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But enough with that, let's get to the show. People should know that the researchers get being clear and clear every day. One in three people who used there at Wan in the last year will be a bigtive. We are unwittingly or unwittingly creating these massive companies, big tobacco's investment billions. We have no history of regulating these items
as well. I think we're going to have to learn a hard way like we did tobacco in It may not be illegal again, but there's going to be a cultural renaissance at some point.
It works for chronic pain and it works for PTSD. Should we just tell those people you don't have access to the most effective medicine. It's way better than benzos and opiates, which is currently what the VA is prescribing. Both of those are far more addictive than cannabis. Withdrawal from Benzo's can actually, if not done in a medical environment, can actually kill you. If it's medicine, which I do believe it is, it should be treated as such.
This is a very strong industry who relies on profit and heavy use. That's how they make their money. They don't want to acknowledge the word you do, and I'd love you for it, but they know and they're sadly holding the key to this. I have lots of problems with lots of industry.
It doesn't mean I think their product should be banned.
Welcome to counterpoints. So last week, the administration made another move towards rescheduling marijuana from Schedule one, which is the most restrictive place you can have a drug, which means it has no medical value, high abuse of potential, down to Schedule three, which made a lot of people happy, a lot of people upset, and then a lot of people upset from both directions. And it opens up interesting questions about ongoing marijuana policy and also drug policy more general.
So that you know that's what we're going to be talking about today. With a couple of our couple of our guests, just curious before we start, where do you where do you? Where do you come down on the whole, Just so people understand as we're moderating, where you come down on like the drug policy in marijuana policy debate.
You know, Actually, one of the reasons that I'm excited for this debate is because I'm sort of have always been very agnostic about well maybe ambivalent is a better word. I'm genuinely persuaded by arguments that I hear from the Sager side shout out to anti weedsar of breaking points Sager and Jetty, but then also very persuaded by the like legalization arguments, especially you know, immigration is an area that I care about a lot, and cartel violence and
all of that. So I'm excited to hash some of these conversations out.
Yeah, and none of this is easy, but we're lucky today we have two of the leading figures in this in this field who are on opposite sides that we might might find out they agree on a little bit more than we think. Let's let's bring them in now so on the kind of I guess anti side, and we'll get each to kind of define where they are on the spectrum would be Kevin Sabot, who is the author of the twenty twenty one book Smoke Screen What
the Marijuana Industry Doesn't Want You to Know. He's also the co founder of Smart Approaches to Marijuana WHI, which he founded with Patrick Kennedy and also David from former Obama administration official. I think I've been interacting with Kevin
since the Obama administration. We're going going way back here, John, and then we're also joined here by John lu Becky, who many of you may know as a veteran who has been at the forefront of lobbying around drug policy and in particular psychedelic policy as it relates to PTSD for veterans. Becky, John, what's what's the name of your strategic consulting firm, John Lubecky Strategies. I believe it is.
Lou Becky's strategic direction, the Becky Strategic Directions.
And so what I meant by UH to define where we are on the spectrum, you could you could if if if you think of the spectrum as, on the one hand, prohibition, complete and total prohibition of all you know, recreational substances. UH, including prohibition for their medical purposes. That's one end of the spectrum. Then the other would be no laws whatsoever. That it's just just be complete, you know,
libertarian fever dream. Where would you guys position yourself on those spectrums that as the viewers kind of hear the arguments that you're making, will understand kind of where where you're coming from. And Kevin, you can if you want to go.
First, sure, sure, thanks for having me. I'm excited to have this conversation to meet you too. Em really wonderful. Uh, you know where I come out is probably somewhere in the middle of that spectrum. Look, I don't think people should go to prison or be given criminal records for
you know, possessing or using marijuana. Who we're adults. I also think we're greatly underestimating both the harm of today's hypoe in marijuana and I'll be probably a broken record about that today, but also underestimating the harms of American style legalization. We have never legalized something in for the force of public health or public good in a way that is regulated in any kind of way that advances
public health over private profit. And what we see it right now with legalization is the unveiling of really a new big tobacco something that you know, if you're under thirty five, you probably don't even know what that is. But what it is is was one hundred years of lies and deceit by the most powerful industry in the country that owned every politician on both sides of the aisle.
Every A list actor was in every movie pushing this idea that tobacco was relatively harmless, that it was medicinal, and also they also said it was medical and that your it was about adults right to use, and we're
seeing those same arguments. So I don't want to see people in prison, but I don't think we should be normalizing commercial You want to grow a little bit on your own, you know, find you want to use it, not in an issue, although at least you should be educated on what it could do to you at the very least. But that is your choice. But it stops being your choice the minute you walk out of your house and get into your car, take care of your kids, teach my kids, become a doctor, a pilot, et cetera.
Those things, of course and affect others. So I think it's somewhere in the middle. But I do think that our current kind of societal shift towards acceptance is a mistake, and I think it's one will come to regret, just like we do how we felt about tobacco in nineteen fifty five.
And so, John, where would you put yourself on that spectrum?
Well, interestingly enough is I'm most known for working on psychaelics. I actually started working on medical cannabis in South Carolina in twenty thirteen because I had used cannabis to abate suicidal ideation for about five years and then couldn't because I moved to a state where it was illegal. So I've been working on cannabis for well over a decade.
Now I am in the middle. My primary issue is the government is the one that messes up by preventing research and actual medical uses in a medical setting through a medical context, like we do any other prescription drug.
And I think one of the biggest problems.
Is you have people who object to legalization objecting to medical use and conflating those two, and the people who want to legalize also conflate those two, and they're actually very different arguments. You know, whether somebody needs this for a genuine and proven medical need versus Hey, I want to go to a Phish concert and smoke a joint are two very very different things that.
Felt very very specific to who I was actually just going to ask. So Ryan wrote a book called This is Your Country on Drugs? Ryan, Now that everyone else has sort of put themselves on the spectrum, where would you describe yourself?
And I write in the book towards the end of it that if you don't take regulation seriously, and if it's just a complete, uh, free for all, that the history of American drug policy shows that it is not a one directional thing, that it's a pendulum that swings back and forth, and that if, if, if drug policy reform advocates are not careful, the pendulum will swing right back and you'll get a reaction and a blowback. And so in the pursuit of that, I think people have
to be more careful. And we talked on the show Wednesday about Portland, and Portland just had its progressive DA thrown out in this election. We can we can talk about that later in the election, but I mean later in this show. But let let's start with the the rescheduling. I would actually argue that schedule that Schedule three, which it was moved to, is still too restrictive for marijuana.
But let's Kevin, let's let's start with you. So the DAH and you actually, I think had a scoop on this that the head of the DEA did not actually sign off on moving marijuana from Schedule one down to Schedule three. That the Department of Justice and the administration did it without her signature, which is their prerogative. They can do it, but it's suggestive of a schism within
the administration over this question. So tell us a little bit about what you know about how that unfolded, and also where you stand on this move from Schedule one to Schedule three and what does that mean? What does that mean to people who don't follow the details here.
Yeah, well, like you said, it's never been done before. So we're definitely that this is going to kind of be a wild ride when we learn really the details of this. But yeah, I know to back up, and I think a lot of what Jonathan said I agree with, by the way, about the conflation of the issues and medical recreational dgrim all those that have been conflated, I think in a way that's not productive. But to get to your question about scheduling, I think there's a lot
of misconception about what scheduling is. Scheduling is basically, it's five categories that Congress in nineteen seventy came up with that you know, does not equate drugs, And if you're in the same category, it doesn't mean you think they're the same thing. And that's where the Vice President in her discussion was just completely off about what it really means. I think of the scheduling kind of like a snack
ayle of the grocery store. You might have Aisle three might be called snacks, but you might have banana chips, you know, beef jerky, oreos, and fruit slices. They're all snacks, right, they fall under the criteria of snacks, but they're not the same. So we don't treat bananas like we do you know, ruffles, potato chips. And that's what's often said. Heroin is schedule one and marijuana is two. That means that we're thinking of the same. We don't treat them
the same. Actually, marijuana is different by statute, even regardless of schedule, which very few people need even know. It has nothing to do with penalties, So it's not that we schedule one drugs or more penalized and scheduled two. In fact, cocaine, which is a Schedule two drugs because it has some very limited medicinal use in surgery by doctors. You can't go home with it, obviously, but it's a very limited use, that's Schedule two. But the penalties are
far greater than marijuana, which is Schedule one. So first of all, there's a total misconception about what scheduling is the reason marijuana deserves to stay in the current Schedule one. And we can have a discussion. In fact, Jonathan and I might agree that the scheduling system should be changed in certain ways. We might actually come up with a
better scheduling system than they did fifty years ago. But the way that it is currently now it means that there's no accepted medical use, which traditionally meant there isn't an FDA approved medication that we say is called marijuana.
Now there are several medications based on marijuana. This is where it gets complicated that are not Schedule one, and I'm fully in favor of that research non smoked marijuana components and no you know that, no problem with that, and there are already drugs in three five that are
not Schedule one, no problem with it. But to say marijuana as a whole, which means thousands of known products, the edibles, the ninety nine percent concentrates that are really messing with people's minds, the vapes that are out there, the flavors. I mean to say that all of that has accepted medically use, accorded to the FDA, because basically a lot of people use them, it has implications wavyond marijuana. We're essentially saying to the pharma of the industry, forget
about doing your research. If you run a ballid initiative in enough states and make your wonder drug popular, you all of a sudden have accepted medical use and you don't have to be Scheduled one. It really doesn't make sense. The other criteria Schedule one is abuse potential. We can argue about abuse potential that is more subjective. Although people should know that the research is getting clearer and clear. Every day. One in three people who used marijuana in
the last year will be addicted. There's a lot of repit. But we can have an argument. Jonathan and I can go back and forth on abuse potential as it worth. But the medicinal part of this, which is one of the two criteria, it just doesn't meet anything other than Schedule one. So this was done, I should say, I hate to say this, but it was done pop for a political purpose. This was done to try and get
young voters. And it was clear in the discussion of the Press secretary about how this was a campaign promise. This was discussed. This is not supposed to be a campaign issue. This is not supposed to be a political issue. This is supposed to be an issue that scientists and the government, who by the way, rejected rescheduling in the Obama administration in twenty sixteen when it would have been very easy to do it on his way out the door.
This is something that's left for scientists. It's not meant to be pole politicized. So, yeah, the DEA not happy, not a fan. They went completely out of president. They've been absent from this sort of celebratory you know, hhs sort of kind of tone of we're rescheduling this. That's because this is a political issue to get young voters. Will it work? That's another issue. I actually don't think it Will, I don't think people really paying attention to
this issue. I think when you rate issues among young people, marijuana is not even in the top ten. Didn't even appear in the Harvard Io People, which I know you'd all have talked about. So I just I think this was wrong on so many reasons. It doesn't mean I want to put people in prison, it doesn't mean I want to think it's like heroin, just on technical purposes.
Yeah, So I was going to ask John, I think it's really important that we do get to the debate that you mentioned on abuse potential. It's a huge component of this and it's a great sort of area of contrast. But John, before we get to that, zeroing in on that point about whether it's overly broad to just use marijuana, which then would sweep in vaped and all of these other marijuana products that are sort of across the board
at this point is do you agree with that? Do you think that it's overly broad or are you more with Ryan that this didn't even go far enough.
Well, first, you know, as Kevin said, there's not a lot of research on this, in part because FDA and the US government blocked that research. You know, part of the reason why, for example, MDMA and psilocybin will likely be FDA approved far before cannabis is because they were allowed to actually do the research, and when the government's the one blocking the research a lot of the route.
There has been an extensive amount of research done a at state universities and within states that do show a lot of safety, that do show efficacy for certain things. I don't agree that cannabis is some cure all that that cures everything from cancer to the common coal. But and I also agree if we're talking medicine, smoking is off the table. You don't smoke medicine, plain and simple. As far as edibles and bapes and things like that, I actually think there should be a lot of different
delivery methods. One of the biggest problems that that dcrim and legalization has brought is a complete lack of quality control.
And if somebody is using this as medicine, it needs, you know, each gummy, for example, needs to have the same dosage which is on the label and on bottle, especially if we're talking medicine, and if we're talking scheduling, Schedule three is still a medicine, and you know, there have been FDA trials that showed safety, it did not show efficacy, in part because it was night have provided cannabis. I do think we should look at efficacy using different things.
There's lots of people who have a problem with vaping because they have lung issues, in which case a gummy might be easier.
Kevin, can you respond? Can you respond to that one? The one point there that there isn't a lot of research, So you know, you have argued for policies over your career that have prevented that research from happening. So it seems unfair to then say, well, we don't have enough research at this point, so we can't move. It feels like it's just prohibition kind of covered in a more sympathetic glass, given that the population is now so much more supportive of marijuana reform.
But I think there's a few big myths in this, in this overall discussion on marijuana in the country. One of them is that they are people in prison for low level marijuana use and that our prisons are full of them. That's probably the biggest one. The other one is that you know, we'll get rid of the cartels and the underground market if we legalize that clearly has not been probably another but the other myth I would say is that we don't that research, that we don't
have the research on marijuana. That is a huge myth. We have over twenty thousand to thirty thousand peer reviewed studies over the last twenty or thirty years, way more than psilocybin and MDMA. By the way, the reason psilocybin and MDM aray may get FDA approvals soon. And by the way, I don't oppose that because they've gone through the normal method of medication development with by the way, far fewer research, but they've done it in a very
controlled way. You could argue, you know, there's still some issues there, and that's for another debate maybe, but they've at least followed that plan. Although some states have voted on it. We shouldn't be voting on any medicine. I don't care what it is, and I don't and I don't really buy the argument that we have to do that because the government won't do research. There always could be more research, and actually, Ryan I have We've said eight or ten years ago we had a plan in Congress.
Some of it's already been passed believe it or not. To increase research. I want more research. I have a PhD in this. We don't have enough research when it comes to concentrates, the ninety nine concentrates that are causing you know, five fold increases in psychosis, we don't have enough research on that. We love more research. We have research on fifteen PERCENTHD. We need ninety percent. There's a
lot more we should do research on. But this idea that it sort of hasn't been research because it's illegal. I mean, it's just isn't wrong. I mean we've we inherent one is illegal. We have a lot of research on it. LSD, you know, Schedule one. We have research on it. We researched it. Can we research it better? Are there easier, less, less burthen the research that's being blocked, Yes, absolutely. Here's the thing.
The research that's being blocked that you've supported blocking, that's the party one any research. The research that is being blocked is the gold standard placebo controlled clinical research trials.
I don't want to block that approval. Oh let me tell you. I'm telling you right now, I will not block up the hard thing about placebo. Of course, what the government did usually know you're high. Well again you look at the National Academy of Science. It's again people should just you don't take anybody to work for it. You can decide what research is for yourself. Maybe we have different definitions. But look at the National Academy of
Sciences twenty seventeen. They're redoing it right now, will be out probably in the next year or two. But that that has like twenty thousand irre reviewed studies. Some of them do have the Placino's.
Harder dr thing because how many of those studies zero controlled human clinical trials.
There are some that are in there, and they were they didn't do well.
I mean you he was saying twenty one thousand, there has only been one placebo control clinical trial ever approved by the FDA.
And was that done? With the dirt weed they grow down in Mississippi, the govern that the government grows correct, and here's people John explain, explain that for people who are surprised the government grows weeds.
Well, so this actually did change a few years ago.
The government finally ended the night of monopoly and started issuing licenses to grow.
Actually argue for that change. By the way, we wanted that change we're with you on that. Yeah good, that's not me like we're together on that bad.
And actually, contrary to what's been reported pretty much everywhere, I was actually contracted with maps to end the night of monopoly. So that's primarily what I focused on because I do believe in placebo control trials. But you can't say, hey, the government funded twenty one thousand trials with an end
state goal of proving that weed was bad. Is you know when you're looking at placebo could the gold standard placebo controls human clinical trials for specific condition is what's needed, And there's only been one in the whole United States because they have done it in places like Israel and other places that have shown that have shown efficacy, but those aren't accepted in the US, and the NIA monopoly specifically prevented anybody from using any sort of decent cannabis.
It is actually so horrible that there were people on the place ebo who thought they were getting the actual thing. So the idea that well, you just you know you're high actually is disproven by the only phase.
Two placebo controlled trial.
And when you block those things, but you have lots of foudal evidence, like no I don't think veterans should be smoking weed, but I do think and you and I both know that veterans were used to approve medical in the States and improve legalization, and they still don't have access to it at the VA because currently the FDA is blocking three VA facilities from doing cannabis research.
This time, well, I was saying, John, can I before we move on, can we just get you to zero in on the Schedule three decision? Do you what is your Do you support.
That or not?
Oh? No, I absolutely do.
You don't worry about bringing all the other products in.
No, not at all, Because Schedule three specifically doesn't legalize anything sold in the States. It only permits FDA proved drugs. What it does do is remove a whole long list of barriers to be able to conduct the research that are in place for Schedule one. Because so in order to research Schedule one you have to get a special license from Schedule one, which is very difficult and very
expensive to get. You can get a Schedule two license, which is a little less, and then getting a license to do research with a Schedule three compound you file with the DNA. It's fairly easy. It's not as expensive. So this should allow all these different things. You want your gummy to be FDA approved, you want your your ninety percent, you know, a wax or whatever approved, amazing,
put it through FDA trials, have it FDA approved. And the move to Schedule three makes that a lot easier because, as Kevin said.
There is a ton of research.
We know all all the hazards, we know some of the benefits, so we can we don't need to do a phase one trial to see if Peter will die if they smoke marijuana.
Let me just comment on that real quick. I would love nothing more than one of the things from Schedule three to happen. By the way, it's not a foregone conclusion. It will be scheduled three. There's going to be low so that's agree it's happening. But whatever, Yeah, let's just
say it is. I would like nothing more than Jonathan to be right on the research side, and I have research for friends that are totally anti cannabis from the legalization perspective who want to do more research and are like, maybe this will help. I'm very skeptical actually, and I will time will tell that this is going to be something that ushers in some new era of Maririjuana research, mainly because the major barrier for marijuana research is money.
It's funding, and interestingly, pharma has been only somewhat interested. They don't really see marijuana as a profitable kind of medication. Some have, but they've boy I mean GW Pharma, Jazz Pharma, I know Jonathan knows a lot about them. I mean they, I mean, God knows how much money they've spent for almost for nothing. That they have a preparation of proven fifty countries, they cannot get it approoved here called satavex, half CBD, have THHC for certain pain. It's gone nowhere here.
It's a very difficult road, but it's going to be funding more than these barriers. What we do know definitely will happen, which I should have mentioned at first with Schedule three, is that marijuana companies get tax breaks that they didn't get before. And that is something that really repulses me. The fact that you have these big marijuana companies who can now write off advertising expenses as if they need more good advertising, they could write off other
ordinary business expenses in their tax returns. Many people might not know are still what do you they're not the right. No, no, no, but no, no, this isn't This isn't a part of hold on,
hold on, let me fish. This isn't a dispute. I mean, I disagree with people like who disagree with me on this on every other issue, but they acknowledge this, which is the two ade tax exception means that if you're a company dealing with a Schedule one or two drug, you cannot write off ordinary tax ordinary business expenses on their taxes because you are now scheduled three. This is not a like, this isn't really something the debate about. If this is, if it's Schedule three, they can, they
can write off expenses. And for me, that that worries me because I don't want pod companies to be more the big ones to be more profitable than they already are. That really worries me.
You are correct, however, they and they can if they are manufacturing it according to federal law, and you can't just make you can't make ketamine in your basement sell it on the street. And of course because yeah, so if they're not selling FDA drugs, so you're right, they're.
No, well they need the law, they won't Yeah, I wish they would. And I went up to DA to enforce the law to marijuana. It's been illegal and still illegal, and they're not enforcing any law when it comes to it. So I would love for them to enforce the law. I don't think it's going to happen. This is going to usher in even bigger companies. You're right. The guy that grows a little weed and gets into his neighbors,
he's not going to deduct ex expenses. I'm talking about the you know, huge guys that are that are competing in these states.
I mean, Kevin, shouldn't shouldn't a business be able to write off expenses? I mean, these are these are like, these are now businesses. They've got storefronts, they've got employees.
They're totally illegal. Legalize them first, go through Congress and legalize them. But they can't. And so and you just destroyed your own point. You can't.
Illegal companies cannot write off on their their expenses on on their taxes.
Yeah, their businesses that do a legal business.
Insaye, for example, California to a state that doesn't mean that their business is federally legal. You you traditional, Yeah, I mean, yeah, you're right.
Jonathan, I commend your integrity here to to make that distinction, which very few people do. I'm serious, I'm not facetious. But I can tell you these companies who are totally, as you're saying, and I'm saying, are illegal companies because they're felons. I mean they're felons. They're they're literally felons because they're selling any under and a controlled substance. It doesn't matter what schedule. They're selling an illegal, illegal drug.
But they have already said that they are cheering this so they can deduct expenses and become more profitable. That's why the stock exchange, which is there's a little stock symbol, has skyrocketed since this discussion of rescheduling, and people on these petty stocks are making actually a decent amount of money right now because there's this thought that this will be able to happen. I hope to god you're right about both research and I hope you're right about they're
not going to be deducting spensis. That's absolutely the scenario. But I absolutely believe.
That companies will will try to deduct things they are legually not permitted to. I mean, every company in the United States does that. That doesn't mean that the ir res can't go.
Well.
Honestly, it's far easier in this case than in a case of regular corporations selling widgets that's writing off you know, an apartment they can't or something like that.
I think the crux of this dispute is a dispute over optimism, or about whether this optimism is well placed, or you know, maybe it should be taken down a couple of notches about the potential of marijuana. And on that, John, I wanted to ask you if you share Kevin's concern about big marijuana becoming the new big tobacco, because when we're talking about writing off expenses which helps them sort
of grow now illegal businesses into behemoths. I think I won't put words in Kevin's mouth because I'll give him a chance to talk about this too. But you can create predatory industries, obviously when you're dealing with something like this. So do you share the concern that this rapid sort of growth is going to create predatory behemoths in the way that we saw happen with big tobacco.
Oh, I absolutely think it can. I also think that there are ways to very much mitigate that. Quality control is one of the biggest ones. But also again, Schedule three isn't necessarily about legalizations.
Schedule three is about.
Medical benefit and one of my primary concerns is ensuring that the veterans who have been fighting for this and need this for paying PTSD and other issues where there's extensive evidence have access to it through the VA, which everyone seems to be ignoring.
And can you tell us more about your experience working with veterans in how mariwa It has been something that in your experience you've watched them respond to it positively?
Oh? Absolutely.
I can't tell you how many veterans that were actively suicidal who I have sat with, who smoked to joint and calmed down and we were able.
To get them the help that they needed.
I actually also think it's it's probably not good for long term, but also it's way better than benzos and opiates, which is currently what the VA is prescribing.
And so you know both and actually both of those are far more.
Addictive than cannabis, and the withdrawal withdrawal from benzo's can actually, if not done in a medical environment, can actually kill you. That is not the case with cannabis. And again, I don't think anybody should smoke it as a medicine. For me, that is completely off the table. You know, veterans have enough lung damage from burn pits. They don't need to
be smoking wheed. But also, you know, if this was treated as actual medicine and it wasn't about the culture, and it wasn't about legalization, it wasn't about all of this, it would have already been approved if the government had in a block. And now we're in a position where we're at where we're at, and we need to deal with it d prim letting you know, if you think the guy who's who's growing in his basement, you know, and giving it to his neighbors, isn't going to sell it, you're wrong.
He is. And so do you think that person should go to jail? No?
But you you know this is where I would rather because here's the thing.
I'll be completely honest. I kill rosemary plants.
I tried to grow herbs and everything, and I have a complete black thump. I could not grow marijuana if my life depended on it. So I'm going to find it from someone else. So you know, if if it's medicine, which I do believe it is. It should be treated as such. We can have a further conversation with legalization. But one of the things that the bacco industry had that Big Cannabis doesn't is twenty one thousand peer reviewed studies that Kevin had brought up earlier, you know, showing
what some of those dangers are. You know, one of the biggest mistakes I think in cannabis, and this is something me and Kevin will be one thousand percent in agreement on.
I don't think anybody should get.
Behind the wheel of a vehicle under the influence of any substance marijuana, alcohol, benzos, opiates. And insistence on we can do what we want, we can smoke cannabis where we want, we can do anything is.
Part of the problem.
The concept that medical was originally pitched and implemented as here's a card. You can now smoke as much as you want, wherever you want, whenever you want. That's not medicine, and me and Kevin will likely very much agree on that, But that doesn't mean it can't be just because you know, you know, fentanyl is highly dangerous, but it can be safely used in a medical environment.
Yeah, go ahead, Kevin.
I wanted to respond to something.
Yeah, no, I mean there's a couple of things. There are one thing. Actually, I am struck again, I really in a good way, John, that you're you know, acknowledging that probably marijuana on the long term is not the best thing for a veteran or somebody with PTSD to
smoke smoke marijuana in a long term. In fact, the studies that we have, and as you know, the review out of Yale and many others, show that when it comes to PTSD symptoms, I mean, marijuana, because of its ability to connection with psychosis, it'sophrenia, depression, anxiety, it exacerbates these symptoms in the medium to long term. It doesn't mean that in the short term someone might not feel better at that time while they're high, at that moment
that you're sitting down with them smoking a joint. But in terms of a long term kind of solution for these big, big issues that we're dealing with with our veterans, it sounded like you somewhat acknowledge actually what I was going to say there, which is I would really exercise a lot of caution. I think we can do much better than Benzo's and I agree with you on that too,
and these other very harmful drugs. It speaks to, really, frankly, the lack of care we've given two veterans four or their issues, the lack of mental health awareness that these are much bigger than drug policy, the lack of you know, sort of opportunities. There's so many very very big issues there.
And I really do I actually commend you for not because you know, most of the time when I'm doing these debates, these discussions, the marijuana enthusiasts, I mean, they are bringing every kind of sympathetic person as their spokesperson to say, this is why this is the wonder drug of the world, and we need this, whether it's someone with cancer for its stage, whether it's a veteran, whether whatever, and not acknowledging any of these downsides when the science,
at least the science we have right now is actually pretty clear, especially with mental health probably the worst area that marijuana is touching. So I actually we have some agreement there that I think is important well, and I debate those people too as well, but I appreciate that. I appreciate that.
But yeah, before you go to the next one, So let's let's say all of us do acknowledge that there are some there are some downside there, and that we as a society need to figure out the best public health approach in that direction. What I would argue is that the anti legalization kind of movement of which you're one of the chief spokespeople, is kind of being dragged, kicking and screaming into this new kind of paradigm, this new approach that we have toward marijuana policy and hopefully
eventually drug policy more generally. But the kicking and screaming that you're doing along the way is preventing us from creating a rational policy, but it's not preventing marijuana from getting everywhere. Like the charts now show that there are more people actively using marijuana, whether through gummies or something else, than there are using alcohol. Like it has now surpassed out. It's now surpassed alcohol.
Heavy. Yes, yet we're not heavy.
Right yet, we're not a right exactly. Yet we're not able to then have a rational where Congress gets involved and where the states can then legislate policy because you've got you've got all of these kind of choke points, and you guys kind of have your hands around those choke points, so wouldn't letting those go? And then just like saying, look, okay, we surrender, we give up, Like this is where it's heading. Now, let's figure out how
to handle this from a public health perspective. Wouldn't that be a better way to handle it?
And you're channeling the late Great you know, our friend and mentor Mark climate in that, which is basically which we have in a lot of discussions on where he you know, basically said listen, I don't like that this is happening. It's becoming big, big marijuana, but you know it is, and so we got to get at the table and prevent this from being a lot worse. I think you can walk and shot gum at the same time.
I think, on the one hand, we can, and we've been successful in preventing federal legalization, which I think has stopped the growth. This business is not a very profitable business right now unless you're one of the bigger guys. But it really is actually become it's a total failure business. Generally. We look at the New York State, there's so many problems. The underground market, which we haven't talked about, is thriving. I mean, the drug selling is thriving illegal marijuana sales.
So on the one hand, I think we've been successful in that. I think that anything to delay that actually I do think saves lives. I do think that's a good thing. On the other hand, your point is well taken that, you know, if we're just like not effective, and we're kicking and screaming and being dragged to the other side that we don't like, then we're just so weak when we get to the other side, we're not able to even get up instead at the table, we're
just basically limp and dead. And so we're not going to influence some of these regulations. I will tell you this is something we will be publicize a lot. But we have worked very hard in states that have legalized marijuana, knowing they're not going to repeal it tomorrow, that to try and get these regulars to say, all right, let's sit at the table, let's have a regulation on the gummies, let's have a regulation on kid friendly products. Let's look
at advertising. I mean, you know, unfortunately, the Supreme Court has said commercial speech is free speech, so difficult to prevent advertising. But maybe there's some things we can do. Let's look at THG limits. Do we really need seventy percent shatter like? Is that really something that we need? Or can we limit it? All of these things, and it has been almost come to basically nothing because of
how powerful this industry already is. And I don't think if we got there in the on day one, which many people were on Day one in Colorado, a lot of our colleagues were sitting at the table with Igolberg, who was against legalization at the time, trying to craft something new. They they're completely outspent and outgunned by this industry. So I think it's going to take a national reckoning like we had with tobacco. It took us eighty years to get there. Unfortunately a lot of dead, lots of
people and destroyed families. But I do think that we have things are gonna get worse before they get better, and we just because it might be practical, because you might be able to get a regulation in if you if you sort of give up on all these other things, I think it's better to stick with principle and the truth and the science and trying to help as many people who can now and the country. I think is going to come around on this. I'm not saying they're
going to say we should lock people up. I don't think we should. But I think they're going to come around on this, like super over enthusiasm that more people smoking weed and being high all day is good for our society. I don't think that's gonna last forever. So that's I think it's very different. But let's get to that.
That's a bit disingenuous because this concept that if you use cannabis you're a stoner who's high all day.
I'm yeah, I'm not saying everybody yeah.
And there's also people who are drunk all day. I actually use tobacco. I'm a smoker, and you know, one, you could still legally buy cigarettes.
One.
I completely agree there should. There should be, you know, age restrictions and things like this, and targeting children is bad for whether it's alcohol, tobacco, cannabis. You know, nobody's saying ban the tobacco and you can smoke cigarettes if you can grow it in your backyard.
You know, in everybody.
Kevin, would you have been tobacco?
Well, look, I'll take that deal any day, John, But that deal means that society has to treat marijuana and think about marijuana like they do tobacco, which would be a one hundred and eighty degree turn. So if we can press a button and you want to buy a marijuana cigarette back, but everyone knows marijuana's harmful, deadly, not good for you, kids don't like it. It's people knows the smells that you can't do it in most places. I'll take the reality is that's not where we are.
But I wouldn't ban tobacco. Well, tobacco, actually tobacco. Let me answer the question tobacco banning. I actually look at New Zealand and other countries that sorted to just phase out of tobacco over time. I think something like that actually does make sense. In terms of alcohol, I wouldn't ban alcohol. And you're saying, well, wait a minute, that is like you are totally contradictory. No, I'm not the
reason you can't ban alcohol. I would turn off alcohol if you had a switch, absolutely, because it's the most damaging drug. It's the number one reason people in the guards rated it's the number one reason for domestic violence. I mean, if you could turn a flip a switch and reverse four thousand years of history. I would do that, and I'm a kill joy, I guess, but I would do that. But I'm not in favorite of alcohol prohibition
right now. Why because way too many people are using it on a regular basis and it is totally ingrained in our culture in terms of widespread accepted use for the last four thousand years. Yes, marijuana has been used for thousands of years, but not by the vast majority of Western civilization. It is nowhere near the cultural importance of alcohol. And you cannot argue about that at all.
There are also some physiological differences with alcohol and THD alcohol in and out of your system in twenty four hours, you know that kind of thing. There's some I don't want to debate that right now. But this is a cultural reason you can't ban alcohol. It's not just alcohol's good for you. It's because alcohol is sadly totally here, and it's been here for four thousand years in every household almost in America. And let's get to cannabis.
Has it work because everybody keeps smoking it?
Culture whether we like it or not. It's part of a culture, John, But it's there's a reason it's counter culture. There's a reason you know, I went to bird Stream. It's definitely for sure.
Mainstream, lots of Republicans, tons of people. It's the counter culture is the one that makes their whole life about weed. And that's kind of the difference because that's the people.
I don't care if you're an adult smoking and joint the prophisey of your own home and it's not your complete identity and you don't think everyone should be high all the time or whatever. That's not my beef. My thief is the fact that we are unwittingly or unwittingly creating these massive companies that tobacco's invested billions. We are we have no history of regulating these items as well.
The only reason we do tobacco well now is because we were dragged, kicking and screaming for almost a century to acknowledge the harms. We, by the way, knew about tobacco's arms in the twenties. In Germany and Europe, they knew about it. So the issue is it's like do we I guess we're going to have to learn the hard way. I think we're gonna have to learn the hard way like we did tobacco, and then it may not be illegal again. But there's going to be a cultural renaissance at some point.
So what I'm hearing from both those no John, go ahead, quick response and.
And and and you know.
You, I do commend you for calling attention to the harms, like you know, driving while while I'm talking. You know, under the influence of cannabis. You know one damage concentric that is good. I agree with you. Now cigarettes everybody knows they're bad for you. Lots of people still smoke.
Sure see if.
Everybody, how did everybody go from oh my god, cigarettes are amazing too wild?
These are really bad.
It's it's using fats and pr campaigns and people are like you talking about it. So if you want to change the culture and have it people have access, but also understand the harms. I mean, keep doing what you're doing, you should be. I think, like I don't have a problem if you if this stuff sold with warnings like like tobacco.
We need warning labels that the industry has fought warning labels and ever say we've introduced it. And that's what gets The practical reality is this is a very strong industry who relies on profit and heavy use. That's how they make their money. They don't want to acknowledge the word you do, and I'd love you for it, but they don't, and they're sadly holding the key to this no offense. So let me industry, Let me jump in.
Ye, let me jump in, because what you're really disagreeing on here, from what I'm hearing, is, you know, on Kevin's side, he wants to slow down, and delay is a word that we've been used because fundamentally he doesn't think. He thinks that the existing research is proving that marijuana is very negative can have very negative consequences for users. John,
you believe that there isn't enough research. Therefore, some of these accelerating steps Schedule three for example, are necessary in order to get more information about whether or not Kevin's premise is accurate. So, on that note, Kevin, I'm going to ask you to maybe walk us through some of the evidence that is important from your perspective, suggesting marijuana is much more dangerous than perhaps people like John and Ryan want to believe.
Sure. I mean, the number one thing I'd say is there's not one drug that we know of that increases your risk of psychosis bifold and psychosis is a very scary thing. And I think it's changing the nature of marijuana because marijuana used to be the again your kind of college roommate, joking, stoner or falling asleep at night, you know, sort of you know, be mediocre student. And it's changing this into a drug that actually is very linked.
Now the studies are showing with aggressive behavior and even violence, which is not something I even talked about ten years ago. But the research, again don't believe American research. A lot of those research is coming out from the UK, Australia, other parts of Europe as well showing this. And that is for me number one. The mental health and specifically psychosis and schizophrenia, something very hard to come back from,
I think is extremely damaging. Then you look at things like cardiovatskillar and you see that marijuana has more secondhands smoke harms in terms of hydrocarbons and carcinogens and even tobacco. I worry about that. I worry about the driving. Of course, fifty percent of kids today I think it's okay to drive while stone. One hundred percent of kids don't think it's okay to drink while you know, drive while drinking. The drug, but fifty percent it's okay by lose stone.
So huge issue that I think we need to draw attention to. But I I just think that these these are harms that are acknowledged in the halls of academic you know, health associations all over the world, but they're you know, they're completely negated by the power of popular culture, the power of you know, Listen, I understand there are plenty of people who use marijuana and they're fine, But I would liken them to the people that drive over
the speed limit and they're fine. I mean, there's a lot of people to drive over the speed limit that have never had a cent crash. Does that mean that driving over the speed limit doesn't increase the risk of a car crash. No, it does increase the risk, But a lot of people do it anyway, and they're fine. A lot of people spoke and they're fine. My next door neighbors spoke for seventy five years to the cigarettes tobacco, and he died of old age at ninety eight years old.
That doesn't negate the fact that there are four hundred thousand people a year dead from tobacco related illness today. So you can believe both things. But I think we've just taken anecdote a lot of what the baby boomer's experience was marijuana that was three percent THHD, nothing that happened to them. So they're trans thing their own, uh sort of experiences, and they're they're generalizing that. I think that's a huge hurdle to overcome because I don't think
it's that's the case anymore responsible. So yeah, two two out of the three one.
I you know, no, kids shouldn't think that driving while stone stone is good. And this is where harm reduction instead of just prohibition in education is helpful.
They should be told.
The harms of driving well under the influence of anything. And as far as smoking, yeah, you're right, smoking is horrible for your lungs. And if they wanted to ban smoked cannabis for that reason, I really don't have an issue with it.
You know then what No, I agree that that for your lungs. But you know.
What I'm more saying is if we want to prohibit the big corporations from selling it because it is bad for the lungs, that's a discussion we can have. I think the psychosis. You're right, people with schizophrenias should not use drugs various compounds without supervision. But we also prescribe adderall which is called cause extensive psychosis and psychotic drinks.
And this is where, you know, part of the issue we have is, you know, this concept of good drugs and bad drugs brought us the opiate epidemic, you know, and frankly, psychedelics help save my life by going through a four month protocol. I think we need to look at contexts. Nobody bats an eye at fentanyl being used as anesthesia as part of a surgery.
That doesn't mean people should be doing it.
Behind seven to eleven in this idea that that anything and everything's okay. When it comes to cannabis, you're right that that's wrong. We should be talking about not driving. I actually think more people who are pro cannabis should be talking about driving while stone and how horrible it is. But also a lot of the studies they don't isolate cannabis, you know, on the violence. How many other compounds were.
Involved, Like like I was reading a people the other day.
Where the whole thing was about this person did a psychedelic and went crazy, and if you actually look, they were on alcohol, they were on cannabis, they were on four different types of psychedelics and opiates at the time.
I'm talking one of those budies. I'm talking about the Pew Double, these peer reviewed studies and like the highest impact academic journals where you have to control these other factors. So, of course, like the world is not black and white, so are there always other factors? Very hard to control for, Yes, But when you look at this sort of years, kind of threshold and standard of evidence, I'm just saying it's
a lot more alarming than people think. But Ryan, you said something that I think is important to call out. We're not talking about prison, and I think that's also a false dichotomy that the legalization movement has used very well to say that we either have to legalize it or we have to throw people in prison. But what are you going to do? No, Actually, I mean again, you could discourage that you smoke cigarettes. You could discourage
the use of marijuana cigarettes. You could say that there are reasons why this is you at lea shouldn't make an informed decision. We're also not going to let this industry sell as many as they want to whomever they want and label it completely mislabeled it, which is what they are these legal states. I mean, the idea that this is actually regulated in places like Colorado is laughable. When you test the actual stuff you're buying from these dispensaries,
it's not. Most of the time, it's not even what you think it is. So the point is, I think we all agree more education campaigns. I don't know one's saying we need to put people in prison. We don't want to go back to nineteen fifty on us. I'm not arguing that at all.
And I as federal government gets you involved with legalization and regulation, they can enforce most address most of what you were discussing.
They would do that. If they would do that. It's an interesting topic because you could argue, you know, you could argue, the industry has it good. Now there's sort of there's sort of in a gray area. It's illegal, but they're doing it anyway, and they're there's no enforcement, so that means there's no there's no rules. If you say, you know what, no FDA is going to be in charge and they're actually not going to be free of industry influence and they're actually going to enforce public health
as they do tobacco. Maybe that's a deal will take one day, but I don't think the FDA is there yet. I don't think.
Every piece of legislation that's been introduced that I've read has basically have it full under a standard of like nutritional supplements, where what's on the bottle in the bottle has to be on the label and things like that.
I would never want to repeat the nutritional supplement thing for marijuana. That's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about like the Center for Tobacco Control or something in a way that you actually could enforce advertising, the standards, warning labels, things like that. But again, I think this whole thing right now is political, just like the Men Fall band issue, and I think it's about getting votes. But I don't think that's actually I mean, I think
if Biden's gonna win, he's gonna win. It's gonna lose, it's gonna lose. It's not gonna because of marijuana being rescheduled from one to three and people even knowing what that is and basing their boat on that. I just that I don't see happening at all.
I do think it's fair to acknowledge that the that advocates exaggerated the number of people who were in prison for low level uh marijuana fences, and I think there was some uh it backfired in the sense that you know, when they when when they finally started doing criminal justice reform, they would use those stories of like, oh, we're gonna pardon or we're going to release the people who were only you know, serving long sentences for a dimebag of weed.
And then they open up the prison doors and like three people were able to walk out. Yeah, because a lot of people were in from multiple things. On the other hand, once you're in the criminal justice system, now you know, uh, failing a drug test or or getting caught at that point then triggers you sometimes to go back for very long prison sentences for let's say, you know, boosting a car or something, but force proves people out of labor force. But the actual thing that you're in
jail for is for failing that marijuana test. But it goes to the question of you're saying there's no no prison involved here, but you're talking about coercion by the state, so the state has to do something. So if you're saying X should be illegal, but you're saying, well, we don't want to have prison. What do you just just finding every.
What do we do? Well, what do we do if you're if you're driving over the speed limit, you go to a class about why that's bad, You pay a fine, you have a record. What do you do if you're you know, I don't know. There's some like jaywalking, loitering. There's certain things where basically the point is you want to figure it. I think you want to figure out a way to discourage the activity, which I know a lot of people don't want to do. They don't think
we should do it. Why would we do that? But I always say, I want to discourage the activity without you know, at all going overboard on the penalty of that, because you're right, we obviously don't want to keep someone out of a labor force, or out of housing or
getting healthcare or an education or a student loan. If they made a really dumb decision ten years ago and decided to whatever, like smoke weed in front of a cop because they were mad at the police or something, and then you know, now their life is destroyed because by the time their brain was developed and they realized that was a really dumb idea now they can't get their life back on track. That those kinds of things absolutely we need to fix and we need to we
need to do so. I think we have to just figure out how to strike that balance. Right now though, we're just in an environment where it's like ninety five percent good. It's just everywhere you look, this is a good thing. It's on point, it's in the moment, this is like who like, unless you're totally like nuts, why would you think this is bad? Like we're going and I just think that we have got that that pendulum we talking about a pendul lem We talked about that earlier.
That's eventually too yes, sort of repeating myself, But then why not just get out of the way, legalize it and then fight on the public health front.
We've never done that successfully and the only way we've done that is with cigarettes. But that took one hundred years to actually do that. It wasn't like all of a sudden when we have the data, everyone came to their senses and read it and agreed with it. It took so many unnecessary lives to get to the point we're at with tobacco where there's still some freedom, like John can still you know, use the tobacco if you wants.
But overall there's a societal kind of disapproval that took way too long, and so why do we need to repeat that again when we can just say, all right, if you really want to smoke weed, like do it, but don't make it like it's not We're not going to like turn around society to encourage it, but like, yes, it's going to be here. Of course, it's always been here. I'm not saying that when it was prohibited, no one used it. It wasn't like legalization introduced marijuana to the country.
It did introduce marijuana products we've never seen before, like shatter and things we no drug dealer had ever sold ninety nine percent shatters. So it did introduce some things, but it didn't introduce this idea. And so it's kind of like it's it's actually what Pat Mark climate he's talked about grudging toleration, like you can sort of like not love it, but all right, you really want to do it because you just think it's a good thing
for you. Right now, you at least should understand the dangerous but you know, all right, as long as you're not driving or whatever. Go for it. But it's very different than like the billboards on the five Freeway in LA or a governor of New York saying please come to our marijuana shops so we can make tax revenue. By the way, the tax revenue has been pennies in
every state. But it's like we're encouraging this either by the state or by on you know, private industry, and I just don't think that ever ends well from a public health perspective. All all right, well, let me ask you that.
Go ahead, let me ask you this because you mentioned it should be treated like speeding, where you go to a clash and you pay a fine and your insurance. So what happens to the people who can't afford those things? What do they go to jail?
Those are well, those are larger issues with us. Thankfully, marijuana is not the only area where we would find people, and those are issues that absolutely we need to look at. Me. No, I don't think they would go to jail. What would they do? I don't know what we'd have to think about. I don't have those answers right now, but I don't think that's necessarily an answer that I don't think that's the exclusive to marijuana. There's an issue of finds and things for a lot of a lot of other things
that we do. So we'd have to look at best practices and try it. And if you don't pay the fines, you go to jail.
So that's what you're saying is if you have, if you have the money to be able to do it, you can and if you don't, you go to jail.
No, I'm not saying that, So I'm not saying you go to jail. So maybe that happens in some other instances. That's not my proposal. I think there are may be other things you could do to discourage that happens in the example that you actually use. But with speeding, if you're parking tickets, it sometimes does. But I'm saying that's it's I'm not saying that should be the exact blueprint that I'm saying, as a general principle, discourage speeding with
speed limits. We don't usually put people in prison for that offense. You're saying, if they don't, you know, do the first two things you want them to do, then they end up going to prison. Maybe we can think of something better. I think it would be preferable. Then again, the what we're having now, which is open you know, promotion and the advertising of an activity that is inherently well and on advertising tobacco.
Tobacco is very limited on advertising, and so is hard liquor.
And I don't have a problem.
With with with cannabis be being placed in that same realm where you can't advertise in you know, teen Vogue, your your gummies. You know, I completely agree with that, But that doesn't I would like they can advertise, you know, advertising is well, yeah, the industry does. I have lots of problems with lots of industries. That doesn't mean I think their products should be banned.
Well, what we all want here is a path to safer use or safe use period. Safe use period. Whether that means very very very limited use or whether that means more widespread normalized use is a question. But I'm going to read from mother Jones right here, John, just
a little bit. They were writing an article on Alex Bearnson's book on weed at the time, and they wrote In twenty seventeen, the National Academies of Sciences Engineering in Medicine issued a report nearly five hundred pages long in the health effects of cannabis and concluded that marijuana use is strongly associated with the development of psychosis and schizophrenia.
The researchers also noted that there's decent evidence linking pot consumption to worsening symptoms of bipolar disorder into a heightened risk of suicide, depression, and social anxiety disorders. Quote. The higher they use, the greater the risk, and psychosis, as Kevin mentioned, has emerged as or the potential for psychosis has emerged as really that fertile ground for where people are starting. Some people are actually changing their minds on
weed legalization as they look at this research. Nobody could ever accuse you, John, of not having enough concern for the mental health of people in the United States. You've seen so much of this up close. Why does this research with which some people see as an emergent area, understudied area, and underappreciated era area, why does that not convince you to pause instead of sort of, you know, break down barriers towards normalization.
Well, one, if we're talking about medical use, going back to the original thing, a Schedule three FDA approved drug for medically use, prescribed by a physician, they can ensure there aren't co morbidities like schizophrenia, like bipolar, which have a genetic link. And I have the utmost empathy for people with those conditions. They shouldn't use this. They shouldn't use alcohol either. Tobacco and nicotine really doesn't have an
effect on schizophrenia, bipolar, Alcohol absolutely does. Compounds like adderall and riddling absolutely, do you know, believe it or not, caffeine can have an impact. Now, people with bipolar and schizophrenia, or who have a family history of it shouldn't, just like people who have a history of alcoholism shouldn't drink. And I agree there needs to be a lot more education.
But the idea that a small percentage of people who have these disorders shouldn't do it means no one should, and that it should be blocked from medical access and shouldn't be, for example, prescribed by the VA. Because one of the bigger issues with cannabis is it does work. You know, it works for chronic pain, and it works for PTSD as long as you continue to use it. And so should we just tell those people you don't have access to the most effective medicine you know?
Because to me, this is what everybody.
Every you know, as a veteran, I see how every industry uses veterans to say.
We have to do this.
Well, the VA issued exactly zero prescriptions for any for cannabis last year.
And I would much rather put it, issue a prescription that is not prescribable drug. What would you wanted them to do? Genuine question, You can't. No one can prescribe cannabis, not VA or not correct I mean marit all or do you mean recommendations?
No, What I mean is FDA approved cannabis products that could be prescribed because there are uses for this that are medical. And what this means for the people who genuinely need it is if their job prohibits it, they don't get the medicine they need. You know, imagine imagine if you know anybody was told, hey, we know you broke your leg, but you can't take opiate's because we don't like those, even if it's you're not on the job, I don't.
I know, we're going to go sort of get another direction. But it's not that we don't like those, John, it's that we don't have an f day for medication. You would argue we don't because there's too many barriers. I'd argue, we don't because it just failed that what needs to happen to become a medication. That's why advocates have had to go to the state, the state route and vote on medicine, which is.
A well because NIA wouldn't provide the compound to do the research.
Yeah right, and that's where yeah, yeah, going back to my point earlier, the the opponents have stood in the way of reform at every different level, whether it's you know, federal, state, or local. But then to complain that, oh well, you couldn't get you couldn't move on the federal level, so you move down to the state level, and you relied on voters because it is something that voters wanted. Is is to me disingenuous because they were forced to go
to the state level. I think advocates of reform would just be delighted to you know, work collaboratively with Congress and introduce, you know, rational legislation that took into account public health concerns. But that that is blocked and it's also blocked by a very politicized DEA. And we got to wrap soon. But I'll just tell one story that people might know. I was back in two thousand and
four and five. I was a state level lobbyist for this organization called Marijuana Policy Project, and one of the states that where I was responsible for was Illinois and we were pushing a medical marijuana legislation. Is my job to kind of push this bill through the legislature. We get a hearing in the either in the House or the Senate, State House, state Senate. I will remember, I think it was the Senate, and we've got our you know, you have the cancer patients lined up, you got the
experts lined up. There's some cop is going to show up and you know they're going to they're going to argue it out before these legislators. And then all of a sudden, the guy who's on the ground for us is like, there is a convoy on its way here. They're shutting down the streets, and the drug himself was like coming in, you know, from the Bush administration as a surprise guest to then who then whipped up this
lobbying campaign against it. So on the one hand, complaining that the medicine is being politicized, on the other hand, we've constructed this entire federal bureaucracy, which then does active lobbying of the government, like the government lobbying itself, the government lobbying other governments to me, felt extremely undemocratic. So then to look at that and say, well, we don't like the approach because then you have to go to referenda.
You put it on the ballot, and you go directly to the voters, and you tell the drugs are well, okay, you can go ahead and campaign against it, but you're not gonna be able to break arms in Springfield to stop this bill from moving through Illinois. Now it's going to go to the voters. So and then to say, well, it's not fair that we're making this a popular issue rather than letting scientists deal with it, that the science were not taking the lead in the past.
Either, Well, a couple of things. Number one that that doesn't happen anymore. That was the relict of two thousand and four. We haven't had a drugs are involved in this in a very long are.
The Obama administration was like an ally of in this fight of on the drug policy.
For yes, it depends which depends which one? I mean, I worked for the first one. And he said that legalization is not in the president's vocabulary. I gues President Obama was not in favor of legalization, yeah, back in but he did one thing. I just think it's important for people to remember that. It was President Obama talked about big industry he went to Jamaica. When he went to that trip, someone asked him about what about marijuana in Jamaica, and he talked about be careful of big industry.
He and sat down interview said, you know what's next to marijuana? First? What about other drugs if you think it's better to regulate them? What about crap? What about heroin? I mean, those are very good points. We kind of forget those were made. But I will say, you know, the DEA, in terms of the current THEA and what they're doing, they're simply going the FDA. They created an entirely new test to determine marijuana should be scheduled three.
This was hit a box job from the beginning. They were trying to fit a square peg in a round hole.
They had to do something on reform. They had clear direction from the White House to do this, and I think they had that direction not because Biden is pro marijuana, but probably because advisors said, listen, we know you're never going to come out for legalization fully by mister president, but let's have this compromise where basically we can kind of in some ways people can be sort of tricked into thinking it's sort of a legalization type think even
though it really isn't. And that way was sort of covering both basis. I actually think in doing that, they're pissing everybody off, and except for maybe this industry, but they pissed off the legalizers who said, wait a minute, this is not even anything close to legalization, and they pissed off people like me. You're saying, wait a minute,
you're giving tax breaks to the industry. You're sending a message just as okay, and you're using shoddy research and a test you've never used before, totally out of president, which will be likely challenged core to try and fit your narrative. So in doing so, it was not a sort of neat thing to do, and they I think they thought they were being very clever, but it's going to backfire. It already is.
Ast him.
What's that bright?
I was just saying, Biden has a unique ability to unite everybody against him.
Yeah, So anyway, it'll be interesting to see. I would the only the thing I would I think we had a lot of agreements that think I would challenge on. Is this idea that we haven't done the research that there hasn't been global research of If this has been so great in the United States that's come into it, why don't we have a lot of marijuana based medications approved in every other country in the world, including Europe where they do tons of research. I mean we don't.
I mean they have a proof Satavax, which I have no problem with, but it's failed on FGA trials, it did not do well on pain for advocacy, it just was not that efficacious. In the US, we have a very high standard. It's passed in England and some other countries.
I have no problem with that. But I don't think this is some sort of unique conspiracy among American sort of FDA and DEA regulators to not have marijuana based medicaid at least currently maybe in nineteen eighty, but not right now, to not have marijuana based medications be researched. I think that research has failed, and so yeah, they had to go to the ballot box because we're not having any left for the normal scientific channels. So John at the policy.
John, this will be okay. We'll give you the last word, final thoughts, closing statement, whatever you want to call it before we wrap here.
Well, you know you're right.
There hasn't been a lot of moves internationally, in part because the United States wields unprecedented authority through the UN Commission on Narcotic Drugs and assigned treaties that countries basically want US funding and don't want to fight us on
on the weed issue. I also find it interesting that, you know, if we had done the research, the human clan trials and actually allowed it instead of blocking it until a few years ago, we would have had FDA approved drugs and we wouldn't have had to go through the States continuing to say that this shouldn't be used as a medicine in a regulated environment.
Is just go through. Just go through the process, and I'll have no issue. I'm not fighting the n DM A likely MDMA approval that's happening in a few months because it went through the FBS. So if you're saying you now have everything you need, right and let's do it and see it in NBA has been, and the US federal government allowed.
Maps as well as a compass for psilocybin and others to procure the actual compounds needed for double blind, placebo controlled trials. The first time that was ever allowed with cannabis for drug development was only a few years ago.
In the United States. But let's let's go ahead and see what's going to happen. So if it's going to be allowed, it's been a few years ago, they have a running start. I think we can.
We can is currently blocking human clinical trials on cannabis currently right now, there's multiple protocols that they keep kicking.
Back, maybe because still passing the safety standards. But anyway, let's go through the standard. That's my point. Let's and if it's blocking it because it's not passing those those standards, then maybe it's something that, you know, maybe it's something with an issue with marijuana, with the fact that this is not that people are not handling a well, I don't.
Know, we have to see final thoughts.
John. The biggest honestly, yeah, honestly, the biggest issue is the fact that it's a plant and from plant to plant and bud to bud, you don't have imogineity, which does cause a problem in going through FDA trials. Those can also be rectified or they can be used to block trials.
Sure, we'll have to leave it there, all right, Well, yeah, thanks guys, I think we settled this. Yeah, we're going to get piece of cake.
But it actually was really helpful, So thank you both.
Have you just had Do you have a decision yet on where you stand? Or you're still weighing the pros and cons I don't. I don't.
I'm still weighing the pros and kinds of a psychosis stuff does actually have me rather concerned. I won't get into why, but anyway, Oh.
There was a woman there was that you heard about that woman who stabbed her? Was it her boyfriend or husband? Like that? Bro? Like fifty times in the last year for me and just and got off is running is now out free because the judge let her defense use marijuana as the reason why she did it. And that's cost a lot of waves.
Boy, sometimes Ryan says things and then he uses marijuana as an excuse for why he did it.
I don't even smoke.
No, he's a responsible dad. Now he's grown out of it. It's true.
True.
Well, thank you both so much.
John Kevin Sabbage. Kevin Sabbage is the author of Smoke Screen with the marijuana industry doesn't want, you know, John Leve Becky not yet an author, but I bet we'll get a book from you one day.
Is that right, Sue?
Oh yeah, excellent, looking forward to it. Well, thanks so much.
Guys.
All right, now that they left, you can be honest, what did you think?
I'm still completely undecided. And you know, it's not like I think we've all seen people struggle with marijuana, some people more than others, and that's you know, some people struggle with caffeine more than others. I don't think some people struggle with alcohol more than others. So I don't think that definitively answers the question. I am really interested in some of the new research linking high concentration, high
cont high potency THHC with psychosis. I just have I feel like I've personally seen cases of people who I wonder if really heavy we'd use when they were kids, before the age of eighteen. You just when you're a teenager in your brain is developing. There's still so much we don't know about the human brain. That does concern me very much because I feel like I've seen things that make me question it just personally, and there is some research in it, but I don't disagree that there needs to be more.
Yeah, and we could have had a much more libertarian leaning kind of propod person like John. He's much more moderate, which I wanted because it would kind of push it would push Kevin a little bit more, because Kevin very good debater, and like I've known him almost twenty years now, and he has I think his rhetoric has changed over over time. As you know, when I started working in this issue, it was a minority well in the minority issue.
Like now maybe people can't even believe that, but like that we would be where we are now when I start working on this. This is almost unthinkable, although I did predict it in the books.
I was going to say not quite.
Unthinkable, unthinkable to most people. You could you could see, you could see where it was headed if you looked close, if you ap peered closely enough. But he has adopted as rhetoric to kind of fit with the mood a little bit, but yet but he still really wants it banned you and John called him out on that the most part.
If you're blocking the research, you've supported blocking the research, right, So.
But I yeah, I think if he really wants a better outcome with fewer tears than getting the boot off the neck of the regulatory and legislative apparatus would allow then for a public health approach to blossom and give that a shot, like we were talking about earlier in Portland, Like you know, they tried to go forward with some type of de grim but then didn't put in place anything to take its place, so it was just chaos. And now the voters are like, I forget that.
You know, That's increasingly where I'm landing on this is that. And they both kind of were openly concerned as I'm sure you are too about industry predatory industry, which our country is so oligarchical now that cronyism rampant, and it makes it actually hard to know to sort of peace factorm fiction because there's so much lobbying in different spaces.
So the FDA saying one thing might actually not mean much, and I mean it just actually we live in a country right now where it's so hard to get to the bottom of some of these questions because there's so much money influencing it. There's so much money influencing the
way certain policies are then implemented. So even if you're experimenting in the great laboratories of democracy, you end up with results that's like, I don't know, I don't know what to take from this, genuinely don't know what to take from this, because implementing it was there were hurdles along the way because of the system, you know, mucking it up with cronyism.
Yeah, and a rational drug policy. It feels impossible. One reason it's impossible, you've got these opponents who are like, like I said, I have to be dried kicking and screaming to it.
Yeah.
Anyway, interesting conversation.
It was a really interesting conversation. And I feel like marijuana doesn't get enough attention in the media proportionate to how much it affects the daily lives of people around the country. And maybe in some ways it's like symptomatic of other things that are affecting the daily lives of
people around the country, like the labor force stuff. I think is how many times do you hear people can't hire workers in their community because the workers are failing drug tests because they smoked a little bit of weed. It's a serious problem for a lot of businesses and a lot of people who are having a hard time finding work and places where weed hasn't been legalized. So it's a really really big issue, and I don't think
it gets enough attention. I don't think there are enough debates like them.
Kevin's point that the kids don't really care because it's basically legal anyway is one that he should also absorb. If that's the case, then relax and let it go and move forward on thinking about this in a more rational way.
Yeah. And if that's the case, then you end up with what was happening during prohibition. And obviously we could have had a whole debate about a whole debate about these shadow industry and what that is if that's actually even beneficial to Kevin's goal of keeping it out of most people's hands.
So all right, Well that does it for Counterpoints. If you watch this on regular YouTube with like eight different ad breaks, that's because you're not a previeum subscriber. You should go to Breakingpoints dot com. Get it there. You'll then get every show every morning emailed to you. This one comes out Thursday evening or Friday morning for non subscribers.
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Yeah, I have a good weekend. See you later.