay the key speech

751
00:44:02,480 --> 00:44:05,919
Speaker 1: at his retirement party. You know, he was considered one

752
00:44:05,960 --> 00:44:09,879
Speaker 1: of those real conservative stalwarts. I get a phone call

753
00:44:10,000 --> 00:44:13,560
Speaker 1: out of the blue from John Finlayter saying, here's who

754
00:44:13,600 --> 00:44:16,560
Speaker 1: I am, and I'd be interested in helping you guys

755
00:44:16,600 --> 00:44:19,800
Speaker 1: if you think I can be of some help. And again,

756
00:44:20,000 --> 00:44:23,719
Speaker 1: he was a gray haired man. He looked like everybody

757
00:44:23,960 --> 00:44:28,640
Speaker 1: wishes their grandfather looked like. And so he became again

758
00:44:29,040 --> 00:44:31,800
Speaker 1: one of the people who went with us from state

759
00:44:31,840 --> 00:44:35,960
Speaker 1: to state to testify any time we could identify a

760
00:44:36,000 --> 00:44:39,480
Speaker 1: young legislator who was willing to introduce a version of

761
00:44:39,560 --> 00:44:44,440
Speaker 1: decriminalization after the Marijuana Commitson report had come out. Then,

762
00:44:44,480 --> 00:44:48,120
Speaker 1: instead of them looking like they were radical or out

763
00:44:48,200 --> 00:44:51,120
Speaker 1: on the fringes of the political spectrum, all of a

764
00:44:51,120 --> 00:44:54,160
Speaker 1: sudden we bring in four or five of these people

765
00:44:54,200 --> 00:44:58,239
Speaker 1: who were whose credibility was just impeccable. There's no way

766
00:44:58,280 --> 00:45:01,440
Speaker 1: you could discount them, and it made them look like

767
00:45:01,800 --> 00:45:06,040
Speaker 1: they were serious people with a serious idea. And of course,

768
00:45:06,080 --> 00:45:11,319
Speaker 1: eventually during the seventies, we decriminalized marijuana in eleven states. Unfortunately,

769
00:45:11,320 --> 00:45:14,239
Speaker 1: the mood of the country turned south by the end

770
00:45:14,239 --> 00:45:17,360
Speaker 1: of the seventies and we went about eighteen years without

771
00:45:17,360 --> 00:45:22,120
Speaker 1: another statewide victory before California surfaced with their medical use,

772
00:45:22,160 --> 00:45:27,240
Speaker 1: and they should have been nineties. Let's take a break

773
00:45:27,239 --> 00:45:42,200
Speaker 1: here and go to an ad In a way, Keith,

774
00:45:42,280 --> 00:45:44,120
Speaker 1: you and Normal were a bit of a role model

775
00:45:44,160 --> 00:45:47,160
Speaker 1: for me. When I started Drug Policy Alliance in two

776
00:45:47,200 --> 00:45:50,400
Speaker 1: thousand and I created an honorary board, and I deliberately

777
00:45:50,440 --> 00:45:52,759
Speaker 1: did not call it an advisory board because I didn't

778
00:45:52,760 --> 00:45:54,880
Speaker 1: want to think that I was necessarily asking people for

779
00:45:54,960 --> 00:45:57,680
Speaker 1: their advice. But what I really wanted was them to

780
00:45:57,719 --> 00:46:00,600
Speaker 1: associate their names with Drug Policy all Lilions. I got

781
00:46:00,600 --> 00:46:05,360
Speaker 1: Walter Cronkite and George Schultz and Frank Carlucci and Vaklevovl

782
00:46:05,440 --> 00:46:08,319
Speaker 1: and Nicholas katsonback former Attorney General. So it was all

783
00:46:08,360 --> 00:46:12,480
Speaker 1: about legitimizing ourselves in that broader world. And I think

784
00:46:12,480 --> 00:46:13,960
Speaker 1: you also did the same thing. I mean, this was

785
00:46:14,000 --> 00:46:16,879
Speaker 1: an error when you still have these politicians who are

786
00:46:16,880 --> 00:46:20,319
Speaker 1: called Liberal Republicans are now kind of extinct breed. But

787
00:46:20,440 --> 00:46:25,120
Speaker 1: I think liberal Republicans played an important role in your

788
00:46:25,280 --> 00:46:27,920
Speaker 1: life and advocacy. I mean, I think going back to

789
00:46:27,960 --> 00:46:30,520
Speaker 1: when your dad helps you get a job in d C.

790
00:46:30,840 --> 00:46:33,520
Speaker 1: With every Dirkson, right, a prominent Liberal Republican of the

791
00:46:33,960 --> 00:46:37,120
Speaker 1: you know, of the post war era, and then Jacob Javits,

792
00:46:37,160 --> 00:46:39,760
Speaker 1: my Senator New York. But just say something about the

793
00:46:39,960 --> 00:46:42,960
Speaker 1: role of Liberal Republicans in in marijuana reform back in

794
00:46:43,000 --> 00:46:45,799
Speaker 1: the seventies, Well, there was no doubt. I mean, it

795
00:46:45,920 --> 00:46:49,960
Speaker 1: might be worth mentioning just briefly that when the Marijuana

796
00:46:50,000 --> 00:46:54,080
Speaker 1: Commission provisions were inserted in the in the Controlled Substances

797
00:46:54,080 --> 00:46:57,319
Speaker 1: the Act of nineteen seventy, it was almost entirely the

798
00:46:57,360 --> 00:47:00,160
Speaker 1: work of a Democratic Congressman by the name of had

799
00:47:00,239 --> 00:47:03,719
Speaker 1: Cotch now, at the time, he was a very progressive

800
00:47:03,920 --> 00:47:07,719
Speaker 1: member of Congress. He later became a terribly conservative mayor

801
00:47:07,760 --> 00:47:10,319
Speaker 1: of New York and served for what three terms or something,

802
00:47:10,400 --> 00:47:13,200
Speaker 1: seems like it was mayor forever. He was a terrible

803
00:47:13,320 --> 00:47:17,680
Speaker 1: drug war advocate. Unfortunately, you know that was where, yeah,

804
00:47:17,680 --> 00:47:20,480
Speaker 1: he really did some evil, but go ahead, Well, I

805
00:47:20,520 --> 00:47:22,920
Speaker 1: was gonna say that one thing that he did achieve

806
00:47:23,040 --> 00:47:27,480
Speaker 1: for some reason, and I've never understood the total justification.

807
00:47:27,640 --> 00:47:32,319
Speaker 1: He was able to sneak in a provision establishing the

808
00:47:32,440 --> 00:47:36,480
Speaker 1: National Commission on Marijuana and Drug Abuse as a minor

809
00:47:37,080 --> 00:47:41,399
Speaker 1: subset of the Control Substances Act of nineteen seventy, which

810
00:47:41,400 --> 00:47:43,799
Speaker 1: is a terrible drug act that's still in effect. It's

811
00:47:43,840 --> 00:47:47,200
Speaker 1: the one that put marijuana in Schedule one along with

812
00:47:47,320 --> 00:47:50,840
Speaker 1: heroin and other Even cocaine is in scheduled too, but

813
00:47:50,920 --> 00:47:54,759
Speaker 1: no marijuana is on Schedule one. But part of creating

814
00:47:54,840 --> 00:47:59,600
Speaker 1: that commission was they gave Nixon the ability or the

815
00:47:59,719 --> 00:48:03,480
Speaker 1: right to appoint nine members of a thirteen member commission.

816
00:48:03,520 --> 00:48:05,719
Speaker 1: And I think that's why Nixon went along with it,

817
00:48:05,760 --> 00:48:08,080
Speaker 1: is that he thought he'd have control of he if

818
00:48:08,120 --> 00:48:11,360
Speaker 1: he'd have nine of his own people, and Congress decided

819
00:48:11,680 --> 00:48:15,960
Speaker 1: they would select four people among themselves, and of the

820
00:48:16,000 --> 00:48:19,319
Speaker 1: two people in the Senate, one was Harrold Hughes, Progressive

821
00:48:19,360 --> 00:48:22,640
Speaker 1: Democrat from Iowa. But the other was Jacob javits And

822
00:48:22,680 --> 00:48:25,840
Speaker 1: he was the old kind of progressive Republican that we

823
00:48:25,960 --> 00:48:29,320
Speaker 1: used to have, the Rockefeller types. A Rockefeller was terrible

824
00:48:29,320 --> 00:48:31,400
Speaker 1: of drugs, but he was progressive one a lot of

825
00:48:31,440 --> 00:48:37,400
Speaker 1: other things. And so uh during that phase, if you

826
00:48:37,480 --> 00:48:40,600
Speaker 1: could use those kinds of people. And by the way,

827
00:48:40,719 --> 00:48:43,680
Speaker 1: Jacob Javitson Harrold Hughes did for a number of years

828
00:48:43,760 --> 00:48:47,120
Speaker 1: during the seventies served on our advisory board. Just as

829
00:48:47,160 --> 00:48:50,759
Speaker 1: you say, whenever we could identify someone who is a

830
00:48:50,800 --> 00:48:55,120
Speaker 1: conservative and particular Republican who was willing to be identified

831
00:48:55,200 --> 00:48:58,880
Speaker 1: with us, we were only too happy to embrace them. Well,

832
00:48:58,920 --> 00:49:01,520
Speaker 1: you know, now we've you've kept mentioned this National Commission.

833
00:49:01,600 --> 00:49:04,320
Speaker 1: As you point out, it's created by the nineteen seventy

834
00:49:04,320 --> 00:49:07,680
Speaker 1: Controlled Substances Act ed COTCI is responsible for getting that

835
00:49:07,719 --> 00:49:11,000
Speaker 1: provision in there. Richard Nixon signs it into a law.

836
00:49:11,320 --> 00:49:14,360
Speaker 1: He appoints a Republican ally of his I think the governor,

837
00:49:14,400 --> 00:49:18,680
Speaker 1: reformer governor of Pennsylvania, Raymond Shaffer, to head it, you know,

838
00:49:18,880 --> 00:49:23,240
Speaker 1: hoping and assuming he's gonna come out endorsing Nixon's drug

839
00:49:23,280 --> 00:49:27,560
Speaker 1: war recommendations, and from all appearances, given the conservative makeup

840
00:49:27,600 --> 00:49:30,520
Speaker 1: of the Commission, it appears that that, in fact is

841
00:49:30,560 --> 00:49:33,440
Speaker 1: the way it's going to head. Yet they land up

842
00:49:33,480 --> 00:49:36,960
Speaker 1: coming up with quite a surprise, first in their marijuana report,

843
00:49:36,960 --> 00:49:39,040
Speaker 1: in fact, most especially the marijuana report, and then in

844
00:49:39,120 --> 00:49:43,640
Speaker 1: a broader report where they land up recommending decriminalization. What

845
00:49:43,719 --> 00:49:45,759
Speaker 1: was it you think that made I mean, what's your take?

846
00:49:45,800 --> 00:49:47,759
Speaker 1: I mean, you were right there and you must have

847
00:49:47,760 --> 00:49:51,319
Speaker 1: been expecting the worst, and here it comes out remarkably.

848
00:49:51,640 --> 00:49:53,360
Speaker 1: I think I saw you say that the National Commission

849
00:49:53,360 --> 00:49:55,200
Speaker 1: a mari Wanna drug abuse, This is a quote from you,

850
00:49:55,640 --> 00:49:58,400
Speaker 1: was the single most important step ever taken in this

851
00:49:58,440 --> 00:50:01,680
Speaker 1: country to move us toward a more rational marijuana policy.

852
00:50:01,960 --> 00:50:05,040
Speaker 1: I actually do believe that. I don't think we would

853
00:50:05,080 --> 00:50:08,560
Speaker 1: have the success we had with the medical use movement

854
00:50:08,640 --> 00:50:12,080
Speaker 1: starting in ninety six are with the full legalization starting

855
00:50:12,080 --> 00:50:15,960
Speaker 1: in but for the basis that was laid by that

856
00:50:16,120 --> 00:50:19,880
Speaker 1: Marijuana Commission. And another person on the Commission that was

857
00:50:19,960 --> 00:50:26,000
Speaker 1: terribly important was Tom Underlider. He was a very progressive guy,

858
00:50:26,239 --> 00:50:28,640
Speaker 1: and Tom went out of his way to get in

859
00:50:28,719 --> 00:50:31,560
Speaker 1: touch with us early on in the Commission. I think

860
00:50:31,600 --> 00:50:35,000
Speaker 1: even before I testified in l A. He reached out

861
00:50:35,040 --> 00:50:38,560
Speaker 1: privately to let us know that not everyone on the

862
00:50:38,560 --> 00:50:42,400
Speaker 1: Commission followed Nixon's leadership, and so he didn't want us

863
00:50:42,440 --> 00:50:45,680
Speaker 1: to give up on the idea. But most importantly what

864
00:50:45,760 --> 00:50:48,160
Speaker 1: he did I didn't know this at the time. I

865
00:50:48,200 --> 00:50:52,600
Speaker 1: found out later almost no one in the thirteen member

866
00:50:52,719 --> 00:50:58,160
Speaker 1: Marijuana Commission had ever actually seen someone smoked marijuana. That's

867
00:50:58,160 --> 00:51:02,520
Speaker 1: how stratified things at the time. But unger Lighter was

868
00:51:02,880 --> 00:51:05,879
Speaker 1: hip enough, and he was from l A and with

869
00:51:06,040 --> 00:51:08,200
Speaker 1: U C. L A, so he was familiar with it.

870
00:51:08,600 --> 00:51:12,280
Speaker 1: So at some point he realized, we've got to break

871
00:51:12,320 --> 00:51:15,600
Speaker 1: the ice here, and so he arranged I think on

872
00:51:15,760 --> 00:51:18,560
Speaker 1: two occasions they met at a private home. Once I

873
00:51:18,600 --> 00:51:20,879
Speaker 1: think at unger Lighter's home and I'm not sure where

874
00:51:20,880 --> 00:51:25,240
Speaker 1: else the other time, and they invited some middle class,

875
00:51:25,920 --> 00:51:29,760
Speaker 1: middle age marijuana smokers, not young, long haired kids and stuff,

876
00:51:30,000 --> 00:51:33,480
Speaker 1: people who the Commission could identify with and could respect.

877
00:51:34,080 --> 00:51:36,920
Speaker 1: And they had a cocktail party, you know, they had

878
00:51:37,040 --> 00:51:40,520
Speaker 1: alcohol for those who wanted alcohol, and then those marijuana

879
00:51:40,560 --> 00:51:44,120
Speaker 1: smokers were free to light up and enjoy themselves. And

880
00:51:44,320 --> 00:51:48,520
Speaker 1: it allowed these members of the Marijuana Commission, who again

881
00:51:48,680 --> 00:51:51,120
Speaker 1: had all all they had heard all their life was

882
00:51:51,160 --> 00:51:53,000
Speaker 1: that if you smoke a joint, it's gonna make you

883
00:51:53,000 --> 00:51:55,160
Speaker 1: want to if you're a white woman, that'll make you

884
00:51:55,160 --> 00:51:58,239
Speaker 1: want to sleep with black men, and if you're anybody,

885
00:51:58,280 --> 00:52:01,360
Speaker 1: that's going to make it turn into a crazy, violent criminal.

886
00:52:02,000 --> 00:52:04,120
Speaker 1: And all of a sudden, they're seeing these people having

887
00:52:04,160 --> 00:52:07,800
Speaker 1: a lovely time at a cocktail party. They're not misbehaving,

888
00:52:07,880 --> 00:52:11,880
Speaker 1: they're not acting violent or dangerous. And so I think

889
00:52:12,080 --> 00:52:16,120
Speaker 1: that had more to do with convincing the Commission as

890
00:52:16,120 --> 00:52:20,960
Speaker 1: a whole that we can't treat marijuana smokers like criminals.

891
00:52:20,960 --> 00:52:24,359
Speaker 1: We can't continue, we can't continue that part of it. Now,

892
00:52:24,840 --> 00:52:28,080
Speaker 1: in fairness, they didn't have the courage to go all

893
00:52:28,120 --> 00:52:31,680
Speaker 1: the way to legalization. And when you read that report,

894
00:52:32,000 --> 00:52:35,880
Speaker 1: it's clear they knew damn well they should regulate the market.

895
00:52:35,920 --> 00:52:39,279
Speaker 1: They knew they needed control over the market. But had

896
00:52:39,360 --> 00:52:42,839
Speaker 1: they have recommended that, it might have been seen at

897
00:52:42,880 --> 00:52:46,480
Speaker 1: the time as so radical as to been totally dismissed

898
00:52:46,480 --> 00:52:49,560
Speaker 1: and ignored. So they came up with this idea because

899
00:52:49,600 --> 00:52:53,920
Speaker 1: again it was like the arrest were for simple possession

900
00:52:53,960 --> 00:52:57,520
Speaker 1: of an ounce or less, no violence, no guns, no selling.

901
00:52:58,200 --> 00:53:02,040
Speaker 1: So they figured, look, if we stop arresting smokers and

902
00:53:02,080 --> 00:53:04,680
Speaker 1: it wasn't just a smoker, was interesting. They said, we

903
00:53:04,680 --> 00:53:08,120
Speaker 1: should stop treating marijuana smokers as criminals, and we should

904
00:53:08,120 --> 00:53:12,960
Speaker 1: stop treating the casual transfer of small amounts of marijuana

905
00:53:13,000 --> 00:53:17,800
Speaker 1: between adults for little or no remuneration as a crime.

906
00:53:18,280 --> 00:53:21,600
Speaker 1: They had learned in the course of their year's study

907
00:53:22,040 --> 00:53:26,400
Speaker 1: that there was no legal market for anyone. So marijuana smokers,

908
00:53:26,440 --> 00:53:29,600
Speaker 1: if somebody scored announce of marijuana, they'd call three or

909
00:53:29,640 --> 00:53:31,640
Speaker 1: four of their friends, they'd get together and they'd share

910
00:53:31,680 --> 00:53:35,279
Speaker 1: the marijuana, and sure they might recoup twenty dollars for

911
00:53:35,560 --> 00:53:38,480
Speaker 1: you know, a quarter of an eighty eight dollar rounds

912
00:53:38,600 --> 00:53:41,080
Speaker 1: or something. But there was no reason to treat those

913
00:53:41,120 --> 00:53:44,320
Speaker 1: people as sellers because that they weren't in the business

914
00:53:44,360 --> 00:53:48,719
Speaker 1: of selling. So it was a fairly progressive recommendation, to

915
00:53:48,840 --> 00:53:51,719
Speaker 1: be honest, at the time. And I think it no

916
00:53:51,880 --> 00:53:54,880
Speaker 1: way they would have come that far if unger Lighter

917
00:53:54,960 --> 00:53:59,680
Speaker 1: would not have insisted that they familiarized themselves with marijuana smokers.

918
00:54:00,040 --> 00:54:04,000
Speaker 1: So you have this climate of growing kind of sympathy

919
00:54:04,040 --> 00:54:08,120
Speaker 1: for not putting users behind jail, but not actually making

920
00:54:08,120 --> 00:54:13,080
Speaker 1: it legal like alcohol. Now the measures that start to

921
00:54:13,120 --> 00:54:18,040
Speaker 1: spread around the country. Eleven states decriminalize marijuana, beginning with

922
00:54:18,080 --> 00:54:21,480
Speaker 1: Oregon in nineteen seventy three. What can you tell us

923
00:54:21,520 --> 00:54:25,080
Speaker 1: about how that happened? And you're rolling it a normal's role.

924
00:54:25,239 --> 00:54:30,800
Speaker 1: There was a movement that involved young legislators almost entirely,

925
00:54:30,880 --> 00:54:34,879
Speaker 1: not not a hundred percent. For example, in Oregon, there

926
00:54:34,880 --> 00:54:38,719
Speaker 1: were two co sponsors to the decriminalization bill. One was

927
00:54:38,800 --> 00:54:44,160
Speaker 1: the first term young legislator UH named Steve Kaforey. The

928
00:54:44,320 --> 00:54:47,160
Speaker 1: other one was a like a sixty year old hog

929
00:54:47,200 --> 00:54:51,560
Speaker 1: farmer literally a hog farmer from eastern Oregon named Hampson.

930
00:54:51,640 --> 00:54:54,520
Speaker 1: I believe his name was, And I have no idea

931
00:54:54,640 --> 00:54:58,200
Speaker 1: why Hampson. Maybe he was a libertarian at hard or whatever,

932
00:54:58,280 --> 00:55:01,640
Speaker 1: but they were the co sponsor. And so again, any

933
00:55:01,680 --> 00:55:06,040
Speaker 1: time we could identify elected officials willing to introduce a

934
00:55:06,160 --> 00:55:09,279
Speaker 1: version of the criminalization, we offered to bring the road

935
00:55:09,320 --> 00:55:12,440
Speaker 1: show out at no cost to them. And once we

936
00:55:12,640 --> 00:55:15,480
Speaker 1: came and guaranteed that these legislators were going to get

937
00:55:15,520 --> 00:55:17,759
Speaker 1: a lot of local press attention, they were going to

938
00:55:17,880 --> 00:55:20,840
Speaker 1: be on the TV station that evening they were going

939
00:55:20,880 --> 00:55:23,439
Speaker 1: to be in the newspaper the next day, and so

940
00:55:23,760 --> 00:55:28,880
Speaker 1: it gave us the opportunity to educate people. So even

941
00:55:28,880 --> 00:55:31,960
Speaker 1: though we we only won eleven states, we went Oregon

942
00:55:31,960 --> 00:55:34,160
Speaker 1: and seventy three and the last of the eleven was

943
00:55:34,280 --> 00:55:41,440
Speaker 1: Nebraska seventy eight. We had bills pending in probably seven states.

944
00:55:41,480 --> 00:55:43,560
Speaker 1: It was all over the place, and we had no

945
00:55:43,640 --> 00:55:46,240
Speaker 1: way to tell, you know, who was going to finally

946
00:55:46,320 --> 00:55:49,680
Speaker 1: bite the bullet and do it. But once Oregon became

947
00:55:49,719 --> 00:55:53,279
Speaker 1: the first state, it became a lot easier because what

948
00:55:53,400 --> 00:55:58,000
Speaker 1: happened is nobody followed in in seventy four. What happened

949
00:55:58,080 --> 00:56:00,560
Speaker 1: was all the states that we're thinking about it stood

950
00:56:00,560 --> 00:56:02,960
Speaker 1: back and said, let's just see how this works out

951
00:56:03,040 --> 00:56:06,560
Speaker 1: in Oregon. Well, the Drug Abuse Council, which was a

952
00:56:06,640 --> 00:56:10,759
Speaker 1: Ford Foundation funded group, was very supportive of what we

953
00:56:10,760 --> 00:56:15,680
Speaker 1: were doing, and so they would commission surveys to go

954
00:56:15,760 --> 00:56:18,719
Speaker 1: in and feel how does the public feel about this

955
00:56:18,760 --> 00:56:21,879
Speaker 1: new experience, And what they were finding was people were

956
00:56:22,000 --> 00:56:25,280
Speaker 1: enjoying it. They thought it made sense. It didn't frighten people.

957
00:56:25,800 --> 00:56:28,080
Speaker 1: There was no change. People still got up and went

958
00:56:28,120 --> 00:56:31,080
Speaker 1: to work every day. There was this actual theory at

959
00:56:31,080 --> 00:56:34,480
Speaker 1: the time that if you don't have criminal penalties against

960
00:56:34,520 --> 00:56:37,360
Speaker 1: marijuana smoking, nobody's going to go to work. They're all

961
00:56:37,360 --> 00:56:40,719
Speaker 1: gonna sit home and be stoned on the couch all day. Well,

962
00:56:40,800 --> 00:56:44,359
Speaker 1: so at any event, we were able to collect scientific

963
00:56:44,480 --> 00:56:47,239
Speaker 1: data and pulling to show that no, the world moves

964
00:56:47,280 --> 00:56:49,719
Speaker 1: ahead just like you did before. The only difference is

965
00:56:50,000 --> 00:56:53,839
Speaker 1: you're not arresting your own sons and daughters. And so

966
00:56:54,320 --> 00:56:57,239
Speaker 1: although we didn't win seventy four by seventy five, we

967
00:56:57,360 --> 00:56:59,719
Speaker 1: picked up a couple more by seventy six through or

968
00:56:59,719 --> 00:57:03,760
Speaker 1: four more. It was a big, big movement up until

969
00:57:04,760 --> 00:57:07,400
Speaker 1: the end of the seventies. The mood of the country

970
00:57:07,440 --> 00:57:11,200
Speaker 1: turned real conservative. We had the election of Ronald Reagan,

971
00:57:11,680 --> 00:57:14,799
Speaker 1: we had Nancy Reagan that just say no movement, the

972
00:57:14,920 --> 00:57:21,120
Speaker 1: parents movement, and the prevailing thesis during that phase was

973
00:57:21,680 --> 00:57:26,280
Speaker 1: we shouldn't legalize anything that's not good for children. Well,

974
00:57:26,320 --> 00:57:30,120
Speaker 1: of course, if you really followed that thesis, we could

975
00:57:30,160 --> 00:57:33,640
Speaker 1: never skydiver, drive cars, or have sex or is all

976
00:57:33,720 --> 00:57:36,640
Speaker 1: kinds of things that are fine for adults to do,

977
00:57:36,880 --> 00:57:38,800
Speaker 1: but of course we don't want kids doing it. So

978
00:57:38,920 --> 00:57:42,520
Speaker 1: it was a misguided era, but boy, it was one

979
00:57:42,600 --> 00:57:46,200
Speaker 1: we did not see coming. We ignored the parents groups.

980
00:57:46,240 --> 00:57:48,000
Speaker 1: The first time or two we heard about them, we

981
00:57:48,040 --> 00:57:50,840
Speaker 1: thought it was silly, And the next thing I know,

982
00:57:51,200 --> 00:57:55,120
Speaker 1: I'm seeing specials on CBS and NBC, and I mean,

983
00:57:55,200 --> 00:57:59,760
Speaker 1: it was just terrible. So the polling showed that once

984
00:58:00,120 --> 00:58:04,200
Speaker 1: reached that peak of the late seventies, then it dropped

985
00:58:04,240 --> 00:58:06,720
Speaker 1: way back, I think as far as eighteen percent for

986
00:58:06,760 --> 00:58:11,640
Speaker 1: a while. In about nineteen ninety, we finally began to

987
00:58:11,760 --> 00:58:15,000
Speaker 1: pick up a little bit more and we never looked back.

988
00:58:15,120 --> 00:58:17,400
Speaker 1: But then if we look at seventy seven, it's a

989
00:58:17,480 --> 00:58:20,320
Speaker 1: sort of pivotal moment because on the one hand, it's

990
00:58:20,320 --> 00:58:25,040
Speaker 1: the election of Jimmy Carter, who basically embraces and introduces

991
00:58:25,040 --> 00:58:29,320
Speaker 1: a bill for the federal decriminalization not legalization, decrialization of marijuana.

992
00:58:29,440 --> 00:58:32,280
Speaker 1: Whose family members are you know, his kids are using marijuana,

993
00:58:32,320 --> 00:58:35,320
Speaker 1: his wife sympathetic. You know, he appoints a very sympathetic

994
00:58:35,360 --> 00:58:39,720
Speaker 1: drug policy advisor. So it seems like, finally, my god,

995
00:58:39,960 --> 00:58:43,640
Speaker 1: we have gone from being fringed to being in the mainstream. Right.

996
00:58:43,640 --> 00:58:46,440
Speaker 1: I think you even helped write part of Carter's statement

997
00:58:46,680 --> 00:58:49,920
Speaker 1: on marijuana, And yet at the same time it becomes

998
00:58:50,000 --> 00:58:52,680
Speaker 1: part of the downfall, right, the turning around both for

999
00:58:52,760 --> 00:58:55,400
Speaker 1: you and normal and everything else. So just to explain

1000
00:58:55,520 --> 00:58:58,240
Speaker 1: to you, know, our audience, the essence of that moment

1001
00:58:58,280 --> 00:59:03,600
Speaker 1: in seventy seventy eight for you, Well, you're right, Jimmy

1002
00:59:03,640 --> 00:59:06,840
Speaker 1: Carter was a fascinating man, because of course he still

1003
00:59:07,040 --> 00:59:11,200
Speaker 1: is a fascinating man. He a Southern Baptist man. He

1004
00:59:12,280 --> 00:59:15,919
Speaker 1: teaches Sunday school class at his church. He's about as

1005
00:59:16,480 --> 00:59:20,440
Speaker 1: traditional as you can imagine. But he also had two

1006
00:59:20,480 --> 00:59:24,880
Speaker 1: sons who both were marijuana smokers. In so when he

1007
00:59:24,960 --> 00:59:29,240
Speaker 1: was running for president, mutual friend offered to put me

1008
00:59:29,280 --> 00:59:32,400
Speaker 1: in touch with Chip Carter, his son, and so I

1009
00:59:32,440 --> 00:59:35,000
Speaker 1: had met him a little during the campaign. We've gone

1010
00:59:35,000 --> 00:59:38,080
Speaker 1: out to a Willie Nelson concert together or something like that.

1011
00:59:38,680 --> 00:59:41,600
Speaker 1: But then once he got elected, I get a call

1012
00:59:41,760 --> 00:59:44,600
Speaker 1: from a fellow on his staff who I had known

1013
00:59:44,680 --> 00:59:47,480
Speaker 1: in Texas back when we were working in the first

1014
00:59:47,560 --> 00:59:50,360
Speaker 1: years of normal working in Texas. He had been working

1015
00:59:50,360 --> 00:59:53,160
Speaker 1: for the state legislature. He had since been hired by

1016
00:59:53,200 --> 00:59:55,960
Speaker 1: Carter as a speechwriter. And he called me up one

1017
00:59:56,040 --> 00:59:59,080
Speaker 1: day and says, Keith, I just got an assignment to

1018
00:59:59,240 --> 01:00:02,000
Speaker 1: draft speech for the president and a statement he was

1019
01:00:02,040 --> 01:00:06,640
Speaker 1: going to send Congress urging them to support mari wanted decriminalization.

1020
01:00:06,720 --> 01:00:09,040
Speaker 1: I wonder if you'd like to help me. Well, you

1021
01:00:09,040 --> 01:00:12,640
Speaker 1: can imagine. It didn't take me long to grab my

1022
01:00:12,720 --> 01:00:15,200
Speaker 1: stuff and get over to his apartment, and we spent

1023
01:00:15,280 --> 01:00:18,400
Speaker 1: the night drafting what I thought was a pretty good statement. Now,

1024
01:00:18,960 --> 01:00:22,760
Speaker 1: he did eventually send a version of that to Congress.

1025
01:00:23,200 --> 01:00:25,600
Speaker 1: It wasn't as strong as what we had drafted it.

1026
01:00:25,640 --> 01:00:29,840
Speaker 1: But at any event, all of that was exciting and

1027
01:00:29,880 --> 01:00:33,920
Speaker 1: it was promising, and if you were idealistic, you could

1028
01:00:34,000 --> 01:00:37,800
Speaker 1: make yourself believe we're close to making some real progress. Now,

1029
01:00:37,840 --> 01:00:40,560
Speaker 1: I will have to tell you that there were only

1030
01:00:40,640 --> 01:00:44,280
Speaker 1: a handful of people in Congress who agreed with them

1031
01:00:44,320 --> 01:00:47,440
Speaker 1: and others. It wasn't like there was anywhere near a

1032
01:00:47,560 --> 01:00:50,120
Speaker 1: majority who was about to support who were about the

1033
01:00:50,160 --> 01:00:54,320
Speaker 1: support decriminalization. Jimmy was ahead of his time a little

1034
01:00:54,400 --> 01:00:58,520
Speaker 1: on that, and so it turns out, of course, nothing happened. Now.

1035
01:00:58,560 --> 01:01:01,400
Speaker 1: We also I got my self involved in the Peter

1036
01:01:01,520 --> 01:01:05,640
Speaker 1: Born incident, which the President's drug advisor. It was someone

1037
01:01:05,680 --> 01:01:07,880
Speaker 1: I'd known for a number of years. We've both been

1038
01:01:07,960 --> 01:01:11,480
Speaker 1: consultants to the Drug Abuse Council. We we were friends,

1039
01:01:11,920 --> 01:01:17,360
Speaker 1: and we ended up falling out over the administration's use

1040
01:01:17,440 --> 01:01:22,680
Speaker 1: of paraquat because spray marijuana at the Mexican border. Paraquat

1041
01:01:22,800 --> 01:01:26,080
Speaker 1: is an incredibly dangerous drug. We used to hear that,

1042
01:01:26,160 --> 01:01:27,960
Speaker 1: you know, a couple of drops on the tongue is

1043
01:01:28,080 --> 01:01:29,960
Speaker 1: enough to kill you. I don't know for sure if

1044
01:01:30,000 --> 01:01:33,080
Speaker 1: that's accurate or if it's exaggerated, but at least it's

1045
01:01:33,080 --> 01:01:36,960
Speaker 1: a it's a really strong pesticide. And in fact, there

1046
01:01:36,960 --> 01:01:39,960
Speaker 1: are a couple of major suits undergoing right now around

1047
01:01:40,000 --> 01:01:43,080
Speaker 1: the country where because paraquat was also later used on

1048
01:01:43,160 --> 01:01:47,800
Speaker 1: some domestic crops, there's some legal theory or the scientific

1049
01:01:48,200 --> 01:01:51,040
Speaker 1: evidence that it may cause I think it's Parkinson's or

1050
01:01:51,200 --> 01:01:57,600
Speaker 1: one of those neurological diseases may be caused by ingesting paraquat. Well.

1051
01:01:57,640 --> 01:02:00,240
Speaker 1: At the time when we first heard about it, we

1052
01:02:00,360 --> 01:02:04,240
Speaker 1: heard was that when they sprayed the marijuana with paraquat

1053
01:02:04,680 --> 01:02:08,760
Speaker 1: south of the border, it turned the marijuana gold. And

1054
01:02:08,840 --> 01:02:14,200
Speaker 1: back then, acapulco gold was one of the preferred varieties

1055
01:02:14,280 --> 01:02:16,320
Speaker 1: of marijuana that was hard to come by, but if

1056
01:02:16,360 --> 01:02:18,280
Speaker 1: you could ever get it, you were willing to pay,

1057
01:02:18,440 --> 01:02:21,360
Speaker 1: you know, a premium acapulco gold. It was like tie

1058
01:02:21,360 --> 01:02:24,160
Speaker 1: sticks or like, you know, other kinds. All all good

1059
01:02:24,200 --> 01:02:29,400
Speaker 1: marijuana in those early years was imported marijuana. So I

1060
01:02:29,520 --> 01:02:31,960
Speaker 1: raised this with Dr Born. I asked for a meeting

1061
01:02:31,960 --> 01:02:33,720
Speaker 1: at the White House and I went over and sat

1062
01:02:33,800 --> 01:02:36,720
Speaker 1: down with them, and we went through this idea that

1063
01:02:36,840 --> 01:02:40,160
Speaker 1: come on you, you can't spray such a dangerous drug

1064
01:02:40,320 --> 01:02:43,480
Speaker 1: on marijuana, because we're hearing it is coming across the

1065
01:02:43,560 --> 01:02:47,480
Speaker 1: border and consumers are buying it thinking that it's high

1066
01:02:47,560 --> 01:02:51,640
Speaker 1: grade marijuana, not that it's been poisoned with paraquat. And

1067
01:02:51,680 --> 01:02:54,760
Speaker 1: at first he said, well, Keith, you know marijuana is illegal.

1068
01:02:55,520 --> 01:02:59,040
Speaker 1: I say Dr Born, I understand it's illegal, but you

1069
01:02:59,080 --> 01:03:04,840
Speaker 1: can't poison in US. It's a nonviolent offense somebody smoking marijuana.

1070
01:03:05,680 --> 01:03:08,120
Speaker 1: You can't poison us or give a death penalty to

1071
01:03:08,200 --> 01:03:13,000
Speaker 1: somebody just because marijuana remains illegal. So he said, well,

1072
01:03:13,040 --> 01:03:17,000
Speaker 1: i'll tell you what. We'll check. Apparently every month they

1073
01:03:17,440 --> 01:03:22,400
Speaker 1: the Customs of essays what marijuana they've confiscated on the

1074
01:03:22,400 --> 01:03:25,040
Speaker 1: Mexican border. He said, we'll test it and find out

1075
01:03:25,120 --> 01:03:29,560
Speaker 1: if any of it contaminated with paraquat. So I don't know.

1076
01:03:29,680 --> 01:03:32,840
Speaker 1: Six weeks later or something. Eight weeks later, he calls

1077
01:03:32,880 --> 01:03:34,800
Speaker 1: me and asked me to come back over the White House,

1078
01:03:34,800 --> 01:03:38,440
Speaker 1: and he announces that, well, they've they've checked it out.

1079
01:03:38,480 --> 01:03:40,560
Speaker 1: And I can't remember now, but it was something like

1080
01:03:40,680 --> 01:03:43,880
Speaker 1: eighteen percent or something of the marijuana they had confiscated

1081
01:03:44,040 --> 01:03:47,160
Speaker 1: was in fact contaminated with paraquat And I said, well,

1082
01:03:47,200 --> 01:03:49,760
Speaker 1: then you've got to stop it. He said, we can't,

1083
01:03:50,040 --> 01:03:54,240
Speaker 1: it's illegal. So at any event, we failed to resolve

1084
01:03:54,320 --> 01:03:58,680
Speaker 1: that in any way that seemed livable. And from normal standpoint,

1085
01:03:58,800 --> 01:04:03,400
Speaker 1: remember we're humor lobby So the idea that our government,

1086
01:04:03,520 --> 01:04:07,440
Speaker 1: which has seemed fairly sympathetic up to this point, including

1087
01:04:07,880 --> 01:04:12,080
Speaker 1: recommending the Congress that we stopped arresting marijuana smokers, but

1088
01:04:12,200 --> 01:04:17,320
Speaker 1: now they're poisoning consumers, we couldn't live with that. So

1089
01:04:17,400 --> 01:04:20,840
Speaker 1: at any event we ended up having a falling out.

1090
01:04:21,480 --> 01:04:24,320
Speaker 1: Peter Borne had come to a party of normals where

1091
01:04:24,360 --> 01:04:28,000
Speaker 1: at some point he decided he wanted to sort some cocaine.

1092
01:04:28,040 --> 01:04:30,240
Speaker 1: This was in seventies seven, I think might have been

1093
01:04:30,280 --> 01:04:33,560
Speaker 1: seventy I think seventies seven, and that was those zero

1094
01:04:33,640 --> 01:04:36,000
Speaker 1: where there was a lot of cocaine around, and certainly

1095
01:04:36,400 --> 01:04:39,720
Speaker 1: the community I was part of, we're certainly enjoyed snorting

1096
01:04:39,760 --> 01:04:44,120
Speaker 1: cocaine at times, and so Peter came to this big

1097
01:04:44,160 --> 01:04:46,880
Speaker 1: party we had at several hundred people downtown d C.

1098
01:04:47,800 --> 01:04:49,919
Speaker 1: And a mutual friend came up to me and said,

1099
01:04:50,360 --> 01:04:52,560
Speaker 1: Keith dr Borne says he wouldn't mind doing a hit

1100
01:04:52,600 --> 01:04:55,640
Speaker 1: of cocaine. Well, I actually didn't have any on me.

1101
01:04:55,720 --> 01:04:57,920
Speaker 1: I was working, I was whatever. But I knew I

1102
01:04:57,960 --> 01:05:00,480
Speaker 1: had a couple of friends nearby who owns some bars,

1103
01:05:00,520 --> 01:05:03,400
Speaker 1: and I figured they had some, so I checked and

1104
01:05:03,480 --> 01:05:06,920
Speaker 1: they did, and so we all walked upstairs and went

1105
01:05:06,960 --> 01:05:08,760
Speaker 1: to this room. And it was a room. Frankly, it

1106
01:05:08,800 --> 01:05:13,200
Speaker 1: wasn't a private uh. Hunter Thompson was there, Christie Hefner

1107
01:05:13,360 --> 01:05:16,880
Speaker 1: was there, Craig Compitis from High Times magazine was there.

1108
01:05:16,920 --> 01:05:19,000
Speaker 1: There were there were eight or ten people. It was

1109
01:05:19,080 --> 01:05:22,000
Speaker 1: kind of a v I P room for anybody who

1110
01:05:22,240 --> 01:05:24,840
Speaker 1: wanted to get away from the crowd downstairs. And there

1111
01:05:24,880 --> 01:05:28,560
Speaker 1: was a band playing and everything. So we sat down

1112
01:05:28,720 --> 01:05:31,720
Speaker 1: and sure enough, they laid some coke out on the

1113
01:05:31,800 --> 01:05:34,440
Speaker 1: mirror and passed it to Peter, and he snorted it

1114
01:05:34,480 --> 01:05:36,840
Speaker 1: a couple of times and passed it around. I snowed

1115
01:05:36,880 --> 01:05:40,120
Speaker 1: it a couple of times, and then pretty soon I said, well, well,

1116
01:05:40,560 --> 01:05:42,920
Speaker 1: you know, I probably should get back downstairs, and he said, yeah,

1117
01:05:42,960 --> 01:05:47,080
Speaker 1: I should too, So we walked back downstairs. Well, it

1118
01:05:47,120 --> 01:05:50,240
Speaker 1: turns out that one of the people in the room

1119
01:05:50,280 --> 01:05:53,440
Speaker 1: at the time was an assistant to Jack Anderson, who

1120
01:05:53,520 --> 01:05:56,520
Speaker 1: I mentioned earlier, was the gossip columnist for the Post,

1121
01:05:57,200 --> 01:06:00,480
Speaker 1: and so within a day or two he was calling

1122
01:06:00,520 --> 01:06:04,520
Speaker 1: the upstite tith, I've got to write about this cocaine,

1123
01:06:04,560 --> 01:06:06,280
Speaker 1: you know, And I said, well, you're not going to

1124
01:06:06,360 --> 01:06:08,600
Speaker 1: write about it for me. I I didn't see anything,

1125
01:06:08,680 --> 01:06:10,240
Speaker 1: you know. It was kind of crazy. We were all

1126
01:06:10,280 --> 01:06:12,800
Speaker 1: there together. I saw the same thing he did, but

1127
01:06:13,120 --> 01:06:16,920
Speaker 1: I wasn't going to acknowledge it. So a few months

1128
01:06:16,960 --> 01:06:21,919
Speaker 1: go by, and unrelated to that, Peter Born, Dr. Born

1129
01:06:22,280 --> 01:06:25,520
Speaker 1: had written the prescription for quai luds for his assistant,

1130
01:06:26,040 --> 01:06:28,840
Speaker 1: and he had written it because his assistant he worked

1131
01:06:28,880 --> 01:06:31,840
Speaker 1: in the White House. He used a phony name. And

1132
01:06:31,960 --> 01:06:35,000
Speaker 1: somehow when his assistant went to pick up her prescription

1133
01:06:35,040 --> 01:06:37,360
Speaker 1: for quai ludes, which were a drug that a lot

1134
01:06:37,400 --> 01:06:41,600
Speaker 1: of people used in conjunction with sex back then, um

1135
01:06:41,680 --> 01:06:45,840
Speaker 1: and you know, didn't really have generally a medical application,

1136
01:06:46,480 --> 01:06:50,320
Speaker 1: it became a big story. A story broke president's drugs

1137
01:06:50,320 --> 01:06:54,560
Speaker 1: ares assistant busted for kilads. Dr Borne wrote the prescription.

1138
01:06:55,120 --> 01:06:59,200
Speaker 1: So I get a call back from the Post and

1139
01:06:59,720 --> 01:07:01,920
Speaker 1: he says, Keith, I gotta go with us now. And

1140
01:07:01,960 --> 01:07:04,520
Speaker 1: I said, no, you're not gonna go using me as

1141
01:07:04,520 --> 01:07:07,919
Speaker 1: a source, so forget that. So I went to bed

1142
01:07:08,000 --> 01:07:11,800
Speaker 1: that night thinking, boy, this is this is making me nervous,

1143
01:07:11,840 --> 01:07:15,400
Speaker 1: but thinking we might still get by with everything okay.

1144
01:07:15,520 --> 01:07:17,760
Speaker 1: And then I get a late call that night, just

1145
01:07:17,920 --> 01:07:21,120
Speaker 1: before they were going to deadline. He says, Keith, we're

1146
01:07:21,160 --> 01:07:24,360
Speaker 1: going with the story. So he said, can you assure me?

1147
01:07:24,760 --> 01:07:27,720
Speaker 1: And he read me the opening line or opening paragraph.

1148
01:07:27,960 --> 01:07:30,640
Speaker 1: He said, is that accurate or not? And I said,

1149
01:07:30,720 --> 01:07:34,640
Speaker 1: I will neither confirm nor den I. Now that's the

1150
01:07:34,720 --> 01:07:38,960
Speaker 1: stupidest response you could possibly make. Uh. It obviously was

1151
01:07:39,000 --> 01:07:42,320
Speaker 1: an answer that politicians often used for stuff when they

1152
01:07:42,440 --> 01:07:45,560
Speaker 1: when they're trying to cover something up, and I was

1153
01:07:45,640 --> 01:07:48,160
Speaker 1: using it for the same reason. So the next morning

1154
01:07:48,160 --> 01:07:51,840
Speaker 1: in the Washington Post there was the story about Dr

1155
01:07:51,880 --> 01:07:54,919
Speaker 1: Born snorting coke at a normal party a few months ago,

1156
01:07:55,280 --> 01:07:58,720
Speaker 1: and my quote, I will neither confirm nor den I. Well,

1157
01:07:58,880 --> 01:08:02,200
Speaker 1: unfortunately Dr Will had to resign before the day was out.

1158
01:08:02,640 --> 01:08:05,720
Speaker 1: And before very long I also had the step aside

1159
01:08:05,720 --> 01:08:08,080
Speaker 1: as a head of normal, I couldn't do a very

1160
01:08:08,120 --> 01:08:12,480
Speaker 1: effective job leading in marijuana legalization lobby if I was

1161
01:08:12,520 --> 01:08:15,000
Speaker 1: known as the snitch who dropped the dime on the

1162
01:08:15,040 --> 01:08:17,519
Speaker 1: President's drugs arc. I mean, obviously I see what you're

1163
01:08:17,560 --> 01:08:19,760
Speaker 1: saying about the paraquad and just the anger at the

1164
01:08:19,800 --> 01:08:23,320
Speaker 1: Carter administration for you know, putting forward a policy of

1165
01:08:23,400 --> 01:08:26,640
Speaker 1: spraying marijuana with it appeared to be a poison for consumers.

1166
01:08:26,960 --> 01:08:29,320
Speaker 1: But I guess you know you've been going NonStop for

1167
01:08:29,360 --> 01:08:31,439
Speaker 1: seven eight years. I mean I know as a long

1168
01:08:31,479 --> 01:08:34,719
Speaker 1: time activist too. You know, we get frustrated, We suffer

1169
01:08:34,800 --> 01:08:36,640
Speaker 1: from burnout. I mean, do you think there was just

1170
01:08:36,680 --> 01:08:39,160
Speaker 1: a moment or you know, or that one you think that,

1171
01:08:39,240 --> 01:08:41,240
Speaker 1: oh my god, I finally got the gold ring, and

1172
01:08:41,240 --> 01:08:43,760
Speaker 1: then you find yourself being disappointed. I mean when you

1173
01:08:43,760 --> 01:08:46,559
Speaker 1: when you reflect back on that time and you ask yourself,

1174
01:08:46,600 --> 01:08:49,519
Speaker 1: how could I possibly have done that or thought that? Then,

1175
01:08:49,920 --> 01:08:51,559
Speaker 1: you know, with the with the wisdom of you know,

1176
01:08:51,640 --> 01:08:54,880
Speaker 1: forty five years since, how do you reflect back on

1177
01:08:54,920 --> 01:08:58,479
Speaker 1: the key strop of that time? Well, again, having spent

1178
01:08:58,600 --> 01:09:02,439
Speaker 1: those prior that prior decade trying to emulate Ralph Nader

1179
01:09:02,520 --> 01:09:07,960
Speaker 1: as a consumer advocate. Our total focus was protecting the consumer,

1180
01:09:08,240 --> 01:09:13,040
Speaker 1: the idea of sitting by idly while this administration that

1181
01:09:13,280 --> 01:09:17,840
Speaker 1: claimed they were sympathetic to our goals it was poisoning smokers.

1182
01:09:18,880 --> 01:09:21,759
Speaker 1: I didn't know what to do with that. I simply

1183
01:09:21,760 --> 01:09:24,760
Speaker 1: couldn't let it lie. But I will also tell you

1184
01:09:25,000 --> 01:09:28,479
Speaker 1: that I think I was an angry young man who

1185
01:09:28,600 --> 01:09:31,280
Speaker 1: had done too many drugs for too many years. And

1186
01:09:31,360 --> 01:09:36,920
Speaker 1: so my response to that, I suspect reflected some cocaine

1187
01:09:37,000 --> 01:09:39,679
Speaker 1: I had been using. Not I don't mean on that moment,

1188
01:09:40,040 --> 01:09:44,040
Speaker 1: but during that phase. Again, I haven't used cocaine in

1189
01:09:44,080 --> 01:09:47,120
Speaker 1: thirty years or something, so but during the time when

1190
01:09:47,160 --> 01:09:49,519
Speaker 1: I was using it, there was no doubt. There was

1191
01:09:49,600 --> 01:09:52,799
Speaker 1: sometimes where you just felt burned out, you weren't sleeping

1192
01:09:52,840 --> 01:09:56,400
Speaker 1: well at night, and you were jumping and edgy. And uh,

1193
01:09:56,640 --> 01:09:59,720
Speaker 1: it's hard for me to look back at that and

1194
01:10:00,200 --> 01:10:03,800
Speaker 1: that I didn't have more self control than to have

1195
01:10:04,200 --> 01:10:07,960
Speaker 1: said what I said about Born. But I didn't. And

1196
01:10:08,439 --> 01:10:10,960
Speaker 1: it was for the moment, the end of my career

1197
01:10:11,040 --> 01:10:13,519
Speaker 1: with normal, and certainly it was the end of Peter

1198
01:10:13,600 --> 01:10:16,639
Speaker 1: Borne's career at the White House. Yeah. Now, of course,

1199
01:10:16,680 --> 01:10:20,519
Speaker 1: it's very likely that even notwithstanding Peter Borne's mistakes and

1200
01:10:20,560 --> 01:10:24,240
Speaker 1: your mistakes, the broader mood, the changing of the country,

1201
01:10:24,320 --> 01:10:27,080
Speaker 1: the rise of the Reagan Revolution, the success of the

1202
01:10:27,120 --> 01:10:29,880
Speaker 1: Parents movement. You know, I remember thinking that guy. You know,

1203
01:10:29,920 --> 01:10:32,000
Speaker 1: there was a moment in the surveys that showed that

1204
01:10:32,200 --> 01:10:34,599
Speaker 1: by the late seventies, I think ten or eleven percent

1205
01:10:34,600 --> 01:10:36,839
Speaker 1: of all high school seniors said that they were smoking

1206
01:10:36,880 --> 01:10:40,559
Speaker 1: marijuana daily, which almost any parent would be concerned about.

1207
01:10:41,000 --> 01:10:44,400
Speaker 1: It seems like that that broader cultural shift, you know,

1208
01:10:44,479 --> 01:10:48,280
Speaker 1: that the seventies, you know, maybe analogous to the period

1209
01:10:48,360 --> 01:10:52,080
Speaker 1: from two thousand and six, like through Obama, was a

1210
01:10:52,200 --> 01:10:55,920
Speaker 1: rare spout of liberalism in America, and then when the

1211
01:10:55,960 --> 01:10:59,800
Speaker 1: more dominant conservative strain of American culture and politics was

1212
01:10:59,840 --> 01:11:04,160
Speaker 1: an evitably gonna reassert itself and roll back some of

1213
01:11:04,160 --> 01:11:07,519
Speaker 1: the reforms that have been accomplished during that phase. I mean,

1214
01:11:07,560 --> 01:11:10,080
Speaker 1: we know these pendulums always do swings, you know, I

1215
01:11:10,320 --> 01:11:12,840
Speaker 1: think filled with marijuana. Now we've come along so far

1216
01:11:12,960 --> 01:11:15,080
Speaker 1: with almost seventy percent of the country saying they're in

1217
01:11:15,080 --> 01:11:19,160
Speaker 1: favor of legalization, that there's really no stopping the broader

1218
01:11:19,240 --> 01:11:22,120
Speaker 1: legalization of marijuana in the United States and a range

1219
01:11:22,120 --> 01:11:24,600
Speaker 1: of other countries. But I could imagine we'll see a

1220
01:11:24,640 --> 01:11:27,519
Speaker 1: tightening of the policies in some ways, probably in ways

1221
01:11:27,560 --> 01:11:29,720
Speaker 1: that are not constructive. You know. Now the media is

1222
01:11:29,760 --> 01:11:32,880
Speaker 1: all about the marijuana markets, marijuana business, marijuana industry, all

1223
01:11:32,960 --> 01:11:35,000
Speaker 1: those of this sort of stuff. But at some point

1224
01:11:35,080 --> 01:11:37,400
Speaker 1: the media will need a new story, and the story

1225
01:11:37,439 --> 01:11:39,800
Speaker 1: will probably be about the harms of marijuana. So I

1226
01:11:39,800 --> 01:11:42,200
Speaker 1: don't think we're done with that yet. It's just that

1227
01:11:42,280 --> 01:11:45,040
Speaker 1: I think that we've secured a big enough victory that

1228
01:11:45,160 --> 01:11:46,920
Speaker 1: we're not vulnerable in the way that you guys are

1229
01:11:46,960 --> 01:11:49,800
Speaker 1: vulnerable back in the late seventies. I I agree. I

1230
01:11:50,080 --> 01:11:53,439
Speaker 1: don't think there's any chance that our opponents can reverse

1231
01:11:53,680 --> 01:11:56,840
Speaker 1: course politically. I mean, they can make their best shot.

1232
01:11:56,920 --> 01:11:58,920
Speaker 1: I just don't think when you've got seventy percent of

1233
01:11:58,960 --> 01:12:02,439
Speaker 1: the country who agree with our position and it goes

1234
01:12:02,520 --> 01:12:05,800
Speaker 1: up a couple of points every year, I think essentially

1235
01:12:05,840 --> 01:12:09,719
Speaker 1: we have won the issue. But that doesn't mean that

1236
01:12:10,240 --> 01:12:12,759
Speaker 1: there won't be a lot of problems that still require

1237
01:12:12,800 --> 01:12:14,960
Speaker 1: some attention. There's still gonna be a lot of people

1238
01:12:15,400 --> 01:12:19,960
Speaker 1: harmed by our current drug policy, and even on marijuana legalization.

1239
01:12:20,320 --> 01:12:23,200
Speaker 1: Even though we've got i guess eighteen states now that

1240
01:12:23,240 --> 01:12:26,240
Speaker 1: have fully legalized marijuana for adults, and we've got thirty

1241
01:12:26,280 --> 01:12:30,200
Speaker 1: three or thirty four states of legalized medical use, the

1242
01:12:30,240 --> 01:12:33,479
Speaker 1: fact is that in the majority of the states, if

1243
01:12:33,520 --> 01:12:37,679
Speaker 1: a nosy neighbor complains about smelling marijuana smoke and you've

1244
01:12:37,720 --> 01:12:41,320
Speaker 1: got minor children, you may well have to fight to

1245
01:12:41,439 --> 01:12:45,160
Speaker 1: retain custody of your kids, not because you've done anything

1246
01:12:45,840 --> 01:12:48,720
Speaker 1: to indicate your not a fit parents, simply because you

1247
01:12:48,840 --> 01:12:54,160
Speaker 1: smoke marijuana. Same thing it's true about employment discrimination in

1248
01:12:54,200 --> 01:12:57,000
Speaker 1: the majority of states, Even in the majority of states

1249
01:12:57,080 --> 01:13:00,759
Speaker 1: that have legalized marijuana for all adults, if a private

1250
01:13:00,840 --> 01:13:05,480
Speaker 1: employer wishes to drug test or employers and you test positive,

1251
01:13:05,800 --> 01:13:08,519
Speaker 1: even though it's legal to have teach in your system,

1252
01:13:08,880 --> 01:13:12,040
Speaker 1: they can fire you, and many of them still do.

1253
01:13:12,600 --> 01:13:15,360
Speaker 1: So we've got a lot of work to do, but

1254
01:13:15,479 --> 01:13:18,639
Speaker 1: it's nice that we're at least able in those states

1255
01:13:18,960 --> 01:13:22,559
Speaker 1: to work on these nuances rather than the sort of blunt,

1256
01:13:23,040 --> 01:13:26,519
Speaker 1: dumb policy of treating marijuana smokers like criminals. We've made

1257
01:13:26,520 --> 01:13:29,320
Speaker 1: a lot of progress, but our goal at normal is

1258
01:13:29,800 --> 01:13:33,360
Speaker 1: we believe marijuana smokers should be treated fairly in all

1259
01:13:33,600 --> 01:13:37,400
Speaker 1: aspects of their lives. And we are not yet well, Keith,

1260
01:13:37,439 --> 01:13:41,400
Speaker 1: Let's finish up on one sort of element of continuity

1261
01:13:41,520 --> 01:13:44,320
Speaker 1: between the days of the seventies and the modern era,

1262
01:13:44,760 --> 01:13:47,880
Speaker 1: which is medical marijuana. So even as things are turning

1263
01:13:47,960 --> 01:13:51,960
Speaker 1: south with respect to the broader decramalization movement, the seeds

1264
01:13:52,000 --> 01:13:55,840
Speaker 1: are being planted on medical marijuana. And what was your

1265
01:13:55,920 --> 01:13:58,559
Speaker 1: engagement and all of that back in that in that day, Well,

1266
01:13:58,600 --> 01:14:01,000
Speaker 1: when I first heard about it, it was from Bob

1267
01:14:01,080 --> 01:14:04,920
Speaker 1: Randle himself. Bob lived in d c. And he had

1268
01:14:04,960 --> 01:14:07,519
Speaker 1: come to see Normal on a couple of occasions to

1269
01:14:08,160 --> 01:14:11,599
Speaker 1: plead his case that we should help him try to fight.

1270
01:14:11,960 --> 01:14:14,360
Speaker 1: He would he had been caught growing a plant, I

1271
01:14:14,439 --> 01:14:17,680
Speaker 1: think one plant, maybe two plants of marijuana on his balcony.

1272
01:14:17,680 --> 01:14:22,240
Speaker 1: He lived down down and he would had tlaucoma and

1273
01:14:22,360 --> 01:14:26,920
Speaker 1: was gradually losing his eyesight. And at the time or historically,

1274
01:14:27,000 --> 01:14:29,880
Speaker 1: one of the traditional uses of marijuana had been to

1275
01:14:29,960 --> 01:14:32,800
Speaker 1: treat glaucoma, and he had read this. He was not

1276
01:14:33,000 --> 01:14:35,479
Speaker 1: some sort of hippie stoner. He was a guy who

1277
01:14:35,560 --> 01:14:39,519
Speaker 1: was trying to find something to avoid going blind. The

1278
01:14:39,560 --> 01:14:41,479
Speaker 1: first time or two I met him, I realized he

1279
01:14:41,520 --> 01:14:45,400
Speaker 1: was an incredibly sincere guy. He had a lawyer who

1280
01:14:45,479 --> 01:14:47,920
Speaker 1: was already helping him on a pro bono basis, so

1281
01:14:47,960 --> 01:14:50,200
Speaker 1: he wasn't looking for legal help. He what he wanted

1282
01:14:50,280 --> 01:14:52,920
Speaker 1: us to help him politically, if there were some things

1283
01:14:53,000 --> 01:14:55,880
Speaker 1: we could do. And at first, I think I fully

1284
01:14:56,040 --> 01:15:00,600
Speaker 1: underestimated the importance of the issue. I thought it was earthWhile,

1285
01:15:01,160 --> 01:15:03,879
Speaker 1: but I thought most people who smoke are not smoking

1286
01:15:03,880 --> 01:15:06,599
Speaker 1: for medical reasons, So we wanted to keep our focus

1287
01:15:06,640 --> 01:15:11,000
Speaker 1: primarily on the rest of the marijuana smoking culture. But

1288
01:15:11,360 --> 01:15:14,840
Speaker 1: what we realized, of course, is once it's basically once

1289
01:15:14,920 --> 01:15:19,320
Speaker 1: California had had by initiative legalized medical use in nine

1290
01:15:20,479 --> 01:15:24,120
Speaker 1: that this was truly a game changer, in that it

1291
01:15:24,280 --> 01:15:29,880
Speaker 1: was almost impossible for someone to recognize that marijuana could

1292
01:15:29,920 --> 01:15:34,320
Speaker 1: help cancer patients and glaucoma patients and MS patients and

1293
01:15:34,400 --> 01:15:38,880
Speaker 1: all of these people with serious conditions and also think

1294
01:15:38,920 --> 01:15:42,479
Speaker 1: of it as an evil or dangerous substance that just

1295
01:15:42,520 --> 01:15:45,720
Speaker 1: doesn't work in your mind. There's a disconnect there. So

1296
01:15:46,439 --> 01:15:51,240
Speaker 1: it forced the general acceptance of the medical use of marijuana,

1297
01:15:51,360 --> 01:15:56,320
Speaker 1: forced millions of Americans to rethink their preconceived notions, and

1298
01:15:56,400 --> 01:16:00,000
Speaker 1: that all worked in our favor, and once you realize

1299
01:16:00,160 --> 01:16:02,720
Speaker 1: is that it's not a bad thing. In fact, it

1300
01:16:02,760 --> 01:16:08,000
Speaker 1: maybe a god send to millions of Americans, then it's

1301
01:16:08,040 --> 01:16:10,559
Speaker 1: fairly easy to go from there to say, well, then

1302
01:16:10,600 --> 01:16:13,680
Speaker 1: why don't we regulate the market and legalize it and

1303
01:16:13,720 --> 01:16:18,720
Speaker 1: make it available. So I think the medical movement was

1304
01:16:18,880 --> 01:16:22,120
Speaker 1: terribly important to the full legalization movement. And by the way,

1305
01:16:22,160 --> 01:16:24,920
Speaker 1: there's still I don't know, eighteen states or something where

1306
01:16:24,920 --> 01:16:28,719
Speaker 1: they don't have medical marijuana, but I suspect they will

1307
01:16:28,760 --> 01:16:31,280
Speaker 1: over the next three or four or five years. It's

1308
01:16:31,320 --> 01:16:35,840
Speaker 1: awfully hard to see, seriously patients benefiting from marijuana in

1309
01:16:35,880 --> 01:16:39,800
Speaker 1: a neighboring state and you're still arresting people for that. Keith.

1310
01:16:39,840 --> 01:16:43,040
Speaker 1: On that note, I have to say you have provided

1311
01:16:43,120 --> 01:16:46,760
Speaker 1: a wonderful source of insight into the era of the

1312
01:16:46,840 --> 01:16:50,960
Speaker 1: nineteen seventies and marijuana and it's cultural and political context.

1313
01:16:51,320 --> 01:16:53,640
Speaker 1: I really appreciate your sharing this. I still remember the

1314
01:16:53,680 --> 01:16:56,920
Speaker 1: moment in the early nineties, and I remember going to

1315
01:16:57,000 --> 01:16:59,200
Speaker 1: your office you were then running a national association call

1316
01:16:59,280 --> 01:17:02,439
Speaker 1: Defense Lawyers, because you were this singular heroic, you know,

1317
01:17:02,520 --> 01:17:05,200
Speaker 1: path making figure from the from the seventies who I

1318
01:17:05,240 --> 01:17:08,240
Speaker 1: really wanted to meet so I'm delighted and for the

1319
01:17:08,280 --> 01:17:10,920
Speaker 1: work you did and it's it's been a pleasure being

1320
01:17:10,920 --> 01:17:13,679
Speaker 1: your ally and the modern era. So I just want

1321
01:17:13,680 --> 01:17:18,200
Speaker 1: to thank you for joining me on Psychoactive. Absolutely my pleasure.

1322
01:17:21,120 --> 01:17:24,960
Speaker 1: If you're enjoying Psychoactive, please tell your friends about it,

1323
01:17:25,200 --> 01:17:27,360
Speaker 1: or you can write us a review at Apple Podcasts

1324
01:17:27,479 --> 01:17:30,240
Speaker 1: or wherever you get your podcasts. We love to hear

1325
01:17:30,280 --> 01:17:33,360
Speaker 1: from our listeners. If you'd like to share your own stories,

1326
01:17:33,400 --> 01:17:36,559
Speaker 1: comments and ideas, then leave us a message at one

1327
01:17:36,800 --> 01:17:42,240
Speaker 1: eight three three seven seven nine sixty that's eight three

1328
01:17:42,360 --> 01:17:46,840
Speaker 1: three psycho zero, or you can email us at Psychoactive

1329
01:17:46,880 --> 01:17:50,000
Speaker 1: at protozoa dot com or find me on Twitter at

1330
01:17:50,080 --> 01:17:53,439
Speaker 1: Ethan natal Man. You can also find contact information in

1331
01:17:53,479 --> 01:17:57,000
Speaker 1: our show notes. Psychoactive is a production of I Heart

1332
01:17:57,080 --> 01:18:01,880
Speaker 1: Radio and Protozoa Pictures. It's hosted by Ethan Naedelman. It's

1333
01:18:01,920 --> 01:18:05,840
Speaker 1: produced by Noham Osband and Josh Stain. The executive producers

1334
01:18:05,960 --> 01:18:10,040
Speaker 1: are Dylan Golden, Ari Handel, Elizabeth Geesus and Darren Aronofsky

1335
01:18:10,120 --> 01:18:13,280
Speaker 1: from Protozoma Pictures, Alex Williams and Matt Frederick from my

1336
01:18:13,360 --> 01:18:17,240
Speaker 1: Heart Radio, and me Ethan Naedelman. Our music is by

1337
01:18:17,280 --> 01:18:20,920
Speaker 1: Ari Blucien and a special thanks to a Brio s

1338
01:18:21,000 --> 01:18:35,640
Speaker 1: f Bianca Grimshaw and Robert Deep. Next week we'll be

1339
01:18:35,680 --> 01:18:39,920
Speaker 1: talking about micro docing of psychedelics. My guest will be

1340
01:18:40,000 --> 01:18:44,439
Speaker 1: Sophia Corn, a psychotherapist who's also been the point person

1341
01:18:44,680 --> 01:18:49,960
Speaker 1: on the largest global survey of micro dooce users. People

1342
01:18:50,000 --> 01:18:52,639
Speaker 1: who are micro docing, we're saying, Oh, I'm looking at

1343
01:18:52,640 --> 01:18:57,000
Speaker 1: problems in different ways, and curiosity is outweighing fear. Difficult

1344
01:18:57,000 --> 01:18:59,760
Speaker 1: problems are easier to start right now, I don't mind

1345
01:18:59,840 --> 01:19:02,720
Speaker 1: me he a mess in order to find an examine solutions.

1346
01:19:03,200 --> 01:19:06,160
Speaker 1: So there's this like eagerness and curiosity that went along

1347
01:19:06,160 --> 01:19:10,719
Speaker 1: with the cognitive experience of microdcing. So people take apart

1348
01:19:10,760 --> 01:19:13,439
Speaker 1: their families, like in their minds and think, what would

1349
01:19:13,479 --> 01:19:16,599
Speaker 1: it mean if I were the dad right? How would

1350
01:19:16,640 --> 01:19:19,120
Speaker 1: my family be different? And they're able to see things

1351
01:19:19,160 --> 01:19:22,320
Speaker 1: in a different way. Subscribe to Cycleactive now see it,

1352
01:19:22,320 --> 01:19:22,840
Speaker 1: don't miss it.